classes :::
children :::
branches ::: aphorisms

bookmarks: Instances - Definitions - Quotes - Chapters - Wordnet - Webgen


object:aphorisms

see also :::

questions, comments, suggestions/feedback, take-down requests, contribute, etc
contact me @ integralyogin@gmail.com or
join the integral discord server (chatrooms)
if the page you visited was empty, it may be noted and I will try to fill it out. cheers



now begins generated list of local instances, definitions, quotes, instances in chapters, wordnet info if available and instances among weblinks


OBJECT INSTANCES [0] - TOPICS - AUTHORS - BOOKS - CHAPTERS - CLASSES - SEE ALSO - SIMILAR TITLES

TOPICS
SEE ALSO


AUTH

BOOKS
Essays_Divine_And_Human
Essays_In_Philosophy_And_Yoga
Infinite_Library
Isha_Upanishad
mcw
Modern_Man_in_Search_of_a_Soul
My_Burning_Heart
old_bookshelf
On_Thoughts_And_Aphorisms
Raja-Yoga
The_Book_of_Lies
The_Yoga_Sutras
Thus_Awakens_Swami_Sivananda
Twilight_of_the_Idols

IN CHAPTERS TITLE
1.08_-_Introduction_to_Patanjalis_Yoga_Aphorisms
2.07_-_The_Upanishad_in_Aphorism
3.5.01_-_Aphorisms
4.4_-_Additional_Aphorisms

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME

IN CHAPTERS TEXT
0.10_-_Letters_to_a_Young_Captain
0_1958-10-17
0_1959-01-14
0_1959-01-21
0_1959-05-25
0_1959-11-25
0_1960-09-20
0_1960-11-12
0_1961-01-07
0_1961-01-10
0_1961-01-12
0_1961-01-17
0_1961-01-29
0_1961-02-11
0_1961-03-11
0_1961-03-17
0_1961-04-29
0_1961-05-12
0_1961-06-27
0_1961-07-07
0_1961-11-05
0_1962-01-09
0_1962-01-21
0_1962-01-27
0_1962-02-03
0_1962-03-03
0_1962-03-06
0_1962-04-28
0_1962-05-24
0_1962-10-12
0_1963-01-12
0_1963-01-14
0_1963-03-06
0_1963-03-09
0_1963-05-18
0_1963-06-29
0_1963-08-10
0_1963-08-17
0_1963-08-21
0_1963-08-24
0_1963-08-28
0_1963-08-31
0_1963-11-04
0_1964-01-25
0_1964-02-05
0_1964-03-25
0_1964-06-04
0_1964-08-29
0_1964-09-16
0_1964-09-18
0_1964-10-07
0_1965-01-12
0_1965-03-03
0_1965-05-29
0_1965-07-03
0_1965-07-07
0_1965-09-22
0_1965-09-25
0_1965-12-25
0_1966-03-04
0_1966-03-26
0_1966-07-09
0_1966-09-17
0_1967-02-15
0_1967-03-04
0_1967-07-29
0_1968-09-25
0_1968-11-27
0_1969-02-08
0_1969-10-11
0_1969-11-19
0_1969-11-29
0_1969-12-10
0_1969-12-13
0_1969-12-17
0_1969-12-20
0_1969-12-24
0_1969-12-31
0_1970-01-03
0_1970-01-07
0_1970-02-07
0_1970-02-11
0_1970-02-25
0_1970-03-04
0_1970-03-14
0_1970-03-18
0_1970-03-21
0_1970-03-25
0_1970-03-28
0_1970-04-01
0_1970-04-04
0_1970-04-18
0_1970-04-22
0_1970-04-29
0_1970-05-09
0_1970-05-20
0_1970-05-23
0_1970-05-30
0_1970-06-06
0_1970-06-10
0_1970-09-19
0_1970-09-26
0_1971-01-16
0_1971-07-28
0_1971-07-31
0_1971-11-10
0_1971-12-11
1.007_-_Initial_Steps_in_Yoga_Practice
1.00c_-_INTRODUCTION
1.01_-_An_Accomplished_Westerner
1.01_-_Prayer
1.01_-_SAMADHI_PADA
1.024_-_Affiliation_With_Larger_Wholes
1.02_-_SADHANA_PADA
1.02_-_The_Development_of_Sri_Aurobindos_Thought
1.02_-_The_Eternal_Law
1.02_-_The_Philosophy_of_Ishvara
1.02_-_THE_PROBLEM_OF_SOCRATES
1.038_-_Impediments_in_Concentration_and_Meditation
1.03_-_The_End_of_the_Intellect
1.03_-_The_Sephiros
1.03_-_YIBHOOTI_PADA
1.04_-_KAI_VALYA_PADA
1.05_-_Adam_Kadmon
1.05_-_CHARITY
1.06_-_MORTIFICATION,_NON-ATTACHMENT,_RIGHT_LIVELIHOOD
1.06_-_Quieting_the_Vital
1.07_-_ON_READING_AND_WRITING
1.07_-_The_Psychic_Center
1.07_-_TRUTH
1.08a_-_The_Ladder
1.08_-_Introduction_to_Patanjalis_Yoga_Aphorisms
1.096_-_Powers_that_Accrue_in_the_Practice
1.099_-_The_Entry_of_the_Eternal_into_the_Individual
1.09_-_Concentration_-_Its_Spiritual_Uses
1.09_-_Man_-_About_the_Body
1.09_-_SKIRMISHES_IN_A_WAY_WITH_THE_AGE
1.09_-_Sleep_and_Death
1.107_-_The_Bestowal_of_a_Divine_Gift
1.10_-_Concentration_-_Its_Practice
1.10_-_Theodicy_-_Nature_Makes_No_Mistakes
1.11_-_Powers
1.11_-_The_Kalki_Avatar
1.12_-_Independence
1.12_-_The_Superconscient
1.14_-_The_Secret
1.15_-_The_Supramental_Consciousness
1.16_-_Man,_A_Transitional_Being
1.16_-_The_Season_of_Truth
1.17_-_The_Transformation
1953-10-14
1956-06-06_-_Sign_or_indication_from_books_of_revelation_-_Spiritualised_mind_-_Stages_of_sadhana_-_Reversal_of_consciousness_-_Organisation_around_central_Presence_-_Boredom,_most_common_human_malady
1956-08-29_-_To_live_spontaneously_-_Mental_formations_Absolute_sincerity_-_Balance_is_indispensable,_the_middle_path_-_When_in_difficulty,_widen_the_consciousness_-_Easiest_way_of_forgetting_oneself
1958-08-15_-_Our_relation_with_the_Gods
1958-08-27_-_Meditation_and_imagination_-_From_thought_to_idea,_from_idea_to_principle
1958_09_12
1958_09_19
1958_09_26
1958_10_03
1958_10_10
1958_10_17
1958_10_24
1958_11_07
1958_11_14
1958_11_21
1958_11_28
1958_12_05
1960_01_05
1960_01_12
1960_01_20
1960_01_27
1960_02_03
1960_02_10
1960_02_17
1960_02_24
1960_03_02
1960_03_09
1960_03_16
1960_03_23
1960_03_30
1960_04_06
1960_04_07?_-_28
1960_04_20
1960_04_27
1960_05_04
1960_05_11
1960_05_18
1960_05_25
1960_06_03
1960_06_08
1960_06_16
1960_06_22
1960_06_29
1960_07_06
1960_07_13
1960_07_19
1960_08_24
1960_08_27
1960_10_24
1960_11_10
1960_11_11?_-_48
1960_11_12?_-_49
1960_11_13?_-_50
1960_11_14?_-_51
1961_01_18
1961_01_28
1961_02_02
1961_03_11_-_58
1961_03_17_-_56
1961_03_17_-_57
1961_04_26_-_59
1961_05_04_-_60
1961_05_20
1961_05_21?_-_62
1961_05_22?
1961_07_18
1961_07_27
1962_01_12
1962_01_21
1962_02_03
1962_02_27
1962_02_28?_-_73
1962_05_24
1962_10_06
1962_10_12
1963_01_14
1963_03_06
1963_05_15
1963_08_10
1963_08_11?_-_94
1963_11_04
1963_11_05?_-_96
1963_11_06?_-_97
1964_02_05
1964_02_05_-_98
1964_02_06?_-_99
1964_03_25
1964_09_16
1965_01_12
1965_03_03
1965_05_29
1965_09_25
1965_12_25
1965_12_26?
1966_07_06
1966_09_14
1969_08_03
1969_08_05
1969_08_07
1969_08_09
1969_08_14
1969_08_15?_-_133
1969_08_19
1969_08_21
1969_08_28
1969_08_30_-_139
1969_08_30_-_140
1969_08_31_-_141
1969_09_01_-_142
1969_09_04_-_143
1969_09_07_-_145
1969_09_14
1969_09_17
1969_09_18
1969_09_22
1969_09_23
1969_09_26
1969_09_27
1969_09_29
1969_09_30
1969_09_31?_-_165
1969_10_01?_-_166
1969_10_06
1969_10_07
1969_10_10
1969_10_13
1969_10_15
1969_10_17
1969_10_18
1969_10_19
1969_10_21
1969_10_23
1969_10_24
1969_10_28
1969_10_29
1969_10_30
1969_10_31
1969_11_07
1969_11_08?
1969_11_13
1969_11_15
1969_11_16
1969_11_18
1969_11_24
1969_11_25
1969_11_26
1969_11_27?
1969_12_01
1969_12_03
1969_12_04
1969_12_05
1969_12_07
1969_12_08
1969_12_09
1969_12_11
1969_12_13
1969_12_14
1969_12_15
1969_12_17
1969_12_18
1969_12_21
1969_12_22
1969_12_23
1969_12_26
1969_12_28
1969_12_29?
1969_12_31
1970_01_01
1970_01_03
1970_01_04
1970_01_06
1970_01_07
1970_01_08
1970_01_09
1970_01_10
1970_01_12
1970_01_13?
1970_01_15
1970_01_17
1970_01_20
1970_01_21
1970_01_22
1970_01_23
1970_01_24
1970_01_25
1970_01_26
1970_01_27
1970_01_28
1970_01_29
1970_01_30
1970_02_01
1970_02_02
1970_02_04
1970_02_05
1970_02_07
1970_02_08
1970_02_09
1970_02_10
1970_02_11
1970_02_12
1970_02_13
1970_02_16
1970_02_17
1970_02_18
1970_02_19
1970_02_20
1970_02_23
1970_02_25
1970_02_26
1970_02_27?
1970_03_02
1970_03_03
1970_03_05
1970_03_06?
1970_03_09
1970_03_10
1970_03_11
1970_03_12
1970_03_13
1970_03_14
1970_03_15
1970_03_17
1970_03_18
1970_03_19?
1970_03_21
1970_03_24
1970_03_25
1970_03_27
1970_03_29
1970_03_30
1970_04_01
1970_04_02
1970_04_03
1970_04_04
1970_04_06
1970_04_07
1970_04_08
1970_04_09
1970_04_10
1970_04_11
1970_04_12
1970_04_13
1970_04_14
1970_04_15
1970_04_17
1970_04_18
1970_04_19_-_484
1970_04_20_-_485
1970_04_21_-_490
1970_04_22_-_482
1970_04_22_-_493
1970_04_23_-_495
1970_04_24_-_497
1970_04_28
1970_04_29
1970_04_30
1970_05_01
1970_05_02
1970_05_03?
1970_05_12
1970_05_13?
1970_05_15
1970_05_16
1970_05_17
1970_05_21
1970_05_22
1970_05_23
1970_05_24
1970_05_25
1970_05_28
1970_06_01
1970_06_02
1970_06_03
1970_06_04
1970_06_05
1970_06_06
1970_06_07
1970_06_08_-_538
1970_06_08_-_541
1971_12_11
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Hoard_of_the_Wizard-Beast
1.pbs_-_Charles_The_First
1.rt_-_Stray_Birds_01_-_10
2.00_-_BIBLIOGRAPHY
2.01_-_On_Books
2.05_-_Apotheosis
2.07_-_The_Upanishad_in_Aphorism
2.09_-_The_Pantacle
2.2.3_-_Depression_and_Despondency
30.14_-_Rabindranath_and_Modernism
3.02_-_The_Psychology_of_Rebirth
3.08_-_Of_Equilibrium
3.2.04_-_Sankhya_and_Yoga
3.5.01_-_Aphorisms
3.6.01_-_Heraclitus
36.07_-_An_Introduction_To_The_Vedas
37.02_-_The_Story_of_Jabala-Satyakama
4.4_-_Additional_Aphorisms
6.0_-_Conscious,_Unconscious,_and_Individuation
APPENDIX_I_-_Curriculum_of_A._A.
BOOK_II._--_PART_I._ANTHROPOGENESIS.
BOOK_I._--_PART_I._COSMIC_EVOLUTION
BOOK_I._--_PART_III._SCIENCE_AND_THE_SECRET_DOCTRINE_CONTRASTED
Ion
Liber_111_-_The_Book_of_Wisdom_-_LIBER_ALEPH_VEL_CXI
Liber_46_-_The_Key_of_the_Mysteries
Liber_71_-_The_Voice_of_the_Silence_-_The_Two_Paths_-_The_Seven_Portals
Sophist
Talks_With_Sri_Aurobindo_2
The_Dwellings_of_the_Philosophers
the_Eternal_Wisdom

PRIMARY CLASS

SIMILAR TITLES
aphorisms
On Thoughts And Aphorisms

DEFINITIONS


TERMS STARTING WITH


TERMS ANYWHERE

2. aphorisms in mixed prose and verse (S. geya; T. dbyangs bsnyad; C. yingsong 應頌)

aphorismer ::: n. --> A dealer in aphorisms.

aphorismic ::: a. --> Pertaining to aphorisms, or having the form of an aphorism.

aphoristically ::: adv. --> In the form or manner of aphorisms; pithily.

aphorist ::: n. --> A writer or utterer of aphorisms.

aphorize ::: v. i. --> To make aphorisms.

brahma sutras. ::: a treatise by Vyasa on vedanta philosophy in the form of aphorisms

Brahmasutras (Sanskrit) Brahmasūtra-s Aphorisms on the Vedanta philosophy, ascribed to Vyasa, treating of the knowledge of Brahman.

dvādasānga[pravacana]. (T. gsung rab yan lag bcu gnyis; C. shi'erbu jing; J. junibukyo; K. sibibu kyong 十二部經). In Sanskrit, "twelve categories"; the twelve traditional divisions of the Buddha's teachings based on content and literary style, according to Sanskrit Buddhist sources. The Sanskrit list adds three more genres-framing stories or episodes (NIDĀNA), heroic tales or narratives (AVADĀNA), and instructions (UPADEsA)-to the nine divisions (P. NAVAnGA[PĀVACANA]) listed in mainstream Buddhist sources: discourses (SuTRA), aphorisms in mixed prose and verse (GEYA), prophetic teachings or expositions (VYĀKARAnA), verses (GĀTHĀ), utterance or meaningful expressions (UDĀNA), fables (ITIVṚTTAKA), tales of previous lives (JĀTAKA), marvelous events (ADBHUTADHARMA), and catechisms or works of great extent (VAIPULYA). In Sanskrit sources, these twelve are called vacana or pravacana (P. pāvacana), viz., the words of the Buddha. See also AnGA.

gāyana ::: a singer, a praiser, a talker. The name of a volume of aphorisms and poetry written by Hazrat Inayat Khan.

He severely disciplined himself and practiced what he taught. He loved poetry, ceremonies and music. He was serious, honest, polite, filially pious towards his mother, stern toward his son, and friendly to his pupils. His most reliable teachings are found in the Lun Yu (Analects), aphorisms recorded by his followers. -- W.T.C.

Jagaddala. An important Buddhist monastery located in Naogaon district in modern Bangladesh. It was founded on the banks of the GAnGĀNADĪ and Karatoya River in northern Bengal by King Rāmapāla (1077-1120). Reports from the early thirteenth century indicate that the monastery continued to flourish after the destruction of ODANTAPURĪ and VIKRAMAsĪLA, serving as a refuge for such renowned Vikramasīla scholars as ABHAYĀKARAGUPTA and subhākaragupta. Vidyākara, the author of the Subhāsitaratnakosa, a famous anthology of aphorisms, served as abbot of Jagaddala.

navanga[pāvacana]. (S. navānga; T. gsung rab yan lag dgu; C. jiubu jing; J. kubu kyo; K. kubu kyong 九部經). In Pāli, the "nine sections" or categories of the Buddha's teachings based on content, structure, or literary style. In the Pāli tradition and some BUDDHIST HYBRID SANSKRIT sources, the nine sections that are typically listed are discourses (P. sutta; S. SuTRA), aphorisms in mixed prose and verse (P. geyya; S. GEYA), prophetic teachings or expositions (P. veyyākarana; S. VYĀKARAnA), verses (GĀTHĀ), utterance or meaningful expressions (UDĀNA), fables (P. ITIVUTTAKA; S. ITIUṚTTAKA), tales of previous lives (JĀTAKA), marvelous events (P. abbhutadhamma; S. ADBHUTADHARMA), and catechisms or works of great extent (P. vedalla; S. VAIPULYA). See also DVĀDAsĀnGA[PRAVACANA].

One phase of hatha yoga is the pranayama (suppression of the breath), interference with the normal and healthy respiration of the body; a practice which can readily produce tuberculosis of the lungs. It is breathing deeply, healthfully, and as often as common sense suggests, that brings benefits to the body because bringing about a better oxygenation of the blood and therefore a better physical tone. In very rare circumstances only, where a chela has advanced relatively far mentally and spiritually, but has still an unfortunate and heavy physical karma as yet not worked out, it may possibly be proper, under the guidance of a genuine teacher, to use the hatha yoga methods in a limited degree, but only under the teacher’s own eye. For this reason hatha yoga books are occasionally mentioned in theosophical literature — the Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali, for example, is a hatha yoga scripture, but one of the highest type. But generally, hatha yoga practices are injurious and therefore unwise, for they distract the attention from things of the spirit and direct it to the lower parts of the constitution.

Panini (Sanskrit) Pāṇini The most eminent of all Sanskrit grammarians of whatever age, the author of the Ashtadhyayi, Paniniya, and several other works. Panini was considered a rishi who received his inspiration from the god Siva. Orientalists are not certain in what epoch he lived, some guessing 600 BC, others about 300 AD; he is said to have been born in Salatura in Gandhara, an Indian district west of the Indus. His grammar is composed in the form of 3,996 slokas or sutras arranged in eight chapters, the aphorisms extremely brief, and long study is often required in order to ascertain Panini’s meanings. Grammar with him was a science studied for its own sake, and investigated with the most minute criticism.

Patanjala (Sanskrit) Pātañjala The Yoga philosophy of Patanjali, which is classed as the fourth of the six schools or darsanas of Hindu philosophy. Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms contains many excellent precepts and much excellent advice, although a hatha yoga work, by reason of its reference to physical processes. When carefully studied, it brings about no evil consequences, but it should not be studied apart from the other elements of Patanjali’s philosophic work.

Purva-mimansa (Sanskrit) Pūrva-mīmāṃsā [from pūrva prior + mīmāṃsā profound or striving thought or meditation from the verbal root man to think] Inquiry into the first portion of the Veda — the matra portion; the fifth of the six Darsanas or schools of Hindu philosophy. The school of philosophy in our days considered to be chiefly concerned with the correct interpretation of the Vedic texts; hence sometimes called the First Vedantic School. Jaimini is reputed to be its founder, as well as the author of the Mimansa-darsana, the sutras or aphorisms which constitute its chief doctrinal authority. This school is also sometimes termed Karma-mimansa because of the doctrine advocated that by its teaching one can be more or less freed from the making of new karma.

Richard Hamming "person" Professor Richard Wesley Hamming (1915-02-11 - 1998-01-07). An American mathematician known for his work in {information theory} (notably {error detection and correction}), having invented the concepts of {Hamming code}, {Hamming distance}, and {Hamming window}. Richard Hamming received his B.S. from the University of Chicago in 1937, his M.A. from the University of Nebraska in 1939, and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1942. In 1945 Hamming joined the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. In 1946, after World War II, Hamming joined the {Bell Telephone Laboratories} where he worked with both {Shannon} and {John Tukey}. He worked there until 1976 when he accepted a chair of computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California. Hamming's fundamental paper on error-detecting and error-correcting codes ("{Hamming codes}") appeared in 1950. His work on the {IBM 650} leading to the development in 1956 of the {L2} programming language. This never displaced the workhorse language {L1} devised by Michael V Wolontis. By 1958 the 650 had been elbowed aside by the 704. Although best known for error-correcting codes, Hamming was primarily a numerical analyst, working on integrating {differential equations} and the {Hamming spectral window} used for smoothing data before {Fourier analysis}. He wrote textbooks, propounded aphorisms ("the purpose of computing is insight, not numbers"), and was a founder of the {ACM} and a proponent of {open-shop} computing ("better to solve the right problem the wrong way than the wrong problem the right way."). In 1968 he was made a fellow of the {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers} and awarded the {Turing Prize} from the {Association for Computing Machinery}. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers awarded Hamming the Emanuel R Piore Award in 1979 and a medal in 1988. {(http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Hamming.html)}. {(http://zapata.seas.smu.edu/~gorsak/hamming.html)}. {(http://webtechniques.com/archives/1998/03/homepage/)}. [Richard Hamming. Coding and Information Theory. Prentice-Hall, 1980. ISBN 0-13-139139-9]. (2003-06-07)

Samyama (Sanskrit) Saṃyama [from sam together + the verbal root yam to hold, to sustain; self-restraint, self-control, forbearance] Samyama is explained in Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms as follows: “When this fixedness of attention [dhāraṇā], contemplation [dhyāna], and meditation [samādhi] are practiced with respect to one object, they together constitute what is called Samyama. By rendering Samyama — or the operation of fixed attention, contemplation, and meditation — natural and easy, an accurate discerning power is developed.” (Bk. III, śl. 4,5)

Sishi'er zhang jing. (J. Shijunishogyo; K. Sasibi chang kyong 四十二章經). In Chinese, "Scripture in Forty-two Sections," a short collection of aphorisms and pithy moralistic parables traditionally regarded as the first Indian Buddhist scripture to be translated into Chinese, but now generally presumed to be an indigenous scripture (see APOCRYPHA) that was compiled in either China or Central Asia. Most scholars believe that the "Scripture in Forty-Two Sections" began to circulate during the earliest period of Buddhism in China. According to tradition, the "Scripture in Forty-Two Sections" was translated at the behest of MINGDI of the Han dynasty (r. 58-75 CE). According to the earliest surviving account, Emperor Ming had a dream one evening in which he saw a spirit flying in front of his palace. The spirit had a golden body and the top of his head emitted rays of light. The following day the emperor asked his ministers to identify the spirit. One minister replied that he had heard of a sage in India called "Buddha" who had attained the way (dao) and was able to fly. The emperor presumed that this must have been the spirit he observed in his dream, so he dispatched a group of envoys led by Zhang Qian who journeyed to the Yuezhi region (Indo-Scythia) to search out this sage; he returned with a copy of the "Scripture in Forty-Two Sections." A fifth-century source reports that the envoys also managed to secure the famous image of the UDĀYANA BUDDHA, the first buddha-image. In fifth- and sixth-century materials, there is additionally mention of two Indian monks, KĀsYAPA MĀTAnGA (d. u.) and Dharmaratna (d. u.), who returned with the Chinese envoys. By the medieval period these monks are regularly cited as cotranslators of the scripture. According to a relatively late tradition, the Emperor Ming also built the first Chinese Buddhist temple-BAIMASI in Luoyang-as a residence for the two Indian translators. Early Buddhist catalogues refer to the text simply as "Forty-Two Sections from Buddhist Scriptures," or "The Forty-Two Sections of Emperor Xiao Ming." The text consists largely of snippets culled from longer Buddhist sutras included in the Buddhist canon; parallel sections are found in the ĀGAMAs and NIKĀYAs, as well as the MAHĀVAGGA. The text also bears a number of Chinese stylistic features. The most obvious is the phrase "The Buddha said" which is used to introduce most sections, rather than the more common Buddhist opening "Thus have I heard" (EVAM MAYĀ sRUTAM). This opening is reminiscent of Confucian classics such as the Xiaojing ("Book of Filial Piety") and the Lunyu ("Analects"), where maxims and illustrative anecdotes are often prefaced with the phrase, "The master said." The terminology of the Sishi'er zhang jing borrows heavily from Daoism and the philosophical tradition known as XUANXUE (Dark Learning).

sutra. (P. sutta; T. mdo; C. jing; J. kyo; K. kyong 經). In Sanskrit, lit. "aphorism," but in a Buddhist context translated as "discourse," "sermon," or "scripture"; a sermon said to be delivered by the Buddha or delivered with his sanction. A term probably used originally to refer to sayings of the Buddha that were preserved orally by his followers (and hence called "aphorisms"), the sutra developed into its own genre of Buddhist literature, with a fairly standard set of literary conventions. The most famous of these conventions was the phrase used to begin a sutra, "Thus have I heard" (EVAM MAYĀ sRUTAM), intended to certify that what was to follow was the first-person report of the Buddha's attendant ĀNANDA (see SAMGĪTIKĀRA) who was most often in the Buddha's presence and was renowned for his prodigious memory. Also standard was the NIDĀNA, which describes the setting of the sutra, noting where the Buddha was residing at the time, who was in the audience, who was the interlocutor, etc. According to tradition, the sutras were first codified when Ānanda recited them at the first Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, FIRST), shortly after the Buddha's death. This conceit of orality was maintained even for sutras that were literary compositions, written long after the Buddha, most notably, the hundreds of MAHĀYĀNA sutras that began to appear in India starting some four hundred years after the Buddha's NIRVĀnA. An important theme in these sutras and their commentaries is the claim that they are indeed the word of the Buddha (BUDDHAVACANA). In the standard threefold division of the Buddha's teachings, sutra indicates the contents of the SuTRAPItAKA, a grouping of texts that together with the VINAYA and ABHIDHARMA together constitute the TRIPItAKA, or "three baskets." In tantric literature, sutra is used to refer to the exoteric teachings of the Buddha, in contrast to the tantras, his esoteric teachings. It is also one of the nine (NAVAnGA[PĀVACANA]) (Pāli) or twelve (DVĀDAsĀnGA[PRAVACANA]) (Sanskrit) categories (AnGA) of Buddhist scripture, according to structure or literary style.

Sutra (Sanskrit) Sūtra [from siv to sew] A string, thread; the sutras are strings of rules or aphorisms written in verse form, composed in terse and symbolic language with the obvious intention of their being committed to memory. This was a favorite form among the Hindus, as among all ancient peoples, of imbodying and transmitting rules of ancient religious and philosophic thought. There are sutras written upon almost every subject, but the sutras commonly signify those connected with the Vedas, of which there are three kinds: the Kalpa-sutras (rules of ritual); the grihya-sutras (domestic rules) treating of ordinary family rites such as marriage, birth, name-giving, etc.; and the Samayacharika-sutras which treat of customs and temporal duties. The Kalpa-sutras belong to the class of writings called Srutis (heard or revealed); while the other two types of sutras belong to the Smritis (remembered), carried traditionally from generation to generation by word of mouth.

Sutta ::: A discourse or teaching passed down in various religious and spritual traditions originating on the Indian subcontinent. Most commonly seen in reference to Buddhism as the collected aphorisms and discourses of the Buddha and the various spiritual figureheads of Buddhism. Sometimes this is used to refer solely to the canonical records of the Buddha's teachings: the Pali Canon.

The Mother : "An Avatar is an emanation of the Supreme Lord who assumes a human body on earth.” Works of the Mother, "On Thoughts and Aphorisms” Vol.10

The Mother : “An Avatar is an emanation of the Supreme Lord who assumes a human body on earth.” Works of the Mother,”On Thoughts and Aphorisms” Vol.10.

The Mother: " A total self-giving to the Divine is the true purpose of existence.” On Thoughts and Aphorisms, MCW Vol. 10.*

The Mother: “ A total self-giving to the Divine is the true purpose of existence.” On Thoughts and Aphorisms, MCW Vol. 10.

Thyan-kam (Tibetan) Attributed to the great Buddhist Tibetan adept Tsong-kha-pa in a work of Aphorisms: “the power or knowledge of guiding the impulses of cosmic energy in the right direction” (SD 1:635).

Vaidalyaprakarana. (T. Zhib mo rnam par 'thag pa). In Sanskrit, "Extended" or "Woven" "Explanation"; a work now extant only in Tibetan, which is ascribed to NĀGĀRJUNA (although some modern scholarship has questioned the attribution). The treatise, also known as the Vaidalyasutra, is listed in Tibet as one of Nāgārjuna's six works in his "logical corpus" (YUKTIKĀYA). The work is devoted to the refutation of sixteen principles (padārtha) set forth in the Nyāyasutra, which is accomplished in seventy-three aphorisms, or sutras. An autocommentary is also extant.

Yuktisastikā. (T. Rigs pa drug cu pa; C. Liushisong ruli lun; J. Rokujuju nyoriron; K. Yuksipsong yori non 十頌如理論). In Sanskrit, "Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning"; one of the most famous and widely cited works attributed to NĀGĀRJUNA, traditionally counted as one of the texts in his "corpus of reasoning" (YUKTIKĀYA). Although lost in the original Sanskrit, the work is preserved in both Tibetan and Chinese; a number of the Sanskrit stanzas have however been recovered as citations in other works. Sixty-one stanzas in length, the work is a collection of aphorisms generally organized around the topic of PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA. It begins with the famous homage to the Buddha, "Obeisance to the King of Sages who proclaimed dependent origination, this mode by which production and disintegration are abandoned." The work argues throughout that the world that is subject to production and disintegration is an illusion created by ignorance and that the path taught by the Buddha is the means to destroy this illusion and the suffering it creates. Individual stanzas are quoted by such commentators as BHĀVAVIVEKA, CANDRAKĪRTI, and sĀNTARAKsITA in support of some of the central debates in MADHYAMAKA, such as whether ARHATs must understand the Madhyamaka conception of emptiness (suNYATĀ) in order to be liberated from rebirth and whether Nāgārjuna held that external objects do not exist (the thirty-fourth stanza can be read to suggest that he held this view).

Zhu Fonian. (J. Jiku Butsunen; K. Ch'uk Pullyom 竺佛念) (d.u.). A prolific early Chinese translator, who was active between the latter fourth and early fifth centuries. A native of Liangzhou, he collaborated with BUDDHAYAsAS in the translation of the DĪRGHĀGAMA, with Dharmanandin in the translation of the EKOTTARĀGAMA, and the "Four-Part Vinaya" (SIFEN LÜ), the DHARMAGUPTAKA recension of the VINAYA, which eventually becomes the definitive version of the vinaya in the Sinitic tradition. He was also involved in the translation of such texts as the AstASĀHASRIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ, the UDĀNAVARGA, a SARVĀSTIVĀDA anthology of aphorisms, and the JNĀNAPRASTHĀNA, the central treatise of the Sarvāstivāda ABHIDHARMA. Some indigenous Chinese scriptures (see APOCRYPHA), such as the PUSA YINGLUO BENYE JING, are also attributed to him.



QUOTES [23 / 23 - 167 / 167]


KEYS (10k)

   16 The Mother
   1 S T Coleridge
   1 Patanjali: Aphorisms. I 49
   1 Patanjali: Aphorisms I. 41
   1 Patanjali
   1 Coleridge
   1 Sri Aurobindo
   1 Aleister Crowley

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   16 The Mother
   8 Friedrich Nietzsche
   5 Mason Cooley
   5 Haruki Murakami
   3 Sri Aurobindo(Thoughts and Aphorisms)
   3 Sri Aurobindo
   3 Miguel Serrano
   3 Mason Cooley. City Aphorisms
   3 James Geary
   2 Timothy J Keller
   2 Terry Pratchett
   2 Sri Aurobindo(Thoughts & Aphorisms)
   2 Samuel Taylor Coleridge
   2 Samuel Johnson
   2 Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
   2 John Lancaster Spalding
   2 George Eliot
   2 Friedrich von Schlegel (1772–1829)
   2 Friedrich Schlegel
   2 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

1:To learn is good, To become is better.
   ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, Nov 25 1969,
2:Ignorance is the field in which all other difficulties grow. ~ Patanjali, Aphorisms II. 4, the Eternal Wisdom
3:To know how to keep the Divine contact in all circumstances is the secret of beatitude. 21 April 1970 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts and Aphorisms, [T5],
4:It is a dull and obtuse mind, that must divide in order to distinguish; but it is a still worse, that distinguishes in order to divide. ~ S T Coleridge, Aids to Reflection 'Introductory Aphorisms' xxvi,
5:So long as the mind stops at the observation of multiple details, it does not enter into the general field of true knowledge. ~ Patanjali: Aphorisms. I 49, the Eternal Wisdom
6:In the natural and intellectual realms, we distinguish what we cannot separate; and in the moral world, we must distinguish in order to separate. ~ Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, 'Introductory Aphorisms' xxv,
7:...everything really depends on the Divine Grace and we should look towards the future with confidence and serenity, at the same time progressing as fast as we can.
   ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,
8:When the mind has been trainedon its object, it transforms itself to the image of that which it scrutinises and enters into the full comprehension of what it finds therein contained. ~ Patanjali: Aphorisms I. 41, the Eternal Wisdom
9:468 - 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,
10:541 - Canst thou see God in thy torturer and slayer even in thy moment of death or thy hours of torture? Canst thou see Him in that which thou art slaying, see and love even while thou slayest? Thou hast thy hand on the supreme knowledge. How shall he attain to Krishna who has never worshipped Kali?
   All is the Divine and the Divine alone exists.
   ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,
11: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,
12: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.
   ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, 16 June 1960,
13:279 - O soldier and hero of God, where for thee is sorrow or shame or suffering? For thy life is a glory, thy deeds a consecration, victory thy apotheosis, defeat thy triumph. - Sri Aurobindo.

For one who is totally consecrated to the Divine, there can be neither shame nor suffering, for the Divine is always with him and the Divine Presence changes all things into glory. 9 January 1970 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.295,
14:189 - 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,
15:203. God and Nature are like a boy and girl at play and in love. They hide and run from each other when glimpsed so that they may be sought after and chased and captured.
Man is God hiding himself from Nature so that he may possess her by struggle, insistence, violence and surprise. God is universal and transcendent Man hiding himself from his own individuality in the human being.
The animal is Man disguised in a hairy skin and upon four legs; the worm is Man writhing and crawling towards the evolution of his Manhood. Even crude forms of Matter are Man in his inchoate body. All things are Man, the Purusha.
For what do we mean by Man? An uncreated and indestructible soul that has housed itself in a mind and body made of its own elements. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts And Aphorisms,
16:Therefore there is only one solution: to unite ourselves by aspiration, concentration, interiorisation and identification with the supreme Will. And that is both omnipotence and perfect freedom at the same time. And that is the only omnipotence and the only freedom; everything else is an approximation. You may be on the way, but it is not the entire thing. So if you experience this, you realise that with this supreme freedom and supreme power there is also a total peace and a serenity that never fails.
   Therefore, if you feel something which is not that, a revolt, a disgust, something which you cannot accept, it means that in you there is a part which has not been touched by the transformation, something which has kept the old consciousness, something which is still on the path - that is all.
   ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,
17:38 - 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),
18:37 - Some say Krishna never lived, he is a myth. They mean on earth; for if Brindavan existed nowhere, the Bhagavat (6) could not have been written. - Sri Aurobindo

Does Brindavan exist anywhere else than on earth?

The whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifested here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions. This is an indispensable condition for the manifestation. And the importance of the manifestation will always depend on the origin of the thing manifested.

In the world of the gods there is an ideal and harmonious Brindavan of which the earthly Brindavan is but a deformation and a caricature.

Those who are developed inwardly, either in their senses or in their minds, perceive these realities which are invisible (to the ordinary man) and receive their inspiration from them.

So the writer or writers of the Bhagavat were certainly in contact with a whole inner world that is well and truly real and existent, where they saw and experienced everything they have described or revealed.

Whether Krishna existed or not in a human form, living on earth, is only of very secondary importance (except perhaps from an exclusively historical point of view), for Krishna is a real, living and active being; and his influence has been one of the great factors in the progress and transformation of the earth.
8 June 1960

(6 The story of Krishna, as related in the Bhagavat Purana.) ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.60-61),
19:35 - Men are still in love with grief; when they see one who is too high for grief or joy, they curse him and cry, "O thou insensible!" Therefore Christ still hangs on the cross in Jerusalem.

36 - Men are in love with sin; when they see one who is too high for vice or virtue, they curse him and cry, "O thou breaker of bonds, thou wicked and immoral one!" Therefore Sri Krishna does not live as yet in Brindavan.(5)
- Sri Aurobindo

I would like to have an explanation of these two aphorisms.

When Christ came upon earth, he brought a message of brotherhood, love and peace. But he had to die in pain, on the cross, so that his message might be heard. For men cherish suffering and hatred and want their God to suffer with them. They wanted this when Christ came and, in spite of his teaching and sacrifice, they still want it; and they are so attached to their pain that, symbolically, Christ is still bound to his cross, suffering perpetually for the salvation of men.

As for Krishna, he came upon earth to bring freedom and delight. He came to announce to men, enslaved to Nature, to their passions and errors, that if they took refuge in the Supreme Lord they would be free from all bondage and sin. But men are very attached to their vices and virtues (for without vice there would be no virtue); they are in love with their sins and cannot tolerate anyone being free and above all error.

That is why Krishna, although immortal, is not present at Brindavan in a body at this moment.
3 June 1960

(5 The village where Shri Krishna Spent His Childhood, and where He danced with Radha and other Gopis.) ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.59-60,
20:39 - Sometimes one is led to think that only those things really matter which have never happened; for beside them most historic achievements seem almost pale and ineffective. - Sri Aurobindo

I would like to have an explanation of this aphorism.

Sri Aurobindo, who had made a thorough study of history, knew how uncertain are the data which have been used to write it. Most often the accuracy of the documents is doubtful, and the information they supply is poor, incomplete, trivial and frequently distorted. As a whole, the official version of human history is nothing but a long, almost unbroken record of violent aggressions: wars, revolutions, murders or colonisations. True, some of these aggressions and massacres have been adorned with flattering terms and epithets; they have been called religious wars, holy wars, civilising campaigns; but they nonetheless remain acts of greed or vengeance.

Rarely in history do we find the description of a cultural, artistic or philosophical outflowering.

That is why, as Sri Aurobindo says, all this makes a rather dismal picture without any deep significance. On the other hand, in the legendary accounts of things which may never have existed on earth, of events which have not been declared authentic by "official" knowledge, of wonderful individuals whose existence is doubted by the scholars in their dried-up wisdom, we find the crystallisation of all the hopes and aspirations of man, his love of the marvellous, the heroic and the sublime, the description of everything he would like to be and strives to become.

That, more or less, is what Sri Aurobindo means in his aphorism.
22 June 1960 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.62),
21:19 - 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,
22:When, in last week's aphorism, Sri Aurobindo opposed - as one might say - "knowledge" to "Wisdom", he was speaking of knowledge as it is lived in the average human consciousness, the knowledge which is obtained through effort and mental development, whereas here, on the contrary, the knowledge he speaks of is the essential Knowledge, the supramental divine Knowledge, Knowledge by identity. And this is why he describes it here as "vast and eternal", which clearly indicates that it is not human knowledge as we normally understand it.
Many people have asked why Sri Aurobindo said that the river is "slender". This is an expressive image which creates a striking contrast between the immensity of the divine, supramental Knowledge - the origin of this inspiration, which is infinite - and what a human mind can perceive of it and receive from it.
Even when you are in contact with these domains, the portion, so to say, which you perceive, is minimal, slender. It is like a tiny little stream or a few falling drops and these drops are so pure, so brilliant, so complete in themselves, that they give you the sense of a marvellous inspiration, the impression that you have reached infinite domains and risen very high above the ordinary human condition. And yet this is nothing in comparison with what is still to be perceived.
I have also been asked if the psychic being or psychic consciousness is the medium through which the inspiration is perceived.
Generally, yes. The first contact you have with higher regions is a psychic one. Certainly, before an inner psychic opening is achieved, it is difficult to have these inspirations. It can happen as an exception and under exceptional conditions as a grace, but the true contact comes through the psychic; because the psychic consciousness is certainly the medium with the greatest affinity with the divine Truth. ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,
23:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study
   Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.
   The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.
   Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.
   Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.
   Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.
   Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.
   The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.
   The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.
   Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.
   The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.
   The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.
   The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.
   Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.
   The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.
   The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.
   The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.
   The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.
   The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.
   Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.
   The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.
   The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.
   Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.
   The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.
   The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.
   The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.
   The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.
   Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.
   Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.
   Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.
   Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.
   The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.
   The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.
   The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.
   The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.
   The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.
   The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.
   Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.
   Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.
   Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.
   The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.
   The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.
   Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.
   Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.
   Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.
   First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.
   Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.
   The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.
   The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.
   The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:What are your Axioms, and Categories, and Systems, and Aphorisms? Words, words... . Be not the slave of Words. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove
2:One of the aphorisms occurred to me now and I wrote it under the picture: Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept. That was clear to me now. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove
3:The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove
4:Age certainly hadn't conferred any smarts on me. Character maybe, but mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russian writers have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove
5:I wrote my first two long novels and an anthology of short narratives, when I was a manager of my own jazz bar. There was not enough time to write and I didn't know how to write novels. Therefore, I made written collages of aphorisms and rags. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Aphorisms know the angles, but not the structure. ~ Mason Cooley,
2:Aphorisms may equivocate, but they must not wobble. ~ Mason Cooley,
3:Aphorisms are not true or false, but pointed or flat. ~ Mason Cooley,
4:The world is boiled down to aphorisms and fairy tales. ~ Claire North,
5:fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege. ~ Terry Pratchett,
6:Aphorisms are rogue ideas. ~ Susan Sontag (1933–2004), Journal entry, April 26, 1980,
7:Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays. ~ Karl Kraus,
8:Ignorance is the field in which all other difficulties grow. ~ Patanjali, Aphorisms II. 4,
9:Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel,
10:The old aphorisms are basically sound. First impressions are lasting. ~ Jessie Redmon Fauset,
11:the Collection of Aphorisms (sometimes referred to as the Tibetan Dhammapada). ~ Thupten Jinpa,
12:To learn is good, To become is better.
   ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, Nov 25 1969,
13:There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
14:Russians have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up. ~ Haruki Murakami,
15:'Character," says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms - character is destiny'. ~ George Eliot,
16:Most of my writing consists of an attempt to translate aphorisms into continuous prose. ~ Northrop Frye,
17:A God who cannot smile could not have created this humorous universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms,
18:Aphorisms are not true or false, but pointed or flat. ~ Mason Cooley. City Aphorisms, Fourth Selection (1987),
19:Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms wants not to be learned but to be learned by heart. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
20:I believe aphorisms are best when first read in the wild, free from the confines of any categories. ~ James Geary,
21:He who writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read, he wants to be learned by heart. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
22:The god of many cannot remain the true god. ~ James Richardson, Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001), #138,
23:An aphorism that does not score is just one more sentence. ~ Mason Cooley. City Aphorisms, Thirteenth Selection (1994),
24:If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu. ~ Sri Aurobindo(Thoughts and Aphorisms),
25:Aphorisms have never seduced anybody, but they have fooled some into considering themselves worldly-wise. ~ Mason Cooley,
26:Beware of cultivating this delicate art. ~ John Morley (1838–1923), British statesman and writer. Aphorisms (1887) p. 39,
27:What are your Axioms, and Categories, and Systems, and Aphorisms? Words, words.... Be not the slave of Words. ~ Thomas Carlyle,
28:The saint and the angel are not the only divinities; admire also the Titan and the giant. ~ Sri AurobindoThoughts and Aphorisms,
29:To love God, excluding the world, is to give Him an intense but imperfect adoration.(Thoughts and Aphorisms ~ Bhakti)#SriAurobindo,
30:The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other very well. ~ Elias Canetti, The Human Province (1942–1972).,
31:If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu. ~ Sri Aurobindo(Thoughts and Aphorisms)#sriaurobindo,
32:"If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu. ~ Sri Aurobindo(Thoughts and Aphorisms)#sriaurobindo,
33:Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader’s teeth. ~ Anatole Broyard. ‘Books of the Times’, New York Times, June 6th 1984,
34:Aphorisms are literature's hand luggage. Light and compact, they fit easily into the overhead compartment of your brain. ~ James Geary,
35:When thou findest thyself scorning another, look then at thy own heart and laugh at thy folly. ~ Sri Aurobindo(Thoughts And Aphorisms),
36:Good places for aphorisms: in fortune cookies, on bumper stickers, and on banners flying over the Palace of Free Advice. ~ Mason Cooley,
37:Hmm,' said the King. 'I must write that down in my book of aphorisms. I don't know if it is deep, but it sounds deep. ~ Stephen Mitchell,
38:At all times pseudoprofound aphorisms have been more popular than rigorous arguments. ~ Mario Bunge, Evaluating Philosophies (2012), p. xiv.,
39:Break the moulds of the past, but keep safe its gains & its spirit, or else thou hast no future. ~ Sri Aurobindo(Thoughts & Aphorisms),
40:If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly,” said Granny, fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege. ~ Terry Pratchett,
41:The business of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" was one of the aphorisms his boss liked to quote. ~ Sara Gruen,
42:An aphorism is the last link in a long chain of thought. ~ Marie Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916), Austrian writer. Aphorisms (1890), p. 19,
43:To know how to keep the Divine contact in all circumstances is the secret of beatitude. 21 April 1970 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts and Aphorisms, [T5],
44:God loves to play the fool in season; man does it in season & out of season. It is the only difference. ~ Sri Aurobindo(Thoughts & Aphorisms),
45:It’s not the fall that kills you, Emily thought, remembering one of her father’s favorite aphorisms, it’s the sudden stop at the end. ~ Paul Antony Jones,
46:So long as the mind stops at the observation of multiple details, it does not enter into the general field of true knowledge. ~ Patanjali: Aphorisms. I 49,
47:mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russians have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up. ~ Haruki Murakami,
48:In an aphorism, aptness counts for more than truth. ~ Mason Cooley (1927–2002), American literary academic and aphorist. City Aphorisms, Fourth Selection (1987),
49:Aphorisms have never seduced anybody, but they have fooled some into considering themselves worldly-wise. ~ Mason Cooley. City Aphorisms, Twelfth Selection (1993),
50:He’s over your head!” He was, but naturally I’d flung myself into the Sea of Voltaire anyway and emerged with nothing more than several aphorisms. ~ Sue Monk Kidd,
51:Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time writing essays. ~ Karl Kraus. Half–Truths and One–and–a–Half Truths, translated by Harry Zohn (1990),
52:...[Mystery] delivered one of the many great aphorisms that that he used to turn defeat into triumph. "Where there's a problem, there's an opportunity. ~ Neil Strauss,
53:Even God cannot make two times two not make four. ~ Hugo Grotius, as quoted in Delbert D. Thiessen (ed.), A Sociobiology Compendium: Aphorisms, Sayings, Asides, p. 18.,
54:The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other very well. ~ Elias Canetti (1905–1994), Jewish-Bulgarian writer. The Human Province (1942–1972),
55:Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy. ~ Friedrich von Schlegel (1772–1829), German philosopher. From Aphorism 259, Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798),
56:Despite popular conviction, a writer needn't wear black, be unshaven, sickly and parade around New York's East Village spewing aphorisms and scaring children. ~ Noah Lukeman,
57:The purpose of aphorisms is to keep fools who have memorised them from having nothing to say. ~ Isaac Asimov (1920–1992), American writer. In Memory Yet Green (1979), p. 188,
58:When the enemy of my enemy is willing to use plasma weapons inside a hotel, I think I can do better than stupid aphorisms, General.
-Captain Kevyn Andreyasn ~ Howard Tayler,
59:The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words. ~ Samuel Johnson,
60:One of the aphorisms occurred to me now and I wrote it under the picture: "Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept." That was clear to me now. ~ Hermann Hesse,
61:The aphorisms were judged more insightful when they rhymed than when they did not. Finally, if you quote a source, choose one with a name that is easy to pronounce. ~ Daniel Kahneman,
62:In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak; but for that one must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks – and those who are addressed, tall and lofty. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
63:Aphorisms should be peaks - and those who are addressed, tall and lofty. The air thin and pure, danger near, and the spirit full of gay sarcasm: these go well together. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
64:Aphorisms should be peaks – and those who are addressed, tall and lofty. The air thin and pure, danger near, and the spirit full of gay sarcasm: these go well together. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
65:Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
66:The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is ever condemned to find much of his own mind. ~ Francis Herbert Bradley (1846–1924), British philosopher. Aphorisms (1930),
67:For the tragedy of our lives is not created entirely from within. "Character," says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms,–"character is destiny." But not the whole of our destiny. ~ George Eliot,
68:...everything really depends on the Divine Grace and we should look towards the future with confidence and serenity, at the same time progressing as fast as we can.
   ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,
69:For the aphorist, I think, seeing something and saying something are the same thing. ~ James Geary, ‘Anatomy of an Aphorism’, from, All Aphorisms, All The Time, a blog on James Geary’s website, 16th October 2008,
70:Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms wants not to be learned but to be learned by heart. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, First Part, 'On Reading and Writing' (1883),
71:There is so much poetry, and yet nothing is more rare than a poetic work. This is what the masses make out of poetical sketches, studies, aphorisms, trends, ruins, and raw material. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel,
72:Exclusively of the abstract science, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection (1825).,
73:But quotations and aphorisms are generally just verbal Christmas presents; enticingly done up in pretty paper and ribbons, but once you get them open they generally turn out to be just socks. ~ Tom Holt Barking (2007).,
74:Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers. ~ W H Auden,
75:The young people who come to me in the hope of hearing me utter a few memorable maxims are quite disappointed. Aphorisms are not my forte, I say nothing but banalities.... I listen to them and they go away delighted. ~ Andre Gide,
76:If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these aphorisms as affect you agreeably in reading, and set a mark to such as left a sense of uneasiness with you; and then show your copy to whom you please. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater,
77:Age certainly hadn't conferred any smarts on me. Character maybe, but mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russian writers have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up. ~ Haruki Murakami,
78:On the last day, when the general examination takes place, there will be no question at all on the text of Aristotle, the aphorisms of Hippocrates, or the paragraphs of Justinian. Charity will be the whole syllabus. ~ Robert Bellarmine,
79:There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion. ~ Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), Russian-American novelist and poet. The Gift (1937), Ch. 1, from the English edition, published by G. P. Putnam’s Son (1963),
80:I compose most of my tweets with care, as if they were aphorisms - they are not usually dashed-off. Sometimes I'm surprised by the high, poetic quality of Twitter - it lends itself to a surreal sort of self-expression. ~ Joyce Carol Oates,
81:An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog. ~ Friedrich von Schlegel (1772–1829), German philosopher. Aphorism 206 in Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798),
82:I’ve always felt aphorisms as reminders, gongs–in–words. ~ Olivia Dresher (b.1945), American literary editor, publisher and poet. 'Aphorisms by Olivia Dresher', from, All Aphorisms, All the Time, a blog on James Geary's website, 24th February 2009,
83:The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers. ~ W. H. Auden (1907–1973), Anglo-American poet. Foreword, The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1962),
84:In function, Jesus’s aphorisms are very much like his parables—provocative and invitational forms of speech. They provoke thought, lead people to reconsider their taken-for-granted assumptions, and invite them to see life differently. ~ Marcus J Borg,
85:Philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem. ~ Friedrich Schlegel, “Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #84.,
86:God within is leading us always aright even when we are in the bonds of the ignorance; but then, though the goal is sure, it is attained by circlings and deviations.

Sri Aurobindo
MCW, vol 10, On Thoughts and Aphorisms, p.258 ~ Sri Aurobindo,
87:God is a great and cruel Torturer because he Loves. You do not understand this, because you have not seen and played with Krishna. ~ Sri AurobindoThoughts and Aphorisms What does playing with Krishna means? What does "God is a great and cruel Torturer" mean?,
88:Aphorisms, representing a knowledge broken, do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods, carrying the show of a total, do secure men, as if they were at furthest. ~ Francis Bacon, The Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605), Second Book XI–XX, p. 5,
89:I wrote my first two long novels and an anthology of short narratives, when I was a manager of my own jazz bar. There was not enough time to write and I didn't know how to write novels. Therefore, I made written collages of aphorisms and rags. ~ Haruki Murakami,
90:There is something anachronistic about the very idea of aphorisms or maxims. Contemporary culture isn’t stately enough, or stable enough, to support them. ~ Anatole Broyard (1920–1990), American literary critic. ‘Wisdom of Aphorisms’, New York Times, 30th April 1983,
91:It is not my place to offer pep talks, aphorisms, or dictums. But if I had to give one piece of practical advice it would be this: Find something that you love that they're fucking with and then fight for it. If everyone did that--imagine the difference. (50) ~ David Gessner,
92:Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), English poet. Aids to Reflection, 'Introductory Aphorisms', No. 27 (1825),
93:Despite our attempts to imbue them with some flavor, any flavor—aphorisms all turn out so...generic; they all sound as if they were delivered by the same disenfranchised, bad-tempered minor deity. ~ Don Paterson, Best Thought, Worst Thought: On Art, Sex, Work, and Death. (2008),
94:A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs, and vulgar aphorisms; uses neither favourite words nor hard words, but takes great care to speak very correctly and grammatically, and to pronounce properly; that is, according to the usage of the best companies. ~ Lord Chesterfield,
95:In private, with pencil on scratch paper, he labored over aphorisms that he later delivered in spontaneous-seeming lectures: Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry. ~ James Gleick,
96:The value of a mind is measured by the nature of the objects it habitually contemplates. They whose thoughts are of trifles are trifling: they who dwell with what is eternally true, good and fair, are like unto God. ~ John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 268,
97:Exactly. The most convincing argument doesn't come from pithy sayings or aphorisms, but through stories. A clear line of causality, from one event to the next, that seems to be leading to an inevitable conclusion." "We are fighting our guerrilla war battle by battle. ~ Edward W Robertson,
98:But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words. ~ Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), English poet and lexicographer. The Rambler, No. 175, 19th November 1751,
99:An aphorism is a speculative principle either in science or morals, which is presented in a few words to the understanding; it is the substance of a doctrine, and many aphorisms may contain the abstract of a science. ~ George Crabb, English Synonymes Explained, in Alphabetical Order, (1846) p. 114,
100:Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist. ~ Friedrich Schlegel, “Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #96.,
101:Some say men continually war against circumstances, but I say they perpetually flee. What are the works of men if not a momentary respite, a hiding place soon to be discovered by catastrophe? Life is endless flight before the hunter we call the world. —EKYANNUS VIII, 111 APHORISMS Spring, ~ R Scott Bakker,
102:There is always something positive about the wisdom in aphorisms; jokes are not always that optimistic. ~ John Lloyd (b. 1951), British television comedy writer and producer. 'On the First Ever International Aphorism Symposium', from, All Aphorisms, All the Time, a blog on James Geary website, 11th March 2008,
103:Aphorisms are literature’s hand luggage. Light and compact they fit easily into the overhead compartment of your brain and contain everything you need to get through a rough day at the office or a dark night of the soul. ~ James Geary (b. 1962), American journalist, author and aphorist. The World in a Phrase (2005), Ch. 1,
104:...when you are constantly prevailing upon the kindness of strangers-as a hitchhiker must-it keeps you in a positive frame of mind. Call it Zen and the Art of Hitchhiking. The Way of the Lift. The chrysanthemum and the Thumb. Heady on beer and the sound of my own voice, the aphorisms spilled out unchecked. ~ Will Ferguson,
105:A liberal education is that which aims to develop faculty without ulterior views of profession or other means of gaining a livelihood. It considers man an end in himself and not an instrument whereby something is to be wrought. Its ideal is human perfection. ~ John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 234,
106:Aphorisms are short, pithy sayings; they are individual passages that can be recited and remain intelligible out of context; they can stand on their own without further support. ~ Dr. Louis Groarke, Canadian philosopher. Philosophy as Inspiration: Blaise Pascal and the Epistemology of Aphorisms. Essay in, Poetics Today, Fall 2007,
107:There was some ground for this appropriation of Nietzsche as one of the originators of the Nazi Weltanschauung. Had not the philosopher thundered against democracy and parliaments, preached the will to power, praised war and proclaimed the coming of the master race and the superman—and in the most telling aphorisms? ~ William L Shirer,
108:Über keinen Gegenstand philosophieren sie seltner als über die Philosophie. - About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy. ~   Friedrich Schlegel, “Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #1.,
109:One of Bob’s aphorisms,” says Stickgold, “is that for every two hours your brain spends taking in information during the day, it needs an hour of sleep to figure out what it means. If you don’t get that hour, you don’t figure it out. The difference between smart and wise is two hours more sleep a night.” This idea takes on a new dimension ~ John J Ratey,
110:I stepped through the doors of the SA Café with a borrowed copy of Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot in my hand, expecting to find more of the same, only to find Philip K. Dick sitting at a table, obsessing over Gnostic demiurges and ersatz realities, Robert A. Heinlein across from him, spouting libertarian aphorisms but paying for Dick’s coffee. ~ Hal Duncan,
111:If you can't spontaneously detect (without analyzing) the difference between the sacred and profane, you'll never know what religion means. You will also never figure out what we commonly call art. You will never understand anything. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010) The Sacred and the Profane, p.19.,
112:In that case, balls to the wall, man.” Riaz yawned. “No guts, no glory.”
“Why are you spouting aphorisms at me?”
“Because it’s two-fucking-thirty in the morning and I need to be up for a six a.m. shift.”
“Wimp.”
Riaz gave him the finger. “Get some sleep and chase your wolf tomorrow.” Another yawn. “And Coop? Forget about subtle. That’s not your style. ~ Nalini Singh,
113:468 - 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,
114:I replaced the receiver. What did she mean, she got the picture? I didn’t get the picture, but then again, there are lots of things I don’t know anything about. Age certainly hasn’t conferred any smarts on me. Character maybe, but mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russians have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up. ~ Haruki Murakami,
115:541 - Canst thou see God in thy torturer and slayer even in thy moment of death or thy hours of torture? Canst thou see Him in that which thou art slaying, see and love even while thou slayest? Thou hast thy hand on the supreme knowledge. How shall he attain to Krishna who has never worshipped Kali?
   All is the Divine and the Divine alone exists.
   ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,
116:Readers are likely to come away from the book feeling better educated about investing and business, but whether those lessons will translate into great investment results is less than certain. Warren’s gift is being able to think ahead of the crowd, and it requires more than taking his aphorisms to heart to accomplish that—although Warren is full of aphorisms well worth taking to heart. ~ Anonymous,
117: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,
118:In the minds of many, one of Winston’s Churchill’s most famous aphorisms cuts the conversation short: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”10 But this saying overlooks the fact that the governments vary in scope as well as form. In democracies the main alternative to majority rule is not dictatorship, but markets. ~ Bryan Caplan,
119:An aphorism has been defined as a proverb coined in a private mint, and the definition is a happy one; for the aphorism, like the proverb, is the result of observation, and however private and superior the mint, the coins it strikes must, to find acceptance, be made of current metal. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946), American born essayist and critic. ‘Introduction’, A Treasury of English Aphorisms (1943), p. 7,
120: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.
   ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, 16 June 1960,
121:Without losing ourselves in a wilderness of definitions, we can all agree that the most obvious characteristic of an aphorism, apart from its brevity, is that it is a generalization. It offers a comment on some recurrent aspect of life, couched in terms which are meant to be permanently and universally applicable. ~ John Gross, English journalist, writer and literary critic. ‘Introduction’, The Oxford Book of Aphorisms (1983),
122:Aphorism or maxim, let us remember that this wisdom of life is the true salt of literature; that those books, at least in prose, are most nourishing which are most richly stored with it; and that is one of the great objects, apart from the mere acquisition of knowledge, which men ought to seek in the reading of books. ~ John Morley (1838-1923), 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, British statesman and writer. Aphorisms (1887) p. 11,
123:They’ve [aphorisms] got a real form to them. They’re not very popular or fashionable in Anglophone culture – they are assertions, so they can sound hubristic: you sometimes find yourself thinking, “Who the hell am I to say this?” But then, why not? You expect people to disagree. The point is to stir things up. ~ Don Paterson (b, 1963), Scottish poet and musician. From his interview with Mark Seaton for The Guardian, 21st January 2004,
124:They can respond to any situation with a two-dollar retort from a self-help book at a pinch. Is your father dead? He’s gone to a better place. Have you lost your job? Stay strong – if you believe in yourself, you’ll find a way. Husband left you, taking the kids? You can fight this one, and with the strength you have inside and the love of your children, you can win. The world is boiled down to aphorisms and fairytales. I ~ Claire North,
125:A good aphorism is too hard for the teeth of time and is not eaten up by all the centuries, even though it serves as food for every age: hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which—like salt—is always prized, but which never loses its savor as salt does. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. Mixed Opinions and Maxims, aphorism 168, 'In Praise of Aphorisms' (1879),
126:The difference between an aphorism and a fragment is in their means of articulation. While aphorisms are primarily literary or philosophical, fragments can be pictorial, musical, or architectural as well. But because the highest degree of articulation can be achieved in an aphorism, it remains for all fragments the measure of possible expression and of their latent meaning. ~ Dalibor Vesely(2004), Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation, p. 346,
127:279 - O soldier and hero of God, where for thee is sorrow or shame or suffering? For thy life is a glory, thy deeds a consecration, victory thy apotheosis, defeat thy triumph. - Sri Aurobindo.

For one who is totally consecrated to the Divine, there can be neither shame nor suffering, for the Divine is always with him and the Divine Presence changes all things into glory. 9 January 1970 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.295,
128:The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie. [Referring to pronouncement by Justice Anthony Kennedy in Obergefell v. Hodges: "The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity."] ~ Antonin Scalia,
129:The abortionists of unity are indeed angel makers, doct ores angelici, because they affirm a properly angelic and superior unity. Joyce's words, accurately described as having "multiple roots," shatter the linear unity of the word, even of language, only to posit a cyclic unity of the sentence, text, o r knowledge. Nietzsche's aphorisms shatter the linear unity of knowledge, only to invoke the cyclic unity o f the eternal return, present as the nonknown i n thought ~ Anonymous,
130:Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Vedanta Philosophy: Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on Raja Yoga Also Pantanjali's Yoga Aphorisms, with Commentaries, and Glossary of Sa ~ Swami Vivekananda,
131:We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves. Even if my philosophy does not extend to discovering anything new, it does nevertheless possess the courage to regard as questionable what has long been thought true. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook B (1768-1771), B 49.,
132:He mentioned a dear friend Morrie had, Maurie Stein, who had first sent Morrie's aphorisms to the Boston Globe. They had been together at Brandeis since the early sixties. Now Stein was going deaf. Koppel imagined the two men together one day, one unable to speak, the other unable to hear. What would that be like?
"We will hold hands," Morrie said. "And there'll be a lot of love passing between us. Ted, we've had thirty-five years of friendship. You don't need speech or hearing to feel that. ~ Mitch Albom,
133:Because the gospel is news, good news… it is to be announced; that is what one does with news. The essential heraldic element in preaching is bound up with the fact that the core message is not a code of ethics to be debated, still less a list of aphorisms to be admired and pondered, and certainly not a systematic theology to be outlined and schematized. Though it properly grounds ethics, aphorisms, and systematics, it is none of these three: it is news, good news, and therefore must be publicly announced ~ Timothy J Keller,
134:Because the gospel is news, good news… it is to be announced; that is what one does with news. The essential heraldic element in preaching is bound up with the fact that the core message is not a code of ethics to be debated, still less a list of aphorisms to be admired and pondered, and certainly not a systematic theology to be outlined and schematized. Though it properly grounds ethics, aphorisms, and systematics, it is none of these three: it is news, good news, and therefore must be publicly announced2. ~ Timothy J Keller,
135:Many of the Stoic aphorisms are simple to remember and even sound smart when quoted. But that’s not what philosophy is really about. The goal is to turn these words into works. As Musonius Rufus put it, the justification for philosophy is when “one brings together sound teaching with sound conduct.” Today, or anytime, when you catch yourself wanting to condescendingly drop some knowledge that you have, grab it and ask: Would I be better saying words or letting my actions and choices illustrate that knowledge for me? ~ Ryan Holiday,
136:The wondrous power of flattery in passados at woman is a perception so universal as to be remarked upon by many people almost as automatically as they repeat a proverb, or say that they are Christians and the like, without thinking much of the enormous corollaries which spring from the proposition. Still less is it acted upon for the good of the complemental being alluded to. With the majority such an opinion is shelved with all those trite aphorisms which require some catastrophe to bring their tremendous meanings thoroughly home. ~ Thomas Hardy,
137:But once on stage he seems to enjoy playing the role of inspirational speaker—a kind of nerd Tony Robbins, overly fond of touchy-feely rhetoric and vapid aphorisms. “Success,” Shah says, striding back and forth across a stage, with his head down, stroking his beard, as if impersonating a professor, “is making those who believed in you look brilliant.” Then he will pause, as if he has just said something incredibly profound and wants to give you a moment to let it sink in. Then he repeats the line, and a ballroom full of marketing people cheer. ~ Dan Lyons,
138:According to tradition, the originator of Taoism, Lao-tzu, was an older contemporary of Kung Fu-tzu, or Confucius, who died in 479 B.C.1 Lao-tzu is said to have been the author of the Tao Te Ching, a short book of aphorisms, setting forth the principles of the Tao and its power or virtue (Te e). But traditional Chinese philosophy ascribes both Taoism and Confucianism to a still earlier source, to a work which lies at the very foundation of Chinese thought and culture, dating anywhere from 3000 to 1200 B.C. This is the I Ching, or Book of Changes. ~ Alan W Watts,
139:An aphorism is a link in a chain of thoughts. It demands that the reader reconstitute this chain with his own means. An aphorism is a presumption. — Or it is a precaution, as Heraclitus knew. An aphorism must, if it is to be enjoyed, be put into contact and tempered with other material (examples, explanations, stories). Most do not understand this and for this reason one may express what is risky without risk ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, "Bedenkliches unbedenklich," in Aphorisms, 2, 20(3] (Winter 1876-77). Cited in: Richard Velkley (2007) Freedom and the Human Person, p. 229,
140:Perhaps the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words.
We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered; and he may therefore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind. ~ Samuel Johnson,
141:Aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of illustration is cut off; recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and order is cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off. So there remaineth nothing to fill the aphorisms but some good quantity of observation; and therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to write aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded. ~ Francis Bacon (1561–1626), English philosopher, statesman and essayist. The Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605), Second Book, XI–XX p. 5,
142:Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds your stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends upon what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat flour from peascods, so pages of formulæ will not get a definite result out of loose data. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley, "Anniversary Address of the President", Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London (1869) Vol. 25, p. l in p. xxviii-liii; as reprinted in Aphorisms and Reflections (1908) CCXXVI, p. 93 ed., Henrietta A. Huxley Huxley, and in Discourses, Biological and Geological essays (1909), pp. 335–336.,
143:This superstitious, family-oriented existence is the background to 'The Lay of Loddfafnir' and the whole of Havamal (Myth and Note25). This great compendium of aphorisms and advice on right conduct offers a commonsensical and sober (though sometimes witty) picture of the day to day life of the Norsemen, and it is a far cry from the heady image of Vikings on the rampage. Value life itself; censure naivete; cherish and celebrate friendships; beware treachery; practice moderation; be hospitable (but not too hospitable); try to win the fame and good name that will outlive you: these are the leitmotifs of the Havamal. ~ Kevin Crossley Holland,
144:189 - 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,
145:203. God and Nature are like a boy and girl at play and in love. They hide and run from each other when glimpsed so that they may be sought after and chased and captured.
Man is God hiding himself from Nature so that he may possess her by struggle, insistence, violence and surprise. God is universal and transcendent Man hiding himself from his own individuality in the human being.
The animal is Man disguised in a hairy skin and upon four legs; the worm is Man writhing and crawling towards the evolution of his Manhood. Even crude forms of Matter are Man in his inchoate body. All things are Man, the Purusha.
For what do we mean by Man? An uncreated and indestructible soul that has housed itself in a mind and body made of its own elements. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts And Aphorisms,
146:Therefore there is only one solution: to unite ourselves by aspiration, concentration, interiorisation and identification with the supreme Will. And that is both omnipotence and perfect freedom at the same time. And that is the only omnipotence and the only freedom; everything else is an approximation. You may be on the way, but it is not the entire thing. So if you experience this, you realise that with this supreme freedom and supreme power there is also a total peace and a serenity that never fails.
   Therefore, if you feel something which is not that, a revolt, a disgust, something which you cannot accept, it means that in you there is a part which has not been touched by the transformation, something which has kept the old consciousness, something which is still on the path - that is all.
   ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,
147:As sociologists are fond of pointing out, many of these aphorisms appear to be direct contradictions of each other. Birds of a feather flock together, but opposites attract. Absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight is out of mind. Look before you leap, but he who hesitates is lost. Of course, it is not necessarily the case that these beliefs are contradictory—because we invoke different aphorisms in different circumstances. But because we never specify the conditions under which one aphorism applies versus another, we have no way of describing what it is that we really think or why we think it. Common sense, in other words, is not so much a worldview as a grab bag of logically inconsistent, often contradictory beliefs, each of which seems right at the time but carries no guarantee of being right any other time. ~ Duncan J Watts,
148:Good-bye,' I said to them, but they didn't seem to hear me, and why would they have wanted to? Why would they have wanted to do with the world outside of each other? Outside each other, they were mean little human beings like the rest of us, the kind of people you both loathed and pitied. Separately, they were characters, and not in a good way. But together they were something to wonder at and maybe even envy. I had this unoriginal thought as I walked out the door and toward my van: love changes us, makes us into people whom others then want to love. That's why, to those of us without it, love is the voice asking, What else? What else? And to those of us who have had love and lost it or thrown it away, then love is the voice that leads us back to love, to see if it might still be ours or if we've lost it, love is also the thing that makes us speak in aphorisms about love, which is why we try to get love back, so we can stop speaking that way. Aphoristically, that is. ~ Brock Clarke,
149:Now, what on earth does that mean, especially if one does not spiritualize it away, as Matthew immediately did, into “poor [or destitute] in spirit”—that is, the spiritually humble or religiously obedient? Did Jesus really think that bums and beggars were actually blessed by God, as if all the destitute were nice people and all the aristocrats correspondingly evil? Is this some sort of naive or romantic delusion about the charms of destitution? If, however, we think not just of personal or individual evil but of social, structural, or systemic injustice—that is, of precisely the imperial situation in which Jesus and his fellow peasants found themselves—then the saying becomes literally, terribly, and permanently true. In any situation of oppression, especially in those oblique, indirect, and systemic ones where injustice wears a mask of normalcy or even of necessity, the only ones who are innocent or blessed are those squeezed out deliberately as human junk from the system’s own evil operations. A contemporary equivalent: only the homeless are innocent. That is a terrifying aphorism against society because, like the aphorisms against the family, it focuses not just on personal or individual abuse of power but on such abuse in its systemic or structural possibilities—and there, in contrast to the former level, none of our hands are innocent or our consciences particularly clear. ~ John Dominic Crossan,
150:38 - 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),
151:37 - Some say Krishna never lived, he is a myth. They mean on earth; for if Brindavan existed nowhere, the Bhagavat (6) could not have been written. - Sri Aurobindo

Does Brindavan exist anywhere else than on earth?

The whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifested here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions. This is an indispensable condition for the manifestation. And the importance of the manifestation will always depend on the origin of the thing manifested.

In the world of the gods there is an ideal and harmonious Brindavan of which the earthly Brindavan is but a deformation and a caricature.

Those who are developed inwardly, either in their senses or in their minds, perceive these realities which are invisible (to the ordinary man) and receive their inspiration from them.

So the writer or writers of the Bhagavat were certainly in contact with a whole inner world that is well and truly real and existent, where they saw and experienced everything they have described or revealed.

Whether Krishna existed or not in a human form, living on earth, is only of very secondary importance (except perhaps from an exclusively historical point of view), for Krishna is a real, living and active being; and his influence has been one of the great factors in the progress and transformation of the earth.
8 June 1960

(6 The story of Krishna, as related in the Bhagavat Purana.) ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.60-61),
152:35 - Men are still in love with grief; when they see one who is too high for grief or joy, they curse him and cry, "O thou insensible!" Therefore Christ still hangs on the cross in Jerusalem.

36 - Men are in love with sin; when they see one who is too high for vice or virtue, they curse him and cry, "O thou breaker of bonds, thou wicked and immoral one!" Therefore Sri Krishna does not live as yet in Brindavan.(5)
- Sri Aurobindo

I would like to have an explanation of these two aphorisms.

When Christ came upon earth, he brought a message of brotherhood, love and peace. But he had to die in pain, on the cross, so that his message might be heard. For men cherish suffering and hatred and want their God to suffer with them. They wanted this when Christ came and, in spite of his teaching and sacrifice, they still want it; and they are so attached to their pain that, symbolically, Christ is still bound to his cross, suffering perpetually for the salvation of men.

As for Krishna, he came upon earth to bring freedom and delight. He came to announce to men, enslaved to Nature, to their passions and errors, that if they took refuge in the Supreme Lord they would be free from all bondage and sin. But men are very attached to their vices and virtues (for without vice there would be no virtue); they are in love with their sins and cannot tolerate anyone being free and above all error.

That is why Krishna, although immortal, is not present at Brindavan in a body at this moment.
3 June 1960

(5 The village where Shri Krishna Spent His Childhood, and where He danced with Radha and other Gopis.) ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.59-60,
153:My thoughts on the descent of our moral prejudices – for that is what this polemic is about – were first set out in a sketchy and provisional way in the collection of aphorisms entitled Human, All Too Human. A Book for Free Spirits, which I began to write in Sorrento during a winter that enabled me to pause, like a wanderer pauses, to take in the vast and dangerous land through which my mind had hitherto travelled. This was in the winter of 1876–7; the thoughts themselves go back further. They were mainly the same thoughts which I shall be taking up again in the present essays – let us hope that the long interval has done them good, that they have become riper, brighter, stronger and more perfect! The fact that I still stick to them today, and that they themselves in the meantime have stuck together increasingly firmly, even growing into one another and growing into one, makes me all the more blithely confident that from the first, they did not arise in me individually, randomly or sporadically but as stemming from a single root, from a fundamental will to knowledge deep inside me which took control, speaking more and more clearly and making ever clearer demands. And this is the only thing proper for a philosopher. We have no right to stand out individually: we must not either make mistakes or hit on the truth individually. Instead, our thoughts, values, every ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘if ’ and ‘but’ grow from us with the same inevitability as fruits borne on the tree – all related and referring to one another and a testimonial to one will, one health, one earth, one sun. – Do you like the taste of our fruit? – But of what concern is that to the trees? And of what concern is it to us philosophers? . . . ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
154:39 - Sometimes one is led to think that only those things really matter which have never happened; for beside them most historic achievements seem almost pale and ineffective. - Sri Aurobindo

I would like to have an explanation of this aphorism.

Sri Aurobindo, who had made a thorough study of history, knew how uncertain are the data which have been used to write it. Most often the accuracy of the documents is doubtful, and the information they supply is poor, incomplete, trivial and frequently distorted. As a whole, the official version of human history is nothing but a long, almost unbroken record of violent aggressions: wars, revolutions, murders or colonisations. True, some of these aggressions and massacres have been adorned with flattering terms and epithets; they have been called religious wars, holy wars, civilising campaigns; but they nonetheless remain acts of greed or vengeance.

Rarely in history do we find the description of a cultural, artistic or philosophical outflowering.

That is why, as Sri Aurobindo says, all this makes a rather dismal picture without any deep significance. On the other hand, in the legendary accounts of things which may never have existed on earth, of events which have not been declared authentic by "official" knowledge, of wonderful individuals whose existence is doubted by the scholars in their dried-up wisdom, we find the crystallisation of all the hopes and aspirations of man, his love of the marvellous, the heroic and the sublime, the description of everything he would like to be and strives to become.

That, more or less, is what Sri Aurobindo means in his aphorism.
22 June 1960 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.62),
155:19 - 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,
156:When, in last week's aphorism, Sri Aurobindo opposed - as one might say - "knowledge" to "Wisdom", he was speaking of knowledge as it is lived in the average human consciousness, the knowledge which is obtained through effort and mental development, whereas here, on the contrary, the knowledge he speaks of is the essential Knowledge, the supramental divine Knowledge, Knowledge by identity. And this is why he describes it here as "vast and eternal", which clearly indicates that it is not human knowledge as we normally understand it.
Many people have asked why Sri Aurobindo said that the river is "slender". This is an expressive image which creates a striking contrast between the immensity of the divine, supramental Knowledge - the origin of this inspiration, which is infinite - and what a human mind can perceive of it and receive from it.
Even when you are in contact with these domains, the portion, so to say, which you perceive, is minimal, slender. It is like a tiny little stream or a few falling drops and these drops are so pure, so brilliant, so complete in themselves, that they give you the sense of a marvellous inspiration, the impression that you have reached infinite domains and risen very high above the ordinary human condition. And yet this is nothing in comparison with what is still to be perceived.
I have also been asked if the psychic being or psychic consciousness is the medium through which the inspiration is perceived.
Generally, yes. The first contact you have with higher regions is a psychic one. Certainly, before an inner psychic opening is achieved, it is difficult to have these inspirations. It can happen as an exception and under exceptional conditions as a grace, but the true contact comes through the psychic; because the psychic consciousness is certainly the medium with the greatest affinity with the divine Truth. ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,
157:What one should add here is that self-consciousness is itself unconscious: we are not aware of the point of our self-consciousness. If ever there was a critic of the fetishizing effect of fascinating and dazzling "leitmotifs", it is Adorno: in his devastating analysis of Wagner, he tries to demonstrate how Wagnerian leitmotifs serve as fetishized elements of easy recognition and thus constitute a kind of inner-structural commodification of his music. It is then a supreme irony that traces of this same fetishizing procedure can be found in Adorno's own writings. Many of his provocative one-liners do effectively capture a profound insight or at least touch on a crucial point (for example: "Nothing is more true in pscyhoanalysis than its exaggeration"); however, more often than his partisans are ready to admit, Adorno gets caught up in his own game, infatuated with his own ability to produce dazzlingly "effective" paradoxical aphorisms at the expense of theoretical substance (recall the famous line from Dialectic of Englightment on how Hollywood's ideological maniuplation of social reality realized Kant's idea of the transcendental constitution of reality). In such cases where the dazzling "effect" of the unexpected short-circuit (here between Hollywood cinema and Kantian ontology) effectively overshadows the theoretical line of argumentation, the brilliant paradox works precisely in the same manner as the Wagnerian leitmotif: instead of serving as a nodal point in the complex network of structural mediation, it generates idiotic pleasure by focusing attention on itself. This unintended self-reflexivity is something of which Adorno undoubtedly was not aware: his critique of the Wagnerian leitmotif was an allegorical critique of his own writing. Is this not an exemplary case of his unconscious reflexivity of thinking? When criticizing his opponent Wagner, Adorno effectively deploys a critical allegory of his own writing - in Hegelese, the truth of his relation to the Other is a self-relation. ~ Slavoj i ek,
158:STRAY birds of summer come to my window

to sing and fly away.

And yellow leaves of autumn,

which have no songs,

flutter and fall there with a sigh.

2

O TROUPE of little vagrants of the world,

leave your footprints in my words.

3

THE world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover.

It becomes small as one song,

as one kiss of the eternal.

4

IT is the tears of the earth

that keep her smiles in bloom.

5

THE mighty desert is burning

for the love of a blade of grass

who shakes her head and laughs

and flies

away.

6

IF you shed tears when you miss the sun,

you also miss the stars.

7

THE sands in your way beg for your song

and your movement,

dancing water.

Will you carry the burden of their lameness?

8

HER wistful face haunts my dreams

like the rain at night.

9

ONCE we dreamt that we were strangers.

We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.

10

SORROW is hushed into peace in my heart

like the evening among the silent trees.
Stray Birds are short poems, short aphorisms which embody Tagore's love of nature and love of simplicity.

The power and beauty of these poems comes from their simplicity. For example the poem below is an example of how Tagore uses the splendour of the universe to inspire and soothe the human spirit.

"IF you shed tears when you miss the sun,
you also miss the stars." (no.6)

But while Tagore is aware of human deficiencies he is also aware of the inner divinity which is innate in man.

"THE fish in the water is silent,
the animal on the earth is noisy,
the bird in the air is singing,
But Man has in him the
silence of the sea,
the noise of the earth
and the music of the air." (no.43)

These poems encompass a wide range of ideas illustrating Tagore's fount of creativity. Please enjoy all 99 of them.
~ Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds 01 - 10
,
159:12 Many uninformed persons speak of yoga as Hatha Yoga or consider yoga to be “magic,” dark mysterious rites for attaining spectacular powers. When scholars, however, speak of yoga they mean the system expounded in Yoga Sutras (also known as Patanjali’s Aphorisms): Raja (“royal”) Yoga. The treatise embodies philosophic concepts of such grandeur as to have inspired commentaries by some of India’s greatest thinkers, including the illumined master Sadasivendra. Like the other five orthodox (Vedas-based) philosophical systems, Yoga Sutras considers the “magic” of moral purity (the “ten commandments” of yama and niyama) to be the indispensable preliminary for sound philosophical investigation. This personal demand, not insisted on in the West, has bestowed lasting vitality on the six Indian disciplines. The cosmic order (rita) that upholds the universe is not different from the moral order that rules man’s destiny. He who is unwilling to observe the universal moral precepts is not seriously determined to pursue truth. Section III of Yoga Sutras mentions various yogic miraculous powers (vibhutis and siddhis). True knowledge is always power. The path of yoga is divided into four stages, each with its vibhuti expression. Achieving a certain power, the yogi knows that he has successfully passed the tests of one of the four stages. Emergence of the characteristic powers is evidence of the scientific structure of the yoga system, wherein delusive imaginations about one’s “spiritual progress” are banished; proof is required! Patanjali warns the devotee that unity with Spirit should be the sole goal, not the possession of vibhutis — the merely incidental flowers along the sacred path. May the Eternal Giver be sought, not His phenomenal gifts! God does not reveal Himself to a seeker who is satisfied with any lesser attainment. The striving yogi is therefore careful not to exercise his phenomenal powers, lest they arouse false pride and distract him from entering the ultimate state of Kaivalya. When the yogi has reached his Infinite Goal, he exercises the vibhutis, or refrains from exercising them, just as he pleases. All his actions, miraculous or otherwise, are then performed without karmic involvement. The iron filings of karma are attracted only where a magnet of the personal ego still exists. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
160:The Eternal Return has certainly not been thought by philosophers or by those who are concerned about Nietzsche in the contemporary history of ideas, and this because the Eternal Return can not be thought of. It is a revelation that presents itself next to the Silvaplana rock, or on the threshold of the Gateway of the Moment, where the Two Ways meet.

You will have to travel step by step along the path of Western yoga that Nietzsche rediscovered and practiced, putting his feet in the tracks that he left in the paths of the high peaks, relive their great pains and divine glories, reaching to reach similar tonalities of the soul, to be possessed by Dionysus and his ancient drunkenness, Luciferian, that makes dance in the solitude of forests and lost from a solar age, laughing and crying at the same time.

And this is not achieved by the philosophers of the intellect or the beings 'of the flock'. For to achieve this, the Circle will have to be traversed for several eternities, again at the Gateway of the Moment, already predestined at noon.

In addition, the doctrine of the Eternal Return is selective. As the initiatory practice Tantric Panshatattva is not for the paśu [animal], but only for some heroes or viryas, thus the Noon is reached by the 'Lords of the Earth' and by the poets of the Will to Power, predestined in a mysterious way to perform the Superman, that individualistic and aristocratic mutation.

The 'herd', the vulgar, has nothing to do with all this, including here the scientists, technologists and most philosophers, politicians and government of the Kaliyuga.

Nietzsche's description of the Eternal Return is found in some aphorisms that precede 'The Gay Science', Joyful Science, using Nietzsche the Provencal term, Occitan, from 'Gay'. Joyful Science will be that of the one who has accepted the Eternal Return of all things and has transmuted the values. The one of Superman.

There is also a description in the schemes of 'The Will to Power'. In they all take hold, with genius that transcends their time, of the scientific knowledge and the mechanics of the time, which does not lose validity to the doctrine, let us say better to the revealed Idea, to the Revelation that, of somehow, it was also in the Pythagoreans, in their Aryan-Hyperborean form, differentiating itself from other elaborations made in the millennia of the East. Also would have been veiled in the Persian reformer Zarathustra.

We are going to reproduce what Nietzsche has written about the Eternal Return. In the schemes of 'The Will to Power', he says: 'Everything returns and returns eternally; We can not escape this. ~ Miguel Serrano,
161:The Eternal Return has certainly not been thought by philosophers or by those who are concerned about Nietzsche in the contemporary history of ideas, and this because the Eternal Return can not be thought of. It is a revelation that presents itself next to the Silvaplana rock, or on the threshold of the Gateway of the Moment, where the Two Ways meet.

You will have to travel step by step along the path of Western yoga that Nietzsche rediscovered and practiced, putting his feet in the tracks that he left in the paths of the high peaks, relive their great pains and divine glories, reaching to reach similar tonalities of the soul, to be possessed by Dionysus and his ancient drunkenness, Luciferian, that makes dance in the solitude of forests and lost from a solar age, laughing and crying at the same time.

And this is not achieved by the philosophers of the intellect or the beings 'of the flock'. For to achieve this, the Circle will have to be traversed for several eternities, again at the Gateway of the Moment, already predestined at noon.

In addition, the doctrine of the Eternal Return is selective. As the initiatory practice Tantric Panshatattva is not for the paśu [animal], but only for some heroes or viryas, thus the Noon is reached by the 'Lords of the Earth' and by the poets of the Will to Power, predestined in a mysterious way to perform the Superman, that individualistic and aristocratic mutation.

The 'herd', the vulgar, has nothing to do with all this, including here the scientists, technologists and most philosophers, politicians and government of the Kaliyuga.

Nietzsche's description of the Eternal Return is found in some aphorisms that precede 'The Gay Science', Joyful Science, using Nietzsche the Provencal term, Occitan, from 'Gay'. Joyful Science will be that of the one who has accepted the Eternal Return of all things and has transmuted the values. The one of Superman.

There is also a description in the schemes of 'The Will to Power'. In they all take hold, with genius that transcends their time, of the scientific knowledge and the mechanics of the time, which does not lose validity to the doctrine, let us say better to the revealed Idea, to the Revelation that, of
somehow, it was also in the Pythagoreans, in their Aryan-Hyperborean form, differentiating itself from other elaborations made in the millennia of the East. Also would have been veiled in the Persian reformer Zarathustra.

We are going to reproduce what Nietzsche has written about the Eternal Return. In the schemes of 'The Will to Power', he says: 'Everything returns and returns eternally; We can not escape this. ~ Miguel Serrano,
162:The Eternal Return has certainly not been thought by philosophers or by those who are concerned about Nietzsche in the contemporary history of ideas, and this because the Eternal Return can not be thought of. It is a revelation that presents next to the Silvaplana rock, or on the threshold of the Gateway of the Moment, where the Two Ways meet.

You will have to travel step by step along the path of Western yoga that Nietzsche rediscovered and practiced, putting his feet in the tracks that he left in the paths of the high peaks, relive their great pains and divine glories, reaching to reach similar tonalities of the soul, to be possessed by Dionysus and
his ancient drunkenness, Luciferian, that makes dance in the solitude of forests and lost from a solar age, laughing and crying at the same time.

And this is not achieved by the philosophers of the intellect or the beings 'of the flock'. For to achieve this, the Circle will have to be traversed for several eternities, again at the Gateway of the Moment, already predestined at noon.

In addition, the doctrine of the Eternal Return is selective. As the initiatory practice Tantric Panshatattva is not for the paśu [animal], but only for some heroes or viryas, thus the Noon is reached by the 'Lords of the Earth' and by the poets of the Will to Power, predestined in a mysterious way to perform the
Superman, that individualistic and aristocratic mutation.

The 'herd', the vulgar, has nothing to do with all this, including here the scientists, technologists and most philosophers, politicians and government of the Kaliyuga.

Nietzsche's description of the Eternal Return is found in some
aphorisms that precede 'The Gay Science', Joyful Science, using Nietzsche the Provencal term, Occitan, from 'Gay'. Joyful Science will be that of the one who has accepted the Eternal Return of all things and has transmuted the values. The one of Superman.

There is also a description in the schemes of 'The Will to Power'. In they all take hold, with genius that transcends their time, of the scientific knowledge and the mechanics of the time, which does not lose validity to the doctrine, let us say better to the revealed Idea, to the Revelation that, of
somehow, it was also in the Pythagoreans, in their Aryan-Hyperborean form, differentiating itself from other elaborations made in the millennia of the East. Also would have been veiled in the Persian reformer Zarathustra.

We are going to reproduce what Nietzsche has written about the Eternal Return. In the schemes of 'The Will to Power', he says: 'Everything returns and returns eternally; We can not escape this. ~ Miguel Serrano,
163: ON READING AND WRITING

Of all that is written I love only what a man has
written with his blood. Write with blood, and you
will experience that blood is spirit.
It is not easily possible to understand the blood of
another: I hate reading idlers. Whoever knows the
reader will henceforth do nothing for the reader. Another century of readers-and the spirit itself will
stink.
That everyone may learn to read, in the long run
corrupts not only writing but also thinking. Once the
spirit was God, then he became man, and now he even
becomes rabble.
Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms does not
want to be read but to be learned by heart. In the
mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak: but
for that one must have long legs. Aphorisms should be
peaks-and those who are addressed, tall and lofty.
The air thin and pure, danger near, and the spirit full
of gay sarcasm: these go well together. I want to have
goblins around me, for I am courageous. Courage that
puts ghosts to flight creates goblins for itself: courage
wants to laugh.
I no longer feel as you do: this cloud which I see
beneath me, this blackness and gravity at which I
laugh-this is your thundercloud.
You look up when you feel the need for elevation.
And I look down because I am elevated. Who among
41

you can laugh and be elevated at the same time? Whoever climbs the highest mountains laughs at all tragic
plays and tragic seriousness.
Brave, unconcerned, mocking, violent-thus wisdom
wants us: she is a woman and always loves only a
warrior.
You say to me, "Life is hard to bear." But why
would you have your pride in the morning and your
resignation in the evening? Life is hard to bear; but do
not act so tenderly! We are all of us fair beasts of
burden, male and female asses. What do we have in
common with the rosebud, which trembles because a
drop of dew lies on it?
True, we love life, not because we are used to living
but because we are used to loving. There is always
some madness in love. But there is also always some
reason in madness.
And to me too, as I am well disposed toward life,
butterflies and soap bubbles and whatever among men
is of their kind seem to know most about happiness.
Seeing these light, foolish, delicate, mobile little souls
flutter-that seduces Zarathustra to tears and songs.
I would believe only in a god who could dance. And
when I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough,
profound, and solemn: it was the spirit of gravitythrough him all things fall.
Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter. Come,
let us kill the spirit of gravity!
I have learned to walk: ever since, I let myself run.
I have learned to fly: ever since, I do not want to be
pushed before moving along.
Now I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath
myself, now a god dances through me.
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
42
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, ON READING AND WRITING
,
164:The essence of Roosevelt’s leadership, I soon became convinced, lay in his enterprising use of the “bully pulpit,” a phrase he himself coined to describe the national platform the presidency provides to shape public sentiment and mobilize action. Early in Roosevelt’s tenure, Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook, joined a small group of friends in the president’s library to offer advice and criticism on a draft of his upcoming message to Congress. “He had just finished a paragraph of a distinctly ethical character,” Abbott recalled, “when he suddenly stopped, swung round in his swivel chair, and said, ‘I suppose my critics will call that preaching, but I have got such a bully pulpit.’ ” From this bully pulpit, Roosevelt would focus the charge of a national movement to apply an ethical framework, through government action, to the untrammeled growth of modern America. Roosevelt understood from the outset that this task hinged upon the need to develop powerfully reciprocal relationships with members of the national press. He called them by their first names, invited them to meals, took questions during his midday shave, welcomed their company at day’s end while he signed correspondence, and designated, for the first time, a special room for them in the West Wing. He brought them aboard his private railroad car during his regular swings around the country. At every village station, he reached the hearts of the gathered crowds with homespun language, aphorisms, and direct moral appeals. Accompanying reporters then extended the reach of Roosevelt’s words in national publications. Such extraordinary rapport with the press did not stem from calculation alone. Long before and after he was president, Roosevelt was an author and historian. From an early age, he read as he breathed. He knew and revered writers, and his relationship with journalists was authentically collegial. In a sense, he was one of them. While exploring Roosevelt’s relationship with the press, I was especially drawn to the remarkably rich connections he developed with a team of journalists—including Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White—all working at McClure’s magazine, the most influential contemporary progressive publication. The restless enthusiasm and manic energy of their publisher and editor, S. S. McClure, infused the magazine with “a spark of genius,” even as he suffered from periodic nervous breakdowns. “The story is the thing,” Sam McClure responded when asked to account for the methodology behind his publication. He wanted his writers to begin their research without preconceived notions, to carry their readers through their own process of discovery. As they educated themselves about the social and economic inequities rampant in the wake of teeming industrialization, so they educated the entire country. Together, these investigative journalists, who would later appropriate Roosevelt’s derogatory term “muckraker” as “a badge of honor,” produced a series of exposés that uncovered the invisible web of corruption linking politics to business. McClure’s formula—giving his writers the time and resources they needed to produce extended, intensively researched articles—was soon adopted by rival magazines, creating what many considered a golden age of journalism. Collectively, this generation of gifted writers ushered in a new mode of investigative reporting that provided the necessary conditions to make a genuine bully pulpit of the American presidency. “It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the progressive mind was characteristically a journalistic mind,” the historian Richard Hofstadter observed, “and that its characteristic contribution was that of the socially responsible reporter-reformer. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin,
165:Sunflower Face
What grief is melting in your thoughtful eyes,
You with the face of the Sun? What song of sorrow
Is wafting in your tremulous lips? But perhaps
This song and grief are not yours, in fact—maybe,
I am passing on to you the fire in my chest, although
They suit you too so well—this lament of my boat
Crashing in the sea at your wharf—I did so sway
The billows that it might not enter your ears-When a solar system stops its momentum on its own,
When the dry Ganga of the Milky Way burns up
Like a sandy channel and writhes for water,
O Sunflower Face, will you come and open your ears
Like a whirlwind that tears away the roots of my vowels
And consonants, which keep flowing like a mere song?
Till now I haven't drawn even a little painting for you,
Nor have I composed a simple light song for you-And yet you have guarded the western gateway of kindness,
And guarded this sea-wharf, where my corpse is floating,
As well as the pain I have cherished like under-water fire
O Sunflower Face, words of curse are indeed on the tip
Of my tongue, sharp words seething with hellish torture,
I shall not sprinkle these singeing words on anybody's head,
Lest they should boomerang some day or other, and so
Thinking, I remain dumb even now, as always.
Look! These sea waves sometimes in the morning lie
Without motion, their vast expanse seems like a bed-sheet,
The folds will not move, they may beckon as if to tempt
Us to lie on them, hearing the call we may take a close look,
And if our eyes are O.K, in that stillness we shall learn
The thirst of the sea, the depth of the sea, the orgasmic spell
Of the sea, the cruelty of the sea, the hypnotic electric measure
Of the sea. The sea's measure is the glory of the strong goddess
Who saved the threefold powers that lay crying and crawling
In the primordial waters of primal energy at the time of Creation.
As we invoke and awaken that Sea-mother, giving her life,
Installing her figure drawn on the floor, as it were,
What is it that you whisper into my ears, strange!
31
That this is the truth, that this alone is truth, do you
Whisper into my ears? Touching my cheek, you
Pour into my ears this electric charm—the spell
Of the wounds of love and affection and sweetness,
That assumes a form and pulsates here on the floor.
Sunflower Face, I am not just drawing your picture
In colours--but merely trying to mark a figure
In my home courtyard with the fresh powder of
This lengthening moonlight, just for nothing at all-Only trying to draw a new world, just like that-Seeking colours, singing the colours. Accept this,
O Sunflower Face!
Surajmukhi, the top of your head, your forehead,
Your eyebrows, your eyelids that close and open
The temples of your eyeballs, letting out a glow,
Your eyelashes that bend down along with them,
Your cheeks, bulging underneath, full of blood,
Your nostrils that keep humming the scent of birds,
Your lips blossoming below, your teeth in between,
With a little sheen, O Sunflower Face, as I inhale
The magnificence of your face, I can hear
The petals of your opening flower bud,
The gentle smile that breaks into an awareness,
And the rays of light that radiate from it, far and wide.
Is it the early soft vernal season of the rustling bosoms
Is it the hard winter of the rubbing hands and palms
Or is it the summer when toes begin to tinkle:
Tell me, Surajmukhi, how do the pictures drawn by
Your Sun turn into such strange, unexpected visions?
The thoughts that arise from your honeyed navel—
The cryptic magic formulas, the aphorisms, axioms,
How do they become the enveloping black hole enclosed
Within the very structure of this overarching universe?
Is it the fertile autumnal splendour of your cool thighs
Or the arrival of rains recalled by the roots of your arms
Or the full spring that puts out tender shoots from head to foot
Or the cycle of six seasons, stirring the mind and the body alike?
Is it not so, when the figure is lit up by the sprinkling of powders
32
Of different colours, isn't it? Are they not the fulsome bosoms
Of motherhood, aren't they? Are they not the sacred weapons
Carried in her sixty-four hands, aren't they? Are they not the stars,
Inexhaustible in enumeration, taking the shape of truth in her breasts?
Are they not sprouts of adolescent hopes thrilled at every touch?
Are they not the desires arising from the flow of fresh fragrance?
Clearing the yard of loose sand, making a circle, smearing it
With cow dung, decking it up as holy ground, the hand of joy
Picks up the bowl of powders, and sprinkling them on the ground
Draws something, writes something; is it not the swing and sway
Of strings of waves blossoming among the stream of colors,
Isn't it? The bloody points of spears are aimed at some and
Whirr fast, and blow the conch, with vigour and straight upward,
Aren't they? Hearing it, unable to bear it, do they not seek shelter,
Don't they? There comes the Kolam, enlivened rage, there comes
An awakened world, a resurrected time, there comes, there comes
Interiorized in wrath, beaming forth a tender smile, singing of colours,
Wiping off the colours, entering the grove to put on grace,
There comes the Sunflower Face!
~ Ayyappa Paniker,
166:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study
   Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.
   The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.
   Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.
   Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.
   Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.
   Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.
   The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.
   The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.
   Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.
   The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.
   The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.
   The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.
   Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.
   The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.
   The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.
   The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.
   The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.
   The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.
   Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.
   The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.
   The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.
   Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.
   The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.
   The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.
   The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.
   The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.
   Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.
   Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.
   Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.
   Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.
   The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.
   The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.
   The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.
   The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.
   The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.
   The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.
   Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.
   Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.
   Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.
   The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.
   The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.
   Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.
   Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.
   Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.
   First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.
   Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.
   The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.
   The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.
   The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants #reading list,
167:DRAMATIS PERSONAE
King Charles I.
Queen Henrietta.
Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Wentworth, Earl of Strafford.
Lord Cottington.
Lord Weston.
Lord Coventry.
Williams, Bishop of Lincoln.
Secretary Lyttelton.
Juxon.
St. John.
Archy, the Court Fool.
Hampden.
Pym.
Cromwell.
Cromwell's Daughter.
Sir Harry Vane the younger.
Leighton.
Bastwick.
Prynne.
Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, Citizens, Pursuivants, Marshalsmen, Law Students, Judges, Clerk.

Scene I.
---The Masque of the Inns of Court.
A Pursuivant.
Place, for the Marshal of the Masque!
First Citizen.
What thinkest thou of this quaint masque which turns,
Like morning from the shadow of the night,
The night to day, and London to a place
Of peace and joy?
Second Citizen.
         And Hell to Heaven.
Eight years are gone,
And they seem hours, since in this populous street
I trod on grass made green by summer's rain,
For the red plague kept state within that palace
Where now that vanity reigns. In nine years more
The roots will be refreshed with civil blood;
And thank the mercy of insulted Heaven
That sin and wrongs wound, as an orphan's cry,
The patience of the great Avenger's ear.
A Youth.
Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see,
Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden
By God or man;'tis like the bright procession
Of skiey visions in a solemn dream
From which men wake as from a Paradise,
And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life.
If God be good, wherefore should this be evil?
And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw
Unseasonable poison from the flowers
Which bloom so rarely in this barren world?
Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present
Dark as the future!. . .
When Avarice and Tyranny, vigilant Fear,
And open-eyed Conspiracy lie sleeping
As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts
Waken to worship Him who giveth joys
With His own gift.
Second Citizen.
How young art thou in this old age of time!
How green in this gray world? Canst thou discern
The signs of seasons, yet perceive no hint
Of change in that stage-scene in which thou art
Not a spectator but an actor? or
Art thou a puppet moved by [enginery]?
The day that dawns in fire will die in storms,
Even though the noon be calm. My travel's done,
Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found
My inn of lasting rest; but thou must still
Be journeying on in this inclement air.
Wrap thy old cloak about thy back;
Nor leave the broad and plain and beaten road,
Although no flowers smile on the trodden dust,
For the violet paths of pleasure. This Charles the First
Rose like the equinoctial sun, . . .
By vapours, through whose threatening ominous veil
Darting his altered influence he has gained
This height of noonfrom which he must decline
Amid the darkness of conflicting storms,
To dank extinction and to latest night . . .
There goes
The apostate Strafford; he whose titles
whispered aphorisms
From Machiavel and Bacon: and, if Judas
Had been as brazen and as bold as he
First Citizen.
                     That
Is the Archbishop.
Second Citizen.
          Rather say the Pope:
London will be soon his Rome: he walks
As if he trod upon the heads of men:
He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold;
Beside him moves the Babylonian woman
Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow,
Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,
Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge.
Third Citizen
(lifting up his eyes).
Good Lord! rain it down upon him! . . .
Amid her ladies walks the papist queen,
As if her nice feet scorned our English earth.
The Canaanitish Jezebel! I would be
A dog if I might tear her with my teeth!
There's old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke,
Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry,
And others who make base their English breed
By vile participation of their honours
With papists, atheists, tyrants, and apostates.
When lawyers masque 'tis time for honest men
To strip the vizor from their purposes.
A seasonable time for masquers this!
When Englishmen and Protestants should sit
. . . dust on their dishonoured heads,
To avert the wrath of Him whose scourge is felt
For the great sins which have drawn down from Heaven
. . . and foreign overthrow.
The remnant of the martyred saints in Rochefort
Have been abandoned by their faithless allies
To that idolatrous and adulterous torturer
Lewis of France,the Palatinate is lost Enter Leighton (who has been branded in the face) and Bastwick.
Canst thou be -- art thou? --

Leighton.
              I was Leighton: what
I am thou seest. And yet turn thine eyes,
And with thy memory look on thy friend's mind,
Which is unchanged, and where is written deep
The sentence of my judge.

Third Citizen.
              Are these the marks with which
Laud thinks to improve the image of his Maker
Stamped on the face of man? Curses upon him,
The impious tyrant!

Second Citizen.
          It is said besides
That lewd and papist drunkards may profane
The Sabbath with their...
And has permitted that most heathenish custom
Of dancing round a pole dressed up with wreaths
On May-day.
A man who thus twice crucifies his God
May well...his brother.In my mind, friend,
The root of all this ill is prelacy.
I would cut up the root.

Third Citizen.
             And by what means?

Second Citizen.
Smiting each Bishop under the fifth rib.

Third Citizen.
You seem to know the vulnerable place
Of these same crocodiles.

Second Citizen.
              I learnt it in
Egyptian bondage, sir. Your worm of Nile
Betrays not with its flattering tears like they;
For, when they cannot kill, they whine and weep.
Nor is it half so greedy of men's bodies
As they of soul and all; nor does it wallow
In slime as they in simony and lies
And close lusts of the flesh.

A Marshalsman.
                Give place, give place!
You torch-bearers, advance to the great gate,
And then attend the Marshal of the Masque
Into the Royal presence.

A Law Student.
             What thinkest thou
Of this quaint show of ours, my agd friend?
Even now we see the redness of the torches
Inflame the night to the eastward, and the clarions
[Gasp?] to us on the wind's wave. It comes!
And their sounds, floating hither round the pageant,
Rouse up the astonished air.

First Citizen.
I will not think but that our country's wounds
May yet be healed. The king is just and gracious,
Though wicked counsels now pervert his will:
These once cast off

Second Citizen.
           As adders cast their skins
And keep their venom, so kings often change;
Councils and counsellors hang on one another,
Hiding the loathsome
Like the base patchwork of a leper's rags.

The Youth.
Oh, still those dissonant thoughts!List how the music
Grows on the enchanted air! And see, the torches
Restlessly flashing, and the crowd divided
Like waves before an admiral's prow!

A Marshalsman.
                    Give place
To the Marshal of the Masque!

A Pursuivant.
                Room for the King!

The Youth.
How glorious! See those thronging chariots
Rolling, like painted clouds before the wind,
Behind their solemn steeds: how some are shaped
Like curved sea-shells dyed by the azure depths
Of Indian seas; some like the new-born moon;
And some like cars in which the Romans climbed
(Canopied by Victory's eagle-wings outspread)
The CapitolianSee how gloriously
The mettled horses in the torchlight stir
Their gallant riders, while they check their pride,
Like shapes of some diviner element
Than English air, and beings nobler than
The envious and admiring multitude.

Second Citizen.
Ay, there they are
Nobles, and sons of nobles, patentees,
Monopolists, and stewards of this poor farm,
On whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows,
Here is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan,
Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart.
These are the lilies glorious as Solomon,
Who toil not, neither do they spin,unless
It be the webs they catch poor rogues withal.
Here is the surfeit which to them who earn
The ****rd wages of the earth, scarce leaves
The tithe that will support them till they crawl
Back to her cold hard bosom. Here is health
Followed by grim disease, glory by shame,
Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want,
And England's sin by England's punishment.
And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone,
Lo, giving substance to my words, behold
At once the sign and the thing signified
A troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts,
Horsed upon stumbling jades, carted with dung,
Dragged for a day from cellars and low cabins
And rotten hiding-holes, to point the moral
Of this presentment, and bring up the rear
Of painted pomp with misery!

The Youth.
               'Tis but
The anti-masque, and serves as discords do
In sweetest music. Who would love May flowers
If they succeeded not to Winter's flaw;
Or day unchanged by night; or joy itself
Without the touch of sorrow?

Second Citizen.
               I and thou

A Marshalsman.
Place, give place!

Scene II.
A Chamber in Whitehall. Enter the King, Queen, Laud, Lord Strafford, Lord Cottington, and other Lords;Archy ; also St. John, with some Gentlemen of the Inns of Court.

King.
Thanks, gentlemen. I heartily accept
This token of your service: your gay masque
Was performed gallantly. And it shows well
When subjects twine such flowers of [observance?]
With the sharp thorns that deck the English crown.
A gentle heart enjoys what it confers,
Even as it suffers that which it inflicts,
Though Justice guides the stroke.
Accept my hearty thanks.

Queen.
             And gentlemen,
Call your poor Queen your debtor. Your quaint pageant
Rose on me like the figures of past years,
Treading their still path back to infancy,
More beautiful and mild as they draw nearer
The quiet cradle. I could have almost wept
To think I was in Paris, where these shows
Are well devisedsuch as I was ere yet
My young heart shared a portion of the burthen,
The careful weight, of this great monarchy.
There, gentlemen, between the sovereign's pleasure
And that which it regards, no clamour lifts
Its proud interposition.
In Paris ribald censurers dare not move
Their poisonous tongues against these sinless sports;
And his smile
Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do
If...Take my heart's thanks: add them, gentlemen,
To those good words which, were he King of France,
My royal lord would turn to golden deeds.

St. John.
Madam, the love of Englishmen can make
The lightest favour of their lawful king
Outweigh a despot's.We humbly take our leaves,
Enriched by smiles which France can never buy.

[Exeunt St. John and the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court.

King.
My Lord Archbishop,
Mark you what spirit sits in St. John's eyes?
Methinks it is too saucy for this presence.

Archy.
Yes, pray your Grace look: for, like an unsophisticated [eye] sees everything upside down, you who are wise will discern the shadow of an idiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet setting springes to catch woodcocks in haymaking time. Poor Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the error of his age, and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance of God forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that deep eye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and weighing words out between king and subjects. One scale is full of promises, and the other full of protestations: and then another devil creeps behind the first out of the dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer's brain, and takes the bandage from the other's eyes, and throws a sword into the left-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord Essex's there.

Strafford.
A rod in pickle for the Fool's back!

Archy.
Ay, and some are now smiling whose tears will make the brine; for the Fool sees--

Strafford.
Insolent! You shall have your coat turned and be whipped out of the palace for this.

Archy.
When all the fools are whipped, and all the Protestant writers, while the knaves are whipping the fools ever since a thief was set to catch a thief. If all turncoats were whipped out of palaces, poor Archy would be disgraced in good company. Let the knaves whip the fools, and all the fools laugh at it. [Let the] wise and godly slit each other's noses and ears (having no need of any sense of discernment in their craft); and the knaves, to marshal them, join in a procession to Bedlam, to entreat the madmen to omit their sublime Platonic contemplations, and manage the state of England. Let all the honest men who lie [pinched?] up at the prisons or the pillories, in custody of the pursuivants of the High-Commission Court, marshal them.

Enter Secretary Lyttelton, with papers.

King
(looking over the papers).
These stiff Scots
His Grace of Canterbury must take order
To force under the Church's yoke.You, Wentworth,
Shall be myself in Ireland, and shall add
Your wisdom, gentleness, and energy,
To what in me were wanting.My Lord Weston,
Look that those merchants draw not without loss
Their bullion from the Tower; and, on the payment
Of shipmoney, take fullest compensation
For violation of our royal forests,
Whose limits, from neglect, have been o'ergrown
With cottages and cornfields. The uttermost
Farthing exact from those who claim exemption
From knighthood: that which once was a reward
Shall thus be made a punishment, that subjects
May know how majesty can wear at will
The rugged mood.My Lord of Coventry,
Lay my command upon the Courts below
That bail be not accepted for the prisoners
Under the warrant of the Star Chamber.
The people shall not find the stubbornness
Of Parliament a cheap or easy method
Of dealing with their rightful sovereign:
And doubt not this, my Lord of Coventry,
We will find time and place for fit rebuke.
My Lord of Canterbury.

Archy.
            The fool is here.

Laud.
I crave permission of your Majesty
To order that this insolent fellow be
Chastised: he mocks the sacred character,
Scoffs at the state, and--

King.
              What, my Archy?
He mocks and mimics all he sees and hears,
Yet with a quaint and graceful licencePrithee
For this once do not as Prynne would, were he
Primate of England. With your Grace's leave,
He lives in his own world; and, like a parrot
Hung in his gilded prison from the window
Of a queen's bower over the public way,
Blasphemes with a bird's mind:his words, like arrows
Which know no aim beyond the archer's wit,
Strike sometimes what eludes philosophy.
(To Archy.)
Go, sirrah, and repent of your offence
Ten minutes in the rain; be it your penance
To bring news how the world goes there.

[Exit Archy.
                      Poor Archy!
He weaves about himself a world of mirth
Out of the wreck of ours.

Laud.
I take with patience, as my Master did,
All scoffs permitted from above.

King.
                 My lord,
Pray overlook these papers. Archy's words
Had wings, but these have talons.

Queen.
                  And the lion
That wears them must be tamed. My dearest lord,
I see the new-born courage in your eye
Armed to strike dead the Spirit of the Time,
Which spurs to rage the many-headed beast.
Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve,
And it were better thou hadst still remained
The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs
The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer;
And Opportunity, that empty wolf,
Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions
Even to the disposition of thy purpose,
And be that tempered as the Ebro's steel;
And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,
Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace,
And not betray thee with a traitor's kiss,
As when she keeps the company of rebels,
Who think that she is Fear. This do, lest we
Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle
In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream
Out of our worshipped state.

King.
               Belovd friend,
God is my witness that this weight of power,
Which He sets me my earthly task to wield.
Under His law, is my delight and pride
Only because thou lovest that and me.
For a king bears the office of a God
To all the under world; and to his God
Alone he must deliver up his trust,
Unshorn of its permitted attributes.
[It seems] now as the baser elements
Had mutinied against the golden sun
That kindles them to harmony and quells
Their self-destroying rapine. The wild million
Strike at the eye that guides them; like as humours
Of the distempered body that conspire
Against the spirit of life throned in the heart,
And thus become the prey of one another,
And last of death

Strafford.
That which would be ambition in a subject
Is duty in a sovereign; for on him,
As on a keystone, hangs the arch of life,
Whose safety is its strength. Degree and form,
And all that makes the age of reasoning man
More memorable than a beast's, depend on this--
That Right should fence itself inviolably
With Power; in which respect the state of England
From usurpation by the insolent commons
Cries for reform.
Get treason, and spare treasure. Fee with coin
The loudest murmurers; feed with jealousies
Opposing factions,-- be thyself of none;
And borrow gold of many, for those who lend
Will serve thee till thou payest them; and thus
Keep the fierce spirit of the hour at bay,
Till time, and its coming generations
Of nights and days unborn, bring some one chance,...
Or war or pestilence or Nature's self,--
By some distemperature or terrible sign,
Be as an arbiter betwixt themselves.
...Nor let your Majesty
Doubt here the peril of the unseen event.
How did your brother Kings, coheritors
In your high interest in the subject earth,
Rise past such troubles to that height of power
Where now they sit, and awfully serene
Smile on the trembling world? Such popular storms
Philip the Second of Spain, this Lewis of France,
And late the German head of many bodies,
And every petty lord of Italy,
Quelled or by arts or arms. Is England poorer
Or feebler? or art thou who wield'st her power
Tamer than they? or shall this island be--
[Girdled] by its inviolable waters
To the world present and the world to come
Sole pattern of extinguished monarchy?
Not if thou dost as I would have thee do.

King.
Your words shall be my deeds:
You speak the image of my thought. My friend
(If Kings can have a friend, I call thee so),
Beyond the large commission which [belongs]
Under the great seal of the realm, take this:
And, for some obvious reasons, let there be
No seal on it, except my kingly word
And honour as I am a gentleman.
Be -- as thou art within my heart and mind--
Another self, here and in Ireland:
Do what thou judgest well, take amplest licence,
And stick not even at questionable means.
Hear me, Wentworth. My word is as a wall
Between thee and this world thine enemy
That hates thee, for thou lovest me.

Strafford.
                    I own
No friend but thee, no enemies but thine:
Thy lightest thought is my eternal law.
How weak, how short, is life to pay

King.
                    Peace, peace.
Thou ow'st me nothing yet.
              (To Laud.)
My lord, what say
Those papers?

Laud.
Your Majesty has ever interposed,
In lenity towards your native soil,
Between the heavy vengeance of the Church
And Scotland. Mark the consequence of warming
This brood of northern vipers in your bosom.
The rabble, instructed no doubt
By Loudon, Lindsay, Hume, and false Argyll
(For the waves never menace heaven until
Scourged by the wind's invisible tyranny),
Have in the very temple of the Lord
Done outrage to His chosen ministers.
They scorn the liturgy of the Holy Church,
Refuse to obey her canons, and deny
The apostolic power with which the Spirit
Has filled its elect vessels, even from him
Who held the keys with power to loose and bind,
To him who now pleads in this royal presence.
Let ample powers and new instructions be
Sent to the High Commissioners in Scotland.
To death, imprisonment, and confiscation,
Add torture, add the ruin of the kindred
Of the offender, add the brand of infamy,
Add mutilation: and if this suffice not,
Unleash the sword and fire, that in their thirst
They may lick up that scum of schismatics.
I laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring
What we possess, still prate of Christian peace,
As if those dreadful arbitrating messengers
Which play the part of God 'twixt right and wrong,
Should be let loose against the innocent sleep
Of templed cities and the smiling fields,
For some poor argument of policy
Which touches our own profit or our pride
(Where it indeed were Christian charity
To turn the cheek even to the smiter's hand):
And, when our great Redeemer, when our God,
When He who gave, accepted, and retained
Himself in propitiation of our sins,
Is scorned in His immediate ministry,
With hazard of the inestimable loss
Of all the truth and discipline which is
Salvation to the extremest generation
Of men innumerable, they talk of peace!
Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now:
For, by that Christ who came to bring a sword,
Not peace, upon the earth, and gave command
To His disciples at the Passover
That each should sell his robe and buy a sword,
Once strip that minister of naked wrath,
And it shall never sleep in peace again
Till Scotland bend or break.

King.
               My Lord Archbishop,
Do what thou wilt and what thou canst in this.
Thy earthly even as thy heavenly King
Gives thee large power in his unquiet realm.
But we want money, and my mind misgives me
That for so great an enterprise, as yet,
We are unfurnished.

Strafford.
          Yet it may not long
Rest on our wills.

Cottington.
          The expenses
Of gathering shipmoney, and of distraining
For every petty rate (for we encounter
A desperate opposition inch by inch
In every warehouse and on every farm),
Have swallowed up the gross sum of the imposts;
So that, though felt as a most grievous scourge
Upon the land, they stand us in small stead
As touches the receipt.

Strafford.
            'Tis a conclusion
Most arithmetical: and thence you infer
Perhaps the assembling of a parliament.
Now, if a man should call his dearest enemies
To sit in licensed judgement on his life,
His Majesty might wisely take that course. [Aside to Cottington.

It is enough to expect from these lean imposts
That they perform the office of a scourge,
Without more profit. (Aloud.)
Fines and confiscations,
And a forced loan from the refractory city,
Will fill our coffers: and the golden love
Of loyal gentlemen and noble friends
For the worshipped father of our common country,
With contributions from the catholics,
Will make Rebellion pale in our excess.
Be these the expedients until time and wisdom
Shall frame a settled state of government.

Laud.
And weak expedients they! Have we not drained
All, till the...which seemed
A mine exhaustless?

Strafford.
          And the love which is,
If loyal hearts could turn their blood to gold.

Laud.
Both now grow barren: and I speak it not
As loving parliaments, which, as they have been
In the right hand of bold bad mighty kings
The scourges of the bleeding Church, I hate.
Methinks they scarcely can deserve our fear.

Strafford.
Oh! my dear liege, take back the wealth thou gavest:
With that, take all I held, but as in trust
For thee, of mine inheritance: leave me but
This unprovided body for thy service,
And a mind dedicated to no care
Except thy safety:-- but assemble not
A parliament. Hundreds will bring, like me,
Their fortunes, as they would their blood, before--

King.
No! thou who judgest them art but one. Alas!
We should be too much out of love with Heaven,
Did this vile world show many such as thee,
Thou perfect, just, and honourable man!
Never shall it be said that Charles of England
Stripped those he loved for fear of those he scorns;
Nor will he so much misbecome his throne
As to impoverish those who most adorn
And best defend it. That you urge, dear Strafford,
Inclines me rather--

Queen.
           To a parliament?
Is this thy firmness? and thou wilt preside
Over a knot of . . . censurers,
To the unswearing of thy best resolves,
And choose the worst, when the worst comes too soon?
Plight not the worst before the worst must come.
Oh, wilt thou smile whilst our ribald foes,
Dressed in their own usurped authority,
Sharpen their tongues on Henrietta's fame?
It is enough! Thou lovest me no more!
[Weeps.

King.
Oh, Henrietta!

[They talk apart.

Cottington
(to Laud).
       Money we have none:
And all the expedients of my Lord of Strafford
Will scarcely meet the arrears.

Laud.
                 Without delay
An army must be sent into the north;
Followed by a Commission of the Church,
With amplest power to quench in fire and blood,
And tears and terror, and the pity of hell,
The intenser wrath of Heresy. God will give
Victory; and victory over Scotland give
The lion England tamed into our hands.
That will lend power, and power bring gold.

Cottington.
                   Meanwhile
We must begin first where your Grace leaves off.
Gold must give power, or

Laud.
              I am not averse
From the assembling of a parliament.
Strong actions and smooth words might teach them soon
The lesson to obey. And are they not
A bubble fashioned by the monarch's mouth,
The birth of one light breath? If they serve no purpose,
A word dissolves them.

Strafford.
            The engine of parliaments
Might be deferred until I can bring over
The Irish regiments: they will serve to assure
The issue of the war against the Scots.
And, this game won -- which if lost, all is lost--
Gather these chosen leaders of the rebels,
And call them, if you will, a parliament.

King.
Oh, be our feet still tardy to shed blood,
Guilty though it may be! I would still spare
The stubborn country of my birth, and ward
From countenances which I loved in youth
The wrathful Church's lacerating hand.
(To Laud.)
Have you o'erlooked the other articles?

[Re-enter Archy.

Laud.
Hazlerig, Hampden, Pym, young Harry Vane,
Cromwell, and other rebels of less note,
Intend to sail with the next favouring wind
For the Plantations.

Archy.
           Where they think to found
A commonwealth like Gonzalo's in the play,
Gynaecocoenic and pantisocratic.

King.
What's that, sirrah?

Archy.
           New devil's politics.
Hell is the pattern of all commonwealths:
Lucifer was the first republican.
Will you hear Merlin's prophecy, how three [posts?]
'In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full,
Shall sail round the world, and come back again:
Shall sail round the world in a brainless skull,
And come back again when the moon is at full:'
When, in spite of the Church,
They will hear homilies of whatever length
Or form they please.

[Cottington?]
So please your Majesty to sign this order
For their detention.

Archy.
If your Majesty were tormented night and day by fever, gout, rheumatism, and stone, and asthma, etc., and you found these diseases had secretly entered into a conspiracy to abandon you, should you think it necessary to lay an embargo on the port by which they meant to dispeople your unquiet kingdom of man?

King.
If fear were made for kings, the Fool mocks wisely; But in this case --(writing.)
Here, my lord, take the warrant, And see it duly executed forthwith.--
That imp of malice and mockery shall be punished.

[Exeunt all but King, Queen, and Archy.

Archy.
Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused by the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty without waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud who would reduce a verdict of 'guilty, death,' by famine, if it were impregnable by compositionall impannelled against poor Archy for presenting them bitter physic the last day of the holidays.

Queen.
Is the rain over, sirrah?

King.
              When it rains
And the sun shines, 'twill rain again to-morrow:
And therefore never smile till you've done crying.

Archy.
But 'tis all over now: like the April anger of woman, the gentle sky has wept itself serene.

Queen.
What news abroad? how looks the world this morning?

Archy.
Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers. There's a rainbow in the sky. Let your Majesty look at it, for
'A rainbow in the morning
Is the shepherd's warning;'
and the flocks of which you are the pastor are scattered among the mountain-tops, where every drop of water is a flake of snow, and the breath of May pierces like a January blast.

King.
The sheep have mistaken the wolf for their shepherd, my poor boy; and the shepherd, the wolves for their watchdogs.

Queen.
But the rainbow was a good sign, Archy: it says that the waters of the deluge are gone, and can return no more.

Archy.
Ay, the salt-water one: but that of tears and blood must yet come down, and that of fire follow, if there be any truth in lies.-- The rainbow hung over the city with all its shops,...and churches, from north to south, like a bridge of congregated lightning pieced by the masonry of heaven like a balance in which the angel that distributes the coming hour was weighing that heavy one whose poise is now felt in the lightest hearts, before it bows the proudest heads under the meanest feet.

Queen.
Who taught you this trash, sirrah?

Archy.
A torn leaf out of an old book trampled in the dirt.--
But for the rainbow.
It moved as the sun moved, and...until the top of the
Tower...of a cloud through its left-hand tip, and
Lambeth Palace look as dark as a rock before the other.
Methought I saw a crown figured upon one tip, and a mitre on the other.
So, as I had heard treasures were found where the rainbow quenches its points upon the earth, I set off, and at the Tower --
But I shall not tell your Majesty what I found close to the closet-window on which the rainbow had glimmered.

King.
Speak: I will make my Fool my conscience.

Archy.
Then conscience is a fool.I saw there a cat caught in a rat-trap. I heard the rats squeak behind the wainscots: it seemed to me that the very mice were consulting on the manner of her death.

Queen.
Archy is shrewd and bitter.

Archy.
Like the season, So blow the winds.But at the other end of the rainbow, where the gray rain was tempered along the grass and leaves by a tender interfusion of violet and gold in the meadows beyond Lambeth, what think you that I found instead of a mitre?

King.
Vane's wits perhaps.

Archy.
Something as vain. I saw a gross vapour hovering in a stinking ditch over the carcass of a dead ****, some rotten rags, and broken dishesthe wrecks of what once administered to the stuffing-out and the ornament of a worm of worms. His Grace of Canterbury expects to enter the New Jerusalem some Palm Sunday in triumph on the ghost of this ****.

Queen.
Enough, enough! Go desire Lady Jane
She place my lute, together with the music
Mari received last week from Italy,
In my boudoir, and

[Exit Archy.

King.
          I'll go in.

Queen.
                 My beloved lord,
Have you not noted that the Fool of late
Has lost his careless mirth, and that his words
Sound like the echoes of our saddest fears?
What can it mean? I should be loth to think
Some factious slave had tutored him.

King.
                 Oh, no!
He is but Occasion's pupil. Partly 'tis
That our minds piece the vacant intervals
Of his wild words with their own fashioning,
As in the imagery of summer clouds,
Or coals of the winter fire, idlers find
The perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts:
And partly, that the terrors of the time
Are sown by wandering Rumour in all spirits;
And in the lightest and the least, may best
Be seen the current of the coming wind.

Queen.
Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts.
Come, I will sing to you; let us go try
These airs from Italy; and, as we pass
The gallery, we'll decide where that Correggio
Shall hangthe Virgin Mother
With her child, born the King of heaven and earth,
Whose reign is men's salvation. And you shall see
A cradled miniature of yourself asleep,
Stamped on the heart by never-erring love;
Liker than any Vandyke ever made,
A pattern to the unborn age of thee,
Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy
A thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow,
Did I not think that after we were dead
Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that
The cares we waste upon our heavy crown
Would make it light and glorious as a wreath
Of Heaven's beams for his dear innocent brow.

King.
Dear Henrietta!

Scene III.
The Star Chamber. Laud, Juxon, Strafford, and others, as Judges. Prynne as a Prisoner, and thenBastwick.

Laud.
Bring forth the prisoner Bastwick: let the clerk
Recite his sentence.

Clerk.
          'That he pay five thousand
Pounds to the king, lose both his ears, be branded
With red-hot iron on the cheek and forehead,
And be imprisoned within Lancaster Castle
During the pleasure of the Court.'

Laud.
                  Prisoner,
If you have aught to say wherefore this sentence
Should not be put into effect, now speak.

Juxon.
If you have aught to plead in mitigation,
Speak.

Bastwick.
   Thus, my lords. If, like the prelates, I
Were an invader of the royal power,
A public scorner of the word of God,
Profane, idolatrous, popish, superstitious,
Impious in heart and in tyrannic act,
Void of wit, honesty, and temperance;
If Satan were my lord, as theirs,our God
Pattern of all I should avoid to do;
Were I an enemy of my God and King
And of good men, as ye are;I should merit
Your fearful state and gilt prosperity,
Which, when ye wake from the last sleep, shall turn
To cowls and robes of everlasting fire.
But, as I am, I bid ye grudge me not
The only earthly favour ye can yield,
Or I think worth acceptance at your hands,
Scorn, mutilation, and imprisonment.
. . . even as my Master did,
Until Heaven's kingdom shall descend on earth,
Or earth be like a shadow in the light
Of Heaven absorbedsome few tumultuous years
Will pass, and leave no wreck of what opposes
His will whose will is power.

Laud.
Officer, take the prisoner from the bar,
And be his tongue slit for his insolence.

Bastwick.
While this hand holds a pen

Laud.
                Be his hands--

Juxon.
                      Stop!
Forbear, my lord! The tongue, which now can speak
No terror, would interpret, being dumb,
Heaven's thunder to our harm;...
And hands, which now write only their own shame,
With bleeding stumps might sign our blood away.

Laud.

Much more such 'mercy' among men would be,
Did all the ministers of Heaven's revenge
Flinch thus from earthly retribution. I
Could suffer what I would inflict.

[Exit Bastwick guarded.

                  Bring up
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln.

                (To Strafford.)
Know you not
That, in distraining for ten thousand pounds
Upon his books and furniture at Lincoln,
Were found these scandalous and seditious letters
Sent from one Osbaldistone, who is fled?
I speak it not as touching this poor person;
But of the office which should make it holy,
Were it as vile as it was ever spotless.
Mark too, my lord, that this expression strikes
His Majesty, if I misinterpret not.

Enter Bishop Williams guarded.

Strafford.
'Twere politic and just that Williams taste
The bitter fruit of his connection with
The schismatics. But you, my Lord Archbishop,
Who owed your first promotion to his favour,
Who grew beneath his smile

Laud.
               Would therefore beg
The office of his judge from this High Court,
That it shall seem, even as it is, that I,
In my assumption of this sacred robe,
Have put aside all worldly preference,
All sense of all distinction of all persons,
All thoughts but of the service of the Church.
Bishop of Lincoln!

Williams.
          Peace, proud hierarch!
I know my sentence, and I own it just.
Thou wilt repay me less than I deserve,
In stretching to the utmost. . .

Scene IV.
--Hampden, Pym, Cromwell, his Daughter, and young Sir Harry Vane.

Hampden.
England, farewell! thou, who hast been my cradle,
Shalt never be my dungeon or my grave!
I held what I inherited in thee
As pawn for that inheritance of freedom
Which thou hast sold for thy despoiler's smile:
How can I call thee England, or my country?
Does the wind hold?

Vane.
          The vanes sit steady
Upon the Abbey towers. The silver lightnings
Of the evening star, spite of the city's smoke,
Tell that the north wind reigns in the upper air.
Mark too that flock of fleecy-wingd clouds
Sailing athwart St. Margaret's.

Hampden.
                 Hail, fleet herald
Of tempest! that rude pilot who shall guide
Hearts free as his, to realms as pure as thee,
Beyond the shot of tyranny,
Beyond the webs of that swoln spider . . .
Beyond the curses, calumnies, and [lies?]
Of atheist priests! . . . And thou
Fair star, whose beam lies on the wide Atlantic,
Athwart its zones of tempest and of calm,
Bright as the path to a belovd home,
Oh, light us to the isles of the evening land!
Like floating Edens cradled in the glimmer
Of sunset, through the distant mist of years
Touched by departing hope, they gleam! lone regions,
Where Power's poor dupes and victims yet have never
Propitiated the savage fear of kings
With purest blood of noblest hearts; whose dew
Is yet unstained with tears of those who wake
To weep each day the wrongs on which it dawns;
Whose sacred silent air owns yet no echo
Of formal blasphemies; nor impious rites
Wrest man's free worship, from the God who loves,
To the poor worm who envies us His love!
Receive, thou young....of Paradise,
These exiles from the old and sinful world!....
This glorious clime, this firmament, whose lights
Dart mitigated influence through their veil
Of pale blue atmosphere; whose tears keep green
The pavement of this moist all-feeding earth;
This vaporous horizon, whose dim round
Is bastioned by the circumfluous sea,
Repelling invasion from the sacred towers,
Presses upon me like a dungeon's grate,
A low dark roof, a damp and narrow wall.
The boundless universe
Becomes a cell too narrow for the soul
That owns no master; while the loathliest ward
Of this wide prison, England, is a nest
Of cradling peace built on the mountain tops,
To which the eagle spirits of the free,
Which range through heaven and earth, and scorn the storm
Of time, and gaze upon the light of truth,
Return to brood on thoughts that cannot die
And cannot be repelled.
Like eaglets floating in the heaven of time,
They soar above their quarry, and shall stoop
Through palaces and temples thunderproof.

SCENE V

Archy.
I'll go live under the ivy that overgrows the terrace, and count the tears shed on its old [roots?] as the [wind?] plays the song of

'A widow bird sate mourning
Upon a wintry bough.'

[Sings]

Heigho! the lark and the owl!
One flies the morning, and one lulls the night:--
Only the nightingale, poor fond soul,
Sings like the fool through darkness and light.

'A widow bird sate mourning for her love
Upon a wintry bough;
The frozen wind crept on above,
The freezing stream below.

'There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
No flower upon the ground,
And little motion in the air
Except the mill-wheel's sound.'
Charles the First was designed in 1818, begun towards the close of 1819, resumed in January, and finally laid aside by June, 1822. It was published in part in the Posthumous Poems, 1824, and printed, in its present form (with the addition of some 530 lines), by Mr. William Michael Rossetti, 1870.

1.
Archy, the court fool of Charles I, is
both an unacknowledged prophet and, as King Charles claims, a weaver of "a world of mirth out of the wreck of ours."

  
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Charles The First
,

IN CHAPTERS [300/388]



  365 Integral Yoga
   10 Yoga
   5 Hinduism
   3 Poetry
   3 Philosophy
   2 Occultism
   1 Psychology
   1 Mysticism
   1 Fiction


  346 The Mother
   77 Satprem
   8 Swami Vivekananda
   3 Patanjali
   3 George Van Vrekhem
   2 Swami Krishnananda
   2 Sri Aurobindo
   2 Nolini Kanta Gupta


  275 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
   19 Agenda Vol 11
   11 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
   9 Agenda Vol 02
   7 Agenda Vol 10
   6 Agenda Vol 03
   6 Agenda Vol 01
   5 Raja-Yoga
   4 Agenda Vol 05
   3 The Secret Doctrine
   3 Preparing for the Miraculous
   3 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
   3 Agenda Vol 12
   3 Agenda Vol 04
   2 The Study and Practice of Yoga
   2 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
   2 Questions And Answers 1956
   2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
   2 Agenda Vol 09
   2 Agenda Vol 08
   2 Agenda Vol 07
   2 Agenda Vol 06


0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, in SABCL, Vol. 17, p. 89.
  Series Ten - To a Young Captain
  --
  Thoughts and aphorisms, in SABCL, Vol. 17, p. 94.
  Series Ten - To a Young Captain
  --
  You ought to study Sri Aurobindo's aphorisms a little more
  carefully. It would cure you of passing judgments.
  --
  Sri Aurobindo writes in one of his aphorisms:
  "Those who are deficient in the free, full and intelligent
  --
  Thoughts and aphorisms, in SABCL, Vol. 17, p. 100.
  Thoughts and aphorisms, in SABCL, Vol. 17, p. 99.
  Series Ten - To a Young Captain
  --
  at it once more. Continue your translation of the aphorisms; I
  shall send you more at a time for correction.
  --
  Thoughts and aphorisms, in SABCL, Vol. 17, p. 130.
  rather than a virtue, for I feel that I take them upon
  --
  Thoughts and aphorisms, in SABCL, Vol. 17, p. 89
  rigidity has little or no effect on spiritual development where the

0 1959-01-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   I am taking advantage of this situation to work. I have chosen the articles for the Bulletin. They are as follows: 1) Message. 2) To keep silent. 3) Can there be intermediary states between man and super-man? 4) The Anti-Divine. 5) What is the role of the spirit? 6) Karma (I have touched this one up to make it less personal). 7) The Worship of the Supreme in Matter. Now I would like to prepare the first twelve aphorisms3 for printing. But as you have not yet revised the last two, I am sending them to you. Could you do them when you have finished what you are doing for the Bulletin? It is not urgent, take your time. Do not disturb your real work for this in any way. For, in my eyes, this work of inner liberation is much more important.
   You will find in this letter a little money. I thought you might need it for your stamps, etc.
  --
   The French translation of Sri Aurobindo's Thoughts and aphorisms.
   ***

0 1959-01-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   I would like very much to return to Pondicherry for the February Darshan and once again begin working for you. Today I am sending a second lot to Pavitra and tomorrow I will start on the aphorisms, for I do not want to make you wait any longer. I will send a third and final lot to Pavitra by the end of the month, in time for printing. I am very touched, sweet Mother, by your attention and the money you are sending me.
   Sweet Mother, may my entire life be at your service, may my entire being belong to you. I owe you everything.
  --
   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 just 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 1959-05-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   The aphorisms will be ready tomorrow.
   I have nothing more to add.

0 1959-11-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   Thoughts and aphorisms:
   'Cruelty transfigured becomes Love that is intolerable ecstasy...'

0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   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 consciousness it fills the body with consciousness.

0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   Speaking of which, I looked at Ts most recent questions on the aphorisms again. All these children havent the least sense of humor, so Sri Aurobindos paradoxes throw them into a kind of despair! The last aphorism went something like this: When I could read a wearisome book from one end to the other with pleasure, then I knew I had conquered my mind.2 So T asked me How can you read a wearisome book with pleasure?!! I had to explain it to her. And on top of that, I have to take on a rather serious tone, for were I to reply in the same ironic fashion, they would be totally drowned! It throws them into a terrible confusion!
   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 just the opposite.

0 1961-01-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The notebook in which a young woman disciple asked questions on Sri Aurobindo's Thoughts and aphorisms. Later, Mother preferred answering verbally Satprem's questions on the aphorisms. This allowed her to speak of her experiences freely without the restrictions imposed by a written reply. These 'Commentaries on the aphorisms' were later partially published in the Bulletin under the title Propos. Here they are republished chronologically in their unabridged form.
   Where Sri Aurobindo's body lies, in the Ashram courtyard.

0 1961-01-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I have a stack of unread letters this high and an even bigger stack Ive read but havent answered. How can I work on the aphorisms when I am constantly hounded by people pulling on me simply because they have written! If I dont answer immediately, they say (not in words, but ): So youre not answering my letter!
   These are not very favorable conditions!
  --
   Wouldnt it be better if each time you answered these questions on the aphorisms verbally?
   Ah, thats always better! With pencil and paper I have to look at what Im writing and it holds me back like a leash.
  --
   Sri Aurobindo's aphorisms appear in the Cent. Ed. Vol. XVII, pp. 79-159.
   Later, Satprem asked Mother, 'Is it a single vibration that CAN REPEAT itself endlessly or that REPEATS itself endlessly?' Mother replied: 'I meant several things at once. This single vibration is in static latency everywhere but when you realize it consciously you have the power to make it active wherever you direct it; that is, one doesn't "move" something, but makes it active by the insistence of the consciousness wherever you focus it.'

0 1961-01-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Mother looks at Ts questions on Sri Aurobindos aphorisms.)
   53The quarrels of religious sects are like the disputing of pots, which shall be alone allowed to hold the immortalizing nectar. Let them dispute, but the thing for us is to get at the nectar in whatever pot and attain immortality.

0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Mother comes in with T.'s notebook of questions on Sri Aurobindo's aphorisms.)
   55Be wide in me, O Varuna; be mighty in me, O Indra; O Sun, be very bright and luminous; O Moon, be full of charm and sweetness. Be fierce and terrible, O Rudra; be impetuous and swift, O Maruts; be strong and bold, O Aryama; be voluptuous and pleasurable, O Bhaga; be tender and kind and loving and passionate, O Mitra. Be bright and revealing, O Dawn; O Night, be solemn and pregnant. O Life, be full, ready and buoyant; O Death, lead my steps from mansion to mansion. Harmonise all these, O Brahmanaspati. Let me not be subject to these gods, O Kali.1

0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   What are we working on today? (Mother looks at Sri Aurobindos aphorisms) Ive already begun replying!
   Already!

0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Some fragments of this conversation were originally published in Mother's 'Commentaries on the aphorisms' of Sri Aurobindo. Considering it too personal, Mother had not wanted the unabridged text to appear even in her Agenda. However, we felt it should be kept. This conversation's starting point was the following aphorism:)
   59One of the greatest comforts of religion is that you can get hold of God sometimes and give him a satisfactory beating. People mock at the folly of savages who beat their gods when their prayers are not answered; but it is the mockers who are the fools and the savages.

0 1961-05-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The notebook of a disciple who asks questions on the aphorisms which Mother 'must' answer regularly.
   ***

0 1961-06-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   You know, there comes a time when, really, you can no longer say anything; you feel that whatever you say is, if not absolute rubbish, then the next thing to it, and that in practice its best to keep silent. Thats the difficulty. And in some of these aphorisms you get the feeling that he has suddenly captured something beyondbeyond anything which can be thought. So what to do?
   (silence)

0 1961-07-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Mother takes up Thoughts and aphorisms.)
   Have you brought a question?
  --
   Ah! I have seen T., who told me she was finding it too difficult to ask questions [on Sri Aurobindos aphorisms] because it always seemed to be the same thing! So now she has nothing to ask. We have decided she wont ask any more questions, unless, by chance, something suddenly arouses a question in her. Otherwise, no more questions (Mother breathes a sigh of relief).
   63God is great, says the Mahomedan. Yes, He is so great that He can afford to be weak, whenever that too is necessary.
  --
   Sri Aurobindo also had to struggle against this because he too received a Christian education. And these aphorisms are the result the floweringof the necessity to struggle against the subconscious formation which has produced such questions (Mother takes on a scandalized tone): How can God be weak? How can God be foolish? How. But there is nothing but God! He alone exists, there is nothing outside of Him. And whatever seems repugnant to us is something He no longer wishes to existHe is preparing the world so that this no longer manifests, so that the manifestation can pass beyond this state to something else. So of course we violently reject everything in us that is destined to leave the active manifestation. There is a movement of rejection.
   Yet it is He. There is nothing other than He! This should be repeated from morning to night, from night to morning, because we forget it every minute.

0 1962-01-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   So here we are againwe wont get much work done today! Do you have any questions [on Sri Aurobindos aphorisms]?
   (Satprem reads:)
  --
   All in all, in these last few aphorisms Sri Aurobindo is clearly trying to show us that we must go beyond the sense of sin and virtue. It reminds me of a passage from one of your experiences which struck me very much at the time. In that experience you went to the supramental world: you saw a ship landing on the shore of the supramental world and people being put through certain testssome people were rejected, others were kept. Theres a striking passage in your description, and it bears a relation to these aphorisms. May I read you what you said?14
   Yes I dont remember it any more.

0 1962-01-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (The point of departure for this conversation was one of Sri Aurobindo's aphorisms:)
   70Examine thyself without pity, then thou wilt be more charitable and pitiful to others.

0 1962-01-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   What did you want to ask? What was it that the white gods had missed? But Sri Aurobindo has written it all down in full, right here in the aphorisms. He has mentioned everything, taken up one thing after another: Without this, there would not have been that; without this, there would not have been that and so on.1
   But I also remember reading The Tradition, before I met Sri Aurobindo (it was like a novel, a serialized romance of the worlds creation, but it was very evocative; Theon called it The Tradition). That was where I first learned of the universal Mothers first four emanations, when the Lord delegated his creative power to the Mother. And it was identical to the ancient Indian tradition, but told like a nursery story; anyone could understandit was an image, like a movie, and very vivid.

0 1962-04-28, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   We will do the aphorisms in June; it will probably be easier then. Tell me if you have any plans for work (your work); we will arrange things accordingly.
   You can bring me the work you have finished on the first day you come.

0 1962-05-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   As a matter of fact, it had occurred to me that we might just have to skip over or omit or forget about certain aphorisms,2 especially the ones on doctors and medicine. (Not that I question the truth in themnot at all! But I question whether its appropriate to speak of them now.) And this one, too its better not to publish it.
   I dont think all these aphorisms were written for publication I dont believe he was thinking of publishing them. He said certain things that were quite private.
   So lets classify this one as private!
  --
   What we should actually do is make a selection and only talk about aphorisms that give us an opportunity to explain a few things. But these two. People arent ready to understand. And besides, they dont fit the style of the Bulletin. What we need is a combat magazine, a journal that combats all the ordinary ideas; then all these aphorisms (the ones on doctors, for instance) would be like yes, like commanders in the battle. A journal with the goal of demolishing the old idols. Something along those lines. It would be very interesting to do such a magazinea combat magazine.
   But it cant be an Ashram organ. It should look like a literary review (it cant be politicalyoud be thrown in jail the day after it came out!). It shouldnt be presented as something practical, but merely as literary or philosophical speculation; that wouldnt matter at all, but it would give the journal a certain security which, as a combat magazine, it would need.
   Its something that could very well be planned and prepared for 65 or 67. It could probably be done in 67. And then, for each issue (I dont know how many issues a year there would be) we could take one of these aphorisms (like the one on Europe, for example) and go into it all the way.
   It would be very interesting. Its worth looking into.

0 1962-10-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Many of these aphorisms were surely written at a time when the higher mind suddenly surged into the Supermind. It hasnt yet forgotten how things look in the ordinary way, but it now sees how they are in the supramental way. And as a result, theres this kind of thing, thats what gives this paradoxical form. Because the one is not forgotten and the other is already perceived.
   (long silence)

0 1963-01-14, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   So? Have you come with a question on these aphorisms?
   There arent many questions to ask.
  --
   Read me those aphorisms again.
   81Gods laughter is sometimes very coarse and unfit for polite ears; He is not satisfied with being Molire, He must needs also be Aristophanes and Rabelais.

0 1963-03-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Then Mother takes up the aphorisms to be prepared for the next Bulletin:)
   84The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained or do not yet know, or the means of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracles is the sign that mans ascent is not yet finished.

0 1963-08-21, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   So I cant add anything to those Talks: their source is different. Even now for the aphorisms, its a little bit difficult. I feel I have to come down, to revert to an old frame of mind in order to say something.
   You need not bother about people. Just speak according to your present mode, without bothering whether they understand or not.

0 1964-01-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Well have to revise some of these aphorisms [by Sri Aurobindo] little by little. Do we still have quite a few ready?
   Not many. But at the rate were commenting on them, we still have at least a year to go!

0 1964-02-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (A little later, Mother again takes up Sri Aurobindos aphorisms for the next Bulletin:)
   96Experience in thy soul the truth of the scripture; afterwards, if thou wilt, reason and state thy experience intellectually and even then distrust thy statement; but distrust never thy experience.

0 1964-09-16, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Basically, the moral of all these aphorisms is that it is far more important to BE than to be seen to beyou must live, not pretend and that it is far more important to realize a thing entirely, sincerely and perfectly than to let others know youre realizing it!
   Its the same thing again: when you feel the need to proclaim what you are doing, you spoil half of your action.
  --
   See aphorisms 88 to 92
   ***

0 1964-09-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Peoples ordinary reaction to the activity of others, to everything around them, their general and ordinary way of seeing things, all of that represents a certain attitude of consciousness: it is seen from a certain level. And when I commented on those aphorisms the other day, I suddenly noticed that the level was different and the angle so different that the other attitude, the ordinary way of seeing things, appeared incomprehensibleyou wonder how you can have it, so different is it. And while I was speaking, I had a sort of sensation or perception that this new attitude was being established as a natural, spontaneous thingit isnt the result of an effort for transformation: its an already established transformation.
   It isnt total, because both functionings are perceptible, but I am confident that it is on the way. Then it will be interesting.

0 1965-07-03, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   After Satprem has read out the last Comments on the aphorisms1:
   It was so boring that I felt sick.

0 1965-12-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Then Mother takes up the Comments on the aphorisms for the next Bulletin.)
   113Hatred is the sign of a secret attraction that is eager to flee from itself and furious to deny its own existence. That too is Gods play in His creature.

0 1966-03-04, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Mother resumes her comments on Sri Aurobindo's aphorisms.)
   115The world is a long recurring decimal with Brahman for its integer. The period seems to begin and end, but the fraction is eternal; it will never have an end and never had any real beginning.

0 1966-09-17, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Soon afterwards, Satprem suggests the publication in the Ashrams Bulletin of Mothers recent comments on the aphorisms, including the vision of the birds turning into human opinions, omitting only a few personal passages.)
   People will say I am lapsing into second childhood!

0 1967-02-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   At any rate, nothing useful can be done before carefully reading all that Sri Aurobindo has said on the subject (Synthesis of Yoga: in the Yoga of Knowledge he deals with religions; the first chapters of Essays on the Gita; Foundations of Indian Culture; Thoughts and aphorisms, and many others too). Therefore start reading first.
   So I am not replying to your questions because they are part of the course I want to give myself and have not, besides, written yet.

0 1967-03-04, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Mother will henceforth stop her "Comments on the aphorisms," preferring to let her experience flow freely outside the artificial framework of a "commentary." In 1969, at a disciple's instance, She will briefly resume these comments and answer questions in a few written lines.
   The following sentence was added by Mother afterwards.

0 1968-09-25, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its a question on Sri Aurobindos aphorisms.
   When I hear of a righteous wrath, I wonder at mans capacity for self-deception.

0 1968-11-27, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   "...Pain that travails towards the touch of an unimaginable ecstasy." See also Thoughts and aphorisms: 93"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."
   ***

0 1969-02-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   No, no, except for a few aphorisms, theyve never played recent recordings of younever.
   You might ask Nolini what he thinks about it?2

0 1969-11-29, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   For instance, I am quite certain that if Sri Aurobindo wrote those aphorisms now, he wouldnt put the word God where he used it (he used the word God almost everywhere). He wouldnt use THAT word. God, for man, really means religion . I dont know how to explain, its a sort of sensitivity somewhere that rebels the word is false, as it were. It has almost become the symbol of an incomprehension.
   Still now, I am giving explanations for these aphorisms, and in almost all of them, he uses the word Godhe wouldnt put it now.
   (long silence)

0 1969-12-13, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I keep receiving almost daily some aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo, which I had completely forgotten. There are really quite interesting things . Some of them give me the exact impression of a clothing (we might say an intellectual clothing, but its not that, its from a higher mind, but its mentalized, that is to say, accessible to thought), a clothing of the experience I had of the supramental Consciousness, in which the difference between good and evil and all that looked like childishness, and Sri Aurobindo expresses it in those aphorisms in a manner accessible to intelligence. Only those who understand dont understand right! Because they understand below.
   Do you remember those aphorisms? In one he says, If I cant be Rama, then I want to be Ravana and he explains why Its that series.1
   (silence)
  --
   Only, its obviously beyond the mind. Because I said just before that those aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo were an expression intelligible to the intellect, but it still diminishes; it diminishes, its no longer that dazzling light of a wordless understandingTHAT is where, that is where things can be arranged.
   Even when you explain them to yourself, they get diminished. We should say nothing: its as if (laughing) applying a coat of distorting paint!
  --
   Mother gave this comment on the last of these aphorisms: "It means that gentleness without strength and goodness without power are incomplete and cannot entirely express the Divine. I might say that the charity and generosity of a converted Asura are infinitely more effective than those of an innocent angel."
   When Satprem later published this part of the conversation in the "Notes on the Way," Mother added the following comment: "In this Consciousness where the two contraries, the two opposites are joined, the nature of both changes. They don't remain as they are. it's not that they are joined and remain the same: the nature of both changes. And that's most important. Their nature, their action, their vibration are wholly different the minute they are joined. it's separation that makes them what they are. Separation must be done away with, and then their very nature changes: it's no longer 'good' and 'evil,' but something else, which is complete. It's complete."

0 1969-12-17, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Then (Mother takes other notes) I am continuing the answers to the aphorisms, and yesterday (those aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo are extremely interesting, I had forgotten), yesterday T. asked me a question (because in those aphorisms, Sri Aurobindo speaks of courage and love, meanness and selfishness, nobleness and generosity1), so she asked me, Could you give me the definition of these words? At first, I thought it wouldnt come, but all of a sudden it came. So I noted it down, its interesting.
   (Mother reads)

0 1969-12-20, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   In those aphorisms, T. always asks me, What does Sri Aurobindo mean? or What does Sri Aurobindo want? So I am like this (passive gesture), and he answers me. And its really amusing: he answers JUST the sort of things she can understand.1 Thats what I always find marvelous! All the time I lived with him, I was in a state almost of wonder at that supplenessextraordinary supplenessas a result of which, with everyone, he seemed to use the persons own mind to answer him! That was really marvelous. The standpoint, the attitude, the words, the turn of phrase, everything was what the other was able to understand.
   Thats why apparently there seem to be contradictions, but its only an appearance.
  --
   Which is why the whole last part of Mother's "Comments" on the aphorisms is very succinct.
   ***

0 1969-12-24, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   In his aphorisms, Sri Aurobindo used the word God everywhere, which we translated as Dieu [God in French] . And the word Dieu now evokes unacceptable things in peoples minds. So I am embarrassed. Even Divin, you see In English, Divine is fine because its not God (!) But in French, Divin sounds like Dieu! Yet its the only word, because otherwise, truth is partial, consciousness is partial, and anything we may use is partial.
   Yesterday I got a line from M.H. (quite polite, besides) asking me why marriage, which was forbidden in the Ashram, is now permitted since people are marrying and having children . That must be some gossip, or else he saw some of the pregnant women in Auroville. But I sent him my explanation; I told him that if it were true that marriage is now permitted and children are born here, I would simply say, Its because the Divine so willed it. (Which is a way of telling him that its a very ordinary consciousness that asks that question.) But then, when I wrote, I put the word Divine because I didnt know what else to put . Afterwards, I told him how things are, that theyre not at all that way, but that in Auroville people have children; in my reply I even wrote that Aurovilles maternity home had been created for all those who want their child to be a world citizen! (Laughing) And there are lots of them!
   But at the time of writing the Divine Whats to be done? What should we say? Its a convention, but words In one of his aphorisms, Sri Aurobindo said that atheism is necessary to counterbalance religions which had caused so much damage!2 And thats why using the word God is unfortunate.
   Often I say Truth, often supreme Consciousness, but I am perfectly aware that its not the thing. Divinity too The Ancients said That but a in French?

0 1969-12-31, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   "Mother recently commented on these two aphorisms thus: "As long as there are religions, atheism will be necessary to counterbalance them. Both must disappear to give way to a sincere and disinterested search for Truth and a total consecration to the object of this search."
   ***

0 1970-01-03, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Soon afterwards, regarding Mothers comments on Sri Aurobindos aphorisms, Satprem suggests a different word.)
   Theres a word that doesnt seem right to me.
  --
   Another aphorism yesterday But when I read those aphorisms with my present experiences, I see that Sri Aurobindo knew all that. He had caught it there, he was there, and words that appear odd or not quite comprehensible to intellectual understanding, even the highest, have a meaning. Yesterday all of a sudden, Oh, that was it! [what Sri Aurobindo had seen]. For instance, in one of the aphorisms I readjust yesterday, there was the word perception, and I remember that when I translated it [many years ago], I thought, Perception, what does he mean? Now, I understand wonderfully! Its something that has nothing to do with our senses: neither sight nor hearing norperception. He put perception. And perception is an excellent word.2
   Moreover, for the time being, I only read the translation; if I saw the original again, it might be even more striking.

0 1970-01-07, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But first, yesterday I received aphorisms, two of them, and suddenly (gesture of descent) Sri Aurobindo came and wrotein French. Afterwards, I didnt even remember what he had written. I only said (since it was he who had written) that I would like to have the text right away. They brought it to me yesterday evening so I could show you.
   (Mother holds out a sheet of paper)

0 1970-02-07, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Still, I felt there was something. What? Ah, the aphorisms. Have you read yesterdays?
   On the anarchic state?

0 1970-02-11, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Have you received the aphorisms?
   324Freedom, equality, brotherhood, cried the French revolutionists, but in truth freedom only has been practised with a dose of equality; as for brotherhood, only a brotherhood of Cain was founded and of Barabbas. Sometimes it calls itself a Trust or Combine and sometimes the Concert of Europe.

0 1970-03-14, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Regarding the latest aphorisms commented on by Mother.)
   382Machinery is necessary to modern humanity because of our incurable barbarism. If we must encase ourselves in a bewildering multitude of comforts and trappings, we must needs do without Art and its methods; for to dispense with simplicity and freedom is to dispense with beauty. The luxury of our ancestors was rich and even gorgeous, but never encumbered.
  --
   (To Satprem:) Have you seen the latest aphorisms?
   Yes, on diseases and doctors. But here in one aphorisms, Sri Aurobindo has one little sentence which I find admirable; he says, Machinery is necessary to modern humanity because of our incurable barbarism.
   (Mother nods and remains long silent)
  --
   What Sri Aurobindo wrote, in fact in those aphorisms I see right now, is so prophetic! It was so much the vision of the True Thing! So prophetic!
   (silence)

0 1970-03-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Regarding the latest aphorisms and the English translation of Mother's comments.)
   393We ought to use the divine health in us to cure and prevent diseases; but Galen and Hippocrates and their tribe have given us instead an armoury of drugs and a barbarous Latin hocus-pocus as our physical gospel.

0 1970-03-21, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Have you received yesterdays aphorisms? Nolini might have something to say.
   407I am not a Bhakta [lover of the Divine], for I have not renounced the world for God. How can I renounce what He took from me by force and gave back to me against my will? These things are too hard for me.

0 1970-03-25, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Ah! Have you read the latest answer to the aphorisms?
   Your experience of God?

0 1970-03-28, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its after reading all these aphorisms: that makes it work a lot.
   What should be my way of being?

0 1970-04-04, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Do you still get the aphorisms? I dont remember having read those things. Clearly, he wanted to break rules and conventions at all costs.1
   I strongly felt that was what resulted in the European attitude: that mixing of sex and yoga and all that. That [sort of aphorism] must have been indispensable at the time, but now I feel we have gone beyond, or at any rate that we are going beyond.

0 1970-04-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   He knew all that, Sri Aurobindo. Have you seen the latest aphorisms?
   On laughter?

0 1970-04-22, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The only thing is Sri Aurobindos aphorisms, which are more and more amusing. Have you received them?
   (Satprem reads)
  --
   But T. [a disciple who asks questions on the aphorisms] sends me four or five of them at one go, without space to answer each so I only answer the last one!
   It would be good to say, Let our robe of virtue fall so we may be ready for the Truth.

0 1970-04-29, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   It suffers; sometimes it suffers with a very a strange kind of suffering! A very strange kind of suffering. But then, how everything is wonderfully arranged! In the aphorisms, there are all those things of Sri Aurobindo about the unreality of suffering, and it has come just at the right time!5 I said to myself, But how wonderfully arranged it is! It just came to tell my body, Dont worry! The duality [suffering and bliss] is so, so concrete that my body is it groans, literally groans as if it were suffering terribly, and at the same time it says to itself, Ah, this is bliss! And it groans! You understand, the two are like this (fused gesture).
   It depends on a little something that looks like an act of will but thats not it. Thats not it. I really dont know its something new.

0 1970-05-20, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Satprem reads the latest aphorisms)
   517Until thou canst learn to grapple with God

0 1970-05-23, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Have you seen the latest aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo? He tells us to lose all our moral sense!
   (Satprem reads)

0 1970-05-30, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I didnt remember this book [Thoughts and aphorisms] at all. Have you seen the latest ones?
   (Satprem reads)

0 1970-06-10, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Have you received the latest aphorisms?
   Yes, its the end of the aphorisms, and it ends well!
   (Satprem reads)

0 1970-09-19, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Satprem reads a few aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo for the next issue of the Bulletin)
   159He who recognizes no Krishna, the God in man, knows not God entirely; he who knows Krishna only, knows not even Krishna.

0 1970-09-26, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Then Satprem reads the Comments on the aphorisms and Mother Answers for the next Bulletin.)
   My impression now is that all this is written here (gesture just above the head) and that I have gone to my highest consciousness (gesture far above). But that cant be expressed yet. Its not through words and ideas that it has to express itself. Its the means of expression that must be found.

0 1971-01-16, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Thank you, Mother. First, The Synthesis of Yoga (the chapter on The Liberation of the Spirit), then Conversations with Pavitra, then Thoughts and aphorisms commented on by you, and then Mother Answers, and finally two old Talks of 1953 in the Playground.
   Oh, thats [old].

0 1971-07-31, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The other day I spoke to you about one of Sri Aurobindos aphorisms, and you said, Yes, we must publish it. Shall we publish it in the August Bulletin? It was this aphorism:
   228He who will not slay when God bids him, works in the world an incalculable havoc.

0 1971-12-11, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Id like to ask you something about one of Sri Aurobindos aphorisms. When the aphorisms were first published in the Bulletin, you had said to omit this one. Its a rather mysterious aphorismwhich I must say I would like to understand correctly. So, since we are going to bring out a complete edition of all the aphorisms, I would like to know if we should publish it or not. Sri Aurobindo says this:
   76Europe prides herself on her practical and scientific organisation and efficiency. I am waiting till her organisation is perfect; then a child shall destroy her.
  --
   In the aphorisms.
   Yes, but he didnt mean to make a book out of them: it was compiled from here and there.
   No, no, Mother! Not at all. Sri Aurobindo had a special notebook in which he put the aphorisms one after another.
   Oh, he wrote it in the notebook.

1.007 - Initial Steps in Yoga Practice, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  A fixed place, a fixed time, and a fixed method of concentration are called for. In one of the aphorisms of the sutras of Patanjali, which is very relevant to this point, it is said that the practise should be for a long period: sa tu drghakla nairantarya satkra sevita dhabhmi (I.14). If we want to establish ourselves in yoga, some conditions are to be fulfilled. One condition he mentions is that the practice should be for a protracted period I said at least five years, and not less than five years. It should be repeatedly done every day, without missing even a single day. Even if we have a temperature, fever or a headache, we should not miss it, because these are obstacles. The more we try to exert our will in the practice of concentration, the more will the body also try to revolt. It will create all kinds of complications we will have indigestion, we will have a stomachache, we will have a headache, we will have fever all sorts of things will come. As a matter of fact, it is specifically mentioned in the Yoga Sutras that we will fall sick. It will be an obstacle, and we should not think, "Today I am sick; I will not meditate." That is what it wants, and then it has succeeded. So, first of all, a little guarded way of living may be called for to see, as far as possible, that we do not become so ill that we cannot even sit for a few minutes of meditation. By a regulation of diet and living in a climate that is not too extreme, etc., one can be somewhat free from the anxiety of falling ill to the extent that it would prevent us from doing anything at all in the spiritual field.
  Dirghakala is a protracted period of practice. Nairantarya is practice without remission of effort; that means to say, it has to be done every day at the same time. The third condition is that we must have great love for it. We must have immense affection for our practice. We know how much affection a novelist has for his own work; how much affection an artist has for the painting that he does; how much affection a musician has for his ragas. Every artisan, every engineer, every artist, and every professional has immense affection for his own or her own profession. One cannot have disgust for a profession and then succeed in it; nor should one take to it as a kind of suffering or pain. Suppose an artist feels, "Oh, this painting is a great torture and suffering for me," then a good painting will not come forth, because there is no love for it. So, the practice of yoga will yield fruits only if we have a real love for the practice; and if we have love for it, it will also have love for us. When we protect it, it will protect us. It is said in the yoga shastras that yoga will protect us like a mother it will feed us and take care of us, protect us in every direction at all times, visibly as well as invisibly. Sa tu drghakla nairantarya satkra sevita dhabhmi (I.14) then we get established. .

1.00c - INTRODUCTION, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  Before going into the Yoga aphorisms I will try to discuss
  one great question, upon which the whole theory of religion

1.01 - An Accomplished Westerner, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:138
  replete. He even had a way of jesting with a straight face, which never left him: Sense of humour? It is the salt of existence. Without it the world would have got utterly out of balance it is unbalanced enough already and rushed to a blaze long ago. 9 For there is also Sri Aurobindo the humorist, and that Sri Aurobindo is perhaps more important than the philosopher whom Western universities speak of so solemnly. Philosophy, for Sri Aurobindo, was only a way of reaching those who could not understand anything without explanations; it was only a language, just as poetry was another, clearer and truer language. But the essence of his being was humor, not the sarcastic humor of the so-called spiritual man, but a kind of joy that cannot help dancing wherever is passes. Now and then, in a flash that leaves us somewhat mystified, we sense behind the most tragic, the most distressing human situations an almost facetious laughter, as if a child were playing a tragedy and suddenly made a face at himself because it is his nature to laugh, and ultimately because nothing in the world and no one can affect that place inside ourselves where we are ever a king.

1.01 - SAMADHI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  following aphorisms it will be expanded and particularised.
  As one practice cannot suit everyone, various methods will be
  --
  following aphorisms.
  47. HN-dK^IK^SUUrHM^IK- II V^ll

1.02 - The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms in a students notebook that was deci-
  phered and published almost half a century afterwards. The
  --
  and aphorisms which are glimpses of the greatest spiritual
  revolution in history ongoing in a single being.

1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:138
  gods is also, at the same time, the country of a monolithic faith in Oneness: "One, He presides over all wombs and natures; Himself the womb of all." (Swetaswatara Upanishad V.5) But not everyone can at once merge with the Absolute; there are many degrees in the Ascent,

1.03 - The End of the Intellect, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:88
  professor of French, then taught English at the state college, where he soon became vice-principal. He worked also as private secretary to the Prince. Between the court and the college he was busy enough, but in truth, it was the destiny of India that preoccupied him. He traveled many times to Calcutta, familiarizing himself with the political situation and writing several articles that created a scandal, for he didn't just refer to the Queen-Empress of India as an old lady so called by way of courtesy,21 but he urged his countrymen to shake off the British yoke, and attacked the mendicant policy in the Indian Congress party: no reforms, no collaboration. His aim was to gather and organize all the energies of the nation toward revolutionary action. This must have required some courage, considering the year was 1893, when the British ruled over three-fourths of the world. But Sri Aurobindo had a very special way of dealing with the problem; he did not lay any blame on the English, but on the Indians themselves:

1.03 - YIBHOOTI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  preceding aphorisms were to give the Yogi a voluntary control
  over the transformations of his mind- stuff which alone will

1.06 - Quieting the Vital, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:146
  battle69 ), because he seeks to embrace everything in his consciousness, without rejecting anything, and because there is not just one passage to open up to the bliss above, not just one guardian of the treasure to subdue, but many passages, to the right and the left and below, at every level of our being, and more than one treasure to discover.

1.07 - ON READING AND WRITING, #Thus Spoke Zarathustra, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
  Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms does not
  want to be read but to be learned by heart. In the
  --
  for that one must have long legs. aphorisms should be
  peaks-and those who are addressed, tall and lofty.

1.07 - The Psychic Center, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:138
  satisfied with itself, nor the mental chap who turns in circles, nor the vital chap who only wants to take and take. But in the background there is this undying fire; this is what needs, because it remembers something else. People speak of a "presence," but it is more like a poignant absence, like a living hole within us that grows hot and blazes up and presses more and more, until it becomes a reality the only reality in a world where one wonders if people are alive or just pretending to be. This is the self of fire, the one true self in the world,
  --
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:124
  Bhagavad Gita II. 18, 20, 22, 27.

1.08a - The Ladder, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
  Patanjali, in the first sentence of his aphorisms, defines meditation as " the hindering of the modifications of the thinking principle". It is astounding that so simple a statement of fact should have been misconstrued for cen- turies, being obscured by religious doctrinalia and ethical sentimentalism. Ethics has but little to do with this ques- tion other than this : that the practitioner must so live while in training that no emotion or passion disturbs the
  Buach which he is endeavouring to control.

1.08 - Introduction to Patanjalis Yoga Aphorisms, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  object:1.08 - Introduction to Patanjalis Yoga aphorisms
  author class:Swami Vivekananda
  --
  PATANJALI'S YOGA aphorisms
  INTRODUCTION
  Before going into the Yoga aphorisms I shall try to discuss one great question, upon which rests the whole theory of religion for the Yogis. It seems the consensus of opinion of the great minds of the world, and it has been nearly demonstrated by researches into physical nature, that we are the outcome and manifestation of an absolute condition, back of our present relative condition, and are going forward, to return to that absolute. This being granted, the question is: Which is better, the absolute or this state? There are not wanting people who think that this manifested state is the highest state of man. Thinkers of great calibre are of the opinion that we are manifestations of undifferentiated being and the differentiated state is higher than the absolute. They imagine that in the absolute there cannot be any quality; that it must be insensate, dull, and lifeless; that only this life can be enjoyed, and, therefore, we must cling to it. First of all we want to inquire into other solutions of life. There was an old solution that man after death remained the same; that all his good sides, minus his evil sides, remained for ever. Logically stated, this means that man's goal is the world; this world carried a stage higher, and eliminated of its evils, is the state they call heaven. This theory, on the face of it, is absurd and puerile, because it cannot be. There cannot be good without evil, nor evil without good. To live in a world where it is all good and no evil is what Sanskrit logicians call a "dream in the air". Another theory in modern times has been presented by several schools, that man's destiny is to go on always improving, always struggling towards, but never reaching the goal. This statement, though apparently very nice, is also absurd, because there is no such thing as motion in a straight line. Every motion is in a circle. If you can take up a stone, and project it into space, and then live long enough, that stone, if it meets with no obstruction, will come back exactly to your hand. A straight line, infinitely projected must end in a circle. Therefore, this idea that the destiny of man is progressing ever forward and forward, and never stopping, is absurd. Although extraneous to the subject, I may remark that this idea explains the ethical theory that you must not hate, and must love. Because, just as in the case of electricity the modern theory is that the power leaves the dynamo and completes the circle back to the dynamo, so with hate and love; they must come back to the source. Therefore do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you, must, in the long run, come back to you. If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circle. It is as certain as can be, that every bit of hatred that goes out of the heart of a man comes back to him in full force, nothing can stop it; similarly every impulse of love comes back to him.
  On other and practical grounds we see that the theory of eternal progression is untenable, for destruction is the goal of everything earthly. All our struggles and hopes and fears and joys, what will they lead to? We shall all end in death. Nothing is so certain as this. Where, then, is this motion in a straight line this infinite progression? It is only going out to a distance, and coming back to the centre from which it started. See how, from nebulae, the sun, moon, and stars are produced; then they dissolve and go back to nebulae. The same is being done everywhere. The plant takes material from the earth, dissolves, and gives it back. Every form in this world is taken out of surrounding atoms and goes back to these atoms. It cannot be that the same law acts differently in different places. Law is uniform. Nothing is more certain than that. If this is the law of nature, it also applies to thought. Thought will dissolve and go back to its origin. Whether we will it or not, we shall have to return to our origin which is called God or Absolute. We all came from God, and we are all bound to go back to God. Call that by any name you like, God, Absolute, or Nature, the fact remains the same. "From whom all this universe comes out, in whom all that is born lives, and to whom all returns." This is one fact that is certain. Nature works on the same plan; what is being worked out in one sphere is repeated in millions of spheres. What you see with the planets, the same will it be with this earth, with men, and with all. The huge wave is a mighty compound of small waves, it may be of millions; the life of the whole world is a compound of millions of little lives, and the death of the whole world is the compound of the deaths of these millions of little beings.

1.096 - Powers that Accrue in the Practice, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  The aphorisms of the Vibhuti Pada that follow, henceforward, pertain mainly to the powers that one acquires by the practice of samyama. These themes are of practically no help to a beginner or a novitiate in yoga because Patanjali is only describing the consequences of certain practices. The methodology of these different types of practices is also kept a great secret by the sutra itself, so that merely by a casual reading we cannot make sense out of it. Perhaps this secret has been kept in check deliberately by the author, so that people may not misconceive the meaning of the admonition given in the sutras and get into trouble. Very guarded words have been used, whose meanings will not be clear on a mere linguistic study or the making out of a grammatical meaning of the words. They are all connotative of deep essences of practice.
  We need not go into the details of every one of these sutras because not only will they be of no help to anyone here who is attempting to practise yoga, but also it may stir up some kind of unnecessary enthusiasm in the minds of some people which may not be to their advantage, since it cannot be pursued under the existing conditions of these days. However, I shall try to give a general idea as to what is at the back of this system which the author of the sutras is trying to explain as a philosophical and psychological background.

1.09 - Concentration - Its Spiritual Uses, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  PATANJALI'S YOGA aphorisms
  CHAPTER I
  --
  Making the mind take the form of one object for some time will destroy these obstacles. This is general advice. In the following aphorisms it will be expanded and particularized. As one practice cannot suit everyone, various methods will be advanced, and everyone by actual experience will find out that which helps him most.
  - --

1.09 - Sleep and Death, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:137
  concerning the actual facts of its realization though in a sense, this margin accounts for the changes or distortions suffered by a higher truth as it descends from plane to plane to its earthly realization. All kinds of interesting conclusions can be derived from this observation,

1.10 - Concentration - Its Practice, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  PATANJALI'S YOGA aphorisms
  CHAPTER II

1.10 - Theodicy - Nature Makes No Mistakes, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
  17 Sri Aurobindo: Thoughts and aphorisms, p. 5.
  18 Sri Aurobindo: The Life Divine, p. 370.

1.11 - Powers, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  PATANJALI'S YOGA aphorisms
  CHAPTER III
  --
  By the threefold changes in the mind-stuff as to form, time and state are explained the corresponding changes in gross and subtle matter and in the organs. Suppose there is a lump of gold. It is transformed into a bracelet and again into an ear-ring. These are changes as to form. The same phenomena looked at from the standpoint of time give us change as to time. Again, the bracelet or the ear-ring may be bright or dull, thick or thin, and so on. This is change as to state. Now referring to the aphorisms 9, l1 and 12, the mind-stuff is changing into Vrittis this is change as to form. That it passes through past, present and future moments of time is change as to time. That the impressions vary as to intensity within one particular period, say, present, is change as to state. The concentrations taught in the preceding aphorisms were to give the Yogi a voluntary control over the transformations of his mind-stuff, which alone will enable him to make the Samyama named in III. 4.
  14. That which is acted upon by transformations, either past, present, or yet to be manifested is the qualified.
  --
    ^The distinction among the three kinds of concentration mentioned in aphorisms 9, 11 and 12 is as follows: In the first, the disturbed impressions are merely held back, but not altogether obliterated by the impressions of control which just come in; in the second, the former are completely suppressed by the latter which stand in bold relief, while in the third, which is the highest, there is no question of suppressing, but only similar impressions succeed each other in a stream. Ed.

1.11 - The Kalki Avatar, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
  of his yoga. The Thoughts and aphorisms and The Record of
  Yoga bear witness to this. In 1926 Shri Krishna descended

1.12 - Independence, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  PATANJALI'S YOGA aphorisms
  CHAPTER IV

1.12 - The Superconscient, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  173 - Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:79
  174 - Savitri, 28:143

1.14 - The Secret, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:15
  The Life Divine, 18:12

1.15 - The Supramental Consciousness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:133
  263
  --
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:92
  The Hour of God, 17:12

1.16 - Man, A Transitional Being, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:82
  Thoughts and Glimpses, 16:384

1.16 - The Season of Truth, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  18 Thoughts and aphorisms, no. 383.
  Back
  --
  50 Thoughts and aphorisms, no. 376.
  Back

1.17 - The Transformation, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:93
  Life of Sri Aurobindo, 167
  --
  Thoughts and aphorisms, 17:82
  the small things here were small: "O Godhead, guard for us the Infinite and lavish the finite." (Rig Veda IV.2.11) "May we speak the beauty of thee, O Earth, that is in thy villages and forests and assemblies and wars and battles." (Atharva Veda XII.44.56) They battled, and they were invincible, for they knew that God is within us:
  --
  Thoughts and aphorisms 1st ed. 1958
  The Hour of God 1st ed. 1959

1953-10-14, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Thoughts and aphorisms: SABCL. Vol. 17, p. 84
   ***

1956-06-06 - Sign or indication from books of revelation - Spiritualised mind - Stages of sadhana - Reversal of consciousness - Organisation around central Presence - Boredom, most common human malady, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Certain books are like this, more powerfully charged than others; there are others where the result is less clear. But generally, books containing aphorisms and short sentencesnot very long philosophical explanations, but rather things in a condensed and precise formit is with these that one succeeds best.
  Naturally, the value of the answer depends on the value of the spiritual force contained in the book. If you take a novel, it will tell you nothing at all but stupidities. But if you take a book containing a condensation of forcesof knowledge or spiritual force or teaching poweryou will receive your answer.

1956-08-29 - To live spontaneously - Mental formations Absolute sincerity - Balance is indispensable, the middle path - When in difficulty, widen the consciousness - Easiest way of forgetting oneself, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Now, after this preliminary explanation, I am going to read to you what I had written and have been asked to comment upon. These aphorisms perhaps call for explanation. I wrote this, inspired perhaps by the reading I was just speaking to you about, but it was more than anything the expression of a personal experience:
  One must be spontaneous in order to be divine.

1958-08-15 - Our relation with the Gods, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
    Thoughts and aphorisms, in SABCL, Vol. 17, p. 85.
  ***

1958-08-27 - Meditation and imagination - From thought to idea, from idea to principle, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  When we have finished the Dhammapada, that is what I intend to do. I am at present translating the latest of Sri Aurobindos books we have published, Thoughts and aphorisms, and I intend, every Friday, to give one single sentence, one single aphorismwith or without the commentary as necessaryas a subject for meditation. We still have to see how we should go about it. We could proceed in two different ways. As I am going to take them up in order, you will always know which one will be for the following week and prepare questions in advance; or else if you dont prepare the questions in advance, perhaps it will be more interesting to take a sentence, to have a meditation on it, and in the following lesson to ask me questions on the sentence from the previous week. Then, from the questions I am asked, I shall choose those that seem to me the most intelligent and answer them. And later we shall take a new sentence which will serve as the subject for meditation on that day and the subject for questions the following week. And this I am going to do with a very precise, very definite purpose: to bring you out of your mental somnolence and compel you to reflect and try to understand what I tell you. For, it makes a little noise in your ears, a still softer noise in your heads, and then it goes out from the other side, and then it is finished! Sometimes, very rarely, by a special grace, there is just a little effect here, like this (gesture), which lasts like a little flickering flameit burns, and then, pfft! Something blows on it, it goes out and it is all finished.
  We need lessons, Sweet Mother.

1958 09 12, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1958 09 19, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1958 09 26, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1958 10 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1958 10 10, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   In the French text of Thoughts and aphorisms read by the Mother.
   The translation the Mother had before her was based on a text which read "tentacles of Nature" instead of "sentinels of Nature".

1958 10 17, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Once again I must repeat that the form of these aphorisms is purposely paradoxical in order to give the mind a little shock and awaken it enough for it to make an effort to understand. One must not take this Aphorism literally. Some people seem worried by the idea that reason must disappear for one to become wise. It is not that, it is not that at all.
   Reason must no longer be the summit and the master.

1958 10 24, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The first absolutely indispensable step is not to repeat, more or less mechanically and without quite knowing what you are saying, that appearances are false. You say it because Sri Aurobindo has told us so but without really understanding it. And yet, when you want to understand something, you continue to look, to observe, to touch, to taste and to feel, because you believe there are no other means of observation. It is only when you have had the experience of the reversal of consciousness, when you have gone behind these things, when you can feel, experience, in the most concrete manner, their illusory appearance, that you are able to understand. But, unless you have had the experience, you can read all the aphorisms, repeat and learn them, have faith in them and still not perceive: they have no reality for you. All these appearances remain the only way of coming into contact with the outer world and of becoming aware of what it is. And sometimes you can spend a whole lifetime learning how things are in their appearances and be considered very cultured, very intelligent, highly knowledgeable, when you have observed all this in detail and remembered all that you have observed or learnt
   Strictly speaking, you can, when you have worked hard, have some slight effect on these appearances, change them a littlethis is how, through science, you learn to manipulate matter but there is no true change and there is no true power. And when you are in that state, you are wholly convinced that there is nothing you can do to change your character. You feel trapped in a kind of fatalism that weighs you down, you know neither whence nor how; you are born like this, in such and such a place, into such and such an environment, with such and such a character, and you get through life as best you can, adapting to things without having much influence on them, and trying to mitigate the drawbacks of your own character without having the power to transform it. You feel caught in a net, you are the slave of something of which you are unaware. You are the plaything of circumstances, of unknown forces, of a will you do not submit to, but which constrains you. Even the most rebellious are slaves, because the only thing that liberates you is precisely the act of passing behind the veil and discovering what lies beyond it. Once you have seen, you know who you are and once you have established your true identity, you have the key to the true transformation.

1958 11 07, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1958 11 14, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1958 11 21, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1958 11 28, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1958 12 05, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Indeed, it is only when we have come to the end of these aphorisms that we will be able to understand them; because with each one, Sri Aurobindo places us in an entirely different position with regard to the truth to be discovered. There are innumerable facets. There are innumerable points of view. One can say the most contradictory things without being inconsistent or contradicting oneself. Everything depends on the way in which you look at it. And even once we have seen everything, from all the points of view accessible to us, around the central Truth, we will still have had only a very small glimpse the Truth will escape us on all sides at once. But what is remarkable is that once we have had the experience of a single contact with the Divine, a true, spontaneous and sincere experience, at that moment, in that experience, we will know everything, and even more. That is why it is so important to live the little you know in all sincerity in order to make yourself capable of having experiences, and of knowing by experience, not mentally, but because you live these things, because they become a part of your being and consciousness.
   To put into practice the little you know is the best way to learn more; it is the most powerful means of advancing on the waya little bit of really sincere practice. For example, not to do something that you know must not be done. When you have seen a weakness, a disability in your being, you must not allow it to happen again. When, if only for a moment, you have had the vision of what you must be, in an ardent aspiration, you must notyou must never forget to become that.

1960 01 05, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 01 12, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 01 20, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 01 27, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 02 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 02 10, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 02 17, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 02 24, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 03 02, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 03 09, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   These two aphorisms are illustrations of the affirmation of the Divine Presence in all things and all beings, and they also develop the idea which has already been touched on, that there is nothing and no one to forgive, since the Divine is the originator of all things.
   This is how this sentence, God struck me with a human hand, should be read and understood. If you see nothing but the appearances, it is only one man hitting another. But for one who sees and knows the Truth, it is the supreme Lord who gives the blow through that human hand, and the blow necessarily does good to the one who receives it, that is to say, brings about a progress in his consciousness, for the ultimate aim of creation is to awaken all beings to the consciousness of the Divine.
   Once you have understood that, the rest of the two aphorisms is easily explained.
   Are we to forgive the Lord for the good He does us, while, at the same time, asking Him not to do it again?

1960 03 16, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 03 23, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 03 30, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 04 06, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 04 07? - 28, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 04 20, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 04 27, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 05 04, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 05 11, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 05 18, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 05 25, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 06 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I would like to have an explanation of these two aphorisms.
   When Christ came upon earth, he brought a message of brotherhood, love and peace. But he had to die in pain, on the cross, so that his message might be heard. For men cherish suffering and hatred and want their God to suffer with them. They wanted this when Christ came and, in spite of his teaching and sacrifice, they still want it; and they are so attached to their pain that, symbolically, Christ is still bound to his cross, suffering perpetually for the salvation of men.

1960 06 08, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 06 16, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 06 22, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 06 29, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 07 06, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 07 13, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 07 19, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 08 24, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 08 27, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 10 24, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 11 10, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 11 11? - 48, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 11 12? - 49, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 11 13? - 50, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1960 11 14? - 51, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 01 18, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 01 28, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 02 02, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 03 11 - 58, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 03 17 - 56, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 03 17 - 57, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 04 26 - 59, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 05 04 - 60, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 05 20, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 05 21? - 62, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   There comes a time when really one can no longer say anything: one has the feeling that whatever one says, even if it isnt absolutely inane, is not far short of it, and that it would actually be better to keep quiet. That is the difficulty. In some of these aphorisms you feel that he has suddenly caught hold of something above and beyond everything that can be thoughtso what can one say?
   (Silence)

1961 05 22?, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   And this is what Sri Aurobindo is fighting, for he too had this Christian education, he too had to struggle; and these aphorisms are the result the flowering, as it wereof this necessity of fighting a subconscious formation. For that is what makes you ask such questions: How can God be weak? How can God be foolish? How? But there is nothing other than God, only He exists, there is nothing outside Him. And if something seems ugly to us, it is simply because He no longer wants it to exist. He is preparing the world so that this thing may no longer be manifested, so that the manifestation can move from that state to something else. So naturally, within us, we violently repulse everything that is about to go out of the active manifestation there is a movement of rejection.
   But it is Him. There is nothing but Him. This is what we should repeat to ourselves from morning to evening and from evening to morning, because we forget it at each moment.

1961 07 18, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1961 07 27, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1962 01 12, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   These aphorisms clearly express the futility of our ideas of sin and virtue. You had also said, following your experience of 3 February 1958,1 I saw that what helps people to become supramental or prevents them from doing so, is very different from what our usual moral notions imagine. You said besides, What is very clear is that our appraisal of what is divine or undivine is not correct. At that time I had the impression that the relation between this world and the other completely changed the standpoint from which things should be evaluated or appraised. This standpoint had nothing mental about it and it gave a strange inner feeling that many things we consider to be good or bad are not really so. It was very clear that everything depended on the capacity of things, on their ability to express the supramental world or to be in relation with it.
   What is this supramental standpoint like? What is this capacity or this aptitude to ex the supramental world or to be in relation with it?

1962 01 21, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1962 02 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1962 02 27, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1962 02 28? - 73, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1962 05 24, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1962 10 06, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1962 10 12, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Certainly, many of these aphorisms were written at the point where the higher mind suddenly emerges into the Supermind. It has not yet forgotten how it is in the ordinary way, but it also sees how it is in the supramental way. And so the result is this kind of thing, this paradoxical form. Because the one is not forgotten and the other is already perceived.
   (Long silence)

1963 01 14, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1963 03 06, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1963 05 15, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1963 08 10, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1963 08 11? - 94, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1963 11 04, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1963 11 05? - 96, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1963 11 06? - 97, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1964 02 05 - 98, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1964 02 05, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1964 02 06? - 99, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1964 03 25, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1964 09 16, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   In reality, the moral of all these aphorisms is that it is much more important to be than to seem to beone must live and not pretend to live and that it is much more important to realise something entirely, sincerely, perfectly than to let others know that you are realising it!
   It is the same thing again: when you are compelled to say what you are doing, you spoil half your action.
  --
   See aphorisms 88 to 92.
   ***

1965 01 12, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1965 03 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1965 05 29, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1965 09 25, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1965 12 25, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1965 12 26?, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1966 07 06, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1966 09 14, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 05, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 07, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 09, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 14, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 15? - 133, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 19, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 21, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 28, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 30 - 139, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 30 - 140, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 08 31 - 141, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 01 - 142, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 04 - 143, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 07 - 145, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 14, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 17, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 18, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 22, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 23, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 26, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 27, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 29, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 30, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 09 31? - 165, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 01? - 166, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 06, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 07, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 10, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 13, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 15, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 17, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 18, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 19, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 21, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 23, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 24, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 28, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 29, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 30, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 10 31, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 11 07, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 11 08?, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 11 13, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 11 15, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 11 16, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 11 18, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 11 24, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 11 25, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 11 26, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 11 27?, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 01, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 04, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 05, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 07, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 08, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 09, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 11, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 13, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 14, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 15, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 17, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 18, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 21, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 22, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 23, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 26, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 28, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 29?, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1969 12 31, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 01, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 04, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 06, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 07, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 08, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 09, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 10, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 12, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 13?, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 15, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 17, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 20, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 21, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 22, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 23, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 24, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 25, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 26, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 27, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 28, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 29, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 01 30, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 01, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 02, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 04, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 05, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 07, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 08, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 09, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 10, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 11, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 12, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 13, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 16, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 17, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 18, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 19, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 20, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

1970 02 23, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga

WORDNET



--- Overview of noun aphorism

The noun aphorism has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
                  
1. aphorism, apothegm, apophthegm ::: (a short pithy instructive saying)


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun aphorism

1 sense of aphorism                          

Sense 1
aphorism, apothegm, apophthegm
   => maxim, axiom
     => saying, expression, locution
       => speech, speech communication, spoken communication, spoken language, language, voice communication, oral communication
         => auditory communication
           => communication
             => abstraction, abstract entity
               => entity


--- Hyponyms of noun aphorism
                                    


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun aphorism

1 sense of aphorism                          

Sense 1
aphorism, apothegm, apophthegm
   => maxim, axiom




--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun aphorism

1 sense of aphorism                          

Sense 1
aphorism, apothegm, apophthegm
  -> maxim, axiom
   => aphorism, apothegm, apophthegm
   => gnome
   => moralism




--- Grep of noun aphorism
aphorism



IN WEBGEN [10000/54]

Wikipedia - Adinkra symbols -- West African symbols that represent concepts or aphorisms
Wikipedia - All models are wrong -- A common aphorism in statistics
Wikipedia - Aphorisms (album)
Wikipedia - Aphorisms
Wikipedia - Aphorismus
Wikipedia - aphorism
Wikipedia - Aphorism -- Figure of speech
Wikipedia - Ars longa, vita brevis -- Latin translation of a Greek aphorism
Wikipedia - Category:Aphorisms
Wikipedia - Greenspun's tenth rule -- Computing aphorism
Wikipedia - Il est interdit d'interdire ! -- French aphorism
Wikipedia - Illegitimi non carborundum -- Mock-Latin aphorism
Wikipedia - Know thyself -- Ancient Greek aphorism; one of the Delphic maxims
Wikipedia - Medicus curat, natura sanat -- Medical aphorism
Wikipedia - Perfect is the enemy of good -- aphorism commonly attributed to Voltaire
Wikipedia - Scientia potentia est -- Latin aphorism often claimed to mean organized "knowledge is power"
Wikipedia - Sutra -- A text in Hinduism, Buddhism or Jainism, often a collection of aphorisms
Wikipedia - Tegelspreuken -- Decorative tiles inscribed with proverbs or aphorisms, often in blue-and-white Delftware style
Wikipedia - There is No Natural Religion -- series of philosophical aphorisms by William Blake
Wikipedia - The rich get richer and the poor get poorer -- Aphorism due to Percy Bysshe Shelley
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1067315.Aphorisms
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17694.The_Z_rau_Aphorisms
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17933391-don-colacho-s-aphorisms
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19510.Essays_and_Aphorisms
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20827683-triadic-philosophy---100-aphorisms
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27526898-an-introduction-to-the-study-of-yoga-aphorisms-of-patanjali
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33124251-the-book-of-aphorisms
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35594319-aphorisms-and-thoughts
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35688545-aphorisms-democritus
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38742247-das-gro-e-stanislaw-jerzy-lec-buch-aphorismen-epigramme-gedichte-und
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3904936-fables-and-aphorisms
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45685547-aphorisms-or-select-propositions-of-the-scripture-shortly-determining
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/737541.Thoughts_and_Aphorisms
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7542820-on-thoughts-and-aphorisms
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7995456-aphorisms
selforum - though aphorism has military example
https://circumsolatious.blogspot.com/2011/11/reflections-on-sri-aurobindos-aphorism.html
wiki.auroville - On_Thoughts_and_Aphorisms
wiki.auroville - Thoughts_and_Aphorisms
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HurricaneOfAphorisms
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/Aphorism
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aphorisms
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Category:Aphorisms
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Zrau_Aphorisms
https://myanimelist.net/manga/11544/Aphorism
https://animanga.fandom.com/wiki/Aphorism
https://aphorism.fandom.com/wiki/
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Aphorism
Aphorism
Aphorisma
Aphorisms (EP)
Blood and Aphorisms
The Zrau Aphorisms
YOLO (aphorism)



convenience portal:
recent: Section Maps - index table - favorites
Savitri -- Savitri extended toc
Savitri Section Map -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
authors -- Crowley - Peterson - Borges - Wilber - Teresa - Aurobindo - Ramakrishna - Maharshi - Mother
places -- Garden - Inf. Art Gallery - Inf. Building - Inf. Library - Labyrinth - Library - School - Temple - Tower - Tower of MEM
powers -- Aspiration - Beauty - Concentration - Effort - Faith - Force - Grace - inspiration - Presence - Purity - Sincerity - surrender
difficulties -- cowardice - depres. - distract. - distress - dryness - evil - fear - forget - habits - impulse - incapacity - irritation - lost - mistakes - obscur. - problem - resist - sadness - self-deception - shame - sin - suffering
practices -- Lucid Dreaming - meditation - project - programming - Prayer - read Savitri - study
subjects -- CS - Cybernetics - Game Dev - Integral Theory - Integral Yoga - Kabbalah - Language - Philosophy - Poetry - Zen
6.01 books -- KC - ABA - Null - Savitri - SA O TAOC - SICP - The Gospel of SRK - TIC - The Library of Babel - TLD - TSOY - TTYODAS - TSZ - WOTM II
8 unsorted / add here -- Always - Everyday - Verbs


change css options:
change font "color":
change "background-color":
change "font-family":
change "padding":
change "table font size":
last updated: 2022-05-07 13:05:14
104586 site hits