TERMS STARTING WITH
certain ::: a. --> Assured in mind; having no doubts; free from suspicions concerning.
Determined; resolved; -- used with an infinitive.
Not to be doubted or denied; established as a fact.
Actually existing; sure to happen; inevitable.
Unfailing; infallible.
Fixed or stated; regular; determinate.
Not specifically named; indeterminate; indefinite; one or
certain ::: capable of being relied on; dependable.
certainly ::: adv. --> Without doubt or question; unquestionably.
certainly not evil and with no hint of his having
certainness ::: n. --> Certainty.
certain suras of the Koran. [Rf. The Encyclopaedia
certainties ::: pl. --> of Certainty
certainty ::: 1. The fact, quality, or state of being certain. 2. Something certain; an assured fact.
certainty ::: n. --> The quality, state, or condition, of being certain.
A fact or truth unquestionable established.
Clearness; freedom from ambiguity; lucidity.
Certain Arabian writers termed the Sabean language the science of astronomy, but what we now call astronomy was but a minor portion of ancient astrolatry; they also state that Seth or Set was the founder of Sabeanism, and that the pyramids were regarded as the place of sepulture of Seth or Agathodaimon. We see here confusion, reductions of general principles to details, and anthropomorphizations of cosmic principles. Hermes is in many senses the same as Seth, and the pyramids were consecrated to the regents of the stars, rather than to the orbs (SD 2:362).
Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and vast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the world-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are primary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and therefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their partial reflection. Reflections themselves of the Real, they again are reflected in the more concrete workings of our existence. The Supramental Manifestation
Certainty: (Lat. Certus, sure) The alleged indubitability of certain truths, especially of logic and mathematics. -- L.W.
Certainty - Situation in which there is absolutely no doubt about which event will occur, and there is only one state of nature with 100% probability attached.
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. Incapable of being fully ascertained, explored, exhausted, etc. 2. Incapable of being fathomed or measured; unsoundable, immeasurable, vast.
1. Of unascertained depth; unsounded. 2. Fig. Not fully explored or known; unascertained; immense.
1. Portable barriers over which contestants must leap in certain running races. 2.* Fig.* Obstacles or difficulties.
1. Subject to doubt or uncertainty; not fixed, sure, or certain; doubtful. 2. Lacking certainty, assurance, or confidence; not sure, assured, or certainly knowing; uncertain. 3. Marked or characterized by lack of sureness, assurance, or certainty.
1. The dry external covering of certain fruits or seeds, esp. of an ear of corn. 2. Any worthless outer covering. husks.
1. Undeviatingly accurate throughout; not containing any error or flaw. 2. Making no error or mistake; not going or leading astray in judgement or opinion. 3. Not going astray from the intended mark; certain, sure. unerringly.
A certain amount of sclf-defence is necessary, so that the consciousness may not be puIJed down or out constantly info the ordinary atmosphere or the physical strained by being forced into activities that have become foreign to you.
A certain moderation is needed even in the eagerness for pro- gress — moderation, not indiflerence or indolence.
abreast ::: adv. --> Side by side, with breasts in a line; as, "Two men could hardly walk abreast."
Side by side; also, opposite; over against; on a line with the vessel&
abroad ::: adv. --> At large; widely; broadly; over a wide space; as, a tree spreads its branches abroad.
Without a certain confine; outside the house; away from one&
abstinence ::: n. --> The act or practice of abstaining; voluntary forbearance of any action, especially the refraining from an indulgence of appetite, or from customary gratifications of animal or sensual propensities. Specifically, the practice of abstaining from intoxicating beverages, -- called also total abstinence.
The practice of self-denial by depriving one&
acatalepsy ::: n. --> Incomprehensibility of things; the doctrine held by the ancient Skeptic philosophers, that human knowledge never amounts to certainty, but only to probability.
acephali ::: n. pl. --> A fabulous people reported by ancient writers to have heads.
A Christian sect without a leader.
Bishops and certain clergymen not under regular diocesan control.
A class of levelers in the time of K. Henry I.
acephalocyst ::: n. --> A larval entozoon in the form of a subglobular or oval vesicle, or hydatid, filled with fluid, sometimes found in the tissues of man and the lower animals; -- so called from the absence of a head or visible organs on the vesicle. These cysts are the immature stages of certain tapeworms. Also applied to similar cysts of different origin.
acephalous ::: a. --> Headless.
Without a distinct head; -- a term applied to bivalve mollusks.
Having the style spring from the base, instead of from the apex, as is the case in certain ovaries.
Without a leader or chief.
Wanting the beginning.
Deficient and the beginning, as a line of poetry.
acerous ::: a. --> Same as Acerose.
Destitute of tentacles, as certain mollusks.
Without antennae, as some insects.
acetary ::: n. --> An acid pulp in certain fruits, as the pear.
acetimetry ::: n. --> The act or method of ascertaining the strength of vinegar, or the proportion of acetic acid contained in it.
acetone ::: n. --> A volatile liquid consisting of three parts of carbon, six of hydrogen, and one of oxygen; pyroacetic spirit, -- obtained by the distillation of certain acetates, or by the destructive distillation of citric acid, starch, sugar, or gum, with quicklime.
achlamydate ::: a. --> Not possessing a mantle; -- said of certain gastropods.
acidimeter ::: n. --> An instrument for ascertaining the strength of acids.
acidimetry ::: n. --> The measurement of the strength of acids, especially by a chemical process based on the law of chemical combinations, or the fact that, to produce a complete reaction, a certain definite weight of reagent is required.
acontia ::: n. pl. --> Threadlike defensive organs, composed largely of nettling cells (cnidae), thrown out of the mouth or special pores of certain Actiniae when irritated.
acrimony ::: n. --> A quality of bodies which corrodes or destroys others; also, a harsh or biting sharpness; as, the acrimony of the juices of certain plants.
Sharpness or severity, as of language or temper; irritating bitterness of disposition or manners.
acrocarpous ::: a. --> Having a terminal fructification; having the fruit at the end of the stalk.
Having the fruit stalks at the end of a leafy stem, as in certain mosses.
acropetal ::: a. --> Developing from below towards the apex, or from the circumference towards the center; centripetal; -- said of certain inflorescence.
acrostic ::: n. --> A composition, usually in verse, in which the first or the last letters of the lines, or certain other letters, taken in order, form a name, word, phrase, or motto.
A Hebrew poem in which the lines or stanzas begin with the letters of the alphabet in regular order (as Psalm cxix.). See Abecedarian.
Alt. of Acrostical
actinium ::: n. --> A supposed metal, said by Phipson to be contained in commercial zinc; -- so called because certain of its compounds are darkened by exposure to light.
actinula ::: n. pl. --> A kind of embryo of certain hydroids (Tubularia), having a stellate form.
active ::: a. --> Having the power or quality of acting; causing change; communicating action or motion; acting; -- opposed to passive, that receives; as, certain active principles; the powers of the mind.
Quick in physical movement; of an agile and vigorous body; nimble; as, an active child or animal.
In action; actually proceeding; working; in force; -- opposed to quiescent, dormant, or extinct; as, active laws; active hostilities; an active volcano.
adipic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or derived from, fatty or oily substances; -- applied to certain acids obtained from fats by the action of nitric acid.
adipsous ::: a. --> Quenching thirst, as certain fruits.
adj. 1. Not discovered, explored, identified, or ascertained. 2. Not known; not within the range of one"s knowledge, experience or understanding; strange, unfamiliar. n. 3. A thing, influence, area, factor, state, condition, or person that is unknown. unknown"s.
admeasure ::: v. t. --> To measure.
To determine the proper share of, or the proper apportionment; as, to admeasure dower; to admeasure common of pasture.
The measure of a thing; dimensions; size.
Formerly, the adjustment of proportion, or ascertainment of shares, as of dower or pasture held in common. This was by writ of admeasurement, directed to the sheriff.
ad valorem ::: --> A term used to denote a duty or charge laid upon goods, at a certain rate per cent upon their value, as stated in their invoice, -- in opposition to a specific sum upon a given quantity or number; as, an ad valorem duty of twenty per cent.
aerometer ::: n. --> An instrument for ascertaining the weight or density of air and gases.
aesthesis ::: “By aesthesis is meant a reaction of the consciousness, mental and vital and even bodily, which receives a certain element in things, something that can be called their taste, Rasa, which, passing through the mind or sense or both, awakes a vital enjoyment of the taste, Bhoga, and this can again awaken us, awaken even the soul in us to something yet deeper and more fundamental than mere pleasure and enjoyment, to some form of the spirit’s delight of existence, Ananda.” Letters on Savitri
aestivation ::: n. --> The state of torpidity induced by the heat and dryness of summer, as in certain snails; -- opposed to hibernation.
The arrangement of the petals in a flower bud, as to folding, overlapping, etc.; prefloration.
affeer ::: v. t. --> To confirm; to assure.
To assess or reduce, as an arbitrary penalty or amercement, to a certain and reasonable sum.
affiliation ::: n. --> Adoption; association or reception as a member in or of the same family or society.
The establishment or ascertaining of parentage; the assignment of a child, as a bastard, to its father; filiation.
Connection in the way of descent.
After a certain stage of preparation one must stress more on the positive side of the sadhana than on the negative side of rejection, — though this of course must remain to help the other.
age ::: n. **1. A great period or stage of the history of the Earth. 2. Hist. Any great period or portion of human history distinguished by certain characters real or mythical, as the Golden Age, the Patriarchal Age, the Bronze Age, the Age of the Reformation, the Middle Ages, the Prehistoric Age. 3. A generation or a series of generations. 4. Advanced years; old age. age"s, ages, ages". v. 5.** To grow old; to become aged.
agistment ::: n. --> Formerly, the taking and feeding of other men&
agistor ::: n. --> Formerly, an officer of the king&
agist ::: v. t. --> To take to graze or pasture, at a certain sum; -- used originally of the feeding of cattle in the king&
albuminimeter ::: n. --> An instrument for ascertaining the quantity of albumen in a liquid.
albumin ::: n. --> A thick, viscous nitrogenous substance, which is the chief and characteristic constituent of white of eggs and of the serum of blood, and is found in other animal substances, both fluid and solid, also in many plants. It is soluble in water and is coagulated by heat and by certain chemical reagents.
alcoholometry ::: n. --> The process or method of ascertaining the proportion of pure alcohol which spirituous liquors contain.
alcyonium ::: n. --> A genus of fleshy Alcyonaria, its polyps somewhat resembling flowers with eight fringed rays. The term was also formerly used for certain species of sponges.
aldehyde ::: n. --> A colorless, mobile, and very volatile liquid obtained from alcohol by certain processes of oxidation.
aldine ::: a. --> An epithet applied to editions (chiefly of the classics) which proceeded from the press of Aldus Manitius, and his family, of Venice, for the most part in the 16th century and known by the sign of the anchor and the dolphin. The term has also been applied to certain elegant editions of English works.
aleatory ::: a. --> Depending on some uncertain contingency; as, an aleatory contract.
alkalimeter ::: n. --> An instrument to ascertain the strength of alkalies, or the quantity of alkali in a mixture.
alkalimetry ::: n. --> The art or process of ascertaining the strength of alkalies, or the quantity present in alkaline mixtures.
allowable ::: a. --> Praiseworthy; laudable.
Proper to be, or capable of being, allowed; permissible; admissible; not forbidden; not unlawful or improper; as, a certain degree of freedom is allowable among friends.
"All world is a movement of the Spirit in itself and is mutable and transient in all its formations and appearances; its only eternity is an eternity of recurrence, its only stability a semblance caused by certain fixities of relation and grouping.” *The Upanishads
“All world is a movement of the Spirit in itself and is mutable and transient in all its formations and appearances; its only eternity is an eternity of recurrence, its only stability a semblance caused by certain fixities of relation and grouping.” The Upanishads
always ::: adv. --> At all times; ever; perpetually; throughout all time; continually; as, God is always the same.
Constancy during a certain period, or regularly at stated intervals; invariably; uniformly; -- opposed to sometimes or occasionally.
amasthenic ::: a. --> Uniting the chemical rays of light into one focus, as a certain kind of lens; amacratic.
ambiguities ::: uncertainties of meaning or intentions.
ambiguity ::: n. --> The quality or state of being ambiguous; doubtfulness or uncertainty, particularly as to the signification of language, arising from its admitting of more than one meaning; an equivocal word or expression.
ambiguous ::: 1. Open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal; questionable; indistinct, obscure, not clearly defined. 2. Of doubtful or uncertain nature; difficult to comprehend, distinguish, or classify; admitting more than one interpretation, or explanation; of double meaning. 3. Of oracles, people, using words of double meaning. ambiguously.
ambiguous ::: a. --> Doubtful or uncertain, particularly in respect to signification; capable of being understood in either of two or more possible senses; equivocal; as, an ambiguous course; an ambiguous expression.
ambreic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to ambrein; -- said of a certain acid produced by digesting ambrein in nitric acid.
amercement ::: n. --> The infliction of a penalty at the discretion of the court; also, a mulct or penalty thus imposed. It differs from a fine,in that the latter is, or was originally, a fixed and certain sum prescribed by statue for an offense; but an amercement is arbitrary. Hence, the act or practice of affeering. [See Affeer.]
amphibology ::: n. --> A phrase, discourse, or proposition, susceptible of two interpretations; and hence, of uncertain meaning. It differs from equivocation, which arises from the twofold sense of a single term.
amphistomous ::: a. --> Having a sucker at each extremity, as certain entozoa, by means of which they adhere.
anacanthous ::: a. --> Spineless, as certain fishes.
anadromous ::: a. --> Ascending rivers from the sea, at certain seasons, for breeding, as the salmon, shad, etc.
Tending upwards; -- said of terns in which the lowest secondary segments are on the upper side of the branch of the central stem.
analysis ::: n. --> A resolution of anything, whether an object of the senses or of the intellect, into its constituent or original elements; an examination of the component parts of a subject, each separately, as the words which compose a sentence, the tones of a tune, or the simple propositions which enter into an argument. It is opposed to synthesis.
The separation of a compound substance, by chemical processes, into its constituents, with a view to ascertain either (a) what elements it contains, or (b) how much of each element is present.
analyze ::: v. t. --> To subject to analysis; to resolve (anything complex) into its elements; to separate into the constituent parts, for the purpose of an examination of each separately; to examine in such a manner as to ascertain the elements or nature of the thing examined; as, to analyze a fossil substance; to analyze a sentence or a word; to analyze an action to ascertain its morality.
anamorphosis ::: n. --> A distorted or monstrous projection or representation of an image on a plane or curved surface, which, when viewed from a certain point, or as reflected from a curved mirror or through a polyhedron, appears regular and in proportion; a deformation of an image.
Same as Anamorphism, 2.
A morbid or monstrous development, or change of form, or degeneration.
anandrous ::: a. --> Destitute of stamens, as certain female flowers.
anas ::: n. --> A genus of water fowls, of the order Anseres, including certain species of fresh-water ducks.
ancipitous ::: a. --> Two-edged instead of round; -- said of certain flattened stems, as those of blue grass, and rarely also of leaves.
andabatism ::: n. --> Doubt; uncertainty.
And still we can recognise at once in the Overmind the original cosmic Maya, not a Maya of Ignorance but a Maya of Knowledge, yet a Power which has made the Ignorance possible, even inevitable. For if each principle loosed into action must follow its independent line and carry out its complete consequences, the principle of separation must also be allowed its complete course and arrive at its absolute consequence; this is Overmind in its descent reaches a line which divides the cosmic Truth from the cosmic Ignorance; it is the line at which it becomes possible for Consciousness-Force, emphasising the separateness of each independent movement created by Overmind and hiding or darkening their unity, to divide Mind by an exclusive concentration from the overmental source. There has already been a similar separation of Overmind from its supramental source, but with a transparency in the veil which allows a conscious transmission and maintains a certain luminous kinship; but here the veil is opaque and the transmission of the Overmind motives to the Mind is occult and obscure. Mind separated acts as if it were an independent principle, and each mental being, each basic mental idea, power, force stands similarly on its separate self; if it communicates with or combines or contacts others, it is not with the catholic universality of the overmind movement, on a basis of underlying oneness, but as independent units joining to form a separate constructed whole. It is by this movement that we pass from the cosmic Truth into the cosmic Ignorance. The cosmic Mind on this level, no doubt, comprehends its own unity, but it is not aware of its own source and foundation in the Spirit or can only comprehend it by the intelligence, not in any enduring experience; it acts in itself as if by its own right and works out what it receives as material without direct communication with the source from which it receives it. Its units also act in ignorance of each other and of the cosmic whole except for the knowledge that they can get by contact and communication,—the basic sense of identity and the mutual penetration and understanding that comes from it are no longer there. All the actions of this Mind Energy proceed on the opposite basis of the Ignorance and its divisions and, although they are the results of a certain conscious knowledge, it is a partial knowledge, not a true and integral self-knowledge, nor a true and integral world-knowledge. This character persists in Life and in subtle Matter and reappears in the gross material universe which arises from the final lapse into the Inconscience. …
anemometry ::: n. --> The act or process of ascertaining the force or velocity of the wind.
"An end have these bodies of an embodied soul that is eternal;… it is not born nor dies nor is it that having been it will not be again. It is unborn, ancient, everlasting; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. As a man casts from him his worn-out garments and takes others that are new, so the embodied being casts off its bodies and joins itself to others that are new. Certain is the death of that which is born and certain is the birth of that which dies . . . . " Gita. The Life Divine
“An end have these bodies of an embodied soul that is eternal;… it is not born nor dies nor is it that having been it will not be again. It is unborn, ancient, everlasting; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. As a man casts from him his worn-out garments and takes others that are new, so the embodied being casts off its bodies and joins itself to others that are new. Certain is the death of that which is born and certain is the birth of that which dies ….” Gita. The Life Divine
"A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the Ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. Even, the highest manifestations of a mind of Light would be an instrumentality of the supermind, a part of it or a projection from it, a stepping beyond humanity into the superhumanity of the supramental principle. Above all, its possession would enable the human being to rise beyond the normalities of his present thinking, feeling and being into those highest powers of the mind in its self-exceedings which intervene between our mentality and supermind and can be regarded as steps leading towards the greater and more luminous principle. This advance like others in the evolution might not be reached and would naturally not be reached at one bound, but from the very beginning it would be inevitable: the pressure of the supermind creating from above out of itself the mind of Light would compel this certainty of the eventual outcome.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the Ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. Even, the highest manifestations of a mind of Light would be an instrumentality of the supermind, a part of it or a projection from it, a stepping beyond humanity into the superhumanity of the supramental principle. Above all, its possession would enable the human being to rise beyond the normalities of his present thinking, feeling and being into those highest powers of the mind in its self-exceedings which intervene between our mentality and supermind and can be regarded as steps leading towards the greater and more luminous principle. This advance like others in the evolution might not be reached and would naturally not be reached at one bound, but from the very beginning it would be inevitable: the pressure of the supermind creating from above out of itself the mind of Light would compel this certainty of the eventual outcome.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
angiocarpous ::: a. --> Having fruit inclosed within a covering that does not form a part of itself; as, the filbert covered by its husk, or the acorn seated in its cupule.
Having the seeds or spores covered, as in certain lichens.
angiostomous ::: a. --> With a narrow mouth, as the shell of certain gastropods.
angulo-dentate ::: a. --> Angularly toothed, as certain leaves.
animalculism ::: n. --> The theory which seeks to explain certain physiological and pathological phenomena by means of animalcules.
anthokyan ::: n. --> The blue coloring matter of certain flowers. Same as Cyanin.
anthophagous ::: a. --> Eating flowers; -- said of certain insects.
anthropoid ::: a. --> Resembling man; -- applied especially to certain apes, as the ourang or gorilla. ::: n. --> An anthropoid ape.
antilegomena ::: n. pl. --> Certain books of the New Testament which were for a time not universally received, but which are now considered canonical. These are the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles of James and Jude, the second Epistle of Peter, the second and third Epistles of John, and the Revelation. The undisputed books are called the Homologoumena.
antirenter ::: n. --> One opposed to the payment of rent; esp. one of those who in 1840-47 resisted the collection of rents claimed by the patroons from the settlers on certain manorial lands in the State of New York.
antitoxine ::: n. --> A substance (sometimes the product of a specific micro-organism and sometimes naturally present in the blood or tissues of an animal), capable of producing immunity from certain diseases, or of counteracting the poisonous effects of pathogenic bacteria.
anxiety ::: n. --> Concern or solicitude respecting some thing or event, future or uncertain, which disturbs the mind, and keeps it in a state of painful uneasiness.
Eager desire.
A state of restlessness and agitation, often with general indisposition and a distressing sense of oppression at the epigastrium.
anxiously ::: adv. --> In an anxious manner; with painful uncertainty; solicitously.
a person who is practised in or who studies geometry, the branch of mathematics that deals with the deduction of the properties, measurement, and relationships of points, lines, angles, and figures in space from their defining conditions by means of certain assumed properties of space. World-Geometer"s.
apheliotropism ::: n. --> The habit of bending from the sunlight; -- said of certain plants.
aphyllous ::: a. --> Destitute of leaves, as the broom rape, certain euphorbiaceous plants, etc.
apocrypha ::: n. pl. --> Something, as a writing, that is of doubtful authorship or authority; -- formerly used also adjectively.
Specif.: Certain writings which are received by some Christians as an authentic part of the Holy Scriptures, but are rejected by others.
apode ::: n. --> One of certain animals that have no feet or footlike organs; esp. one of certain fabulous birds which were said to have no feet.
apolar ::: a. --> Having no radiating processes; -- applied particularly to certain nerve cells.
apophysis ::: n. --> A marked prominence or process on any part of a bone.
An enlargement at the top of a pedicel or stem, as seen in certain mosses.
apostolic ::: a. --> Alt. of Apostolical ::: n. --> A member of one of certain ascetic sects which at various times professed to imitate the practice of the apostles.
appetency ::: n. --> Fixed and strong desire; esp. natural desire; a craving; an eager appetite.
Specifically: An instinctive inclination or propensity in animals to perform certain actions, as in the young to suck, in aquatic fowls to enter into water and to swim; the tendency of an organized body to seek what satisfies the wants of its organism.
Natural tendency; affinity; attraction; -- used of inanimate objects.
apprehend ::: v. t. --> To take or seize; to take hold of.
Hence: To take or seize (a person) by legal process; to arrest; as, to apprehend a criminal.
To take hold of with the understanding, that is, to conceive in the mind; to become cognizant of; to understand; to recognize; to consider.
To know or learn with certainty.
To anticipate; esp., to anticipate with anxiety,
apprentice ::: n. --> One who is bound by indentures or by legal agreement to serve a mechanic, or other person, for a certain time, with a view to learn the art, or trade, in which his master is bound to instruct him.
One not well versed in a subject; a tyro.
A barrister, considered a learner of law till of sixteen years&
aquiparous ::: a. --> Secreting water; -- applied to certain glands.
arbitrary ::: 1. Based on or subject to individual will, judgment or preference: judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one"s discretion. 2. Capricious; unreasonable; unsupported. 3. Derived from mere opinion or preference; capricious; uncertain. 4. Having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical.
arboricole ::: a. --> Tree-inhabiting; -- said of certain birds.
areola ::: n. --> An interstice or small space, as between the cracks of the surface in certain crustaceous lichens; or as between the fibers composing organs or vessels that interlace; or as between the nervures of an insect&
argentic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, derived from, or containing, silver; -- said of certain compounds of silver in which this metal has its lowest proportion; as, argentic chloride.
argentous ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or containing, silver; -- said of certain silver compounds in which silver has a higher proportion than in argentic compounds; as, argentous chloride.
arrenotokous ::: a. --> Producing males from unfertilized eggs, as certain wasps and bees.
as ::: adv. & conj. --> Denoting equality or likeness in kind, degree, or manner; like; similar to; in the same manner with or in which; in accordance with; in proportion to; to the extent or degree in which or to which; equally; no less than; as, ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil; you will reap as you sow; do as you are bidden.
In the idea, character, or condition of, -- limiting the view to certain attributes or relations; as, virtue considered as virtue; this actor will appear as Hamlet.
ASANA. ::: Fixed posture habituating the body to certain attitudes of immobility. The system of Asana has at its basis two profound ideas ::: control by physical immobility, power by immobility.
The sitting motionless posture is the natural posture for concentrated meditation - walking and standing are active conditions. It is only when one has gained the enduring rest and passivity of the consciousness that it is easy to concentrate and receive when walking or doing anything. A fundamental passive condition of the consciousness gathered into itself is the proper poise for concentration and a seated gathered immobility in the body is the best position for that. It can be done also lying down, but that position is too passive, tending to be inert rather than gathered. This is the reason why yogis always sit in an āsana. One can accustom oneself to meditate walking. standing, lying but sitting is the first natural position.
ascertainable ::: a. --> That may be ascertained.
ascertained ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Ascertain
ascertainer ::: n. --> One who ascertains.
ascertaining ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Ascertain
ascertainment ::: n. --> The act of ascertaining; a reducing to certainty; a finding out by investigation; discovery.
ascertain ::: v. t. --> To render (a person) certain; to cause to feel certain; to make confident; to assure; to apprise.
To make (a thing) certain to the mind; to free from obscurity, doubt, or change; to make sure of; to fix; to determine.
To find out or learn for a certainty, by trial, examination, or experiment; to get to know; as, to ascertain the weight of a commodity, or the purity of a metal.
ascians ::: n. pl. --> Persons who, at certain times of the year, have no shadow at noon; -- applied to the inhabitants of the torrid zone, who have, twice a year, a vertical sun.
ascus ::: n. --> A small membranous bladder or tube in which are inclosed the seedlike reproductive particles or sporules of lichens and certain fungi.
"Aspiration should be not a form of desire, but the feeling of an inner soul"s need, and a quiet settled will to turn towards the Divine and seek the Divine. It is certainly not easy to get rid of this mixture of desire entirely — not easy for anyone; but when one has the will to do it, this also can be effected by the help of the sustaining Force.” Letters on Yoga
“Aspiration should be not a form of desire, but the feeling of an inner soul’s need, and a quiet settled will to turn towards the Divine and seek the Divine. It is certainly not easy to get rid of this mixture of desire entirely—not easy for anyone; but when one has the will to do it, this also can be effected by the help of the sustaining Force.” Letters on Yoga
aspirator ::: n. --> An apparatus for passing air or gases through or over certain liquids or solids, or for exhausting a closed vessel, by means of suction.
An instrument for the evacuation of the fluid contents of tumors or collections of blood.
assay ::: n. --> Trial; attempt; essay.
Examination and determination; test; as, an assay of bread or wine.
Trial by danger or by affliction; adventure; risk; hardship; state of being tried.
Tested purity or value.
The act or process of ascertaining the proportion of a particular metal in an ore or alloy; especially, the determination of
assecuration ::: n. --> Assurance; certainty.
assignment ::: n. --> An allotting or an appointment to a particular person or use; or for a particular time, as of a cause or causes in court.
A transfer of title or interest by writing, as of lease, bond, note, or bill of exchange; a transfer of the whole of some particular estate or interest in lands.
The writing by which an interest is transferred.
The transfer of the property of a bankrupt to certain persons called assignees, in whom it is vested for the benefit of
assign ::: v. t. --> To appoint; to allot; to apportion; to make over.
To fix, specify, select, or designate; to point out authoritatively or exactly; as, to assign a limit; to assign counsel for a prisoner; to assign a day for trial.
To transfer, or make over to another, esp. to transfer to, and vest in, certain persons, called assignees, for the benefit of creditors.
assize ::: n. --> An assembly of knights and other substantial men, with a bailiff or justice, in a certain place and at a certain time, for public business.
A special kind of jury or inquest.
A kind of writ or real action.
A verdict or finding of a jury upon such writ.
A statute or ordinance in general. Specifically: (1) A statute regulating the weight, measure, and proportions of ingredients
assurance ::: n. --> The act of assuring; a declaration tending to inspire full confidence; that which is designed to give confidence.
The state of being assured; firm persuasion; full confidence or trust; freedom from doubt; certainty.
Firmness of mind; undoubting, steadiness; intrepidity; courage; confidence; self-reliance.
Excess of boldness; impudence; audacity; as, his assurance is intolerable.
assured ::: 1. Made certain; guaranteed. 2. Certified, verified. 3. Made secure or certain; confirmed. 4. Confident, characterized by certainty or security; satisfied as to the truth of something. assuring.
assured ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Assure ::: a. --> Made sure; safe; insured; certain; indubitable; not doubting; bold to excess. ::: n.
assuredly ::: adv. --> Certainly; indubitably.
assuredness ::: n. --> The state of being assured; certainty; full confidence.
assure ::: v. t. --> To make sure or certain; to render confident by a promise, declaration, or other evidence.
To declare to, solemnly; to assert to (any one) with the design of inspiring belief or confidence.
To confirm; to make certain or secure.
To affiance; to betroth.
To insure; to covenant to indemnify for loss, or to pay a specified sum at death. See Insure.
". . . as there is a constant dynamic energy in movement in the universe which takes various material forms more or less subtle or gross, so in each physical body or object, plant or animal or metal, there is stored and active the same constant dynamic force; a certain interchange of these two gives us the phenomena which we associate with the idea of life. It is this action that we recognise as the action of Life-Energy and that which so energises itself is the Life-Force. Mind-Energy, Life-Energy, material Energy are different dynamisms of one World-Force.” The Life Divine
“… as there is a constant dynamic energy in movement in the universe which takes various material forms more or less subtle or gross, so in each physical body or object, plant or animal or metal, there is stored and active the same constant dynamic force; a certain interchange of these two gives us the phenomena which we associate with the idea of life. It is this action that we recognise as the action of Life-Energy and that which so energises itself is the Life-Force. Mind-Energy, Life-Energy, material Energy are different dynamisms of one World-Force.” The Life Divine
astriction ::: n. --> The act of binding; restriction; also, obligation.
A contraction of parts by applications; the action of an astringent substance on the animal economy.
Constipation.
Astringency.
An obligation to have the grain growing on certain lands ground at a certain mill, the owner paying a toll.
ASTROLOGY. ::: Many astrological predictions come true, quite a mass of them, if one takes all together. But it does not follow that the stars rule our destiny; the stars merely record a destiny that has been already formed, they are a hieroglyph, not a Force, - or if their action constitutes a force, it is a transmitting energy, not an originating Power. Someone is there who has determined or something is there which is Fate, let us say; the stars are only indications. The astrologers themselves say that there are two forces, daiva and puruṣakāra, fate and individual energy, and the individual energy can modify and even frustrate fate. Moreover, the stars often indicate several fatepossibilities; for example, that one may die in mid-age, but that if that determination can be overcome, one can live to a predictable old age. Finally, cases are seen in which the predictions of the horoscope fulfil themselves with great accuracy up to a certain age, then apply no more. This often happens when the subject turns away from the ordinary to the spiritual life. If the turn is very radical, the cessation of predictability may be immediate; otherwise certain results may still last on for a time ; but there is no longer the sure inevitability.
Asura and are most generally misheld and misused by those who retain them. The seekers or keepers of wealth are more often possessed rather than its possessors ; few escape entirely a certain distorting influence stamped on it by its long seizure and perversion by the Asura. For this reason most spiritual disciplines insist on a complete self-control, detachment and renunciation of all bondage to wealth and of all personal and egoistic desire for its possession. Some even put a ban on money and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness of life as the only spiritual condition. But this is an error ; it leaves the power in the hands of the hostile forces. To reconquer it for the Divine to whom it belongs 'and use it divinely for the divine life is the supramental way for the sadhaka.
“ At a certain spiritual and supramental level the Duality becomes still more perfectly Two-in-one, the Master Soul with the Conscious Force within it, and its potentiality disowns all barriers and breaks through every limit.” The Synthesis of Yoga
At a certain stage attacks fall heavily on the body because the opposing forces find it more difficult than before to upset the mind and vital directly, so they fall on the physical in the hope that that will do the trick, the physical bemg most vulnerable.
athalamous ::: a. --> Not furnished with shields or beds for the spores, as the thallus of certain lichens.
atmo ::: n. --> The standard atmospheric pressure used in certain physical measurements calculations; conventionally, that pressure under which the barometer stands at 760 millimeters, at a temperature of 0¡ Centigrade, at the level of the sea, and in the latitude of Paris.
atokous ::: a. --> Producing only asexual individuals, as the eggs of certain annelids.
attach ::: v. t. --> To bind, fasten, tie, or connect; to make fast or join; as, to attach one thing to another by a string, by glue, or the like.
To connect; to place so as to belong; to assign by authority; to appoint; as, an officer is attached to a certain regiment, company, or ship.
To win the heart of; to connect by ties of love or self-interest; to attract; to fasten or bind by moral influence; -- with to; as, attached to a friend; attaching others to us by wealth or
attain ::: v. t. --> To achieve or accomplish, that is, to reach by efforts; to gain; to compass; as, to attain rest.
To gain or obtain possession of; to acquire.
To get at the knowledge of; to ascertain.
To reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at.
To overtake.
To reach in excellence or degree; to equal.
augur ::: n. --> An official diviner who foretold events by the singing, chattering, flight, and feeding of birds, or by signs or omens derived from celestial phenomena, certain appearances of quadrupeds, or unusual occurrences.
One who foretells events by omens; a soothsayer; a diviner; a prophet. ::: v. i.
auriculated ::: a. --> Having ears or appendages like ears; eared. Esp.: (a) (Bot.) Having lobes or appendages like the ear; shaped like the ear; auricled. (b) (Zool.) Having an angular projection on one or both sides, as in certain bivalve shells, the foot of some gastropods, etc.
autocephalous ::: a. --> Having its own head; independent of episcopal or patriarchal jurisdiction, as certain Greek churches.
automatical ::: a. --> Having an inherent power of action or motion.
Pertaining to, or produced by, an automaton; of the nature of an automaton; self-acting or self-regulating under fixed conditions; -- esp. applied to machinery or devices in which certain things formerly or usually done by hand are done by the machine or device itself; as, the automatic feed of a lathe; automatic gas lighting; an automatic engine or switch; an automatic mouse.
Not voluntary; not depending on the will; mechanical;
autopsy ::: a. --> Personal observation or examination; seeing with one&
avenious ::: a. --> Being without veins or nerves, as the leaves of certain plants.
babel ::: “The legend of the Tower of Babel speaks of the diversity of tongues as a curse laid on the race; but whatever its disadvantages, and they tend more and more to be minimised by the growth of civilisation and increasing intercourse, it has been rather a blessing than a curse, a gift to mankind rather than a disability laid upon it. The purposeless exaggeration of anything is always an evil, and an excessive pullulation of varying tongues that serve no purpose in the expression of a real diversity of spirit and culture is certainly a stumbling-block rather than a help: but this excess, though it existed in the past, is hardly a possibility of the future. The tendency is rather in the opposite direction. In former times diversity of language helped to create a barrier to knowledge and sympathy, was often made the pretext even of an actual antipathy and tended to a too rigid division. The lack of sufficient interpenetration kept up both a passive want of understanding and a fruitful crop of active misunderstandings. But this was an inevitable evil of a particular stage of growth, an exaggeration of the necessity that then existed for the vigorous development of strongly individualised group-souls in the human race. These disadvantages have not yet been abolished, but with closer intercourse and the growing desire of men and nations for the knowledge of each other’s thought and spirit and personality, they have diminished and tend to diminish more and more and there is no reason why in the end they should not become inoperative.” The Human Cycle
babel ::: "The reference is to the mythological story of the construction of the Tower of Babel, which appears to be an attempt to explain the diversity of human languages. According to Genesis, the Babylonians wanted to make a name for themselves by building a mighty city and tower ‘with its top in the heavens". God disrupted the work by so confusing the language of the workers that they could no longer understand one another. The tower was never completed and the people were dispersed over the face of the earth.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works Sri Aurobindo: "The legend of the Tower of Babel speaks of the diversity of tongues as a curse laid on the race; but whatever its disadvantages, and they tend more and more to be minimised by the growth of civilisation and increasing intercourse, it has been rather a blessing than a curse, a gift to mankind rather than a disability laid upon it. The purposeless exaggeration of anything is always an evil, and an excessive pullulation of varying tongues that serve no purpose in the expression of a real diversity of spirit and culture is certainly a stumbling-block rather than a help: but this excess, though it existed in the past, is hardly a possibility of the future. The tendency is rather in the opposite direction. In former times diversity of language helped to create a barrier to knowledge and sympathy, was often made the pretext even of an actual antipathy and tended to a too rigid division. The lack of sufficient interpenetration kept up both a passive want of understanding and a fruitful crop of active misunderstandings. But this was an inevitable evil of a particular stage of growth, an exaggeration of the necessity that then existed for the vigorous development of strongly individualised group-souls in the human race. These disadvantages have not yet been abolished, but with closer intercourse and the growing desire of men and nations for the knowledge of each other"s thought and spirit and personality, they have diminished and tend to diminish more and more and there is no reason why in the end they should not become inoperative.” The Human Cycle
bacterium ::: n. --> A microscopic vegetable organism, belonging to the class Algae, usually in the form of a jointed rodlike filament, and found in putrefying organic infusions. Bacteria are destitute of chlorophyll, and are the smallest of microscopic organisms. They are very widely diffused in nature, and multiply with marvelous rapidity, both by fission and by spores. Certain species are active agents in fermentation, while others appear to be the cause of certain infectious diseases. See Bacillus.
bahar ::: n. --> A weight used in certain parts of the East Indies, varying considerably in different localities, the range being from 223 to 625 pounds.
bailey ::: n. --> The outer wall of a feudal castle.
The space immediately within the outer wall of a castle or fortress.
A prison or court of justice; -- used in certain proper names; as, the Old Bailey in London; the New Bailey in Manchester.
balance ::: n. **1. A state of equilibrium or equipoise; mental, psychological or emotional. 2. A weighing device, especially one consisting of a rigid beam horizontally suspended by a low-friction support at its center, with identical weighing pans hung at either end, one of which holds an unknown weight while the effective weight in the other is increased by known amounts until the beam is level and motionless. 3. An undecided or uncertain state in which issues are unresolved. v. 4. To have an equality or equivalence in weight, parts, etc.; be in equilibrium. adj. 5. Being in harmonious or proper arrangement or adjustment, proportion. 6. Mental steadiness or emotional stability; habit of calm behaviour, judgement. balanced, balancing.**
baleen ::: n. --> Plates or blades of "whalebone," from two to twelve feet long, and sometimes a foot wide, which in certain whales (Balaenoidea) are attached side by side along the upper jaw, and form a fringelike sieve by which the food is retained in the mouth.
balm ::: n. --> An aromatic plant of the genus Melissa.
The resinous and aromatic exudation of certain trees or shrubs.
Any fragrant ointment.
Anything that heals or that mitigates pain. ::: v. i.
bankrupt ::: n. --> A trader who secretes himself, or does certain other acts tending to defraud his creditors.
A trader who becomes unable to pay his debts; an insolvent trader; popularly, any person who is unable to pay his debts; an insolvent person.
A person who, in accordance with the terms of a law relating to bankruptcy, has been judicially declared to be unable to meet his liabilities.
barbara ::: n. --> The first word in certain mnemonic lines which represent the various forms of the syllogism. It indicates a syllogism whose three propositions are universal affirmatives.
barbel ::: n. --> A slender tactile organ on the lips of certain fished.
A large fresh-water fish ( Barbus vulgaris) found in many European rivers. Its upper jaw is furnished with four barbels.
Barbs or paps under the tongued of horses and cattle. See 1st Barb, 3.
baromacrometer ::: n. --> An instrument for ascertaining the weight and length of a newborn infant.
barometer ::: n. --> An instrument for determining the weight or pressure of the atmosphere, and hence for judging of the probable changes of weather, or for ascertaining the height of any ascent.
basic ::: a. --> Relating to a base; performing the office of a base in a salt.
Having the base in excess, or the amount of the base atomically greater than that of the acid, or exceeding in proportion that of the related neutral salt.
Apparently alkaline, as certain normal salts which exhibit alkaline reactions with test paper.
Said of crystalline rocks which contain a relatively low
basigynium ::: n. --> The pedicel on which the ovary of certain flowers, as the passion flower, is seated; a carpophore or thecaphore.
basilical ::: a. --> Royal; kingly; also, basilican.
Pertaining to certain parts, anciently supposed to have a specially important function in the animal economy, as the middle vein of the right arm.
basisolute ::: a. --> Prolonged at the base, as certain leaves.
bate ::: n. --> Strife; contention.
See 2d Bath.
An alkaline solution consisting of the dung of certain animals; -- employed in the preparation of hides; grainer. ::: v. t. --> To lessen by retrenching, deducting, or reducing; to
batrachomyomachy ::: n. --> The battle between the frogs and mice; -- a Greek parody on the Iliad, of uncertain authorship.
certain ::: a. --> Assured in mind; having no doubts; free from suspicions concerning.
Determined; resolved; -- used with an infinitive.
Not to be doubted or denied; established as a fact.
Actually existing; sure to happen; inevitable.
Unfailing; infallible.
Fixed or stated; regular; determinate.
Not specifically named; indeterminate; indefinite; one or
certain ::: capable of being relied on; dependable.
certainly ::: adv. --> Without doubt or question; unquestionably.
certainness ::: n. --> Certainty.
certainties ::: pl. --> of Certainty
certainty ::: 1. The fact, quality, or state of being certain. 2. Something certain; an assured fact.
certainty ::: n. --> The quality, state, or condition, of being certain.
A fact or truth unquestionable established.
Clearness; freedom from ambiguity; lucidity.
beading ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Bead ::: n. --> Molding in imitation of beads.
The beads or bead-forming quality of certain liquors; as, the beading of a brand of whisky.
bead proof ::: --> Among distillers, a certain degree of strength in alcoholic liquor, as formerly ascertained by the floating or sinking of glass globules of different specific gravities thrown into it; now ascertained by more accurate meters.
A degree of strength in alcoholic liquor as shown by beads or small bubbles remaining on its surface, or at the side of the glass, when shaken.
beadroll ::: n. --> A catalogue of persons, for the rest of whose souls a certain number of prayers are to be said or counted off on the beads of a chaplet; hence, a catalogue in general.
bean ::: n. --> A name given to the seed of certain leguminous herbs, chiefly of the genera Faba, Phaseolus, and Dolichos; also, to the herbs.
The popular name of other vegetable seeds or fruits, more or less resembling true beans.
beard ::: n. --> The hair that grows on the chin, lips, and adjacent parts of the human face, chiefly of male adults.
The long hairs about the face in animals, as in the goat.
The cluster of small feathers at the base of the beak in some birds
The appendages to the jaw in some Cetacea, and to the mouth or jaws of some fishes.
The byssus of certain shellfish, as the muscle.
beatification ::: n. --> The act of beatifying, or the state of being beatified; esp., in the R. C. Church, the act or process of ascertaining and declaring that a deceased person is one of "the blessed," or has attained the second degree of sanctity, -- usually a stage in the process of canonization.
beatify ::: v. t. --> To pronounce or regard as happy, or supremely blessed, or as conferring happiness.
To make happy; to bless with the completion of celestial enjoyment.
To ascertain and declare, by a public process and decree, that a deceased person is one of "the blessed" and is to be reverenced as such, though not canonized.
beatitude ::: n. --> Felicity of the highest kind; consummate bliss.
Any one of the nine declarations (called the Beatitudes), made in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 3-12), with regard to the blessedness of those who are distinguished by certain specified virtues.
Beatification.
belief ::: n. --> Assent to a proposition or affirmation, or the acceptance of a fact, opinion, or assertion as real or true, without immediate personal knowledge; reliance upon word or testimony; partial or full assurance without positive knowledge or absolute certainty; persuasion; conviction; confidence; as, belief of a witness; the belief of our senses.
A persuasion of the truths of religion; faith.
The thing believed; the object of belief.
belt ::: n. --> That which engirdles a person or thing; a band or girdle; as, a lady&
bend ::: v. t. --> To strain or move out of a straight line; to crook by straining; to make crooked; to curve; to make ready for use by drawing into a curve; as, to bend a bow; to bend the knee.
To turn toward some certain point; to direct; to incline.
To apply closely or with interest; to direct.
To cause to yield; to render submissive; to subdue.
To fasten, as one rope to another, or as a sail to its yard or stay; or as a cable to the ring of an anchor.
bestead ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Bestead ::: v. t. --> To put in a certain situation or condition; to circumstance; to place.
To put in peril; to beset.
To serve; to assist; to profit; to avail.
be ::: v. i. --> To exist actually, or in the world of fact; to have ex/stence.
To exist in a certain manner or relation, -- whether as a reality or as a product of thought; to exist as the subject of a certain predicate, that is, as having a certain attribute, or as belonging to a certain sort, or as identical with what is specified, -- a word or words for the predicate being annexed; as, to be happy; to be here; to be large, or strong; to be an animal; to be a hero; to be a
bezoar ::: n. --> A calculous concretion found in the intestines of certain ruminant animals (as the wild goat, the gazelle, and the Peruvian llama) formerly regarded as an unfailing antidote for poison, and a certain remedy for eruptive, pestilential, or putrid diseases. Hence: Any antidote or panacea.
bibbs ::: n. pl. --> Pieces of timber bolted to certain parts of a mast to support the trestletrees.
bid ::: --> of Bid
of Bid
imp. & p. p. of Bid. ::: v. t. --> To make an offer of; to propose. Specifically : To offer to pay ( a certain price, as for a thing put up at auction), or to take (a
biforine ::: n. --> An oval sac or cell, found in the leaves of certain plants of the order Araceae. It has an opening at each end through which raphides, generated inside, are discharged.
bilabiate ::: a. --> Having two lips, as the corols of certain flowers.
bilamellated ::: a. --> Formed of two plates, as the stigma of the Mimulus; also, having two elevated ridges, as in the lip of certain flowers.
bimarginate ::: a. --> Having a double margin, as certain shells.
bipinnaria ::: n. --> The larva of certain starfishes as developed in the free-swimming stage.
blackmail ::: n. --> A certain rate of money, corn, cattle, or other thing, anciently paid, in the north of England and south of Scotland, to certain men who were allied to robbers, or moss troopers, to be by them protected from pillage.
Payment of money exacted by means of intimidation; also, extortion of money from a person by threats of public accusation, exposure, or censure.
Black rent, or rent paid in corn, flesh, or the lowest
blastostyle ::: n. --> In certain hydroids, an imperfect zooid, whose special function is to produce medusoid buds. See Hydroidea, and Athecata.
bloom ::: n. --> A blossom; the flower of a plant; an expanded bud; flowers, collectively.
The opening of flowers in general; the state of blossoming or of having the flowers open; as, the cherry trees are in bloom.
A state or time of beauty, freshness, and vigor; an opening to higher perfection, analogous to that of buds into blossoms; as, the bloom of youth.
The delicate, powdery coating upon certain growing or
blowgun ::: n. --> A tube, as of cane or reed, sometimes twelve feet long, through which an arrow or other projectile may be impelled by the force of the breath. It is a weapon much used by certain Indians of America and the West Indies; -- called also blowpipe, and blowtube. See Sumpitan.
bluebeard ::: n. --> The hero of a mediaeval French nursery legend, who, leaving home, enjoined his young wife not to open a certain room in his castle. She entered it, and found the murdered bodies of his former wives. -- Also used adjectively of a subject which it is forbidden to investigate.
bluegown ::: n. --> One of a class of paupers or pensioners, or licensed beggars, in Scotland, to whim annually on the king&
blur ::: v. t. --> To render obscure by making the form or outline of confused and uncertain, as by soiling; to smear; to make indistinct and confused; as, to blur manuscript by handling it while damp; to blur the impression of a woodcut by an excess of ink.
To cause imperfection of vision in; to dim; to darken.
To sully; to stain; to blemish, as reputation. ::: n.
bockland ::: n. --> See Bookland.
Charter land held by deed under certain rents and free services, which differed in nothing from free socage lands. This species of tenure has given rise to the modern freeholds.
bogie ::: n. --> A four-wheeled truck, having a certain amount of play around a vertical axis, used to support in part a locomotive on a railway track.
bond ::: 1. Something, such as a fetter, cord, or band, that binds, ties, or fastens things together. Also fig. 2. A duty, promise, or other obligation by which one is bound. 3. Something that binds one to a certain circumstance or line of behaviour. 4. A uniting force or tie; a link. 5. A binding agreement; a covenant. bonds.
bonded ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Bond ::: a. --> Placed under, or covered by, a bond, as for the payment of duties, or for conformity to certain regulations.
bondholder ::: n. --> A person who holds the bonds of a public or private corporation for the payment of money at a certain time.
borax ::: n. --> A white or gray crystalline salt, with a slight alkaline taste, used as a flux, in soldering metals, making enamels, fixing colors on porcelain, and as a soap. It occurs native in certain mineral springs, and is made from the boric acid of hot springs in Tuscany. It was originally obtained from a lake in Thibet, and was sent to Europe under the name of tincal. Borax is a pyroborate or tetraborate of sodium, Na2B4O7.10H2O.
boring ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Bore ::: n. --> The act or process of one who, or that which, bores; as, the boring of cannon; the boring of piles and ship timbers by certain marine mollusks.
A hole made by boring.
born ::: p. p. --> of Bear ::: v. t. --> Brought forth, as an animal; brought into life; introduced by birth.
Having from birth a certain character; by or from birth; by nature; innate; as, a born liar.
borough ::: n. --> In England, an incorporated town that is not a city; also, a town that sends members to parliament; in Scotland, a body corporate, consisting of the inhabitants of a certain district, erected by the sovereign, with a certain jurisdiction; in America, an incorporated town or village, as in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
The collective body of citizens or inhabitants of a borough; as, the borough voted to lay a tax.
An association of men who gave pledges or sureties to the
bourse ::: n. --> An exchange, or place where merchants, bankers, etc., meet for business at certain hours; esp., the Stock Exchange of Paris.
brachiolaria ::: n. pl. --> A peculiar early larval stage of certain starfishes, having a bilateral structure, and swimming by means of bands of vibrating cilia.
brachyceral ::: a. --> Having short antennae, as certain insects.
bromoform ::: n. --> A colorless liquid, CHBr3, having an agreeable odor and sweetish taste. It is produced by the simultaneous action of bromine and caustic potash upon wood spirit, alcohol, or acetone, as also by certain other reactions. In composition it is the same as chloroform, with the substitution of bromine for chlorine. It is somewhat similar to chloroform in its effects.
bronchophony ::: n. --> A modification of the voice sounds, by which they are intensified and heightened in pitch; -- observed in auscultation of the chest in certain cases of intro-thoracic disease.
bud ::: n. --> A small protuberance on the stem or branches of a plant, containing the rudiments of future leaves, flowers, or stems; an undeveloped branch or flower.
A small protuberance on certain low forms of animals and vegetables which develops into a new organism, either free or attached. See Hydra. ::: v. i.
bug ::: n. --> A bugbear; anything which terrifies.
A general name applied to various insects belonging to the Hemiptera; as, the squash bug; the chinch bug, etc.
An insect of the genus Cimex, especially the bedbug (C. lectularius). See Bedbug.
One of various species of Coleoptera; as, the ladybug; potato bug, etc.; loosely, any beetle.
One of certain kinds of Crustacea; as, the sow bug; pill bug;
bulb ::: n. --> A spheroidal body growing from a plant either above or below the ground (usually below), which is strictly a bud, consisting of a cluster of partially developed leaves, and producing, as it grows, a stem above, and roots below, as in the onion, tulip, etc. It differs from a corm in not being solid.
A name given to some parts that resemble in shape certain bulbous roots; as, the bulb of the aorta.
An expansion or protuberance on a stem or tube, as the bulb
bulker ::: n. --> A person employed to ascertain the bulk or size of goods, in order to fix the amount of freight or dues payable on them.
burgage ::: n. --> A tenure by which houses or lands are held of the king or other lord of a borough or city; at a certain yearly rent, or by services relating to trade or handicraft.
burrow ::: n. --> An incorporated town. See 1st Borough.
A shelter; esp. a hole in the ground made by certain animals, as rabbits, for shelter and habitation.
A heap or heaps of rubbish or refuse.
A mound. See 3d Barrow, and Camp, n., 5. ::: v. i.
But as the subtle body penetrates and is interfused with the gross body, there Is a certain correspondence between these chakras and certain centres in the pbyrical proper.
But it is mostly people who live much in the vital that so fall ; with a strong and free and calm mind and a psychic awake and alive, such petdnesses ate not likely to occur. As for those who live in the true Divine Consciousness, certain powers are not powers at all and in that sense, not, that is to say, supernatural or abnormal, but rather their normal way of seeing and acting, part of the consciousness — and how can they be forbidden or refuse to act according to tbelr consciousness and its nature ?
butter ::: n. --> An oily, unctuous substance obtained from cream or milk by churning.
Any substance resembling butter in degree of consistence, or other qualities, especially, in old chemistry, the chlorides, as butter of antimony, sesquichloride of antimony; also, certain concrete fat oils remaining nearly solid at ordinary temperatures, as butter of cacao, vegetable butter, shea butter.
One who, or that which, butts.
bye ::: n. --> A thing not directly aimed at; something which is a secondary object of regard; an object by the way, etc.; as in on or upon the bye, i. e., in passing; indirectly; by implication.
A run made upon a missed ball; as, to steal a bye.
A dwelling.
In certain games, a station or place of an individual player.
byssus ::: n. --> A cloth of exceedingly fine texture, used by the ancients. It is disputed whether it was of cotton, linen, or silk.
A tuft of long, tough filaments which are formed in a groove of the foot, and issue from between the valves of certain bivalve mollusks, as the Pinna and Mytilus, by which they attach themselves to rocks, etc.
An obsolete name for certain fungi composed of slender threads.
cabala ::: n. --> A kind of occult theosophy or traditional interpretation of the Scriptures among Jewish rabbis and certain mediaeval Christians, which treats of the nature of god and the mystery of human existence. It assumes that every letter, word, number, and accent of Scripture contains a hidden sense; and it teaches the methods of interpretation for ascertaining these occult meanings. The cabalists pretend even to foretell events by this means.
Secret science in general; mystic art; mystery.
cabbage ::: n. --> An esculent vegetable of many varieties, derived from the wild Brassica oleracea of Europe. The common cabbage has a compact head of leaves. The cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, etc., are sometimes classed as cabbages.
The terminal bud of certain palm trees, used, like, cabbage, for food. See Cabbage tree, below.
The cabbage palmetto. See below.
Cloth or clippings cabbaged or purloined by one who cuts
cabbiri ::: n. pl. --> Certain deities originally worshiped with mystical rites by the Pelasgians in Lemnos and Samothrace and afterwards throughout Greece; -- also called sons of Hephaestus (or Vulcan), as being masters of the art of working metals.
cacuminal ::: a. --> Pertaining to the top of the palate; cerebral; -- applied to certain consonants; as, cacuminal (or cerebral) letters.
calamistrum ::: n. --> A comblike structure on the metatarsus of the hind legs of certain spiders (Ciniflonidae), used to curl certain fibers in the construction of their webs.
calculable ::: a. --> That may be calculated or ascertained by calculation.
calculated ::: p. p. & a. --> Worked out by calculation; as calculated tables for computing interest; ascertained or conjectured as a result of calculation; as, the calculated place of a planet; the calculated velocity of a cannon ball.
Adapted by calculation, contrivance. or forethought to accomplish a purpose; as, to use arts calculated to deceive the people.
Likely to produce a certain effect, whether
calculate ::: v. i. --> To ascertain or determine by mathematical processes, usually by the ordinary rules of arithmetic; to reckon up; to estimate; to compute.
To ascertain or predict by mathematical or astrological computations the time, circumstances, or other conditions of; to forecast or compute the character or consequences of; as, to calculate or cast one&
calibrate ::: v. i. --> To ascertain the caliber of, as of a thermometer tube; also, more generally, to determine or rectify the graduation of, as of the various standards or graduated instruments.
calicle ::: n. --> One of the small cuplike cavities, often with elevated borders, covering the surface of most corals. Each is formed by a polyp. (b) One of the cuplike structures inclosing the zooids of certain hydroids. See Campanularian.
canalise ::: to divert into certain channels; give a certain direction to or provide a certain outlet for, in order to control or regulate. canalises, canalised.
cancellate ::: v. t. --> Consisting of a network of veins, without intermediate parenchyma, as the leaves of certain plants; latticelike.
Having the surface coveres with raised lines, crossing at right angles.
cancellation ::: n. --> The act, process, or result of canceling; as, the cansellation of certain words in a contract, or of the contract itself.
The operation of striking out common factors, in both the dividend and divisor.
cancelli ::: v. t. --> An interwoven or latticed wall or inclosure; latticework, rails, or crossbars, as around the bar of a court of justice, between the chancel and the nave of a church, or in a window.
The interlacing osseous plates constituting the elastic porous tissue of certain parts of the bones, esp. in their articular extremities.
can we hope to be directly aware of the Divine in us and directly in touch with the Divine Light and the Divine Force. Otherwise we can feel the Divine only through external signs and external results and that is a diflicult and uncertain way and very occa- sional and inconstant, and it leads only to belief and not to knowledge, not to the direct consciousness and awareness of the constant presence.
capitate ::: a. --> Headlike in form; also, having the distal end enlarged and rounded, as the stigmas of certain flowers.
Having the flowers gathered into a head.
captainry ::: n. --> Power, or command, over a certain district; chieftainship.
cartilaginous ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to cartilage; gristly; firm and tough like cartilage.
Having the skeleton in the state of cartilage, the bones containing little or no calcareous matter; said of certain fishes, as the sturgeon and the sharks.
cassius ::: n. --> A brownish purple pigment, obtained by the action of some compounds of tin upon certain salts of gold. It is used in painting and staining porcelain and glass to give a beautiful purple color. Commonly called Purple of Cassius.
cassock ::: n. --> A long outer garment formerly worn by men and women, as well as by soldiers as part of their uniform.
A garment resembling a long frock coat worn by the clergy of certain churches when officiating, and by others as the usually outer garment.
castle-guard ::: n. --> The guard or defense of a castle.
A tax or imposition an a dwelling within a certain distance of a castle, for the purpose of maintaining watch and ward in it; castle-ward.
A feudal tenure, obliging the tenant to perform service within the realm, without limitation of time.
cast ::: v. 1. To throw with force; hurl. 2. To form (liquid metal, for example) into a particular shape by pouring into a mould. Also fig. 3. To cause to fall upon something or in a certain direction; send forth. 4. To throw on the ground, as in wrestling. 5. To put or place, esp. hastily or forcibly. 6. To direct (the eye, a glance, etc.) 7. To throw (something) forth or off. 8. To bestow; confer. casts, casting.
catalysis ::: n. --> Dissolution; degeneration; decay.
A process by which reaction occurs in the presence of certain agents which were formerly believed to exert an influence by mere contact. It is now believed that such reactions are attended with the formation of an intermediate compound or compounds, so that by alternate composition and decomposition the agent is apparenty left unchanged; as, the catalysis of making ether from alcohol by means of sulphuric acid; or catalysis in the action of soluble ferments (as
caveat ::: n. --> A notice given by an interested party to some officer not to do a certain act until the party is heard in opposition; as, a caveat entered in a probate court to stop the proving of a will or the taking out of letters of administration, etc.
A description of some invention, designed to be patented, lodged in the patent office before the patent right is applied for, and operating as a bar to the issue of letters patent to any other person, respecting the same invention.
cellulose ::: a. --> Consisting of, or containing, cells. ::: n. --> The substance which constitutes the essential part of the solid framework of plants, of ordinary wood, linen, paper, etc. It is also found to a slight extent in certain animals, as the tunicates. It is a carbohydrate, (C6H10O5)n, isomeric with starch, and is
cenogamy ::: n. --> The state of a community which permits promiscuous sexual intercourse among its members, as in certain societies practicing communism.
central ::: a. --> Relating to the center; situated in or near the center or middle; containing the center; of or pertaining to the parts near the center; equidistant or equally accessible from certain points. ::: n. --> Alt. of Centrale
CENTRES. ::: The inner bring is connected with the small outer personality by certain centres of consciousness of which we become aware by yoga. They are for the most part closed or asleep ; to open and make them awake and active is one
cercopod ::: n. --> One of the jointed antenniform appendages of the posterior somites of certain insects.
cerebrin ::: n. --> A nonphosphorized, nitrogenous substance, obtained from brain and nerve tissue by extraction with boiling alcohol. It is uncertain whether it exists as such in nerve tissue, or is a product of the decomposition of some more complex substance.
"Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and vast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the world-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are primary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and therefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their partial reflection.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and vast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the world-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are primary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and therefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their partial reflection.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and vast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the world-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are primary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and therefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their partial reflection. Reflections themselves of the Real, they again are reflected in the more concrete workings of our existence. The Supramental Manifestation
certes ::: adv. --> Certainly; in truth; verily.
certify ::: v. t. --> To give cetain information to; to assure; to make certain.
To give certain information of; to make certain, as a fact; to verify.
To testify to in writing; to make a declaration concerning, in writing, under hand, or hand and seal.
certitude ::: freedom from doubt, esp. in matters of faith or opinion; certainty. certitudes.
certitude ::: n. --> Freedom from doubt; assurance; certainty.
chaffy ::: a. --> Abounding in, or resembling, chaff.
Light or worthless as chaff.
Resembling chaff; composed of light dry scales.
Bearing or covered with dry scales, as the under surface of certain ferns, or the disk of some composite flowers.
chance ::: n. --> A supposed material or psychical agent or mode of activity other than a force, law, or purpose; fortune; fate; -- in this sense often personified.
The operation or activity of such agent.
The supposed effect of such an agent; something that befalls, as the result of unknown or unconsidered forces; the issue of uncertain conditions; an event not calculated upon; an unexpected occurrence; a happening; accident; fortuity; casualty.
changeful ::: a. --> Full of change; mutable; inconstant; fickle; uncertain.
check ::: v. 1. To investigate, examine or verify as to correctness; examine carefully or in detail; to ascertain the truth about. 2. To inspect so as to determine accuracy, authenticity, quality, or other condition; test. checked.* n. *3. A person or thing that stops, limits, slows, or restrains.
chest ::: n. --> A large box of wood, or other material, having, like a trunk, a lid, but no covering of skin, leather, or cloth.
A coffin.
The part of the body inclosed by the ribs and breastbone; the thorax.
A case in which certain goods, as tea, opium, etc., are transported; hence, the quantity which such a case contains.
A tight receptacle or box, usually for holding gas, steam,
chevalier ::: n. --> A horseman; a knight; a gallant young man.
A member of certain orders of knighthood.
chiloma ::: n. --> The tumid upper lip of certain mammals, as of a camel.
chlamydate ::: a. --> Having a mantle; -- applied to certain gastropods.
chloranil ::: n. --> A yellow crystalline substance, C6Cl4.O2, regarded as a derivative of quinone, obtained by the action of chlorine on certain benzene derivatives, as aniline.
chlorhydrin ::: n. --> One of a class of compounds formed from certain polybasic alcohols (and especially glycerin) by the substitution of chlorine for one or more hydroxyl groups.
chorion ::: n. --> The outer membrane which invests the fetus in the womb; also, the similar membrane investing many ova at certain stages of development.
The true skin, or cutis.
The outer membrane of seeds of plants.
christcross ::: n. --> The mark of the cross, as cut, painted, written, or stamped on certain objects, -- sometimes as the sign of 12 o&
chromatrope ::: n. --> An instrument for exhibiting certain chromatic effects of light (depending upon the persistence of vision and mixture of colors) by means of rapidly rotating disks variously colored.
A device in a magic lantern or stereopticon to produce kaleidoscopic effects.
chronogram ::: n. --> An inscription in which certain numeral letters, made to appear specially conspicuous, on being added together, express a particular date or epoch, as in the motto of a medal struck by Gustavus Adolphus in 1632: ChrIstVs DVX; ergo trIVMphVs.- the capitals of which give, when added as numerals, the sum 1632.
The record or inscription made by a chronograph.
chrysalis ::: n. --> The pupa state of certain insects, esp. of butterflies, from which the perfect insect emerges. See Pupa, and Aurelia (a).
chrysolite ::: n. --> A mineral, composed of silica, magnesia, and iron, of a yellow to green color. It is common in certain volcanic rocks; -- called also olivine and peridot. Sometimes used as a gem. The name was also early used for yellow varieties of tourmaline and topaz.
C/ia/JSc of vital ::: It is not coerdon that is the way, but an inner change in which he lower vital is led, enlightened and transformed by a higher consciousness which is detached from the objects of vital desire. But in order to let this grow an atti- tude has to be tahen in which a decreasing Importance has to be attached to the satisfaction of the claims of the lower vital, a certain mastery, saniyama, being above any clamour of these things, limiting such things as food to their proper place. The lower vital has its place, it is not to be crushed or killed, but it has to be changed.
ciclatoun ::: n. --> A costly cloth, of uncertain material, used in the Middle Ages.
cilia ::: n. pl. --> The eyelashes.
Small, generally microscopic, vibrating appendages lining certain organs, as the air passages of the higher animals, and in the lower animals often covering also the whole or a part of the exterior. They are also found on some vegetable organisms. In the Infusoria, and many larval forms, they are locomotive organs.
Hairlike processes, commonly marginal and forming a fringe like the eyelash.
\cil of sleep — very largely indeed these two elements get mixed up together. For in fact a large part of our consciousness in sleep docs not sink into this subconscious slate ; it passes beyond the veil into other planes of being which arc connected with our own inner planes, planes of supraphj'sical existence, w'orlds of a larger life, mind or psychic which arc there behind and whose influences come to us without our knowledge. Occasionally we get a dream from these planes, something more than a dream, — a dream experience which is a record direct or symbolic of what happens to us or around us there. As the inner consciousness grows by sadhana, these dream experiences increase In number, dearness, coherence, accuracy and after some growth of experi- ence and consciousness, we can, if we observe, come to under- stand them and their significance to our loner life. Even we can by training become so coosetous as to follow our own passage, usually veiled to our arvarencss and memory, through many realms and the process of the return to the waking state. At a certain pitch of this inner wakefulness this kind of sleep, a sleep experience, can replace the ordinary subconscious slumber.
cingulum ::: n. --> A distinct girdle or band of color; a raised spiral line as seen on certain univalve shells.
The clitellus of earthworms.
The base of the crown of a tooth.
cinnoline ::: n. --> A nitrogenous organic base, C8H6N2, analogous to quinoline, obtained from certain complex diazo compounds.
circumscribe ::: v. t. --> to write or engrave around.
To inclose within a certain limit; to hem in; to surround; to bound; to confine; to restrain.
To draw a line around so as to touch at certain points without cutting. See Inscribe, 5.
cirrous ::: a. --> Cirrose.
Tufted; -- said of certain feathers of birds.
cirrus ::: n. --> A tendril or clasper.
A soft tactile appendage of the mantle of many Mollusca, and of the parapodia of Annelida. Those near the head of annelids are Tentacular cirri; those of the last segment are caudal cirri.
The jointed, leglike organs of Cirripedia. See Annelida, and Polychaeta.
The external male organ of trematodes and some other worms, and of certain Mollusca.
citraconic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, derived from, or having certain characteristics of, citric and aconitic acids.
clear ::: 1. Not obscured or darkened; bright. 2. Free from darkness, obscurity, or cloudiness; transparent. 3. Serene; calm; untroubled. 4. Free from doubt or confusion; certain. 5. Easily perceptible to the eye or ear; distinct. 6. Easily understood; without ambiguity. 7. Free from impediment, obstruction, or hindrance; open. clearer, sun-clear, surface-clear.
code ::: 1. A system of symbols, letters, or words given certain arbitrary meanings, used for transmitting messages requiring secrecy or brevity. 2. A systematic collection of regulations and rules of procedure or conduct. codes.
confident ::: 1. Having or showing confidence or certainty; sure. 2. Sure of oneself; having no uncertainty about one"s own abilities, correctness, successfulness, etc.; self-confident; bold.
confirm ::: 1. To make valid or binding by a formal or legal act; ratify. 2. To support or establish the certainty, or validity of; verify. 3. To reaffirm (something), so as to make (it) more definite. confirmed.
control-room ::: a room housing control equipment where certain operations are conducted.
Co-ordination and harmonisation of parts is absent in many ; it is a thing that has to be attained to or built up. Moreover at a certain stage in sSdhana there is almost always a disparity or opposition between the parts that are already turned towards the Truth and are capable of experience and others that are not and pull one down to a lower level. The opposition is not equally acute in all cases, but in one degree or another it is almost uni- versal. Co-ordinadon and univeisaUsation can be satisfactorily done only when this is overcome. Till then oscillations are inevitable.
cosmic mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes, — towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” *The Life Divine
"If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, — not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
"There is one cosmic Mind, one cosmic Life, one cosmic Body. All the attempt of man to arrive at universal sympathy, universal love and the understanding and knowledge of the inner soul of other existences is an attempt to beat thin, breach and eventually break down by the power of the enlarging mind and heart the walls of the ego and arrive nearer to a cosmic oneness.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"[The results of the opening to the cosmic Mind:] One is aware of the cosmic Mind and the mental forces that move there and how they work on one"s mind and that of others and one is able to deal with one"s own mind with a greater knowledge and effective power. There are many other results, but this is the fundamental one.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness has many levels — the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga*
DARK PATH. ::: The dark path is there and there are many who make a Gospel of spiritual suffering; many hold it to be the unavoidable price of victory. It may be so under certain circumstances, as it has been in so many lives at the beginning. or one may choose to make it so. But then the price has to be paid with resignation, fortitude or a tenacious resilience. Borne that way, the attacks of the dark forces or the ordeals they impose have a meaning. After each victory gained over them, there is then a sensible advance; often they seem to show us the difficulties in ourselves which we have to overcome. But all the same it is a too dark and difficult way which nobody need follow on whom the necessity does not lie.
Death and after ::: at the time of death the being goes out of the body through the head ; it goes out in the subtle body and goes to different planes of existence for a short time until it has gone through certain experiences which are the result of its earthly existence. Afterwards it reaches the psychic world where it rests in a kind of sleep, until it is time for it to start a new life on earth.
destined ::: foreordained by a divine decree; certain.
detect ::: to discover or ascertain the existence, presence, or fact of. detected.
Divine Power, Light, Ananda may descend and work behind the veil, but we shall feel nothing and only sec certain results after a long time. Or at most we feel a certain clarity and peace in the mind, a joy in the vital, a happy state in the physical and infer the touch of the Divine. But if we are aware in the physical, we shall feel the I^t, power or Ananda flowing through the body, the limbs, nerves, blood, breath and, through
Divine. That is the attitude into which one must grow ; for certainly it cannot be made perfect at once— -mental and vital movements come across — but if one keeps the will to it, it will grow in the being. The rest is a matter of obedience when it makes itself manifest, not allowing one’s mental and vital move- ments to interfere.
dream ::: 1. A series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. 2. A vision occurring to a person while awake. 3. A person or thing that is as pleasant, or seemingly unreal, as a dream 4. An ideal or aspiration; goal; aim. 5. A wild or vain fancy. Dream, dream"s, Dream"s, dreams, dream-brood, dream-brush, dream-built, dream-caught, dream-fact, dream-fate, dream-god"s, dream-happiness, dream-hued, dream-life, dream-light, dream-made, dream-mind, dream-notes, dream-print, dream-sculptured, dream-shores, dream-smiles, dream-splendour, dream-truth, dream-vasts, dream-white, dream-world, half-dream, self-dream, sun-dream, world-dream. *adj. 6. Of a colour: misty, dim, or cloudy. v. 7. To have an image (of) or fantasy (about) in or as if in a dream. dreams, dreamed, *dreaming.
DRY PERIOD. ::: There is a long stage of preparation neces- sary in order to arrive at the moer psychologic^ condition in which the doors of experience can open and one can walk from vista to vista — though even then new gates may present them- selves and refuse to open until all is ready. This period can be dry and desert-like unless one has the ardour of self-introspec- tion and self-conquest and finds every step of the effort and struggle interesting or unless one has or gets the secret of trust and self-giving which secs the hand of the Divine in every step of the path and even in the difficulty the grace or the guidance.
Such interval periods come to all and cannot be avoided.
The main thing is to meet them with quietude and not become restless, depressed or despondent. A constant fire can be there only when a certain stage has been reached, that is when one is always inside consciously living in the psychic being, but for that all this preparation of the mind, vital, physical is necessary.
For this fire belongs to the psychic and one cannot command it always merely by the mind's effort. The psychic has to be fully liberated and that is what the Force is working to make fully possible.
The difficulty comes when either the vital with its desires or the physical with its past habitual movements comes in — as they do with almost everyone. It is then that the dryness and difficulty of spontaneous aspiration come. This dryness is a well- known obstacle in all sadhana. But one has to persist and not be discouraged. If one keep? the will fixed even in these barren periods, they pass and after their passage a greater force of aspiration and experience becomes possible.
Dryness comes usually when the vital dislikes a movement or' condition or the refusal of its desires and starts non-co-operation.
But sometimes it is a condition that has to be crossed through, e.g. the neutral or dry quietude which sometimes comes when the ordinary movements have been thrown out but nothing positive has yet come to take their place, i.e, peace, joy, a higher know- ledge or force or action.
dubious ::: 1. Marked by or causing doubt; vague; ambiguous. 2. Not certain in outcome. 3. Fraught with uncertainty or doubt; undecided.
Effect of food ::: There is a certain usually fixed relation between the consciousness in the palate and the gimas of the food, but the cctnsciousness can alter the relation if it wants or inhibit it altogether.
emptied ::: holding or containing nothing of meaning, or certain specified qualities.
ethics ::: 1. A system of moral principles. 2. The branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions. **ethics".
event ::: 1. Something that happens, or is regarded as happening; an occurrence, esp. one of some importance. 2. Something that occurs in a certain place during a particular interval of time. Event, event"s, events, shape-events. ::: Event, divine
"Everybody now knows that Science is not a statement of the truth of things, but only a language expressing a certain experience of objects, their structure, their mathematics, a coordinated and utilisable impression of their processes — it is nothing more.” Letters on Yoga
“Everybody now knows that Science is not a statement of the truth of things, but only a language expressing a certain experience of objects, their structure, their mathematics, a coordinated and utilisable impression of their processes—it is nothing more.” Letters on Yoga
EXALTATION. ::: A certain exaltation of the being comes naturally with the stronger experiences and the sense of marvel or miracle may go with it, but there should be no egoistic feel- ing in the exaltation.
expected ::: looked forward to; considered likely or certain to happen.
fate ::: “The Indian explanation of fate is Karma. We ourselves are our own fate through our actions, but the fate created by us binds us; for what we have sown, we must reap in this life or another. Still we are creating our fate for the future even while undergoing old fate from the past in the present. That gives a meaning to our will and action and does not, as European critics wrongly believe, constitute a rigid and sterilising fatalism. But again, our will and action can often annul or modify even the past Karma, it is only certain strong effects, called utkata karma, that are non-modifiable. Here too the achievement of the spiritual consciousness and life is supposed to annul or give the power to annul Karma. For we enter into union with the Will Divine, cosmic or transcendent, which can annul what it had sanctioned for certain conditions, new-create what it had created, the narrow fixed lines disappear, there is a more plastic freedom and wideness. Neither Karma nor Astrology therefore points to a rigid and for ever immutable fate.” Letters on Yoga
Feet ::: [Tehmi: “In India it is considered that the whole power of the being is focused in the feet. So the feet are touched not only in humility but because all the power of the divinity is concentrated there. When someone touches the feet with the right attitude and devotion a certain power is drawn by the one who touches. So it is a grace by the person who is touched to allow it. Only if one is rooted in the Divine he can allow his feet to be touched.”]
ferment ::: 1. A state of agitation or of turbulent change or development. 2. A process of nature involving the addition of yeasts, moulds and certain bacteria (to liquids or solids) causing an effervescence or internal commotion, with evolution of heat, in the substance operated on, and a resulting alteration of its properties.
FREUD’S PSYCHO-ANALYSIS. ::: The last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealtbiest part of the nature, the lower vital sub-consctous layer. Isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in 'the nature.
fumbling ::: fig. Proceeding awkwardly and uncertainly; blundering.
gamble ::: an act or undertaking of uncertain outcome; a risk.
gators or creators often of vast and formidable inner upheavals or of action that overpass the normal human measure. There may also be an awareness of influences, presences, beings that do not seem to belong to other worlds beyond us but are here as a hidden element behind the veil in terrestrial nature. As contact wth the supraphysical is possible, a contact can also take place subjective or objective — or at_ least objectivised — between our own consciousness and the consciousness of other once embodied beings who have passed into a supraphysicaj status in these other regions of existence. It is possible also to pass beyond a subjective contact or a sahiie-scnse perception and, in certain subliminal states of consciousness, to enter actually into other worlds and know something of their secrets, ft is the wore objective order of other-worldly experience that seized most the imagination of mankind in the past, but it was put by popular belief into a gross objective statement which unduly assimilated these phenomena to those of the physical world with which we are familiar for it is the normal tendency of our mind to turn everything into forms or symbols proper to its own kind and terms of expericoce.
godhead ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe. The Gita lays stress first on his supracosmic existence. For otherwise the mind would miss its highest goal and remain turned towards the cosmic only or else attached to some partial experience of the Divine in the cosmos. It lays stress next on his universal existence in which all moves and acts. For that is the justification of the cosmic effort and that is the vast spiritual self-awareness in which the Godhead self-seen as the Time-Spirit does his universal works. Next it insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic. Finally, it insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one Godhead.” *Essays on the Gita
Godhead ::: “… the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe. The Gita lays stress first on his supracosmic existence. For otherwise the mind would miss its highest goal and remain turned towards the cosmic only or else attached to some partial experience of the Divine in the cosmos. It lays stress next on his universal existence in which all moves and acts. For that is the justification of the cosmic effort and that is the vast spiritual self-awareness in which the Godhead self-seen as the Time-Spirit does his universal works. Next it insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic. Finally, it insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one Godhead.” Essays on the Gita
grope ::: 1. To feel about with the hands; feel one"s way, as if blind. 2. To search blindly or uncertainly. gropes, groped.
hang ::: 1. To fasten or attach (pictures, etc.) to a wall. 2. To suspend (something) around or in front of anything. 3.* Fig. To remain unresolved or uncertain. 4. To make (an idea, form, etc.) dependent on the situation, structure, concept, or the like, usually derived from another source. 5. To fasten or be fastened from above, esp. by a cord, chain, etc.; suspend. 6. To be suspended or poised; hover. 7. To bend forward or downward; to lean over. *hangs, hung, hanging, flower-hung, shadow-hung. ::: hung on: Remained clinging, usually implying expectation or unwillingness to sever one"s connection.
hardly ::: “Your ‘barely enough’, instead of the finer and more suggestive ‘hardly’, falls flat upon my ear; one cannot substitute one word for another in this kind of poetry merely because it means intellectually the same thing; ‘hardly’ is the mot juste in this context and, repetition or not, it must remain unless a word not only juste but inevitable comes to replace it… . On this point I may add that in certain contexts ‘barely’ would be the right word, as for instance, ‘There is barely enough food left for two or three meals’, where ‘hardly’ would be adequate but much less forceful. It is the other way about in this line. Letters on Savitri
hazard ::: n. 1. An unavoidable danger or risk, even though often foreseeable. 2. Something causing unavoidable danger, peril, risk, or difficulty. 3. The absence or lack of predictability; chance; uncertainty. hazard"s, hazards. *v. 4. To expose to hazard or risk. 5. To venture (something); dare. 6. To venture upon (anything of doubtful issue). *hazards, hazarded.
hazardous ::: 1. Full of risk; perilous; risky. 2. Dependent on chance; uncertain.
hesitating ::: 1. Pausing in uncertainty; wavering, vacillating. 2. Faltering in speech; expressing with hesitation.
Hostile Forces have a certain self-chosen function ::: it is to test the condition of the individual, of the work, of the earth itself and their readiness for the spiritual descent and fulfilment.
How these magnificent lines from Savitri continue to reverberate in the mind and heart and soul I do not know. I know only this, that Savitri, as Mother has said, is”a mantra for the transformation of the world.” As understanding grows within, not in the mind but in the inner cathedral which is always drenched in light, certain lines repeat themselves as mantra and I share what comes to me in a spirit of wonder and hushed elation.
“I certainly won’t have ‘attracted’ [in place of ‘allured’]—there is an enormous difference between the force of the two words and merely ‘attracted by the Ecstasy’ would take away all my ecstasy in the line—nothing so tepid can be admitted. Neither do I want ‘thrill’ [in place of ‘joy’] which gives a false colour—precisely it would mean that the ecstasy was already touching him with its intensity which is far from my intention.
**"I certainly won"t have ‘attracted" [in place of ‘allured"] — there is an enormous difference between the force of the two words and merely ‘attracted by the Ecstasy" would take away all my ecstasy in the line — nothing so tepid can be admitted. Neither do I want ‘thrill" [in place of ‘joy"] which gives a false colour — precisely it would mean that the ecstasy was already touching him with its intensity which is far from my intention.Your statement that ‘joy" is just another word for ‘ecstasy" is surprising. ‘Comfort", ‘pleasure", ‘joy", ‘bliss", ‘rapture", ‘ecstasy" would then be all equal and exactly synonymous terms and all distinction of shades and colours of words would disappear from literature. As well say that ‘flashlight" is just another word for ‘lightning" — or that glow, gleam, glitter, sheen, blaze are all equivalents which can be employed indifferently in the same place. One can feel allured to the supreme omniscient Ecstasy and feel a nameless joy touching one without that Joy becoming itself the supreme Ecstasy. I see no loss of expressiveness by the joy coming in as a vague nameless hint of the immeasurable superior Ecstasy.” Letters on Savitri*
If we would understand the difference of this global Overmind Consciousness from our separative and only imperfectly synthetic mental consciousness, we may come near to it if we compare the strictly mental with what would be an overmental view of activities in our material universe. To the Overmind, for example, all religions would be true as developments of the one eternal religion, all philosophies would be valid each in its own field as a statement of its own universe-view from its own angle, all political theories with their practice would be the legitimate working out of an Idea Force with its right to application and practical development in the play of the energies of Nature. In our separative consciousness, imperfectly visited by glimpses of catholicity and universality, these things exist as opposites; each claims to be the truth and taxes the others with error and falsehood, each feels impelled to refute or destroy the others in order that itself alone may be the Truth and live: at best, each must claim to be superior, admit all others only as inferior truth-expressions. An overmental Intelligence would refuse to entertain this conception or this drift to exclusiveness for a moment; it would allow all to live as necessary to the whole or put each in its place in the whole or assign to each its field of realisation or of endeavour. This is because in us consciousness has come down completely into the divisions of the Ignorance; Truth is no longer either an Infinite or a cosmic whole with many possible formulations, but a rigid affirmation holding any other affirmation to be false because different from itself and entrenched in other limits. Our mental consciousness can indeed arrive in its cognition at a considerable approach towards a total comprehensiveness and catholicity, but to organise that in action and life seems to be beyond its power. Evolutionary Mind, manifest in individuals or collectivities, throws up a multiplicity of divergent viewpoints, divergent lines of action and lets them work themselves out side by side or in collision or in a certain intermixture; it can make selective harmonies, but it cannot arrive at the harmonic control of a true totality. Cosmic Mind must have even in the evolutionary Ignorance, like all totalities, such a harmony, if only of arranged accords and discords; there is too in it an underlying dynamism of oneness: but it carries the completeness of these things in its depths, perhaps in a supermind-overmind substratum, but does not impart it to individual Mind in the evolution, does not bring it or has not yet brought it from the depths to the surface. An Overmind world would be a world of harmony; the world of Ignorance in which we live is a world of disharmony and struggle. …
Ignorance ; when a certain inner perception loosens the knot, the worst of the difficulty is over.
II ADIT. ::: The physical is the slave of certain forces which create a habit and drive it ilirouch the mechanical power of the habit. So long ns the mind gives consent, you do not notice the slavery ; but if the mind withdraws its consent, then you feel the servitude, you feci a force pushing you in spite of the mind's will. It is very obstinate and repeats itself till the habit, the inner habit revealing itself in the outward act, is broken. If is like a machine which once set in motion repeats the same move* ment. A quiet persistent aspiration will bring you to the point where the habit breaks and you arc free.
“In a certain sense all genius comes from Overhead; for genius is the entry or inrush of a greater consciousness into the mind or a possession of the mind by a greater power.” Letters on Poetry and Art
*"In a certain sense all genius comes from Overhead; for genius is the entry or inrush of a greater consciousness into the mind or a possession of the mind by a greater power.”
"In a certain sense, to use the relative and suggestive phrasing of our human language, all things are the symbols through which we have to approach and draw nearer to That by which we and they exist.” The Life Divine
“In a certain sense, to use the relative and suggestive phrasing of our human language, all things are the symbols through which we have to approach and draw nearer to That by which we and they exist.” The Life Divine
incertitude ::: absence of confidence; doubt; uncertainty. incertitudes. ::: Sri Aurobindo: [referring to the line] "The incertitude of man"s proud confident thought.” ::: "‘Uncertainty" would mean that the thought was confident but uncertain of itself, which would be a contradiction. ‘Incertitude" means that its truth is uncertain in spite of its proud confidence in itself.” Letters on Savitri — 1936
indeed ::: without a doubt; certainly; in fact; in reality. (Used for emphasis, to confirm and amplify a previous statement, to indicate a concession or admission, or, interrogatively, to obtain confirmation.)
inevitable ::: 1. Unable to be avoided, evaded, or escaped; certain; necessary. 2. Sure to occur, happen, or come. inevitably.
infallible ::: 1. Incapable of failure or error. 2. Not liable to failure; certain; sure. 3. Absolutely trustworthy or sure. 4. Unfailing in effectiveness or operation; certain. infallibly, infallibility.
in political and legal philosophy and theology, doctrines based on the theory that there are certain unchanging laws which pertain to man"s nature, which can be discovered by reason, and therefore ethically binding in human society, and to which man-made laws should conform.
INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.
Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.
Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.
Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.
Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.
Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.
The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.
Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.
Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.
Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.
Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.
Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.
Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.
The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.
This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.
Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.
Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.
The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.
Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.
It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.
If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.
(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.
Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.
It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.
Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.
In this joga the consciousness (after the lower field has been prepared by a certain amount of psycho-spiritual-occult experi- ence) is drawn upwards above the Brahmarandhra to ranges above belonging to the spiritual consciousness proper and instead of merely receiving from there has to live there and from there change the lower consciousness altogether. For there is a dyna- mism proper to the spiritual consciousness whose nature is Light,
It ceases to apply after one has reached a certain long-estab- lished stability in the experience, that is to say, when the experi- ence amounts to a definite and permanent realisation, something finally or irrevocably added to the consciousness.
It is possible by strenuous medilation or by certain methods of tense endeavour -to open doors on to the inner being or even break down some of the walls between the inner and outer self before finishing or even undertaking ■ this preliminary self- discipline (of building up the inner meditative quietude), but it is not always wise to do it as that, may lead to conditions of sadhana which may be very turbid, chaotic, beset with unneces- sary dangers. It is necessary to keep the saltvic quietude, patience, vigilance, — to hurry nothing, to force nothing.
I use transformation in a special sense, a change of conscious- ness radical and complete and of a certain specific kind which is so conceived as to bring about a strong and assured step fonvard in the spiritual evolution of the being of a greater and higher kind and of a larger sweep and completeness than what took place when a mentalised being first appeared in a vital and matciiaV ammal world.
JAPA. ::: Japa is usually successful only on one of two condi- tions ::: if it is repeated with a sense of its significance, a dwelling of something in the mind on the nature, power, beauty, attrac- tion of the Godhead it signifies and is to bring into the cons- ciousness, — - that is the mental way ; or if it comes up from the heart or rings in it with a certain sense or feeling of bhak'ti making it alive, — that is the emotional way. Either the mind or the vital has to give it support or sustenance. But if it makes the mind dry and the vital restless, it must be missing that sup- port and sustenance. There « of course a third way, the reliance on the power of the Mantra or name in itself ; but then one has to go on till that power has sufficiently impressed its vibra- tion on the inner being to make it at a given moment suddenly open to the Presence or the Touch. But Jf there is a struggling or insistence for the result, then this c/Tect which needs a quiet receptivity In the mind is impeded.
Jhumur: “Every ideal is like a kind of guide on a certain path, it helps to make a path clear, defines a line of advance. So to me, the word Angel is associated with a conscious, luminous guide on the way, and here this is the heaven of the ideal so the ideal becomes the angel. A perfect conception, a perfect idea leads man into another higher realm of expression or action.
Jhumur: Here you have the beginnings of the mind opening onto other planes of experience. Because mindhas no experience. This is the kingdom of the greater mind where it opens on to another phase of vision or experience or feeling. The heaven-bird is the feeling of poise that hasn’t taken off. It reminds me that in a certain place, the goal of the mental search is where ultimately the mind abdicates in light and one enters into what Shelley calls ‘thought wildernesses’. Before that concrete abdication there must be some sensation, some feeling of something other that is waiting for us, that has come from elsewhere. The mind has not quite yet abdicated but begins to pursue intuition, perception, feeling.”
Jhumur: “ I think Amal and many others have talked about it. Sri Aurobindo is talking about the mind. Two powers and yet it is the same bird. At a certain level of our mental approach we perceive by opposites, we only see half the truth and only understand this half in relation only to the other. If this is white, this has to be black. And yet, it is one bird. It is fundamentally one truth, that is the mystic truth. Beyond the opposition there is the wholeness which sometimes we don’t perceive. We are so busy looking at the black head or the white tail and finding opposites.”
Jhumur: “The field of expression, of manifestation, is time and space, the forefront of our existence, and life moves through the field of time and space. Perhaps Circumstance is when we are unconscious and don’t know where we are moving. We call it circumstance, unconscious life. If we were conscious we wouldn’t call it Circumstance. Time, Place and Circumstance define the proper outline of the subject. We are surrounded by certain conditioning factors which dictate their will. We are slaves of Circumstance and have no freedom until we become masters.”
Jhumur: “The light that betrays, it is not the light that comes from the sun, it is the light, the attraction, the force that man follows seeming to enter in another, greater realm but in fact is being pulled down. It comes from the ego, the lust for power, for greater knowledge—very often in certain schools of yoga and certain occult fields there is a sense of light which is not light, but the light of darkness. Darkness takes the shape of light.
Jhumur: “– There is a very clear pattern, in a way, in the darkness. It follows a certain line of action just like an idea governs a line of action and proceeds expression. Even in the Inconscient there is a force that works itself out. This is also an expression of the supreme force that has involved itself and works its way out in a supremely slow conscious way and knows exactly how it wants to grow, that is why it controls so much of the universe because it has spread itself along very clearly worked out lines.”
Jhumur: “These are not just images and not just there for effect. They represent certain movements in the being, certain forces that are universal, independent. It is not one man who suffers. At a certain level of existence these experiences are universal. There are forces that are at work on these levels, forces that really prey on man, really hound him in that sense. You can’t seem to escape them. When one is semi-conscious or lives as we do in an in-between state, not knowing exactly which is your direction, you have this force really at your heels, pushing you sometimes into suffering, into death. You feel that you have been deserted. Sometimes there is a notion of karma, at other times you feel that it is some force that is pushing you. These are universal forces in the field of life, in the field of the subconscient, in the unconsciousness. On these levels they are not images they are powers which Sri Aurobindo has given a certain shape, form, image.”
Joy ::: “Pleasure, joy and delight, as man uses the words, are limited and occasional movements which depend on certain habitual causes and emerge, like their opposites pain and grief which are equally limited and occasional movements, from a background other than themselves. Delight of being is universal, illimitable and self-existent, not dependent on particular causes, the background of all backgrounds, from which pleasure, pain and other more neutral experiences emerge. When delight of being seeks to realise itself as delight of becoming, it moves in the movement of force and itself takes different forms of movement of which pleasure and pain are positive and negative currents.” The Life Divine
::: "Liberty in one shape or another ranks among the most ancient and certainly among the most difficult aspirations of our race: it arises from a radical instinct of our being and is yet opposed to all our circumstances, it is our eternal good and our condition of perfection, but our temporal being has failed to find its key. That perhaps is because true freedom is only possible if we live in the infinite, live, as the Vedanta bids us, in and from our self-existent being; but our natural and temporal energies seek for it first not in ourselves, but in our external conditions. This great indefinable thing, liberty, is in its highest and ultimate sense a state of being; it is self living in itself and determining by its own energy what is shall be inwardly and, eventually, by the growth of a divine spiritual power within determining too what it shall make of its external circumstances and environment." War and Self-Determination
“Liberty in one shape or another ranks among the most ancient and certainly among the most difficult aspirations of our race: it arises from a radical instinct of our being and is yet opposed to all our circumstances, it is our eternal good and our condition of perfection, but our temporal being has failed to find its key. That perhaps is because true freedom is only possible if we live in the infinite, live, as the Vedanta bids us, in and from our self-existent being; but our natural and temporal energies seek for it first not in ourselves, but in our external conditions. This great indefinable thing, liberty, is in its highest and ultimate sense a state of being; it is self living in itself and determining by its own energy what is shall be inwardly and, eventually, by the growth of a divine spiritual power within determining too what it shall make of its external circumstances and environment.” War and Self-Determination
Light above, others as an infinite ocean i of Power above. If certain schools of Buddhists felt it in their experience as a limit- less Siinya, the Vedantists ou the contrary sec it as a positive
limited ::: confined or restricted within certain limits.
line ::: 1. *Gen.* Text consisting of a row of words written across a page. 2. A chronological or ancestral series, esp. of people. 3. A course of progress or movement; a route. 4. A manner or course of procedure determined by a specified factor. 5. A sequence of related things that leads to a certain ending. 6. A border or boundary. 7. A narrow continuous mark, as one made by a pencil, pen, or brush across a surface.
mane ::: the long hair along the top and sides of the neck of certain mammals, such as the horse and the male lion. manes, maned, dense-maned, lion-maned.
mar ::: to damage or spoil to a certain extent; to render less perfect, attractive, useful; impair or spoil. Now poet. or rhet. **marred.**
measured ::: 1. Deliberate and restrained; careful; carefully weighed or considered. 2. Regular in rhythm, movement and number. 3. Ascertained or apportioned by measure. 4. Accurately regulated or proportioned.
measure ::: n. 1. A unit of standard of measurement. 2. The extent, quantity, dimensions, etc. of (something), ascertained esp. by comparison with a standard. 3. Bounds or limits. 4. A definite or known quality or quantity measured out. 5. A short rhythmical movement or arrangement, as in poetry or music. measures. *v. 6. To determine the size, amount, etc. 7. To estimate the relative amount, value, etc., of, by comparison with some standard. 8. To travel or move over as if measuring. *measured, measuring.
MECHANICAL REPETITION. ::: The principle of mechani- cal repetition is very strong in the material nature, so strong that it makes one easily think that it is incurable. That, however, is only a trick of the forces of (his material inconscicnce ; it is fay creating this impression that they try to endure. If on the contrary, you remain firm, refuse to be depressed or discouraged and, even in the moment of attack, a^irm the certainty of cventuar victory, the victory itself will come much more easily and sooner.
mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The ‘Mind" in the ordinary use of the word covers indiscriminately the whole consciousness, for man is a mental being and mentalises everything; but in the language of this yoga the words ‘mind" and ‘mental" are used to connote specially the part of the nature which has to do with cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reactions of thought to things, with the truly mental movements and formations, mental vision and will, etc., that are part of his intelligence.” *Letters on Yoga
"Mind in its essence is a consciousness which measures, limits, cuts out forms of things from the indivisible whole and contains them as if each were a separate integer.” The Life Divine
"Mind is an instrument of analysis and synthesis, but not of essential knowledge. Its function is to cut out something vaguely from the unknown Thing in itself and call this measurement or delimitation of it the whole, and again to analyse the whole into its parts which it regards as separate mental objects.” The Life Divine
"The mind proper is divided into three parts — thinking Mind, dynamic Mind, externalising Mind — the former concerned with ideas and knowledge in their own right, the second with the putting out of mental forces for realisation of the idea, the third with the expression of them in life (not only by speech, but by any form it can give).” Letters on Yoga
"The difference between the ordinary mind and the intuitive is that the former, seeking in the darkness or at most by its own unsteady torchlight, first, sees things only as they are presented in that light and, secondly, where it does not know, constructs by imagination, by uncertain inference, by others of its aids and makeshifts things which it readily takes for truth, shadow projections, cloud edifices, unreal prolongations, deceptive anticipations, possibilities and probabilities which do duty for certitudes. The intuitive mind constructs nothing in this artificial fashion, but makes itself a receiver of the light and allows the truth to manifest in it and organise its own constructions.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"He [man] has in him not a single mentality, but a double and a triple, the mind material and nervous, the pure intellectual mind which liberates itself from the illusions of the body and the senses, and a divine mind above intellect which in its turn liberates itself from the imperfect modes of the logically discriminative and imaginative reason.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Our mind is an observer of actuals, an inventor or discoverer of possibilities, but not a seer of the occult imperatives that necessitate the movements and forms of a creation. . . .” *The Life Divine
"The human mind is an instrument not of truth but of ignorance and error.” Letters on Yoga
"For Mind as we know it is a power of the Ignorance seeking for Truth, groping with difficulty to find it, reaching only mental constructions and representations of it in word and idea, in mind formations, sense formations, — as if bright or shadowy photographs or films of a distant Reality were all that it could achieve.” The Life Divine
The Mother: "The true role of the mind is the formation and organization of action. The mind has a formative and organizing power, and it is that which puts the different elements of inspiration in order for action, for organizing action. And if it would only confine itself to that role, receiving inspirations — whether from above or from the mystic centre of the soul — and simply formulating the plan of action — in broad outline or in minute detail, for the smallest things of life or the great terrestrial organizations — it would amply fulfil its function. It is not an instrument of knowledge. But is can use knowledge for action, to organize action. It is an instrument of organization and formation, very powerful and very capable when it is well developed.” Questions and Answers 1956, MCW Vol. 8.*
MORALITY. ::: A part of the ordinary life t it is an attempt to govern the outward conduct by certain mental rules or to form the character by these rules in the image of a certain mental ideal. The spiritual life goes beyond the mind ; it enters into the deeper consciousness of the Spirit and acts out of the truth of the Spirit.
muzzle ::: the forward, projecting part of the head of certain animals, such as dogs, including the mouth, nose, and jaws; the snout.
“My researches first convinced me that words, like plants, like animals, are in no sense artificial products, but growths,—living growths of sound with certain seed-sounds as their basis. Out of these seed-sounds develop a small number of primitive root-words with an immense progeny which have their successive generations and arrange themselves in tribes, clans, families, selective groups each having a common stock and a common psychological history. For the factor which presided over the development of language was the association, by the nervous mind of primitive man, of certain general significances or rather of certain general utilities and sense-values with articulate sounds. The process of this association was also in no sense artificial but natural, governed by simple and definite psychological laws.” The Secret of the Veda
mystic ::: “I used the word ‘mystic’ in the sense of a certain kind of inner seeing and feeling of things, a way which to the intellect would seem occult and visionary—for this is something different from imagination and its work with which the intellect is familiar.” On Himself
Name ::: Jhumur: “Hold onto the Name. That is the only power. I remember Mother once told me—because there was a moment when I was attacked by a certain person. She was mad and so had a certain number of people she chose to attack with her vibrations, with her words. If she could she would throw stones. I was very, very young, about 17 or 18. I said, ‘Every time I see her, Mother, I really start to tremble. It has become something so physically terrifying. Once she (the mad person) had thrown a big paperweight, a cement paperweight in the library. It went just past my head, it could have killed me. After that I became really frightened. So Mother told me ‘Nothing will happen to you. Each time you see her just say ‘Ma, Ma, Ma.’ But it was so difficult. Each time I saw her from far I would think, ‘I have to say Ma.’ But when she came close enough I could not say the Name, for a long time, for a very long time. I was so frightened the fear would take the Name away. I knew very well I had to say the Name That is what Mother told me. And one day I could, finally I could and the mad person lost interest in me!”
Nature, of all that is not obvious on the surface. An integral knowledge demands an exploration, an unveiling of all the possible domains of consciousness and experience. For there are subjective domains of our being which lie behind the obvious surface; these have to be fathomed and whatever is ascertained must be admitted within the scope of the total reality. An inner range of spiritual experience is one very great domain of human consciousness ; it has to be entered into up to its deepest depths and its vastest reaches. The supraphysical is as real as the physical ; to know it is part of a complete knowledge. The knowledge of the supraph>'sical has been associated with mysti- efsm and occultism, and occultism has been banned as a super- stition and fantastic error. But the occult Is a part of existence ; a true occultism means no more than a research into supraphysical realities and an unveiling of the hidden Jaws of being and
“Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes,—towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” The Life Divine
Next, as a consequence, it follows that only a limited part of the action of the vital or other higher plane is concerned with the earth-existence. But even this creates a mass of possibilities which is far greater than the earth can at one time mainfest or contain in its own less plastic formulas. All these possibilities do not realise themselves ; some fail altogether and leave at the most an idea that comes to nothing ; some try seriously and are repelled and defeated and, even if in action for a time, come to nothing. Others effectuate a half manifestation, and this is the most usual result, the more so as these vital or other supraphysical forces come Into conflict and have not only to overcome the resistance of the physical consciousness and of matter, but their own internecine resistance to each other. A certain number succeed in precipitating their results in a more complete and successful creation, so that if you compare this creation with its original in the higher plane, there is something
"Next it [the Gita] insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic.” Essays on the Gita
“Next it [the Gita] insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic.” Essays on the Gita
not capable of being discovered or found out; not discernible, perceptible, or ascertainable.
Of course, there is a sort of labour and effort when you try to produce or else to think on a certain subject, but that is a con- centration for making thoughts come up, come in, come down, as the case may be, and fit themselves together. The idea that you arc shaping the thoughts or fitting them together is an egoistic delusion ; they are doing it themselves, or Nature is doing it for you, only under a certain compulsion.
Oh, a tremendous power—tremendous. The first time I heard it … The first time I heard it … There was a certain Bernard who had spent a year in India, in the Himalayas, and he was visited by yogis whom he didn’t know (he lived in a hut in the Himalayas, all alone). One yogi came to see him; he didn’t say anything, he just sat by his side and then left. And that yogi simply told him,”Om …” Then he came back to France, recounted his experiences in India, and he said that. Me, I knew absolutely nothing of India at the time, and when he uttered the word OM … (Mother brings her arms down), it came: a Force like this, my whole, entire body, everything vibrated in an extraordinary way! It was like a revelation—everything, but everything started vibrating. Then I said,”At last, here’s the true sound!” Yet I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, neither what it meant nor anything. Mother’s Agenda, Volume 10, 1969.
Oh, a tremendous power—tremendous. The first time I heard it … The first time I heard it … There was a certain Bernard who had spent a year in India, in the Himalayas, and he was visited by yogis whom he didn"t know (he lived in a hut in the Himalayas, all alone). One yogi came to see him; he didn"t say anything, he just sat by his side and then left. And that yogi simply told him, "Om …” Then he came back to France, recounted his experiences in India, and he said that. Me, I knew absolutely nothing of India at the time, and when he uttered the word OM … (Mother brings her arms down), it came: a Force like this, my whole, entire body, everything vibrated in an extraordinary way! It was like a revelation—everything, but everything started vibrating. Then I said, "At last, here"s the true sound!” Yet I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, neither what it meant nor anything.
“On the surface of life all appears to be a game of Chance. There is no certainty about any movement; ups and downs, vicissitudes, cataclysms, actions, passions and thoughts crowd in medley and it is impossible to anticipate or regulate them with any definiteness. But a deeper scrutiny reveals a pattern behind all the apparent workings of Chance. What looks like Chance is itself a part of the process; it is called Chance because the particular operation does not take place within the framework of the laws erected by the limited empirical mind; there is really no Chance in the working out of the divine Intention that is this Universe.” Readings in Savitri Vol. III.
ordered ::: 1. Neatly or conveniently arranged; well-organized. 2. Done according to specific principles or procedures; conducted according to certain precepts or rules. ordering.
output ::: 1. The act or process of producing; production. 2. An amount produced or manufactured during a certain time.
Oversoul ::: We might say then that there are three elements in the totality of our being: there is the submental and the subconscient which appears to us as if it were inconscient, comprising the material basis and a good part of our life and body; there is the subliminal, which comprises the inner being, taken in its entirety of inner mind, inner life, inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them; there is this waking consciousness which the subliminal and the subconscient throw up on the surface, a wave of their secret surge. But even this is not an adequate account of what we are; for there is not only something deep within behind our normal self-awareness, but something also high above it: that too is ourselves, other than our surface mental personality, but not outside our true self; that too is a country of our spirit. For the subliminal proper is no more than the inner being on the level of the Knowledge-Ignorance, luminous, powerful and extended indeed beyond the poor conception of our waking mind, but still not the supreme or the whole sense of our being, not its ultimate mystery. We become aware, in a certain experience, of a range of being superconscient to all these three, aware too of something, a supreme highest Reality sustaining and exceeding them all, which humanity speaks of vaguely as Spirit, God, the Oversoul: from these superconscient ranges we have visitations and in our highest being we tend towards them and to that supreme Spirit. There is then in our total range of existence a superconscience as well as a subconscience and inconscience, overarching and perhaps enveloping our subliminal and our waking selves, but unknown to us, seemingly unattainable and incommunicable.
Partial realisation ::: At a certain stage of the sadhana, in the beginning (or near it) of the more intense experiences, it some- times happens that there is the intense realisation of some aspect of the Divine, a sort of communion with it, and that is seen everj'whcre and all as that. It is a transitory phase and after- wards one gets the larger experience of the Divine in all its aspects and beyond all aspects. Throughout the experience there should be one part of the being that observes and understands — for, sometimes ignorant sadbakas are carried away by their experience and stop short there or fall into extravagance. It must be taken as an experience through which you are passing.
Peace is more positive than calm ; there can be a negative calm which is merely an absence of disturbance or trouble, but peace is always something positive bringing not merely a release as calm docs but a certain happiness or Ananda of itself.
pearl ::: 1. A smooth, lustrous, variously colored deposit, chiefly calcium carbonate, formed around a grain of sand or other foreign matter in the shells of certain molluscs and valued as a gem. 2. Something similar in form, luster, etc., as a dewdrop or a capsule of medicine. pearls, pearl-bright, pearl-hued, pearl-winged. pearl-bright, pearl-hued, pearl-winged.
pitched ::: 1. Erect or established; set up; as a tent, etc. 2. Set at a certain point, degree, level, etc. 3. (of sound) set to a certain pitch or key; usually used as a combining form; "high-pitched”, "sky-pitched”.
positive ::: n. 1. An affirmative element or characteristic; reality. adj. 2. Characterized by or displaying certainty, acceptance, or affirmation. 3. Independent of circumstances; absolute or unqualified.
posturer ::: one who acts in an affected or artificial manner, as to create a certain impression.
power ::: “Power means strength and force, Shakti, which enables one to face all that can happen and to stand and overcome, also to carry out what the Divine Will proposes. It can include many things, power over men, events, circumstances, means etc. But all this not of the mental or vital kind, but by an action through unity of consciousness with the Divine and with all things and beings. It is not an individual strength depending on certain personal capacities, but the Divine Power using the individual as an instrument.” Letters on Yoga
power ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Power means strength and force, Shakti, which enables one to face all that can happen and to stand and overcome, also to carry out what the Divine Will proposes. It can include many things, power over men, events, circumstances, means etc. But all this not of the mental or vital kind, but by an action through unity of consciousness with the Divine and with all things and beings. It is not an individual strength depending on certain personal capacities, but the Divine Power using the individual as an instrument.” *Letters on Yoga
Purani: “ The growth of the divine potentialities in man is spoken of in Veda as the growth of a Child. The Master takes the symbol straight and employs it thus: ‘where the God-child lies on the lap of Night and Dawn.’ The idea is that through the state of ignorance and through the state of awakening that is Dawn,—through the alterations of two—, the God-child in man attains its growth. Ignorance is not thus something anti-divine. It contributes to the growth of the Divine in man. This certainly reminds one of the hymn in the Veda which runs as follows: ‘Two are joined together, powers of truth, powers of May, they have built the child and given him birth and they nourish his growth’. (Rig Veda X, 5. 3). Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri: An Approach and a Study
questioning ::: n. 1. The act of asking or inquiring. 2. A matter of some uncertainty or difficulty. questionings. adj. 3. That questions or doubts. 4. Indicating or implying a question.
question ::: n. 1. An interrogative sentence, phrase, or gesture. v. 2. To pose a question. 3. To challenge the accuracy, probity, or propriety of. 4. To express uncertainty about the validity, truth, etc., of (something); doubt. questions, questioned, questioning.
ransom ::: n. 1. The release of property or a person in return for payment of a demanded price. v. 2. To obtain the release of by paying a certain price. Also fig. **ransomed.**
REASON. ::: The reason has its place especially with regard to certain physical things and general worldly questions — though even there it is a very fallible judge — or in the forma- tion of metaphysical conclusions and generalisations ; but its claim to be the decisive aulhori^ in matters of yoga or in spiritual things is untenable. The activities of the outward intellect there lead only to the formation of personal opinions, not to the discovery of Truth. It has always been understood in India that the reason and its logic or its judgment cannot give you the realisation of spiiitua] truths but can only assist in an intellectual presentation of ideas; realisation comes by intuition and inner experience. Reason and intellectuality cannot make you see the Divine, it is the soul that sees. Mind and the other instruments can only share in the vision when it is imparted to them by the soul and welcome and rejoice in it. But also the mind may prevent it or at least stand long in the way of the realisation of the vision. For its prepossessions. prKonceived
Receptivity to the Force ; I mean a certain receptivity in the consciousness — mind, vital, physical, whichever is needed.
Recovery from illnesses ::: Care should be taken of the body, certainly, the care that is needed for its good condition, rest, sleep, proper food, sufficient exercise, what is not good is too much preoccupation with it, anxiety, despondency in the illness etc., for these things only favour the prolongation of ill-health or weakness.
religion ::: Sri Aurobindo: "There is no word so plastic and uncertain in its meaning as the word religion. The word is European and, therefore, it is as well to know first what the Europeans mean by it. In this matter we find them, — when they can be got to think clearly on the matter at all, which is itself unusual, — divided in opinion. Sometimes they use it as equivalent to a set of beliefs, sometimes as equivalent to morality coupled with a belief in God, sometimes as equivalent to a set of pietistic actions and emotions. Faith, works and pious observances, these are the three recognised elements of European religion . . . . ::: Religion in India is a still more plastic term and may mean anything from the heights of Yoga to strangling your fellowman and relieving him of the worldly goods he may happen to be carrying with him. It would therefore take too long to enumerate everything that can be included in Indian religion. Briefly, however, it is Dharma or living religiously, the whole life being governed by religion.” *From an unpublished essay
religion ::: “There is no word so plastic and uncertain in its meaning as the word religion. The word is European and, therefore, it is as well to know first what the Europeans mean by it. In this matter we find them,—when they can be got to think clearly on the matter at all, which is itself unusual,—divided in opinion. Sometimes they use it as equivalent to a set of beliefs, sometimes as equivalent to morality coupled with a belief in God, sometimes as equivalent to a set of pietistic actions and emotions. Faith, works and pious observances, these are the three recognised elements of European religion . . . .
Remembrance in work ::: It is a certain inertia in the physical consciousness which shuts it up in the groove of what it is doing so that it is fixed in that and not free to remember.
resolve ::: to deal with (a question, a matter of uncertainty, etc.) conclusively; settle; solve.
RETIREMENT, It may be necessary for the seeker at any period to withdraw into himself, to remain plunged in his inner being, to shut out from himself the noise and turmoil of the life of the Ignorance until a certain inner change has been accom- plished or something achieved without which a further effective action on life has become difficult or impossible. But this can only be a period or an episode, a- temporary necessity or a pre- paratory spiritual manoeuvre.
Samadbi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths accord* lag as it dran^ farther and farther away from the nonnal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or calf back the soul that has receded into them ; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the sj'stem owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a lime cannot return ; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had rnhahifed it. finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary pheno- mena of death, by an act of will, or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current
scheduled ::: planned for a certain date.
seed-sounds ::: Sri Aurobindo: "My researches first convinced me that words, like plants, like animals, are in no sense artificial products, but growths, — living growths of sound with certain seed-sounds as their basis. Out of these seed-sounds develop a small number of primitive root-words with an immense progeny which have their successive generations and arrange themselves in tribes, clans, families, selective groups each having a common stock and a common psychological history. For the factor which presided over the development of language was the association, by the nervous mind of primitive man, of certain general significances or rather of certain general utilities and sense-values with articulate sounds. The process of this association was also in no sense artificial but natural, governed by simple and definite psychological laws.” *The Secret of the Veda
Self is the fundamental aspect of the Brahman with a certain stress on its impersonality. We arc conscious of Self as eternal, unborn, unembodied, uninvolved in its workings. It is omni- present, same in everything, intimate, pure and intangible. The
"Sense is in fact the mental contact of the embodied consciousness with its surroundings. This contact is always essentially a mental phenomenon; but in fact it depends chiefly upon the development of certain physical organs of contact with objects and with their properties to whose images it is able by habit to give their mental values. What we call the physical senses have a double element, the physical-nervous impression of the object and the mental-nervous value we give to it, and the two together make up our seeing, hearing, smell, taste, touch with all those varieties of sensation of which they, and the touch chiefly, are the starting-point or first transmitting agency.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“Sense is in fact the mental contact of the embodied consciousness with its surroundings. This contact is always essentially a mental phenomenon; but in fact it depends chiefly upon the development of certain physical organs of contact with objects and with their properties to whose images it is able by habit to give their mental values. What we call the physical senses have a double element, the physical-nervous impression of the object and the mental-nervous value we give to it, and the two together make up our seeing, hearing, smell, taste, touch with all those varieties of sensation of which they, and the touch chiefly, are the starting-point or first transmitting agency.” The Synthesis of Yoga
serf ::: a member of the lowest feudal class, attached to the land owned by a lord and required to perform labor in return for certain legal or customary rights; one in bondage or servitude.
settled ::: v. 1. Rendered or made stable or permanent; fixed in a certain condition; established. 2. Sank down gradually and remained. 3. Sank deeply into (the mind, heart). 4. Discontinued moving and came to rest in one place. adj. 5. Established on a permanent basis; stabilized.
SEX. ::: The sex-impulse is certainly the greatest force in the vital plane ; if it can be sublimated and turned upwards, ojas is created which is a great help to the attainment of higher
slipped ::: 1. Moved, flowed, passed, or went smoothly or easily; glided. v. **2. To move stealthily; steal. 3. To move, slide gradually from a place or position. 4. To pass into a certain state; become involved or absorbed easily. slips, slipping.**
Some have benefited by putting a will on the body before going to sleep at night that the dreams should not happen • — though it may not succeed at the beginning, it tells in most cases after a time by fixing a certain inhibitory force on the subconscient from which these dreams arise.
sound ::: 1. To investigate (water, etc.) by the use of the line and lead or other means, in order to ascertain the depth or the quality of the bottom; to measure or examine in some way resembling this. 2. In fig. contexts: To measure, fathom or ascertain, as by sounding. sounded.
sound ::: n. 1. The sensation stimulated in the organs of hearing by such vibrations in air or other medium. 2. A particular instance, quality, or type of sound. 3. Any auditory effect; any audible vibrational disturbance. 4. The auditory effect produced by a specific articulation or set of related articulations (as a letter or word). sounds, sound-vexed, seed-sounds, thought-sounds. *v. 5. sounds, soundst. Gives forth a sound as a call or summons. *6. sounded. Resonated with a certain quality or intensity.
spread ::: 1. To extend or cause to extend over a larger expanse of space or time. Also fig. 2. To become stretched out or extended; expand, as in growth. 3. To be distributed or dispersed (a substance or a number of things) over a certain or area; to be scattered. 4. To spread out or open from a closed or folded state, like sails. 5. To distribute and expand widely. spreads, far-spread.
Sri Aurobindo: "By aesthesis is meant a reaction of the consciousness, mental and vital and even bodily, which receives a certain element in things, something that can be called their taste, Rasa, which, passing through the mind or sense or both, awakes a vital enjoyment of the taste, Bhoga, and this can again awaken us, awaken even the soul in us to something yet deeper and more fundamental than mere pleasure and enjoyment, to some form of the spirit"s delight of existence, Ananda.” *Letters on Savitri
Sri Aurobindo: "I used the word ‘mystic" in the sense of a certain kind of inner seeing and feeling of things, a way which to the intellect would seem occult and visionary — for this is something different from imagination and its work with which the intellect is familiar.” *On Himself
*Sri Aurobindo: "Pleasure, joy and delight, as man uses the words, are limited and occasional movements which depend on certain habitual causes and emerge, like their opposites pain and grief which are equally limited and occasional movements, from a background other than themselves. Delight of being is universal, illimitable and self-existent, not dependent on particular causes, the background of all backgrounds, from which pleasure, pain and other more neutral experiences emerge. When delight of being seeks to realise itself as delight of becoming, it moves in the movement of force and itself takes different forms of movement of which pleasure and pain are positive and negative currents.” The Life Divine*
*Sri Aurobindo: "The Indian explanation of fate is Karma. We ourselves are our own fate through our actions, but the fate created by us binds us; for what we have sown, we must reap in this life or another. Still we are creating our fate for the future even while undergoing old fate from the past in the present. That gives a meaning to our will and action and does not, as European critics wrongly believe, constitute a rigid and sterilising fatalism. But again, our will and action can often annul or modify even the past Karma, it is only certain strong effects, called utkata karma, that are non-modifiable. Here too the achievement of the spiritual consciousness and life is supposed to annul or give the power to annul Karma. For we enter into union with the Will Divine, cosmic or transcendent, which can annul what it had sanctioned for certain conditions, new-create what it had created, the narrow fixed lines disappear, there is a more plastic freedom and wideness. Neither Karma nor Astrology therefore points to a rigid and for ever immutable fate.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: “The legend of the Tower of Babel speaks of the diversity of tongues as a curse laid on the race; but whatever its disadvantages, and they tend more and more to be minimised by the growth of civilisation and increasing intercourse, it has been rather a blessing than a curse, a gift to mankind rather than a disability laid upon it. The purposeless exaggeration of anything is always an evil, and an excessive pullulation of varying tongues that serve no purpose in the expression of a real diversity of spirit and culture is certainly a stumbling-block rather than a help: but this excess, though it existed in the past, is hardly a possibility of the future. The tendency is rather in the opposite direction. In former times diversity of language helped to create a barrier to knowledge and sympathy, was often made the pretext even of an actual antipathy and tended to a too rigid division. The lack of sufficient interpenetration kept up both a passive want of understanding and a fruitful crop of active misunderstandings. But this was an inevitable evil of a particular stage of growth, an exaggeration of the necessity that then existed for the vigorous development of strongly individualised group-souls in the human race. These disadvantages have not yet been abolished, but with closer intercourse and the growing desire of men and nations for the knowledge of each other’s thought and spirit and personality, they have diminished and tend to diminish more and more and there is no reason why in the end they should not become inoperative.” The Human Cycle. Babel-builders’.
Sri Aurobindo: "The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Your ‘barely enough", instead of the finer and more suggestive ‘hardly", falls flat upon my ear; one cannot substitute one word for another in this kind of poetry merely because it means intellectually the same thing; ‘hardly" is the mot juste in this context and, repetition or not, it must remain unless a word not only juste but inevitable comes to replace it… . On this point I may add that in certain contexts ‘barely" would be the right word, as for instance, ‘There is barely enough food left for two or three meals", where ‘hardly" would be adequate but much less forceful. It is the other way about in this line. Letters on Savitri
stabled ::: put or lodged in a certain position or place, or in a safe or firm place; in or as in a stable; tied.
stand ::: 1. To remain erect on one"s feet in a specified place, occupation, position, condition, etc. 2. To be, to continue or remain in a specified state, position, relation, etc. 3. To be set, placed, located, fixed or situated. 4. To take a position or place as indicated. 5. To have or adopt a certain policy, course, or attitude, as of adherence, support, opposition, or resistance. 6. To remain erect and firm under (a crushing weight, or the like), often with up. 7. To remain firm or steadfast, as in a cause. stands, stood, standing.
-statured ::: bearing a certain stature or degree of development. Titan-statured.
stay ::: 1. To continue or remain in a certain place, or in the company of others. 2. To hold back or restrain. 3. To delay or hinder an action or a process. stays, stayed.
stigmata ::: 1. Marks resembling the wounds on the crucified body of Christ, said to have been supernaturally impressed on the bodies of certain saints and other devout persons. 2. Fig. A mark of disgrace or infamy.
styled ::: of a certain style or manner.
subconscience ::: “Matter, the medium of all this evolution, is seemingly inconscient and inanimate; but it so appears to us only because we are unable to sense consciousness outside a certain limited range, a fixed scale or gamut to which we have access. Below us there are lower ranges to which we are insensible and these we call subconscience or inconscience. Above us are higher ranges which are to our inferior nature an unseizable superconscience.” Essays Divine and Human
subconscience ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Matter, the medium of all this evolution, is seemingly inconscient and inanimate; but it so appears to us only because we are unable to sense consciousness outside a certain limited range, a fixed scale or gamut to which we have access. Below us there are lower ranges to which we are insensible and these we call subconscience or inconscience. Above us are higher ranges which are to our inferior nature an unseizable superconscience.” Essays Divine and Human
Supermind feeling and emotion do not depart from their truth, make no slips or mistakes, do not swerve from the right and the real, cannot misuse beauty and delight or twist away from a divine rectitude. In the Superniind sense cannot mislead or deviate into the grossnesses which are here its natural Imperfec- tions and the cause of reproach, distrust and misuse by our ignorance. Even an incomplete statement made by the Super- mind is a truth leading to a further truth, its incomplete action a step towards completeness. All the life and action and leading of the Supermind is guarded in its very nature from the false- hoods and uncertainties that are our lot ; it moves in safety towards its perfection. Once the tnith
surely ::: undoubtedly; certainly.
suspense ::: anxiety or apprehension resulting from an uncertain, undecided, or mysterious situation.
tentative ::: 1. Not fully worked out, concluded, or agreed on; provisional. 2. Unsure; uncertain; not definite or positive; hesitant.
"The characteristic power of the reason in its fullness is a logical movement assuring itself first of all available materials and data by observation and arrangement, then acting upon them for a resultant knowledge gained, assured and enlarged by a first use of the reflective powers, and lastly assuring itself of the correctness of its results by a more careful and formal action, more vigilant, deliberate, severely logical which tests, rejects or confirms them according to certain secure standards and processes developed by reflection and experience.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The characteristic power of the reason in its fullness is a logical movement assuring itself first of all available materials and data by observation and arrangement, then acting upon them for a resultant knowledge gained, assured and enlarged by a first use of the reflective powers, and lastly assuring itself of the correctness of its results by a more careful and formal action, more vigilant, deliberate, severely logical which tests, rejects or confirms them according to certain secure standards and processes developed by reflection and experience.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The difference between the ordinary mind and the intuitive is that the former, seeking in the darkness or at most by its own unsteady torchlight, first, sees things only as they are presented in that light and, secondly, where it does not know, constructs by imagination, by uncertain inference, by others of its aids and makeshifts things which it readily takes for truth, shadow projections, cloud edifices, unreal prolongations, deceptive anticipations, possibilities and probabilities which do duty for certitudes. The intuitive mind constructs nothing in this artificial fashion, but makes itself a receiver of the light and allows the truth to manifest in it and organise its own constructions.” The Synthesis of Yoga
The process of the integral yoga has three stages, not indeed sharply distingnlsbed or ^parate, but in a certain measure suc- cessive. There must be, first, the effort towards at least an initial and enabling self-transcendence and contact with the Divine ; next, the reception of that which transcends, that with which we have gained communion, into ourselves for the transformation of our whole conscious being ; fast, the utilisation of our trans- formed hiunanity as a divine centre in the world.
The psychic grows through a certain inner attitude behind the work and the adhara becomes open both to the psychic intui- tions and influences from within and to the descent from above.
::: "The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind — to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms — runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
“The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind—to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms—runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
There arc some who have the expansive tendency of the vital, others who have the concentrative. The latter are absorbed in their own intensity of endeavour and certainly they gather from that great force for progress and are saved the expense and loss of energy which frequently comes to the more communicative and also make themselves less open to reactions from others
There is after death a period In which one passes through the vital world and lives there for a time, it is only the first part of this transit that can be dangerous or painful ; in the rest one vsorks out, under certain surroundings, the remnant of the vital desires which one had in the body. As soon as one is tired of these and able to go beyond, the vital sheath is dropped and the soul, after a time needed to get rid of some mental survivals, passes into a state of rest in the psychic world and remains there till the next life on earth.
There is something in the body that accepts the illness and has certain reactions that makes this acceptance effective.
The Remembrancer was originally one of certain subordinate officers of the English Exchequer. The office itself is of great antiquity, the holder having been termed remembrancer, memorator, rememorator, registrar, keeper of the register, despatcher of business. The Remembrancer compiled memorandum rolls and thus”reminded” the barons of the Exchequer of business pending.
There were at one time three clerks of the remembrance, styled King’s Remembrancer, Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer and Remembrancer of First-Fruits. In England, the latter two offices have become extinct, that of remembrancer of first-fruits by the diversion of the fund (Queen Anne’s Bounty Act 1838), and that of Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer on being merged in the office of King’s Remembrancer in 1833. By the Queen’s Remembrancer Act 1859 the office ceased to exist separately, and the queen’s remembrancer was required to be a master of the court of exchequer. The Judicature Act 1873 attached the office to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of Judicature (Officers) Act 1879 transferred it to the central office of the Supreme Court. By section 8 of that Act, the king’s remembrancer is a master of the Supreme Court, and the office is usually filled by the senior master. The king’s remembrancer department of the central office is now amalgamated with the judgments and married women acknowledgments department. The king’s remembrancer still assists at certain ceremonial functions relics of the former importance of the office such as the nomination of sheriffs, the swearing-in of the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the Trial of the Pyx and the acknowledgments of homage for crown lands.
". . . the Self is a fundamental aspect of Brahman, but with a certain stress on its impersonality;. . . .” The Life Divine
“… the Self is a fundamental aspect of Brahman, but with a certain stress on its impersonality;….” The Life Divine
The sex-crergy utilised by Nature for the purpose of repro- duction is in its real nature a fundamental energy of life. It can be used not for the heightening but for a certain intensification of the vital-emotional life ; it can be controlled and diverted from the sex-purpose and used for aesthetic and artistic or other crea- tion and productiveness or preserved for heightening of the intel- lectual or other energies. Entirely controlled it can be turned into a force of spiritual energy also. This was well-known tn ancient India and was described as the conversation of retas into ojas by brahmacarya. Sex-energy misused turns to disorder and disintegration of the life-energy and its powers.
The strongest attitude to take is to regard these things as what they really are ::: incursions of dark forces from outside taking advantage of certain openings in the physical mind or the vital part, but not a real part of oneself or spontaneous creation in one’s own nature. To create a confusion and darkness in the physical mind and to throw into it or awake in it mistaken ideas, dark thoughts, false impressions is a favourite method of these assailants, and if they can get the support of this mind from over-confidence in its own correctness or the natural rightness of its impressions and inferences, then they can have a field-day until the true mind reasserts itself and blows the clouds away.
"The Supermind then is Being moving out into a determinative self-knowledge which perceives certain truths of itself and wills to realise them in a temporal and spatial extension of its own timeless and spaceless existence. Whatever is in its own being, takes form as self-knowledge, as Truth-Consciousness, as Real-Idea, and, that self-knowledge being also self-force, fulfils or realises itself inevitably in Time and Space.” The Life Divine
“The Supermind then is Being moving out into a determinative self-knowledge which perceives certain truths of itself and wills to realise them in a temporal and spatial extension of its own timeless and spaceless existence. Whatever is in its own being, takes form as self-knowledge, as Truth-Consciousness, as Real-Idea, and, that self-knowledge being also self-force, fulfils or realises itself inevitably in Time and Space.” The Life Divine
"The universe is certainly or has been up to now in appearance a rough and wasteful game with the dice of chance loaded in favour of the Powers of darkness, the Lords of obscurity, falsehood, death and suffering. But we have to take it as it is and find out — if we reject the way out of the old sages — the way to conquer. Spiritual experience shows that there is behind it all a wide terrain of equality, peace, calm, freedom, and it is only by getting into it that we can have the eye that sees and hope to gain the power that conquers.” Letters on Yoga
“The universe is certainly or has been up to now in appearance a rough and wasteful game with the dice of chance loaded in favour of the Powers of darkness, the Lords of obscurity, falsehood, death and suffering. But we have to take it as it is and find out—if we reject the way out of the old sages—the way to conquer. Spiritual experience shows that there is behind it all a wide terrain of equality, peace, calm, freedom, and it is only by getting into it that we can have the eye that sees and hope to gain the power that conquers.” Letters on Yoga
"The universe is not merely a mathematical formula for working out the relation of certain mental abstractions called numbers and principles to arrive in the end at a zero or a void unit, neither is it merely a physical operation embodying a certain equation of forces. It is the delight of a Self-lover, the play of a Child, the endless self-multiplication of a Poet intoxicated with the rapture of His own power of endless creation.” The Supramental Manifestation
“The universe is not merely a mathematical formula for working out the relation of certain mental abstractions called numbers and principles to arrive in the end at a zero or a void unit, neither is it merely a physical operation embodying a certain equation of forces. It is the delight of a Self-lover, the play of a Child, the endless self-multiplication of a Poet intoxicated with the rapture of His own power of endless creation.” The Supramental Manifestation
The wall is indeed the wall of the ego which is based on the insistent identification of oneself with the outer personality and its movements. It is that identification which is the key-stone of the limitation and bondage from which the outer being su/Tcrs, prevenUng expansion, self-knowledge, spiritual freedom. But still the wall must not be prematurely broken down, because that may lead to a disruption or confusion or invasion of either part by the movements of the two separated worlds before they are ready to harmonise. A certain separation is necessary for some time after one has become aware of these two parts of the being as existing together. The force of the Yoga must be given time to make the necessary adjustments and openings, and to take the being inward and then from this inward poise to work on the outer nature.
This preliminary is of supreme importance ; without it the course of the rest of the Rajayoga is likely to be troubled, marred and full of unexpected mental, moral and physical perils. This moral purification is divided in the established system under two heads, five yamas and five niyamas. The first are rules of moral self- control in conduct such as truth-speaking, abstinence from injury or killing, from theft, etc., but in reality these must be regarded as merely certain main indications of the general need of moral self-control and purity, Ywna Is, more largely, any self-discipline by which the rajasic egoism and its passions and desires in the human being are conquered and quieted into perfect cessation.
"Time and Space are not limited, they are infinite — they are the terms of an extension of consciousness in which things take place or are arranged in a certain relation, succession, order. There are again different orders of Time and Space; that too depends on the consciousness. The Eternal is extended in Time and Space, but he is also beyond all Time and Space. Timelessness and Time are two terms of the eternal existence. The Spaceless Eternal is not one indivisible infinity of Space, there is in it no near or far, no here or there — the Timeless Eternal is not measurable by years or hours or aeons, the experience of it has been described as the eternal moment. But for the mind this state cannot be described except by negatives, — one has to go beyond and to realise it.” Letters on Yoga
“Time and Space are not limited, they are infinite—they are the terms of an extension of consciousness in which things take place or are arranged in a certain relation, succession, order. There are again different orders of Time and Space; that too depends on the consciousness. The Eternal is extended in Time and Space, but he is also beyond all Time and Space. Timelessness and Time are two terms of the eternal existence. The Spaceless Eternal is not one indivisible infinity of Space, there is in it no near or far, no here or there—the Timeless Eternal is not measurable by years or hours or aeons, the experience of it has been described as the eternal moment. But for the mind this state cannot be described except by negatives,—one has to go beyond and to realise it.” Letters on Yoga
Titan ::: “In Greek mythology, one of a family of gigantic beings, the twelve primordial children of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth); also certain of the offspring of these Titans. The names of the twelve Titans, the ancestors of the Olympian gods, were Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Cronos. Cronos, the youngest of them, ruled the world after overthrowing and castrating Uranus. He swallowed each of his own children at birth but Zeus escaped. Cronos was made to vomit up the others (including Hera, Demeter, Poseidon, and Hades) and, after a protracted struggle, he and the other Titans were vanquished, all of them but Atlas imprisoned in Tartarus, and the reign of Zeus was established. More broadly, the word Titan may be applied to any being of a colossal force or grandiose and lawless self-assertion, or even to whatever is huge or mighty.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works.
titan ::: "In Greek mythology, one of a family of gigantic beings, the twelve primordial children of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth); also certain of the offspring of these Titans. The names of the twelve Titans, the ancestors of the Olympian gods, were Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Cronos. Cronos, the youngest of them, ruled the world after overthrowing and castrating Uranus. He swallowed each of his own children at birth but Zeus escaped. Cronos was made to vomit up the others (including Hera, Demeter, Poseidon, and Hades) and, after a protracted struggle, he and the other Titans were vanquished, all of them but Atlas imprisoned in Tartarus, and the reign of Zeus was established. More broadly, the word Titan may be applied to any being of a colossal force or grandiose and lawless self-assertion, or even to whatever is huge or mighty.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works.
toss ::: n. 1. A rolling or pitching motion. v. 2. To throw upward of in a certain direction. 3. To fling or be flung about, esp. constantly or regularly in an agitated or violent way. 4. To throw with a light motion. 5. To be thrown here and there; be flung to and fro. 6. To throw, fling, or heave continuously about; pitch to and fro. tosses, tossed, laugh-tossed.
“‘Transformation’ is a word that I have brought in myself (like ‘supermind’) to express certain spiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral yoga. People are now taking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the significance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by the ‘influence’ of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; purification is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change—the word besides has many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose.” Letters on Yoga
Transformation is something progressive, but certainly there must be realisation before the aim of transformation is possible.
transformation ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Transformation means that the higher consciousness or nature is brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower. There is a higher consciousness of the true self, which is spiritual, but it is above; if one rises above into it, then one is free as long as one remains there, but if one comes down into or uses mind, vital or body — and if one keeps any connection with life, one has to do so, either to come down and act from the ordinary consciousness or else to be in the self but use mind, life and body, then the imperfections of these instruments have to be faced and mended — they can only be mended by transformation.” *Letters on Yoga
"‘Transformation" is a word that I have brought in myself (like ‘supermind") to express certain spiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral yoga. People are now taking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the significance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by the ‘influence" of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; purification is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change — the word besides has many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose.” *Letters on Yoga
"It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit. Here a slow and tardy change need no longer be the law or manner of our evolution; it will be only so to a greater or less extent so long as a mental ignorance clings and hampers our ascent; but once we have grown into the truth-consciousness its power of spiritual truth of being will determine all. Into that truth we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit. The obscurations of earth will not prevail against the supramental truth-consciousness, for even into the earth it can bring enough of the omniscient light and omnipotent force of the spirit conquer. All may not open to the fullness of its light and power, but whatever does open must that extent undergo the change. That will be the principle of transformation.” The Supramental Manifestation
The Mother: "Transformation. The change by which all the elements and all the movements of the being become ready to manifest the supramental Truth.”
"One thing you must know and never forget: in the work of transformation all that is true and sincere will always be kept; only what is false and insincere will disappear.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
trial ::: a tentative or experimental action in order to ascertain results; experiment.
Truth and the whole heart of whose method is surrender to the divine Shakti, and yet to go on claiming this sO'CalJed freedom, which is no more than a subjection to certain ignorant cosmic forces, is to indulge in a blind contradiction and to claim the right to lead a double life.
Truth-consciousness, but this truth is something beyond mind and tliis consciousness is far above the highest mind-conscious- ness. For truth of mind is always relative, uncertain "and partial, but this greater Truth is peremptory and whole. Truth of mind is a representation, always an inadequate, most often a misleading representation, and even when roost accurate, only a reflection,
twilight ::: n. 1. The diffused light from the sky during the early evening or early morning when the sun is below the horizon and its light is refracted by the earth"s atmosphere. 2. A state of uncertainty, vagueness or gloom. twilight"s. adj. 3. Lighted by or as if by twilight.
two-in-One ::: Sri Aurobindo: " At a certain spiritual and supramental level the Duality becomes still more perfectly Two-in-one, the Master Soul with the Conscious Force within it, and its potentiality disowns all barriers and breaks through every limit.” The Synthesis of Yoga
unassured ::: not certain or sure (of something).
uncertain ::: 1. Not determinate or fixed in point of time or occurrence. 2. About which one cannot be certain or assured; subject to doubt. 3. Not fully confident or assured of something. 4. Having no clear knowledge; in a state of doubt. 5. Not clearly identified, located, or determined. 6. Not clearly defined or outlined; vague; indistinct. 7. Not certain to remain in one state or condition; unsteady, variable, fitful. 8. Dependent on chance or unpredictable factors; doubtful; of unforeseeable outcome or effect. 9. Ambiguous.
uncertainty ::: 1. Something not definitely known or knowable; a doubtful point. 2. The state of not being definitely known or perfectly clear; doubtfulness or vagueness. uncertainty"s, uncertainties.
“‘Uncertainty’ would mean that the thought was confident but uncertain of itself, which would be a contradiction. ‘Incertitude’ means that its truth is uncertain in spite of its proud confidence in itself.” Letters on Savitri—1936
unknown ::: “The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity.” The Life Divine
v. 1. Lacking definite shape, form, or character; indistinct. 2. Not definitely established, determined, confirmed, or known; uncertain. 3. Indefinite or indistinct in nature or character. 4. Not clearly expressed; inexplicit. 5. Not clear in meaning or application. n. 6. An empty or obscure expanse.
venture ::: n. 1. An undertaking or proceeding the outcome of which is uncertain, but which is attended by the risk of danger or loss. ventures. v. 2. To take a risk; dare. ventured, venturing.
VIGILANCE. ::: There must be a certain quiet vigilance even in the passivity. Otherwise there may be either wrong move- ments or inertia.
"We are not the body, but the body is still something of ourselves. With realisation the erroneous identification ceases — in certain experiences the existence of the body is not felt at all. In the full realisation the body is within us, not we in it, it is an instrumental formation in our wider being, — our consciousness exceeds but also pervades it, — it can be dissolved without our ceasing to be the self.” Letters on Yoga
“We are not the body, but the body is still something of ourselves. With realisation the erroneous identification ceases—in certain experiences the existence of the body is not felt at all. In the full realisation the body is within us, not we in it, it is an instrumental formation in our wider being,—our consciousness exceeds but also pervades it,—it can be dissolved without our ceasing to be the self.” Letters on Yoga
well ::: adv. 1. Indeed, certainly, assuredly; without doubt. 2. In a way appropriate to the facts or circumstances; fittingly, properly. 3. Skilfully or proficiently. 4. (usually used with auxiliaries) Suitably; fittingly. adj. 5. Satisfactory, pleasing, or good. 6. Proper; fitting.
::: "Wherever thou seest a great end, be sure of a great beginning. Where a monstrous and painful destruction appals thy mind, console it with the certainty of a large and great creation. God is there not only in the still small voice, but in the fire and in the whirlwind.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“Wherever thou seest a great end, be sure of a great beginning. Where a monstrous and painful destruction appals thy mind, console it with the certainty of a large and great creation. God is there not only in the still small voice, but in the fire and in the whirlwind.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Will to illness ::: There is something in the body that accepts the illness and has certain reactions that make this acceptance effective ; so there must be a contrary will in the conscious parts of the being to get rid of this most physical acceptance.
KEYS (10k)
44 Sri Aurobindo
14 The Mother
14 Sri Ramakrishna
14 Saint Thomas Aquinas
5 Sri Sarada Devi
5 Sri Ramana Maharshi
4 Manly P Hall
4 Swami Vivekananda
4 Saint Augustine of Hippo
3 Carl Jung
3 Aleister Crowley
2 Yamamoto Tsunetomo
2 Vaclav Havel
2 SWAMI SUBODHANANDA
2 Sri Ramana Maharshi
2 Richard P Feynman
2 Ramakrishna
2 Michel de Montaigne
2 Huang Po
2 Attar of Nishapur
2 Albert Einstein
2 Plato
2 Ibn Arabi
2 Adyashanti
1 Yoshida Kenko
1 Xiaolu Guo
1 Wittgenstein
1 Voltaire
1 Vivekananda
1 Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser (1613-1658)
1 Václav Havel
1 Tolstoy
1 Tolstoi
1 Timothy VI.7
1 Thomas Keating
1 The Song of the Avadhut
1 Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
1 Swami Saradananda
1 Swami Ramakrishnananda
1 SWAMI PARAMANANANDA
1 Swami Akhandananda
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1 Sufi Proverb
1 Stephen King
1 Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Maharaj
1 SRI ANANDAMAYI MA
1 six hours
1 Simone de Beauvoir
1 Seneca
1 Schelling
1 Saint Vincent Ferrer
1 Saint Thomas Aquinas
1 Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
1 Saint Hildegard of Bingen
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1 Saint Anastasius of Antioch
1 Russell Kirk
1 Robert Heinlein
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1 Richard Feynman
1 Rene Guenon
1 Ramesh Balsekar
1 Proverbs XXIII. 4-5
1 Pope Saint Gelasius I
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1 Peter Ouspensky
1 Patrul Rinpoche
1 Pablo Neruda
1 Owen Barfield
1 Oscar Wilde
1 Novation
1 my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle
1 Mr. Wednesday in American Gods by Neil Gaiman
1 Mother Mirra
1 Montaigne
1 Miyamoto Musashi
1 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
1 Mark Twain
1 Marcus Aurelius
1 Manapurush Swami Shivananda
1 M Alan Kazlev
1 Liber HHH (341)
1 Leo Buscaglia
1 Katha Upanishad. IV. 2
1 Katha Upanishad
1 Kant
1 Joseph Campbell
1 Jorge Luis Borge
1 John Neal
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1 John Cowper Powys
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1 Georg C Lichtenberg
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1 each was discovered by one man.
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1 Dante
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1 Plotinus
1 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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8 Mark Twain
7 Mark Manson
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6 Robert Greene
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6 Bill Gates
6 Albert Camus
5 Terry Pratchett
5 Stephen King
5 Ralph Waldo Emerson
5 Michel de Montaigne
5 Mason Cooley
5 Douglas Adams
5 Deepak Chopra
5 Daniel Kahneman
1:One day the victory is certain. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
2:The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness." ~ Michel de Montaigne, #KEYS
3:The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
~ Michel de Montaigne,#KEYS
4:Even if it seems certain that you will lose, retaliate. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #KEYS
5:Throughout this life, you can never be certain of living long enough to take another breath." ~ Huang Po, #KEYS
6:Beyond a certain point, the whole universe becomes a continuous process of initiation. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #KEYS
7:A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind." ~ John Neal, #KEYS
8:I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul. ~ Pablo Neruda,#KEYS
9:When the velocity of progress increases beyond a certain point, it becomes indistinguishable from crisis. ~ Owen Barfield, #KEYS
10:A good means to discovery is to take away certain parts of a system to find out how the rest behaves. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #KEYS
11:A true initiate will never force anyone who has not reached a certain level of maturity to accept his truth. ~ Franz Bardon, #KEYS
12:You must have boundless faith in the divine goodness, for the victory is absolutely certain. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
13:Know for certain that He will not leave you. He will never fail you when you cry His name with a longing heart. ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
14:Why do we not doubt whether our thoughts and actions are not another sort of dreaming, and our waking a certain kind of sleep? ~ Montaigne, #KEYS
15:Whether the mind becomes steady or not, practice Japa. It will be nice if you can perform a certain number of Japa daily. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
16:It might be true that it is "quality time" that counts, but after a certain point quantity has a bearing on quality. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #KEYS
17:You must never cease from calling on the Lord, and know this for certain that the Lord's name cuts through all obstacles. ~ SWAMI SUBODHANANDA, #KEYS
18:You must make the most strenuous efforts. Throughout this life, you can never be certain of living long enough to take another breath. ~ Huang Po, #KEYS
19:Nothing can become certain for the intellect except through God's influence ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Compendium 1.129)., #KEYS
20:Form has a certain fixity which limits. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - VI, #KEYS
21:Even the animal is more in touch with a certain harmony in things than man. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Science and Yoga, #KEYS
22:Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain. ~ Richard P Feynman, #KEYS
23:To be by oneself very much needs a certain force of inner life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Asceticism and the Integral Yoga, #KEYS
24:Some are already awake.They have certain marks. They do not care to hear or speak of anything but what relates to God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
25:Only one who knows not that God lives in him can attri bute to certain men more importance than to others. ~ Tolstoy, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
26:All the play in this world is based on a certain relative free will in the individual being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Surrender, #KEYS
27:A certain kind of Agnosticism is the final truth of all knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Two Negations, The Materialist Denial, #KEYS
28:The perfection of virtue consists in a certain equality of soul and of conduct which should remain un-alterable. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
29:Allow a certain time for the enjoyment of this world. When attachment is diminished, then is the time for religious instruction. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
30:We have at a certain stage to liberate ourselves even from the desire of our liberation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Determinism of Nature, #KEYS
31:A certain amount of waste and friction is necessary and useful to all natural action. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Inadequacy of the State Idea, #KEYS
32:The intellect reaches a certain limit, beyond which it cannot go, while one possessed of inspiration and certainty can proceed beyond that limit. ~ Ibn Arabi, #KEYS
33:The least insight that one can obtain into sublime things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge of lower things. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
34:Know it for certain that without steady devotion for the Guru and unflinching patience and perseverance, nothing is to be achieved. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
35:You think you know when you learn, are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.
~ Alan Perlis, Paradigms of Artifical Intelligence,#KEYS
36:All movement forward implies a certain amount of friction and difficulty of adjustment ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Problem of Uniformity and Liberty, #KEYS
37:Repeating the name of God, fasting on certain occasions, making pilgrimages to shrines and worshiping, all these constitute Vaidhi Bhakti. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
38:You cannot get rid of the ego until you have realized God. If you find a person free from ego, then know for certain that he has seen God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
39:No human will can finally prevail against the Divine's Will. Let us put ourselves deliberately and exclusively on the side of the Divine, and the Victory is ultimately certain. ~ Mother Mirra, #KEYS
40:The cross to me is certain salvation. The cross is that which I ever adore. The cross of the Lord is with me. The cross is my refuge. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
41:At a certain stage in the path of devotion the religious man finds satisfaction in the Divinity with a form, at another stage in the formless Impersonal. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
42:If you want to do a certain thing, you first have to be a certain person. Once you become that certain person, you will not care anymore about doing that certain thing. ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
43:It is certain that whoever could write the history of his own life from its very ground, would have thereby grasped in a brief conspectus the entire history of the universe. ~ Schelling, Ages of the World (1811), #KEYS
44:Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
45:The justification of a sinner is a certain movement by which the human mind is moved by God from the state of sin to the state of justice ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.113.5)., #KEYS
46:A certain moderation is needed even in the eagerness for progress—moderation, not indifference or indolence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Difficulties of the Physical Nature, #KEYS
47:Every faith is to a certain extent rational, it has its own analysis and synthesis by which it seeks to establish itself intellectually. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, Opinion and Comments, #KEYS
48:No human will can finally prevail against the Divine's Will. Let us put ourselves deliberately and exclusively on the side of the Divine, and the Victory is ultimately certain. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
49:The slenderest knowledge that may be obtained of the highest things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge obtained of lesser things ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.5ad1)., #KEYS
50:In each life man has to figure a certain sum of its complexity and put that into some kind of order. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - V, #KEYS
51:At a certain stage in the path of devotion the religious man finds satisfaction in the Divinity with a form, at another stage in the formless Impersonal. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
52:To do anything through ignorance or through passion takes away from the nature of injury, and to a certain extent calls for mercy and forgiveness ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.47.2)., #KEYS
53:A certain kind of Nirvana experience is necessary even for this Yoga. That is, the world must become in a way nothing to you because, as it is constituted, it is a work of ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
54:The disciples were affected by a certain carnal love for the human nature of Christ, without yet being elevated to a spiritual love of his divinity ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Jn 16), #KEYS
55:We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude." ~ Charles R. Swindoll, #KEYS
56:It is the Holy Spirit who effects with water the second birth, as a certain seed of divine generation. It is a consecration of a heavenly birth and the pledge of a promised inheritance. ~ Novation, Treatise Concerning the Trinity, #KEYS
57:Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
58:One has to keep a certain balance by which the fundamental consciousness remains able to turn from one concentration to another with ease. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Becoming Conscious in Work, #KEYS
59:Our faith is not only the power of believing in certain truths of the supernatural order: it is also, and at the same time, a new power of interpreting the visible world and natural being; a renaissance of reason. ~ Pierre Rousselot, #KEYS
60:In the occult teachings you have been given certain images, under which you are instructed to think of certain things. These images are not descriptive but symbolic, and are designed to train the mind, not inform it.
~ Dion Fortune,#KEYS
61:A certain pride, a certain awe, withheld him from offering to God even one prayer at night, though he knew it was in God's power to take away his life while he slept and hurl his soul hellward ere he could beg for mercy. ~ James Joyce, #KEYS
62:All natures, because they exist and therefore have a mode of their own, a form of their own, and a certain peace within themselves, are certainly good. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, City of God xii.5, #KEYS
63:In creating all animals, God made certain forms in which he shows his strength. He does this in the whale, so that this fish senses the iniquities of the devil and sends out his breath against him…. ~ Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Physica, #KEYS
64:This is the good of each thing, namely, to participate in the likeness of God; for every other goodness is nothing other than a certain likeness of the first goodness ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 1.96)., #KEYS
65:If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.
~ Epictetus,#KEYS
66:If you are determined to do a certain thing, you must not grieve at the failure of other things, nor be ashamed at the scorn of other people. Without giving up everything for it, the one great thing cannot be accomplished. ~ Yoshida Kenko, #KEYS
67:On a certain level all knowledge presents itself as a remembering, because all is latent or inherent in the self of supermind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Instruments - Thought-Process, #KEYS
68:The fact that we experience anxiety and annoyance is the certain sign that, in the unconscious, there is an emotional program for happiness that has just been frustrated. ~ Thomas Keating, The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation, #KEYS
69:The words of language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
70:By Revelation it is manifestly shown that the whole duration of the world rests on a certain conditional prolongation obtained by the Virgin Mary in the hope of the conversion and correction of the World…" ~ Saint Vincent Ferrer, (1350-1419), #KEYS
71:Life is short, but the soul is immortal and eternal, and one thing being certain, death, let us therefore take up a great ideal and give up our whole life to it. Let this be our determination. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
72:This one question - "What do I know for certain?" - is tremendously powerful. When you look deeply into this question, it actually destroys your world. It destroys your whole sense of self, and it's meant to. ~ Adyashanti, The End of Your World, #KEYS
73:A man needs a supernatural light in order to penetrate further, so that he might have cognition of certain things that he is unable to have cognition of by the natural light ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.8.1)., #KEYS
74:A novel is a commodity that fulfills a certain need; people need to buy daydreams like they need to buy ice cream or aspirin or gin. They even need to buy a pinch of intellectual catnip now and then to liven up their thoughts... ~ John Dos Passos, #KEYS
75:You must never cease from calling on the Lord, and know this for certain that the Lord's name cuts through all obstacles. However it may be - be it perfectly or imperfectly - keep on repeating His name, which has a power of its own. ~ SWAMI SUBODHANANDA, #KEYS
76:Each person has his own freedom of choice up to a certain point—unless he makes the full surrender—and as he uses the freedom, has to take the spiritual or other consequences. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Surrender, #KEYS
77:A certain class of minds shrink from aggressiveness as if it were a sin. Their temperament forbids them to feel the delight of battle and they look on what they cannot understand as something monstrous and sinful. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
78:Charity signifies not only the love of God [amorem Dei], but also a certain friendship [amicitiam] with Him; which implies, besides love, a certain mutual return of love, together with mutual communion. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.II q65 a5 resp, #KEYS
79:to treat a human being as an animal - as a mere space-binder - because humans have certain animal propensities, is an error of the same type and grossness as to treat a cube as a surface because it has surface properties. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity, #KEYS
80:It is desire that causes sorrow; but the will to realize God is itself felicity. Be certain that He will cleanse and comfort you and take you into His arms. Sorrow comes in order to lead you to happiness. At all times hold Him in remembrance. ~ SRI ANANDAMAYI MA, #KEYS
81:Sleep, awakening, consciousness—all this does not refer to personality, it refers to essence. So actually you work on essence from the very beginning, and personality, by changing, will produce a certain pressure on essence and change it too. ~ Peter Ouspensky, #KEYS
82:The aspirant to the true knowledge, if he does not halt in his progress after acquiring certain extraordinary and supernatural powers, becomes in the end rich in the eternal knowledge of the truth. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
83:Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
84:In a certain way, sadness is like dung. Dung, not consigned to its proper place, is filth; dung, not consigned to its proper place, makes a house unclean; but, in its place, it makes a field fertile. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
85:The Word of the Father, which is a certain concept of His intellect, is the splendor and wisdom by which He knows Himself. That is why the Apostle calls the Son, the splendor of glory ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Hebrews 1)., #KEYS
86:A man has certain debts to pay: his debts to the gods and rishis, and his debts to mother, father, and wife. He cannot achieve anything without paying the debt he owes to his parents. A man is indebted to his wife as well. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
87:Because of us he was deprived of his glory for a little while, the glory that was his as the Father's only-begotten Son, but through the cross this glory is seen to have been restored to him in a certain way in the body that he had assumed. ~ Saint Anastasius of Antioch, #KEYS
88:Plant, animal, man, god, the Eternal is there containing and repressing himself as it were in order to make a certain statement of his being. Each is the whole Eternal concealed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Eternal and the Individual, #KEYS
89:He who has made the Buddha his refuge
Cannot be killed by ten million demons;
Though he transgress his vows or be tormented in mind,
It is certain that he will go beyond rebirth.
~ Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher, Sutra of the Heart of the Sun,#KEYS
90:God's nature is unknowable and transcends every mind and reason, but, so far as we are able, we make a path to what is beyond all things from the order of all beings projected from, possessing certain images and likenesses of his divine paradigms. ~ Dionysius, Div Nom 869c-872a, #KEYS
91:Creation places something in the thing created according to relation only... When movement is removed from action and passion, only relation remains. Hence creation in the creature is only a certain relation to the Creator as to the principle of its being. ~ Aquinas, ST I q45 a3, #KEYS
92:Philosophy is simply friendship with wisdom... thus in a certain sense we can call everyone a philosopher in accordance with the natural love that generates in everyone the desire to know. W/o love or without devotion one cannot be called a philosopher. ~ Dante, Convivio III.xi.6, #KEYS
93:They will ridicule Christian simplicity;... As a result, no principle at all, however holy, authentic, ancient, and certain it may be, will remain free of censure, criticism, false interpretation, modification, and delimitation by man…" ~ Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser (1613-1658), #KEYS
94:Love is higher than the Highest. Love is greater than the Greatest. Yea, it is in a certain sense greater than God; while yet, in the highest sense of all, God is Love, and Love is God." ~ François Fénelon, (1651 - 1715), French Roman Catholic archbishop & theologian, Wikipedia., #KEYS
95:Self control is, in a way, not control at all: it is the melting away of the need for certain forms of comfort and distraction. It is an embrace of simplicity. When we know what's what, pleonexia doesn't arise. Our understanding of happiness alters. ~ Jan Zwicky, A Ship from Delos, #KEYS
96:Whatever name is called the Power that answers is the Mother. Each name indicates a certain aspect of the Divine and is limited by that aspect; the Mother's Power is universal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Namajapa or Repetition of the Name, #KEYS
97:If a man chooses a certain Way and seems to have no particular talent for this Way, he can still become a master if he so chooses. By keeping at a particular form of study a man can attain perfection either in this life or the next (if a next life is believed in). ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #KEYS
98:An instrument good for a certain work and set of conditions, if it is still retained when other work has to be done and conditions change, becomes necessarily an obstacle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Formation of the Nation-Unit - The Three Stages, #KEYS
99:The mind of ignorance relies on a certain foundation or element of relative or moral certainties, but for the rest a dealing with probabilities and possibilities is its chief resource. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Towards the Supramental Time Vision, #KEYS
100:Jul 12 The more your love for God increases, the more you will feel the insignificance of sensual pleasures. You are being protected by Him, so no woman can harm you. He, who hates women, is still feeling the pinch of lust. So it is certain, that one day he will go astray.~ Swami Ramakrishnananda, #KEYS
101:Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his enemies, and win in the contest." ~ Plato, (428/427 or 424/423 - 348/347) Greek philosopher, Wikipedia., #KEYS
102:The belief in supernatural beings may to a certain extent increase the action in man, but it produces also a moral deterioration. Dependence, fear, superstition accompany it; it degenerates into a miserable belief in the weakness of man. ~ Vivekananda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
103:Fire and enthusiasm must be in our blood. I believe we have it. Intellect is great indeed, but it stops within certain bounds. It is through the heart, & the heart alone, that inspiration comes. It is through the feelings that the highest secrets are reached. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
104:The foolish follow after the desires that are outward and they fall into the snare of death that is wide open for them, but the wise man sets his mind on the immortal and the certain and longs not here below for uncertain and transient things. ~ Katha Upanishad, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
105:If foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they arrived, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might strive for certain goals in opposition to the people ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.105.3)., #KEYS
106:When he is animated by a certain desire and by hope, man ought not to shrink from risking his life. He ought not to halt for a moment in his quest, nor to remain an instant in inaction. If he halts, he will be violently rejected far from the road. ~ Attar of Nishapur, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
107:There is nothing wrong in the life of the world. There is no harm in that. But always keep your mind, on God. Know for certain that house, family & property are not yours. They are God's. Your real home is in God.' pray always with a longing heart for love of God's Lotus Feet ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
108:There is nothing wrong in the life of the world. There is no harm in that. But always keep your mind, on God. Know for certain that house, family & property are not yours. They are God's. Your real home is in God.' pray always with a longing heart for love of God's Lotus Feet. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
109:And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It is clear that all the valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine ~ each was discovered by one man., #KEYS
110:I read [in certain Platonic books] that God the Word was born not of flesh nor of blood, nor of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh, but of God (Jn 1.13). But that the Word was made flesh and lived among us (Jn 1.14) I did not read there. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 13.9.14, #KEYS
111:Though diff't things are known and believed to be true by diff't people, certain things are true on which all men agree, such as the first principles of understanding, both speculative and practical, as an image of divine truth is reflected universally in all minds ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 3.47)., #KEYS
112:Become aware of internal, subjective, subverbal experiences, so that these experiences can be brought into the world of abstraction, of conversation, of naming, etc. with the consequence that it immediately becomes possible for a certain amount of control to be exerted over these hitherto unconscious and uncontrollable processes. ~ Abraham Maslow, #KEYS
113:There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous. ~ Mr. Wednesday in American Gods by Neil Gaiman, #KEYS
114:Process is merely a utility; it is a habitual adoption of certain effective relations which might in the infinite possibility of things have been arranged otherwise, for the production of effects which might equally have been quite different. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Memory, Self-Consciousness and the Ignorance, #KEYS
115:I remember a certain holy day in the dusk of the Year, in the dusk of the Equinox of Osiris, when first I beheld thee visibly; when first the dreadful issue was fought out; when the Ibis-headed One charmed away the strife. I remember thy first kiss, even as a maiden should. Nor in the dark byways was there another: thy kisses abide. ~ Liber HHH (341), #KEYS
116:a sign of progress :::
We may even come to feel that the body is in a certain sense non-existent except as a sort of partial expression of our vital force and of our mentality. These experiences are signs that the mind is coming to a right poise regarding the body...
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, 345,#KEYS
117:A part of my being has developed the bad habit of feeling miserable after Pranam. It gets jealous of certain people. Don't you think I should have the strength to reject this obstacle?
Certainly - but then you must do it in all sincerity and not accept these movements of jealousy in any way.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
118:The highest inspiration brings the intrinsic word, the spiritual mantra; but even where the inspiration is less than that, has a certain vagueness or fluidity of outline, you cannot say of such mystic poetry that it has no inspiration, not the inspired word at all. Where there is no inspiration, there can be no poetry. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
119:If we want to cook food we need to leave the stove on continuously and not keep turning it on and off. If the heat is continuous, no matter whether it is high or low our food will eventually be cooked. Similarly, if we continuously apply effort, even if it is only a small effort, it is certain that we shall eventually experience the fruits of our practice. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, #KEYS
120:A certain amount of purification is necessary before there can be any realisation of the Divine and that is what has been going on in you. It is after all not a very long time since the real purification began and it is never an easy work. So the impatience may be natural, but it is not exactly reasonable. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Purity, #KEYS
121:How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? [...] In my opinion the answer to this question is, briefly, this: As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
122:We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out,-and having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil. ~ Timothy VI.7, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
123:The material movements are an exterior notation by which the soul represents its perceptions of certain truths of the Infinite and makes them effective in the terms of Substance. These things are a language, a notation, a hieroglyphic, a system of symbols, not themselves the deepest truest sense of the things they intimate. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, #KEYS
124:The triple Path of devotion, knowledge and works ... seizes on certain central principles, the intellect, the heart, the will, and seeks to convert their normal operations by turning them away from their ordinary and external preoccupations and activities and concentrating them on the Divine.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga, 37 [T1],#KEYS
125:But imagine this same vital power of expression, with the inspiration coming from far above-the highest inspiration possible, when all the heavens open before us-then that becomes wonderful. There are certain passages of César Franck, certain passages of Beethoven, certain passages of Bach, there are pieces by others also which have this inspiration and power.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
126:That Self, Lord, Brahman we would know that we may realise our unity with it and with all that it manifests and in that unity we would live. For we demand of knowledge that it shall unite; the knowledge that divides must always be a partial knowing good for certain practical purposes; the knowledge that unites is the knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Synthesis of the Disciplines of Knowledge, #KEYS
127:The born lover... has a certain memory of beauty but severed from it now, he longer comprehends it; spellbound by visible loveliness he clings amazed about that. His lesson must be to fall down no longer in bewildered delight before some, one embodied form, he must be led under a system of mental discipline, to beauty everywhere and made to discern the One Principle underlying all."
~ Plotinus, 1st Ennead, 3 tractate,#KEYS
128:In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives. And as your mind and body grow accustomed to a certain amount of sleep each night ~ six hours, seven, maybe the recommended eight ~ so can you train your waking mind to sleep creatively and work out the vividly imagined waking dreams which are successful works of fiction., #KEYS
129:We also know life passes quickly and death is certain, yet in our busy lives we find it difficult to practice as much as we wish we could. Perhaps we meditate for an hour or two each day, but that leaves the other twenty-two hours in which to be distracted and tossed about on the waves of samsara. But there is always time for sleep; the third of our lives we spend sleeping can be used for practice.
~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep,#KEYS
130:A religion is sometime a source of happiness, and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong. The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak certainty of reason- but one cannot have both.
~ Robert Heinlein, from Friday.,#KEYS
131:powers of freedom from subjection to the body :::
By a similar process the habit by which the bodily nature associates certain forms and degrees of activity with strain, fatigue, incapacity can be rectified and the power, freedom, swiftness, effectiveness of the work whether physical or mental which can be done with this bodily instrument marvelously increased, doubled, tripled, decupled.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, 346,#KEYS
132:Q: I wrote to the Mother a prayer in French. Her answer to it was: "Ouvre ton cæur et tu me trouveras déjà là." ("Open your heart and you will find me already there.") What exactly does this signify?
A: What the Mother meant was this that when there is a certain opening of the heart, you find that there was always the eternal union there (the same that you experience always in the Self above).
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, 2-7-1935,#KEYS
133:To read great books does not mean one becomes 'bookish'; it means that something of the terrible insight of Dostoevsky, of the richly-charged imagination of Shakespeare, of the luminous wisdom of Goethe, actually passes into the personality of the reader; so that in contact with the chaos of ordinary life certain free and flowing outlines emerge, like the forms of some classic picture, endowing both people and things with a grandeur beyond what is visible to the superficial glance.
~ John Cowper Powys,#KEYS
134:When a jar is broken, the space that was inside Merges into the space outside. In the same way, my mind has merged in God; To me, there appears no duality.
Truly, there's no jar, no space within; There's no body and no soul encased. Please understand; everything is Brahman. There's no subject, no object, no separate parts.
Everywhere, always, and in everything, Know this: the Self alone exists. Everything, both the Void and the manifested world, Is nothing but my Self; of this I am certain. ~ The Song of the Avadhut,#KEYS
135:In mathematics, students are at the mercy of rigidly applied algorithms. They learn to use certain formalisms in certain ways, often effectively, if provided with a pre-arranged signal that a particular formalism is wanted.
In social studies and the humanities, the enemies of understanding are scripts and stereotypes. Students readily believe that events occur in typical ways, and they evoke these scripts even inappropriately. For example, they regard struggles between two parties in a dispute as a "good guy versus bad guy" movie script. ~ Howard Gardner,#KEYS
136:First, once and for all, you should know that luck, good or bad, does not exist. What to our ignorance looks like luck is simply the result of causes we know nothing about. It is certain that for someone who has desires, when his desires are not satisfied, it is a sign that the Divine Grace is with him and wants, through experience, to make him progress rapidly, by teaching him that a willing and spontaneous surrender to the Divine Will is a much surer way to be happy in peace and light than the satisfaction of any desire.
~ Sri Aurobindo,#KEYS
137:The falsification of everything has been shown to be one of the characteristic features of our period, but falsification is not in itself subversion properly so-called, though contributing directly to the preparation for it. Perhaps the clearest indication of this is what may be called the falsification of language, taking the form of the misuse of certain words that have been diverted from their true meaning; misuse of this kind is to some extent imposed by constant suggestion on the part of everyone who exercises any kind of influence over the mentality of the public. ~ Rene Guenon, #KEYS
138:. . . misfortune has its uses; for, as our bodily frame would burst asunder if the pressure of the atmosphere was removed, so, if the lives of men were relieved of all need, hardship and adversity; if everything they took in hand were successful, they would be so swollen with arrogance that, though they might not burst, they would present the spectacle of unbridled folly--nay, they would go mad. And I may say, further, that a certain amount of care or pain or trouble is necessary for every man at all times. A ship without ballast is unstable and will not go straight. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #KEYS
139:Everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavors and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
140:There are not many, those who have no secret garden of the mind. For this garden alone can give refreshment when life is barren of peace or sustenance or satisfactory answer. Such sanctuaries may be reached by a certain philosophy or faith, by the guidance of a beloved author or an understanding friend, by way of the temples of music and art, or by groping after truth through the vast kingdoms of knowledge. They encompass almost always truth and beauty, and are radiant with the light that never was on sea or land. - Clare Cameron, Green Fields of England ~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates, #KEYS
141:Weekly Reviews ::: Dedicate at least one afternoon or entire evening during the weekend to review all of your courses. Make certain you have an understanding of where each course is going and that your study schedule is appropriate. Do the 4x6 thing: One card for each chapter. Then ask yourself how each chapter relates to other chapters, and then, how the readings relate to each of the lectures. Are there contradictions? Differences of opinion, approach, method? What evidence is there to support the differences of opinion? What are your views? Can you defend them? A good exercise. ~ Dr Robert A Hatch, How to Study, #KEYS
142:The Japanese have a proverb: "The gods only laugh when men pray to them for wealth." The boon bestowed on the worshiper is always scaled to his stature and to the nature of his dominant desire: the boon is simply a symbol of life energy stepped down to the requirements of a certain specific case. The irony, of course, lies in the fact that, whereas the hero who has won the favor of the god may beg for the boon of perfect illumination, what he generally seeks are longer years to live, weapons with which to slay his neighbor, or the health of his child. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Ultimate Boon, #KEYS
143:Faith is a coat against ... nakedness. For most of us, most of the time, faith functions so as to screen off the abyss of mystery that surrounds us. But we all at certain times call upon faith to provide nerve to stand in the presence of the abyss--naked, stripped of life supports, trusting only in the being, the mercy and the power of the Other in the darkness. Faith helps us form a dependable 'life space,' an ultimate environment. At a deeper level, faith undergirds us when our life space is punctured and collapses, when the felt reality of our ultimate environment proves to be less than ultimate.
~ James W Fowler, Stages Of Faith,#KEYS
144:When a man attains the Knowledge of Brahman he shows certain characteristics. The Bhagavata describes four of them: the state of a child, of an inert thing, of a madman, and of a ghoul. Sometimes the knower of Brahman acts like a five-year-old child. Sometimes he acts like a madman. Sometimes he remains like an inert thing. In this state he cannot work; he renounces all action. You may say that jnanis like Janaka were active. The truth is that people in olden times gave responsibility to their subordinate officers and thus freed themselves from worry. Further, at that time men possessed intense faith. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
145:I've always been keenly aware of the passing of time. I've always thought that I was old. Even when I was twelve, I thought it was awful to be thirty. I felt that something was lost. At the same time, I was aware of what I could gain, and certain periods of my life have taught me a great deal. But, in spite of everything, I've always been haunted by the passing of time and by the fact that death keeps closing in on us. For me, the problem of time is linked up with that of death, with the thought that we inevitably draw closer and closer to it, with the horror of decay. It's that, rather than the fact that things disintegrate, that love peters out. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #KEYS
146:Although there is a difference of procedure between a Shaman of the Tungas and a Catholic prelate of Europe or between a coarse and sensual Vogul and a Puritan Independent of Connecticut, there is no difference in the principle of their creeds; for they all belong to the same category of people whose religion consists not in becoming better, but in believing in and carrying out certain arbitrary regulations. Only those who believe that the worship of God consists in aspiring to a better life differ from the first because they recognize quite another and certainly a loftier principle uniting all men of good faith in an invisible temple which alone can be the universal temple. ~ Immanuel Kant, #KEYS
147:The person who has allowed himself to develop certain mental habits finds that attitudes can be just as much addiction as narcotics. Someone who would not under any conditions become an alcoholic can become so completely sickened by his own habitual negative thinking, that many people around him wish he would become alcoholic as the lesser of two evils. It is hard to cure an alcoholic, although Alcoholics Anonymous can do it sometimes; but the individual who falls too deeply into some of the traps of his own thinking is practically incurable because he has warped all perspective and has no real desire to make any change in himself. ~ Manly P Hall, (Change Yourself and You Change All 1969, p.7), #KEYS
148:Mother, if there is a part in one's nature that does not open, what is the method of aspiring so that this part may open?
You may aspire that this part may open - let the part that is open aspire for the other to open. It will open after a certain time; one must continue, persist. That is the only thing to do. There is something that does not want it, an acute resistance there, which does not want it. It is like a stubborn child: "I don't want it, I shall remain what I am, I won't move."... It does not say, "I am pleased with myself", because it does not dare. But the truth is it is quite self-satisfied, it does not budge. ~ The Mother, Question and Answers, Volume-6, page no.116),#KEYS
149:Although, with insight and good will, the shadow can to some extent be assimilated into the conscious personality, experience shows that there are certain features which offer the most obstinate resistance to moral control and prove almost impossible to influence. These resistances are usually bound up with projections, which are not recognized as such, and their recognition is a moral achievement beyond the ordinary. While some traits peculiar to the shadow can be recognized without too much difficulty as one's personal qualities, in this case both insight and good will are unavailing because the cause of the emotion appears to lie, beyond all possibility of doubt, in the other person. ~ Carl Jung, CW 9ii, par. 16., #KEYS
150: But we now come to speak of the holy and sacred Pentacles and Sigils. Now these pentacles, are as it were certain holy signes preserving us from evil chances and events, and helping and assisting us to binde, exterminate, and drive away evil spirits, and alluring the good spirits, and reconciling them unto us. And these pentacles do consist either of Characters of the good spirits of the superiour order, or of sacred pictures of holy letters or revelations, with apt and fit versicles, which are composed either of Geometrical figures and holy names of God, according to the course and maner of many of them; or they are compounded of all of them, or very many of them mixt. ~ Agrippa, A Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, #KEYS
151:[Rex and Regina] It is a therapeutic necessity, indeed, the first requisite of any thorough psychological method, for consciousness to confront its shadow. In the end this must lead to some kind of union, even though the union consists at first in an open conflict, and often remains so for a long time. It is a struggle that cannot be abolished by rational means. When it is wilfully repressed it continues in the unconscious and merely expresses itself indirectly and all the more dangerously, so no advantage is gained. The struggle goes on until the opponents run out of breath. What the outcome will be can never be seen in advance. The only certain thing is that both parties will be changed. ~ Carl Jung, CW 14, par. 514., #KEYS
152:Out of all the sciences... the ancients, in their studies, especially selected seven to be mastered by those who were to be educated. These seven they considered so to excel all the rest in usefulness that anyone who had been thoroughly schooled in them might afterward come to knowledge of the others by his own inquiry and effort rather than by listening to a teacher. For these, one might say, constitute the best instruments, the best rudiments, by which the way is prepared for the mind's complete knowledge of philosophic truth. Therefore they are called by the name trivium and quadrivium, because by them, as by certain ways (viae), a quick mind enters into the secret places of wisdom. ~ Hugh of Saint Victor, Didascalicon, #KEYS
153:Although there is a difference of procedure between a Shaman of the Tungas and a Catholic prelate of Europe or between a coarse and sensual Vogul and a Puritan Independent of Connecticut, there is no difference in the principle of their creeds; for they all belong to the same category of people whose religion consists not in becoming better, but in believing in and carrying out certain arbitrary regulations. Only those who believe that the worship of God consists in aspiring to a better life differ from the first because they recognize quite another and certainly a loftier principle uniting all men of good faith in an invisible temple which alone can be the universal temple. ~ Kant, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
154:It is therefore sufficient to start by one of them and find the point at which it meets the other at first parallel lines of advance and melts into them by its own widenings. At the same time a more difficult, complex, wholly powerful process would be to start, as it were, on three lines together, on a triple wheel of soul-power But the consideration of this possibility must be postponed till we have seen what are the conditions and means of the Yoga of self-perfection. For we shall see that this also need not be postponed entirely, but a certain preparation of it is part of and a certain initiation into it proceeds by the growth of the divine works, love and knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
155:Faith :::
One must say, "Since I want only the Divine, my success is sure, I have only to walk forward in all confidence and His own Hand will be there secretly leading me to Him by His own way and at His own time." That is what you must keep as your constant mantra. Anything else one may doubt but that he who desires only the Divine shall reach the Divine is a certitude and more certain than two and two make four. That is the faith every sadhak must have at the bottom of his heart, supporting him through every stumble and blow and ordeal. It is only false ideas still casting their shadows on your mind that prevent you from having it. Push them aside and the back of the difficulty will be broken. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
156:I am not this, not that, neti, neti :::
We say then to the mind This is a working of Prakriti, this is neither thyself nor myself; stand back from it. We shall find, if we try, that the mind has this power of detachment and can stand back from the body not only in idea, but in act and as it were physically or rather vitally. This detachment of the mind must be strengthened by a certain attitude of indifference to the things of the body; we must not care essentially about its sleep or its waking, its movement or its rest, its pain or its pleasure, its health or ill-health, its vigour or its fatigue, its comfort or its discomfort, or what it eats or drinks.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from Subjection to the Body, 344,#KEYS
157:The ambition of every boy is to be an engine-driver. Some attain it, and remain there all their lives.
But in the majority of cases the Understanding grows faster than the Will, and long before the boy is in a position to attain his wish he has already forgotten it.
In other cases the Understanding never grows beyond a certain point, and the Will persists without intelligence.
The business man (for example) has wished for ease and comfort, and to this end goes daily to his office and slaves under a more cruel taskmaster than the meanest of the workmen in his pay; he decides to retire, and finds that life in empty. The end has been swallowed up in the means.
Only those are happy who have desired the unattainable. ~ Aleister Crowley, Book 4,#KEYS
158:The art of using it consists principally in referring all our ideas to it, discovering thus the common nature of certain things and the essential differences between others, so that ultimately one obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast complexity of the Universe.
The whole subject must be studied in the Book 777, and the main attributions committed to memory: then when by constant use the system is at last understood—as opposed to being merely memorised—the student will find fresh light break in on him at every turn as he continues to measure every item of new knowledge that he attains by this Standard. For to him the Universe will then begin to appear as a coherent and a necessary Whole. ~ Aleister Crowley, Little Essays Towards Truth, "Man",#KEYS
159:There are a vast amount of Buddhas already, and each one manifests countless forms simultaneously throughout all of the planes of cyclic existence for the benefit of all beings. However, at any given time, each individual being will have a stronger karmic connection with certain Buddhas, compared to other Buddhas.
Likewise, if you were a Buddha, since a huge number of beings throughout cyclic existence would have a stronger karmic connection with you during certain times, you would be able to benefit them much more directly than the many other Buddhas would be able to. Do not forget this.
The deeper you realise this, the greater your bodhicitta motivation becomes - in other words, the greater your compassionate wish to attain the enlightened state of a Buddha for the benefit of all beings, as soon as possible!
~ Chamtrul Rinpoche,#KEYS
160:It is to bring back all the scattered threads of consciousness to a single point, a single idea. Those who can attain a perfect attention succeed in everything they undertake; they will always make rapid progress. And this kind of concentration can be developed exactly like the muscles; one may follow different systems, different methods of training. Today we know that the most pitiful weakling, for example, can with discipline become as strong as anyone else. One should not have a will that flickers out like a candle. The will, the concentration must be cultivated; it is a question of method, of regular exercise. If you will, you can. But the thought Whats the use? must not come in to weaken the will. The idea that one is born with a certain character and can do nothing about it is a stupidity.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1950-1951,#KEYS
161:What we are desperately in need of today is for the individual to wake up in himself and realize that it is not necessary for him to be part of anything he does not approve of. It is not necessary for him to compromise. He may be penalized if he does not. If he does not follow the general way, he may be subject to certain criticism and discomfort, but he has to decide for himself whether these penalties are more important than character. He must decide whether it is better to get along with other people for a few years than it is to learn to get along with himself for the full duration of life. He must decide whether he wishes to make this compromise and be fashionable for a few years, and pay for it perhaps with ten years of lingering misery at the end of his life. He has to decide where his values are. ~ Manly P Hall, Accepting the Challenge of Maturity 1965, p. 13, #KEYS
162:potential limitation of Yogic methods :::
But as in physical knowledge the multiplication of scientific processes has its disadvantages, as it tends, for instance, to develop a victorious artificiality which overwhelms our natural human life under a load of machinery and to purchase certain forms of freedom and mastery at the price of an increased servitude, so the preoccupation with Yogic processes and their exceptional results may have its disadvantages and losses. The Yogin tends to draw away from the common existence and lose his hold upon it; he tends to purchase wealth of spirit by an impoverishment of his human activities, the inner freedom by and outer death. If he gains God, he loses life, or if he turns his efforts outward to conquer life, he is in danger of losing God...
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, Life and Yoga,#KEYS
163:In medieval times, the learned man, the teacher was a servant of God wholly, and of God only. His freedom was sanctioned by an authority more than human...The academy was regarded almost as a part of the natural and unalterable order of things. ... They were Guardians of the Word, fulfilling a sacred function and so secure in their right. Far from repressing free discussion, this "framework of certain key assumptions of Christian doctrine" encouraged disputation of a heat and intensity almost unknown in universities nowadays. ...They were free from external interference and free from a stifling internal conformity because the whole purpose of the universities was the search after an enduring truth, besides which worldly aggrandizement was as nothing. They were free because they agreed on this one thing if, on nothing else, fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. ~ Russell Kirk, Academic Freedom: An Essay in Definition, #KEYS
164:A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain - a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space .... Therefore we must judge a weird tale not by the author's intent, or by the mere mechanics of the plot; but by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point... The one test of the really weird is simply this - whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim. ~ H P Lovecraft, #KEYS
165:Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars. He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions. "In the morning, - solitude;" said Pythagoras; that Nature may speak to the imagination, as she does never in company, and that her favorite may make acquaintance with those divine strengths which disclose themselves to serious and abstracted thought. 'Tis very certain that Plato, Plotinus, Archimedes, Hermes, Newton, Milton, Wordsworth, did not live in a crowd, but descended into it from time to time as benefactors: and the wise instructor will press this point of securing to the young soul in the disposition of time and the arrangements of living, periods and habits of solitude. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
166:This now leads us to elucidate more precisely the error of the idea that the majority should make the law, because, even though this idea must remain theoretical - since it does not correspond to an effective reality - it is necessary to explain how it has taken root in the modern outlook, to which of its tendencies it corresponds, and which of them - at least in appearance - it satisfies. Its most obvious flaw is the one we have just mentioned: the opinion of the majority cannot be anything but an expression of incompetence, whether this be due to lack of intelligence or to ignorance pure and simple; certain observations of 'mass psychology' might be quoted here, in particular the widely known fact that the aggregate of mental reactions aroused among the component individuals of a crowd crystallizes into a sort of general psychosis whose level is not merely not that of the average, but actually that of the lowest elements present. ~ Rene Guenon, The Crisis of the Modern World, #KEYS
167:A silence, an entry into a wide or even immense or infinite emptiness is part of the inner spiritual experience; of this silence and void the physical mind has a certain fear, the small superficially active thinking or vital mind a shrinking from it or dislike, - for it confuses the silence with mental and vital incapacity and the void with cessation or non-existence: but this silence is the silence of the spirit which is the condition of a greater knowledge, power and bliss, and this emptiness is the emptying of the cup of our natural being, a liberation of it from its turbid contents so that it may be filled with the wine of God; it is the passage not into non-existence but to a greater existence. Even when the being turns towards cessation, it is a cessation not in non-existence but into some vast ineffable of spiritual being or the plunge into the incommunicable superconscience of the Absolute. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.28 - The Divine Life, #KEYS
168:The hostile forces have a certain self-chosen function: it is to test the condition of the individual, of the work, of the earth itself and their readiness for the spiritual descent and fulfilment. At every step of the journey, they are there attacking furiously, criticising, suggesting, imposing despondency or inciting to revolt, raising unbelief, amassing difficulties. No doubt, they put a very exaggerated interpretation on the rights given them by their function, making mountains even out of what seems to us a mole-hill. A little trifling false step or mistake and they appear on the road and clap a whole Himalaya as a barrier across it. But this opposition has been permitted from of old not merely as a test or ordeal, but as a compulsion on us to seek a greater strength, a more perfect self-knowledge, an intenser purity and force of aspiration, a faith that nothing can crush, a more powerful descent of the Divine Grace.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
169:burden and advantage to an Integral Yoga; :::
...The hope of an integral transformation forbids us to take a short cut or to make ourselves light for the race by throwing away our impedimenta. For we have set out to conquer all ourselves and the world for God; ... Our compensation is that even if the path is that even if the path is more rugged, the effort more complex and baffling arduous, yet after a certain point we gain an immense advantage. For once our minds are reasonably fixed in the central vision and our wills are on the whole converted to the single pursuit, Life becomes our helper. Intent, vigilant, integrally conscious, we can take every detail of its forms and every incident of its movements as food for the sacrificial Fire within us. Victorious in the struggle, we can compel Earth herself to be an aid towards our perfection and can enrich our realisation with the booty torn from the Powers that oppose us.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 74,#KEYS
170:The fourth condition is study. One must cultivate the mind, know what others have thought, open the mental being to this impact of the higher vibrations of knowledge. A mental knowledge is not tantamount to realization, it is true, but still one must know mentally where one is going, what has happened to others, how they have achieved, what are the hindrances and the helping points. This education of oneself by study, study of spiritual writings, suddhydya as it is called, a disciplined reading and incorporation of the knowledge contained in scriptures and authentic texts - that is a very important part. Even when you don't understand a text, still if you persist at it, the force that is in that book creates certain new grooves in your brain and the second or the third time when you read it, it begins to make some meaning. This is the meaning of studying, of exposing your mind to the constant vibrations of higher levels of knowledge. Incidentally, the mind gets developed, a mental climate is created, a climate of spiritual culture.
~ M P Pandit, The Advent 1981, 30,#KEYS
171:From the twilight of day till the twilight of evening, a leopard, in the last years of the thirteenth century, would see some wooden planks, some vertical iron bars, men and women who changed, a wall and perhaps a stone gutter filled with dry leaves. He did not know, could not know, that he longed for love and cruelty and the hot pleasure of tearing things to pieces and the wind carrying the scent of a deer, but something suffocated and rebelled within him and God spoke to him in a dream: ""You live and will die in this prison so that a man I know of may see you a certain number of times and not forget you and place your figure and symbol in a poem which has its precise place in the scheme of the universe. You suffer captivity, but you will have given a word to the poem.
God, in the dream, illumined the animal's brutishness and the animal understood these reasons and accepted his destiny, but, when he awoke, there was in him only an obscure resignation, a valorous ignorance, for the machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of a beast. ~ Jorge Luis Borges,#KEYS
172:Attain The Way ::: If students of the way are mistaken about their own real Mind they will indulge in various achievements and practices, expecting to attain realization by such gradual practices. However, even after aeons of diligent searching they will not be able to attain the Way. These methods cannot be compared to the sudden elimination of conceptual thought in this moment; the certain knowledge that there is nothing at all which has absolute existence, nothing on which to lay hold, nothing on which to rely, nothing in which to abide, nothing subjective or objective. It is by preventing the rise of conceptual thought that you will realize Bodhi. When you do, you will just be realizing the Buddha who has always existed in your own Mind.
If students of the Way wish to become Buddhas, they don't need to study any doctrines. They need only learn how to avoid seeking for and attaching themselves to anything. Relinquishment of everything is the Dharma and they who understand this are Buddhas. Only know that the relinquishment of ALL delusions leaves no Dharma on which to lay hold. ~ Huang Po, Attain the Way,#KEYS
173:This concentration proceeds by the Idea, using thought, form and name as keys which yield up to the concentrating mind the Truth that lies concealed behind all thought, form and name; for it is through the Idea that the mental being rises beyond all expression to that which is expressed, to that of which the Idea itself is only the instrument. By concentration upon the Idea the mental existence which at present we are breaks open the barrier of our mentality and arrives at the state of consciousness, the state of being, the state of power of conscious-being and bliss of conscious-being to which the Idea corresponds and of which it is the symbol, movement and rhythm. Concentration by the Idea is, then, only a means, a key to open to us the superconscient planes of our existence; a certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Integral Knowledge, Concentration [321],#KEYS
174:The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
~ David Foster Wallace,#KEYS
175:The triple way takes for its chosen instruments the three main powers of the mental soul-life of the human being. Knowledge selects the reason and the mental vision and it makes them by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of a Goddirected seeking its means for the greatest knowledge and the greatest vision of all, God-knowledge and God-vision. Its aim is to see, know and be the Divine. Works, action selects for its instrument the will of the doer of works; it makes life an offering of sacrifice to the Godhead and by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of subjection to the divine Will a means for contact and increasing unity of the soul of man with the divine Master of the universe. Devotion selects the emotional and aesthetic powers of the soul and by turning them all Godward in a perfect purity, intensity, infinite passion of seeking makes them a means of God-possession in one or many relations of unity with the Divine Being. All aim in their own way at a union or unity of the human soul with the supreme Spirit.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 610 [T3],#KEYS
176:He had no document but his memory; the training he had acquired with each added hexameter gave him a discipline unsuspected by those who set down and forget temporary, incomplete paragraphs. He was not working for posterity or even for God, whose literary tastes were unknown to him. Meticulously, motionlessly, secretly, he wrought in time his lofty, invisible labyrinth. He worked the third act over twice. He eliminated certain symbols as over-obvious, such as the repeated striking of the clock, the music. Nothing hurried him. He omitted, he condensed, he amplified. In certain instances he came back to the original version. He came to feel affection for the courtyard, the barracks; one of the faces before him modified his conception of Roemerstadt's character. He discovered that the wearying cacophonies that bothered Flaubert so much are mere visual superstitions, weakness and limitation of the written word, not the spoken...He concluded his drama. He had only the problem of a single phrase. He found it. The drop of water slid down his cheek. He opened his mouth in a maddened cry, moved his face, dropped under the quadruple blast.~ Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, Selected Stories and Other Writings, #KEYS
177:Considered from this point of view, the fact that some of the theories which we know to be false give such amazingly accurate results is an adverse factor. Had we somewhat less knowledge, the group of phenomena which these "false" theories explain would appear to us to be large enough to "prove" these theories. However, these theories are considered to be "false" by us just for the reason that they are, in ultimate analysis, incompatible with more encompassing pictures and, if sufficiently many such false theories are discovered, they are bound to prove also to be in conflict with each other. Similarly, it is possible that the theories, which we consider to be "proved" by a number of numerical agreements which appears to be large enough for us, are false because they are in conflict with a possible more encompassing theory which is beyond our means of discovery. If this were true, we would have to expect conflicts between our theories as soon as their number grows beyond a certain point and as soon as they cover a sufficiently large number of groups of phenomena. In contrast to the article of faith of the theoretical physicist mentioned before, this is the nightmare of the theorist. ~ Eugene Paul Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, #KEYS
178:
Sweet Mother, is the physical mind the same as the mechanical mind?
Almost. You see, there is just a little difference, but not much. The mechanical mind is still more stupid than the physical mind. The physical mind is what we spoke about one day, that which is never sure of anything.
I told you the story of the closed door, you remember. Well, that is the nature of the physical mind. The mechanical mind is at a lower level still, because it doesn't even listen to the possibility of a convincing reason, and this happens to everyone.
Usually we don't let it function, but it comes along repeating the same things, absolutely mechanically, without rhyme or reason, just like that. When some craze or other takes hold of it, it goes... For example, you see, if it fancies counting: "One, two, three, four", then it will go on: "One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four." And you may think of all kinds of things, but it goes on: "One, two, three, four", like that... (Mother laughs.) Or it catches hold of three words, four words and repeats them and goes on repeating them; and unless one turns away with a certain violence and punches it soundly, telling it, "Keep quiet!", it continues in this way, indefinitely. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
179:on cultivating equality :::
For it is certain that so great a result cannot be arrived at immediately and without any previous stages. At first we have to learn to bear the shocks of the world with the central part of our being untouched and silent, even when the surface mind, heart, life are strongly shaken; unmoved there on the bedrock of our life, we must separate the soul watching behind or immune deep within from these outer workings of our nature. Afterwards, extending this calm and steadfastness of the detached soul to its instruments, it will become slowly possible to radiate peace from the luminous centre to the darker peripheries. In this process we may take the passing help of many minor phases; a certain stoicism, a certain calm philosophy, a certain religious exaltation may help us towards some nearness to our aim, or we may call in even less strong and exalted but still useful powers of our mental nature. In the end we must either discard or transform them and arrive instead at an entire equality, a perfect self-existent peace within and even, if we can, a total unassailable, self-poised and spontaneous delight in all our members.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [103-104],#KEYS
180:
Sweet Mother, Is it possible to have control over oneself during sleep? For example, if I want to see you in my dreams, can I do it at will?
Control during sleep is entirely possible and it is progressive if you persist in the effort. You begin by remembering your dreams, then gradually you remain more and more conscious during your sleep, and not only can you control your dreams but you can guide and organise your activities during sleep.
If you persist in your will and your effort, you are sure to learn how to come and find me at night during your sleep and afterwards to remember what has happened.
For this, two things are necessary, which you must develop by aspiration and by calm and persistent effort.
(1) Concentrate your thought on the will to come and find me; then pursue this thought, first by an effort of imagination, afterwards in a tangible and increasingly real way, until you are in my presence.
(2) Establish a sort of bridge between the waking and the sleeping consciousness, so that when you wake up you remember what has happened.
It may be that you succeed immediately, but more often it takes a certain time and you must persist in the effort. 25 September 1959
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother, 226,#KEYS
181:Art is the human language of the nervous plane, intended to express and communicate the Divine, who in the domain of sensation manifests as beauty.
The purpose of art is therefore to give those for whom it is meant a freer and more perfect communion with the Supreme Reality. The first contact with this Supreme Reality expresses itself in our consciousness by a flowering of the being in a plenitude of vast and peaceful delight. Each time that art can give the spectator this contact with the infinite, however fleetingly, it fulfils its aim; it has shown itself worthy of its mission. Thus no art which has for many centuries moved and delighted a people can be dismissed, since it has at least partially fulfilled its mission - to be the powerful and more or less perfect utterance of that which is to be expressed. What makes it difficult for the sensibility of a nation to enjoy the delight that another nation finds in one art or another is the habitual limitation of the nervous being which, even more than the mental being, is naturally exclusive in its ability to perceive the Divine and which, when it has entered into relation with Him through certain forms, feels an almost irresistible reluctance to recognise Him through other forms of sensation. ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, 122,#KEYS
182:For this is the other face of the psychic: not only is it joy and sweetness, but also quiet strength, as if it were forever above every possible tragedy - an invulnerable master. In this case, too, the details of a scene can be indelibly engraved. But what passes on to the next life is not so much the details as the essence of the scene: we will be struck by certain repetitive patterns of events or deadlocked situations that have an air of déjà vu and seem surrounded by an aura of fatality - for what has not been overcome in the past returns again and again, each time with a slightly different appearance, but basically always identical, until we confront the old knot and untie it. Such is the law of inner progress. Generally, however, the memory of actual physical circumstances does not remain, because, although our small surface consciousness makes much of them, they are, after all, of little significance. There is even a spontaneous mechanism that erases the profusion of useless past memories, just as those of the present life soon become eradicated. If we glance behind us, without thinking, what is actually left of our present life? A nebulous mass with perhaps two or three outstanding images; all the rest is blotted out. This is likewise the case for the soul and its past lives.
~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure Of Consciousness,#KEYS
183:He is the friend, the adviser, helper, saviour in trouble and distress, the defender from enemies, the hero who fights our battles for us or under whose shield we fight, the charioteer, the pilot of our ways. And here we come at once to a closer intimacy; he is the comrade and eternal companion, the playmate of the game of living. But still there is so far a certain division, however pleasant, and friendship is too much limited by the appearance of beneficence. The lover can wound, abandon, be wroth with us, seem to betray, yet our love endures and even grows by these oppositions; they increase the joy of reunion and the joy of possession; through them the lover remains the friend, and all that he does, we find in the end, has been done by the lover and helper of our being for our souls perfection as well as for his joy in us. These contradictions lead to a greater intimacy. He is the father and mother too of our being, its source and protector and its indulgent cherisher and giver of our desires. He is the child born to our desire whom we cherish and rear. All these things the lover takes up; his love in its intimacy and oneness keeps in it the paternal and maternal care and lends itself to our demands upon it. All is unified in that deepest many-sided relation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Love,#KEYS
184:A certain inertia, tendency to sleep, indolence, unwillingness or inability to be strong for work or spiritual effort for long at a time, is in the nature of the human physical consciousness. When one goes down into the physical for its change (that has been the general condition here for a long time), this tends to increase. Even sometimes when the pressure of the sadhana on the physical increases or when one has to go much inside, this temporarily increases - the body either needing more rest or turning the inward movement into a tendency to sleep or be at rest. You need not, however, be anxious about that. After a time this rights itself; the physical consciousness gets the true peace and calm in the cells and feels at rest even in full work or in the most concentrated condition and this tendency of inertia goes out of the nature. Even for those who have never been in trance, it is good to repeat a mantra, a word, a prayer before going into sleep. But there must be a life in the words; I do not mean an intellectual significance, nothing of that kind, but a vibration. And its effect on the body is extraordinary: it begins to vibrate, vibrate, vibrate... and quietly you let yourself go, as though you wanted to go to sleep. The body vibrates more and more, more and more, more and more, and away you go. That is the cure for tamas.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
185:uniting life and Yoga :::
No synthesis of Yoga can be satisfying which does not, in its aim, reunite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life or, in its method, not only permit but favour the harmony of our inner and outer activities and experiences in the divine consummation of both. For man is precisely that term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the forms of the lower. To avoid the life which is given him for the realisation of that possibility, can never be either the indispensable condition or the whole and ultimate object of his supreme endeavour or of his most powerful means of self-fulfilment. It can only be a temporary necessity under certain conditions or a specialised extreme effort imposed on the individual so as to prepare a greater general possibility for the race. The true and full object and utility of Yoga can only be accomplished when the conscious Yoga in man becomes. like the subconscious Yoga in Nature, outwardly conterminous withlife itself and we can once more, looking out both on the path and the achievement, say in a more perfect and luminous sense: All life is Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, Life and Yoga,#KEYS
186:The supramental memory is different from the mental, not a storing up of past knowledge and experience, but an abiding presence of knowledge that can be brought forward or, more characteristically, offers itself, when it is needed: it is not dependent on attention or on conscious reception, for the things of the past not known actually or not observed can be called up from latency by an action which is yet essentially a remembrance. Especially on a certain level all knowledge presents itself as a remembering, because all is latent or inherent in the self of supermind. The future like the past presents itself to knowledge in the supermind as a memory of the preknown. The imagination transformed in the supermind acts on one side as a power of true image and symbol, always all image or index of some value or significance or other truth of being, on the other as an inspiration or interpretative seeing of possibilities and potentialities not less true than actual or realised things. These are put in their place either by an attendant intuitive or interpretative judgment or by one inherent in the vision of the image, symbol or potentiality, or by a supereminent revelation of that which is behind the image or symbol or which determines the potential and the actual and their relations and, it may be, overrides and overpasses them, imposing ultimate truths and supreme certitudes.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
187:Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really oveR But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.~ Haruki Murakami,#KEYS
188:Behind the traditional way of Knowledge, justifying its thought-process of elimination and withdrawal, stands an over-mastering spiritual experience. Deep, intense, convincing, common to all who have overstepped a certain limit of the active mind-belt into the horizonless inner space, this is the great experience of liberation, the consciousness of something within us that is behind and outside of the universe and all its forms, interests, aims, events and happenings, calm, untouched, unconcerned, illimitable, immobile, free, the uplook to something above us indescribable and unseizable into which by abolition of our personality we can enter, the presence of an omnipresent eternal witness Purusha, the sense of an Infinity or a Timelessness that looks down on us from an august negation of all our existence and is alone the one thing Real. This experience is the highest sublimation of spiritualised mind looking resolutely beyond its own existence. No one who has not passed through this liberation can be entirely free from the mind and its meshes, but one is not compelled to linger in this experience for ever. Great as it is, it is only the Mind's overwhelming experience of what is beyond itself and all it can conceive. It is a supreme negative experience, but beyond it is all the tremendous light of an infinite consciousness, an illimitable Knowledge, an affirmative absolute Presence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, 278-279,#KEYS
189:People think of education as something that they can finish. And what's more, when they finish, it's a rite of passage. You're finished with school. You're no more a child, and therefore anything that reminds you of school - reading books, having ideas, asking questions - that's kid's stuff. Now you're an adult, you don't do that sort of thing any more.
You have everybody looking forward to no longer learning, and you make them ashamed afterward of going back to learning. If you have a system of education using computers, then anyone, any age, can learn by himself, can continue to be interested. If you enjoy learning, there's no reason why you should stop at a given age. People don't stop things they enjoy doing just because they reach a certain age.
What's exciting is the actual process of broadening yourself, of knowing there's now a little extra facet of the universe you know about and can think about and can understand. It seems to me that when it's time to die, there would be a certain pleasure in thinking that you had utilized your life well, learned as much as you could, gathered in as much as possible of the universe, and enjoyed it. There's only this one universe and only this one lifetime to try to grasp it. And while it is inconceivable that anyone can grasp more than a tiny portion of it, at least you can do that much. What a tragedy just to pass through and get nothing out of it. ~ Isaac Asimov, Carl Freedman - Conversations with Isaac Asimov-University Press of Mississippi (2005).pdf,#KEYS
190:Inspiration is always a very uncertain thing; it comes when it chooses, stops suddenly before it has finished its work, refuses to descend when it is called. This is a well-known affliction, perhaps of all artists, but certainly of poets. There are some who can command it at will; those who, I think, are more full of an abundant poetic energy than careful for perfection; others who oblige it to come whenever they put pen to paper but with these the inspiration is either not of a high order or quite unequal in its levels. Again there are some who try to give it a habit of coming by always writing at the same time; Virgil with his nine lines first written, then perfected every morning, Milton with his fifty epic lines a day, are said to have succeeded in regularising their inspiration. It is, I suppose, the same principle which makes Gurus in India prescribe for their disciples a meditation at the same fixed hour every day. It succeeds partially of course, for some entirely, but not for everybody. For myself, when the inspiration did not come with a rush or in a stream,-for then there is no difficulty,-I had only one way, to allow a certain kind of incubation in which a large form of the thing to be done threw itself on the mind and then wait for the white heat in which the entire transcription could rapidly take place. But I think each poet has his own way of working and finds his own issue out of inspiration's incertitudes.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Inspiration and Effort - I,#KEYS
191:In a letter the question raised was: "Is not all action incompatible with Sri Aurobindo's yoga"?
Sri Aurobindo: His idea that all action is incompatible with this yoga is not correct. Generally, it is found that all Rajasic activity does not go well with this yoga: for instance, political work.
The reasons for abstaining from political activity are:
1. Being Rajasic in its nature, it does not allow that quiet and knowledge on the basis of which the work should really proceed. All action requires a certain inner formation, an inner detached being. The formation of this inner being requires one to dive into the depth of the being, get the true Being and then prepare the true Being to come to the surface. It is then that one acquires a poise - an inner poise - and can act from there. Political work by Rajasic activity which draws the being outwards prevents this inner formation.
2. The political field, together with certain other fields, is the stronghold of the Asuric forces. They have their eye on this yoga, and they would try to hamper the Sadhana by every means. By taking to the political field you get into a plane where these forces hold the field. The possibility of attack in that field is much greater than in others. These Asuric forces try to lead away the Sadhaka from the path by increasing Kama and Krodha - desire and anger, and such other Rajasic impulses. They may throw him permanently into the sea of Rajasic activity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO#KEYS 192:[the value of sublimation:]
And since Yoga is in its essence a turning away from the ordinary material and animal life led by most men or from the more mental but still limited way of living followed by the few to a greater spiritual life, to the way divine, every part of our energies that is given to the lower existence in the spirit of that existence is a contradiction of our aim and our self-dedication. On the other hand, every energy or activity that we can convert from its allegiance to the lower and dedicate to the service of the higher is so much gained on our road, so much taken from the powers that oppose our progress. It is the difficulty of this wholesale conversion that is the source of all the stumblings in the path of Yoga. For our entire nature and its environment, all our personal and all our universal self, are full of habits and of influences that are opposed to our spiritual rebirth and work against the whole-heartedness of our endeavour.
In a certain sense we are nothing but a complex mass of mental, nervous and physical habits held together by a few ruling ideas, desires and associations, - an amalgam of many small self-repeating forces with a few major vibrations. What we propose in our Yoga is nothing less than to break up the whole formation of our past and present which makes up the ordinary material and mental man and to create a new centre of vision and a new universe of activities in ourselves which shall constitute a divine humanity or a superhuman nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, [71] [T1],#KEYS
193:A creative illness succeeds a period of intense preoccupation with an idea and search for a certain truth. It is a polymorphous condition that can take the shape of depression, neurosis, psychosomatic ailments, or even psychosis. Whatever the symptoms, they are felt as painful, if not agonizing, by the subject, with alternating periods of alleviation and worsening. Throughout the illness the subject never loses the thread of his dominating preoccupation. It is often compatible with normal, professional activity and family life. But even if he keeps to his social activities, he is almost entirely absorbed with himself. He suffers from feelings of utter isolation, even when he has a mentor who guides him through the ordeal (like the shaman apprentice with his master). The termination is often rapid and marked by a phase of exhilaration. The subject emerges from his ordeal with a permanent transformation in his personality and the conviction that he has discovered a great truth or a new spiritual world.
Many of the nineteenth and twentieth century figures recognized unquestionably as "great" - Nietzsche, Darwin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Freud, Jung, Piaget - were all additionally characterized by lengthy periods of profound psychological unrest and uncertainty. Their "psychopathology" - a term ridiculous in this context - was generated as a consequence of the revolutionary nature of their personal experience (their action, fantasy and thought). It is no great leap of comparative psychology to see their role in our society as analogous to that of the archaic religious leader and healer. ~ Henri Ellenberger,#KEYS
194:In a traditional German toilet, the hole into which shit disappears after we flush is right at the front, so that shit is first laid out for us to sniff and inspect for traces of illness. In the typical French toilet, on the contrary, the hole is at the back, i.e. shit is supposed to disappear as quickly as possible. Finally, the American (Anglo-Saxon) toilet presents a synthesis, a mediation between these opposites: the toilet basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it, visible, but not to be inspected.
It is clear that none of these versions can be accounted for in purely utilitarian terms: each involves a certain ideological perception of how the subject should relate to excrement. Hegel was among the first to see in the geographical triad of Germany, France and England an expression of three different existential attitudes: reflective thoroughness (German), revolutionary hastiness (French), utilitarian pragmatism (English). In political terms, this triad can be read as German conservatism, French revolutionary radicalism and English liberalism.
The point about toilets is that they enable us not only to discern this triad in the most intimate domain, but also to identify its underlying mechanism in the three different attitudes towards excremental excess: an ambiguous contemplative fascination; a wish to get rid of it as fast as possible; a pragmatic decision to treat it as ordinary and dispose of it in an appropriate way. It is easy for an academic at a round table to claim that we live in a post-ideological universe, but the moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion, he is again knee-deep in ideology.
~ Slavoj Žižek,#KEYS
195:[4:131] A human being is a material system which time, a form of energy, enters. Probably time enters him also as noos-Mind. Time, the future, contains in it all the events which are going to occur. Therefore when time enters a person as energy, and acting as noos to him, it brings with it in potentium all that will happen to him, like a window shade unrolling to display an unfolding pattern. Events in the future pop into being, into actualization, the present, but until they do, they are not truly real-not yet actualized-but there in an encoded form, like the grooves of an LP before the needle reaches it; the only "music" is where the needle touches-ahead lies only an encoded wiggle along a helical spiral. Thus, dreams deal with the future lying direct ahead, as during the night, the next series of encoded future events begin to move toward actualization: i.e., the present. What is hard to realize is that in a certain very real way these events are inside the person, within his head, so to speak; but only in their potential, encoded form; the arena in which they are actualized is that of space; time, in the present, flows out to fill space-i.e., the spatial universe. This is why we experience déjà vu. We have somehow caught a glimpse now and then of the script unrolling in our head-caught a glimpse in advance, so we feel "I know exactly what I'm going to say next, and what gestures he'll make," etc. Sure; they're encoded-encased, waiting-in time, and time, being energy, has entered you; is burning bright inside, like Blake's tyger. Tyger, tyger, burning bright In the forests of the night. . . . Who framed thy awful symmetry?
~ Philip K Dick, Exegesis Of Philip K Dick,#KEYS
196:You say that you feel you have returned to your old life and that you have fallen from that state of spiritual consciousness in which you remained for some time. And you ask whether it comes from the fact that Sri Aurobindo and myself have withdrawn our protection and our help because you had been unable to fulfil your promise.
It is a mistake to think that anything at all has been withdrawn by us. Our help and our protection are with you as always, but it would be more correct to say that both your inability to feel our help and your inability to keep your promise are the simultaneous effects of the same cause.
Remember what I wrote to you when you went to Calcutta to fetch your family: do not let any influence come in between you and the Divine. You did not pay sufficient attention to this warning: you have allowed an influence to interfere strongly between you and your spiritual life; your devotion and your faith have been seriously shaken by this. As a consequence, you became afraid and you did not find the same joy in your offering to the Divine Cause; and also, quite naturally, you fell back into your ordinary consciousness and your old life.
You are quite right, nevertheless, not to let yourself be discouraged. Whatever the fall, it is always possible not only to get up again but also to rise higher and to reach the goal. Only a strong aspiration and a constant will are needed.
You have to take a firm resolution to let nothing interfere with your ascent towards the Divine Realisation. And then the success is certain.
Be assured of our unfailing help and protection. 3 February 1931 ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother - I,#KEYS
197:Thoughts are forms and have an individual life, independent of their author: sent out from him into the world, they move in it towards the realisation of their own purpose of existence. When you think of anyone, your thought takes a form and goes out to find him; and, if your thinking is associated with some will that is behind it, the thought-form that has gone out from you makes an attempt to realise itself. Let us say, for instance, that you have a keen desire for a certain person to come and that, along with this vital impulse of desire, a strong imagination accompanies the mental form you have made; you imagine, "If he came, it would be like this or it would be like that." After a time you drop the idea altogether, and you do not know that even after you have forgotten it, your thought continues to exist. For it does still exist and is in action, independent of you, and it would need a great power to bring it back from its work. It is working in the atmosphere of the person touched by it and creates in him the desire to come. And if there is a sufficient power of will in your thought-form, if it is a well-built formation, it will arrive at its own realisation. But between the formation and the realisation there is a certain lapse of time, and if in this interval your mind has been occupied with quite other things, then when there happens this fulfilment of your forgotten thought, you may not even remember that you once harboured it; you do not know that you were the instigator of its action and the cause of what has come about. And it happens very often too that when the result does come, you have ceased to desire or care for it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
198:Sweet Mother, You have asked the teachers "to think with ideas instead of with words".4 You have also said that later on you will ask them to think with experiences. Will you throw some light on these three ways of thinking?
Our house has a very high tower; at the very top of this tower there is a bright and bare room, the last before we emerge into the open air, into the full light.
Sometimes, when we are free to do so, we climb up to this bright room, and there, if we remain very quiet, one or more visitors come to call on us; some are tall, others small, some single, others in groups; all are bright and graceful.
Usually, in our joy at their arrival and our haste to welcome them, we lose our tranquillity and come galloping down to rush into the great hall that forms the base of the tower and is the storeroom of words. Here, more or less excited, we select, reject, assemble, combine, disarrange, rearrange all the words in our reach, in an attempt to portray this or that visitor who has come to us. But most often, the picture we succeed in making of our visitor is more like a caricature than a portrait.
And yet if we were wiser, we would remain up above, at the summit of the tower, quite calm, in joyful contemplation.
Then, after a certain length of time, we would see the visitors themselves slowly, gracefully, calmly descend, without losing anything of their elegance or beauty and, as they cross the storeroom of words, clothe themselves effortlessly, automatically, with the words needed to make themselves perceptible even in the material house.
This is what I call thinking with ideas.
When this process is no longer mysterious to you, I shall explain what is meant by thinking with experiences. ~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
199:But this is only one side of the force that works for perfection. The process of the integral Yoga has three stages, not indeed sharply distinguished or separate, but in a certain measure successive. There must be, first, the effort towards at least an initial and enabling self-transcendence and contact with the Divine; next, the reception of that which transcends, that with which we have gained communion, into ourselves for the transformation of our whole conscious being; last, the utilisation of our transformed humanity as a divine centre in the world. So long as the contact with the Divine is not in some considerable degree established, so long as there is not some measure of sustained identity, sayujya, the element of personal effort must normally predominate. But in proportion as this contact establishes itself, the sadhaka must become conscious that a force other than his own, a force transcending his egoistic endeavour and capacity, is at work in him and to this Power he learns progressively to submit himself and delivers up to it the charge of his Yoga. In the end his own will and force become one with the higher Power; he merges them in the divineWill and its transcendent and universal Force. He finds it thenceforward presiding over the necessary transformation of his mental, vital and physical being with an impartial wisdom and provident effectivity of which the eager and interested ego is not capable. It is when this identification and this self-merging are complete that the divine centre in the world is ready. Purified, liberated, plastic, illumined, it can begin to serve as a means for the direct action of a supreme Power in the larger Yoga of humanity or superhumanity, of the earth's spiritual progression or its transformation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T2],#KEYS
200:Sweet Mother, Sri Aurobindo is speaking about occult endeavour here and says that those who don't have the capacity must wait till it is given to them. Can't they get it through practice?
No. That is, if it is latent in someone, it can be developed by practice. But if one doesn't have occult power, he may try for fifty years, he won't get anywhere. Everybody cannot have occult power. It is as though you were asking whether everybody could be a musician, everybody could be a painter, everybody could... Some can, some can't. It is a question of temperament.
What is the difference between occultism and mysticism?
They are not at all the same thing.
Mysticism is a more or less emotive relation with what one senses to be a divine power - that kind of highly emotional, affective, very intense relation with something invisible which is or is taken for the Divine. That is mysticism.
Occultism is exactly what he has said: it is the knowledge of invisible forces and the power to handle them. It is a science. It is altogether a science. I always compare occultism with chemistry, for it is the same kind of knowledge as the knowledge of chemistry for material things. It is a knowledge of invisible forces, their different vibrations, their interrelations, the combinations which can be made by bringing them together and the power one can exercise over them. It is absolutely scientific; and it ought to be learnt like a science; that is, one cannot practise occultism as something emotional or something vague and imprecise. You must work at it as you would do at chemistry, and learn all the rules or find them if there is nobody to teach you. But it is at some risk to yourself that you can find them. There are combinations here as explosive as certain chemical combinations. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
201:THE FOUR FOUNDATIONAL PRACTICES
Changing the Karmic Traces
Throughout the day, continuously remain in the awareness that all experience is a dream. Encounter all things as objects in a dream, all events as events in a dream, all people as people in a dream.
Envision your own body as a transparent illusory body. Imagine you are in a lucid dream during the entire day. Do not allow these reminders to be merely empty repetition. Each time you tell yourself, "This is a dream," actually become more lucid. Involve your body and your senses in becoming more present.
Removing Grasping and Aversion
Encounter all things that create desire and attachment as the illusory empty, luminous phenomena of a dream. Recognize your reactions to phenomena as a dream; all emotions, judgments, and preferences are being dreamt up. You can be certain that you are doing this correctly if immediately upon remembering that your reaction is a dream, desire and attachment lessen.
Strengthening Intention
Before going to sleep, review the day and reflect on how the practice has been. Let memories of the day arise and recognize them as memories of dream. Develop a strong intention to be aware in the coming night's dreams. Put your whole heart into this intention and pray strongly for success.
Cultivating Memory and joyful Effort
Begin the day with the strong intention to maintain the practice. Review the night, developing happiness if you remembered or were lucid in your dreams. Recommit yourself to the practice, with the intention to become lucid if you were not, and to further develop lucidity if you were. At any time during the day or evening it is good to pray for success in practice. Generate as strong an intention as possible. This is the key to the practice, ~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep,#KEYS
202:the aim of our yoga :::
The aim set before our Yoga is nothing less than to hasten this supreme object of our existence here. Its process leaves behind the ordinary tardy method of slow and confused growth through the evolution of Nature. For the natural evolution is at its best an uncertain growth under cover, partly by the pressure of the environment, partly by a groping education and an ill-lighted purposeful effort, an only partially illumined and half-automatic use of opportunities with many blunders and lapses and relapses; a great portion of it is made up of apparent accidents and circumstances and vicissitudes, - though veiling a secret divine intervention and guidance. In Yoga we replace this confused crooked crab-motion by a rapid, conscious and self-directed evolution which is planned to carry us, as far as can be, in a straight line towards the goal set before us. In a certain sense it may be an error to speak of a goal anywhere in a progression which may well be infinite. Still we can conceive of an immediate goal, an ulterior objective beyond our present achievement towards which the soul in man can aspire. There lies before him the possibility of a new birth; there can be an ascent into a higher and wider plane of being and its descent to transform his members. An enlarged and illumined consciousness is possible that shall make of him a liberated spirit and a perfected force - and, if spread beyond the individual, it might even constitute a divine humanity or else a new, a supramental and therefore a superhuman race. It is this new birth that we make our aim: a growth into a divine consciousness is the whole meaning of our Yoga, an integral conversion to divinity not only of the soul but of all the parts of our nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, 89-90,#KEYS
203:I have already told you this several times. When you are in a particular set of circumstances and certain events take place, these events often oppose your desire or what seems best to you, and often you happen to regret this and say to yourself, "Ah! how good it would have been if it were otherwise, if it had been like this or like that", for little things and big things.... Then years pass by, events are unfolded; you progress, become more conscious, understand better, and when you look back, you notice―first with astonishment, then later with a smile―that those very circumstances which seemed to you quite disastrous or unfavourable, were exactly the best thing that could have happened to you to make you progress as you should have. And if you are the least bit wise you tell yourself, "Truly, the divine Grace is infinite."
So, when this sort of thing has happened to you a number of times, you begin to understand that in spite of the blindness of man and deceptive appearances, the Grace is at work everywhere, so that at every moment it is the best possible thing that happens in the state the world is in at that moment. It is because our vision is limited or even because we are blinded by our own preferences that we cannot discern that things are like this.
But when one begins to see it, one enters upon a state of wonder which nothing can describe. For behind the appearances one perceives this Grace―infinite, wonderful, all-powerful―which knows all, organises all, arranges all, and leads us, whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not, towards the supreme goal, that is, union with the Divine, the awareness of the Godhead and union with Him.
Then one lives in the Action and Presence of the Grace a life full of joy, of wonder, with the feeling of a marvellous strength, and at the same time with a trust so calm, so complete, that nothing can shake it any longer. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956, 8 August 1956,#KEYS
204:The most outward psychological form of these things is the mould or trend of the nature towards certain dominant tendencies, capacities, characteristics, form of active power, quality of the mind and inner life, cultural personality or type. The turn is often towards the predominance of the intellectual element and the capacities which make for the seeking and finding of knowledge and an intellectual creation or formativeness and a preoccupation with ideas and the study of ideas or of life and the information and development of the reflective intelligence. According to the grade of the development there is produced successively the make and character of the man of active, open, inquiring intelligence, then the intellectual and, last, the thinker, sage, great mind of knowledge. The soul-powers which make their appearance by a considerable development of this temperament, personality, soul-type, are a mind of light more and more open to all ideas and knowledge and incomings of Truth; a hunger and passion for knowledge, for its growth in ourselves, for its communication to others, for its reign in the world, the reign of reason and right and truth and justice and, on a higher level of the harmony of our greater being, the reign of the spirit and its universal unity and light and love; a power of this light in the mind and will which makes all the life subject to reason and its right and truth or to the spirit and spiritual right and truth and subdues the lower members to their greater law; a poise in the temperament turned from the first to patience, steady musing and calm, to reflection, to meditation, which dominates and quiets the turmoil of the will and passions and makes for high thinking and pure living, founds the self-governed sattwic mind, grows into a more and more mild, lofty, impersonalised and universalised personality. This is the ideal character and soul-power of the Brahmana, the priest of knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 4:15 - Soul-Force and the Fourfold Personality #KEYS
205:Why are some people intelligent and others not? Why can some people do certain things while others can't?"
It is as though you asked why everybody was not the same! Then it would mean that there would only be one single thing, one single thing indefinitely repeated which would constitute the whole universe.... I don't know, but it seems to me that it wouldn't be worth the trouble having a universe for that, it would be enough to have just one thing!
But the moment one admits the principle of multiplicity and that no two things are alike in the universe, how can you ask why they are not the same! It is just because they are not, because no two things are alike.
Behind that there is something else which one is not conscious of, but which is very simple and very childish. It is this: "Since there is an infinite diversity, since some people are of one kind and others of a lesser kind, well" - here of course one doesn't say this to oneself but it is there, hidden in the depths of the being, in the depths of the ego - "why am I not of the best kind?" There we are. In fact it amounts to complaining that perhaps one is not of the best kind! If you look attentively at questions like this: "Why do some have much and others little?" "Why are some wise and not others? Why are some intelligent and not others?" etc., behind that there is "Why don't I have all that can be had and why am I not all that one can be?..." Naturally, one doesn't say this to oneself, because one would feel ridiculous, but it is there.
There then. Now has anyone anything to add to what we have just said?... Have you all understood quite well? Everything I have said? Nobody wants to say...
(A teacher) Our daily routine seems a little "impossible" to us.
Well, wait a century or two and it will become possible! (Laughter)
You are told that today's impossibility is the possibility of tomorrow - but these are very great tomorrows! ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers, Volume-8, page no. 387-388,#KEYS
206:indifference to things of the body :::
This detachment of the mind must be strengthened by a certain attitude of indifference to the things of the body; we must not care essentially about its sleep or its waking, its movement or its rest, its pain or its pleasure, its health or ill-health, its vigour or its fatigue, its comfort or its discomfort, or what it eats or drinks. This does not mean that we shall not keep the body in right order so far as we can; we have not to fall into violent asceticisms or a positive neglect of the physical frame. But we have not either to be affected in mind by hunger or thirst or discomfort or ill-health or attach the importance which the physical and vital man attaches to the things of the body, or indeed any but a quite subordinate and purely instrumental importance. Nor must this instrumental importance be allowed to assume the proportions of a necessity; we must not for instance imagine that the purity of the mind depends on the things we eat or drink, although during a certain stage restrictions in eating and drinking are useful to our inner progress; nor on the other hand must we continue to think that the dependence of the mind or even of the life on food and drink is anything more than a habit, a customary relation which Nature has set up between these principles. As a matter of fact the food we take can be reduced by contrary habit and new relation to a minimum without the mental or vital vigour being in any way reduced; even on the contrary with a judicious development they can be trained to a greater potentiality of vigour by learning to rely on the secret fountains of mental and vital energy with which they are connected more than upon the minor aid of physical aliments. This aspect of self-discipline is however more important in the Yoga of self-perfection than here; for our present purpose the important point is the renunciation by the mind of attachment to or dependence on the things of the body.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from Subjection to the Body,#KEYS
207:the spiritual force behind adoration :::
All love, indeed, that is adoration has a spiritual force behind it, and even when it is offered ignorantly and to a limited object, something of that splendor appears through the poverty of the rite and the smallness of its issues. For love that is worship is at once an aspiration and a preparation: it can bring even within its small limits in the Ignorance a glimpse of a still more or less blind and partial but surprising realisation; for there are moments when it is not we but the One who loves and is loved in us, and even a human passion can be uplifted and glorified by a slight glimpse of this infinite Love and Lover. It is for this reason that the worship of the god, the worship of the idol, the human magnet or ideal are not to be despised; for these are steps through which the human race moves towards that blissful passion and ecstasy of the Infinite which, even in limiting it, they yet represent for our imperfect vision when we have still to use the inferior steps Nature has hewn for our feet and admit the stages of our progress. Certain idolatries are indispensable for the development of our emotional being, nor will the man who knows be hasty at any time to shatter this image unless he can replace it in the heart of the worshipper by the Reality it figures. Moreover, they have this power because there is always something in them that is greater than their forms and, even when we reach the supreme worship, that abides and becomes a prolongation of it or a part of its catholic wholeness. our knowledge is still imperfect in us, love incomplete if even when we know That which surpasses all forms and manifestations, we cannot still accept the Divine in creature and object, in man, in the kind, in the animal, in the tree, in the flower, in the work of our hands, in the Nature-Force which is then no longer to us the blind action of a material machinery but a face and power of the universal Shakti: for in these things too is the presence of the Eternal.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, The Works of Love - The Works of Life, 159,#KEYS
208:I know perfectly well that pain and suffering and struggle and excesses of despair are natural - though not inevitable - on the way, - not because they are helps, but because they are imposed on us by the darkness of this human nature out of which we have to struggle into the Light. . . .
The dark path is there and there are many who make like the Christians a gospel of spiritual suffering; many hold it to be the unavoidable price of victory. It may be so under certain circumstances, as it has been in so many lives at least at the beginning, or one may choose to make it so. But then the price has to be paid with resignation, fortitude or a tenacious resilience. I admit that if borne in that way the attacks of the Dark Forces or the ordeals they impose have a meaning. After each victory gained over them, there is then a sensible advance; often they seem to show us the difficulties in ourselves which we have to overcome and to say, "Here you must conquer us and here."
But all the same it is a too dark and difficult way which nobody should follow on whom the necessity does not lie.
In any case one thing can never help and that is to despond always and say, "I am unfit; I am not meant for the Yoga." And worse still are these perilous mental formations such as you are always accepting that you must fare like X (one whose difficulty of exaggerated ambition was quite different from yours) and that you have only six years etc. These are clear formations of the Dark Forces seeking not only to sterilise your aspiration but to lead you away and so prevent your sharing in the fruit of the victory hereafter. I do not know what Krishnaprem has said but his injunction, if you have rightly understood it, is one that cannot stand as valid, since so many have done Yoga relying on tapasya or anything else but not confident of any Divine Grace. It is not that, but the soul's demand for a higher Truth or a higher life that is indispensable. Where that is, the Divine Grace whether believed in or not, will intervene. If you believe, that hastens and facilitates things; if you cannot yet believe, still the soul's aspiration will justify itself with whatever difficulty and struggle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
209:"Will it take long for the Supermind which is involved in material Nature to emerge into the outer consciousness and bring visible results?"
That depends on the state of consciousness from which one answers, for... For the human consciousness, obviously, I think it will take quite a long time. For another consciousness it will be relatively very fast, and for yet another consciousness, it is already accomplished. It is an accomplished fact. But in order to become aware of this, one must be able to enter into another state of consciousness than the ordinary physical consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo has spoken - I believe I have read it to you, I think it's in The Synthesis of Yoga - of the true mind, the true vital and the true physical or subtle physical, and he has said that they co-exist with the ordinary mind, vital and physical, and that in certain conditions one may enter into contact with them, and then one becomes aware of the difference between what really is and the appearances of things.
Well, for a developed consciousness, the Supermind is already realised somewhere in a domain of the subtle physical, it already exists there visible, concrete, and expresses itself in forms and activities. And when one is in tune with this domain, when one lives there, one has a very strong feeling that this world would only have to be condensed, so to say, for it to become visible to all. What would then be interesting would be to develop this inner perception which would put you into contact with the supramental truth which is already manifested, and is veiled for you only for want of appropriate organs to enter into relation with it.
It is possible that those who are conscious of their dreams may have dreams of a new kind which put them into contact with that world, for it is accessible to the subtle physical of all those who have the corresponding organs in themselves. And there is necessarily a subtle influence of this physical on outer matter, if one is ready to receive impressions from it and admit them into one's consciousness. That's all.
Now, if nobody has any questions to ask, well, we shall remain silent.
Something to say, over there? (Mother looks at a disciple.) Oh! he is burning to speak! ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956,#KEYS
210:The one high and reasonable course for the individual human being, - unless indeed he is satisfied with pursuing his personal purposes or somehow living his life until it passes out of him, - is to study the laws of the Becoming and take the best advantage of them to realise, rationally or intuitionally, inwardly or in the dynamism of life, its potentialities in himself or for himself or in or for the race of which he is a member; his business is to make the most of such actualities as exist and to seize on or to advance towards the highest possibilities that can be developed here or are in the making. Only mankind as a whole can do this with entire effect, by the mass of individual and collective action, in the process of time, in the evolution of the race experience: but the individual man can help towards it in his own limits, can do all these things for himself to a certain extent in the brief space of life allotted to him; but, especially, his thought and action can be a contribution towards the present intellectual, moral and vital welfare and the future progress of the race. He is capable of a certain nobility of being; an acceptance of his inevitable and early individual annihilation does not preclude him from making a high use of the will and thought which have been developed in him or from directing them to great ends which shall or may be worked out by humanity. Even the temporary character of the collective being of humanity does not so very much matter, - except in the most materialist view of existence; for so long as the universal Becoming takes the form of human body and mind, the thought, the will it has developed in its human creature will work itself out and to follow that intelligently is the natural law and best rule of human life. Humanity and its welfare and progress during its persistence on earth provide the largest field and the natural limits for the terrestrial aim of our being; the superior persistence of the race and the greatness and importance of the collective life should determine the nature and scope of our ideals. But if the progress or welfare of humanity be excluded as not our business or as a delusion, the individual is there; to achieve his greatest possible perfection or make the most of his life in whatever way his nature demands will then be life's significance.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, [T1],#KEYS
211:But this is not always the manner of the commencement. The sadhaka is often led gradually and there is a long space between the first turning of the mind and the full assent of the nature to the thing towards which it turns. There may at first be only a vivid intellectual interest, a forcible attraction towards the idea and some imperfect form of practice. Or perhaps there is an effort not favoured by the whole nature, a decision or a turn imposed by an intellectual influence or dictated by personal affection and admiration for someone who is himself consecrated and devoted to the Highest. In such cases, a long period of preparation may be necessary before there comes the irrevocable consecration; and in some instances it may not come. There may be some advance, there may be a strong effort, even much purification and many experiences other than those that are central or supreme; but the life will either be spent in preparation or, a certain stage having been reached, the mind pushed by an insufficient driving-force may rest content at the limit of the effort possible to it. Or there may even be a recoil to the lower life, - what is called in the ordinary parlance of Yoga a fall from the path. This lapse happens because there is a defect at the very centre. The intellect has been interested, the heart attracted, the will has strung itself to the effort, but the whole nature has not been taken captive by the Divine. It has only acquiesced in the interest, the attraction or the endeavour. There has been an experiment, perhaps even an eager experiment, but not a total self-giving to an imperative need of the soul or to an unforsakable ideal. Even such imperfect Yoga has not been wasted; for no upward effort is made in vain. Even if it fails in the present or arrives only at some preparatory stage or preliminary realisation, it has yet determined the soul's future.
But if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not as an important part of life, but as the whole of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,#KEYS
212:requirements for the psychic :::
At a certain stage in the Yoga when the mind is sufficiently quieted and no longer supports itself at every step on the sufficiency of its mental certitudes, when the vital has been steadied and subdued and is no longer constantly insistent on its own rash will, demand and desire, when the physical has been sufficiently altered not to bury altogether the inner flame under the mass of its outwardness, obscurity or inertia, an inmost being hidden within and felt only in its rare influences is able to come forward and illumine the rest and take up the lead of the sadhana. Its character is a one-pointed orientation towards the Divine or the Highest, one-pointed and yet plastic in action and movement; it does not create a rigidity of direction like the one-pointed intellect or a bigotry of the regnant idea or impulse like the one-pointed vital force; it is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the Truth, automatically distinguishes the right step from the false, extricates the divine or Godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine. Its action is like a searchlight showing up all that has to be changed in the nature; it has in it a flame of will insistent on perfection, on an alchemic transmutation of all the inner and outer existence. It sees the divine essence everywhere but rejects the mere mask and the disguising figure. It insists on Truth, on will and strength and mastery, on Joy and Love and Beauty, but on a Truth of abiding Knowledge that surpasses the mere practical momentary truth of the Ignorance, on an inward joy and not on mere vital pleasure, -- for it prefers rather a purifying suffering and sorrow to degrading satisfactions, -- on love winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feet sunk in the mire, on beauty restored to its priesthood of interpretation of the Eternal, on strength and will and mastery as instruments not of the ego but of the Spirit. Its will is for the divinisation of life, the expression through it of a higher Truth, its dedication to the Divine and the Eternal.
But the most intimate character of the psychic is its pressure towards the Divine through a sacred love, joy and oneness. It is the divine Love that it seeks most, it is the love of the Divine that is its spur, its goal, its star of Truth shining over the luminous cave of the nascent or the still obscure cradle of the new-born godhead within us.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,#KEYS
213:
Are not offering and surrender to the Divine the same thing?
They are two aspects of the same thing, but not altogether the same. One is more active than the other. They do not belong to quite the same plane of existence.
For example, you have decided to offer your life to the Divine, you take that decision. But all of a sudden, something altogether unpleasant, unexpected happens to you and your first movement is to react and protest. Yet you have made the offering, you have said once for all: "My life belongs to the Divine", and then suddenly an extremely unpleasant incident happens (that can happen) and there is something in you that reacts, that does not want it. But here, if you want to be truly logical with your offering, you must bring forward this unpleasant incident, make an offering of it to the Divine, telling him very sincerely: "Let Your will be done; if You have decided it that way, it will be that way." And this must be a willing and spontaneous adhesion. So it is very difficult.
Even for the smallest thing, something that is not in keeping with what you expected, what you have worked for, instead of an opposite reaction coming in - spontaneously, irresistibly, you draw back: "No, not that" - if you have made a complete surrender, a total surrender, well, it does not happen like that: you are as quiet, as peaceful, as calm in one case as in the other. And perhaps you had the notion that it would be better if it happened in a certain way, but if it happens differently, you find that this also is all right. You might have, for example, worked very hard to do a certain thing, so that something might happen, you might have given much time, much of your energy, much of your will, and all that not for your own sake, but, say, for the divine work (that is the offering); now suppose that after having taken all this trouble, done all this work, made all these efforts, it all goes just the other way round, it does not succeed. If you are truly surrendered, you say: "It is good, it is all good, it is all right; I did what I could, as well as I could, now it is not my decision, it is the decision of the Divine, I accept entirely what He decides." On the other hand, if you do not have this deep and spontaneous surrender, you tell yourself: "How is it? I took so much trouble to do a thing which is not for a selfish purpose, which is for the Divine Work, and this is the result, it is not successful!" Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it is like that.
True surrender is a very difficult thing.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 52,#KEYS
214:Why do we forget things?
Ah! I suppose there are several reasons. First, because one makes use of the memory to remember. Memory is a mental instrument and depends on the formation of the brain. Your brain is constantly growing, unless it begins to degenerate, but still its growth can continue for a very, very long time, much longer than that of the body. And in this growth, necessarily some things will take the place of others. And as the mental instrument develops, things which have served their term or the transitory moment in the development may be wiped out to give place to the result. So the result of all that you knew is there, living in itself, but the road traversed to reach it may be completely blurred. That is, a good functioning of the memory means remembering only the results so as to be able to have the elements for moving forward and a new construction. That is more important than just retaining things rigidly in the mind.
Now, there is another aspect also. Apart from the mental memory, which is something defective, there are states of consciousness. Each state of consciousness in which one happens to be registers the phenomena of a particular moment, whatever they may be. If your consciousness remains limpid, wide and strong, you can at any moment whatsoever, by concentrating, call into the active consciousness what you did, thought, saw, observed at any time before; all this you can remember by bringing up in yourself the same state of consciousness. And that, that is never forgotten. You could live a thousand years and you would still remember it. Consequently, if you don't want to forget, it must be your consciousness which remembers and not your mental memory. Your mental memory will be wiped out inevitably, get blurred, and new things will take the place of the old ones. But things of which you are conscious you do not forget. You have only to bring up the same state of consciousness again. And thus one can remember circumstances one has lived thousands of years ago, if one knows how to bring up the same state of consciousness. It is in this way that one can remember one's past lives. This never gets blotted out, while you don't have any more the memory of what you have done physically when you were very young. You would be told many things you no longer remember. That gets wiped off immediately. For the brain is constantly changing and certain weaker cells are replaced by others which are much stronger, and by other combinations, other cerebral organisations. And so, what was there before is effaced or deformed.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
215:How can one become conscious of Divine Love and an instrument of its expression?
First, to become conscious of anything whatever, you must will it. And when I say "will it", I don't mean saying one day, "Oh! I would like it very much", then two days later completely forgetting it.
To will it is a constant, sustained, concentrated aspiration, an almost exclusive occupation of the consciousness. This is the first step. There are many others: a very attentive observation, a very persistent analysis, a very keen discernment of what is pure in the movement and what is not. If you have an imaginative faculty, you may try to imagine and see if your imagination tallies with reality. There are people who believe that it is enough to wake up one day in a particular mood and say, "Ah! How I wish to be conscious of divine Love, how I wish to manifest divine Love...." Note, I don't know how many millions of times one feels within a little stirring up of human instinct and imagines that if one had at one's disposal divine Love, great things could be accomplished, and one says, "I am going to try and find divine Love and we shall see the result." This is the worst possible way. Because, before having even touched the very beginning of realisation you have spoilt the result. You must take up your search with a purity of aspiration and surrender which in themselves are already difficult to acquire. You must have worked much on yourself only to be ready to aspire to this Love. If you look at yourself very sincerely, very straight, you will see that as soon as you begin to think of Love it is always your little inner tumult which starts whirling. All that aspires in you wants certain vibrations. It is almost impossible, without being far advanced on the yogic path, to separate the vital essence, the vital vibration from your conception of Love. What I say is founded on an assiduous experience of human beings. Well, for you, in the state in which you are, as you are, if you had a contact with pure divine Love, it would seem to you colder than ice, or so far-off, so high that you would not be able to breathe; it would be like the mountain-top where you would feel frozen and find it difficult to breathe, so very far would it be from what you normally feel. Divine Love, if not clothed with a psychic or vital vibration, is difficult for a human being to perceive. One can have an impression of grace, of a grace which is something so far, so high, so pure, so impersonal that... yes, one can have the feeling of grace, but it is with difficulty that one feels Love.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1950-1951,#KEYS
216:This is true in a general way; when those born scattered over the world at great distances from one another are driven by circumstances or by an impulsion to come and gather here, it is almost always because they have met in one life or another (not all in the same life) and because their psychic being has felt that they belonged to the same family; so they have taken an inner vow to continue to act together and collaborate. That is why even though they are born far from one another, there is something which compels them to come together; it is the psychic being, the psychic consciousness that is behind. And only to the extent the psychic consciousness is strong enough to order and organise the circumstances or the life, that is, strong enough not to allow itself to be opposed by outside forces, outside life movements, can people meet.
It is profoundly true in reality; there are large "families of beings" who work for the same cause, who have gathered in more or less large numbers and who come in groups as it were. It is as though at certain times there were awakenings in the psychic world, as though lots of little sleeping children were being called to wake up: "It is time, quick, quick, go down!" And they hurry down. And sometimes they do not drop at the same place, they are dispersed, yet there is something within which troubles them, pushes them; for one reason or another they are drawn close and that brings them together. But it is something deep in the being, something that is not at all on the surface; otherwise, even if people met they would not perhaps become aware of the bond. People meet and recognise each other only to the extent they become conscious of their psychic being, obey their psychic being, are guided by it; otherwise there is all that comes in to oppose it, all that veils, all that stupefies, all those obstacles to prevent you from finding yourself in your depths and being able to collaborate truly in the work. You are tossed about by the forces of Nature.
There is only one solution, to find your psychic being and once it is found to cling to it desperately, to let it guide you step by step whatever be the obstacle. That is the only solution. All this I did not write but I explained it to that lady. She had put to me the question: "How did I happen to come here?" I told her that it was certainly not for reasons of the external consciousness, it was something in her inner being that had pushed her. Only the awakening was not strong enough to overcome all the rest and she returned to the ordinary life for very ordinary reasons of living. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
217:Disciple: What are the conditions of success in this yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: I have often told of them. Those go through who have the central sincerity. It does not mean that the sincerity is there in all the parts of the being. In that sense no one is entirely ready. But if the central sincerity is there it is possible to establish it in all the parts of the being.
The second thing necessary is a certain receptivity in the being, what we call, the "opening" up of all the planes to the Higher Power.
The third thing required is the power of holding the higher Force, a certain ghanatwa - mass - that can hold the Power when it comes down.
And about the thing that pushes there are two things that generally push: One is the Central Being. The other is destiny. If the Central Being wants to do something it pushes the man. Even when the man goes off the line he is pushed back again to the path. Of course, the Central Being may push through the mind or any other part of the being. Also, if the man is destined he is pushed to the path either to go through or to get broken,
Disciple: There are some people who think they are destined or chosen and we see that they are not "chosen".
Sri Aurobindo: Of course, plenty of people think that they are specially "chosen" and that they are the first and the "elect" and so on. All that is nothing.
Disciple: Then, can you. say who is fit out of all those that have come?
Sri Aurobindo: It is very difficult to say. But this can be said that everyone of those who have come in has some chance to go through if he can hold on to it.
Disciple: There is also a chance of failure.
Sri Aurobindo: Of course, and besides, the whole universe is a play of forces and one can't always wait till all the conditions of success have been fulfilled. One has to take risks and take his chance.
Disciple: What is meant by "chance"? Does it mean that it is only one possibility out of many others, or does it mean that one would be able to succeed in yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: It means only that he can succeed if he takes his chance properly. For instance, X had his chance.
Disciple: Those who fall on the path or slip, do they go down in their evolution?
Sri Aurobindo: That depends. Ultimately, the Yoga may be lost to him.
Disciple: The Gita says: Na hi kalyānkṛt - nothing that is beneficial - comes to a bad end.
Sri Aurobindo: That is from another standpoint. You must note the word is kalyān kṛt - it is an important addition.
~ Sri Aurobindo, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, RECORDED BY A B PURANI (20-09-1926),#KEYS
218:The last sentence: "...in the Truth-Creation the law is that of a constant unfolding without any Pralaya." What is this constant unfolding?
The Truth-Creation... it is the last line? (Mother consults the book) I think we have already spoken about this several times. It has been said that in the process of creation, there is the movement of creation followed by a movement of preservation and ending in a movement of disintegration or destruction; and even it has been repeated very often: "All that begins must end", etc., etc.
In fact in the history of our universe there have been six consecutive periods which began by a creation, were prolonged by a force of preservation and ended by a disintegration, a destruction, a return to the Origin, which is called Pralaya; and that is why this tradition is there. But it has been said that the seventh creation would be a progressive creation, that is, after the starting-point of the creation, instead of its being simply followed by a preservation, it would be followed by a progressive manifestation which would express the Divine more and more completely, so that no disintegration and return to the Origin would be necessary. And it has been announced that the period we are in is precisely the seventh, that is, it would not end by a Pralaya, a return to the Origin, a destruction, a disappearance, but that it would be replaced by a constant progress, because it would be a more and more perfect unfolding of the divine Origin in its creation.
And this is what Sri Aurobindo says. He speaks of a constant unfolding, that is, the Divine manifests more and more completely; more and more perfectly, in a progressive creation. It is the nature of this progression which makes the return to the Origin, the destruction no longer necessary. All that does not progress disappears, and that is why physical bodies die, it's because they are not progressive; they are progressive up to a certain moment, then there they stop and most often they remain stable for a certain time, and then they begin to decline, and then disappear. It's because the physical body, physical matter as it is at present is not plastic enough to be able to progress constantly. But it is not impossible to make it sufficiently plastic for the perfecting of the physical body to be such that it no longer needs disintegration, that is, death.
Only, this cannot be realised except by the descent of the Supermind which is a force higher than all those which have so far manifested and which will give the body a plasticity that will allow it to progress constantly, that is, to follow the divine movement in its unfolding. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, 207-209,#KEYS
219: Ekajaṭī or Ekajaṭā, (Sanskrit: "One Plait Woman"; Wylie: ral gcig ma: one who has one knot of hair),[1] also known as Māhacīnatārā,[2] is one of the 21 Taras. Ekajati is, along with Palden Lhamo deity, one of the most powerful and fierce goddesses of Vajrayana Buddhist mythology.[1][3] According to Tibetan legends, her right eye was pierced by the tantric master Padmasambhava so that she could much more effectively help him subjugate Tibetan demons.
Ekajati is also known as "Blue Tara", Vajra Tara or "Ugra Tara".[1][3] She is generally considered one of the three principal protectors of the Nyingma school along with Rāhula and Vajrasādhu (Wylie: rdo rje legs pa).
Often Ekajati appears as liberator in the mandala of the Green Tara. Along with that, her ascribed powers are removing the fear of enemies, spreading joy, and removing personal hindrances on the path to enlightenment.
Ekajati is the protector of secret mantras and "as the mother of the mothers of all the Buddhas" represents the ultimate unity. As such, her own mantra is also secret. She is the most important protector of the Vajrayana teachings, especially the Inner Tantras and termas. As the protector of mantra, she supports the practitioner in deciphering symbolic dakini codes and properly determines appropriate times and circumstances for revealing tantric teachings. Because she completely realizes the texts and mantras under her care, she reminds the practitioner of their preciousness and secrecy.[4] Düsum Khyenpa, 1st Karmapa Lama meditated upon her in early childhood.
According to Namkhai Norbu, Ekajati is the principal guardian of the Dzogchen teachings and is "a personification of the essentially non-dual nature of primordial energy."[5]
Dzogchen is the most closely guarded teaching in Tibetan Buddhism, of which Ekajati is a main guardian as mentioned above. It is said that Sri Singha (Sanskrit: Śrī Siṃha) himself entrusted the "Heart Essence" (Wylie: snying thig) teachings to her care. To the great master Longchenpa, who initiated the dissemination of certain Dzogchen teachings, Ekajati offered uncharacteristically personal guidance. In his thirty-second year, Ekajati appeared to Longchenpa, supervising every ritual detail of the Heart Essence of the Dakinis empowerment, insisting on the use of a peacock feather and removing unnecessary basin. When Longchenpa performed the ritual, she nodded her head in approval but corrected his pronunciation. When he recited the mantra, Ekajati admonished him, saying, "Imitate me," and sang it in a strange, harmonious melody in the dakini's language. Later she appeared at the gathering and joyously danced, proclaiming the approval of Padmasambhava and the dakinis.[6] ~ Wikipedia,#KEYS
220:
Sweet Mother, is there a spiritual being in everybody?
That depends on what we call "being". If for "being" we substitute "presence", yes, there is a spiritual presence in everyone. If we call "being" an organised entity, fully conscious of itself, independent, and having the power of asserting itself and ruling the rest of the nature - no! The possibility of this independent and all-powerful being is in everybody, but the realisation is the result of long efforts which sometimes extend over many lives.
In everyone, even at the very beginning, this spiritual presence, this inner light is there.... In fact, it is everywhere. I have seen it many a time in certain animals. It is like a shining point which is the basis of a certain control and protection, something which, even in half-consciousness, makes possible a certain harmony with the rest of creation so that irreparable catastrophes may not be constant and general. Without this presence the disorder created by the violences and passions of the vital would be so great that at any moment they could bring about a general catastrophe, a sort of total destruction which would prevent the progress of Nature. That presence, that spiritual light - which could almost be called a spiritual consciousness - is within each being and all things, and because of it, in spite of all discordance, all passion, all violence, there is a minimum of general harmony which allows Nature's work to be accomplished.
And this presence becomes quite obvious in the human being, even the most rudimentary. Even in the most monstrous human being, in one who gives the impression of being an incarnation of a devil or a monster, there is something within exercising a sort of irresistible control - even in the worst, some things are impossible. And without this presence, if the being were controlled exclusively by the adverse forces, the forces of the vital, this impossibility would not exist.
Each time a wave of these monstrous adverse forces sweeps over the earth, one feels that nothing can ever stop the disorder and horror from spreading, and always, at a certain time, unexpectedly and inexplicably a control intervenes, and the wave is arrested, the catastrophe is not total. And this is because of the Presence, the supreme Presence, in matter.
But only in a few exceptional beings and after a long, very long work of preparation extending over many, many lives does this Presence change into a conscious, independent, fully organised being, all-powerful master of his dwelling-place, conscious enough, powerful enough, to be able to control not only this dwelling but what surrounds it and in a field of radiation and action that is more and more extensive... and effective.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958, 339-340,#KEYS
221:Mother, suffering comes from ignorance and pain, but what is the nature of the suffering and pain the Divine Mother feels for her children-the Divine Mother in Savitri?
It is because she participates in their nature. She has descended upon earth to participate in their nature. Because if she did not participate in their nature, she could not lead them farther. If she remained in her supreme consciousness where there is no suffering, in her supreme knowledge and consciousness, she could not have any contact with human beings. And it is for this that she is obliged to take on the human consciousness and form, it is to be able to enter into contact with them. Only, she does not forget: she has adopted their consciousness but she remains in relation with her own real, supreme consciousness. And thus, by joining the two, she can make those who are in that other consciousness progress. But if she did not adopt their consciousness, if she did not suffer with their sorrow, she could not help them. Hers is not a suffering of ignorance: it is a suffering through identity. It is because she has accepted to have the same vibrations as they, in order to be able to enter into contact with them and pull them out of the state they are in. If she did not enter into contact with them, she would not be felt at all or no one could bear her radiance.... This has been said in all kinds of forms, in all kinds of religions, and they have spoken very often of the divine Sacrifice, but from a certain point of view it is true. It is a voluntary sacrifice, but it is true: giving up a state of perfect consciousness, perfect bliss, perfect power in order to accept the state of ignorance of the outer world so as to pull it out of that ignorance. If this state were not accepted, there would be no contact with it. No relation would be possible. And this is the reason of the incarnations. Otherwise, there would be no necessity. If the divine consciousness and divine force could work directly from the place or state of their perfection, if they could work directly on matter and transform it, there would be no need to take a body like man's. It would have been enough to act from the world of Truth with the perfect consciousness and upon consciousness. In fact that acts perhaps but so slowly that when there is this effort to make the world progress, make it go forward more rapidly, well, it is necessary to take on human nature. By taking the human body, one is obliged to take on human nature, partially. Only, instead of losing one's consciousness and losing contact with the Truth, one keeps this consciousness and this Truth, and it is by joining the two that one can create exactly this kind of alchemy of transformation. But if one did not touch matter, one could do nothing for it. ~ The Mother, Question And Answers,#KEYS
222:How can one awaken his Yoga-shakti?
It depends on this: when one thinks that it is the most important thing in his life. That's all.
Some people sit in meditation, concentrate on the base of the vertebral column and want it very much to awake, but that's not enough. It is when truly it becomes the most important thing in one's life, when all the rest seems to have lost all taste, all interest, all importance, when one feels within that one is born for this, that one is here upon earth for this, and that it is the only thing that truly counts, then that's enough.
One can concentrate on the different centres; but sometimes one concentrates for so long, with so much effort, and has no result. And then one day something shakes you, you feel that you are going to lose your footing, you have to cling on to something; then you cling within yourself to the idea of union with the Divine, the idea of the divine Presence, the idea of the transformation of the consciousness, and you aspire, you want, you try to organise your feelings, movements, impulses around this. And it comes.
Some people have recommended all kinds of methods; probably these were methods which had succeeded in their case; but to tell the truth, one must find one's own method, it is only after having done the thing that one knows how it should be done, not before.
If one knows it beforehand, one makes a mental construction and risks greatly living in his mental construction, which is an illusion; because when the mind builds certain conditions and then they are realised, there are many chances of there being mostly pure mental construction which is not the experience itself but its image. So for all these truly spiritual experiences I think it is wiser to have them before knowing them. If one knows them, one imitates them, one doesn't have them, one imagines oneself having them; whereas if one knows nothing - how things are and how they ought to happen, what should happen and how it will come about - if one knows nothing about all this, then by keeping very still and making a kind of inner sorting out within one's being, one can suddenly have the experience, and then later knows what one has had. It is over, and one knows how it has to be done when one has done it - afterwards. Like that it is sure.
One may obviously make use of his imagination, imagine the Kundalini and try to pull it upwards. But one can also tell himself tales like this. I have had so many instances of people who described their experiences to me exactly as they are described in books, knowing all the words and putting down all the details, and then I asked them just a little question like that, casually: that if they had had the experience they should have known or felt a certain thing, and as this was not in the books, they could not answer.~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, 211-212,#KEYS
223:Sweet Mother, there's a flower you have named "The Creative Word".
Yes.
What does that mean?
It is the word which creates.
There are all kinds of old traditions, old Hindu traditions, old Chaldean traditions in which the Divine, in the form of the Creator, that is, in His aspect as Creator, pronounces a word which has the power to create. So it is this... And it is the origin of the mantra. The mantra is the spoken word which has a creative power. An invocation is made and there is an answer to the invocation; or one makes a prayer and the prayer is granted. This is the Word, the Word which, in its sound... it is not only the idea, it is in the sound that there's a power of creation. It is the origin, you see, of the mantra.
In Indian mythology the creator God is Brahma, and I think that it was precisely his power which has been symbolised by this flower, "The Creative Word". And when one is in contact with it, the words spoken have a power of evocation or creation or formation or transformation; the words... sound always has a power; it has much more power than men think. It may be a good power and it may be a bad power. It creates vibrations which have an undeniable effect. It is not so much the idea as the sound; the idea too has its own power, but in its own domain - whereas the sound has a power in the material world.
I think I have explained this to you once; I told you, for example, that words spoken casually, usually without any re- flection and without attaching any importance to them, can be used to do something very good. I think I spoke to you about "Bonjour", "Good Day", didn't I? When people meet and say "Bonjour", they do so mechanically and without thinking. But if you put a will into it, an aspiration to indeed wish someone a good day, well, there is a way of saying "Good Day" which is very effective, much more effective than if simply meeting someone you thought: "Ah! I hope he has a good day", without saying anything. If with this hope in your thought you say to him in a certain way, "Good Day", you make it more concrete and more effective.
It's the same thing, by the way, with curses, or when one gets angry and says bad things to people. This can do them as much harm - more harm sometimes - than if you were to give them a slap. With very sensitive people it can put their stomach out of order or give them palpitation, because you put into it an evil force which has a power of destruction.
It is not at all ineffective to speak. Naturally it depends a great deal on each one's inner power. People who have no strength and no consciousness can't do very much - unless they employ material means. But to the extent that you are strong, especially when you have a powerful vital, you must have a great control on what you say, otherwise you can do much harm. Without wanting to, without knowing it; through ignorance.
Anything? No? Nothing?
Another question?... Everything's over? ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, 347-349,#KEYS
224:28 August 1957
Mother, Sri Aurobindo says here: "Whether the whole of humanity would be touched [by the Supramental influence] or only a part of it ready for the change would depend on what was intended or possible in the continued order of the universe."
The Supramental Manifestation, SABCL, Vol. 16, p. 56
What is meant by "what was intended or possible"? The two things are different. So far you have said that if humanity changes, if it wants to participate in the new birth...
It is the same thing. But when you look at an object on a certain plane, you see it horizontally, and when you look at the same object from another plane, you see it vertically. (Mother shows the cover and the back of her book.) So, if one looks from above, one says "intended"; if one looks from below, one says "possible".... But it is absolutely the same thing, only the point of view is different.
But in that case, it is not our incapacity or lack of will to change that makes any difference.
We have already said this many a time. If you remain in a consciousness which functions mentally, even if it is the highest mind, you have the notion of an absolute determinism of cause and effect and feel that things are what they are because they are what they are and cannot be otherwise.
It is only when you come out of the mental consciousness completely and enter a higher perception of things - which you may call spiritual or divine - that you suddenly find yourself in a state of perfect freedom where everything is possible.
(Silence)
Those who have contacted that state or lived in it, even if only for a moment, try to describe it as a feeling of an absolute Will in action, which immediately gives to the human mentality the feeling of being arbitrary. And because of that distortion there arises the idea - which I might call traditional - of a supreme and arbitrary God, which is something most unacceptable to every enlightened mind. I suppose that this experience badly expressed is at the origin of this notion. And in fact it is incorrect to express it as an absolute Will: it is very, very, very different. It is something else altogether. For, what man understands by "Will" is a decision that is taken and carried out. We are obliged to use the word "will", but in its truth the Will acting in the universe is neither a choice nor a decision that is taken. What seems to me the closest expression is "vision". Things are because they are seen. But of course "seen", not seen as we see with these eyes.
(Mother touches her eyes...) All the same, it is the nearest thing.
It is a vision - a vision unfolding itself.
The universe becomes objective as it is progressively seen.
And that is why Sri Aurobindo has said "intended or possible". It is neither one nor the other. All that can be said is a distortion.
(Silence)
Objectivisation - universal objectivisation - is something like a projection in space and time, like a living image of what is from all eternity. And as the image is gradually projected on the screen of time and space, it becomes objective:
The Supreme contemplating His own Image.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,#KEYS
225:If the Divine that is all love is the source of the creation, whence have come all the evils abounding upon earth?"
"All is from the Divine; but the One Consciousness, the Supreme has not created the world directly out of itself; a Power has gone out of it and has descended through many gradations of its workings and passed through many agents. There are many creators or rather 'formateurs', form-makers, who have presided over the creation of the world. They are intermediary agents and I prefer to call them 'Formateurs' and not 'Creators'; for what they have done is to give the form and turn and nature to matter. There have been many, and some have formed things harmonious and benignant and some have shaped things mischievous and evil. And some too have been distorters rather than builders, for they have interfered and spoiled what was begun well by others." - Questions and Answers 1929 - 1931 (30 June 1929)
You say, "Many creators or rather 'formateurs', formmakers, have presided over the creation of the world." Who are these 'formateurs'?
That depends. They have been given many names. All has been done by gradations and through individual beings of all kinds. Each state of being is inhabited by entities, individualities and personalities and each one has created a world around him or has contributed to the formation of certain beings upon earth. The last creators are those of the vital world, but there are beings of the Overmind (Sri Aurobindo calls this plane the Overmind), who have created, given forms, sent out emanations, and these emanations again had their emanations and so on. What I meant is that it is not the Divine Will that acted directly on Matter to give to the world the required form, it is by passing through layers, so to say, planes of the world, as for example, the mental plane - there are so many beings on the mental plane who are form-makers, who have taken part in the formation of some beings who have incarnated upon earth. On the vital plane also the same thing happens.
For example, there is a tradition which says that the whole world of insects is the outcome of the form-makers of the vital world, and that this is why they take such absolutely diabolical shapes when they are magnified under the microscope. You saw the other day, when you were shown the microbes in water? Naturally the pictures were made to amuse, to strike the imagination, but they are based on real forms, so magnified, however, that they look like monsters. Almost the whole world of insects is a world of microscopic monsters which, had they been larger in size, would have been quite terrifying. So it is said these are entities of the vital world, beings of the vital who created that for fun and amused themselves forming all these impossible beasts which make human life altogether unpleasant.
Did these intermediaries also come out of the Divine Power?
Through intermediaries, yes, not directly. These beings are not in direct contact with the Divine (there are exceptions, I mean as a general rule), they are beings who are in relation with other beings, who are again in relation with others, and these with still others, and so on, in a hierarchy, up to the Supreme.(to be continued....) ~ The Mother, Question and Answers,#KEYS
226:Sweet Mother, here it is written: "It is part of the foundation of Yoga to become conscious of the great complexity of our nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge." Are these forces different for each person?
Yes. The composition is completely different, otherwise everybody would be the same. There are not two beings with an identical combination; between the different parts of the being and the composition of these parts the proportion is different in each individual. There are people, primitive men, people like the yet undeveloped races or the degenerated ones whose combinations are fairly simple; they are still complicated, but comparatively simple. And there are people absolutely at the top of the human ladder, the e ́lite of humanity; their combinations become so complicated that a very special discernment is needed to find the relations between all these things.
There are beings who carry in themselves thousands of different personalities, and then each one has its own rhythm and alternation, and there is a kind of combination; sometimes there are inner conflicts, and there is a play of activities which are rhythmic and with alternations of certain parts which come to the front and then go back and again come to the front. But when one takes all that, it makes such complicated combinations that some people truly find it difficult to understand what is going on in themselves; and yet these are the ones most capable of a complete, coordinated, conscious, organised action; but their organisation is infinitely more complicated than that of primitive or undeveloped men who have two or three impulses and four or five ideas, and who can arrange all this very easily in themselves and seem to be very co-ordinated and logical because there is not very much to organise. But there are people truly like a multitude, and so that gives them a plasticity, a fluidity of action and an extraordinary complexity of perception, and these people are capable of understanding a considerable number of things, as though they had at their disposal a veritable army which they move according to circumstance and need; and all this is inside them. So when these people, with the help of yoga, the discipline of yoga, succeed in centralising all these beings around the central light of the divine Presence, they become powerful entities, precisely because of their complexity. So long as this is not organised they often give the impression of an incoherence, they are almost incomprehensible, one can't manage to understand why they are like that, they are so complex. But when they have organised all these beings, that is, put each one in its place around the divine centre, then truly they are terrific, for they have the capacity of understanding almost everything and doing almost everything because of the multitude of entities they contain, of which they are constituted. And the nearer one is to the top of the ladder, the more it is like that, and consequently the more difficult it is to organise one's being; because when you have about a dozen elements, you can quickly compass and organise them, but when you have thousands of them, it is difficult. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, 215-216,#KEYS
227:On that spring day in the park I saw a young woman who attracted me. She was tall and slender, elegantly dressed, and had an intelligent and boyish face. I liked her at once. She was my type and began to fill my imagination. She probably was not much older than I but seemed far more mature, well-defined, a full-grown woman, but with a touch of exuberance and boyishness in her face, and this was what I liked above all .
I had never managed to approach a girl with whom I had fallen in love, nor did I manage in this case. But the impression she made on me was deeper than any previous one had been and the infatuation had a profound influence on my life.
Suddenly a new image had risen up before me, a lofty and cherished image. And no need, no urge was as deep or as fervent within me as the craving to worship and admire. I gave her the name Beatrice, for, even though I had not read Dante, I knew about Beatrice from an English painting of which I owned a reproduction. It showed a young pre-Raphaelite woman, long-limbed and slender, with long head and etherealized hands and features. My beautiful young woman did not quite resemble her, even though she, too, revealed that slender and boyish figure which I loved, and something of the ethereal, soulful quality of her face.
Although I never addressed a single word to Beatrice, she exerted a profound influence on me at that time. She raised her image before me, she gave me access to a holy shrine, she transformed me into a worshiper in a temple.
From one day to the next I stayed clear of all bars and nocturnal exploits. I could be alone with myself again and enjoyed reading and going for long walks.
My sudden conversion drew a good deal of mockery in its wake. But now I had something I loved and venerated, I had an ideal again, life was rich with intimations of mystery and a feeling of dawn that made me immune to all taunts. I had come home again to myself, even if only as the slave and servant of a cherished image.
I find it difficult to think back to that time without a certain fondness. Once more I was trying most strenuously to construct an intimate "world of light" for myself out of the shambles of a period of devastation; once more I sacrificed everything within me to the aim of banishing darkness and evil from myself. And, furthermore, this present "world of light" was to some extent my own creation; it was no longer an escape, no crawling back to -nether and the safety of irresponsibility; it was a new duty, one I had invented and desired on my own, with responsibility and self-control. My sexuality, a torment from which I was in constant flight, was to be transfigured nto spirituality and devotion by this holy fire. Everything :brk and hateful was to be banished, there were to be no more tortured nights, no excitement before lascivious picures, no eavesdropping at forbidden doors, no lust. In place of all this I raised my altar to the image of Beatrice, :.. and by consecrating myself to her I consecrated myself to the spirit and to the gods, sacrificing that part of life which I withdrew from the forces of darkness to those of light. My goal was not joy but purity, not happiness but beauty, and spirituality.
This cult of Beatrice completely changed my life.
~ Hermann Hesse, Demian,#KEYS
228:At it's narrowest (although this is a common and perhaps the official position; need to find ref in What is Enlightenment) "integral", "turquois" (Spiral Dynamics), and "second tier" (ditto) are all synonms, and in turn are equivalent to Wilber IV / AQAL/Wilber V "Post-metaphysical" AQAL. This is the position that "Integral = Ken Wilber". It constitutes a new philosophical school or meme-set, in the tradition of charismatic spiritual teachers of all ages, in which an articulate, brilliant, and popular figure would arise, and gather a following around him- or her-self. After the teacher passes on, their teaching remains through books and organisations dedicated to perpetuating that teaching; although without the brilliant light of the Founder, things generally become pretty stultifying, and there is often little or no original development. Even so, the books themselves continue to inspire, and many people benefit greatly from these tecahings, and can contact the original Light of the founders to be inspired by them on the subtle planes. Some late 19th, 20th, and early 21st century examples of such teachers, known and less well-known, are Blavatsky, Theon, Steiner, Aurobindo, Gurdjieff, Crowley, Alice Bailey, Carl Jung, Ann Ree Colton, and now Ken Wilber. Also, many popular gurus belong in this category. It could plausibly be suggested that the founders of the great world religions started out no different, but their teaching really caught on n a big way.
...
At its broadest then, the Integral Community includes not only Wilber but those he cites as his influences and hold universal and evolutionary views or teachings, as well as those who, while influenced by him also differ somewhat, and even those like Arthur M Young that Wilber has apparently never heard of. Nevertheless, all share a common, evolutionary, "theory of everything" position, and, whilst they may differ on many details and even on many major points, taken together they could be considered a wave front for a new paradigm, a memetic revolution. I use the term Daimon of the Integral Movement to refer to the spiritual being or personality of light that is behind and working through this broader movement.
Now, this doesn't mean that this daimon is necessarily a negative entity. I see a lot of promise, a lot of potential, in the Integral Approach. From what I feel at the moment, the Integral Deva is a force and power of good.
But, as with any new spiritual or evolutionary development, there is duality, in that there are forces that hinder and oppose and distort, as well as forces that help and aid in the evolution and ultimate divinisation of the Earth and the cosmos. Thus even where a guru does give in the dark side (as very often happens with many gurus today) there still remains an element of Mixed Light that remains (one finds this ambiguity with Sai Baba, with Da Free John, and with Rajneesh); and we find this same ambiguity with the Integral Community regarding what seems to me a certain offputting devotional attitude towards Wilber himself. The light will find its way, regardless. However, an Intregral Movement that is caught up in worship of and obedience to an authority figure, will not be able to achieve what a movement unfettered by such shackles could. ~ M Alan Kazlev, Kheper, Wilber, Integral,#KEYS
229:In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration.
A certain kind of Agnosticism is the final truth of all knowledge. For when we come to the end of whatever path, the universe appears as only a symbol or an appearance of an unknowable Reality which translates itself here into different systems of values, physical values, vital and sensational values, intellectual, ideal and spiritual values. The more That becomes real to us, the more it is seen to be always beyond defining thought and beyond formulating expression. "Mind attains not there, nor speech."3 And yet as it is possible to exaggerate, with the Illusionists, the unreality of the appearance, so it is possible to exaggerate the unknowableness of the Unknowable. When we speak of It as unknowable, we mean, really, that It escapes the grasp of our thought and speech, instruments which proceed always by the sense of difference and express by the way of definition; but if not knowable by thought, It is attainable by a supreme effort of consciousness. There is even a kind of Knowledge which is one with Identity and by which, in a sense, It can be known. Certainly, that Knowledge cannot be reproduced successfully in the terms of thought and speech, but when we have attained to it, the result is a revaluation of That in the symbols of our cosmic consciousness, not only in one but in all the ranges of symbols, which results in a revolution of our internal being and, through the internal, of our external life. Moreover, there is also a kind of Knowledge through which That does reveal itself by all these names and forms of phenomenal existence which to the ordinary intelligence only conceal It. It is this higher but not highest process of Knowledge to which we can attain by passing the limits of the materialistic formula and scrutinising Life, Mind and Supermind in the phenomena that are characteristic of them and not merely in those subordinate movements by which they link themselves to Matter.
The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity. And since in man there is the inalienable impulse of Nature towards self-realisation, no struggle of the intellect to limit the action of our capacities within a determined area can for ever prevail. When we have proved Matter and realised its secret capacities, the very knowledge which has found its convenience in that temporary limitation, must cry to us, like the Vedic Restrainers, 'Forth now and push forward also in other fields.'
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
230:HOW CAN I READ SAVITRI?
An open reply by Dr Alok Pandey to a fellow devotee
A GIFT OF LOVE TO THE WORLD
Most of all enjoy Savitri. It is Sri Aurobindo's gift of Love to the world. Read it from the heart with love and gratitude as companions and drown in its fiery bliss. That is the true understanding rather than one that comes by a constant churning of words in the head.
WHEN
Best would be to fix a time that works for you. One can always take out some time for the reading, even if it be late at night when one is done with all the daily works. Of course, a certain receptivity is needed. If one is too tired or the reading becomes too mechanical as a ritual routine to be somehow finished it tends to be less effective, as with anything else. Hence the advice is to read in a quiet receptive state.
THE PACE
As to the pace of reading it is best to slowly build up and keep it steady. To read a page or a passage daily is better than reading many pages one day and then few lines or none for days. This brings a certain discipline in the consciousness which makes one receptive. What it means is that one should fix up that one would read a few passages or a page or two daily, and then if an odd day one is enjoying and spontaneously wants to read more then one can go by the flow.
COMPLETE OR SELECTIONS?
It is best to read at least once from cover to cover. But if one is not feeling inclined for that do read some of the beautiful cantos and passages whose reference one can find in various places. This helps us familiarise with the epic and the style of poetry. Later one can go for the cover to cover reading.
READING ALOUD, SILENTLY, OR WRITING DOWN?
One can read it silently. Loud reading is needed only if one is unable to focus with silent reading. A mantra is more potent when read subtly. I am aware that some people recommend reading it aloud which is fine if that helps one better. A certain flexibility in these things is always good and rigid rules either ways are not helpful.
One can also write some of the beautiful passages with which one feels suddenly connected. It is a help in the yoga since such a writing involves the pouring in of the consciousness of Savitri through the brain and nerves and the hand.
Reflecting upon some of these magnificent lines and passages while one is engaged in one\s daily activities helps to create a background state for our inner being to get absorbed in Savitri more and more.
HOW DO I UNDERSTAND THE MEANING? DO I NEED A DICTIONARY?
It is helpful if a brief background about the Canto is known. This helps the mind top focus and also to keep in sync with the overall scene and sense of what is being read.
But it is best not to keep referring to the dictionary while reading. Let the overall sense emerge. Specifics can be done during a detailed reading later and it may not be necessary at all. Besides the sense that Sri Aurobindo has given to many words may not be accurately conveyed by the standard dictionaries. A flexibility is required to understand the subtle suggestions hinted at by the Master-poet.
In this sense Savitri is in the line of Vedic poetry using images that are at once profound as well as commonplace. That is the beauty of mystic poetry. These are things actually experienced and seen by Sri Aurobindo, and ultimately it is Their Grace that alone can reveal the intrinsic sense of this supreme revelation of the Supreme. ~ Dr Alok Pandey,#KEYS
231:Sometimes one cannot distinguish adverse forces from other forces.
That happens when one is quite unconscious. There are only two cases when this is possible: you are either very unconscious of the movements of your being - you have not studied, you have not observed, you do not know what is happening within you - or you are absolutely insincere, that is, you play the ostrich in order not to see the reality of things: you hide your head, you hide your observation, your knowledge and you say, "It is not there." But indeed the latter I hope is not in question here. Hence it is simply because one has not the habit of observing oneself that one is so unconscious of what is happening within.
Have you ever practised distinguishing what comes from your mind, what comes from your vital, what comes from your physical?... For it is mixed up; it is mixed up in the outward appearance. If you do not take care to distinguish, it makes a kind of soup, all that together. So it is indistinct and difficult to discoveR But if you observe yourself, after some time you see certain things, you feel them to be there, like that, as though they were in your skin; for some other things you feel you would have to go within yourself to find out from where they come; for other things, you have to go still further inside, or otherwise you have to rise up a little: it comes from unconsciousness. And there are others; then you must go very deep, very deep to find out from where they come. This is just a beginning.
Simply observe. You are in a certain condition, a certain undefinable condition. Then look: "What! how is it I am like that?" You try to see first if you have fever or some other illness; but it is all right, everything is all right, there's neither headache nor fever, the stomach is not protesting, the heart is functioning as it should, indeed, all's well, you are normal. "Why then am I feeling so uneasy?"... So you go a little further within. It depends on cases. Sometimes you find out immediately: yes, there was a little incident which wasn't pleasant, someone said a word that was not happy or one had failed in his task or perhaps did not know one's lesson very well, the teacher had made a remark. At the time, one did not pay attention properly, but later on, it begins to work, leaves a painful impression. That is the second stage. Afterwards, if nothing happened: "All's well, everything is normal, everything usual, I have nothing to note down, nothing has happened: why then do I feel like that?" Now it begins to be interesting, because one must enter much more deeply within oneself. And then it can be all sorts of things: it may be precisely the expression of an attack that is preparing; it may be a little inner anxiety seeking the progress that has to be made; it may be a premonition that there is somewhere in contact with oneself something not altogether harmonious which one has to change: something one must see, discover, change, on which light is to be put, something that is still there, deep down, and which should no longer be there. Then if you look at yourself very carefully, you find out: "There! I am still like that; in that little corner, there is still something of that kind, not clear: a little selfishness, a little ill-will, something refusing to change." So you see it, you take it by the tip of its nose or by the ear and hold it up in full light: "So, you were hiding! you are hiding? But I don't want you any longer." And then it has to go away.
This is a great progress.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 102-104, [T4],#KEYS
232:EVOCATION
Evocation is the art of dealing with magical beings or entities by various acts which create or contact them and allow one to conjure and command them with pacts and exorcism. These beings have a legion of names drawn from the demonology of many cultures: elementals, familiars, incubi, succubi, bud-wills, demons, automata, atavisms, wraiths, spirits, and so on. Entities may be bound to talismans, places, animals, objects, persons, incense smoke, or be mobile in the aether. It is not the case that such entities are limited to obsessions and complexes in the human mind. Although such beings customarily have their origin in the mind, they may be budded off and attached to objects and places in the form of ghosts, spirits, or "vibrations," or may exert action at a distance in the form of fetishes, familiars, or poltergeists. These beings consist of a portion of Kia or the life force attached to some aetheric matter, the whole of which may or may not be attached to ordinary matter.
Evocation may be further defined as the summoning or creation of such partial beings to accomplish some purpose. They may be used to cause change in oneself, change in others, or change in the universe. The advantages of using a semi-independent being rather than trying to effect a transformation directly by will are several: the entity will continue to fulfill its function independently of the magician until its life force dissipates. Being semi-sentient, it can adapt itself to a task in that a non-conscious simple spell cannot. During moments of the possession by certain entities the magician may be the recipient of inspirations, abilities, and knowledge not normally accessible to him.
Entities may be drawn from three sources - those which are discovered clairvoyantly, those whose characteristics are given in grimoires of spirits and demons, and those which the magician may wish to create himself.
In all cases establishing a relationship with the spirit follows a similar process of evocation. Firstly the attributes of the entity, its type, scope, name, appearance and characteristics must be placed in the mind or made known to the mind. Automatic drawing or writing, where a stylus is allowed to move under inspiration across a surface, may help to uncover the nature of a clairvoyantly discovered being. In the case of a created being the following procedure is used: the magician assembles the ingredients of a composite sigil of the being's desired attributes. For example, to create an elemental to assist him with divination, the appropriate symbols might be chosen and made into a sigil such as the one shown in figure 4.
A name and an image, and if desired, a characteristic number can also be selected for the elemental.
Secondly, the will and perception are focused as intently as possible (by some gnostic method) on the elemental's sigils or characteristics so that these take on a portion of the magician's life force and begin autonomous existence. In the case of preexisting beings, this operation serves to bind the entity to the magician's will.
This is customarily followed by some form of self-banishing, or even exorcism, to restore the magician's consciousness to normal before he goes forth.
An entity of a low order with little more than a singular task to perform can be left to fulfill its destiny with no further interference from its master. If at any time it is necessary to terminate it, its sigil or material basis should be destroyed and its mental image destroyed or reabsorbed by visualization. For more powerful and independent beings, the conjuration and exorcism must be in proportion to the power of the ritual which originally evoked them. To control such beings, the magicians may have to re-enter the gnostic state to the same depth as before in order to draw their power. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,#KEYS
233:The principle of Yoga is the turning of one or of all powers of our human existence into a means of reaching the divine Being. In an ordinary Yoga one main power of being or one group of its powers is made the means, vehicle, path. In a synthetic Yoga all powers will be combined and included in the transmuting instrumentation.
In Hathayoga the instrument is the body and life. All the power of the body is stilled, collected, purified, heightened, concentrated to its utmost limits or beyond any limits by Asana and other physical processes; the power of the life too is similarly purified, heightened, concentrated by Asana and Pranayama. This concentration of powers is then directed towards that physical centre in which the divine consciousness sits concealed in the human body. The power of Life, Nature-power, coiled up with all its secret forces asleep in the lowest nervous plexus of the earth-being,-for only so much escapes into waking action in our normal operations as is sufficient for the limited uses of human life,-rises awakened through centre after centre and awakens, too, in its ascent and passage the forces of each successive nodus of our being, the nervous life, the heart of emotion and ordinary mentality, the speech, sight, will, the higher knowledge, till through and above the brain it meets with and it becomes one with the divine consciousness.
In Rajayoga the chosen instrument is the mind. our ordinary mentality is first disciplined, purified and directed towards the divine Being, then by a summary process of Asana and Pranayama the physical force of our being is stilled and concentrated, the life-force released into a rhythmic movement capable of cessation and concentrated into a higher power of its upward action, the mind, supported and strengthened by this greater action and concentration of the body and life upon which it rests, is itself purified of all its unrest and emotion and its habitual thought-waves, liberated from distraction and dispersion, given its highest force of concentration, gathered up into a trance of absorption. Two objects, the one temporal, the other eternal,are gained by this discipline. Mind-power develops in another concentrated action abnormal capacities of knowledge, effective will, deep light of reception, powerful light of thought-radiation which are altogether beyond the narrow range of our normal mentality; it arrives at the Yogic or occult powers around which there has been woven so much quite dispensable and yet perhaps salutary mystery. But the one final end and the one all-important gain is that the mind, stilled and cast into a concentrated trance, can lose itself in the divine consciousness and the soul be made free to unite with the divine Being.
The triple way takes for its chosen instruments the three main powers of the mental soul-life of the human being. Knowledge selects the reason and the mental vision and it makes them by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of a Goddirected seeking its means for the greatest knowledge and the greatest vision of all, God-knowledge and God-vision. Its aim is to see, know and be the Divine. Works, action selects for its instrument the will of the doer of works; it makes life an offering of sacrifice to the Godhead and by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of subjection to the divine Will a means for contact and increasing unity of the soul of man with the divine Master of the universe. Devotion selects the emotional and aesthetic powers of the soul and by turning them all Godward in a perfect purity, intensity, infinite passion of seeking makes them a means of God-possession in one or many relations of unity with the Divine Being. All aim in their own way at a union or unity of the human soul with the supreme Spirit.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609,#KEYS
234:There is a true movement of the intellect and there is a wrong movement: one helps, the other hinders." Questions and Answers 1929 - 1931 (5 May 1929)
What is the true movement of the intellect?
What exactly do you understand by intellect? Is it a function of the mind or is it a part of the human being? How do you understand it?
A function of the mind.
A function of the mind? Then it is that part of the mind which deals with ideas; is that what you mean?
Not ideas, Mother.
Not ideas? What else, then?
Ideas, but...
There is a part of the mind which receives ideas, ideas that are formed in a higher mind. Still, I don't know, it is a question of definition and one must know what exactly you mean to say.
It is intellect that puts ideas in the form of thoughts, gathering and organising the thoughts at the same time. There are great ideas which lie beyond the ordinary human mentality, which can put on all possible forms. These great ideas tend to descend, they want to manifest themselves in precise forms. These precise forms are the thoughts; and generally it is this, I believe, that is meant by intellect: it is this that gives thought-form to the ideas.
And then, there is also the organisation of the thoughts among themselves. All that has to be put in a certain order, otherwise one becomes incoherent. And after that, there is the putting of these thoughts to use for action; that is still another movement.
To be able to say what the true movement is, one must know first of all which movement is being spoken about. You have a body, well, you don't expect your body to walk on its head or its hands nor to crawl flat on its belly nor indeed that the head should be down and the legs up in the air. You give to each limb a particular occupation which is its own. This appears to you quite natural because that is the habit; otherwise, the very little ones do not know what to do, neither with their legs nor with their hands nor with their heads; it is only little by little that they learn that. Well, it is the same thing with the mind's functions. You must know which part of the mind you are speaking about, what its own function is, and then only can you say what its true movement is and what is not its true movement. For example, for the part which has to receive the master ideas and change them into thought, its true movement is to be open to the master ideas, receive them and change them into as exact, as precise, as expressive a thought as possible. For the part of the mind which has the charge of organising all these thoughts among themselves so that they might form a coherent and classified whole, not a chaos, the true movement is just to make the classification according to a higher logic and in a thoroughly clear, precise and expressive order which may be serviceable each time a thought is referred to, so that one may know where to look for it and not put quite contradictory things together. There are people whose mind does not work like that; all the ideas that come into it, without their being even aware of what the idea is, are translated into confused thoughts which remain in a kind of inner chaos. I have known people who, from the philosophical point of view - although there is nothing philosophical in it - could put side by side the most contradictory things, like ideas of hierarchic order and at the same time ideas of the absolute independence of the individual and of anarchism, and both were accepted with equal sympathy, knocked against each other in the head in the midst of a wild disorder, and these people were not even aware of it!... You know the saying: "A question well put is three-fourths solved." So now, put your question. What do you want to speak about? I am stretching out a helping hand, you have only to catch it. What is it you are speaking about, what is it that you call intellect? Do you know the difference between an idea and a thought?
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 107,#KEYS
235:I have never been able to share your constantly recurring doubts about your capacity or the despair that arises in you so violently when there are these attacks, nor is their persistent recurrence a valid ground for believing that they can never be overcome. Such a persistent recurrence has been a feature in the sadhana of many who have finally emerged and reached the goal; even the sadhana of very great Yogis has not been exempt from such violent and constant recurrences; they have sometimes been special objects of such persistent assaults, as I have indeed indicated in Savitri in more places than one - and that was indeed founded on my own experience. In the nature of these recurrences there is usually a constant return of the same adverse experiences, the same adverse resistance, thoughts destructive of all belief and faith and confidence in the future of the sadhana, frustrating doubts of what one has known as the truth, voices of despondency and despair, urgings to abandonment of the Yoga or to suicide or else other disastrous counsels of déchéance. The course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they have strong family resemblance. One can eventually overcome if one begins to realise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of observing them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf, finally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and refusing the mind's sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl or the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions. In the end these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature; the recurrence becomes feeble or has no power to last: even, if the detachment is strong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once. The strongest attitude to take is to regard these things as what they really are, incursions of dark forces from outside taking advantage of certain openings in the physical mind or the vital part, but not a real part of oneself or spontaneous creation in one's own nature. To create a confusion and darkness in the physical mind and throw into it or awake in it mistaken ideas, dark thoughts, false impressions is a favourite method of these assailants, and if they can get the support of this mind from over-confidence in its own correctness or the natural rightness of its impressions and inferences, then they can have a field day until the true mind reasserts itself and blows the clouds away. Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense of grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or rankling as long as possible. In that case one has to discover these openings in one's nature and learn to close them permanently to such attacks or else to throw out intruders at once or as soon as possible. The recurrence is no proof of a fundamental incapacity; if one takes the right inner attitude, it can and will be overcome. The idea of suicide ought never to be accepted; there is no real ground for it and in any case it cannot be a remedy or a real escape: at most it can only be postponement of difficulties and the necessity for their solution under no better circumstances in another life. One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time he conceals himself, and then in his own right time he will reveal his Presence.
I have tried to dispel all the misconceptions, explain things as they are and meet all the points at issue. It is not that you really cannot make progress or have not made any progress; on the contrary, you yourself have admitted that you have made a good advance in many directions and there is no reason why, if you persevere, the rest should not come. You have always believed in the Guruvada: I would ask you then to put your faith in the Guru and the guidance and rely on the Ishwara for the fulfilment, to have faith in my abiding love and affection, in the affection and divine goodwill and loving kindness of the Mother, stand firm against all attacks and go forward perseveringly towards the spiritual goal and the all-fulfilling and all-satisfying touch of the All-Blissful, the Ishwara.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
236:Although a devout student of the Bible, Paracelsus instinctively adopted the broad patterns of essential learning, as these had been clarified by Pythagoras of Samos and Plato of Athens. Being by nature a mystic as well as a scientist, he also revealed a deep regard for the Neoplatonic philosophy as expounded by Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus. Neoplatonism is therefore an invaluable aid to the interpretation of the Paracelsian doctrine.
Paracelsus held that true knowledge is attained in two ways, or rather that the pursuit of knowledge is advanced by a two-fold method, the elements of which are completely interdependent. In our present terminology, we can say that these two parts of method are intuition and experience. To Paracelsus, these could never be divided from each other.
The purpose of intuition is to reveal certain basic ideas which must then be tested and proven by experience. Experience, in turn, not only justifies intuition, but contributes certain additional knowledge by which the impulse to further growth is strengthened and developed. Paracelsus regarded the separation of intuition and experience to be a disaster, leading inevitably to greater error and further disaster. Intuition without experience allows the mind to fall into an abyss of speculation without adequate censorship by practical means. Experience without intuition could never be fruitful because fruitfulness comes not merely from the doing of things, but from the overtones which stimulate creative thought. Further, experience is meaningless unless there is within man the power capable of evaluating happenings and occurrences. The absence of this evaluating factor allows the individual to pass through many kinds of experiences, either misinterpreting them or not inter preting them at all. So Paracelsus attempted to explain intuition and how man is able to apprehend that which is not obvious or apparent. Is it possible to prove beyond doubt that the human being is capable of an inward realization of truths or facts without the assistance of the so-called rational faculty?
According to Paracelsus, intuition was possible because of the existence in nature of a mysterious substance or essence-a universal life force. He gave this many names, but for our purposes, the simplest term will be appropriate. He compared it to light, further reasoning that there are two kinds of light: a visible radiance, which he called brightness, and an invisible radiance, which he called darkness. There is no essential difference between light and darkness. There is a dark light, which appears luminous to the soul but cannot be sensed by the body. There is a visible radiance which seems bright to the senses, but may appear dark to the soul. We must recognize that Paracelsus considered light as pertaining to the nature of being, the total existence from which all separate existences arise. Light not only contains the energy needed to support visible creatures, and the whole broad expanse of creation, but the invisible part of light supports the secret powers and functions of man, particularly intuition. Intuition, therefore, relates to the capacity of the individual to become attuned to the hidden side of life. By light, then, Paracelsus implies much more than the radiance that comes from the sun, a lantern, or a candle. To him, light is the perfect symbol, emblem, or figure of total well-being. Light is the cause of health. Invisible light, no less real if unseen, is the cause of wisdom. As the light of the body gives strength and energy, sustaining growth and development, so the light of the soul bestows understanding, the light of the mind makes wisdom possible, and the light of the spirit confers truth. Therefore, truth, wisdom, understanding, and health are all manifesta tions or revelations ot one virtue or power. What health is to the body, morality is to the emotions, virtue to the soul, wisdom to the mind, and reality to the spirit. This total content of living values is contained in every ray of visible light. This ray is only a manifestation upon one level or plane of the total mystery of life. Therefore, when we look at a thing, we either see its objective, physical form, or we apprehend its inner light Everything that lives, lives in light; everything that has an existence, radiates light. All things derive their life from light, and this light, in its root, is life itself. This, indeed, is the light that lighteth every man who cometh into the world. ~ Manly P Hall, Paracelsus,#KEYS
237:
In the lower planes can't one say what will happen at a particular moment?
That depends. On certain planes there are consciousnesses that form, that make formations and try to send them down to earth and manifest them. These are planes where the great forces are at play, forces struggling with each other to organise things in one way or another. On these planes all the possibilities are there, all the possibilities that present themselves but have not yet come to a decision as to which will come down.... Suppose a plane full of the imaginations of people who want certain things to be realised upon earth - they invent a novel, narrate stories, produce all kinds of phenomena; it amuses them very much. It is a plane of form-makers and they are there imagining all kinds of circumstances and events; they play with the forces; they are like the authors of a drama and they prepare everything there and see what is going to happen. All these formations are facing each other; and it is those which are the strongest, the most successful or the most persistent or those that have the advantage of a favourable set of circumstances which dominate. They meet and out of the conflict yet another thing results: you lose one thing and take up another, you make a new combination; and then all of a sudden, you find, pluff! it is coming down. Now, if it comes down with a sufficient force, it sets moving the earth atmosphere and things combine; as for instance, when with your fist you thump the saw-dust, you know surely what happens, don't you? You lift your hand, give a formidable blow: all the dust gets organised around your fist. Well, it is like that. These formations come down into matter with that force, and everything organises itself automatically, mechanically as around the striking fist. And there's your wished object about to be realised, sometimes with small deformations because of the resistance, but it will be realised finally, even as the person narrating the story up above wanted it more or less to be realised. If then you are for some reason or other in the secret of the person who has constructed the story and if you follow the way in which he creates his path to reach down to the earth and if you see how a blow with the fist acts on earthly matter, then you are able to tell what is going to happen, because you have seen it in the world above, and as it takes some time to make the whole journey, you see in advance. And the higher you rise, the more you foresee in advance what is going to happen. And if you pass far beyond, go still farther, then everything is possible.
It is an unfolding that follows a wide road which is for you unknowable; for all will be unfolded in the universe, but in what order and in what way? There are decisions that are taken up there which escape our ordinary consciousness, and so it is very difficult to foresee. But there also, if you enter consciously and if you can be present up there... How shall I explain that to you? All is there, absolute, static, eternal: but all that will be unfolded in the material world, naturally more or less one thing after another; for in the static existence all can be there, but in the becoming all becomes in time, that is, one thing after another. Well, what path will the unfolding follow? Up there is the domain of absolute freedom.... Who says that a sufficiently sincere aspiration, a sufficiently intense prayer is not capable of changing the path of the unfolding?
This means that all is possible.
Now, one must have a sufficient aspiration and a prayer that's sufficiently intense. But that has been given to human nature. It is one of the marvellous gifts of grace given to human nature; only, one does not know how to make use of it. This comes to saying that in spite of the most absolute determinisms in the horizontal line, if one knows how to cross all these horizontal lines and reach the highest Point of consciousness, one is able to make things change, things apparently absolutely determined. So you may call it by any name you like, but it is a kind of combination of an absolute determinism with an absolute freedom. You may pull yourself out of it in any way you like, but it is like that.
I forgot to say in that book (perhaps I did not forget but just felt that it was useless to say it) that all these theories are only theories, that is, mental conceptions which are merely more or less imaged representations of the reality; but it is not the reality at all. When you say "determinism" and when you say "freedom", you say only words and all that is only a very incomplete, very approximate and very weak description of what is in reality within you, around you and everywhere; and to be able to begin to understand what the universe is, you must come out of your mental formulas, otherwise you will never understand anything.
To tell the truth, if you live only a moment, just a tiny moment, of this absolutely sincere aspiration or this sufficiently intense prayer, you will know more things than by meditating for hours.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
238: Sri Aurobindo writes here: "...Few and brief in their visits are the Bright Ones who are willing or permitted to succour." Why?
(1 "The Way", Cent. Vol. 17, p. 40.)
One must go and ask them! But there is a conclusion, the last sentences give a very clear explanation. It is said: "Nay, then, is immortality a plaything to be given lightly to a child, or the divine life a prize without effort or the crown for a weakling?" This comes back to the question why the adverse forces have the right to interfere, to harass you. But this is precisely the test necessary for your sincerity. If the way were very easy, everybody would start on the way, and if one could reach the goal without any obstacle and without any effort, everybody would reach the goal, and when one has come to the end, the situation would be the same as when one started, there would be no change. That is, the new world would be exactly what the old has been. It is truly not worth the trouble! Evidently a process of elimination is necessary so that only what is capable of manifesting the new life remains. This is the reason and there is no other, this is the best of reasons. And, you see, it is a tempering, it is the ordeal of fire, only that which can stand it remains absolutely pure; when everything has burnt down, there remains only the little ingot of pure gold. And it is like that. What puts things out very much in all this is the religious idea of fault, sin, redemption. But there is no arbitrary decision! On the contrary, for each one it is the best and most favourable conditions which are given. We were saying the other day that it is only his friends whom God treats with severity; you thought it was a joke, but it is true. It is only to those who are full of hope, who will pass through this purifying flame, that the conditions for attaining the maximum result are given. And the human mind is made in such a way that you may test this; when something extremely unpleasant happens to you, you may tell yourself, "Well, this proves I am worth the trouble of being given this difficulty, this proves there is something in me which can resist the difficulty", and you will notice that instead of tormenting yourself, you rejoice - you will be so happy and so strong that even the most unpleasant things will seem to you quite charming! This is a very easy experiment to make. Whatever the circumstance, if your mind is accustomed to look at it as something favourable, it will no longer be unpleasant for you. This is quite well known; as long as the mind refuses to accept a thing, struggles against it, tries to obstruct it, there are torments, difficulties, storms, inner struggles and all suffering. But the minute the mind says, "Good, this is what has to come, it is thus that it must happen", whatever happens, you are content. There are people who have acquired such control of their mind over their body that they feel nothing; I told you this the other day about certain mystics: if they think the suffering inflicted upon them is going to help them cross the stages in a moment and give them a sort of stepping stone to attain the Realisation, the goal they have put before them, union with the Divine, they no longer feel the suffering at all. Their body is as it were galvanised by the mental conception. This has happened very often, it is a very common experience among those who truly have enthusiasm. And after all, if one must for some reason or other leave one's body and take a new one, is it not better to make of one's death something magnificent, joyful, enthusiastic, than to make it a disgusting defeat? Those who cling on, who try by every possible means to delay the end even by a minute or two, who give you an example of frightful anguish, show that they are not conscious of their soul.... After all, it is perhaps a means, isn't it? One can change this accident into a means; if one is conscious one can make a beautiful thing of it, a very beautiful thing, as of everything. And note, those who do not fear it, who are not anxious, who can die without any sordidness are those who never think about it, who are not haunted all the time by this "horror" facing them which they must escape and which they try to push as far away from them as they can. These, when the occasion comes, can lift their head, smile and say, "Here I am."
It is they who have the will to make the best possible use of their life, it is they who say, "I shall remain here as long as it is necessary, to the last second, and I shall not lose one moment to realise my goal"; these, when the necessity comes, put up the best show. Why? - It is very simple, because they live in their ideal, the truth of their ideal; because that is the real thing for them, the very reason of their being, and in all things they can see this ideal, this reason of existence, and never do they come down into the sordidness of material life.
So, the conclusion:
One must never wish for death.
One must never will to die.
One must never be afraid to die.
And in all circumstances one must will to exceed oneself. ~ The Mother, Question and Answers, Volume-4, page no.353-355,#KEYS
239:What are these operations? They are not mere psychological self-analysis and self-observation. Such analysis, such observation are, like the process of right thought, of immense value and practically indispensable. They may even, if rightly pursued, lead to a right thought of considerable power and effectivity. Like intellectual discrimination by the process of meditative thought they will have an effect of purification; they will lead to self-knowledge of a certain kind and to the setting right of the disorders of the soul and the heart and even of the disorders of the understanding. Self-knowledge of all kinds is on the straight path to the knowledge of the real Self. The Upanishad tells us that the Self-existent has so set the doors of the soul that they turn outwards and most men look outward into the appearances of things; only the rare soul that is ripe for a calm thought and steady wisdom turns its eye inward, sees the Self and attains to immortality. To this turning of the eye inward psychological self-observation and analysis is a great and effective introduction.We can look into the inward of ourselves more easily than we can look into the inward of things external to us because there, in things outside us, we are in the first place embarrassed by the form and secondly we have no natural previous experience of that in them which is other than their physical substance. A purified or tranquillised mind may reflect or a powerful concentration may discover God in the world, the Self in Nature even before it is realised in ourselves, but this is rare and difficult. (2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the process of the Self in its becoming and follow the process by which it draws back into self-being. Therefore the ancient counsel, know thyself, will always stand as the first word that directs us towards the knowledge. Still, psychological self-knowledge is only the experience of the modes of the Self, it is not the realisation of the Self in its pure being.
The status of knowledge, then, which Yoga envisages is not merely an intellectual conception or clear discrimination of the truth, nor is it an enlightened psychological experience of the modes of our being. It is a "realisation", in the full sense of the word; it is the making real to ourselves and in ourselves of the Self, the transcendent and universal Divine, and it is the subsequent impossibility of viewing the modes of being except in the light of that Self and in their true aspect as its flux of becoming under the psychical and physical conditions of our world-existence. This realisation consists of three successive movements, internal vision, complete internal experience and identity.
This internal vision, dr.s.t.i, the power so highly valued by the ancient sages, the power which made a man a Rishi or Kavi and no longer a mere thinker, is a sort of light in the soul by which things unseen become as evident and real to it-to the soul and not merely to the intellect-as do things seen to the physical eye. In the physical world there are always two forms of knowledge, the direct and the indirect, pratyaks.a, of that which is present to the eyes, and paroks.a, of that which is remote from and beyond our vision. When the object is beyond our vision, we are necessarily obliged to arrive at an idea of it by inference, imagination, analogy, by hearing the descriptions of others who have seen it or by studying pictorial or other representations of it if these are available. By putting together all these aids we can indeed arrive at a more or less adequate idea or suggestive image of the object, but we do not realise the thing itself; it is not yet to us the grasped reality, but only our conceptual representation of a reality. But once we have seen it with the eyes,-for no other sense is adequate,-we possess, we realise; it is there secure in our satisfied being, part of ourselves in knowledge. Precisely the same rule holds good of psychical things and of he Self. We may hear clear and luminous teachings about the Self from philosophers or teachers or from ancient writings; we may by thought, inference, imagination, analogy or by any other available means attempt to form a mental figure or conception of it; we may hold firmly that conception in our mind and fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration;3 but we have not yet realised it, we have not seen God. It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman, and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity.
(2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the 2 In one respect, however, it is easier, because in external things we are not so much hampered by the sense of the limited ego as in ourselves; one obstacle to the realisation of God is therefore removed.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge,#KEYS
240:Education
THE EDUCATION of a human being should begin at birth and continue throughout his life.
Indeed, if we want this education to have its maximum result, it should begin even before birth; in this case it is the mother herself who proceeds with this education by means of a twofold action: first, upon herself for her own improvement, and secondly, upon the child whom she is forming physically. For it is certain that the nature of the child to be born depends very much upon the mother who forms it, upon her aspiration and will as well as upon the material surroundings in which she lives. To see that her thoughts are always beautiful and pure, her feelings always noble and fine, her material surroundings as harmonious as possible and full of a great simplicity - this is the part of education which should apply to the mother herself. And if she has in addition a conscious and definite will to form the child according to the highest ideal she can conceive, then the very best conditions will be realised so that the child can come into the world with his utmost potentialities. How many difficult efforts and useless complications would be avoided in this way!
Education to be complete must have five principal aspects corresponding to the five principal activities of the human being: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual. Usually, these phases of education follow chronologically the growth of the individual; this, however, does not mean that one of them should replace another, but that all must continue, completing one another until the end of his life.
We propose to study these five aspects of education one by one and also their interrelationships. But before we enter into the details of the subject, I wish to make a recommendation to parents. Most parents, for various reasons, give very little thought to the true education which should be imparted to children. When they have brought a child into the world, provided him with food, satisfied his various material needs and looked after his health more or less carefully, they think they have fully discharged their duty. Later on, they will send him to school and hand over to the teachers the responsibility for his education.
There are other parents who know that their children must be educated and who try to do what they can. But very few, even among those who are most serious and sincere, know that the first thing to do, in order to be able to educate a child, is to educate oneself, to become conscious and master of oneself so that one never sets a bad example to one's child. For it is above all through example that education becomes effective. To speak good words and to give wise advice to a child has very little effect if one does not oneself give him an example of what one teaches. Sincerity, honesty, straightforwardness, courage, disinterestedness, unselfishness, patience, endurance, perseverance, peace, calm, self-control are all things that are taught infinitely better by example than by beautiful speeches. Parents, have a high ideal and always act in accordance with it and you will see that little by little your child will reflect this ideal in himself and spontaneously manifest the qualities you would like to see expressed in his nature. Quite naturally a child has respect and admiration for his parents; unless they are quite unworthy, they will always appear to their child as demigods whom he will try to imitate as best he can.
With very few exceptions, parents are not aware of the disastrous influence that their own defects, impulses, weaknesses and lack of self-control have on their children. If you wish to be respected by a child, have respect for yourself and be worthy of respect at every moment. Never be authoritarian, despotic, impatient or ill-tempered. When your child asks you a question, do not give him a stupid or silly answer under the pretext that he cannot understand you. You can always make yourself understood if you take enough trouble; and in spite of the popular saying that it is not always good to tell the truth, I affirm that it is always good to tell the truth, but that the art consists in telling it in such a way as to make it accessible to the mind of the hearer. In early life, until he is twelve or fourteen, the child's mind is hardly open to abstract notions and general ideas. And yet you can train it to understand these things by using concrete images, symbols or parables. Up to quite an advanced age and for some who mentally always remain children, a narrative, a story, a tale well told teach much more than any number of theoretical explanations.
Another pitfall to avoid: do not scold your child without good reason and only when it is quite indispensable. A child who is too often scolded gets hardened to rebuke and no longer attaches much importance to words or severity of tone. And above all, take good care never to scold him for a fault which you yourself commit. Children are very keen and clear-sighted observers; they soon find out your weaknesses and note them without pity.
When a child has done something wrong, see that he confesses it to you spontaneously and frankly; and when he has confessed, with kindness and affection make him understand what was wrong in his movement so that he will not repeat it, but never scold him; a fault confessed must always be forgiven. You should not allow any fear to come between you and your child; fear is a pernicious means of education: it invariably gives birth to deceit and lying. Only a discerning affection that is firm yet gentle and an adequate practical knowledge will create the bonds of trust that are indispensable for you to be able to educate your child effectively. And do not forget that you have to control yourself constantly in order to be equal to your task and truly fulfil the duty which you owe your child by the mere fact of having brought him into the world.
Bulletin, February 1951
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
241:The Two Paths Of Yoga :::
14 April 1929 - What are the dangers of Yoga? Is it especially dangerous to the people of the West? Someone has said that Yoga may be suitable for the East, but it has the effect of unbalancing the Western mind.
Yoga is not more dangerous to the people of the West than to those of the East. Everything depends upon the spirit with which you approach it. Yoga does become dangerous if you want it for your own sake, to serve a personal end. It is not dangerous, on the contrary, it is safety and security itself, if you go to it with a sense of its sacredness, always remembering that the aim is to find the Divine.
Dangers and difficulties come in when people take up Yoga not for the sake of the Divine, but because they want to acquire power and under the guise of Yoga seek to satisfy some ambition. if you cannot get rid of ambition, do not touch the thing. It is fire that burns.
There are two paths of Yoga, one of tapasya (discipline), and the other of surrender. The path of tapasya is arduous. Here you rely solely upon yourself, you proceed by your own strength. You ascend and achieve according to the measure of your force. There is always the danger of falling down. And once you fall, you lie broken in the abyss and there is hardly a remedy. The other path, the path of surrender, is safe and sure. It is here, however, that the Western people find their difficulty. They have been taught to fear and avoid all that threatens their personal independence. They have imbibed with their mothers' milk the sense of individuality. And surrender means giving up all that. In other words, you may follow, as Ramakrishna says, either the path of the baby monkey or that of the baby cat. The baby monkey holds to its mother in order to be carried about and it must hold firm, otherwise if it loses its grip, it falls. On the other hand, the baby cat does not hold to its mother, but is held by the mother and has no fear nor responsibility; it has nothing to do but to let the mother hold it and cry ma ma.
If you take up this path of surrender fully and sincerely, there is no more danger or serious difficulty. The question is to be sincere. If you are not sincere, do not begin Yoga. If you were dealing in human affairs, then you could resort to deception; but in dealing with the Divine there is no possibility of deception anywhere. You can go on the Path safely when you are candid and open to the core and when your only end is to realise and attain the Divine and to be moved by the Divine. There is another danger; it is in connection with the sex impulses. Yoga in its process of purification will lay bare and throw up all hidden impulses and desires in you. And you must learn not to hide things nor leave them aside, you have to face them and conquer and remould them. The first effect of Yoga, however, is to take away the mental control, and the hungers that lie dormant are suddenly set free, they rush up and invade the being. So long as this mental control has not been replaced by the Divine control, there is a period of transition when your sincerity and surrender will be put to the test. The strength of such impulses as those of sex lies usually in the fact that people take too much notice of them; they protest too vehemently and endeavour to control them by coercion, hold them within and sit upon them. But the more you think of a thing and say, "I don't want it, I don't want it", the more you are bound to it. What you should do is to keep the thing away from you, to dissociate from it, take as little notice of it as possible and, even if you happen to think of it, remain indifferent and unconcerned. The impulses and desires that come up by the pressure of Yoga should be faced in a spirit of detachment and serenity, as something foreign to yourself or belonging to the outside world. They should be offered to the Divine, so that the Divine may take them up and transmute them. If you have once opened yourself to the Divine, if the power of the Divine has once come down into you and yet you try to keep to the old forces, you prepare troubles and difficulties and dangers for yourself. You must be vigilant and see that you do not use the Divine as a cloak for the satisfaction of your desires. There are many self-appointed Masters, who do nothing but that. And then when you are off the straight path and when you have a little knowledge and not much power, it happens that you are seized by beings or entities of a certain type, you become blind instruments in their hands and are devoured by them in the end. Wherever there is pretence, there is danger; you cannot deceive God. Do you come to God saying, "I want union with you" and in your heart meaning "I want powers and enjoyments"? Beware! You are heading straight towards the brink of the precipice. And yet it is so easy to avoid all catastrophe. Become like a child, give yourself up to the Mother, let her carry you, and there is no more danger for you.
This does not mean that you have not to face other kinds of difficulties or that you have not to fight and conquer any obstacles at all. Surrender does not ensure a smooth and unruffled and continuous progression. The reason is that your being is not yet one, nor your surrender absolute and complete. Only a part of you surrenders; and today it is one part and the next day it is another. The whole purpose of the Yoga is to gather all the divergent parts together and forge them into an undivided unity. Till then you cannot hope to be without difficulties - difficulties, for example, like doubt or depression or hesitation. The whole world is full of the poison. You take it in with every breath. If you exchange a few words with an undesirable man or even if such a man merely passes by you, you may catch the contagion from him. It is sufficient for you to come near a place where there is plague in order to be infected with its poison; you need not know at all that it is there. You can lose in a few minutes what it has taken you months to gain. So long as you belong to humanity and so long as you lead the ordinary life, it does not matter much if you mix with the people of the world; but if you want the divine life, you will have to be exceedingly careful about your company and your environment.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
242: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#KEYS
243:
Why do we forget our dreams?
Because you do not dream always at the same place. It is not always the same part of your being that dreams and it is not at the same place that you dream. If you were in conscious, direct, continuous communication with all the parts of your being, you would remember all your dreams. But very few parts of the being are in communication.
For example, you have a dream in the subtle physical, that is to say, quite close to the physical. Generally, these dreams occur in the early hours of the morning, that is between four and five o'clock, at the end of the sleep. If you do not make a sudden movement when you wake up, if you remain very quiet, very still and a little attentive - quietly attentive - and concentrated, you will remember them, for the communication between the subtle physical and the physical is established - very rarely is there no communication.
Now, dreams are mostly forgotten because you have a dream while in a certain state and then pass into another. For instance, when you sleep, your body is asleep, your vital is asleep, but your mind is still active. So your mind begins to have dreams, that is, its activity is more or less coordinated, the imagination is very active and you see all kinds of things, take part in extraordinary happenings.... After some time, all that calms down and the mind also begins to doze. The vital that was resting wakes up; it comes out of the body, walks about, goes here and there, does all kinds of things, reacts, sometimes fights, and finally eats. It does all kinds of things. The vital is very adventurous. It watches. When it is heroic it rushes to save people who are in prison or to destroy enemies or it makes wonderful discoveries. But this pushes back the whole mental dream very far behind. It is rubbed off, forgotten: naturally you cannot remember it because the vital dream takes its place. But if you wake up suddenly at that moment, you remember it. There are people who have made the experiment, who have got up at certain fixed hours of the night and when they wake up suddenly, they do remember. You must not move brusquely, but awake in the natural course, then you remember.
After a time, the vital having taken a good stroll, needs to rest also, and so it goes into repose and quietness, quite tired at the end of all kinds of adventures. Then something else wakes up. Let us suppose that it is the subtle physical that goes for a walk. It starts moving and begins wandering, seeing the rooms and... why, this thing that was there, but it has come here and that other thing which was in that room is now in this one, and so on. If you wake up without stirring, you remembeR But this has pushed away far to the back of the consciousness all the stories of the vital. They are forgotten and so you cannot recollect your dreams. But if at the time of waking up you are not in a hurry, you are not obliged to leave your bed, on the contrary you can remain there as long as you wish, you need not even open your eyes; you keep your head exactly where it was and you make yourself like a tranquil mirror within and concentrate there. You catch just a tiny end of the tail of your dream. You catch it and start pulling gently, without stirring in the least. You begin pulling quite gently, and then first one part comes, a little later another. You go backward; the last comes up first. Everything goes backward, slowly, and suddenly the whole dream reappears: "Ah, there! it was like that." Above all, do not jump up, do not stir; you repeat the dream to yourself several times - once, twice - until it becomes clear in all its details. Once that dream is settled, you continue not to stir, you try to go further in, and suddenly you catch the tail of something else. It is more distant, more vague, but you can still seize it. And here also you hang on, get hold of it and pull, and you see that everything changes and you enter another world; all of a sudden you have an extraordinary adventure - it is another dream. You follow the same process. You repeat the dream to yourself once, twice, until you are sure of it. You remain very quiet all the time. Then you begin to penetrate still more deeply into yourself, as though you were going in very far, very far; and again suddenly you see a vague form, you have a feeling, a sensation... like a current of air, a slight breeze, a little breath; and you say, "Well, well...." It takes a form, it becomes clear - and the third category comes. You must have a lot of time, a lot of patience, you must be very quiet in your mind and body, very quiet, and you can tell the story of your whole night from the end right up to the beginning.
Even without doing this exercise which is very long and difficult, in order to recollect a dream, whether it be the last one or the one in the middle that has made a violent impression on your being, you must do what I have said when you wake up: take particular care not even to move your head on the pillow, remain absolutely still and let the dream return.
Some people do not have a passage between one state and another, there is a little gap and so they leap from one to the other; there is no highway passing through all the states of being with no break of the consciousness. A small dark hole, and you do not remember. It is like a precipice across which one has to extend the consciousness. To build a bridge takes a very long time; it takes much longer than building a physical bridge.... Very few people want to and know how to do it. They may have had magnificent activities, they do not remember them or sometimes only the last, the nearest, the most physical activity, with an uncoordinated movement - dreams having no sense.
But there are as many different kinds of nights and sleep as there are different days and activities. There are not many days that are alike, each day is different. The days are not the same, the nights are not the same. You and your friends are doing apparently the same thing, but for each one it is very different. And each one must have his own procedure.
Why are two dreams never alike?
Because all things are different. No two minutes are alike in the universe and it will be so till the end of the universe, no two minutes will ever be alike. And men obstinately want to make rules! One must do this and not that.... Well! we must let people please themselves.
You could have put to me a very interesting question: "Why am I fourteen years old today?" Intelligent people will say: "It is because it is the fourteenth year since you were born." That is the answer of someone who believes himself to be very intelligent. But there is another reason. I shall tell this to you alone.... I have drowned you all sufficiently well! Now you must begin to learn swimming!
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 36?,#KEYS
244:Intuition And The Value Of Concentration :::
Mother, how can the faculty of intuition be developed?
... There are different kinds of intuition, and we carry these capacities within us. They are always active to some extent but we don't notice them because we don't pay enough attention to what is going on in us. Behind the emotions, deep within the being, in a consciousness seated somewhere near the level of the solar plexus, there is a sort of prescience, a kind of capacity for foresight, but not in the form of ideas: rather in the form of feelings, almost a perception of sensations. For instance, when one is going to decide to do something, there is sometimes a kind of uneasiness or inner refusal, and usually, if one listens to this deeper indication, one realises that it was justified. In other cases there is something that urges, indicates, insists - I am not speaking of impulses, you understand, of all the movements which come from the vital and much lower still - indications which are behind the feelings, which come from the affective part of the being; there too one can receive a fairly sure indication of the thing to be done. These are forms of intuition or of a higher instinct which can be cultivated by observation and also by studying the results. Naturally, it must be done very sincerely, objectively, without prejudice. If one wants to see things in a particular way and at the same time practise this observation, it is all useless. One must do it as if one were looking at what is happening from outside oneself, in someone else. It is one form of intuition and perhaps the first one that usually manifests. There is also another form but that one is much more difficult to observe because for those who are accustomed to think, to act by reason - not by impulse but by reason - to reflect before doing anything, there is an extremely swift process from cause to effect in the half-conscious thought which prevents you from seeing the line, the whole line of reasoning and so you don't think that it is a chain of reasoning, and that is quite deceptive. You have the impression of an intuition but it is not an intuition, it is an extremely rapid subconscious reasoning, which takes up a problem and goes straight to the conclusions. This must not be mistaken for intuition. In the ordinary functioning of the brain, intuition is something which suddenly falls like a drop of light. If one has the faculty, the beginning of a faculty of mental vision, it gives the impression of something coming from outside or above, like a little impact of a drop of light in the brain, absolutely independent of all reasoning. This is perceived more easily when one is able to silence one's mind, hold it still and attentive, arresting its usual functioning, as if the mind were changed into a kind of mirror turned towards a higher faculty in a sustained and silent attention. That too one can learn to do. One must learn to do it, it is a necessary discipline.
When you have a question to solve, whatever it may be, usually you concentrate your attention here (pointing between the eyebrows), at the centre just above the eyes, the centre of the conscious will. But then if you do that, you cannot be in contact with intuition. You can be in contact with the source of the will, of effort, even of a certain kind of knowledge, but in the outer, almost material field; whereas, if you want to contact the intuition, you must keep this (Mother indicates the forehead) completely immobile. Active thought must be stopped as far as possible and the entire mental faculty must form - at the top of the head and a little further above if possible - a kind of mirror, very quiet, very still, turned upwards, in silent, very concentrated attention. If you succeed, you can - perhaps not immediately - but you can have the perception of the drops of light falling upon the mirror from a still unknown region and expressing themselves as a conscious thought which has no connection with all the rest of your thought since you have been able to keep it silent. That is the real beginning of the intellectual intuition.
It is a discipline to be followed. For a long time one may try and not succeed, but as soon as one succeeds in making a mirror, still and attentive, one always obtains a result, not necessarily with a precise form of thought but always with the sensations of a light coming from above. And then, if one can receive this light coming from above without entering immediately into a whirl of activity, receive it in calm and silence and let it penetrate deep into the being, then after a while it expresses itself either as a luminous thought or as a very precise indication here (Mother indicates the heart), in this other centre.
Naturally, first these two faculties must be developed; then, as soon as there is any result, one must observe the result, as I said, and see the connection with what is happening, the consequences: see, observe very attentively what has come in, what may have caused a distortion, what one has added by way of more or less conscious reasoning or the intervention of a lower will, also more or less conscious; and it is by a very deep study - indeed, almost of every moment, in any case daily and very frequent - that one succeeds in developing one's intuition. It takes a long time. It takes a long time and there are ambushes: one can deceive oneself, take for intuitions subconscious wills which try to manifest, indications given by impulses one has refused to receive openly, indeed all sorts of difficulties. One must be prepared for that. But if one persists, one is sure to succeed.
And there comes a time when one feels a kind of inner guidance, something which is leading one very perceptibly in all that one does. But then, for the guidance to have its maximum power, one must naturally add to it a conscious surrender: one must be sincerely determined to follow the indication given by the higher force. If one does that, then... one saves years of study, one can seize the result extremely rapidly. If one also does that, the result comes very rapidly. But for that, it must be done with sincerity and... a kind of inner spontaneity. If one wants to try without this surrender, one may succeed - as one can also succeed in developing one's personal will and making it into a very considerable power - but that takes a very long time and one meets many obstacles and the result is very precarious; one must be very persistent, obstinate, persevering, and one is sure to succeed, but only after a great labour.
Make your surrender with a sincere, complete self-giving, and you will go ahead at full speed, you will go much faster - but you must not do this calculatingly, for that spoils everything! (Silence) Moreover, whatever you may want to do in life, one thing is absolutely indispensable and at the basis of everything, the capacity of concentrating the attention. If you are able to gather together the rays of attention and consciousness on one point and can maintain this concentration with a persistent will, nothing can resist it - whatever it may be, from the most material physical development to the highest spiritual one. But this discipline must be followed in a constant and, it may be said, imperturbable way; not that you should always be concentrated on the same thing - that's not what I mean, I mean learning to concentrate.
And materially, for studies, sports, all physical or mental development, it is absolutely indispensable. And the value of an individual is proportionate to the value of his attention.
And from the spiritual point of view it is still more important.
There is no spiritual obstacle which can resist a penetrating power of concentration. For instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union with the inner Divine, opening to the higher spheres, all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power of concentration - but one must learn how to do it. There is nothing in the human or even in the superhuman field, to which the power of concentration is not the key. You can be the best athlete, you can be the best student, you can be an artistic, literary or scientific genius, you can be the greatest saint with that faculty. And everyone has in himself a tiny little beginning of it - it is given to everybody, but people do not cultivate it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,#KEYS
245:
Can a Yogi attain to a state of consciousness in which he can know all things, answer all questions, relating even to abstruse scientific problems, such as, for example, the theory of relativity?
Theoretically and in principle it is not impossible for a Yogi to know everything; all depends upon the Yogi.
But there is knowledge and knowledge. The Yogi does not know in the way of the mind. He does not know everything in the sense that he has access to all possible information or because he contains all the facts of the universe in his mind or because his consciousness is a sort of miraculous encyclopaedia. He knows by his capacity for a containing or dynamic identity with things and persons and forces. Or he knows because he lives in a plane of consciousness or is in contact with a consciousness in which there is the truth and the knowledge.
If you are in the true consciousness, the knowledge you have will also be of the truth. Then, too, you can know directly, by being one with what you know. If a problem is put before you, if you are asked what is to be done in a particular matter, you can then, by looking with enough attention and concentration, receive spontaneously the required knowledge and the true answer. It is not by any careful application of theory that you reach the knowledge or by working it out through a mental process. The scientific mind needs these methods to come to its conclusions. But the Yogi's knowledge is direct and immediate; it is not deductive. If an engineer has to find out the exact position for the building of an arch, the line of its curve and the size of its opening, he does it by calculation, collating and deducing from his information and data. But a Yogi needs none of these things; he looks, has the vision of the thing, sees that it is to be done in this way and not in another, and this seeing is his knowledge.
Although it may be true in a general way and in a certain sense that a Yogi can know all things and can answer all questions from his own field of vision and consciousness, yet it does not follow that there are no questions whatever of any kind to which he would not or could not answer. A Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could not or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusion of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge is not in the mind. If you put him some silly mental query of that character, he probably would not answer. The very common conception that you can put any ignorant question to him as to some super-schoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder.
Moreover, the term "Yogi" is very vague and wide. There are many types of Yogis, many lines or ranges of spiritual or occult endeavour and different heights of achievement, there are some whose powers do not extend beyond the mental level; there are others who have gone beyond it. Everything depends on the field or nature of their effort, the height to which they have arrived, the consciousness with which they have contact or into which they enter.
Do not scientists go sometimes beyond the mental plane? It is said that Einstein found his theory of relativity not through any process of reasoning, but through some kind of sudden inspiration. Has that inspiration anything to do with the Supermind?
The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane illumined by some other light still farther above. But all that has nothing to do with the action of Supermind and this higher mental level is far removed from the supramental plane. Men are too easily inclined to believe that they have climbed into regions quite divine when they have only gone above the average level. There are many stages between the ordinary human mind and the Supermind, many grades and many intervening planes. If an ordinary man were to get into direct contact even with one of these intermediate planes, he would be dazzled and blinded, would be crushed under the weight of the sense of immensity or would lose his balance; and yet it is not the Supermind.
Behind the common idea that a Yogi can know all things and answer all questions is the actual fact that there is a plane in the mind where the memory of everything is stored and remains always in existence. All mental movements that belong to the life of the earth are memorised and registered in this plane. Those who are capable of going there and care to take the trouble, can read in it and learn anything they choose. But this region must not be mistaken for the supramental levels. And yet to reach even there you must be able to silence the movements of the material or physical mind; you must be able to leave aside all your sensations and put a stop to your ordinary mental movements, whatever they are; you must get out of the vital; you must become free from the slavery of the body. Then only you can enter into that region and see. But if you are sufficiently interested to make this effort, you can arrive there and read what is written in the earth's memory.
Thus, if you go deep into silence, you can reach a level of consciousness on which it is not impossible for you to receive answers to all your questions. And if there is one who is consciously open to the plenary truth of the supermind, in constant contact with it, he can certainly answer any question that is worth an answer from the supramental Light. The queries put must come from some sense of the truth and reality behind things. There are many questions and much debated problems that are cobwebs woven of mere mental abstractions or move on the illusory surface of things. These do not pertain to real knowledge; they are a deformation of knowledge, their very substance is of the ignorance. Certainly the supramental knowledge may give an answer, its own answer, to the problems set by the mind's ignorance; but it is likely that it would not be at all satisfactory or perhaps even intelligible to those who ask from the mental level. You must not expect the supramental to work in the way of the mind or demand that the knowledge in truth should be capable of being pieced together with the half-knowledge in ignorance. The scheme of the mind is one thing, but Supermind is quite another and it would no longer be supramental if it adapted itself to the exigencies of the mental scheme. The two are incommensurable and cannot be put together.
When the consciousness has attained to supramental joys, does it no longer take interest in the things of the mind?
The supramental does not take interest in mental things in the same way as the mind. It takes its own interest in all the movements of the universe, but it is from a different point of view and with a different vision. The world presents to it an entirely different appearance; there is a reversal of outlook and everything is seen from there as other than what it seems to the mind and often even the opposite. Things have another meaning; their aspect, their motion and process, everything about them, are watched with other eyes. Everything here is followed by the supermind; the mind movements and not less the vital, the material movements, all the play of the universe have for it a very deep interest, but of another kind. It is about the same difference as that between the interest taken in a puppet-play by one who holds the strings and knows what the puppets are to do and the will that moves them and that they can do only what it moves them to do, and the interest taken by another who observes the play but sees only what is happening from moment to moment and knows nothing else. The one who follows the play and is outside its secret has a stronger, an eager and passionate interest in what will happen and he gives an excited attention to its unforeseen or dramatic events; the other, who holds the strings and moves the show, is unmoved and tranquil. There is a certain intensity of interest which comes from ignorance and is bound up with illusion, and that must disappear when you are out of the ignorance. The interest that human beings take in things founds itself on the illusion; if that were removed, they would have no interest at all in the play; they would find it dry and dull. That is why all this ignorance, all this illusion has lasted so long; it is because men like it, because they cling to it and its peculiar kind of appeal that it endures.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 93?
,#KEYS
246:
The whole question.
The whole question? And now, do you understand?... Not quite? I told you that you did not understand because it was muddled up; in one question three different ideas were included. So naturally it created a confusion. But taken separately they are what I explained to you just now, most probably; that is to say, one has this altogether ignorant and obliterated consciousness and is convinced that he is the cause and effect, the origin and result of himself, separate from all others, separate with a limited power to act upon others and a little greater capacity to be set in movement by others or to react to others' influence. That is how people think usually, something like that, isn't that so? How do you feel, you? What effect do you have upon yourself? And you? And you?... You have never thought about it? You have never looked into yourself to see what effect you exercise upon yourself? Never thought over it? No? How do you feel? Nobody will tell me? Come, you tell me that. Never tried to understand how you feel? Yes? No? How strange! Never sought to understand how, for example, decisions take place in you? From where do they come? What makes you decide one thing rather than another? And what is the relation between a decision of yours and your action? And to what extent do you have the freedom of choice between one thing and another? And how far do you feel you are able to, you are free to do this or that or that other or nothing at all?... You have pondered over that? Yes? Is there any one among the students who has thought over it? No? Nobody put the question to himself? You? You?...
Even if one thinks over it, perhaps one is not able to answer!
One cannot explain?
No.
It is difficult to explain? Even this simple little thing, to see where in your consciousness the wills that come from outside meet your will (which you call yours, which comes from within), at what place the two join together and to what extent the one from outside acts upon that from within and the one from within acts upon that from outside? You have never tried to find this out? It has never seemed to you unbearable that a will from outside should have an action upon your will? No?
I do not know.
Oh! I am putting very difficult problems! But, my children, I was preoccupied with that when I was a child of five!... So I thought you must have been preoccupied with it since a long time. In oneself, there are contradictory wills. Yes, many. That is one of the very first discoveries. There is one part which wants things this way; and then at another moment, another way, and a third time, one wants still another thing! Besides, there is even this: something that wants and another which says no. So? But it is exactly that which has to be found if you wish in the least to organise yourself. Why not project yourself upon a screen, as in the cinema, and then look at yourself moving on it? How interesting it is!
This is the first step.
You project yourself on the screen and then observe and see all that is moving there and how it moves and what happens. You make a little diagram, it becomes so interesting then. And then, after a while, when you are quite accustomed to seeing, you can go one step further and take a decision. Or even a still greater step: you organise - arrange, take up all that, put each thing in its place, organise in such a way that you begin to have a straight movement with an inner meaning. And then you become conscious of your direction and are able to say: "Very well, it will be thus; my life will develop in that way, because that is the logic of my being. Now, I have arranged all that within me, each thing has been put in its place, and so naturally a central orientation is forming. I am following this orientation. One step more and I know what will happen to me for I myself am deciding it...." I do not know, I am telling you this; to me it seemed terribly interesting, the most interesting thing in the world. There was nothing, no other thing that interested me more than that.
This happened to me.... I was five or six or seven years old (at seven the thing became quite serious) and I had a father who loved the circus, and he came and told me: "Come with me, I am going to the circus on Sunday." I said: "No, I am doing something much more interesting than going to the circus!" Or again, young friends invited me to attend a meeting where we were to play together, enjoy together: "No, I enjoy here much more...." And it was quite sincere. It was not a pose: for me, it was like this, it was true. There was nothing in the world more enjoyable than that.
And I am so convinced that anybody who does it in that way, with the same freshness and sincerity, will obtain most interesting results.... To put all that on a screen in front of yourself and look at what is happening. And the first step is to know all that is happening and then you must not try to shut your eyes when something does not appear pleasant to you! You must keep them wide open and put each thing in that way before the screen. Then you make quite an interesting discovery. And then the next step is to start telling yourself: "Since all that is happening within me, why should I not put this thing in this way and then that thing in that way and then this other in this way and thus wouldn't I be doing something logical that has a meaning? Why should I not remove that thing which stands obstructing the way, these conflicting wills? Why? And what does that represent in the being? Why is it there? If it were put there, would it not help instead of harming me?" And so on.
And little by little, little by little, you see clearer and then you see why you are made like that, what is the thing you have got to do - that for which you are born. And then, quite naturally, since all is organised for this thing to happen, the path becomes straight and you can say beforehand: "It is in this way that it will happen." And when things come from outside to try and upset all that, you are able to say: "No, I accept this, for it helps; I reject that, for that harms." And then, after a few years, you curb yourself as you curb a horse: you do whatever you like, in the way you like and you go wherever you like.
It seems to me this is worth the trouble. I believe it is the most interesting thing.
...
You must have a great deal of sincerity, a little courage and perseverance and then a sort of mental curiosity, you understand, curious, seeking to know, interested, wanting to learn. To love to learn: that, one must have in one's nature. To find it impossible to stand before something grey, all hazy, in which nothing is seen clearly and which gives you quite an unpleasant feeling, for you do not know where you begin and where you end, what is yours and what is not yours and what is settled and what is not settled - what is this pulp-like thing you call yourself in which things get intermingled and act upon one another without even your being aware of it? You ask yourself: "But why have I done this?" You know nothing about it. "And why have I felt that?" You don't know that, either. And then, you are thrown into a world outside that is only fog and you are thrown into a world inside that is also for you another kind of fog, still more impenetrable, in which you live, like a cork thrown upon the waters and the waves carry it away or cast it into the air, and it drops and rolls on. That is quite an unpleasant state. I do not know, but to me it appears unpleasant.
To see clearly, to see one's way, where one is going, why one is going there, how one is to go there and what one is going to do and what is the kind of relation with others... But that is a problem so wonderfully interesting - it is interesting - and you can always discover things every minute! One's work is never finished.
There is a time, there is a certain state of consciousness when you have the feeling that you are in that condition with all the weight of the world lying heavy upon you and besides you are going in blinkers and do not know where you are going, but there is something which is pushing you. And that is truly a very unpleasant condition. And there is another moment when one draws oneself up and is able to see what is there above, and one becomes it; then one looks at the world as though from the top of a very very high mountain and one sees all that is happening below; then one can choose one's way and follow it. That is a more pleasant condition. This then is truly the truth, you are upon earth for that, surely. All individual beings and all the little concentrations of consciousness were created to do this work. It is the very reason for existence: to be able to become fully conscious of a certain sum of vibrations representing an individual being and put order there and find one's way and follow it.
And so, as men do not know it and do not do it, life comes and gives them a blow here: "Oh! that hurts", then a blow there: "Ah! that's hurting me." And the thing goes on like that and all the time it is like that. And all the time they are getting pain somewhere. They suffer, they cry, they groan. But it is simply due to that reason, there is no other: it is that they have not done that little work. If, when they were quite young, there had been someone to teach them to do the work and they had done it without losing time, they could have gone through life gloriously and instead of suffering they would have been all-powerful masters of their destiny.
This is not to say that necessarily all things would become pleasant. It is not at all that. But your reaction towards things becomes the true reaction and instead of suffering, you learn; instead of being miserable, you go forward and progress. After all, I believe it is for this that you are here - so that there is someone who can tell you: "There, well, try that. It is worth trying." ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 199,#KEYS
247:[The Gods and Their Worlds]
[...] According to traditions and occult schools, all these zones of realities, these planes of realities have got different names; they have been classified in a different way, but there is an essential analogy, and if you go back far enough into the traditions, you see only the words changing according to the country and the language. Even now, the experiences of Western occultists and those of Eastern occultists offer great similarities. All who set out on the discovery of these invisible worlds and make a report of what they saw, give a very similar description, whether they be from here or there; they use different words, but the experience is very similar and the handling of forces is the same.
This knowledge of the occult worlds is based on the existence of subtle bodies and of subtle worlds corresponding to those bodies. They are what the psychological method calls "states of consciousness", but these states of consciousness really correspond to worlds. The occult procedure consists then in being aware of these various inner states of being or subtle bodies and in becoming sufficiently a master of them so as to be able to go out of them successively, one after another. There is indeed a whole scale of subtleties, increasing or decreasing according to the direction in which you go, and the occult procedure consists in going out of a denser body into a subtler body and so on again, up to the most ethereal regions. You go, by successive exteriorisations, into bodies or worlds more and more subtle. It is somewhat as if every time you passed into another dimension. The fourth dimension of the physicists is nothing but the scientific transcription of an occult knowledge. To give another image, one can say that the physical body is at the centre - it is the most material, the densest and also the smallest - and the inner bodies, more subtle, overflow more and more the central physical body; they pass through it, extending themselves farther and farther, like water evaporating from a porous vase and forming a kind of steam all around. And the greater the subtlety, the more the extension tends to unite with that of the universe: one ends by universalising oneself. And it is altogether a concrete process which gives an objective experience of invisible worlds and even enables one to act in these worlds.
There are, then, only a very small number of people in the West who know that these gods are not merely subjective and imaginary - more or less wildly imaginary - but that they correspond to a universal truth.
All these regions, all these domains are filled with beings who exist, each in its own domain, and if you are awake and conscious on a particular plane - for instance, if on going out of a more material body you awake on some higher plane, you have the same relation with the things and people of that plane as you had with the things and people of the material world. That is to say, there exists an entirely objective relation that has nothing to do with the idea you may have of these things. Naturally, the resemblance is greater and greater as you approach the physical world, the material world, and there even comes a time when the one region has a direct action upon the other. In any case, in what Sri Aurobindo calls the overmental worlds, you will find a concrete reality absolutely independent of your personal experience; you go back there and again find the same things, with the differences that have occurred during your absence. And you have relations with those beings that are identical with the relations you have with physical beings, with this difference that the relation is more plastic, supple and direct - for example, there is the capacity to change the external form, the visible form, according to the inner state you are in. But you can make an appointment with someone and be at the appointed place and find the same being again, with certain differences that have come about during your absence; it is entirely concrete with results entirely concrete.
One must have at least a little of this experience in order to understand these things. Otherwise, those who are convinced that all this is mere human imagination and mental formation, who believe that these gods have such and such a form because men have thought them to be like that, and that they have certain defects and certain qualities because men have thought them to be like that - all those who say that God is made in the image of man and that he exists only in human thought, all these will not understand; to them this will appear absolutely ridiculous, madness. One must have lived a little, touched the subject a little, to know how very concrete the thing is.
Naturally, children know a good deal if they have not been spoilt. There are so many children who return every night to the same place and continue to live the life they have begun there. When these faculties are not spoilt with age, you can keep them with you. At a time when I was especially interested in dreams, I could return exactly to a place and continue a work that I had begun: supervise something, for example, set something in order, a work of organisation or of discovery, of exploration. You go until you reach a certain spot, as you would go in life, then you take a rest, then you return and begin again - you begin the work at the place where you left off and you continue it. And you perceive that there are things which are quite independent of you, in the sense that changes of which you are not at all the author, have taken place automatically during your absence.
But for this, you must live these experiences yourself, you must see them yourself, live them with sufficient sincerity and spontaneity in order to see that they are independent of any mental formation. For you can do the opposite also, and deepen the study of the action of mental formation upon events. This is very interesting, but it is another domain. And this study makes you very careful, very prudent, because you become aware of how far you can delude yourself. So you must study both, the dream and the occult reality, in order to see what is the essential difference between the two. The one depends upon us; the other exists in itself; entirely independent of the thought that we have of it.
When you have worked in that domain, you recognise in fact that once a subject has been studied and something has been learnt mentally, it gives a special colour to the experience; the experience may be quite spontaneous and sincere, but the simple fact that the subject was known and studied lends a particular quality. Whereas if you had learnt nothing about the question, if you knew nothing at all, the transcription would be completely spontaneous and sincere when the experience came; it would be more or less adequate, but it would not be the outcome of a previous mental formation.
Naturally, this occult knowledge or this experience is not very frequent in the world, because in those who do not have a developed inner life, there are veritable gaps between the external consciousness and the inmost consciousness; the linking states of being are missing and they have to be constructed. So when people enter there for the first time, they are bewildered, they have the impression they have fallen into the night, into nothingness, into non-being!
I had a Danish friend, a painter, who was like that. He wanted me to teach him how to go out of the body; he used to have interesting dreams and thought that it would be worth the trouble to go there consciously. So I made him "go out" - but it was a frightful thing! When he was dreaming, a part of his mind still remained conscious, active, and a kind of link existed between this active part and his external being; then he remembered some of his dreams, but it was a very partial phenomenon. And to go out of one's body means to pass gradually through all the states of being, if one does the thing systematically. Well, already in the subtle physical, one is almost de-individualised, and when one goes farther, there remains nothing, for nothing is formed or individualised.
Thus, when people are asked to meditate or told to go within, to enter into themselves, they are in agony - naturally! They have the impression that they are vanishing. And with reason: there is nothing, no consciousness!
These things that appear to us quite natural and evident, are, for people who know nothing, wild imagination. If, for example, you transplant these experiences or this knowledge to the West, well, unless you have been frequenting the circles of occultists, they stare at you with open eyes. And when you have turned your back, they hasten to say, "These people are cranks!" Now to come back to the gods and conclude. It must be said that all those beings who have never had an earthly existence - gods or demons, invisible beings and powers - do not possess what the Divine has put into man: the psychic being. And this psychic being gives to man true love, charity, compassion, a deep kindness, which compensate for all his external defects.
In the gods there is no fault because they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint: as gods, it is their manner of being. But if you take a higher point of view, if you have a higher vision, a vision of the whole, you see that they lack certain qualities that are exclusively human. By his capacity of love and self-giving, man can have as much power as the gods and even more, when he is not egoistic, when he has surmounted his egoism.
If he fulfils the required condition, man is nearer to the Supreme than the gods are. He can be nearer. He is not so automatically, but he has the power to be so, the potentiality.
If human love manifested itself without mixture, it would be all-powerful. Unfortunately, in human love there is as much love of oneself as of the one loved; it is not a love that makes you forget yourself. - 4 November 1958
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III, 355
,#KEYS
248:Mental Education
OF ALL lines of education, mental education is the most widely known and practised, yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient.
Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. And when a child has been made to undergo, for a number of years, a methodical training which is more like cramming than true schooling, it is considered that whatever is necessary for his mental development has been done. Nothing of the kind. Even conceding that the training is given with due measure and discrimination and does not permanently damage the brain, it cannot impart to the human mind the faculties it needs to become a good and useful instrument. The schooling that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a system of gymnastics to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulations given to these various branches each constitute a special and well-defined language.
A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five principal phases. Normally these phases follow one after another, but in exceptional individuals they may alternate or even proceed simultaneously. These five phases, in brief, are:
(1) Development of the power of concentration, the capacity of attention.
(2) Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness.
(3) Organisation of one's ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life.
(4) Thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants.
(5) Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.
It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations on points of detail can be given.
Undeniably, what most impedes mental progress in children is the constant dispersion of their thoughts. Their thoughts flutter hither and thither like butterflies and they have to make a great effort to fix them. Yet this capacity is latent in them, for when you succeed in arousing their interest, they are capable of a good deal of attention. By his ingenuity, therefore, the educator will gradually help the child to become capable of a sustained effort of attention and a faculty of more and more complete absorption in the work in hand. All methods that can develop this faculty of attention from games to rewards are good and can all be utilised according to the need and the circumstances. But it is the psychological action that is most important and the sovereign method is to arouse in the child an interest in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for learning more and always more.
For that, to attention and concentration should be added observation, precise recording and faithfulness of memory. This faculty of observation can be developed by varied and spontaneous exercises, making use of every opportunity that presents itself to keep the child's thought wakeful, alert and prompt. The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart, mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know.
This will bring us quite naturally to the second phase of development in which the mind should be widened and enriched.
You will gradually show the child that everything can become an interesting subject for study if it is approached in the right way. The life of every day, of every moment, is the best school of all, varied, complex, full of unexpected experiences, problems to be solved, clear and striking examples and obvious consequences. It is so easy to arouse healthy curiosity in children, if you answer with intelligence and clarity the numerous questions they ask. An interesting reply to one readily brings others in its train and so the attentive child learns without effort much more than he usually does in the classroom. By a choice made with care and insight, you should also teach him to enjoy good reading-matter which is both instructive and attractive. Do not be afraid of anything that awakens and pleases his imagination; imagination develops the creative mental faculty and through it study becomes living and the mind develops in joy.
In order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of his mind, one should see not only that he studies many varied topics, but above all that a single subject is approached in various ways, so that the child understands in a practical manner that there are many ways of facing the same intellectual problem, of considering it and solving it. This will remove all rigidity from his brain and at the same time it will make his thinking richer and more supple and prepare it for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis. In this way also the child will be imbued with the sense of the extreme relativity of mental learning and, little by little, an aspiration for a truer source of knowledge will awaken in him.
Indeed, as the child grows older and progresses in his studies, his mind too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid chaos in one's thoughts. All contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. It is always good to consider every problem from all possible standpoints so as to avoid partiality and exclusiveness; but if the thought is to be active and creative, it must, in every case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the points of view adopted. And if you want to make the totality of your thoughts into a dynamic and constructive force, you must also take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of this synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organise and harmonise.
It goes without saying that this work of organisation cannot be done once and for all. The mind, if it is to keep its vigour and youth, must progress constantly, revise its notions in the light of new knowledge, enlarge its frame-work to include fresh notions and constantly reclassify and reorganise its thoughts, so that each of them may find its true place in relation to the others and the whole remain harmonious and orderly.
All that has just been said concerns the speculative mind, the mind that learns. But learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, which is at least equally important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to form and thus prepare action. This very important part of mental activity has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing and disciplining this faculty of formation; and as soon as they try it, they have to face difficulties so great that they appear almost insurmountable.
And yet control over this formative activity of the mind is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can say that without it no mental mastery is possible. As far as study is concerned, all ideas are acceptable and should be included in the synthesis, whose very function is to become more and more rich and complex; but where action is concerned, it is just the opposite. The ideas that are accepted for translation into action should be strictly controlled and only those that agree with the general trend of the central idea forming the basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be set before the central idea; if it finds a logical place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be rejected so that it can have no influence on the action. This work of mental purification should be done very regularly in order to secure a complete control over one's actions.
For this purpose, it is good to set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order. Once the habit is acquired, you can maintain control over your thoughts even during work and action, allowing only those which are useful for what you are doing to come to the surface. Particularly, if you have continued to cultivate the power of concentration and attention, only the thoughts that are needed will be allowed to enter the active external consciousness and they then become all the more dynamic and effective. And if, in the intensity of concentration, it becomes necessary not to think at all, all mental vibration can be stilled and an almost total silence secured. In this silence one can gradually open to the higher regions of the mind and learn to record the inspirations that come from there.
But even before reaching this point, silence in itself is supremely useful, because in most people who have a somewhat developed and active mind, the mind is never at rest. During the day, its activity is kept under a certain control, but at night, during the sleep of the body, the control of the waking state is almost completely removed and the mind indulges in activities which are sometimes excessive and often incoherent. This creates a great stress which leads to fatigue and the diminution of the intellectual faculties.
The fact is that like all the other parts of the human being, the mind too needs rest and it will not have this rest unless we know how to provide it. The art of resting one's mind is something to be acquired. Changing one's mental activity is certainly one way of resting; but the greatest possible rest is silence. And as far as the mental faculties are concerned a few minutes passed in the calm of silence are a more effective rest than hours of sleep.
When one has learned to silence the mind at will and to concentrate it in receptive silence, then there will be no problem that cannot be solved, no mental difficulty whose solution cannot be found. When it is agitated, thought becomes confused and impotent; in an attentive tranquillity, the light can manifest itself and open up new horizons to man's capacity. Bulletin, November 1951
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:There is a certain pleasure in weeping. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 2:Nothing is certain by uncertainty. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 3:There is a certain kind of pleasure in weeping. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 4:The only certain freedom's in departure. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 5:In a certain sense the Good is comfortless. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 6:In a certain sense all men are historians. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 7:If we don't start, it's certain we can't arrive. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 8:Do not feel absolutely certain of anything. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 9:I'm not a folk-singer. I just sing a certain place. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 10:It is not certain that everything is uncertain. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 11:& 12:Certain kinds of knowledge rob people of their sleep. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 13:Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 14:If a man isn't a certain age, he just isn't interesting. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 15:There is a certain ecstasy in wanting things you can't get. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 16:At certain times I like sex - like after a cigarette. ~ rodney-dangerfield, @wisdomtrove 17:How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream? ~ rene-descartes, @wisdomtrove 18:One is certain of nothing but the truth of one's own emotions. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 19:Anything that is not funny at a certain point will be funny. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 20:Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 21:In every writer there is a certain amount of the scavenger. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 22:Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face. ~ albert-camus, @wisdomtrove 23:To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 24:A certain color tones you up. It's the concentration of timbres. ~ henri-matisse, @wisdomtrove 25:The more certain our knowledge the less we know. ~ georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel, @wisdomtrove 26:A part of them has grown very attached to a certain way of life. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 27:It is certain that an atom of goodness on the path of faith is never lost. ~ rumi, @wisdomtrove 28:Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 29:The more you ask certain questions, the more dangerous they become. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 30:There is a certain drop of a type of kundalini when you have sex. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 31:To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 32:Before you speak, make certain you have something worthwhile to say. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 33:Heroes, it would seem, exist always and a certain worship of them. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 34:I feel much freer now that I am certain the pope is the Antichrist. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 35:It is certain that we cannot escape anguish, for we are anguish. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 36:To be poor, and to seem poor, is a certain method never to rise. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 37:When death is so certain, it is better to die for a good cause. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 38:There's a certain kind of scepticism that can't bear uncertainty. ~ rupert-sheldrake, @wisdomtrove 39:Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 40:If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 41:If you have no major purpose, you are drifting toward certain failure. ~ napoleon-hill, @wisdomtrove 42:The one certain thing was that death never came at an expected moment. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 43:But probably every age gets, within certain limits, the science it deserves. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 44:Happiness is a certain activity of soul in conformity with perfect goodness. ~ aristotle, @wisdomtrove 45:Make certain that your goals are not measured in comparison with others. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 46:We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 47:As we gain knowledge, we do not become more certain, we become certain of more. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 48:The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 49:There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl's complexion. ~ audrey-hepburn, @wisdomtrove 50:There is nothing more certain and unchanging than uncertainty and change. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 51:When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 52:In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 53:Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 54:The imagination should be allowed a certain amount of time to browse around. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 55:In a certain sense, Zen is feeling life instead of feeling something about life. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 56:There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 57:When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 58:I never can feel certain of any truth, but from a clear perception of its beauty. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 59:No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 60:We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 61:A promise must be about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling a certain way. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 62:As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 63:For whatever the future holds, one thing is certain... It just won't be the same. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove 64:The more we are certain what good is, the more we shall see good in everything. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 65:If you're certain, you're certainly wrong, because nothing deserves certainty. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 66:True, Heaven prohibits certain pleasures; but one can generally negotiate a compromise. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 67:I am devilishly afraid, that's certain; but ... I'll sing, that I may seem valiant. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 68:The only unchangable certainty in life is that nothing is unchangable or certain. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 69:Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 70:Be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 71:He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 72:One thing is certain in business, you and everyone around you will make mistakes. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 73:There is a certain pleasure in weeping; grief finds in tears both a satisfaction and a cure. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 74:A certain blue enters your soul. A certain red has an effect on your blood-pressure. ~ henri-matisse, @wisdomtrove 75:A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 76:Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It's about feeling the way you feel. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 77:Certain things, if not seen as lovely or detestable, are not being correctly seen at all. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 78:The most certain way to make a man your enemy is to tell him you esteem him such. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 79:We may think God wants actions of a certain kind, but God wants people of a certain kind. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 80:Bravery ceases to be bravery at a certain point, and becomes mere foolhardiness. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 81:I can face anything, except the future, and certain parts of the past and present. ~ ashleigh-brilliant, @wisdomtrove 82:It's a certain kind of immortality, because those Disney films do go on and on and on. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 83:Certain other societies may respect the rule of force& 84:I don‚Äôt need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends I can be certain of. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 85:Except in pure mathematics, nothing is known for certain (although much is certainly false). ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 86:Fanatical religion driven to a certain point is almost as bad as none at all, but not quite. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 87:When I think of all the books still left for me to read, I am certain of further happiness. ~ jules-renard, @wisdomtrove 88:Devotion is a certain act of the will by which man gives himself promptly to divine service. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 89:To acheive happiness, we should make certain that we are never without an important goal. ~ earl-nightingale, @wisdomtrove 90:When experience is viewed in a certain way, it presents nothing but doorways into the soul. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 91:Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 92:Devotion is a certain act of the will by which man gives himself promptly to divine service. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 93:Fanatical religion driven to a certain point is almost as bad as none at all, but not quite. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 94:I am certain that the safest way to defend your character is never to say a word about it. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 95:A certain degree of neurosis is of inestimable value as a drive, especially to a psychologist. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 96:Certain things in life simply have to be experienced and never explained. Love is such a thing. ~ paulo-coelho, @wisdomtrove 97:Entities can see a certain amount because they are outside of the physical dimensional plane. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 98:History has to move in a certain direction, even if it has to be pushed that way by neurotics. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 99:I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 100:Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 101:What man is really anti-progressive? For he is only anti-certain-people's-visions-for-the-future. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 102:Physics is based on the assumption that certain fundamental features of nature are constant. ~ rupert-sheldrake, @wisdomtrove 103:The one fact about the future of which we can be certain is that it will be utterly fantastic. ~ arthur-c-carke, @wisdomtrove 104:Now I see that there is no such thing as love unreturn'd. The pay is certain, one way or another. ~ walt-whitman, @wisdomtrove 105:Even if I were certain that the world would end tomorrow, I would plant a tree this very day ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 106:Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it? ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 107:I don't believe in talking down to children. I don't believe in talking down to any certain segment. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 108:So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 109:We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 110:When a great poet has lived, certain things have been done once for all, and cannot be achieved again. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 111:Women want certain things in marriage& 112:Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill. ~ johann-wolfgang-von-goethe, @wisdomtrove 113:Gold gives to the ugliest thing a certain charming air, For that without it were else a miserable affair. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 114:Most people are searching for a path to success that is both easy and certain. Most paths are neither. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 115:Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 116:I feel that there's a certain danger in always being in a lovely rural setting. You can lose touch. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 117:The good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 118:The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 119:There are certain things that cannot be adequately explained to a virgin either by words or pictures. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 120:You can successfully force people to follow a certain course, but you cannot force them to understand it. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 121:A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 122:Any truth is only true up to a certain point. When one oversteps the mark, it becomes a non-truth. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 123:Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them. ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove 124:From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 125:The fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 126:Heaven forbids, it is true, certain gratifications, but there are ways and means of compounding such matters. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 127:I think maybe there could be some restrictions that there had to be a certain amount of training taken. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 128:Only two things are certain: the universe and human stupidity and I'm not certain about the universe. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 129:Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 130:I am certain that I never did grow in grace one-half so much anywhere as I have upon the bed of pain. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 131:Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 132:This desire [to write] is rather strange all the same and is not without a certain "cracked" quality. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 133:If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 134:If you drink much from a bottle marked & 135:Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 136:Even people who aren’t geniuses can outthink the rest of mankind if they develop certain thinking habits. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 137:In every crowd are certain persons who seem just like the rest, yet they bear amazing messages. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove 138:Know for certain that there is no power in the universe to injure us unless we first injure ourselves. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 139:The Gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies; they are the trees and the plants and the seeds. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 140:We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 141:Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it - there is a certain shameful solidarity. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 142:Not only don't I know what tomorrow will bring, I'm still not entirely certain what yesterday brought? ~ ashleigh-brilliant, @wisdomtrove 143:The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 144:If you fight with all your might, there is a chance of life; where as death is certain if you cling to your corner ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 145:If you looked for things to make you feel hurt and wretched and unnecessary, you were certain to find them. ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 146:Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain. (Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.) ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 147:I was never accepted into certain parts of New England society because my grandfather was an Irish barkeep. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 148:Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. ~ thomas-edison, @wisdomtrove 149:There are certain things I will automate, but when it comes to quality control, I want to keep a very close eye. ~ tim-ferris, @wisdomtrove 150:There's a certain slant of light, On winter afternoons, That oppresses, like the weight Of cathedral tunes. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 151:Business is never as healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching for what it gets. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 152:Certain things, certain events, seem inexplicable only for a time: up to the moment when the veil is torn aside. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 153:He said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 154:A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other, and we then know how to meet him. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 155:As for the demented, I hold it certain that all beings deprived of reason are thus afflicted only by the Devil. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 156:In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 157:The certain mark by which a Christian community can be recognized is the preaching of the gospel in its purity. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 158:The person who does not believe in miracles surely makes it certain that he or she will never take part in one. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 159:We must not regard what or how the world esteems us, so we have the Word pure, and are certain of our doctrine. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 160:One point is certain, that truth is one and immutable; until the jurors all agree, they cannot all be right. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 161:There is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 162:One is more certain to influence men, to produce more effect on them, by absurdities than by sensible ideas. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 163:Shows itself in the notion that what may be objectively true may in the mouth of certain people become false. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 164:This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. ~ francis-bacon, @wisdomtrove 165:We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 166:An innate gift and a certain amount of intelligence are important, but what really pays is ordinary experience. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 167:I just couldn't make the grade as a hack-that, like everything else, requires a certain practiced excellence. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 168:It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 169:It's almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you'll let the whole world in on only for a moment. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 170:Put yourself in the other man's place and then you will know why he thinks certain things and does certain deeds. ~ elbert-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 171:Something, or something awful or something wonderful was certain to happen on every day in this part of Africa. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 172:We are often most in the dark when we are the most certain, and the most enlightened when we are the most confused. ~ m-scott-peck, @wisdomtrove 173:We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 174:When any society says that I cannot marry a certain person, that society has cut off a segment of my freedom, ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 175:When a thought is powerful, it is because it has a lot of belief in it... At a certain point, thoughts become irrelevant. ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 176:Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 177:Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 178:Once you reach a certain age, you're either slowly dying or slowly being reborn. I want to choose the latter. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 179:A republic cannot succeed, till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 180:For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 181:Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 182:Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 183:This is the reason why our Theology is certain: because it seizes us from ourselves and places us outside ourselves. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 184:In a delightful garden, sowing, planting or digging are not hardship but are done with a zeal and a certain pleasure. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 185:If you're not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it's almost certain you're not reaching your potential as a leader. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 186:If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 187:In a certain sense you deny the existence of this world. You explain life as a state of rest, a state of rest in motion. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 188:In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 189:Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 190:Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 191:Hospitality, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging. ~ ambrose-bierce, @wisdomtrove 192:Human life is proverbially uncertain; few things are more certain than the solvency of a life-insurance company. ~ sir-arthur-eddington, @wisdomtrove 193:Never teach your child to be cunning or you may be certain you will be one of the very first victims of his shrewdness. ~ josh-billings, @wisdomtrove 194:Writing is finally a series of permissions you give yourself to be expressive in certain ways. To leap. To fly. To fail. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 195:A newspaper that reduces its coverage of the news important to its community is certain to reduce its readership as well ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 196:At a certain depth of distress, the poor, in their stupor, groan no longer over evil, and are no longer thankful for good. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 197:I believe we must be strong militarily, but beyond a certain point military strength can become a national weakness. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 198:I change during the course of a day. I wake and I'm one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I'm somebody else. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 199:Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 200:There is a certain destiny of everything, regulated by the foreknowledge and providence of God in His works. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 201:When once you have got hold of a vulgar joke, you may be certain that you have got hold of a subtle and spiritual idea. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 202:Certain forms of ammunition have no legitimate sporting, recreational, or self-defense use and thus should be prohibited. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 203:The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 204:There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism. ~ alexander-hamilton, @wisdomtrove 205:It is necessary to run risks, to follow certain paths and to abandon others. No one can make a choice without feeling fear. ~ paulo-coelho, @wisdomtrove 206:One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 207:In an evolutionary perspective, the rational mind takes a certain distance and no further, & we must be able to transcend it. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 208:Just as, with the radio, there are certain things that you become fond of,and you welcome them and resent the new things ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 209:One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it& 210:Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 211:It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior. ~ nathaniel-branden, @wisdomtrove 212:Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove 213:Of all the things I've done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 214:For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesnt begin at all. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 215:I have certain moral parameters that I do not cross in writing; I don't write about adultery or kids having premarital sex. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 216:In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 217:The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 218:There is a certain amount of dissatisfaction that goes with knowing your time, talent and abilities are not being properly used. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 219:Every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope; and the one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 220:Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 221:God could not have given this promise, except from love and grace; therefore it is quite certain his Word will be fulfilled. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 222:I'm the idea of the human imagination, which, when you think about it, is the only thing we can really be certain ISN'T imaginary. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove 223:We have a spiritual community but everyone lives where they want to. I recommend certain areas to live because of their power. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 224:While you may have made money doing something a certain way yesterday, there's no reason to believe you'll succeed at it tomorrow. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 225:Writer or painter god-parents are notoriously unreliable. That is, there is certain before long to be a cooling of friendship. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 226:I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 227:In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 228:It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have preference above the accurate. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 229:No pleasure is evil in itself; but the means by which certain pleasures are gained bring pains many times greater than the pleasures. ~ epicurus, @wisdomtrove 230:One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else to give it up. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 231:There are certain areas that you can move to on the earth that will empower you and there are certain areas that can drain you. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 232:There is one certain criterion by which you can measure your success in this practice: the degree of peace that you feel within. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 233:We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit. He who does not do so, understands not the force of reason. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 234:Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to believe in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 235:Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony is the most certain mode of bringing either into contempt. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 236:There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 237:Always, always, always, always, always do what you are afraid to do. Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 238:The whole world is incapable of judging either right or wrong. but it is certain that actionless action can judge both right and wrong. ~ zhuangzi, @wisdomtrove 239:I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am most certain of the first time. ~ josh-billings, @wisdomtrove 240:I think that you think that a certain something is not all that it could be, when, in fact, it is all that it should be, and more! ~ jerry-seinfeld, @wisdomtrove 241:Human use, population, and technology have reached that certain stage where mother Earth no longer accepts our presence with silence. ~ dalai-lama, @wisdomtrove 242:Likewise grace and glory are referred to the same genus, since grace is nothing other than a certain first beginning of glory in us. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 243:Optimism is a tool with a certain clear set of benefits: it fights depression, it promotes achievement and produces better health. ~ martin-seligman, @wisdomtrove 244:That's what a community is: taking for granted certain assumptions, not having to start from zero every time. This is no longer true. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 245:I find that when I've seen a certain number of people my mind becomes like an old match box - the part one strikes on, I mean. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 246:If you grow up in a very strong religion like Catholicism you certainly cultivate in yourself a certain taste for the intensity of ideas. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 247:Likewise grace and glory are referred to the same genus, since grace is nothing other than a certain first beginning of glory in us. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 248:No person was every rightly understood until they had been first regarded with a certain feeling, not of tolerance, but of sympathy. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 249:The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 250:The Cross to me is certain salvation. The Cross is that which I ever adore. The Cross of the Lord is with me. The Cross is my refuge. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 251:The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 252:As nobody can possibly tell me whether one's writing is bad or good, the only certain value is one's own pleasure. I am sure of that. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 253:I can't say whether we had more wit among us now than usual, but I am certain we had more laughing, which answered the end as well. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 254:Once we reach a certain age, we tend to recalibrate our expectations. We expect less from the world once we've seen it up close. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 255:The Cross to me is certain salvation. The Cross is that which I ever adore. The Cross of the Lord is with me. The Cross is my refuge. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 256:Winning Strategists are certain of triumph before seeking a challenge. Losing Strategists are certain to challenge before seeking a triumph. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 257:At a certain stage in the path of devotion, the devotee finds satisfaction in God with form, and at another stage, in God without it. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 258:Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 259:It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 260:Once you are able to make your request in such a way that you will be quite certain of its fulfillment, then the fulfillment will come. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 261:Whatever you believe cosmologically, we all know the tears of the world. We each carry a certain measure of those tears in our hearts. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 262:It is a striving to attain the best. To throttle it would mean to stop all progress. Certain men do not need to compete. They are pioneers. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 263:As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 264:The one absolute certain way to bring this nation to ruin ... would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 265:We treat our encounters with them with carefree casualness. We are certain that our relationships will naturally take care of themselves. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 266:An aggressive drug-testing program would cut down on certain abuses, but its never going to catch everyone - or even close to everyone. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 267:God gives us hopes and dreams for certain things to happen in our lives, but He doesn't always allow us to see the exact timing of His plan. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 268:The faith which saves is not one single act done on a certain day: it is an act continued and persevered in throughout the life of man. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 269:In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend. ~ alexander-hamilton, @wisdomtrove 270:The laws of Congress are restricted to a certain sphere, and when they depart from this sphere, they are no longer supreme or binding. ~ alexander-hamilton, @wisdomtrove 271:We are... a Divine work of art, something that God is making... something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 272:This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 273:Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. ~ og-mandino, @wisdomtrove 274:Winning is based to a certain extent upon personal power. If you have enough personal power you tend to win. If you don't, you tend to lose. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 275:In political administration, no problem is ever simple. It can never be reduced to the question whether a certain measure is good or not. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 276:It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 277:One must be truthful and honest in his approach; a constant independent inquiry and not blindly following a certain blue print laid down by others ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 278:There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 279:When any opinion leads us into absurdities, 'tis certainly false; but 'tis not certain an opinion is false, because 'tis of dangerous consequence. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 280:If one harbours anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 281:There is in every man a certain feeling that he has been what he is from all eternity, and by no means become such in time. ~ friedrich-wilhelm-joseph-schelling, @wisdomtrove 282:All souls do not reach enlightenment. Some souls reach a certain point and stay there. Some souls actually decline and go into different cycles. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 283:A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end. ~ aristotle, @wisdomtrove 284:Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain facts, principles, or data, to reason from, must be established, admitted, or denied. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 285:It takes a certain amount of intelligence and imagination to realize the extraordinary queerness and mysteriousness of the world in which we live. ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 286:I found that there were these incredibly great people at doing certain things, and you couldn't replace one of these people with fifty average people. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 287:It is the most ungodly and dangerous business to abandon the certain and revealed will of God in order to search in to the hidden mysteries of God. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 288:Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some peculiar theme of complaint on which he dwells in his moments of dejection. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 289:For some reason, there is a purity to the Swiss Alps - a certain energy - that is very reminiscent of my snowboarding experiences in the Himalayas. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 290:It is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove 291:I wish to God I knew as much about writing as I did when I was 19. I was absolutely certain about most things then. Also, I suspect, more accurate. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 292:One thing is certain in business: you will make mistakes. When you are pushing the boundaries, mistakes are inevitable-how you react is important. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 293:Tantra has to do with the reconciliation of opposites. All the yogas recommend that you avoid certain experiences. In tantra there is no avoidance. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 294:To men of a certain type The suspicion that they are incapable of loving Is as disturbing to their self-esteem As, in cruder men, the fear of impotence. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 295:I am certain and have always stressed that the destination of mankind is to become more and more humane. The ideal of humanity has to be revived. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 296:It is certain that I cannot always distinguish my own thoughts from those I read, because what I read becomes the very substance and text of my mind. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 297:I wrote my friend a letter using a highlighting pen. But he could not read it, he thought I was trying to show him certain parts of a piece of paper. ~ mitch-hedberg, @wisdomtrove 298:When you get free from certain fixed concepts of the way the world is, you find it is far more subtle, and far more miraculous, than you thought it was. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 299:Ignoramus, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about. ~ ambrose-bierce, @wisdomtrove 300:Intuition is the undoubting conception of a pure and attentive mind, which arises from the light of reason alone, and is more certain than deduction. ~ rene-descartes, @wisdomtrove 301:It is a mere illusion that, above a certain income, the personal desires will be satisfied and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 302:On certain continents poverty is more spiritual than material, a poverty that consists of loneliness, discouragement, and the lack of meaning in life. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 303:Racial segregation must be seen for what it is, and that is an evil system, a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 304:The fact is that certain themes cannot be celebrated in words, and tyranny is one of them. No one ever wrote a good book in praise of the Inquisition. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 305:Be concerned with the welfare of others without any sense of self-importance that one is better because one meditates or leads a certain type of life. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 306:Some people have a difficult time facing truth and reality. They prefer to live in a make-believe world, pretending that certain things aren't happening. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 307:What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat? ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 308:I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 309:I'm sure most parents read to their children to explain what certain things mean. So books are a good way to convey a message to anybody. Everybody reads. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 310:It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven." ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 311:Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 312:Remember that the future is neither ours nor wholly not ours, so that we may neither count on it as sure to come nor abandon hope of it as certain not to be. ~ epicurus, @wisdomtrove 313:The thing about the banjo is when you first hear it, it strikes many people as what's that? There's something very compelling about it to certain people. ~ steve-martin, @wisdomtrove 314:We may be together for another six months a year there’s no knowing. At the end we’re certain to be apart. Do you realize how utterly alone we shall be? ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 315:For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 316:I feel certain that I'm going mad again, I feel we can't go thru another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 317:We are certain that there is forgiveness, because there is a Gospel, and the very essence of the Gospel lies in the proclamation of the pardon of sin. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 318:We cannot possess the truth fully until it has entered into the very substance of our life by good habits, and by a certain perfection of moral activity. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 319:A certain amount of distrust is wholesome, but not so much of others as of ourselves; neither vanity or conceit can exist in the same atmosphere with it. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 320:I am certain that to preach the wrath of God with a hard heart, a cold lip, a tearless eye, and an unfeeling spirit is to harden men, not benefit them. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 321:If you really want to channel all of your energy towards higher mysticism, you should realize that sex does drain a certain amount of your occult energy. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 322:It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 323:More than once Jesus deliberately addressed certain issues that quickly diminished the number of onlookers. It was commitment that thinned the ranks. ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 324:It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 325:... men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 326:We should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 327:When I sit in Paris in a cafe, surrounded by people, I don't sit casually - I go over a certain sonata in my head and discover new things all the time. ~ arthur-rubinstein, @wisdomtrove 328:And therefore only the enlightened sovereign and the worthy general who are able to use the most intelligent people as agents are certain to achieve great things. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 329:If you have a great many desires, you will gradually eliminate them one by one, until you allow certain desires to dominate and the others to die away. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 330:There are certain weights in life you simply cannot carry. Your Lord is asking you to set them down and trust Him. What do you say we take God up on His offer? ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 331:To each is given a certain inward talent, a certain outward environment or fortune; to each by wisest combination of these two, a certain maximum capacity. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 332:In war, the general alone can judge of certain arrangements. It depends on him alone to conquer difficulties by his own superior talents and resolution. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 333:It now seems certain that the amino acid sequence of any protein is determined by the sequence of bases in some region of a particular nucleic acid molecule. ~ francis-crick, @wisdomtrove 334:There is no vacuum in the human heart. Certain demolitions take place, and it is well that they do, but on condition that they are followed by reconstructions. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 335:You must come to see every human being Including yourself, As an incarnation In a body or personality, going through a certain Life experience which is functional. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 336:Age may have one side, but assuredly Youth has the other. There is nothing more certain than that both are right, except perhaps that both are wrong. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 337:As my meditative experiences grew, I had wonderful relationships. I met the most wonderful women, who meditated and shared certain understandings that I had. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 338:Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 339:In every science certain things must be accepted as first principles if the subject matter is to be understood; and these first postulates rest upon faith. ~ nicholas-of-cusa, @wisdomtrove 340:Let every man recognize what he is, and be certain that we are all equally priests, that is, we have the same power in the word and in any sacrament whatever. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 341:The trick to keeping your meditation practice alive, not simply consistent but wonderful, is you need to bring a certain will or force into every meditation. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 342:Whatever we thought was certain is no longer certain, and therefore in science probably certain things must be correct, but in human behaviour I am not so sure. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 343:If you want to do a certain thing, you first have to be a certain person. Once you become that certain person, you will not care anymore about doing that certain thing. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 344:I don't think you have to wait for knowledge and balance to come before you seek power because you need a certain amount of power to gain knowledge and balance. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 345:Music in itself carries a whole set of messages which are very, very rich and complex, and the words either serve to exclude certain ones or point up certain others. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 346:There is a certain frame of mind to which a cemetery is, if not an antidote, at least an alleviation. If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 347:Even if we may not always understand why God allows certain things to happen to us, we can know He is able to bring good out of evil, and triumph out of suffering. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 348:If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles! ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 349:We were all born with a certain degree of power. The key to success is discovering this innate power and using it daily to deal with whatever challenges come our way. ~ les-brown, @wisdomtrove 350:An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 351:And although our bodies are bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, they cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 352:Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizing not in believing, but in being and becoming. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 353:I know we loved each other, but distance can do strange things to people and before I was willing to tell you about it, I wanted to be certain that it would last ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 354:More and more I am certain that the only difference between man and animals is that men can count and animals cannot and if they count they mostly do count money. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 355:To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease and lightness. This state is no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 356:As you say, the way string theory requires all these extra dimensions and this comes from certain consistency requirements about how string should behave and so on. ~ roger-penrose, @wisdomtrove 357:Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 358:Perhaps only people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the universe. The others have a certain stickiness, they stick to the mass. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 359:Gertrude Stein did us the most harm when she said, & 360:And for him, who lived in a certain circle, and who required some mental activity such as usually develops with maturity, having views was as necessary as having a hat. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 361:Don't be dismayed by good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends. ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove 362:If you think a certain thought long enough and hard enough, it becomes a fixed belief and you will find yourself behaving on the outside in a manner consistent with it. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 363:Know it for certain that without steady devotion for the Guru and unflinching patience and perseverance, nothing is to be achieved. You must have strict morality. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 364:The law condemns and punishes only actions within certain definite and narrow limits; it thereby justifies, in a way, all similar actions that lie outside those limits. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 365:I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. ... These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death. ~ george-carlin, @wisdomtrove 366:Some places speak distinctly. Certain dark gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 367:A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 368:Certain, when I was born, so long ago, Death drew the tap of life and let it flow; And ever since the tap has done its task, And now there's little but an empty cask. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 369:God cannot be realized through the intellect. Intellect can lead one to a certain extent and no further. It is a matter of faith and experience derived from that faith. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 370:To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge-and therefore, like power. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 371:The people who most affected me were the ones who got right in there with me, who cried with me, but who also had a certain authority, who dared to say what needed saying. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 372:There is a certain beauty and refinement that is often found in our world and it is expensive. It shouldn't necessarily be so. It is just the way our economic system is. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 373:God how I hate new countries: They are older than the old, more sophisticated, much more conceited, only young in a certain puerile vanity more like senility than anything. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 374:The fact that we experience anxiety and annoyance is the certain sign that, in the unconscious, there is an emotional program for happiness that has just been frustrated. ~ thomas-keating, @wisdomtrove 375:All artists have to do that at a certain point. This shift that has to happen between the initial moment of creation and then the consideration of what has been created. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 376:In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 377:In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 378:There are certain sounds that I've found work well in nearly any context. Their function is not so much musical as spatial: they define the edges of the territory of the music. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 379:There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 380:Writing talent is similar to the art of chatting up a girl. You can improve to a certain degree through practice, but basically you are either born with it or you aren't. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 381:In civilized communities men's idiosyncrasies are mitigated by the necessity of conforming to certain rules of behavior. Culture is a mask that hides their faces. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 382:Nirvikalpa samadhi is another matter. I don't feel that's really up to us. That happens at a certain time when our being has gone through countless changes and refinements. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 383:The Christian view is that men were created to be in a certain relationship to God (if we are in that relation to Him, the right relation to one another will follow inevitably). ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 384:To any who know the star field well from one certain reference point, stars are as individual as people. Jump ten parsecs, however, and not even your own sun is recognizable. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 385:War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end; it has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 386:You should be certain that angels are protecting you when you go to sleep. Yea, that they are protecting you also in all your business, whether you enter or leave your home. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 387:All our life passes in this way: we seek rest by struggling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome, rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 388:Although the constant shadow of certain death looms over everyday, the pleasures and joys of life can be so fine and affecting that the heart is nearly stilled in astonishment. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 389:But we are not what the other one needs, still he is certain that I will find great love in my life someday. He is sure of it. After all, he says, beauty attracts beauty. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 390:Love must not entreat,' she added, & 391:The key point to understand is that prosperity is an internal experience, not an external state, and it is an experience that is not tied to having a certain amount of money. ~ shakti-gawain, @wisdomtrove 392:‚Ķa lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper -a phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to make everybody more or less uncomfortable. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 393:We do not worry about being respected in towns through which we pass. But if we are going to remain in one for a certain time, we do worry. How long does this time have to be? ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 394:Art begins when a man, with a purpose of communicating to other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it by certain external signs. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 395:I'm always identifying some fallacy in my own life. I'm sort of making fun of myself by exploring and unpacking just why I'm sort of automatically thrown to be a certain way. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 396:It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 397:It is a most certain truth, that the richer we see ourselves to be, confessing at the same time our poverty, the greater will be our progress, and the more real our humility. ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove 398:Prayer is addressed to the personal God, not because he is personal indeed, I know for certain that he is not personal, because personality is limitation, while God is unlimited. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 399:The Holy Spirit is no Skeptic, & the things He has written in our hearts are not doubts or opinions, but assertions - surer & more certain than sense & life itself. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 400:Only a life lived in a certain spirit is worth living. It is a remarkable fact that a life lived entirely from the ego is dull not only for the person himself but for all concerned. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 401:Definition of a relationship - an enduring, mutually-agreed upon connection or union, which fulfills certain needs of the individuals involved and the society in which they live. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 402:In America ... who is to stop congress from spending too much money. They will not stop themselves, that is certain. Everybody has to think about that now. Who is to stop them. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 403:The art of our time, sacred art included, will necessarily be characterized by a certain poverty, grimness and roughness which correspond to the violent realities of a cruel age. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 404:You can take power from others; you can steal it. It is not a very high-grade power. It will give you a certain amount of access to a better life; but it corrupts the individual. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 405:.. is like a hurricane: once it reaches a certain point, it becomes self-feeding, self-supporting. You laugh not because the jokes are funny but because your own condition is funny. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 406:You seem so clear about who you are. So certain that you are just right as you are, that for all your intelligence and maybe in spite of it, you never seem to need a second opinion. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 407:I thought that culture and education are the shield. An educated person cannot do certain things and, and be educated, you cannot, and there they were, killing children day after day. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 408:It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 409:The idea of the walls of monastery was to keep everybody else out because you wanted to develop a certain type of life. Most people in the world had different ideas on the subject. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 410:There are certain things in war of which the commander alone comprehends the importance. Nothing but his superior firmness and ability can subdue and surmount all difficulties. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 411:After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 412:Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages. And the subjection is always reinforced by morality. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 413:My hopes were high, and I looked every day for some change to take place. What it was to be I knew not, but that it would come I felt certain if I kept on. One day the chance came. ~ andrew-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 414:Prana is an element of energy. Energy is a manifestation of a certain principle which in Indian cosmology they call shakti, or spiritual power. Don't worry about the words too much. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 415:Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 416:There are certain things& 417:God wants our conscience to be certain and sure that it is pleasing to Him. This cannot be done if the conscience is led by its own feelings, but only if it relies on the Word of God. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 418:The word & 419:If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate disobeying these anti-religious laws. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 420:The greatest object in the universe, says a certain philosopher, is a good man struggling with adversity; yet there is still a greater, which is the good man who comes to relieve it. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 421:A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 422:At any given moment, life is completely senseless. But viewed over a period, it seems to reveal itself as an organism existing in time, having a purpose, trending in a certain direction. ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 423:Do codons overlap? In other words, as we read along the genetic message do we find a base which is a member of two or more codons? It now seems fairly certain that codons do not overlap. ~ francis-crick, @wisdomtrove 424:Clothing is art. It's an expression of how you feel. I think that it's not so much a question of a certain style or designer, but of finding the type of clothing that works well for you. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 425:Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 426:It seems likely that most if not all the genetic information in any organism is carried by nucleic acid - usually by DNA, although certain small viruses use RNA as their genetic material. ~ francis-crick, @wisdomtrove 427:Men are not made religious by performing certain actions which are externally good, but they must first have righteous principles, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 428:The patient person accepts a certain amount of failure knowing that it is as important a thread in the fabric of life as is success. Great individuals make great successes out of failure. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 429:Every Gag I tell must be based on truth. No matter how much I may exaggerate it, it must have a certain amount of Truth... . Now Rumor travels Faster, but it don't stay put as long as Truth. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 430:Laws, written, if not on stone tables, yet on the azure of infinitude, in the inner heart of God's creation, certain as life, certain as death, are there, and thou shalt not disobey them. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 431:The entire sweep of human history from the dark ages into the unknown future was considerably less important at the moment than the question of a certain girl and her feelings toward him. ~ arthur-c-carke, @wisdomtrove 432:People want to will their self realization. They want to know what the right thing to do all the time is. There is no right thing. There's no code. There are certain basic recommendations. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 433:Some things are so silly they have a certain brilliance to them. Other things, set as standards for brilliance and therefore exalted by many who don't know why, become tarnished because of it. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 434:The true believer is in a high degree protected against the danger of certain neurotic afflictions; by accepting the universal neurosis he is spared the task of forming a personal neurosis. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 435:Most of us have hoped and prayed for something to happen a certain way, but it didn't. And when this happened, we had a choice to make: to react with offense toward God or to trust Him anyway. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 436:Hate's a growing thing like anything else. It's the inevitable outcome of forcing ideas onto life, of forcing one's deepest instincts; our deepest feelings we force according to certain ideas. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 437:Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate. One thing at least is certain, light has weight. One thing is certain and the rest debate. Light rays, when near the Sun, do not go straight. ~ sir-arthur-eddington, @wisdomtrove 438:Peaceful disputes are maintained when men sincerely believe that they are morally, logically correct about the issues at hand. It is when neither side is really certain that wars are instigated. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 439:Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 440:In no time whatever can small critics entirely eradicate out of living men's hearts a certain altogether peculiar collar reverence for Great Men& 441:i shall imagine life is not worth dying,if (and when)roses complain their beauties are in vain but though mankind persuades itself that every weed's a rose,roses(you feel certain)will only smile ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 442:Sometimes we are to guard our heart... protect it from invasion and keep things safe and secure. Sometimes we should give our heart... let certain qualities out and release them to others ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 443:Legalize racing in every State. Sure people will bet, but they get to see the horses run and you certain can't see General Motors and General Electric and General Utility run when you bet on them. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 444:Some of the highest vibratory places one can visit have become very expensive. They are the domains of the rich. The rich figured out a long time ago that certain neighborhoods have more power. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 445:The great unthankfulness, contempt of God's word, and wilfulness of the world, make me fear that the divine light will soon cease to shine on man, for God's word has ever had its certain course. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 446:Be radical! The reason you feel so miserable is because you put spirituality in a form. You boxed it, franchised it. You decided spirituality was a certain way but then you got stuck in the way. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 447:Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 448:There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 449:There is a proper measure in all things, certain limits beyond which and short of which right is not to be found. Who so cultivates the golden mean avoids the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 450:There is nothing in the world that is not mysterious, but the mystery is more evident in certain things than in others: in the sea, in the eyes of the elders, in the color yellow, and in music. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 451:All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us. ~ immanuel-kant, @wisdomtrove 452:In meditative prayer, one thinks and speaks not only with the mind and lips, but in a certain sense with one's whole being... All good meditative prayer is a conversation of our entire self to God. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 453:It is with books as with women, where a certain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging than that glare of paint and airs and apparel which may dazzle the eye, but reaches not the affections. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 454:Where God's presence is no longer a tenable proposition and where his absence is no longer a felt, indeed overwhelming weight, certain dimensions of thought and creativity are no longer attainable. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 455:If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone. " ~ epictetus, @wisdomtrove 456:What we call a mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and identity. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 457:Consider the reasons which make us certain that we are right, but not the fact that we are certain. If you are not convinced, ignore our certainty. Don't be tempted to substitute our judgment for your own. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 458:Every individual is a center for the manifestation of a certain force. This force has been stored up as the resultant of our previous works, and each one of us is born with this force at our back. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 459:If you want to feel connected to your own purpose, know this for certain: Your purpose will only be found in service to others, and in being connected to the something far greater than your mind/body/ego. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove 460:The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realize about an ecosystem is that it's a system. A system! A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 461:A short story is "a short prose narrative, requiring from a half hour, to one or two hours in its perusal... having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 462:If you are not radiant with joy and friendliness, if you are not filled to overflowing with love and goodwill for all beings and all creatures and all creation, one thing is certain: you do not know God! ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 463:There are certain half-dreaming moods of mind in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 464:The very desire to be certain,to be secure,is the beginning of bondage.It's only when the mind is not caught in the net of certainty,and is not seeking certainty, that it is in a state of discovery. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 465:A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it. ~ ambrose-bierce, @wisdomtrove 466:I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in Heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot, As if a chart were given. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 467:We human beings are born in ego, live in ego, are brought up in ego and will die in ego. We need a certain degree 0f vision when we live in this world for achieving and attaining our goals in life. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 468:Different schools of Zen have evolved, principally the Rinzai and Soto orders. A whole hierarchy has developed for the teaching and practice of Zen. Zen has become, to a certain degree, institutionalized. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 469:We can be certain that God will give us the strength and resources we need to live through any situation in life that he ordains. The will of God will never take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 470:There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in traveling in a stage coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 471:Those skilled at making the enemy move do so by creating a situation to which he must conform; they entice him with something he is certain to take, and with lures of ostensible profit they await him in strength. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 472:Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 473:In real life things don’t go so smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 474:I was cautious in what I said before the young lady; for I could not be sure that she was sane; and, in fact, there was a certain restless brilliancy about her eyes that half led me to imagine she was not. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 475:One thing only do I know for certain and that is that man's judgments of value follow directly his wishes for happiness-that, accordingly, they are an attempt to support his illusions with arguments. [p.111] ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 476:Although one soul lives in the whole body, and all the body's members are controlled by one soul, still the whole body and the whole soul and the parts of the universe are vivified by a certain total spirit. ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 477:Everyone who lives in an industrialized society is obliged gradually to give up the past, but in certain countries, such as the United States and Japan, the break with the past has been particularly traumatic. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 478:I can understand pathways to enlightenment where people shun certain aspects of the sensual world because they feel that these aspects are very powerful; they're not in a position to control their appetites. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 479:Kant ... discovered "the scandal of reason," that is the fact that our mind is not capable of certain and verifiable knowledge regarding matters and questions that it nevertheless cannot help thinking about. ~ hannah-arendt, @wisdomtrove 480:Give up all questions except one, "Who am I?" After all the only fact you are sure of is that you "are". The "I am" is certain, the "I am this" is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 481:Men who marry for gratification, propagation or the matter of buttons or socks, must expect to cope with and deal in a certain amount of quibble, subterfuge, concealments, and double, deep-dyed prevarication. ~ elbert-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 482:Childishness? I think it's the equivalent of never losing your sense of humor. I mean, yes there's a certain something that you retain. It's the equivalent of not getting so stuffy that you can't laugh at others. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 483:There is certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 484:The object, Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object, Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 485:therefore i live for today- certain of finding at sunrise guidance and strength for the way. power for each moment of weakness, hope for each moment of pain, comfort for every sorrow, sunshine and joy after rain! ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 486:No good book or good thing of any kind shows it best face at first. No the most common quality of in a true work of art that has excellence and depth, is that at first sight it produces a certain disappointment. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 487:Standards are different for all things, so the standard set by man is by no means the only & 488:That's what this thing called Christian life is all about, isn't it. Going . . . yet not knowing. As followers of our Lord we believe He leads us in a certain direction . . . or in pursuit of a precise goal. ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 489:The very fact that God has placed a certain soul in our way is a sign that God wants us to do something for him or her. It is not chance; it has been planned by God. We are bound by conscience to help him or her. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 490:We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 491:While I sleep, I dream of you, and when I wake, I long to hold you in my arms. If anything, our time apart has only made me more certain that I want to spend my nights by your side, and my days with your heart. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 492:A state of consciousness is characteristically very transitory; an idea that is conscious now is no longer so a moment later, although it can become so again under certain conditions that are easily brought about. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 493:If you and I want to stir up a resentment tomorrow that may rankle across the decades and endure until death, just let us indulge in a little stinging criticism - no matter how certain we are that it is justified. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 494:Etiquette is an intelligent way to live. There are certain ways of living you will learn being around advanced students and mostly your teacher. These are methods that have been handed down for thousands of years. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 495:Fear binds people together. And fear disperses them. Courage inspires communities: the courage of an example - for courage is as contagious as fear. But courage, certain kinds of courage, can also isolate the brave. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 496:It is the curse of a certain order of mind, that it can never rest satisfied with the consciousness of its ability to do a thing.Still less is it content with doing it. It must both know and show how it was done. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 497:There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 498:We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 499:Christians are to be taught that the pope would and should wish to give of his own money, even though he had to sell the basilica of St. Peter, to many of those from whom certain hawkers of indulgences cajole money. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 500:He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity - suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Only fools are certain. ~ V E Schwab, #NFDB
2:Nothing is ever certain ~ Alice Sebold, #NFDB
3:Nothing is ever certain. ~ Alice Sebold, #NFDB
4:What if certain people would ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
5:CERTAIN DEATH: YOU ARE HERE! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
6:I feel certain that words ~ Margarita Engle, #NFDB
7:Only a fool is always certain, ~ Ramez Naam, #NFDB
8:God don't give out certain. ~ Jeffery Deaver, #NFDB
9:Be confident, not certain ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, #NFDB
10:One day the victory is certain. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
11:There is a certain pleasure in weeping ~ Ovid, #NFDB
12:And yet Nothing here is certain; ~ Mark Strand, #NFDB
13:There is a certain pleasure in weeping. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
14:A certain blue enters your soul ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
15:Nothing is certain in this world. ~ P L Travers, #NFDB
16:Science is the enemy of the certain ~ Brian Cox, #NFDB
17:What is known for certain is dull. ~ Max Perutz, #NFDB
18:Certain art hungers for context. ~ Amanda Palmer, #NFDB
19:Accept certain inalienable truths. ~ Baz Luhrmann, #NFDB
20:certain of certain certainties....... ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
21:The past is certain, the future obscure. ~ Thales, #NFDB
22:A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall. ~ Kay Ryan, #NFDB
23:[America] needs a certain thinking. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
24:It is certain because it is possible. ~ Tertullian, #NFDB
25:Money has a certain kind of amnesty. ~ Andy Warhol, #NFDB
26:Do not feel certain of anything. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
27:Death was far more certain than God. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
28:VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
29:Words alone are certain good. ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
30:A certain darkness is needed to see the stars. ~ Osho, #NFDB
31:Certain battles were won by retreating. ~ Eoin Colfer, #NFDB
32:I find a certain value in lightness. ~ Daniel Abraham, #NFDB
33:Life is uncertain; death is certain. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
34:Nothing is as certain as a closed mind ~ Lord Dunsany, #NFDB
35:I’m certain there will be a retaliation. ~ Layla Hagen, #NFDB
36:There is a certain kind of pleasure in weeping. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
37:There’s a certain freedom to being an ~ Sophia Amoruso, #NFDB
38:When humans gather, crime is certain. ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB
39:Certain rhythms just have certain moods. ~ Dennis Brown, #NFDB
40:Funny how certain things stay with you. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
41:I love you as one loves certain dark things ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
42:The only certain freedom's in departure. ~ Robert Frost, #NFDB
43:The only thing certain in life is change. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
44:Love is the very certain thing that is full of doubts. ~, #NFDB
45:On certain mornings, as we turn a corner, ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
46:Pain is certain, suffering is optional. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
47:The fanatic is certain that he is right. ~ Peter M Senge, #NFDB
48:There is a certain timelessness to closets. ~ Wendy Mass, #NFDB
49:We are not certain, we are never certain. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
50:You are all you will ever have for certain. ~ June Havoc, #NFDB
51:A certain darkness is needed to see the stars. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
52:All life is variation upon certain themes ~ Anne Rampling, #NFDB
53:Everyone expects me to do certain things. ~ Rodney Mullen, #NFDB
54:In a certain sense the Good is comfortless. ~ Franz Kafka, #NFDB
55:In my world, even sure bets are not certain; ~ Joe Budden, #NFDB
56:In this world, only winter is certain ~ George R R Martin, #NFDB
57:Nothing is certain by uncertainty. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
58:There is a certain androgyny to my appeal. ~ Ellen Barkin, #NFDB
59:What I am looking for is a certain grace. ~ Scott Schuman, #NFDB
60:A certain tiny percentage of everyone is gay. ~ Dan Savage, #NFDB
61:I do still get intimidated by certain things. ~ Ray Romano, #NFDB
62:The fact is certain because it is impossible. ~ Tertullian, #NFDB
63:There is a certain justice in criticism. ~ Stephen Spender, #NFDB
64:You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness, ~ Gotye, #NFDB
65:Because life is short but sweet for certain ~ Dave Matthews, #NFDB
66:Every job requires a certain riding of a horse. ~ Tom Hanks, #NFDB
67:I love you as one loves certain dark things. ~ Pablo Neruda, #NFDB
68:I’m suspicious of people who are certain. ~ Josiah Bancroft, #NFDB
69:In a certain sense all men are historians. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
70:One never knows when one is old for certain. ~ Enid Bagnold, #NFDB
71:Our life dictates a certain kind of wardrobe. ~ Grace Kelly, #NFDB
72:Art should not have to be a certain way. ~ Willem de Kooning, #NFDB
73:But certain winds will make men's temper bad. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
74:I don't know all the certain words to word it. ~ Vanilla Ice, #NFDB
75:There are certain things I do not talk about. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
76:There are certain things no one can do for you. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
77:As you get older, you change certain things. ~ Clint Eastwood, #NFDB
78:But certain parts of me are down right normal ~ Stylo Fantome, #NFDB
79:Certain signs precede certain events. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
80:If you want to feel a certain way, feel it now. ~ Cheri Huber, #NFDB
81:In fact you are quite certain of her guilt. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
82:Life is short, misery sure, mortality certain. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
83:Man is certain of nothing but his ability to fail ~ Ken Kesey, #NFDB
84:Nothing in the world is as certain as death. ~ Jean Froissart, #NFDB
85:Only the fools are certain and assured. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
86:Theatres have a certain kind of magic. ~ Carrie Hope Fletcher, #NFDB
87:There is a certain dignity to being French. ~ Brigitte Bardot, #NFDB
88:A certain death of an artist is overconfidence. ~ Robin Trower, #NFDB
89:Certain books come to meet me, as do people. ~ Elizabeth Bowen, #NFDB
90:In certain ways writing is a form of prayer. ~ Denise Levertov, #NFDB
91:In counterfactual history, nothing is certain. ~ Robert Dallek, #NFDB
92:It is absolutely certain that God does exist. ~ Muhammad Iqbal, #NFDB
93:LA people are more laid back about certain things. ~ Simon Rex, #NFDB
94:Society is better off without certain people. ~ Bernhard Goetz, #NFDB
95:There are certain moments in life you can't miss. ~ Tara Kelly, #NFDB
96:'Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it. ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
97:Certain of misfire, my heart threatens to stop. ~ Ellen Hopkins, #NFDB
98:Certain things have to be, the sun has to rise. ~ Arthur Miller, #NFDB
99:Democracy requires a certain relish for confusion ~ Molly Ivins, #NFDB
100:home. All we know for certain is that she’d been ~ Dani Pettrey, #NFDB
101:I don't really have a certain format that I go by. ~ Drake Bell, #NFDB
102:I'm not a folk-singer. I just sing a certain place. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
103:It is not certain that everything is uncertain. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
104:Manchester has a certain reputation of being cool. ~ Alice Lowe, #NFDB
105:Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
106:You will evolve past certain people. Let yourself. ~ Mandy Hale, #NFDB
107:A certain kind of darkness is needed to see the stars. ~ M Never, #NFDB
108:a rationalist isn't ever certain of anything ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky, #NFDB
109:certain things. It comes when you think certain ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB
110:Certain things they should stay the way they are. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
111:Jerusalem meant one thing for Jesus: certain death. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
112:Knowledge is never in doubt. Wisdom is never certain. ~ Dee Hock, #NFDB
113:The older we become, the more certain our future. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
114:There are certain things--as, a spider, a ghost, ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
115:We as human beings like to be cocksure and certain. ~ Robin Ince, #NFDB
116:Western art has a certain relationship to nature. ~ Brice Marden, #NFDB
117:Words are impotent to describe certain emotions. ~ Ella Maillart, #NFDB
118:You have to eat at a certain time and eat properly. ~ Boy George, #NFDB
119:a certain bohemian, good-witch sort of charm ~ Michael Cunningham, #NFDB
120:After a certain age, you get the face you deserve. ~ Joan Collins, #NFDB
121:At a certain point, memory begins to be a burden. ~ Laurie Colwin, #NFDB
122:Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. ~ Tim O Brien, #NFDB
123:I am offended only by certain sorts of wallpaper ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
124:Looking a certain way is a blessing and a curse. ~ Farrah Fawcett, #NFDB
125:Stupidity has a certain charm - ignorance does not. ~ Frank Zappa, #NFDB
126:...The less I think of it the more certain I am. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
127:There is a certain swagger with vampires. ~ Charles Michael Davis, #NFDB
128:Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. ~ Ted Bell, #NFDB
129:I know there are certain things that I just can't win. ~ DJ Khaled, #NFDB
130:I think everything is fair game to a certain extent. ~ Gary Gulman, #NFDB
131:Survival required a certain degree of stubbornness. ~ Sarah M Eden, #NFDB
132:There's a certain grace to having your heart broken. ~ Lena Dunham, #NFDB
133:they are mystified by certain instances. ~ William Carlos Williams, #NFDB
134:Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake. ~ Quintilian, #NFDB
135:Warriors always have a certain gleam in their eyes. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
136:Whatever is spoken of acquires a certain existence. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
137:At a certain stage every single thing can be a sign. ~ Colum McCann, #NFDB
138:Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs. ~ Noel Coward, #NFDB
139:For me, certain shots or scenes are keys in the movie. ~ Sam Mendes, #NFDB
140:I also had a mistaken attitude towards certain comrades. ~ Bela Kun, #NFDB
141:I bring to my life a certain amount of mess. ~ Francis Ford Coppola, #NFDB
142:I get why certain actors want to stay in the closet. ~ Adam Lambert, #NFDB
143:I’ll be certain you hear it when I make her scream. ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
144:Nothing is for certain until it has already happened— ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
145:Not knowing who you are is a certain kind of hell. ~ Kelly Thompson, #NFDB
146:Such an ego simply forbade certain lines of thought. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
147:that at a certain point people need more than vision. ~ Bill Hybels, #NFDB
148:The only thing certain is nothing is certain. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
149:All my life I have had a certain idea of France. ~ Charles de Gaulle, #NFDB
150:A multiple personality is in a certain sense normal. ~ George H Mead, #NFDB
151:But beyond a certain scale vast was simply vast. ~ Alastair Reynolds, #NFDB
152:colloquialism for the affliction that strikes a certain ~ Ben Hewitt, #NFDB
153:Do I care? No, I don't care. People need certain things ~ Leland Yee, #NFDB
154:He also knows that certain moments repeat themselves. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
155:If you don't start, it is certain you won't arrive. ~ Robert Anthony, #NFDB
156:I have scars on my hands from touching certain people ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
157:I rather like a certain clumsiness in a work of art. ~ Edgard Varese, #NFDB
158:I was almost certain no one even knew who I was ~ Brittainy C Cherry, #NFDB
159:know how certain places can have certain frequencies? ~ Ania Ahlborn, #NFDB
160:Only one thing is certain: we live on a knife edge. In ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
161:There are certain teachers who shouldn't be teachers. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
162:There are moments that have a certain flavor of eternity ~ Marc Levy, #NFDB
163:The Warrior listens to the words of certain thinkers. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
164:You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
165:He is strong, and lithe, and certain. And he is mine. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
166:I do worry about the expectation to look a certain way. ~ Emma Watson, #NFDB
167:I have scars on my hands from touching certain people. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
168:I'm pretty certain that if there is a will there is a way. ~ Jude Law, #NFDB
169:In grasping at uncertainties we lost that which is certain. ~ Plautus, #NFDB
170:It takes a certain kind of darkness for the stars to shine. ~ M Never, #NFDB
171:I was only 97 percent certain this meeting was a trap. ~ Martha Wells, #NFDB
172:Love is next to Godliness with certain safeguards. ~ Barbara Cartland, #NFDB
173:On reaching a certain degree of pain we lose the world. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
174:There are certain things women are better at than men. ~ Adam Carolla, #NFDB
175:Certain materials suggest ideas and ways of working. ~ David Batchelor, #NFDB
176:Everything we do in life, we do with certain expectations. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
177:I suppose I did feel a certain public pressure always. ~ Seamus Heaney, #NFDB
178:The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
179:This only is certain, that there is nothing certain. ~ Pliny the Elder, #NFDB
180:When you get to a certain age, there is no coming back. ~ Brian Clough, #NFDB
181:You have to learn certain skills to present magic. ~ David Copperfield, #NFDB
182:A good play puts the audience through a certain ordeal. ~ Howard Barker, #NFDB
183:are you certain that a man's life begins with his birth? ~ Amin Maalouf, #NFDB
184:Certain kinds of knowledge rob people of their sleep. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
185:I dress up a certain way because I respect the music. ~ Wynton Marsalis, #NFDB
186:Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom. ~ Hugo Grotius, #NFDB
187:I'm not exactly certain what got into me, besides him. ~ Lori Handeland, #NFDB
188:In a certain state it is indecent to live longer. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
189:Insanity can be found in the knife edge of certain changes. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
190:I really wanted to die at certain periods in my life. ~ Brigitte Bardot, #NFDB
191:I regret losing certain women, but it was always my fault. ~ Scott Baio, #NFDB
192:Life is shockingly short to trouble about certain things. ~ Jude Morgan, #NFDB
193:People have preconceptions about women of a certain age. ~ Lesley Nicol, #NFDB
194:The only certain happiness in life is to live for others. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
195:There's a certain possessiveness of writers sometimes. ~ William Devane, #NFDB
196:When certain seeds are planted, they nearly always grow. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
197:Certain shades of limelight wreck a girl's complexion. ~ Holly Golightly, #NFDB
198:Don't know what poetry is even. Must be in a certain mood. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
199:Every form of talent involves a certain shameless-ness. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
200:Fucking fixes nothing, but certain feelings are unavoidable. ~ Kris Kidd, #NFDB
201:I was certain I was going to do something in sports. ~ Tyler Christopher, #NFDB
202:Knowledge is to certain extent a second existence. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
203:Sometimes success demands a certain refined insanity. ~ Isobelle Carmody, #NFDB
204:The hairs stand up on the back of my neck at certain music. ~ Jeff Lynne, #NFDB
205:Then, at some point, you get identified with certain things. ~ Gary Cole, #NFDB
206:The only certain things in life are death and taxes! ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
207:What we do to ourselves to look a certain way is crazy. ~ Emily Browning, #NFDB
208:When we speak of the morrow nothing is ever certain. ~ George R R Martin, #NFDB
209:Certain emotions bridge the years and link unlikely places. ~ V S Naipaul, #NFDB
210:Certain people are for me and certain people are pro me. ~ Terry Venables, #NFDB
211:Certain things in Mozart will and can never be excelled. ~ Richard Wagner, #NFDB
212:Coalition will come sooner or later, I'm certain of that. ~ Paddy Ashdown, #NFDB
213:Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
214:Every sermon must contain a certain shot of heresy. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
215:God made certain people to play football. He was one of them. ~ Joe Gibbs, #NFDB
216:He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers. ~ Henry Adams, #NFDB
217:I am certain there is too much certainty in the world. ~ Michael Crichton, #NFDB
218:I am moved by music, and certain things just make my day. ~ Bobby Sherman, #NFDB
219:I couldn’t be certain, but I think Rose swore in Russian. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
220:If a man isn't a certain age, he just isn't interesting. ~ Marilyn Monroe, #NFDB
221:If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
222:I have never planned to have babies by a certain age. ~ Natalie Imbruglia, #NFDB
223:I have values I believe in and certain things I stand for. ~ Torrey Smith, #NFDB
224:I made my fortune by being able to spot a certain kind of man. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
225:Nothing is ever known for certain in this world, Michael. ~ Sophie Hannah, #NFDB
226:The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
~ Michel de Montaigne,#NFDB
227:There is a certain ecstasy in wanting things you can't get. ~ Bette Davis, #NFDB
228:There's a certain satisfaction in a little bit of pain. ~ Madonna Ciccone, #NFDB
229:You don't have to look a certain way to have a hit record. ~ Bonnie Raitt, #NFDB
230:An artist needs a certain amount of turmoil and confusion. ~ Joni Mitchell, #NFDB
231:At certain times I like sex - like after a cigarette. ~ Rodney Dangerfield, #NFDB
232:Certain springs are tapped only when you're alone. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, #NFDB
233:Every movie soaks into you for a certain amount of time. ~ Joaquin Phoenix, #NFDB
234:Failure can have a certain grandeur that success never knows ~ John Brooks, #NFDB
235:Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
236:He was born to be lonely, that’s what he knew for certain. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
237:Ideals are replaced by conventional goals at a certain age. ~ Jenny Holzer, #NFDB
238:I have a certain experience of the way people tell lies. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
239:I like to maintain a certain sense of fantasy in my life. ~ Jennifer Lopez, #NFDB
240:I look a certain way. I have a very specific kind of look. ~ Famke Janssen, #NFDB
241:I made it easier for many artists to play in certain areas. ~ Norman Granz, #NFDB
242:I’m certain I taste like a boiled potato,” she declared. He ~ Grace Draven, #NFDB
243:I think there is a certain fascination with a man's hair. ~ Justin Hawkins, #NFDB
244:It's healthier to reject certain cautions than fall in line. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
245:I would never imagine a mate based on a certain sex or race. ~ Amber Heard, #NFDB
246:One thing is certain, You can't shake hands with a fist. ~ David Allan Coe, #NFDB
247:The only certainty is that we shall never be certain. ~ Seth Grahame Smith, #NFDB
248:There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison. ~ Andre Maurois, #NFDB
249:To exploit that oppor tunity, you had to have certain virtues ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
250:Truthfully, I'm proud of each of my films in a certain way. ~ Chuck Norris, #NFDB
251:We have to stop this idea that we have to be a certain shape. ~ Beth Ditto, #NFDB
252:...when certain seeds are planted, they nearly always grow. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
253:You're not born with certain skills; you have to acquire them. ~ Ry Cooder, #NFDB
254:A custom-tailored suit retains a certain dignity about it. ~ Vincent Piazza, #NFDB
255:Certain countries are dumping nuclear waste directly into ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
256:expressive of nothing much except a certain insolence. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
257:Few things in life are certain except death and being taxed. ~ Felix Dennis, #NFDB
258:I think editors have to come out of a certain kind of community. ~ Bill Joy, #NFDB
259:I've learned that one thing about my life that is certain is trouble. ~ T I, #NFDB
260:None of us is all that certain. But we have to pretend to be. ~ Kate Alcott, #NFDB
261:People will let you down. Only God’s love is certain. ~ Jennifer Beckstrand, #NFDB
262:The older you get, the more you know about certain things. ~ Robert De Niro, #NFDB
263:There are certain bits in my act that will never change. ~ Gabriel Iglesias, #NFDB
264:To exploit that oppor�� tunity, you had to have certain virtues ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
265:When you get to a certain age, the work begins to thin out. ~ Charles Dance, #NFDB
266:Winning will make you famous. Losing means certain death. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
267:You get into habits. Ways of being with certain people. ~ Carol Rifka Brunt, #NFDB
268:A good cook is a certain slow poisoner, if you are not temperate. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
269:Certain signs are the forerunners of certain events. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
270:Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
271:Even if it seems certain that you will lose, retaliate. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #NFDB
272:Having your work hated by certain people is a badge of honor. ~ Austin Kleon, #NFDB
273:How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream? ~ Rene Descartes, #NFDB
274:I do like certain kinds of frames for work. That's important. ~ Robert Barry, #NFDB
275:I like the groups on Factory, A Certain Ratio and Section 25. I ~ Ian Curtis, #NFDB
276:in certain circles honesty is taken as an index of stupidity. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
277:I really enjoy the now because that's all we're certain of. ~ Elaine Cassidy, #NFDB
278:I think of him in certain lights, dawn, late afternoon,... ~ Carol Ann Duffy, #NFDB
279:It's a mystery why certain people find certain things funny. ~ John C Reilly, #NFDB
280:No one's future is certain. It depends on the choices they make. ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
281:One is certain of nothing but the truth of one's own emotions. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
282:One is certain of nothing but the truth of one’s own emotions. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
283:Schemes are like fruit, they require a certain ripening. ~ George R R Martin, #NFDB
284:she was a marginal outsider, a secret infidel of a certain sort. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
285:There's a certain amount of one-way shirt swapping going on. ~ Adrian Chiles, #NFDB
286:There's a certain amount of traveling in a dream deferred. ~ Langston Hughes, #NFDB
287:There's always a certain pride in getting the job done properly. ~ Tom Hardy, #NFDB
288:Those who rely on certainties are certain to be disappointed ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
289:a certain amount of boredom is...essential to a happy life ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
290:Any good marriage involves a certain amount of play-acting. ~ Margaret Millar, #NFDB
291:Anything that is not funny at a certain point will be funny. ~ Robin Williams, #NFDB
292:Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
293:Courage, Laches responds, “is a certain endurance of the soul. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
294:Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
295:Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
296:Even if it seems certain that you will lose, retaliate. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #NFDB
297:For men, after a certain age, it gets hard to make new friends. ~ Scott Foley, #NFDB
298:It takes a certain amount of guts to go to your class reunions. ~ Dick Cavett, #NFDB
299:Lesson no. 20: Happiness is a certain way of seeing things. ~ Fran ois Lelord, #NFDB
300:My insides still turn over when he looks at me that certain way. ~ Judy Blume, #NFDB
301:One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
302:One thing’s certain, life with you is never gonna be boring. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
303:The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly. ~ Erasmus, #NFDB
304:There are certain kinds of silence that make you walk on air. ~ Cecelia Ahern, #NFDB
305:There's a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left. ~ David Guterson, #NFDB
306:This is really showing me what certain movies mean to people. ~ Noah Hathaway, #NFDB
307:You had to learn at a certain age what sarcasm is, you know? ~ Penny Marshall, #NFDB
308:All I know for certain is that smile lit up even my darkest days. ~ J Sterling, #NFDB
309:A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong. ~ Michael Faraday, #NFDB
310:at his office while he was in Los Angeles. David was certain ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
311:Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. ~ Norman Vincent Peale, #NFDB
312:I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
313:In every writer there is a certain amount of the scavenger. ~ William Faulkner, #NFDB
314:I think there's a certain magic that comes from being creative. ~ Brett Dennen, #NFDB
315:Life was all about being in a certain place, at a certain time. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
316:Some people are just born wack, you can't teach certain wackness. ~ The Weeknd, #NFDB
317:Some relationships are stronger than others at certain times. ~ Justin Hartley, #NFDB
318:The essence of good and evil is a certain disposition of the will. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
319:To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
320:was a natural one? I have come across certain evidence today ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
321:Whatever you lost through fate, be certain that it saved you from pain. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
322:A certain jollity of mind, pickled in the scorn of fortune. ~ Francois Rabelais, #NFDB
323:Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
324:All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree ~ James Madison, #NFDB
325:All painters are interested in photography to a certain extent. ~ David Hockney, #NFDB
326:Beyond a certain age, sincerity ceases to feel pornographic. ~ Douglas Coupland, #NFDB
327:Certain ones will find the hidden door leading to success. ~ Vanessa Richardson, #NFDB
328:Faith is believing in something you cannot prove for certain. ~ Seth Adam Smith, #NFDB
329:I think I get certain pleasure from writing what I'm performing. ~ Ellie Kemper, #NFDB
330:It requires a certain kind of mind to see beauty in a hamburger bun. ~ Ray Kroc, #NFDB
331:Non-engagement or retreat can turn certain defeat into victory. ~ Bryant McGill, #NFDB
332:Nothing in the world is certain except for death and taxes. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
333:One thing is certain, anyone who collects art is not an artist. ~ Heinrich B ll, #NFDB
334:[P]leasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
335:. . . reality just seems to come in certain undeniable chunks. ~ Stephen T Asma, #NFDB
336:Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
337:There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities. ~ Walter Dean Myers, #NFDB
338:To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
339:To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
340:Unsupervised reading is a blessing for a certain kind of child ~ Victor LaValle, #NFDB
341:Wayne was certain dogs were as superstitious as humans. More, maybe. ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
342:Yes, the jury was now out. Verdict: Mom liked Max for certain. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
343:A certain color tones you up. It's the concentration of timbres. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
344:and in certain circles honesty is taken as an index of stupidity. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
345:Beyond a certain point, the music isn't mine anymore. It's yours. ~ Phil Collins, #NFDB
346:Caffeine helps a lot. That and a certain amount of isolation. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
347:Certain drummers drop time, and I like to play on top of the beat. ~ Miles Davis, #NFDB
348:Communion with Christ—is a certain cure for every ill. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
349:Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
350:Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all, all shall ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
351:Focus on the journey, not on arriving at a certain destination. ~ Chris Hadfield, #NFDB
352:focus on the journey, not on arriving at a certain destination. ~ Chris Hadfield, #NFDB
353:I'd prefer it if the coach said certain things to me face to face. ~ Samir Nasri, #NFDB
354:It's a kind of arrogance to be so certain you're past redemption. ~ Ellis Peters, #NFDB
355:Relationships unlock certain parts of who we are supposed to be. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
356:Roarke called up a blueprint of Hillary Clinton High School. “Certain ~ J D Robb, #NFDB
357:Some people are more certain of everything than I am of anything. ~ Robert Rubin, #NFDB
358:The more certain our knowledge the less we know. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, #NFDB
359:There are certain qualities of light that blur the years. ~ Emily St John Mandel, #NFDB
360:There is a certain fate to the universe and a certain randomness. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
361:Unsupervised reading is a blessing for a certain kind of child. ~ Victor LaValle, #NFDB
362:We can tell you many things, but none are certain and many are lies. ~ Ginn Hale, #NFDB
363:A part of them has grown very attached to a certain way of life. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
364:At a certain point, you can almost become a stranger to yourself. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
365:Certain teachings in the Bible are as diamonds in a dung-heap. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
366:Don't forget where you came from and treat people a certain way. ~ Justin Hartley, #NFDB
367:He wondered if it meant more to appear certain than to be right. ~ Danielle Paige, #NFDB
368:If we are unconverted, one thing is absolutely certain: We hate God. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
369:If we don't be loving one another, then we'll crumble for certain. ~ Jody Hedlund, #NFDB
370:In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain. ~ Pliny the Elder, #NFDB
371:It is certain because it is impossible. -Certum est quia impossibile ~ Tertullian, #NFDB
372:It is certain that an atom of goodness on the path of faith is never lost. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
373:I voluntarily inflicted a certain level of insanity on myself. ~ Jonathan Franzen, #NFDB
374:Register is very important. Music sounds best in a certain register. ~ Steve Lacy, #NFDB
375:Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
376:The fashion industry can in a certain way be very hard and closed. ~ Sonia Rykiel, #NFDB
377:The more you ask certain questions, the more dangerous they become. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
378:the notion of life implies a certain absoluteness of self-enjoyment ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
379:There are certain prehistoric things that swim beyond extinction. ~ Karen Russell, #NFDB
380:There is nothing as dull as an intellectual ally after a certain age. ~ Ben Hecht, #NFDB
381:Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed. ~ Daniel Defoe, #NFDB
382:truth is that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong. ~ Martin Heidegger, #NFDB
383:What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit. ~ John Updike, #NFDB
384:What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit. ~ John Updike, #NFDB
385:After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies. ~ Cynthia Ozick, #NFDB
386:At a certain age just being around particular people is an event. ~ Rachel Kushner, #NFDB
387:At that moment, Maria learned that certain things are lost forever. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
388:Certain I am, that Christian Religion does no where allow Rebellion. ~ Mary Astell, #NFDB
389:Certain stories must remain mine, so that there is a me to remain. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
390:Hopefully, I have a certain amount of what you call musical talent. ~ Leo Ornstein, #NFDB
391:If there's one thing that's certain in business, it's uncertainty. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
392:I'm a serial deconstructor of my own authority in certain areas. ~ Jonathan Lethem, #NFDB
393:Information imposes certain criteria on how it can be stored. ~ John Maynard Smith, #NFDB
394:I think we have a lot of tools, a lot of skills to do certain things. ~ Joe Flacco, #NFDB
395:Mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
396:No pleasure is evil in itself; but the means by which certain pleasures ~ Epicurus, #NFDB
397:Nothing is certain, ma petite, not even death." - Jean-Claude ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
398:Obviously, the young dancers lack a certain air of maturity. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov, #NFDB
399:Philanthropies and charities have a certain air of quackery. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
400:She is certain[ly] very clever, in a doubtful sense of the word. ~ Candice Millard, #NFDB
401:Some actors come to the set ready to do their parts a certain way. ~ Alan J Pakula, #NFDB
402:Somehow there is a certain honesty underground, a certain truth. ~ Christophe Agou, #NFDB
403:There is a certain drop of a type of kundalini when you have sex. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
404:There was a certain beauty in the chaos, a certain order in the mess. ~ Sarah Fine, #NFDB
405:To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
406:We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
407:We make conscious choices to do something a certain way. ~ Mary Elizabeth Winstead, #NFDB
408:When you're certain you cannot be fooled, you become easy to fool. ~ Edward Teller, #NFDB
409:A certain amount of danger is essential to the quality of life. ~ Charles Lindbergh, #NFDB
410:A certain degree of fear produces the same effects as rashness. ~ Lord Chesterfield, #NFDB
411:A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
412:After a certain amount of time with someone, crisis is an aphrodisiac. ~ Lauren Fox, #NFDB
413:America is about choices, including those to live certain lifestyles. ~ Hamza Yusuf, #NFDB
414:Before you speak, make certain you have something worthwhile to say. ~ Groucho Marx, #NFDB
415:Certain blood will be given for half certain reasons, as in all wars. ~ Saul Bellow, #NFDB
416:Certain truths in life can only be seen with eyes cleansed by tears. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
417:Good taste ruins certain true spiritual values: such as taste itself. ~ Coco Chanel, #NFDB
418:Heroes, it would seem, exist always and a certain worship of them. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
419:I don't want to limit myself as an artist and only do a certain sound. ~ Mac Miller, #NFDB
420:I feel like there's a certain kind of laughter missing in the world. ~ Peter Hedges, #NFDB
421:I feel much freer now that I am certain the pope is the Antichrist. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
422:I have always had a certain song in my head, a certain chemistry of sounds. ~ Bjork, #NFDB
423:I really think there is a certain destiny in my life to lead people. ~ Steve Garvey, #NFDB
424:It is certain that we cannot escape anguish, for we are anguish. ~ Jean Paul Sartre, #NFDB
425:Life is a tragedy, one way or another. What is certain is that you die. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
426:Most achievements in science are to a certain degree group efforts. ~ Willard Libby, #NFDB
427:Peace is a certain resistance to the terrible satisfactions of war. ~ Judith Butler, #NFDB
428:Society has taught us to suppress certain things and not do certain things. ~ Kesha, #NFDB
429:There are certain people, the sicker they get the longer they live. ~ Arthur Miller, #NFDB
430:There is still a certain grace in a dead festival. It has been happy. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
431:The sight or sound of perfect things causes a certain suffering. ~ Adrienne Monnier, #NFDB
432:To be poor, and to seem poor, is a certain method never to rise. ~ Oliver Goldsmith, #NFDB
433:When death is so certain, it is better to die for a good cause. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
434:A certain excessiveness seems a necessary element in all greatness. ~ Harvey Cushing, #NFDB
435:At certain times you really feel as though you have to do something. ~ Jessica Lange, #NFDB
436:At dawn, nothing seems certain... yet everything appears possible. ~ Douglas Kennedy, #NFDB
437:Believe me, Ev. Any way you want to touch me, I’m certain I’ll like it. ~ L H Cosway, #NFDB
438:But, in certain cases, carrying on, merely continuing, is superhuman. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
439:Certain kinds of people just can't live life taking risks with adventure. ~ Bob Weir, #NFDB
440:How do you ever know for certain that you are doing the right thing? ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
441:I guess a certain amount of temperament is expected of Chess geniuses ~ Ronald Gross, #NFDB
442:I know there is a certain amount of negativity I have to deal with. ~ Chrissy Teigen, #NFDB
443:I’m really not certain about threatening people with antelopes ... ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
444:In thought there always exists a certain amount of internal rebellion; ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
445:I think you always have to use certain parts of yourself in any role. ~ Joan Collins, #NFDB
446:Life is a tragedy, one way or another. What is certain is that you die. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
447:make of Sinclair – she suspected he felt a certain filial resentment ~ Laura Barnett, #NFDB
448:Nature has certain mechanism to record all memories of every life being. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
449:Once a film costs a certain amount of money, things have to round off. ~ Tony Gilroy, #NFDB
450:paradox simply means a certain defiant joy which belongs to belief. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
451:Something must be left to chance; nothing is certain in a sea fight ~ Horatio Nelson, #NFDB
452:There are certain things in life for which we can never be prepared. ~ Jill Bialosky, #NFDB
453:There's a certain kind of scepticism that can't bear uncertainty. ~ Rupert Sheldrake, #NFDB
454:The universe is grand, but life is grander. We’re certain to meet again. ~ Liu Cixin, #NFDB
455:Want girls to let you put your fingers in certain places? Get a manicure. ~ Tom Ford, #NFDB
456:We’re only certain (“certain only”?) about what we don’t understand. ~ David Shields, #NFDB
457:What's a friend for if not to face almost certain death with, eh? ~ Katie MacAlister, #NFDB
458:While some people display innate talents for certain activities early ~ Sean Patrick, #NFDB
459:Wishes were things of wonder that took a certain amount of faith. ~ Stephanie Garber, #NFDB
460:Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept. ~ Jean Cocteau, #NFDB
461:You were a risk, a mistery, and the most certain thing I'd ever known. ~ Beau Taplin, #NFDB
462:All of our lives are governed by a certain degree of faith in bullshit. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
463:Certain kinds of clichés are the narcotics of the middle class. ~ John Clellon Holmes, #NFDB
464:Certain things should be yours to have when you work your way to the top. ~ Redd Foxx, #NFDB
465:Club: An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
466:Crockery has been withdrawn from American culture below a certain level. ~ Don Watson, #NFDB
467:Fame is useful in certain ways, because it helps you get more roles. ~ Mia Wasikowska, #NFDB
468:Find your way with the certain and gentle light of forgiveness. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher, #NFDB
469:He wasn't certain whether he had just got space-sickness or religion. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
470:He wasn’t certain whether he had just got space-sickness or religion. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
471:Humanity lives and always has lived on certain elemental provisions. ~ Charles Wagner, #NFDB
472:...if I pay you lots of money to see reality in a certain way, you will. ~ Dan Ariely, #NFDB
473:I think its important for one to take a certain distance from oneself. ~ Vaclav Havel, #NFDB
474:Nothing is certain, ma petite, not even death."
- Jean-Claude ~ Laurell K Hamilton,#NFDB
475:No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
476:The more it rains and blows, the more certain we are to have him. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell, #NFDB
477:There are certain racetracks where I feel like I could run 1,000 miles. ~ Joey Logano, #NFDB
478:There are certain truths so true that they are practically unbelievable. ~ Gore Vidal, #NFDB
479:There's also a certain rhythm to the way Jews talk that might be funny. ~ Larry David, #NFDB
480:What a world. It could be so wonderful if it wasn't for certain people. ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
481:All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority. ~ Ralph Ellison, #NFDB
482:Antioxidants have a good effect on certain forms of Crohn's disease. ~ Mary Ann Mobley, #NFDB
483:As a musician, you never understand why people connect with certain songs. ~ Lisa Loeb, #NFDB
484:At a certain point you just have to be like [jack-off motion] and do you. ~ Lindy West, #NFDB
485:Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached. ~ Franz Kafka, #NFDB
486:But actors at a certain point take the best of what's available to them. ~ Kelly Lynch, #NFDB
487:Certain memories trap you; you relive their thousand tiny details. ~ Alexandra Bracken, #NFDB
488:Certain things are so important that they need to be discovered alone. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
489:happiness aint got no Ph.D. or no certain amount of zeroes behind it! ~ Terry McMillan, #NFDB
490:He could feel certainty draining away. And he’d always been certain. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
491:I am certain in my heart that all that I am, I have received from God. ~ Saint Patrick, #NFDB
492:I am still a god, after all. There’s a certain way these things are done. ~ Drew Hayes, #NFDB
493:If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
494:If you have no major purpose, you are drifting toward certain failure. ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB
495:I keep coming back to certain books, and you—to try to find myself again ~ John Geddes, #NFDB
496:I like winning. There's also a certain joy in it. I feel fulfilled by it. ~ Carl Icahn, #NFDB
497:I'm afraid we were so eager to avoid war, we've made it all but certain. ~ Brent Weeks, #NFDB
498:I'm just tired of people judging me because I fit into a certain mold. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
499:I’m just tired of people judging me because I fit into a certain mold. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
500:In certain moments I suspect life knows exactly what it’s doing. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde, #NFDB
501:I think the president's comfortable with a certain level of violence. ~ Wayne LaPierre, #NFDB
502:I think there's a certain lyricism in the telling of a scientific story. ~ Janna Levin, #NFDB
503:It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat. ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
504:It's not a certain society that seems ridiculous to me, it's mankind. ~ Eugene Ionesco, #NFDB
505:It's not even race; it's a certain type of person that gets 'Pootie Tang. ~ J B Smoove, #NFDB
506:Many people help construct our attitudes at a certain time and place. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
507:Market forces impose certain rules before a film can actually get made. ~ Alan Rickman, #NFDB
508:Men who are certain of everything—well perhaps they're not men at all. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
509:My mustache has become this weird iconic representation of a certain era. ~ John Oates, #NFDB
510:Saying certain things is beautiful. Living them out, not necessarily. ~ Adriana Lisboa, #NFDB
511:show the indirect object of a verb and after certain verbs and prepositions. ~ Collins, #NFDB
512:sometimes a certain kind of dream can be even stronger than reality. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
513:Sometimes certain blessings from God come crashing through the windows. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
514:The one certain thing was that death never came at an expected moment. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
515:There are only those certain people where things click - at least for me. ~ Glenn Frey, #NFDB
516:What matters is the one thing I do know for certain: God is with me. ~ Craig Groeschel, #NFDB
517:When two tigers fight, one is certain to be maimed, and one to die. ~ Gichin Funakoshi, #NFDB
518:You have a movie and it proves itself and then certain things happen. ~ Barry Levinson, #NFDB
519:Being mindful means being aware of everything and certain of nothing”. ~ Wendy T Behary, #NFDB
520:Compassion has certain vibration – vibration that resonates with the cosmos. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
521:Happiness is a certain activity of soul in conformity with perfect goodness ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
522:He grieved too, Klara said, for the loss of a certain idea of himself. ~ Julie Orringer, #NFDB
523:He who cuts down woods beyond a certain limit exterminates birds. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
524:I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married. ~ Bayard Rustin, #NFDB
525:If you want to do what you want to do, you have to look a certain way. ~ Jessica Cutler, #NFDB
526:I'm fairly certain lonely's most natural habitat is a school cafeteria. ~ Natalie Lloyd, #NFDB
527:I'm not quite certain how you can force a candidate to stick by the rules. ~ Gwen Ifill, #NFDB
528:In some ways, certain books are more powerful by far than any battle. ~ Henry A Wallace, #NFDB
529:It is certain that not one drop of rain falls without God's sure command. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
530:Never forget that you are practicing a craft with certain principles. ~ William Zinsser, #NFDB
531:one thing I know for certain is that a life half lived is no life at all. ~ Marie Force, #NFDB
532:Perhaps there were certain kinds of pain that remained raw forever. ~ Belinda Alexandra, #NFDB
533:That way you can be certain to learn something you didn't know previously. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
534:The cost of sanity in this society, is a certain level of alienation ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
535:The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly ~ Desiderius Erasmus, #NFDB
536:There is a certain beauty in chaos, magnificence in the uncontrollable. ~ Hafsah Faizal, #NFDB
537:These are certain signs to know Faithful friend from flattering foe. ~ Georgina Guthrie, #NFDB
538:The work needs to have a certain longevity. It lasts longer than we do. ~ Richard Meier, #NFDB
539:Very few things in the world are certain, but morning is one of them. ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
540:A certain portion of mankind do not believe at all in the existence of the gods. ~ Plato, #NFDB
541:Any politician is to a certain degree a mentor. They preach something. ~ Dmitry Medvedev, #NFDB
542:At a certain age, you have to choose between your face and your ass. ~ Catherine Deneuve, #NFDB
543:At a certain point we get to decide who it is we allow to influence us. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
544:But probably every age gets, within certain limits, the science it deserves. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
545:Certain realities of life we only see through eyes cleansed by our tears. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
546:Certain things need to be said if one is to avoid falsifying the problem. ~ Frantz Fanon, #NFDB
547:don’t we all choose to live in the dump in certain aspects of our lives? ~ Camron Wright, #NFDB
548:For him life has to go the certain way, otherwise he's not interested. ~ Sophie Kinsella, #NFDB
549:How my needs for certain types of release would freak her the fuck out. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
550:I got my heroes secondhand, from television and movies, to a certain extent. ~ Brad Bird, #NFDB
551:I have always used the world of make-believe with a certain desperation. ~ Ruth Benedict, #NFDB
552:I know that you have to be reserved about certain things in your life. ~ Janina Gavankar, #NFDB
553:I mean it takes a certain kind of maturity to live in the South these days. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
554:I need to be alone for certain periods of time or I violate my own rhythm. ~ Lee Krasner, #NFDB
555:In the usual course of study I had come to a book of a certain Cicero. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
556:I think it's important to live with a certain danger and a certain risk. ~ Judith Butler, #NFDB
557:I think people under age 55 come to Vegas with a certain sense of irony. ~ Penn Jillette, #NFDB
558:I think when you are named Noah, you are destined for a certain way of life. ~ Noah Wyle, #NFDB
559:It's always convenient for certain people to heap accusations on Israel. ~ Yasser Arafat, #NFDB
560:It takes a certain courage and a certain greatness even to be truly base. ~ Jean Anouilh, #NFDB
561:I've learned a long time ago, you don't say anything for absolutely certain. ~ Joe Biden, #NFDB
562:Most of us commit to action only if we feel a certain level of motivation. ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
563:Once certain of arriving, why hurry on the journey so fast? ~ Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, #NFDB
564:One thing we know for sure is that change is certain, progress is not. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
565:Opinions about obviousness are to a certain extent a function of time. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
566:There are people whose clocks stop at a certain point in their lives. ~ Stephen C Lundin, #NFDB
567:There is a certain degree of steampunkishness that creeps into my books. ~ Jasper Fforde, #NFDB
568:Tis easier to make certain things legal than to make them legitimate. ~ Nicolas Chamfort, #NFDB
569:To a certain extent a man loses himself through connecting with his partner. ~ John Gray, #NFDB
570:Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
571:At a certain age you stop being a child and start raising your parents ... ~ Paul Theroux, #NFDB
572:Certain places seem to exist mainly because someone has written about them. ~ Joan Didion, #NFDB
573:Films have a certain place in a certain time period. Technology is forever. ~ Hedy Lamarr, #NFDB
574:Guitar is great for a certain thing, but a piano is so much more expansive. ~ Mick Ralphs, #NFDB
575:him who is born, death is certain, and to him who dies, rebirth is certain. ~ Sharon Maas, #NFDB
576:I am not certain I could live without you now that I have lived with you. ~ Sarah MacLean, #NFDB
577:I am now certain that you were exactly the person we were hoping to find. ~ Reki Kawahara, #NFDB
578:I am still sure of absolute wrong but much less certain of absolute right. ~ Jill Tweedie, #NFDB
579:If you want to win, but think you can't, it's almost certain that you won't. ~ Moe Norman, #NFDB
580:I love you as one loves certain dark things —Pablo Neruda, “Sonnet XVII ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
581:I'm human, so of course certain things sometimes hurt. I just laugh at it. ~ Selena Gomez, #NFDB
582:...in the best society hardly anyone can be certain who their father is. ~ Winston Graham, #NFDB
583:is that breakfastization gives the scrambled egg a certain sacrality, right? ~ John Green, #NFDB
584:It mattered not where her feet landed because her heart was certain. ~ Erica Bauermeister, #NFDB
585:It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and you can be wrong. ~ John F Kerry, #NFDB
586:I want to describe the psychological state of the people in a certain city. ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
587:Our history predisposes us to see and feel certain things more than others. ~ Fred Kofman, #NFDB
588:Strategy is choice. Strategy means saying no to certain kinds of things. ~ Michael Porter, #NFDB
589:The certain, lonely knowledge [120] that everything is vain but grief. ~ Giacomo Leopardi, #NFDB
590:The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house. ~ Jean Cocteau, #NFDB
591:There are certain things I do because I am creatively inspired and artistic. ~ Damon Dash, #NFDB
592:There is nothing more frightening than a man who is certain of divine plans. ~ Jerry Dubs, #NFDB
593:To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
594:Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
595:We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
596:Whatever you lost through fate, be certain that it saved you from pain. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #NFDB
597:Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
598:Your ideas of good and bad are just a certain level of prejudice against life. ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
599:After a certain point, all natural bodily changes are for the worst. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
600:As we gain knowledge, we do not become more certain, we become certain of more. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
601:Betrayal and grief have a certain color no matter what the species is. ~ Cecil Castellucci, #NFDB
602:certain is death for the born And certain is birth for the dead; Therefore ~ F Paul Wilson, #NFDB
603:Don't threaten someone unless you're certain you can carry out the threat. ~ Tamora Pierce, #NFDB
604:Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”
MARK TWAIN ~ Leil Lowndes,#NFDB
605:How do you ever know for certain that you are doing the right thing? There ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
606:I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom. ~ Michael Bloomberg, #NFDB
607:I like ostriches. There’s a certain depth to their gaze,” he mused quietly. ~ Camilla Monk, #NFDB
608:I'm definitely not going to go and sing a song that condones certain things. ~ Josh Turner, #NFDB
609:In certain ways, I'm not very different than I was when I was a teenager. ~ Barry Commoner, #NFDB
610:Let us not be needlessly bitter: certain failures are sometimes fruitful. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
611:Once you've seen a pretty girl naked, you feel a certain attachment to her. ~ John Grisham, #NFDB
612:Once you've seen certain things, the moral compunction drives you to act. ~ Tom Hiddleston, #NFDB
613:Sometimes, certain of God’s blessings arrive by shattering all the windows. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
614:The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
615:The one certain way for a woman to hold a man is to leave him for religion. ~ Muriel Spark, #NFDB
616:There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl's complexion. ~ Audrey Hepburn, #NFDB
617:There is nothing more certain and unchanging than uncertainty and change. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
618:There is only one thing certain and that is that nothing is certain ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
619:There's a certain delusional quality that all successful people have to have. ~ Will Smith, #NFDB
620:To be considered a celebrity, there's a certain lifestyle that comes with that. ~ Kid Cudi, #NFDB
621:To know is one thing, and to know for certain that we know is another. One ~ William James, #NFDB
622:"We do not dance to reach a certain point on the floor, but simply to dance." ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
623:We know: An almost certain way to die is to believe you are already dead. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
624:What is success? It isn't only about winning, but playing in a certain way. ~ Kevin Keegan, #NFDB
625:What you have to do in certain situations, that's called situational hitting. ~ Joe Morgan, #NFDB
626:When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
627:When we are certain, we can relax into a sense of knowing and faith. ~ Gabrielle Bernstein, #NFDB
628:You can't always expect a certain result, but you can expect to do your best. ~ Anita Hill, #NFDB
629:You mustn't speak certain kinds of truth, not if you want to go on living. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
630:Your ideas of good and bad are just a certain level of prejudice against life". ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
631:A certain degree of audiovisual hallucination happens when we read poetry. ~ Timothy Morton, #NFDB
632:Age protects love not, but love protects up to a certain degree before age. ~ Jeanne Moreau, #NFDB
633:All fiction has to have a certain amount of truth in it to be powerful. ~ George R R Martin, #NFDB
634:A lot of times, people think they're the only ones that feel a certain way. ~ Carrie Fisher, #NFDB
635:Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
636:Feel certain that I will die of sudden and incurable obesity within the next week ~ Tao Lin, #NFDB
637:For me the only certain means of knowing God is nonviolence, ahimsa, love. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
638:From a certain point of view our real enemy, the true troublemaker, is inside. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
639:Hopefully, I brought people a certain joy. That will be a wonderful legacy. ~ Julie Andrews, #NFDB
640:I have a certain curiosity for life that drives me and propels me forward. ~ Rachel McAdams, #NFDB
641:I just like living in certain atmospheres. Or I just like people as they are. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
642:I'm not. Certain. About lots of things. I just know where I belong. ~ Julia Spencer Fleming, #NFDB
643:Indeed, it may most verily be said
That only death and taxes certain are. ~ Ian Doescher,#NFDB
644:I said there are certain flowers that wilt if you put them in a vase'" (368). ~ Jorge Amado, #NFDB
645:I seem to grasp at certain moments the nuance that divides bad from worse. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
646:It requires a certain kind of mind to see the beauty in a hamburger bun. ~ David Halberstam, #NFDB
647:I was always curious why certain marketing worked and some marketing did not. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
648:Men achieve a certain greatness unawares when working to another aim. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
649:Parallel universes are not a theory, but a prediction of certain theories. Of ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
650:She had a certain way of looking at life which he took as a personal offense. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
651:The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
652:Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences ~ William James, #NFDB
653:There are certain thoughts that, no matter what, you have to keep inside. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
654:There's a drive in me that won't allow me to do certain things that are easy. ~ Johnny Depp, #NFDB
655:The times when we could fully count on others are over to a certain extent. ~ Angela Merkel, #NFDB
656:The urgent warnings:
The dreamy terror of certain summer mornings. ~ Laura Kasischke,#NFDB
657:The writer can't stop her unconscious from showing up, that's certain. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
658:This was the sort of situation that called for a certain amount of terror. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
659:To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
660:Yes, I'm religious. God has shown me things, made certain ways clear to me. ~ Richard Pryor, #NFDB
661:Yes, one gets over things. But there are certain memories one can't bit on. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
662:You enter into a certain amount of madness when you marry a person with pets. ~ Nora Ephron, #NFDB
663:You humans have a certain talent for adaptability--at least in the short term. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
664:You should be semi-embarrasse d about certain people seeing your movie. ~ Quentin Tarantino, #NFDB
665:A certain kind of poetry looks back at experience from an older perspective. ~ Edward Hirsch, #NFDB
666:An empty canvas is a living wonder - far lovelier than certain pictures. ~ Wassily Kandinsky, #NFDB
667:Bigotry and hatred and prejudice rise and fall depending on certain situations. ~ Jack Levin, #NFDB
668:But he was damn certain he was going to be her last, best, and only from now on. ~ J S Scott, #NFDB
669:Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see. ~ J T Geissinger, #NFDB
670:For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few sad and certain things. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
671:His worst fault is he thinks his brains entitle him to certain privileges. ~ Bernard Malamud, #NFDB
672:I feel fairly certain that my hatred harms me more than the people whom I hate. ~ Max Frisch, #NFDB
673:I'm not actually planning anything. A certain period of drifting is in order. ~ Annie Proulx, #NFDB
674:In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
675:is no sure foundation set on blood, no certain life achieved by others’ death, ~ Laura Bates, #NFDB
676:I think some people, when they get a certain ego, they lose sense of whatever. ~ Julie Delpy, #NFDB
677:I think sometimes people come into our lives at a certain time for a reason. ~ Penelope Ward, #NFDB
678:It was the era of Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson; they all had a certain look. ~ Taylor Hackford, #NFDB
679:I've aways been good at picking up certain things, like sports and dancing. ~ Channing Tatum, #NFDB
680:I wanted to be a certain kind of woman. I became that kind of woman. ~ Diane Von Furstenberg, #NFDB
681:I wanted to be a certain kind of woman. I became that kind of woman. ~ Diane von Furstenberg, #NFDB
682:No one knows for certain how much impact they ahve on the lives of other people. ~ Jay Asher, #NFDB
683:No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
684:No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. ~ Jay Asher, #NFDB
685:Now there is no place you can go where you don't hear certain types of music. ~ Jerry Garcia, #NFDB
686:Once you have been poor a long time you gain a certain respect for money. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
687:Once you're a public figure, there's a certain amount of privacy you do give up. ~ Jay Roach, #NFDB
688:Overall I enjoy a certain anonymity. I live a very normal, very ordinary life. ~ Gary Oldman, #NFDB
689:People often imagine that being hard to please confers a certain superiority. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
690:The imagination should be allowed a certain amount of time to browse around. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
691:The only certainty is uncertainty, except your own death, that's damn certain. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
692:The reason to have a home is to keep certain people in and everyone else out. ~ Jenny Offill, #NFDB
693:There is a certain combination of anarchy and discipline in the way I work. ~ Robert De Niro, #NFDB
694:There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go. ~ Tennessee Williams, #NFDB
695:There's a certain Buddhistic calm that comes from having... money in the bank. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
696:The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
697:The world is material. We are always in a certain place. Now I am here. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd, #NFDB
698:To a certain extent what I do is play with the world, but it's disciplined play. ~ Alex Webb, #NFDB
699:Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
700:Vidal himself joked that at a certain age lawsuits took the place of sex. ~ Christopher Bram, #NFDB
701:We have people who are healers and those who posses a certain animal magnetism. ~ Julian May, #NFDB
702:We kings do develop a certain ability to recognize objects under our noses. ~ Robin McKinley, #NFDB
703:We’re not suspicious enough of words, and calamity strikes. Certain ~ Louis Ferdinand C line, #NFDB
704:When did you get so bossy, Ms. Baird?” “Self-defense against a certain T-Rex. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
705:You can get pigeonholed in Hollywood and people think of you in a certain way. ~ Luke Wilson, #NFDB
706:You might say that certain words are only pegs to hang intonations on. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #NFDB
707:And the fact that I see so many films really seems to amaze certain people. ~ Jacques Rivette, #NFDB
708:As human beings, everyone has stuff coming at them, and a certain kind of fear. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
709:At certain times, though, this “I need the best” mentality can be debilitating. ~ Aziz Ansari, #NFDB
710:Be certain that he who has betrayed thee once will betray thee again. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater, #NFDB
711:Children from a big family have the benefit of a certain amount of neglect. ~ Wallace Stegner, #NFDB
712:Computations are everywhere, once you begin to look at things in a certain way. ~ Rudy Rucker, #NFDB
713:Every art and every faculty contemplates certain things as its principal objects. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
714:I always wanted to be the outlaw. And that's to a certain extent how I've lived. ~ James Frey, #NFDB
715:I don't think you can write novels on the road. You need a certain stability. ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
716:In a certain sense, Zen is feeling life instead of feeling something about life. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
717:It is... easy to be certain. One has only to be sufficiently vague. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce, #NFDB
718:It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming. ~ Adlai Stevenson I, #NFDB
719:I've always been pretty good at remembering the details about certain things. ~ Chris Jericho, #NFDB
720:Love is the only way on which even the dim-witted reaches certain heights. ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
721:may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back ~ Lucille Clifton, #NFDB
722:One could argue that there exist certain questions that are best left unanswered. ~ Dan Brown, #NFDB
723:People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
724:The fear of old age disturbs us, yet we are not certain of becoming old. ~ Jean de la Bruyere, #NFDB
725:The look of success, when it is worn a certain way, would infuriate a jackass. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
726:The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
727:There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books. ~ Maurice Sendak, #NFDB
728:there are certain treasures that kill you if you can’t share them with others. ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
729:There are certain words which are nearer and dearer to a man than any others. ~ Nikolai Gogol, #NFDB
730:There is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
731:There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse. ~ Washington Irving, #NFDB
732:There's a certain phraseology involved in jazz, and I've moved away from that. ~ Jan Garbarek, #NFDB
733:There was nothing more certain in life than the ending of a good romance novel. ~ Aileen Erin, #NFDB
734:We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
735:We knew that there was a certain kind of interest in Whale among a genre crowd. ~ Bill Condon, #NFDB
736:you can’t have compassion unless you have a certain loyalty to the human race. ~ Fannie Flagg, #NFDB
737:You have to be damn certain you're putting something better in its place. ~ Jonathan Dimbleby, #NFDB
738:You must behave as if return is certain, not a matter of chance", Jem said. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
739:Your ideas of good and bad are just a certain level of prejudice against life. The ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
740:All governments are, to a certain extent, a treaty with the Devil. ~ Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, #NFDB
741:A man must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere. ~ Charles Kettering, #NFDB
742:Believing in the project to a certain extent always makes things more affordable. ~ Steve Pink, #NFDB
743:Besides, you don't have to be a vampire to want to bite certain people's necks, ~ Muriel Zagha, #NFDB
744:Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
745:Certain faults are necessary to the individual if he is to exist. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
746:Certain types of films will never test well. My films never seem to test well. ~ Terry Zwigoff, #NFDB
747:Choice is the declaration by self that a certain ideal of self shall be realized. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
748:Film, television and to a certain extent, theater are modern day libraries. ~ David Strathairn, #NFDB
749:For whatever the future holds, one thing is certain... It just won't be the same. ~ Alan Moore, #NFDB
750:How to use and leverage the presence and power of certain places for accessing ~ Otto Scharmer, #NFDB
751:I am not dramatic, okay? My presence just commands a certain kind of attention- ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
752:If he could do it, Churchill was certain, so could his fellow misfits. ~ Christopher McDougall, #NFDB
753:I'm fully capable of multitasking certain conceptual concerns within the work. ~ Kehinde Wiley, #NFDB
754:I'm well known because I do music at a professional level, and a certain magnitude. ~ Kid Cudi, #NFDB
755:I never can feel certain of any truth, but from a clear perception of its beauty. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
756:I think movies should illuminate and teach, but that's for a certain genre. ~ Jordana Brewster, #NFDB
757:It is certain that most who concentrate upon achievement miss life. ~ Michael Joseph Oakeshott, #NFDB
758:It was in a certain sense home – the place, that is, where one doesn’t feel. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
759:Markets express and promote certain attitudes to the goods being exchanged. ~ Michael J Sandel, #NFDB
760:Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy. ~ Robert Anthony, #NFDB
761:... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp. ~ William James, #NFDB
762:No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
763:Roughing it builds a boy's character, but only certain kinds of roughing it. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
764:The certain pathway to all things that you want is through the corridor of joy. ~ Esther Hicks, #NFDB
765:The intelligent man makes certain reservations as to the choice of his listeners. ~ John Fante, #NFDB
766:There are certain nights you and your image just aren't in the same bed. ~ Matthew McConaughey, #NFDB
767:There are certain things in ancient practices that are not worth adhering to. ~ Cate Blanchett, #NFDB
768:There is a certain clinical satisfaction in seeing just how bad things can get. ~ Sylvia Plath, #NFDB
769:There is a certain kind of stupidity reserved for women's dealings with men. ~ Fran oise Sagan, #NFDB
770:There is no gain so certain as that which arises from sparing what you have. ~ Publilius Syrus, #NFDB
771:There's a certain sort of a man whose every charm lies in his predictability. ~ Louise Doughty, #NFDB
772:The thing about fantasy - there are certain things you just don't do in fantasy. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
773:To like things like, whatever one may ail; There is certain help. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
774:To own a certain book - and to choose it without help - is to define yourself. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
775:We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
776:wick to be certain it was entirely extinguished. “Energy like your energy. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
777:A belief is a sense of being certain and what you believe, you become. Negative ~ Kevin Horsley, #NFDB
778:A promise must be about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling a certain way. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
779:Art comes after the fact, as a witness to certain things that have happened. ~ Raymond Pettibon, #NFDB
780:Certain artists in print or paint flourish, like babies-to-be, in confined spaces. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
781:Even if I weren't in Hollywood, I would feel pressure to look a certain way. ~ Katharine McPhee, #NFDB
782:I am certain about what I will never do - but not about what my art will render. ~ Odilon Redon, #NFDB
783:I am certain a great many believers and bible readers do believe in social justice. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
784:I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
785:I guess every actor has certain emotions they can access easier than others. ~ William Mapother, #NFDB
786:I'm pretty simple, I don't use a hairbrush or a certain kind of hair product. ~ Josh Hutcherson, #NFDB
787:"In a certain sense, Zen is feeling life instead of feeling something about life." ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
788:I need to be very careful about going on certain networks that seem to have a bias. ~ Rand Paul, #NFDB
789:It went bust,” said Uncle Alex, with a certain grim, Darwinian satisfaction. My ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
790:I've always been open to doing reality again. Just under certain circumstances. ~ Lauren Conrad, #NFDB
791:Mythology is a subjective truth. Every culture imagines life a certain way. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
792:Once you pass a certain amount of household income, life isn’t any better. ~ Catherine McKenzie, #NFDB
793:Sometimes my mother had difficulty communicating with me about certain topics. ~ Gloria Estefan, #NFDB
794:Sometimes we do things a certain way just because that is the way we do things. ~ Judith Martin, #NFDB
795:There was no denying the fact that there was a certain excitement in the air. ~ William Goldman, #NFDB
796:To endeavor to forget anyone is a certain way of thinking of nothing else. ~ Jean de la Bruyere, #NFDB
797:Trauma, and certain important experiences, can imprint on us at a genetic level. ~ Michael Helm, #NFDB
798:When you do controversial work, you're going to upset a certain amount of people. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
799:When you kick ass, make certain it’s the right ass you kick for the right reason. ~ C L Scholey, #NFDB
800:When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower, #NFDB
801:Why bother choosing a certain chair? Because that chair says something about you. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
802:You cannot know" he said simply. "Very little is certain in this life, my lady. ~ Robin Maxwell, #NFDB
803:You may suppress natural propensities by force, but they will be certain to re-appear. ~ Horace, #NFDB
804:Your stockings prove your virtues. Be certain they are clean and free of tears. ~ Emilie Autumn, #NFDB
805:Actresses are required to perform the epitome of a certain type of femininity. ~ Mackenzie Davis, #NFDB
806:As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
807:Certain directors are known for a certain kind of beauty; it becomes their signature. ~ Tom Ford, #NFDB
808:Certain scents can evoke so much feeling, nostalgia, and trigger beautiful memories. ~ Kat Von D, #NFDB
809:Charities are really good. To a certain extent, the ones you pick are arbitrary. ~ Penn Jillette, #NFDB
810:Everyone was younger then, and in the telling a certain glow suffuses those years. ~ Joan Didion, #NFDB
811:He who doesn't lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose. ~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, #NFDB
812:History is a matter of interpretation, but you have to start with certain facts. ~ Peter Kuznick, #NFDB
813:How do you prove to a woman that you loved her, when she was certain you didn't? ~ Joan Johnston, #NFDB
814:I believe that everybody comes from pain and a certain amount of dysfunction. ~ Mariel Hemingway, #NFDB
815:I'm glad I didn't know certain things earlier, because then it wouldn't be any fun. ~ Jonny Lang, #NFDB
816:It helps in public relations to have a certain amount of charm and Agatha had none. ~ M C Beaton, #NFDB
817:it is far, far better to live a life of uncertain happiness than of certain misery. ~ Mandy Hale, #NFDB
818:macerating what was left of the organs, ‘liver, a portion of the heart, a certain ~ Val McDermid, #NFDB
819:Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
820:Only what is thought, said, or done at a certain rare coincidence is good. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
821:Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
822:So many teachers teach us but we shall always remember certain teachers ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
823:Suffering is unbearable if you aren’t certain that God is for you and with you. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
824:There are certain things that ordinary people have that celebrities don't have. ~ Norman Spinrad, #NFDB
825:There are rules, and when certain things happen, there are ceratin consequences. ~ Sarah Paulson, #NFDB
826:There is a modern take on certain things you can do that, to me, is still jazz. ~ Robert Glasper, #NFDB
827:There's a difference between suspecting a thing and finally knowing it for certain. ~ Glenn Beck, #NFDB
828:Time has a certain current to it, and it wants to flow in a certain direction. ~ Marc Guggenheim, #NFDB
829:True. I’ve no formula I can work out for certain… emotions I feel around you. ~ Kerri Maniscalco, #NFDB
830:When we cannot stand certain people, we try to have suspicions about them. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
831:You are right—nothing can harm your soul and the Victory of the Truth is certain. ~ ~ The Mother, #NFDB
832:You can't hide from certain death, so you shouldn't hide from uncertain life. ~ Megan McCafferty, #NFDB
833:A woman should have a certain respect for herself and not submit to humiliation ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
834:Bands that I've loved over the years are the ones that have a certain myth around them. ~ Karen O, #NFDB
835:Certain feelings and actions become decisions, rather than the other way around. ~ Daphne Kalotay, #NFDB
836:Certain writers have it very precise and there's not much room to add something. ~ Robert De Niro, #NFDB
837:Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year. ~ John Adams, #NFDB
838:How could I leave Prim, who is the only person in the world I’m certain I love? ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
839:I am devilishly afraid, that's certain; but ... I'll sing, that I may seem valiant. ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
840:I feel responsible for certain fans, but I've never said I'm a role model. ~ Jamie Campbell Bower, #NFDB
841:I have this wholesome disposition in a lot of my characters. A certain earnestness. ~ Matt Lauria, #NFDB
842:I'm constantly changing and evolving so I don't abide by just one certain style. ~ Stella Hudgens, #NFDB
843:I never directly think of certain films. I know I am influenced by all the films I see. ~ Tom Six, #NFDB
844:In the usual course of study I had come to a book of a certain Cicero. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
845:My heart would obey me, I was certain. I simply needed to be strict with it. ~ Julianne Donaldson, #NFDB
846:Nothing is more certain than that there must be an unmade and unlimited being. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
847:People never know each other until they have eaten a certain amount of salt together. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
848:She may not have believed in God, but I’m pretty certain God believed in her. ~ Rosamunde Pilcher, #NFDB
849:There are certain regions in the country where the indigenous people eat dogs. ~ Jessica Hagedorn, #NFDB
850:There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an opinion. ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
851:The sword has spoke the truth - in authority and wisdom - only the sword O Damascus is certain! ~, #NFDB
852:True, Heaven prohibits certain pleasures; but one can generally negotiate a compromise. ~ Moliere, #NFDB
853:Unless we fix certain hours in the day for prayer, it easily slips from our memory. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
854:Usually I don't get specific advice from certain actors or actresses I work with. ~ Kaitlyn Dever, #NFDB
855:We can never be certain of our courage until we have faced danger. ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld, #NFDB
856:When silence is prolonged over a certain period of time, it takes on new meaning. ~ Yukio Mishima, #NFDB
857:Whether you're eighteen or sixty, in a certain way, whatever you know is valid. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
858:Working in Hollywood does give one a certain expertise in the field of prostitution. ~ Jane Fonda, #NFDB
859:All kinds of performance practices have a certain register of power or solemnity. ~ Theaster Gates, #NFDB
860:And the fascination I experienced was probably very close to a certain kind of love. ~ Andy Warhol, #NFDB
861:As a model you do play a certain role and you know as an actor you play another role. ~ Gemma Ward, #NFDB
862:"As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is." ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
863:But I was almost certain—almost completely certain—that she was the woman in cabin 10. ~ Ruth Ware, #NFDB
864:Certain problems cannot be solved if you are constantly entertained and distracted. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
865:Certain types of loudmouthism should be a capital offense among decent people. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
866:Elizabeth Taylor was never told what to wear or paid to carry a certain handbag. ~ Daphne Guinness, #NFDB
867:Ghosts are most often seen by girls, and certain young men with an iron deficiency. ~ Alan Bradley, #NFDB
868:I do have certain feelings. My feeling is that whoever is in charge, I want him out. ~ Lewis Black, #NFDB
869:I have a certain image that's more classic, and I'm happy to stay out of the fray. ~ Renee Fleming, #NFDB
870:I like simple, I like quality, and I like less. Do I like a certain aesthetic? Yeah. ~ Tomas Maier, #NFDB
871:I'm tryna do it all tonight, I got plans. I got a certain lust for life, and as it stands. ~ Drake, #NFDB
872:It is courageous to occasionally admit that there are certain things one can't do. ~ Martin Schulz, #NFDB
873:It take a certain type of man to teach, to be far from hood but to understand the streets. ~ Drake, #NFDB
874:Lampone made a gesture that said he would be patient, knowing his reward was certain. ~ Mario Puzo, #NFDB
875:Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes, and the second law of thermodynamics. ~ Seth Lloyd, #NFDB
876:Oh no, I’m not brave. When a thing is certain there’s nothing to be brave about. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
877:Only when someone refuses to do certain things will he be capable of doing great things. ~ Mencius, #NFDB
878:Social science means inventing a certain brand of human we can understand. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
879:Sometimes, certain of God's blessings arrive by shattering all the windows. (Brida) ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
880:The conventional accept and are frequently charmed by a certain unconventionality. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
881:The mind revolts against certain opinions, as the stomach rejects certain foods. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
882:The only unchangable certainty in life is that nothing is unchangable or certain. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
883:The press is owned by wealthy men who only want certain things to reach the public. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
884:There is a certain perfection in accident which we never consciously attain. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
885:There is no way to know for certain what lurks in the shadowed corners of the mind. ~ Ren e Ahdieh, #NFDB
886:The sight of a certain depressed-to-the-max head of seaweed has made me quite ill. ~ Jun Mochizuki, #NFDB
887:Toil and pleasure, dissimilar in nature, are nevertheless united by a certain natural bond. ~ Livy, #NFDB
888:To visit certain streets was to realise that only the sky remained unchanged there. ~ Nadeem Aslam, #NFDB
889:... truth has a certain buoyancy - it makes its way to the surface, in time. ~ Jacqueline Winspear, #NFDB
890:We are in the process of making the world, to a certain extent, in our own image. ~ Barnett Newman, #NFDB
891:We have to go through certain things in order to appreciate life and learn lessons. ~ Mariah Carey, #NFDB
892:When you get older, you'll understand. There's a certain comfort in the familiar. ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
893:Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
894:You are, at least to a certain approximation, human. You’re not supposed to be here. ~ John Scalzi, #NFDB
895:You look a certain way because you want people to listen to you in a certain way. ~ Marilyn Manson, #NFDB
896:Your stockings prove your virtues.
Be certain they are clean and free of tears. ~ Emilie Autumn,#NFDB
897:You will find," she says, "that there's a certain grace to having your heart broken. ~ Lena Dunham, #NFDB
898:You will find,” she says, “that there’s a certain grace to having your heart broken. ~ Lena Dunham, #NFDB
899:A man who does not lose his reason over certain things has none to lose. ~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, #NFDB
900:Are you quite certain you don't want to come up to my flat for tea and toast and scandal? ~ Y S Lee, #NFDB
901:At the age of five, Gustav Perle was certain of only one thing: he loved his mother. ~ Rose Tremain, #NFDB
902:aware that he had lost some kind of contest but not entirely certain what it was. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
903:Be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
904:Better to find out certain things by living them, not by reading them in a book. ~ Susanna Kearsley, #NFDB
905:...but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
906:certain games are going on behind your back in this house. Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm ~ Henrik Ibsen, #NFDB
907:Certain other societies may respect the rule of force--we respect the rule of law. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
908:Everything we need to be satisfied in God, the cross has made certain. It cannot fail. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
909:exercise is as effective as certain medications for treating anxiety and depression. ~ John J Ratey, #NFDB
910:Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
911:Financial sense is knowing that certain men will promise to do certain things, and fail. ~ E W Howe, #NFDB
912:Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
913:He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
914:How short life would be if certain unpleasant moments didn't make it feel endless! ~ Silvina Ocampo, #NFDB
915:I can choose to trust God with childlike trust regardless of how certain I might feel. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
916:I don't like to power trip, but when you're a boss you have to fight for certain things. ~ Kid Cudi, #NFDB
917:If I ever get reincarnated, let me make certain I don’t come back as a paperclip. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
918:I keep kind of making certain mistakes in public appearances over and over again. ~ Katherine Heigl, #NFDB
919:I loved the sound of words, even if I was not entirely certain what all of them meant ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
920:In order to have the stuff of a tyrant, a certain mental derangement is necessary. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
921:I remember going to acting class, so certain that no one's ever going to know my name. ~ Debby Ryan, #NFDB
922:...it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it. ~ Rene Descartes, #NFDB
923:Macit was certain that victory was to be won around the table, not on the battlefield. ~ Ay e Kulin, #NFDB
924:Merely quantitative differences, beyond a certain point, pass into qualitative changes. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
925:Not everything can be told in words, certain things it's better never to tell. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
926:One thing is certain in business, you and everyone around you will make mistakes. ~ Richard Branson, #NFDB
927:Principle is OK up to a certain point, but principle doesn't do any good if you lose. ~ Dick Cheney, #NFDB
928:Reading after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
929:So called pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments. ~ Seneca the Younger, #NFDB
930:Some people resemble ballads which are only sung for a certain time. ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld, #NFDB
931:There are certain wicked people in the world that you can't deal with except by force ~ John Keegan, #NFDB
932:There is a certain pleasure in weeping; grief finds in tears both a satisfaction and a cure. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
933:There's a certain comfort in being in supporting roles because it's not all on you. ~ Robin Weigert, #NFDB
934:There was a certain wisdom in doing little, when one was obliged to act in ignorance. ~ C J Cherryh, #NFDB
935:The truth was that all men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
936:The written word still enjoyed a certain prestige here. It was a sluggish country. ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
937:Thought is an infection. In the case of certain thoughts, it becomes an epidemic. ~ Wallace Stevens, #NFDB
938:To that which is born, death is certain; to that which is dead, birth is certain. ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
939:We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still close to us ~ Daphne du Maurier, #NFDB
940:What is certain in the rational realm is by no means certain in the kingdom of swoon. ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
941:You get to a certain age and you can't judge yourself on your dad or your parents. ~ Ellie Goulding, #NFDB
942:A certain blue enters your soul. A certain red has an effect on your blood-pressure. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
943:A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
944:All other areas of my life, I'm hopeless. I can't even be certain how to boil an egg. ~ Ian Mckellen, #NFDB
945:bravery comes not in a certain bloodline. But in the strength of one person’s heart. ~ Shannon Mayer, #NFDB
946:Certain kinds of beauty make people weep, the moments “when hope and history rhyme, ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
947:Even in the face of certain adversity, a true lady always makes a graceful exit. ~ Jessica Jefferson, #NFDB
948:Everybody is an actor in one way or another. We are all performing certain things. ~ Jake Gyllenhaal, #NFDB
949:fallen empires of kings, dictators, and fools who were passionate, certain, and wrong. ~ Bobby Adair, #NFDB
950:Feeling in the young precedes philosophy, and often acts with a more certain aim. ~ William Carleton, #NFDB
951:Feelings like guilt and anxiety and missing people should have a certain life span. ~ Marie Rutkoski, #NFDB
952:French cinema allows women to look... a certain way and be talented at the same time. ~ Gina Bellman, #NFDB
953:He presented to the world the facade of a certain kind of man who wasn't really there. ~ Amy Schumer, #NFDB
954:I had a certain amount of skill as a dramatist, and Dr. Goebbels wanted me to use it ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
955:I have a certain avoidance of reality that makes fantasy an ideal choice for me. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
956:In a certain light and from a carefully chosen angle, Magrat was not unattractive. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
957:I think there's a certain stigma that comes with being a white rapper and having a show. ~ Mike Stud, #NFDB
958:It's certain death anyway, said Ridcully. That's the thing about Death, certainty. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
959:Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It's about feeling the way you feel. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
960:No degree of speculative knowledge of religion is any certain sign of true piety. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
961:Nothing under Providence is ever certain until an agent goes and tries and makes it so. ~ Ada Palmer, #NFDB
962:Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
963:One thing I’m certain of: Wanting just leads to more wanting. There’s no end to desire ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
964:Romantic comedies are built to be light. They're built for a certain buoyancy. ~ Matthew McConaughey, #NFDB
965:Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called 'walking.' ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
966:Some things get better with age, but after a certain point, the mind isn't among them. ~ Ann Landers, #NFDB
967:That's something that is almost part of being human and I'm certain that will continue. ~ Sally Ride, #NFDB
968:The better you hear a thing put, the more certain you are there's another view. ~ Dorothy Richardson, #NFDB
969:The greater part of a men who speak ill of women are speaking of a certain woman. ~ R my de Gourmont, #NFDB
970:the more people who follow a certain idea, the better (truer) we deem the idea to be. ~ Rolf Dobelli, #NFDB
971:The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
972:There are certain things no one can do for you. One of those is spending time with God. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
973:There are certain things that happen in New York that just don't happen anywhere else. ~ Paul Beatty, #NFDB
974:There are just certain times I sense the Lord is wanting me to write, and so I write. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
975:There's a certain confidence that comes with being sure about the way the world works. ~ John Legend, #NFDB
976:What was love if not a certain pleasantly deluded familiarity built up over years? ~ Julie Anne Long, #NFDB
977:With any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
978:After all, I was dressed in linen and so retained a certain capacity for nonchalance. ~ Joanna Ruocco, #NFDB
979:An English tongue, if refined to a certain standard, might perhaps be fixed forever. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
980:Anger is an expensive luxury in which only men of certain income can indulge. ~ George William Curtis, #NFDB
981:But I do think sometimes a certain kind of dream can be even stronger than reality. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
982:But I've always believed that Christine Cagney shouldn't be played past a certain age. ~ Sharon Gless, #NFDB
983:Certain things can only be understood if we take the trouble to retrace their origins. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
984:Certain things, if not seen as lovely or detestable, are not being correctly seen at all. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
985:Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. HEBREWS 11:1 ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
986:FAT CHARLIE WASN’T CERTAIN THAT HE LIKED FREEDOM. THERE was too much open air involved. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
987:He’d put up with me a lot longer than I would have put up with me, that was certain. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
988:I didn’t feel so bad about the myrrh, because I’ve never been quite certain what it is. ~ Hugh Laurie, #NFDB
989:if you are seeking to preserve a certain worldview, it actually helps to gut science. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
990:If you're going to plan a wedding, then a certain amount of suffering is not a choice. ~ Ellie Kemper, #NFDB
991:I happen to think like a man, and do certain things guys like to do. I grew up around boys. ~ Rihanna, #NFDB
992:I love you too, Lizzie. Pretty sure since the minute I met you, and certain I will forever ~ S E Hall, #NFDB
993:in certain societies there is a systematic underestimate of one's own creativity ~ Albert O Hirschman, #NFDB
994:I still have certain goals that I want. Grammies... Other awards... an Oscar one day. ~ Janet Jackson, #NFDB
995:I think that films about faith made for faith-based communities have a certain tactic. ~ Vera Farmiga, #NFDB
996:It kept him alive, he was certain; even more, it kept his darkest of his demons at bay. ~ Lara Adrian, #NFDB
997:It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much laboring. ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
998:One thing I’m certain of: Wanting just leads to more wanting. There’s no end to desire. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
999:One thing I'm certain of: wanting just leads to more wanting. There's no end to desire. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
1000:One thing that's certain about the future: it will have more history than the present. ~ Paul McAuley, #NFDB
1001:People dressed in a certain kind of clothing are never wrong. Also they never fart. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
1002:Samara Kazarian may not be certain about who or what she wants, but I sure as hell am. ~ Dahlia Adler, #NFDB
1003:Since bad timing could mean almost anything, it was a certain kind of truth. A low kind. ~ Adam Levin, #NFDB
1004:Sometimes death is proof of life. Sometimes decay points out a certain verve. ~ Karen Thompson Walker, #NFDB
1005:Sometimes we don't see certain things until we're ready to see them in a certain way. ~ Edward Norton, #NFDB
1006:Sometimes you want to dress a certain way... that doesn't always reflect your pedigree. ~ Ezra Koenig, #NFDB
1007:Television allowed me to kick the Hollywood habit of typing an actor in certain roles. ~ Harry Morgan, #NFDB
1008:That's what culture is based on, the passing down of a certain narrative by imitation. ~ Bradford Cox, #NFDB
1009:The most certain way to make a man your enemy is to tell him you esteem him such. ~ George Washington, #NFDB
1010:There are people whose clocks stop at a certain point in their lives. ~ Charles Augustin Sainte Beuve, #NFDB
1011:There is a certain time of life, when we value a good stomach more than the mind. ~ Ninon de L Enclos, #NFDB
1012:There was a certain freedom in being on the outside. He watched instead of being watched. ~ Amy Zhang, #NFDB
1013:The salvation of all the elect is not less certain than the power of God is invincible. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
1014:Tragedies are about the depths that call up to certain men and insist that they descend. ~ Robert Bly, #NFDB
1015:True courage, in the face of almost certain death, is the rarest quality on earth. ~ Christopher Pike, #NFDB
1016:UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
1017:Virtues consist not only of acting in certain ways, but in ways of caring and feeling. ~ Allen W Wood, #NFDB
1018:We may think God wants actions of a certain kind, but God wants people of a certain kind. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1019:When I look at something, it is certain that for an instant I am one with what I see. ~ Ella Maillart, #NFDB
1020:A certain amount of desperation is usually necessary before we’re ready for God. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
1021:A person who is not convinced, enthusiastic, certain and in love, will convince nobody. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1022:As you get older, there are different types of roles in people's lives at certain ages. ~ Logan Lerman, #NFDB
1023:At a certain point, your life is more about your legacy to your kids than anything else. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
1024:At a certain time in your life, you accept the fact that lunacy comes in many forms. ~ James Lee Burke, #NFDB
1025:At first I saw you everywhere.
Now only in certain things,
at longer intervals. ~ Louise Gl ck,#NFDB
1026:Boredom is a certain sign that we are allowing our faculties to rust in idleness. ~ William Ralph Inge, #NFDB
1027:Bravery ceases to be bravery at a certain point, and becomes mere foolhardiness. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #NFDB
1028:Certain things, examined in the frozen light of retrospect, were simply unforgivable. He ~ Monica Wood, #NFDB
1029:Cheeseburgers. I’m fairly certain they’re the most wonderful food invented by modern man. ~ Stacey Jay, #NFDB
1030:Each asana is like a piece of music that has a certain characteristic, a certain power. ~ Laura Huxley, #NFDB
1031:He seems sad, and it occurs to me that we have a certain kind of loneliness in common. ~ Kenny Porpora, #NFDB
1032:He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others... ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
1033:I am certain that Mr. Johnston is not a douchebag despite what the Republicans claim. ~ James Carville, #NFDB
1034:I believe that inside many Americans lies certain uneasiness about capital punishment. ~ Bill O Reilly, #NFDB
1035:I don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends I can be certain of. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
1036:If God has positioned us in a certain place, we must leave all the details to Him. ~ Charles F Stanley, #NFDB
1037:I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul. ~ Pablo Neruda, #NFDB
1038:In a certain present there is more of the future than in the future itself. ~ Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, #NFDB
1039:In order to be truly great at something you have to give into a certain amount of madness. ~ Joe Rogan, #NFDB
1040:I think all poetry is accessible in a certain sense if you spend enough time with it. ~ Matthea Harvey, #NFDB
1041:I think that people are born with a certain makeup, and that we're all children of God. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
1042:It is certain that at certain times talent entirely overcomes thought or poetry. ~ John Singer Sargent, #NFDB
1043:Laws are like the statues of certain divinities which on some occasions must be veiled.’13 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1044:may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back ~ Lucille Clifton,#NFDB
1045:Misfortune is needed to plumb certain mysterious depths in the understanding of men. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
1046:Of course a certain number of scientists have to go mad, just to keep the tradition alive. ~ Matt Ruff, #NFDB
1047:The curtain rises on a vast primitive wasteland, not unlike certain parts of New jersey. ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
1048:The more we are certain what good is, the more we shall see good in everything. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
1049:There is a certain degree of satisfaction in having the courage to admit one's errors. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
1050:There is a certain unique and strange delight about walking down an empty street alone. ~ Sylvia Plath, #NFDB
1051:They are permanent tourists, in Paris. Their life is a certain type of dream come true. ~ Chris Pavone, #NFDB
1052:Things that have form will all disappear. But certain feelings stay with us forever. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1053:Ugliness, n.: A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
1054:Unwanted events occur and you lack certain skills for minimizing the personal impact. ~ Graeme Simsion, #NFDB
1055:We are certain God's will is that all men share in the good things this earth produces. ~ Cesar Chavez, #NFDB
1056:You never forget the discovery years. First kisses. The first time you try certain foods. ~ Junot Diaz, #NFDB
1057:After twenty years in Canada, there are certain American lunatics who still fascinate me. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
1058:A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you
control it. ~ John Steinbeck,#NFDB
1059:A man is master of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it. -William Crimsworth ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
1060:But what am I going to see?
I don't know. In a certain sense, it depends on you. ~ Stanis aw Lem,#NFDB
1061:Certain things acquired an evil complexion if phrased, but remained harmless in the mind. ~ R K Narayan, #NFDB
1062:Certain things in life are more important than the usual crap that everyone strives for. ~ James Taylor, #NFDB
1063:Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
1064:Donald Trump is not my fault. You can blame certain things on me, but not Donald Trump. ~ Fran Lebowitz, #NFDB
1065:He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.... ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
1066:I also work out because I have scoliosis. I have to maintain certain strength in my core. ~ Joan Smalls, #NFDB
1067:If you don't fit into a certain type, there's a lot of strength in just being who you are. ~ Kim Gordon, #NFDB
1068:If you going to live by a certain code - as Bob Dylan said, you gotta serve somebody. ~ Thomas F Wilson, #NFDB
1069:If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part. ~ Richard P Feynman, #NFDB
1070:I think it's hard, the fact that there's a certain age that we can't have kids anymore. ~ Courteney Cox, #NFDB
1071:It is not possible to foretell the reaction of certain elements in the Army and Navy. ~ Yoshijiro Umezu, #NFDB
1072:It's a certain kind of immortality, because those Disney films do go on and on and on. ~ Phyllis Diller, #NFDB
1073:My belief is, you know, certain things have to be explained that's never been explained. ~ Dick Gregory, #NFDB
1074:Nothing was certain, but everything was safe - that was part of the mystery of Love. ~ Charles Williams, #NFDB
1075:One thing each of us knows for certain is that reality vastly exceeds our awareness of it. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
1076:On film, you can't do it over again. And you do have to stop shooting at a certain point. ~ Geena Davis, #NFDB
1077:Sometimes when you're at your most certain, that's when everything you know is wrong. ~ James Patterson, #NFDB
1078:The only tough thing is admitting to my wife how much a certain article of clothing costs. ~ Taye Diggs, #NFDB
1079:There are certain natures which cannot have love on one side without hatred on the other. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1080:There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
1081:There is no more certain way to deter employment than to harass and penalize employers. ~ Henry Hazlitt, #NFDB
1082:There’s a certain kind of woman who will notice someone’s terror and call it bravery. ~ Catherine Lacey, #NFDB
1083:Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait and wait without anxiety. ~ Gabrielle Bernstein, #NFDB
1084:What could she have done? She was a heroine, and with that came certain obligations. ~ Emily C A Snyder, #NFDB
1085:What’s more certain than anything is that your pity is even stronger than my love! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1086:When one is traveling, one must expect to spend a certain amount of money foolishly. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
1087:You can only play a certain amount of Yatzee games in a row before you become a lunatic. ~ Brandon Mull, #NFDB
1088:A certain number of years lived without money are enough to create a whole sensibility. ~ Sarah Bakewell, #NFDB
1089:A certain shame or bashfulness attached itself to whatever one deeply and privately enjoyed. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1090:A fighter can condition his body to go hard certain rounds, then to coast certain rounds. ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
1091:and no member is so hard to control. Therefore, a certain sign of Christian maturity is ~ Andrew M Davis, #NFDB
1092:A quota is always something artificial that can only last for a certain period of time. ~ Jacques Santer, #NFDB
1093:Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better. ~ Baron de Montesquieu, #NFDB
1094:Culture requires in the first place a certain balance of material and spiritual values. ~ Johan Huizinga, #NFDB
1095:even when police are indicted, we cannot be certain that change is on the agenda. There ~ Angela Y Davis, #NFDB
1096:Everything but me seemed utterly certain of itself. The sky didn’t wonder where it was. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
1097:Girls with boyfriends, she'd said, limit themselves to a certain kind of college experience. ~ Jenny Han, #NFDB
1098:He believed in it, as certain good women believe in the leviathan-by faith, not by reason. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
1099:He wasn't ugly, but if he picked a flower, I was fairly certain it would die in his hand. ~ Ruta Sepetys, #NFDB
1100:He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others. . . ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
1101:How it seemed like you could see everything, but certain things were blocked out, hidden. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
1102:I didn't set out to write certain kinds of songs - I just set out to write good songs. ~ Madonna Ciccone, #NFDB
1103:I don't know why certain people shine for others. I don know why you and not someone else ~ Melissa Marr, #NFDB
1104:If we don't discipline ourselves, God will make certain we are disciplined by others. ~ Jamie Buckingham, #NFDB
1105:I live my life with no regrets. Each decision of mine has define my life in a certain way ~ Katrina Kaif, #NFDB
1106:I'm a kind of hard-wired pessimist. I can't help but see the world in a certain kind of way. ~ Nick Cave, #NFDB
1107:I'm fairly certain. I could be some ghastly hallucination, a figment of my own imagination ~ Derek Landy, #NFDB
1108:I'm quite certain that the audience that I've got for my stuff don't listen to the lyrics. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
1109:I suppose because our hearts are made in a certain way we cannot help being what we are. ~ Irina Tweedie, #NFDB
1110:It had to be asked, even though I was almost certain I was the special cupcake of the year. ~ Jaymin Eve, #NFDB
1111:I think I'm innocently representing a certain belief in motion pictures, and, well OK. ~ Jean Luc Godard, #NFDB
1112:I think video is very useful, but it's very useful when you want a certain reality. ~ Jaume Collet Serra, #NFDB
1113:It was all obviously composed for effect, but was not without a certain artificial charm. ~ Dore Strauch, #NFDB
1114:Misfortune makes of certain souls a vast desert through which rings the voice of God. ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
1115:Movies are something people see all over the world because there is a certain need for it. ~ Wim Wenders, #NFDB
1116:Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy. ~ Seneca the Younger, #NFDB
1117:Nothing is more lethal for certain kinds of meme than a tendency to look for evidence. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1118:Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1119:Now faith is being sure of what we believe in and certain of what we do not see. (Heb. 11:1) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1120:Often, in great discovery the most important thing is that a certain question is found. ~ Max Wertheimer, #NFDB
1121:One thing I'm certain of:
Wanting just leads to more wanting. There's no end to desire. ~ Nicola Yoon,#NFDB
1122:Religion must be considered vindicated in a certain way from the attacks of her critics. ~ William James, #NFDB
1123:Research is of considerable importance in certain fields, such as science and history. ~ Fred Saberhagen, #NFDB
1124:She laughed, and the duke might actually have smiled, though one could never be certain. ~ Carolyn Jewel, #NFDB
1125:Strictly speaking, every citizen above a certain level of income is guilty of some offense. ~ Max Frisch, #NFDB
1126:The effect of the indulgence of human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1127:The inability to decide demonstrates a certain degree of attachment to a particular object. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
1128:The only thing I know for certain is that everything passes. The good times, the bad times. ~ Jane Green, #NFDB
1129:The only thing we can be certain of in this life is that we can be certain of nothing. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1130:There are just certain realities about our world and I just happen to be creative within it. ~ Pam Grier, #NFDB
1131:There are just certain sounds, music, that sort of you know people are going to like it. ~ Willie Nelson, #NFDB
1132:Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait, and wait without anxiety. ~ Gabrielle Bernstein, #NFDB
1133:Throughout my career I've always felt like certain things come to me at the right time. ~ Jennifer Lopez, #NFDB
1134:To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it. ~ Richard Miller, #NFDB
1135:To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous. Proverb ~ Michael W Covel, #NFDB
1136:We are convinced that certain people have all the bad qualities we do not know in ourselves. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1137:we are familiar with certain charac- teristics which are important if not also differential. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1138:When a young man complains that a young lady has no heart, it's pretty certain that she has his. ~ Drake, #NFDB
1139:you can’t dislike nearly everybody and be quite certain that you have exempted yourself. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1140:A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy. ~ Carl von Clausewitz, #NFDB
1141:Again, both literature and philosophy work by appealing to certain reigning idols. ~ Morris Raphael Cohen, #NFDB
1142:As a photographer you enlarge or emphasize a certain moment, making it another reality. ~ Rineke Dijkstra, #NFDB
1143:At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action. ~ Bono, #NFDB
1144:Be certain that in the religion of Love there are no believers and unbelievers. LOVE embraces all. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1145:Everybody learns differently and everybody gets to a certain point from a different direction. ~ Stan Lee, #NFDB
1146:Except in pure mathematics, nothing is known for certain (although much is certainly false). ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1147:He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other different desires. ~ Sitting Bull, #NFDB
1148:He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others. ~ Carine McCandless, #NFDB
1149:I closed my eyes, almost certain I was approching stage one of a zombie infection ~ Jennifer L Armentrout, #NFDB
1150:I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist. ~ Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, #NFDB
1151:I have a tendency to really stuff things — like, I don't really express certain feelings. ~ Jack Osbourne, #NFDB
1152:In contending with certain sins there remains no mode of victory but by flight. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1153:In the beginning I pushed toward perfection, but it takes time to get to certain places. ~ Alexander Wang, #NFDB
1154:I should add that I very much enjoy certain cities especially Paris, New York and Chicago. ~ Jim Harrison, #NFDB
1155:It's made me cynical at a young age to see how overlooked certain groups I've admired are. ~ Bradford Cox, #NFDB
1156:I've learnt a lot about certain things but you also learn through your own experience. ~ Daniel Radcliffe, #NFDB
1157:Lani felt certain that hers and Dawson's worlds would never collide.
She was wrong. ~ Lurlene McDaniel,#NFDB
1158:Logic must look after itself. In a certain sense, we cannot make mistakes in logic. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #NFDB
1159:No matter what you do for a living all we have is music to get through certain situations. ~ Deana Carter, #NFDB
1160:Nothing felt certain, so I made a choice. Hope, I decided. I would wake to a sense of hope. I ~ John Hart, #NFDB
1161:Obviously talent gets you to a certain point, but it's what you do with it, how you handle. ~ Brett Favre, #NFDB
1162:Of death I am as certain as any mortal, Ammerlin, but defeat is certain only in despair. ~ Elizabeth Moon, #NFDB
1163:one certain thing in life is that no one can make the truth untrue simply because it hurts. ~ David Weber, #NFDB
1164:People aren't pianos. You don't hit a certain note and know what you're going to get. ~ Gwendolyn Heasley, #NFDB
1165:Show me your sun. The rhythm of your eyes. Love is not as certain as this hypnotic time. ~ Gustavo Cerati, #NFDB
1166:Sometimes you write a song in a certain era and it's got a certain kind of significance. ~ Paul McCartney, #NFDB
1167:That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false. ~ Paul Val ry, #NFDB
1168:The cards are too vague, and if you want an answer to come out a certain way, it does. ~ Suzanne Palmieri, #NFDB
1169:The more self-evident a thing is to one's reason, the more certain it is that it exists ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
1170:The only people you can really share certain things with in secret are your girlfriends. ~ Shirley Knight, #NFDB
1171:There are certain defects which, well-mounted, glitter like virtue itself. ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld, #NFDB
1172:There are certain people that when they ask you to do a film, you just say, "Where and when?" ~ John Hurt, #NFDB
1173:There is a certain responsibility that accrued to me when I got to this unexpected position. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
1174:To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it. ~ Henry Kissinger, #NFDB
1175:To believe in'the greater good' isto operate, necessarily, in a certain ethical suspension. ~ Joan Didion, #NFDB
1176:To his own surprise he, too, grew suddenly angry and found a certain pleasure in it. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1177:What do you want from me, little girl? Because I’m almost certain I can’t give it to you. ~ Julie Johnson, #NFDB
1178:What occurs after revelation and paralysis? Either death or a slow and certain thawing. ~ Jeff VanderMeer, #NFDB
1179:When justice is more certain and more mild, is at the same time more efficacious. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
1180:A good run adds a little bounce to my step. I get a certain amount of self-esteem from it. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
1181:All rent is based on the monopoly power of private owners of certain portions of the globe. ~ David Harvey, #NFDB
1182:As you know, there are certain languages that lend themselves very easily to vocal use. ~ Neville Marriner, #NFDB
1183:at a certain moment in social proceedings, I am on FIRE to leave: I have a leaving-FIT. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks, #NFDB
1184:Books have a curious effect on those with certain predispositions to fall into obsession. ~ Kane X Faucher, #NFDB
1185:Certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation. ~ Paulo Freire, #NFDB
1186:Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money. ~ Ben Jonson, #NFDB
1187:I am certain that the good Lord never intended grapes to be made into grape jelly. ~ Fiorello H La Guardia, #NFDB
1188:If you persevere until death in true devotion to Mary, your salvation is certain.—ST. ALPHONSUS. ~ Various, #NFDB
1189:In all my life I've never felt as right and certain as when I'm with him. ~ Garret Weyr also Freymann Weyr, #NFDB
1190:In certain books—some way in the first few paragraphs you know that you have met a brother. ~ Robert Henri, #NFDB
1191:I think it's ridiculous that you need to look a certain way to be conventionally pretty. ~ Kristen Stewart, #NFDB
1192:I think there was something about being in a tough environment that gave me a certain drive. ~ Alicia Keys, #NFDB
1193:It is certain that a book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
1194:I used to think certain people in my life were the real deal. That we'd stay tight forever. ~ Sarah Ockler, #NFDB
1195:I’ve reached a certain age where I love to work. I could just live here [at the studio]. ~ Francisco Costa, #NFDB
1196:Live your life in the now, because you get to a certain age and you realize, “Wow, that was fast. ~ RuPaul, #NFDB
1197:Music has generally involved a lot of awkward contraptions, a certain amount of heavy lifting. ~ Tom Waits, #NFDB
1198:No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people - Hannah Baker ~ Jay Asher, #NFDB
1199:Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. —HEBREWS 11:1 ~ Sarah Young, #NFDB
1200:Once a child is confronted with the concept of death there's a certain innocence that goes. ~ Patsy Kensit, #NFDB
1201:Our role in Israel is a pioneering one, and we need people with certain strength of fiber. ~ Moshe Sharett, #NFDB
1202:Right now I feel certain that my imagination is much more dangerous than any of his truths. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
1203:Smile, look invested, and when you hand in certain projects, say you enjoyed working on them. ~ Kate White, #NFDB
1204:That larger vision is certain to make clear the value in our own lives of service to others. ~ Lucy Larcom, #NFDB
1205:the Creator of all things is looking throughout the whole earth for a certain kind of heart. ~ Jim Cymbala, #NFDB
1206:There is always a certain noise in applause: even in the applause we give ourselves. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1207:There is no sure foundation set on blood, No certain life achieved by others' death. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1208:We are the sum of who we are. We pick certain things at certain moments that influenced us. ~ Keanu Reeves, #NFDB
1209:When a person expends the least possible amount of energy on a certain act, that is grace. ~ Anton Chekhov, #NFDB
1210:Whenever Hollywood gets involved with real life events, certain liberties have to be taken. ~ Greg Kinnear, #NFDB
1211:When I think of all the books still left for me to read, I am certain of further happiness. ~ Jules Renard, #NFDB
1212:"When the objective orientation receives a certain predominance, the thinking is extraverted." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1213:Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
1214:You never knew for certain if a man was a hero or a villain or an ordinary human being. ~ Beatriz Williams, #NFDB
1215:You reach a certain point in your life where they things you do and say do make a difference. ~ Jimmy Webb, #NFDB
1216:A certain alloy of expediency improves the gold of morality and makes it wear all the longer. ~ Don Marquis, #NFDB
1217:A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture. ~ Barbara Kingsolver, #NFDB
1218:A certain simplicity of thought is common to serene souls at both ends of the social scale. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
1219:A man falling off a cliff to certain death will stretch out a hand even to his worst enemy. ~ Robert Jordan, #NFDB
1220:Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1221:and one thing I’m certain
that things continue to be shown
to me and everyone else. ~ Colin Andersen,#NFDB
1222:A sunset a forest a snow storm a certain river view are more to me than many friends. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1223:At a certain point, it’s better to go as you are than to wait until you’re who you want to be. ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
1224:Certain characteristic properties of elements can be foretold from their atomic weights. ~ Dmitri Mendeleev, #NFDB
1225:Certain laws have not been written, but they are more fixed than all the written laws. ~ Seneca the Younger, #NFDB
1226:Certainly one must try everything, but only to become more certain what God's way is. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
1227:Certain parts of San Francisco are what happens when white people have no natural predator. ~ Mary H K Choi, #NFDB
1228:Ever since I started to get recognition I've picked out certain fans and reverse-stalked them. ~ Jim Carrey, #NFDB
1229:Funny, how it took a little bit of pain to remember that certain parts of yourself were alive. ~ Adi Alsaid, #NFDB
1230:God is a foreman with certain definite views Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure. ~ Seamus Heaney, #NFDB
1231:I am too old a hand to be put off pleasure by even the certain prospect of not enjoying it. ~ Kingsley Amis, #NFDB
1232:I can always tell how stupid someone is by how certain they are about what they're saying. ~ Demetri Martin, #NFDB
1233:I don't know why certain people shine for others. I don't know why you and not someone else. ~ Melissa Marr, #NFDB
1234:I doubt that work ennobles man and I am absolutely certain that it does not ennoble woman. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
1235:I feel like certain people think that certain styles of music will taint their jazz style. ~ Robert Glasper, #NFDB
1236:In a certain class of uneducated mind foresight is often interpreted as guilty knowledge. ~ H Rider Haggard, #NFDB
1237:In short, liturgies make us certain kinds of people, and what defines us is what we love. ~ James K A Smith, #NFDB
1238:I think there are certain ways that people are always themselves, but I do think people change ~ Mike White, #NFDB
1239:It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. ~ Bill Watterson, #NFDB
1240:It's healthier to reject certain cautions than fall in line. I assume you know that, he said. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
1241:It's not a certain technique, it's not a skillit's all in your mind, it's how far you want to go ~ B J Penn, #NFDB
1242:I want the shuffles and echoes, and a certain mysteriousness... It's so bloody hard to paint. ~ Leland Bell, #NFDB
1243:Music is what I always turn to when I'm feeling a certain way. It's my reason for everything. ~ Josh Groban, #NFDB
1244:Not only is there an art in knowing a thing, but also a certain art in teaching it. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
1245:Of one thing I am certain, the body is not the measure of healing, peace is the measure. ~ Phyllis McGinley, #NFDB
1246:One of the things that characterizes good intellectual work is a certain self-importance ~ Whitfield Diffie, #NFDB
1247:She was certain there was no more tantalizing phrase in the English language than Chapter One. ~ Emma Scott, #NFDB
1248:Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing? ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
1249:Some empirical feelings, such as sympathy, are indispensable parts of certain moral virtues. ~ Allen W Wood, #NFDB
1250:The only event I'm certain to attend is my funeral, and I hope to arrive very, very late. ~ Josiah Bancroft, #NFDB
1251:The original answer defines certain conditions. Anything else is a different question. ~ Marilyn vos Savant, #NFDB
1252:There are certain men in the world who rather see everybody hung before they'll take blame. ~ Arthur Miller, #NFDB
1253:There are certain relationships that just don't fit into "good" or "bad"; they transcend it. ~ Alison Rosen, #NFDB
1254:There are certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, #NFDB
1255:There are certain things I just don't talk about - there are certain things that are private. ~ Peter Andre, #NFDB
1256:There is a certain part of all of us,” Milan Kundera writes, “that lives outside of time. ~ Jennifer Senior, #NFDB
1257:There's also a certain segment that doesn't know what "Annie Hall" is. Seriously, it's true. ~ Diane Keaton, #NFDB
1258:There was a certain power beautiful mothers held over their less beautiful daughters. ~ Sarah Addison Allen, #NFDB
1259:This much is certain: We have the power to damage the sea, but no sure way to heal the harm. ~ Sylvia Earle, #NFDB
1260:We live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain. ~ Vaclav Havel, #NFDB
1261:You get to a certain point and you just realize there's no use in trying to pretend your normal. ~ Amy Reed, #NFDB
1262:You know, when you've established a certain thing, what can you do? You're stuck with it. ~ George Shearing, #NFDB
1263:A boy admiring a pretty girl. A rare thing to be certain. But love-true love-is something else. ~ Alex Flinn, #NFDB
1264:A boy admiring a pretty girl. A rare thing to be certain. But love—true love—is something else. ~ Alex Flinn, #NFDB
1265:And right now, the only thing I want to face is a certain hot alpha racecar driver on my Kindle. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
1266:At a certain point, it seems more polite to just become the person people assume you to be. ~ Heidi Julavits, #NFDB
1267:Because we rejected a certain kind of critical language people just assumed that we were dumb ~ Alice Notley, #NFDB
1268:Beyond a certain point, the whole universe becomes a continuous process of initiation. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
1269:Certain “advanced” girls understood. Others, like me, thought: knife wound, bear attack. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, #NFDB
1270:Certain comedians work with certain actors; like Adam Sandler worked with Jack Nicholson. ~ Samuel L Jackson, #NFDB
1271:Certain it is that many of his stern deeds were for the right as he understood that right to be. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
1272:Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind. ~ Elvis Costello, #NFDB
1273:Comics have a caste system - an editor has to act in a certain way, an artist has to be humble. ~ Jack Kirby, #NFDB
1274:Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
1275:Does the popularity of a certain coffee chain have anything to do with the siren on its logo? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1276:Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are. ~ Lord Chesterfield, #NFDB
1277:Good problems and mushrooms of certain kinds have something in common; they grow in clusters. ~ George P lya, #NFDB
1278:Having money has given me a certain freedom, but being in the public eye has taken away a lot. ~ Sadie Frost, #NFDB
1279:I always look at myself knowing that I will have a certain degree of cognitive distortion. ~ Sarah Silverman, #NFDB
1280:I am not really certain how original my contribution to music is as I am obviously an amateur. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
1281:I don't think you can be from the Caribbean and not know a certain amount about the apocalypse. ~ Junot Diaz, #NFDB
1282:It is certain my belief gains quite infinitely the very moment I can convince another mind thereof ~ Novalis, #NFDB
1283:It was at least certain that Phileas Fogg had not absented himself from London for many years. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
1284:Just because someone acts a certain way on TV, that doesn't mean he's like that in real life. ~ Randy Savage, #NFDB
1285:Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
1286:Make certain you control your destiny, or it will control you.
~ Sherry JonesUmm Ruman ~ Sherry Jones,#NFDB
1287:Once you've been really bad in a movie, there's a certain kind of fearlessness you develop. ~ Jack Nicholson, #NFDB
1288:Pain doesnt have a face and pain doesnt have a certain way of adjusting. Pain is universal. ~ Aunjanue Ellis, #NFDB
1289:People aren't going to throw the kind of money at certain people that they used to. ~ Philip Seymour Hoffman, #NFDB
1290:the more you try to be certain about something, the more uncertain and insecure you will feel. ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
1291:[T]here are no hard problems, only problems that are hard to a certain level of intelligence. ~ Ray Kurzweil, #NFDB
1292:There is a certain type of greasy hair that you get only when you are writing with no breaks. ~ Mindy Kaling, #NFDB
1293:There is nothing more certain in Time or Eternity than what Jesus Christ did on the Cross. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
1294:Throughout this life, you can never be certain of living long enough to take another breath. ~ Huangbo Xiyun, #NFDB
1295:To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous.” —Chinese proverb ~ Mike Cohn, #NFDB
1296:Uncertain justice by a verdict is much better than certain injustice. ~ William Murray 1st Earl of Mansfield, #NFDB
1297:Vialli's absolutely certain that he knows one way or the other whether he'll score or not. ~ Jonathan Pearce, #NFDB
1298:"We wish to make our lives simple, certain, and smooth, and for that reason problems are taboo." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1299:When a person is only half an ass like me, and not a complete one, she senses certain things. ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
1300:Whenever your well-being feels at risk around certain people, make a tactful and swift exit. ~ Judith Orloff, #NFDB
1301:When experience is viewed in a certain way, it presents nothing but doorways into the soul. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
1302:When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you. ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
1303:Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
1304:You need a heart and a certain amount of knowledge to go further than other people. ~ Louis Ferdinand C line, #NFDB
1305:A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples. ~ Jacob Grimm, #NFDB
1306:After a certain age, you finally become the indisputable authority on the subject of yourself. ~ Gina Barreca, #NFDB
1307:After a certain point, a heart with so many stress fractures can never be anything but broken. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
1308:and if she didn’t jump then she wouldn’t have to know for certain that she couldn’t really fly. ~ Cole McCade, #NFDB
1309:A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #NFDB
1310:Beyond a certain point, the whole universe becomes a continuous process of initiation. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
1311:beyond a certain threshold, capital tends to reproduce itself and accumulates exponentially. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
1312:Certain mistakes can actually kill us, but many, many more of them just make us want to die. ~ Kathryn Schulz, #NFDB
1313:Don't let anyone tell you that you have to be a certain way. Be unique. Be what you feel. ~ Melissa Etheridge, #NFDB
1314:Emotions, he was certain, were unreliable and irrelevant to the labor of religious faith. ~ Michael D O Brien, #NFDB
1315:fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wise people so full of doubts. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1316:I am certain that the safest way to defend your character is never to say a word about it. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
1317:I can celebrate food anytime. I love cheese. When I crave a certain food, I just eat it. ~ Emmanuelle Chriqui, #NFDB
1318:If certain Jewish communities had distinctive qualities, they were due to history, not biology. ~ Shlomo Sand, #NFDB
1319:I figure it's okay to make certain rules, whether or not people despise you for it at the time. ~ Will Oldham, #NFDB
1320:I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
1321:If you have ability in a certain area, why not capitalize on it and improve it and use it? ~ Wilt Chamberlain, #NFDB
1322:I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. ~ Pablo Neruda, #NFDB
1323:I'm certain that most couples expect to find intimacy in marriage, but it somehow eludes them. ~ James Dobson, #NFDB
1324:I’m fairly certain God takes notes out of my book. He should. If he knows what’s good for him. ~ Sarah Noffke, #NFDB
1325:In fact I was fairly certain there was no one in the entire world quite like Adrian Ivashkov. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
1326:I think that people get to a certain point in their life and they think that nothing can change. ~ Jean Smart, #NFDB
1327:It is not certain that everything is certain, neither is it certain that everything is uncertain. ~ Hans Kung, #NFDB
1328:It is now certain that the public does know. It is not so certain that the public does care. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1329:It’s a matter of dignity,” the Chief explained. “At a certain point, that’s all you have left. ~ Tom Perrotta, #NFDB
1330:It's very easy to make certain decisions that affect your life that you have no perspective on. ~ Jena Malone, #NFDB
1331:I've achieved a certain amount of success and now I'm thinking about the good things I can do. ~ Lori Greiner, #NFDB
1332:I want to get up there and tell entertaining stories but that are also to a certain extent clean. ~ Jon Heder, #NFDB
1333:I wonder if our names determine our destiny, or if destiny leads us to choose certain names. ~ Michelle Moran, #NFDB
1334:I would give anything to have spared you certain memories, but others are not of the same mind. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1335:libido, or concupiscence, a tending toward certain things in defiance of rational restraint. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
1336:Maybe we have to go through certain experiences in order to get where we’re supposed to be. ~ Jessica Hawkins, #NFDB
1337:My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities...like the ability to behave myself. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1338:My life can be insanely complicated sometimes, and there's a certain simplicity that I crave. ~ Kenny Chesney, #NFDB
1339:Nothing that actually happens is likely until it exists, and then it’s certain. You exist. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
1340:One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
1341:Past a certain point, maybe, a person's character defines itself and stays fixed in your mind. ~ Damon Galgut, #NFDB
1342:People are born with certain faces, like my father was born with a face that people want to hit. ~ Thom Yorke, #NFDB
1343:The director of the FBI...said we can't know for certain who these people are coming from Syria. ~ Mike Pence, #NFDB
1344:The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments. ~ William James, #NFDB
1345:The only value of this world lay in its power - at certain times - to suggest another world. ~ Thomas Ligotti, #NFDB
1346:The problem with the wise is they are so filled with doubts while the dull are so certain. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1347:The public will buy a certain amount of poetry if you give them their striptease.” -- Ezra Pound ~ Ezra Pound, #NFDB
1348:There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade. ~ Humphrey Bogart, #NFDB
1349:This was a boy who liked to be ridden hard…and Damon would normally put him away wet for certain. ~ S E Jakes, #NFDB
1350:To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1351:You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style. ~ Chris Abani, #NFDB
1352:You get to a certain point and you just realize there’s no use in trying to pretend you’re normal. ~ Amy Reed, #NFDB
1353:You've got to take some chances and know when you're beat and know how to get certain advantages. ~ Phil Ivey, #NFDB
1354:a certain degree of insanity and recklessness is necessary to advance or innovate anything, ~ Brendon Burchard, #NFDB
1355:A certain degree of neurosis is of inestimable value as a drive, especially to a psychologist. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
1356:ACT12.1 Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1357:After a certain point, most people, including editors, will tell you everything you do is great. ~ Ken Follett, #NFDB
1358:And I’m pretty sure there are certain things we have to do before you need to be reading that. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
1359:Anytime somebody is absolutely certain about something, they are almost always absolutely wrong ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
1360:As with anything in life, when you have certain experiences at pivotal times, they shape you. ~ Elaine Cassidy, #NFDB
1361:At any given moment in our lives, there are certain things that could have happened but didn't. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1362:But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1363:Comedy is this weird thing. You have no idea why certain things work and other things don't work. ~ Bill Hader, #NFDB
1364:Dramas need to have a certain aesthetic that comedy just doesn't really seem to need to have. ~ Rob McElhenney, #NFDB
1365:Entities can see a certain amount because they are outside of the physical dimensional plane. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1366:Every nation has to follow a certain policy: Commercial, trade, various other types of policies. ~ Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
1367:Fiction becomes a place where I face certain fears such as losing language or losing my children. ~ Ben Marcus, #NFDB
1368:Futurists get to a certain age and, as one does, they suddenly recognize their own mortality. ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
1369:History has to move in a certain direction, even if it has to be pushed that way by neurotics. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
1370:I always thought it's way more important to be funny or to be honest than to look any certain way ~ Emma Stone, #NFDB
1371:I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
1372:I am convinced, however, that in a certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
1373:I am merely mortal," I said hoarsely. "Not magic."
"Are you so certain of that, my dear? ~ S Jae Jones,#NFDB
1374:I am obliged to believe certain opinions myself. No man's belief will save me except my own. ~ Anthony Collins, #NFDB
1375:If people confront me with certain questions, if they are not right, I will not answer them. ~ Richard Simmons, #NFDB
1376:If you deteriorate to a certain point…we should consider placing you on the transplant list. ~ Natasha S Brown, #NFDB
1377:I grew up certain for a while that I was going to be an anthropologist, until film turned my head. ~ Ken Burns, #NFDB
1378:I like to write about certain things that if they are not written about are not going to exist. ~ James Salter, #NFDB
1379:I'm so familiar with what Malcolm X wrote at certain stages of his own life and development. ~ Manning Marable, #NFDB
1380:In a certain light, feminism is just the long, slow realization that the stuff you love hates you ~ Lindy West, #NFDB
1381:I never feel I'm standing on solid ground, and I do write with a certain kind of trembling fear. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
1382:I publish my own books, so there isn't a certain editor I owe the book to at a publishing house. ~ Dave Eggers, #NFDB
1383:I simply go about my passage swiftly and silently, with a certain deliberate, dark efficiency. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
1384:I think play must have been invented so we wouldn't go mad thinking about certain things. ~ Audrey Niffenegger, #NFDB
1385:I think you're healthy in certain ways, and I think you're a pathetic disaster in others. ~ Augusten Burroughs, #NFDB
1386:It takes a lot of courage to choose to do nothing when you aren’t certain of the outcome. ~ Joelle Charbonneau, #NFDB
1387:My own experience is that a certain kind of genius among students is best brought out in bed. ~ Allen Ginsberg, #NFDB
1388:Names have power. In certain cultures, just speaking a man's name gives you mastery over him. ~ Bentley Little, #NFDB
1389:Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
1390:Reliance upon chance is a certain recipe for calamity and an exercise in simpleminded delusion. ~ Amie Kaufman, #NFDB
1391:Silence and darkness were all I craved. Well, I get a certain amount of both. They being one. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
1392:The only thing I’m certain of is that uncertainty is the hardest thing in life to endure. ~ Guillermo del Toro, #NFDB
1393:There are times when I don't take roles because I don't want to be perceived a certain way. ~ Harvey Fierstein, #NFDB
1394:There is a certain kind of morality which is even more alien to good and evil than amorality is. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
1395:There's nothing in a bar or in the world at large that says things have to be a certain way. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1396:Things like this—love-relationships—need a certain minimum of proximity to keep them going. ~ Lynne Reid Banks, #NFDB
1397:Those whose suffering is due to love are, as we say of certain invalids, their own physicians. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1398:Tis true, 'tis certain; man, though dead, retains Part of himself; the immortal mind remains. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
1399:To learn a musical instrument. you had to have a certain tolerance for tedium and failure. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
1400:towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1401:What man is really anti-progressive? For he is only anti-certain-people's-visions-for-the-future. ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB
1402:You become a man not when you reach a certain age, but when you reach a certain state of mind. ~ Habeeb Akande, #NFDB
1403:After a certain age, the more one becomes oneself, the more obvious one's family traits become. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1404:All art at a certain level is entertainment. We go to a tragedy by Sophocles to be entertained. ~ John Banville, #NFDB
1405:All three of them bonded by the certain, separate knowledge that they had loved a man to death. ~ Arundhati Roy, #NFDB
1406:And let the truth be your delight...Proclaim it..., but with a certain congeniality. ~ Saint Catherine of Siena, #NFDB
1407:Certain dressmakers desire to pass for an artist. I have one ambition: that is to have good taste. ~ Jean Patou, #NFDB
1408:Certainly, old age is often incompatible with certain roles and responsibilities. ~ Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, #NFDB
1409:Certain things in life simply have to be experienced -and never explained. Love is such a thing. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1410:Certain tight parentheses have been opened and allowed to spill their still active contents. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
1411:Don’t make me swim in unknown waters, because I’m certain the unknown is where I’ll drown. ~ Brittainy C Cherry, #NFDB
1412:For something born here, death is certain. For something dead here, birth is certain. ~ Vishnuvarthanan Moorthy, #NFDB
1413:Human nature is against it. People just tend to behave in certain ways because they are people. And ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
1414:I don't believe there's a certain age where you can't say and feel and be who you want to be. ~ Madonna Ciccone, #NFDB
1415:I don't see a lot of films. I'm quite choosy, but there's certain films that stick out. ~ Christopher Eccleston, #NFDB
1416:I love 3-D, and for certain movies it can be really great, and for certain movies it can be poison. ~ Jon M Chu, #NFDB
1417:I’m doing what’s necessary. Sometimes you have to take certain steps in order to get to your goal. ~ Louise Bay, #NFDB
1418:In a certain light, feminism is just the long, slow realization that the stuff you love hates you. ~ Lindy West, #NFDB
1419:in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
1420:I suppose there is a certain crucial interval in everyone's life when character is fixed forever. ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
1421:I suppose there is a certain crucial interval in everyone’s life when character is fixed forever; ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
1422:I think people can benefit tremendously from really asking why they're doing certain things. ~ Elizabeth Holmes, #NFDB
1423:Know why certain foods, such as truffles, are expensive. It's not because they taste best. ~ Marilyn vos Savant, #NFDB
1424:Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper. ~ David Hilbert, #NFDB
1425:most of the languages that now exist are almost certain to become extinct within this century. ~ John McWhorter, #NFDB
1426:Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1427:Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are therir own ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1428:Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children, because they’re more certain they are their own. ~ Greg Iles, #NFDB
1429:My knowledge of the human psyche is as yet imperfect. Certain areas won't yield to computation. ~ Poul Anderson, #NFDB
1430:No party has renounced the right to armed resistance, in certain circumstances without lying ~ Friedrich Engels, #NFDB
1431:Nothing is certain, but if nothing is certain, how can we be certain that nothing is certain? ~ Caroline Fraser, #NFDB
1432:Once you do learn about the truth, you end up having to take a certain responsibility for it. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1433:The food chain was withering, and new dead zones had formed in certain waters. Starving ~ Karen Thompson Walker, #NFDB
1434:The loneliness of certain American states is enough to kill a person if you look too closely. ~ Catherine Lacey, #NFDB
1435:Then he strode toward me as if certain I was about to bolt and he must catch me before I did so. ~ Kate Elliott, #NFDB
1436:The novel doesn't come into existence until certain methods of reproducing fiction come along. ~ Leslie Fiedler, #NFDB
1437:There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife. ~ Stephen Spender, #NFDB
1438:There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1439:there’s a certain lack of respect for physics and biology when you ignore the power of a firearm. ~ L H Thomson, #NFDB
1440:to certain people there comes a day when they must say the great Yes or the great No... ~ Constantinos P Cavafy, #NFDB
1441:What did you do. Hopkins, after you had made certain that you had made certain of nothing? ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
1442:When I attained a certain advanced intimacy with a man, and I don't just mean sex, I married him. ~ Hedy Lamarr, #NFDB
1443:When it hurts,’ wrote the Polish poet Czeslaw Miłosz, ‘we return to the banks of certain rivers, ~ Olivia Laing, #NFDB
1444:You have to have a certain persona to be a star, you know, and I don't have that. I'm a banana. ~ Harvey Korman, #NFDB
1445:You,” he said distinctly, “are, I am quite certain, going to be more trouble than you are worth. ~ Lynn Kurland, #NFDB
1446:A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind. ~ Lewis Mumford, #NFDB
1447:A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her,--the light which, showing the way, forbids ~ Kate Chopin, #NFDB
1448:All moral laws are merely statements that certain kinds of actions will have good effects. ~ George Edward Moore, #NFDB
1449:Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
1450:Anybody who becomes a movie star becomes successful at projecting a certain image to the public. ~ Jay McInerney, #NFDB
1451:At a certain level of suffering or injustice no one can do anything for anyone. Pain is solitary. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1452:At a certain point in my personal life, I went through a divorce and lost some people close to me. ~ Tim Meadows, #NFDB
1453:But if we never acted except when we were certain our motives were pure, we would never act at all. ~ C J Sansom, #NFDB
1454:Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1455:Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
1456:Did red hair somehow react to the sun, as certain species of fish only breed under a full moon? ~ Mishka Shubaly, #NFDB
1457:Follow your musical instincts. Do what you feel is right. Don't be relegated to a certain category. ~ Glenn Frey, #NFDB
1458:For my teachers, unfortunately, certain things were, as they are for you, only tales of power ~ Carlos Castaneda, #NFDB
1459:God put me on earth to accomplish certain things. Right now, I’m so far behind, I’ll never die. ~ Bill Watterson, #NFDB
1460:I don't control the movies that are offered to me, but I make choices based on certain parameters. ~ Andy Garcia, #NFDB
1461:If I can be writing, I can take a certain amount of control when so much around me is upsetting. ~ Carolyn Chute, #NFDB
1462:If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure. ~ Anton Chekhov, #NFDB
1463:I knew for certain about life, you can’t choose for your heart to love it either does or it doesn’t. ~ Ker Dukey, #NFDB
1464:It is quite possible for the vulgar to be funny, but to succeed, it must rise to a certain genius. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
1465:It’s a known fact that in certain contexts people’s great strengths become their epic failings. ~ A S A Harrison, #NFDB
1466:It was an earworm, and she was certain Clint had deliberately planted it in her subconscious. ~ Mary Kay Andrews, #NFDB
1467:I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are. ~ Frances Moore Lappe, #NFDB
1468:Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties. ~ James Jeans, #NFDB
1469:Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” - Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1470:Now I see that there is no such thing as love unreturn'd. The pay is certain, one way or another. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
1471:Ojii-san’s wen has been his only confidant, and he’s conscious of a certain loneliness without it. ~ Osamu Dazai, #NFDB
1472:One not only writes a book. One lives it. Upon completing it there are certain symptoms of death. ~ John Cheever, #NFDB
1473:Our skin colours may vary, but what's upstairs - there's certain things we've all got in common. ~ Billy Gibbons, #NFDB
1474:Since events are not metaphors, the literal-minded have a certain advantage in dealing with them. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
1475:Sometimes you gotta accept the fact that certain things will never go back to how they used to be .. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1476:Teenage girls like certain things I wear - or certainly did when that whole boho thing happened. ~ Sienna Miller, #NFDB
1477:The most certain way to hide from others the limits of our knowledge is not to go beyond them ~ Giacomo Leopardi, #NFDB
1478:...the one certain thing in life is that no one can make the truth untrue simply because it hurts. ~ David Weber, #NFDB
1479:The one fact about the future of which we can be certain is that it will be utterly fantastic. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
1480:There are certain fans who want me to rap about the same exact thing, but it's time to grow up. ~ Chamillionaire, #NFDB
1481:There is a certain amount of politeness here in America, which is probably more than just politeness. ~ Yiyun Li, #NFDB
1482:The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1483:Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this. ~ Lord Acton, #NFDB
1484:We can be almost certain of being wrong about the future, if we are wrong about the past. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
1485:When you're old, you are more certain of who you are, and that may be a good thing or a bad thing. ~ Sally Field, #NFDB
1486:You can't change the world without a certain amount of healthy willingness to break the rules. ~ Sebastian Thrun, #NFDB
1487:Carnism is the belief system in which eating certain animals is considered ethical and appropriate. ~ Melanie Joy, #NFDB
1488:Computers are only capable of a certain kind of randomness because computers are finite devices. ~ Tristan Perich, #NFDB
1489:Contrary to what certain comedians have led you to believe, the national French pastime is picnicking. ~ Bob Hope, #NFDB
1490:Faith is a knowledge of the benevolence of God toward us, and a certain persuasion of His veracity. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
1491:Film actors reach a certain level, but they don't get beyond it unless they work in the theater. ~ Shirley Knight, #NFDB
1492:Gold was not altogether certain what, anatomically, a gorge was, but he knew that his was rising. ~ Joseph Heller, #NFDB
1493:I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
1494:I am feeling much better now. I am fairly certain it was your letters that kept me alive. ~ Lauren Baratz Logsted, #NFDB
1495:I’d felt certain I was looking at my future queen, so I figured the least you deserved was a curtsy. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
1496:I knew for certain that being accorded a biography isn’t dependent on one’s species or one’s fame. ~ Ted Kerasote, #NFDB
1497:I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul. ~ Pablo Neruda,#NFDB
1498:I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul. ~ Pablo Neruda,#NFDB
1499:(In a certain light, feminism is just the long, slow realization that the stuff you love hates you.) ~ Lindy West, #NFDB
1500:In every age, people are certain that only the things they have deemed valuable have true value. ~ Mark Kurlansky, #NFDB
1668 Integral Yoga
227 Occultism
201 Poetry
150 Christianity
135 Philosophy
116 Yoga
91 Fiction
78 Psychology
34 Science
32 Islam
30 Mysticism
18 Theosophy
18 Education
16 Integral Theory
16 Hinduism
13 Mythology
8 Cybernetics
6 Sufism
6 Kabbalah
6 Baha i Faith
4 Buddhism
1 Thelema
1 Philsophy
1 Alchemy
1007 The Mother
751 Sri Aurobindo
650 Satprem
208 Nolini Kanta Gupta
83 H P Lovecraft
80 Aleister Crowley
78 Carl Jung
64 James George Frazer
55 Sri Ramakrishna
55 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
48 Plotinus
36 Walt Whitman
34 Swami Krishnananda
34 Saint Augustine of Hippo
32 Muhammad
28 Robert Browning
27 A B Purani
26 William Butler Yeats
25 Swami Vivekananda
24 Friedrich Nietzsche
22 Rudolf Steiner
22 Aldous Huxley
20 Saint Teresa of Avila
20 Franz Bardon
17 Lucretius
16 Saint John of Climacus
15 Jorge Luis Borges
15 John Keats
13 William Wordsworth
12 Plato
12 Nirodbaran
10 Percy Bysshe Shelley
10 George Van Vrekhem
9 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
8 Paul Richard
8 Norbert Wiener
8 Anonymous
7 Sri Ramana Maharshi
7 Ovid
7 Henry David Thoreau
7 Baha u llah
7 Aristotle
7 Alice Bailey
6 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
6 Joseph Campbell
6 Jordan Peterson
5 Vyasa
5 Thubten Chodron
5 Patanjali
5 Al-Ghazali
4 Lewis Carroll
4 Edgar Allan Poe
4 Bokar Rinpoche
3 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
3 Rabindranath Tagore
3 Peter J Carroll
3 Ken Wilber
3 Jalaluddin Rumi
3 Hafiz
2 Rainer Maria Rilke
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jean Gebser
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Friedrich Schiller
249 Record of Yoga
124 The Synthesis Of Yoga
83 Lovecraft - Poems
71 Agenda Vol 01
68 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
64 The Golden Bough
63 Agenda Vol 03
58 Agenda Vol 10
56 Agenda Vol 04
54 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
53 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
52 Magick Without Tears
51 The Life Divine
49 Agenda Vol 08
48 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
47 Agenda Vol 02
46 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
46 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
44 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
44 Letters On Yoga IV
44 Agenda Vol 05
43 Questions And Answers 1956
43 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
42 Agenda Vol 07
41 Agenda Vol 11
39 Questions And Answers 1953
39 Agenda Vol 09
39 Agenda Vol 06
38 Agenda Vol 12
37 Letters On Yoga II
37 Agenda Vol 13
35 Questions And Answers 1955
34 Whitman - Poems
34 The Study and Practice of Yoga
32 Quran
32 Mysterium Coniunctionis
31 Questions And Answers 1954
29 Liber ABA
28 Browning - Poems
27 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
26 Yeats - Poems
26 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
23 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
22 The Perennial Philosophy
22 The Human Cycle
22 City of God
21 The Practice of Psycho therapy
21 Letters On Yoga III
21 Essays On The Gita
20 The Future of Man
19 Words Of Long Ago
19 Letters On Yoga I
18 On Education
17 Prayers And Meditations
17 Of The Nature Of Things
16 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
15 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
15 Keats - Poems
14 The Phenomenon of Man
14 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
14 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
14 Letters On Poetry And Art
14 Let Me Explain
13 Wordsworth - Poems
13 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
13 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
13 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
13 Labyrinths
12 Twilight of the Idols
12 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
12 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
12 The Bible
12 Talks
12 On the Way to Supermanhood
12 Essays Divine And Human
12 Aion
11 The Way of Perfection
11 Theosophy
11 Some Answers From The Mother
11 Raja-Yoga
11 Initiation Into Hermetics
10 Vedic and Philological Studies
10 The Problems of Philosophy
10 Shelley - Poems
10 Preparing for the Miraculous
10 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
10 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
10 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
9 Words Of The Mother II
9 The Secret Of The Veda
9 The Practice of Magical Evocation
9 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
9 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
9 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
9 Bhakti-Yoga
8 Isha Upanishad
8 Faust
8 Cybernetics
7 Words Of The Mother III
7 Walden
7 The Divine Comedy
7 Poetics
7 Metamorphoses
7 Hymn of the Universe
7 Dark Night of the Soul
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
7 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
6 Maps of Meaning
6 General Principles of Kabbalah
5 Vishnu Purana
5 The Alchemy of Happiness
5 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
5 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
4 The Integral Yoga
4 Tara - The Feminine Divine
4 Alice in Wonderland
3 The Red Book Liber Novus
3 The Lotus Sutra
3 The Book of Certitude
3 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
3 Tagore - Poems
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Savitri
3 Poe - Poems
3 Liber Null
3 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
3 Hafiz - Poems
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Essentials of Education
2 The Blue Cliff Records
2 Symposium
2 Song of Myself
2 Selected Fictions
2 Schiller - Poems
2 Rumi - Poems
2 Rilke - Poems
2 Borges - Poems
2 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
2 Amrita Gita
2 Agenda Vol 1
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This AGENDA ... One day, another species among men will pore over this fabulous document as over the tumultuous drama that must have surrounded the birth of the first man among the hostile hordes of a great, delirious Paleozoic. A first man is the dangerous contradiction of a certain simian logic, a threat to the established order that so genteelly ran about amid the high, indefeasible ferns - and to begin with, it does not even know that it is a man. It wonders, indeed, what it is. Even to itself it is strange, distressing. It does not even know how to climb trees any longer in its usual way
- and it is terribly disturbing for all those who still climb trees in the old, millennial way. Perhaps it is even a heresy. Unless it is some cerebral disorder? A first man in his little clearing had to have a great deal of courage. Even this little clearing was no longer so sure. A first man is a perpetual question. What am I, then, in the midst of all that? And where is my law? What is the law? And what if there were no more laws? ... It is terrifying. Mathematics - out of order. Astronomy and biology, too, are beginning to respond to mysterious influences. A tiny point huddled in the center of the world's great clearing. But what is all this, what if I were 'mad'? And then, claws all around, a lot of claws against this uncommon creature. A first man ... is very much alone. He is quite unbearable for the pre-human 'reason.' And the surrounding tribes growled like red monkies in the twilight of Guiana.
--
We landed there, one day in February 1954, having emerged from our Guianese forest and a certain number of dead-end peripluses; we had knocked upon all the doors of the old world before reaching that point of absolute impossibility where it was truly necessary to embark into something else or once and for all put a bullet through the brain of this slightly superior ape. The first thing that struck us was this exotic Notre Dame with its burning incense sticks, its effigies and its prostrations in immaculate white: a Church. We nearly jumped into the first train out that very evening, bound straight for the Himalayas, or the devil. But we remained near Mother for nineteen years. What was it, then, that could have held us there? We had not left Guiana to become a little saint in white or to enter some new religion. 'I did not come upon earth to found an ashram; that would have been a poor aim indeed,' She wrote in 1934. What did all this mean, then, this 'Ashram' that was already registered as the owner of a great spiritual business, and this fragile, little silhouette at the center of all these zealous worshippers? In truth, there is no better way to smother someone than to worship him: he chokes beneath the weight of worship, which moreover gives the worshipper claim to ownership. 'Why do you want to worship?' She exclaimed. 'You have but to become! It is the laziness to become that makes one worship.' She wanted so much to make them
become this 'something else,' but it was far easier to worship and quiescently remain what one was.
--
'spiritual life': it was all so comfortable, for we had a supreme 'symbol' of it right there. She let us do as we pleased, She even opened up all kinds of little heavens in us, along with a few hells, since they go together. She even opened the door in us to a certain 'liberation,' which in the end was as soporific as eternity - but there was nowhere to get out: it WAS eternity. We were trapped on all sides. There was nothing left but these 4m2 of skin, the last refuge, that which we wanted to flee by way of above or below, by way of Guiana or the Himalayas. She was waiting for us just there, at the end of our spiritual or not so spiritual pirouettes. Matter was her concern. It took us seven years to understand that She was beginning there, 'where the other yogas leave off,' as Sri Aurobindo had already said twenty-five years earlier. It was necessary to have covered all the paths of the Spirit and all those of Matter, or in any case a large number geographically, before discovering, or even simply understanding, that 'something else' was really Something Else. It was not an improved
Spirit nor even an improved Matter, but ... it could be called 'nothing,' so contrary was it to all we know. For the caterpillar, a butterfly is nothing, it is not even visible and has nothing in common with caterpillar heavens nor even caterpillar matter. So there we were, trapped in an impossible adventure. One does not return from there: one must cross the bridge to the other side. Then one day in that seventh year, while we still believed in liberations and the collected Upanishads, highlighted with a few glorious visions to relieve the commonplace (which remained appallingly commonplace), while we were still considering 'the Mother of the Ashram' rather like some spiritual super-director (endowed, albeit, with a disarming yet ever so provocative smile, as though
--
Perhaps this AGENDA is really an endeavor to solve the mystery in the company of a certain
number of fraternal iconoclasts.
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ignorance, certainly, is not man's ideal conditionit leads to death and dissolution. But knowledge also can be equally disastrous if it is not of the right kind. The knowledge that is born of spiritual disobedience, inspired by the Dark ones, leads to the soul's fall and its calvary through pain and suffering on earth. The seeker of true enlightenment has got to make a distinction, learn to separate the true and the right from the false and the wrong, unmask the luring Mra say clearly and unfalteringly to the dark light of Luciferapage Satana, if he is to come out into the true light and comm and the right forces. The search for knowledge alone, knowledge for the sake of knowledge, the path of pure scientific inquiry and inquisitiveness, in relation to the mystic world, is a dangerous thing. For such a spirit serves only to encourage and enhance man's arrogance and in the end not only limits but warps and falsifies the knowledge itself. A knowledge based on and secured exclusively through the reason and mental light can go only so far as that faculty can be reasonably stretched and not infinitelyto stretch it to infinity means to snap it. This is the warning that Yajnavalkya gave to Gargi when the latter started renewing her question ad infinitum Yajnavalkya said, "If you do not stop, your head will fall off."
The mystic truth has to be approached through the heart. "In the heart is established the Truth," says the Upanishad: it is there that is seated eternally the soul, the real being, who appears no bigger than the thumb. Even if the mind is utilised as an instrument of knowledge, the heart must be there behind as the guide and inspiration. It is precisely because, as I have just mentioned, Gargi sought to shoot uplike "vaulting ambition that o'erleaps itself" of which Shakespeare speaksthrough the mind alone to the highest truth that Yajnavalkya had to pull her up and give the warning that she risked losing her head if she persisted in her questioning endlessly.
00.02 - Mystic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A symbol symbolizes something for this reason that both possess in common a certain identical, at least similar, quality or rhythm or vibration, the symbol possessing it in a grosser or more apparent or sensuous form than the thing symbolized does. Sometimes it may happen that it is more than a certain quality or rhythm or vibration that is common between the two: the symbol in its entirety is the thing symbolized but thrown down on another plane, it is the embodiment of the latter in a more concrete world. The light and the fire that Saint Paul and Moses saw appear to be of this kind.
Thus there is a great diversity of symbols. At the one end is the mere metaphor or simile or allegory ('figure', as we have called it) and at the other end is the symbol identical with the thing symbolized. And upon this inner character of the symbol depends also to a large extent its range and scope. There are symbols which are universal and intimately ingrained in the human consciousness itself. Mankind has used them in all ages and climes almost in the same sense and significance. There are others that are limited to peoples and ages. They are made out of forms that are of local and temporal interest and importance. Their significances vary according to time and place. Finally, there are symbols which are true of the individual consciousness only; they depend on personal peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, on one's environment and upbringing and education.
0 0.03 - 1951-1957. Notes and Fragments, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The lack of the earth's receptivity and the behavior of Sri Aurobindo's disciples 1 are largely responsible for what happened to his body. But one thing is certain: the great misfortune that has just beset us in no way affects the truth of his teaching. All he said is perfectly true and remains so.
Time and the course of events will make this abundantly clear.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A certain rationalistic critic divides the Upanishadic symbols into three categoriesthose that are rational and can be easily understood by the mind; those that are not understood by the mind and yet do not go against reason, having nothing inherently irrational in them and may be simply called non-rational; those that seem to be quite irrational, for they go frankly against all canons of logic and common sense. As an example of the last, the irrational type, the critic cites a story from the Chhndogya, which may be rendered thus:
There was an aspirant, a student who was seeking after knowledge. One day there appeared to him a white dog. Soon, other dogs followed and addressed their predecessor: "O Lord, sing to our Food, for we desire to eat." The white dog answered, "Come to me at dawn here in this very place." The aspirant waited. The dogs, like singer-priests, circled round in a ring. Then they sat and cried aloud; they cried out," Om We eat and Om we drink, may the gods bring here our food."
--
But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord of creation and the Inner Mastersarvabhtntartm, antarymis called brahmajam, born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the human consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the Pleasurable (reya and preya). The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness in the heart of all that is unstable and fleetingone has to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.
Man has two souls corresponding to his double status. In the inferior, the soul looks downward and is involved in the current of Impermanence and Ignorance, it tastes of grief and sorrow and suffers death and dissolution: in the higher it looks upward and communes and joins with the Eternal (the cosmic) and then with the Absolute (the transcendent). The lower is a reflection of the higher, the higher comes down in a diminished and hence tarnished light. The message is that of deliverance, the deliverance and reintegration of the lower soul out of its bondage of worldly ignorant life into the freedom and immortality first of its higher and then of its highest status. It is true, however, that the Upanishad does not make a trenchant distinction between the cosmic and the transcendent and often it speaks of both in the same breath, as it were. For in fact they are realities involved in each other and interwoven. Indeed the triple status, including the Individual, forms one single totality and the three do not exclude or cancel each other; on the contrary, they combine and may be said to enhance each other's reality. The Transcendence expresses or deploys itself in the cosmoshe goes abroad,sa paryagt: and the cosmic individualises, concretises itself in the particular and the personal. The one single spiritual reality holds itself, aspects itself in a threefold manner.
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The rich and sensuous beauty luxuriating in high colour and ample decoration that one meets often in the creation of the earlier Vedic seers returned again, in a more chiselled and polished and stylised manner, in the classical poets. The Upanishads in this respect have a certain kinship with the early poets of the intervening ageVyasa and Valmiki. Upam KlidsasyaKalidasa revels in figures and images; they are profusely heaped on one another and usually possess a complex and composite texture. Valmiki's images are simple and elemental, brief and instinct with a vast resonance, spare and full of power. The same brevity and simplicity, vibrant with an extraordinary power of evocation, are also characteristic of the Upanishadic mantra With Valmiki's
kamiva dupram
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The Qabalah reveals the nature of certain physical and psychological phenomena. Once these are apprehended, understood and correlated, the student can use the principles of Magic to exercise control over life's conditions and circumstances not otherwise possible. In short. Magic provides the practical application of the theories supplied by the Qabalah.
It serves yet another vital function. In addition to the advantages to be gained from its philosophical application, the ancients discovered a very practical use for the literal Qabalah.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
On a certain occasion Mathur Babu stealthily entered the temple to watch the worship. He was profoundly moved by the young priest's devotion and sincerity. He realized that Sri Ramakrishna had transformed the stone image into the living Goddess.
Sri Ramakrishna one day fed a cat with the food that was to be offered to Kali. This was too much for the manager of the temple garden, who considered himself responsible for the proper conduct of the worship. He reported Sri Ramakrishna's insane behaviour to Mathur Babu.
--
Two famous pundits of the time were invited: Vaishnavcharan, the leader of the Vaishnava society, and Gauri. The first to arrive was Vaishnavcharan, with a distinguished company of scholars and devotees. The Brahmani, like a proud mother, proclaimed her view before him and supported it with quotations from the scriptures. As the pundits discussed the deep theological question, Sri Ramakrishna, perfectly indifferent to everything happening around him, sat in their midst like a child, immersed in his own thoughts, sometimes smiling, sometimes chewing a pinch of spices from a pouch, or again saying to Vaishnavcharan with a nudge: "Look here. Sometimes I feel like this, too." Presently Vaishnavcharan arose to declare himself in total agreement with the view of the Brahmani. He declared that Sri Ramakrishna had undoubtedly experienced mahabhava and that this was the certain sign of the rare manifestation of God in a man. The people assembled
there, especially the officers of the temple garden, were struck dumb. Sri Rama- krishna said to Mathur, like a boy: "Just fancy, he too says so! Well, I am glad to learn that after all it is not a disease."
--
The disciplines of Tantra are graded to suit aspirants of all degrees. Exercises are prescribed for people with "animal", "heroic", and "divine" outlooks. certain of the rites require the presence of members of the opposite sex. Here the aspirant learns to look on woman as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Mother of the Universe. The very basis of Tantra is the Motherhood of God and the glorification of woman. Every part of a woman's body is to be regarded as incarnate Divinity. But the rites are extremely dangerous. The help of a qualified guru is absolutely necessary. An unwary devotee may lose his foothold and fall into a pit of depravity.
According to the Tantra, Sakti is the active creative force in the universe. Siva, the Absolute, is a more or less passive principle. Further, Sakti is as inseparable from Siva as fire's power to burn is from fire itself. Sakti, the Creative Power, contains in Its womb the universe, and therefore is the Divine Mother. All women are Her symbols. Kali is one of Her several forms. The meditation on Kali, the Creative Power, is the central discipline of the Tantra. While meditating, the aspirant at first regards himself as one with the Absolute and then thinks that out of that Impersonal Consciousness emerge two entities, namely, his own self and the living form of the Goddess. He then projects the Goddess into the tangible image before him and worships it as the Divine Mother.
--
We have now come to the end of Sri Ramakrishna's sadhana, the period of his spiritual discipline. As a result of his supersensuous experiences he reached certain conclusions regarding himself and spirituality in general. His conclusions about himself may be summarized as follows:
First, he was an Incarnation of God, a specially commissioned person, whose spiritual experiences were for the benefit of humanity. Whereas it takes an ordinary man a whole life's struggle to realize one or two phases of God, he had in a few years realized God in all His phases.
--
Second, the three great systems of thought known as Dualism, Qualified Non-dualism, and Absolute Non-dualism — Dvaita, Visishtadvaita, and Advaita — he perceived to represent three stages in man's progress toward the Ultimate Reality. They were not contradictory but complementary and suited to different temperaments. For the ordinary man with strong attachment to the senses, a dualistic form of religion, prescribing a certain amount of material support, such as music and other symbols, is useful. A man of God-realization transcends the idea of worldly duties, but the ordinary mortal must perform his duties, striving to be unattached and to surrender the results to God. The mind can comprehend and describe the range of thought and experience up to the Visishtadvaita, and no further. The Advaita, the last word in spiritual experience, is something to be felt in samadhi. for it transcends mind and speech. From the highest standpoint, the Absolute and Its manifestation are equally real — the Lord's Name, His Abode, and the Lord Himself are of the same spiritual Essence. Everything is Spirit, the difference being only in form.
Third, Sri Ramakrishna realized the wish of the Divine Mother that through him She should found a new Order, consisting of those who would uphold the universal doctrines illustrated in his life.
--
One day, soon after, Narendra requested Sri Ramakrishna to pray to the Divine Mother to remove his poverty. Sri Ramakrishna bade him pray to Her himself, for She would certainly listen to his prayer. Narendra entered the shrine of Kali. As he stood before the image of the Mother, he beheld Her as a living Goddess, ready to give wisdom and liberation. Unable to ask Her for petty worldly things, he prayed only for knowledge and renunciation, love and liberation. The Master rebuked him for his failure to ask the Divine Mother to remove his poverty and sent him back to the temple. But Narendra, standing in Her presence, again forgot the purpose of his coming. Thrice he went to the temple at the bidding of the Master, and thrice he returned, having forgotten in Her presence why he had come. He was wondering about it when it suddenly flashed in his mind that this was all the work of Sri Ramakrishna; so now he asked the Master himself to remove his poverty, and was assured that his family would not lack simple food and clothing.
This was a very rich and significant experience for Narendra. It taught him that Sakti, the Divine Power, cannot be ignored in the world and that in the relative plane the need of worshipping a Personal God is imperative. Sri Ramakrishna was overjoyed with the conversion. The next day, sitting almost on Narendra's lap, he said to a devotee, pointing first to himself, then to Narendra: "I see I am this, and again that. Really I feel no difference. A stick floating in the Ganges seems to divide the water; But in reality the water is one. Do you see my point? Well, whatever is, is the Mother — isn't that so?" In later years Narendra would say: "Sri Ramakrishna was the only person who, from the time he met me, believed in me uniformly throughout. Even my mother and brothers did not. It was his unwavering trust and love for me that bound me to him for ever. He alone knew how to love. Worldly people, only make a show of love for selfish ends.
--
Subodh visited the Master in 1885. At the very first meeting Sri Ramakrishna said to him: "You will succeed. Mother says so. Those whom She sends here will certainly attain spirituality." During the second meeting the Master wrote something on Subodh's tongue, stroked his body from the navel to the throat, and said, "Awake, Mother! Awake." He asked the boy to meditate. At once Subodh's latent spirituality was awakened. He felt a current rushing along the spinal column to the brain. Joy filled his soul.
--- SARADA AND TULASI
--
In spite of the physician's efforts and the prayers and nursing of the devotees, the illness rapidly progressed. The pain sometimes appeared to be unbearable. The Master lived only on liquid food, and his frail body was becoming a mere skeleton. Yet his face always radiated joy, and he continued to welcome the visitors pouring in to receive his blessing. When certain zealous devotees tried to keep the visitors away, they were told by Girish, "You cannot succeed in it; he has been born for this very purpose — to sacrifice himself for the redemption of others."
The more the body was devastated by illness, the more it became the habitation of the Divine Spirit. Through its transparency the gods and goddesses began to shine with ever increasing luminosity. On the day of the Kali Puja the devotees clearly saw in him the manifestation of the Divine Mother.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Below these certain disciples wept.
Then certain laughed.
Others next wept.
--
There is a certain universality and adaptability
among its secret power. The chapter is taken from
--
The Master urges his disciples to a certain holy
stealth, a concealment of the real purpose of their lives;
--
This I know certainly, because they always treat me
with profound respect. Thus they have flattered
--
to certain disaster. Authority from him is exhibited,
when necessary, to the proper persons, though in no
--
able, almost certainly-poor hacks! let them be
turned out to grass!
--
the more certain it is that I only assert a limitation.
I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on
--
certain.
[104]
--
there lay some deepest certainty. O kill it! Slay the
snake!
--
Then at last came certain men unto me, saying:
O Master! Expound thou THE GREAT WORK
--
My certainty that destiny is "good"
Rests on its picking me for Buddhahood.
--
Asana. there is perhaps a sardonic reference to rigor mortis, and certainly
one conceives the half-humorous attitude of the expert towards the beginner.
--
make four hundred a year certain, and would do so
on receipt of a shilling. To every sender he dispatched
--
But its general nature is that of a certain minute
whiteness, appearing at the extreme end of great
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Even as a boy of about thirteen, while he was a student in the 3rd class of the Hare School, he was in the habit of keeping a diary. "Today on rising," he wrote in his diary, "I greeted my father and mother, prostrating on the ground before them" (Swami Nityatmananda's 'M The Apostle and the Evangelist' Part I. P 29.) At another place he wrote, "Today, while on my way to school, I visited, as usual, the temples of Kli, the Mother at Tharitharia, and of Mother Sitala, and paid my obeisance to them." About twenty-five years after, when he met the Great Master in the spring of 1882, it was the same instinct of a born diary-writer that made him begin his book, 'unique in the literature of hagiography', with the memorable words: "When hearing the name of Hari or Rma once, you shed tears and your hair stands on end, then you may know for certain that you do not have to perform devotions such as Sandhya any more."
In addition to this instinct for diary-keeping, M. had great endowments contri buting to success in this line. Writes Swami Nityatmananda who lived in close association with M., in his book entitled M - The Apostle and Evangelist: "M.'s prodigious memory combined with his extraordinary power of imagination completely annihilated the distance of time and place for him. Even after the lapse of half a century he could always visualise vividly, scenes from the life of Sri Ramakrishna. Superb too was his power to portray pictures by words."
Besides the prompting of his inherent instinct, the main inducement for M. to keep this diary of his experiences at Dakshineswar was his desire to provide himself with a means for living in holy company at all times. Being a school teacher, he could be with the Master only on Sundays and other holidays, and it was on his diary that he depended for 'holy company' on other days. The devotional scriptures like the Bhagavata say that holy company is the first and most important means for the generation and growth of devotion. For, in such company man could hear talks on spiritual matters and listen to the glorification of Divine attri butes, charged with the fervour and conviction emanating from the hearts of great lovers of God. Such company is therefore the one certain means through which Sraddha (Faith), Rati (attachment to God) and Bhakti (loving devotion) are generated. The diary of his visits to Dakshineswar provided M. with material for re-living, through reading and contemplation, the holy company he had had earlier, even on days when he was not able to visit Dakshineswar. The wealth of details and the vivid description of men and things in the midst of which the sublime conversations are set, provide excellent material to re-live those experiences for any one with imaginative powers. It was observed by M.'s disciples and admirers that in later life also whenever he was free or alone, he would be pouring over his diary, transporting himself on the wings of imagination to the glorious days he spent at the feet of the Master.
During the Master's lifetime M. does not seem to have revealed the contents of his diary to any one. There is an unconfirmed tradition that when the Master saw him taking notes, he expressed apprehension at the possibility of his utilising these to publicise him like Keshab Sen; for the Great Master was so full of the spirit of renunciation and humility that he disliked being lionised. It must be for this reason that no one knew about this precious diary of M. for a decade until he brought out selections from it as a pamphlet in English in 1897 with the Holy Mother's blessings and permission. The Holy Mother, being very much pleased to hear parts of the diary read to her in Bengali, wrote to M.: "When I heard the Kathmrita, (Bengali name of the book) I felt as if it was he, the Master, who was saying all that." ( Ibid Part I. P 37.)
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
cannot tell with any certainty whether the structure they have
reached is the essence of the matter they are studying, or the
--
nature certain absolute stages of perfection and growth, without
upsetting the physical unity of the world ;
0.01 - I - Sri Aurobindos personality, his outer retirement - outside contacts after 1910 - spiritual personalities- Vibhutis and Avatars - transformtion of human personality, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The Gita in its chapters on the Vibhuti and the Avatar takes in general the same position. It shows that the present formula of our nature, and therefore the mental personality of man, is not final. A Vibhuti embodies in a human manifestation a certain divine quality and thus demonstrates the possibility of overcoming the limits of ordinary human personality. The Vibhuti the embodiment of a divine quality or power, and the Avatar the divine incarnation, are not to be looked upon as supraphysical miracles thrown at humanity without regard to the process of evolution; they are, in fact, indications of human possibility, a sign that points to the goal of evolution.
In his Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo says about the Avatar: "He may, on the other hand, descend as an incarnation of divine life, the divine personality and power in its characteristic action, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical and political, as is represented in the story of Rama or Krishna; but always then this descent becomes in the soul of the race a permanent power for the inner living and the spiritual rebirth."[5]
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I shall not endeavour to reply to your opinion on the "conversations" although there are certain points which you do not seem
to have fully grasped; but I suppose that a second reading later
--
it is certainly not confined to the small states of central Europe.
What you have described is pretty much the state of the whole
--
Do not start thinking I am a pessimist. I certainly do not
like things as they are. I do not believe, however, that they are
--
which is certainly not unfounded. In their ignorant unconsciousness men set moving forces they are not even aware of and soon
these forces get more and more out of their control and bring
--
Hitler was certainly bluffing, if that is what you call shouting
and making threats with the intention of intimidating those to
--
and which move consciously towards certain ends. The play of
these forces is very complex and generally eludes the human
0.01 - Life and Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HERE are two necessities of Nature's workings which seem always to intervene in the greater forms of human activity, whether these belong to our ordinary fields of movement or seek those exceptional spheres and fulfilments which appear to us high and divine. Every such form tends towards a harmonised complexity and totality which again breaks apart into various channels of special effort and tendency, only to unite once more in a larger and more puissant synthesis. Secondly, development into forms is an imperative rule of effective manifestation; yet all truth and practice too strictly formulated becomes old and loses much, if not all, of its virtue; it must be constantly renovated by fresh streams of the spirit revivifying the dead or dying vehicle and changing it, if it is to acquire a new life. To be perpetually reborn is the condition of a material immortality. We are in an age, full of the throes of travail, when all forms of thought and activity that have in themselves any strong power of utility or any secret virtue of persistence are being subjected to a supreme test and given their opportunity of rebirth. The world today presents the aspect of a huge cauldron of Medea in which all things are being cast, shredded into pieces, experimented on, combined and recombined either to perish and provide the scattered material of new forms or to emerge rejuvenated and changed for a fresh term of existence. Indian Yoga, in its essence a special action or formulation of certain great powers of Nature, itself specialised, divided and variously formulated, is potentially one of these dynamic elements of the future life of humanity. The child of immemorial ages, preserved by its vitality and truth into our modern times, it is now emerging from the secret schools and ascetic retreats in which it had taken refuge and is seeking its place in the future sum of living human powers and utilities. But it has first to rediscover itself, bring to the surface
The Conditions of the Synthesis
--
But as in physical knowledge the multiplication of scientific processes has its disadvantages, as that tends, for instance, to develop a victorious artificiality which overwhelms our natural human life under a load of machinery and to purchase certain forms of freedom and mastery at the price of an increased servitude, so the preoccupation with Yogic processes and their exceptional results may have its disadvantages and losses. The
The Conditions of the Synthesis
--
God. Therefore we see in India that a sharp incompatibility has been created between life in the world and spiritual growth and perfection, and although the tradition and ideal of a victorious harmony between the inner attraction and the outer demand remains, it is little or else very imperfectly exemplified. In fact, when a man turns his vision and energy inward and enters on the path of Yoga, he is popularly supposed to be lost inevitably to the great stream of our collective existence and the secular effort of humanity. So strongly has the idea prevailed, so much has it been emphasised by prevalent philosophies and religions that to escape from life is now commonly considered as not only the necessary condition, but the general object of Yoga. No synthesis of Yoga can be satisfying which does not, in its aim, reunite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life or, in its method, not only permit but favour the harmony of our inner and outer activities and experiences in the divine consummation of both. For man is precisely that term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the forms of the lower. To avoid the life which is given him for the realisation of that possibility, can never be either the indispensable condition or the whole and ultimate object of his supreme endeavour or of his most powerful means of self-fulfilment. It can only be a temporary necessity under certain conditions or a specialised extreme effort imposed on the individual so as to prepare a greater general possibility for the race. The true and full object and utility of Yoga can only be accomplished when the conscious
Yoga in man becomes, like the subconscious Yoga in Nature, outwardly conterminous with life itself and we can once more, looking out both on the path and the achievement, say in a more perfect and luminous sense: "All life is Yoga."
0.02 - II - The Home of the Guru, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The Master, the Guru, set at rest the puzzled human mind by his illuminating answers, perhaps even more by his silent consciousness, so that it might be able to pursue unhampered the path of realisation of the Truth. Those ancient discourses answer the mind of man today even across the ages. They have rightly acquired as everything of the past does a certain sanctity. But sometimes that very reverence prevents men from properly evaluating, and living in, the present. This happens when the mind instead of seeking the Spirit looks at the form. For instance, it is not necessary for such discourses that they take place in forest-groves in order to be highly spiritual. Wherever the Master is, there is Light. And guru-griha the house of the Master can be his private dwelling place. So much was this feeling a part of Sri Aurobindo's nature and so particular was he to maintain the personal character of his work that during the first few years after 1923 he did not like his house to be called an 'Ashram', as the word had acquired the sense of a public institution to the modern mind. But there was no doubt that the flower of Divinity had blossomed in him; and disciples, like bees seeking honey, came to him. It is no exaggeration to say that these Evening Talks were to the small company of disciples what the Aranyakas were to the ancient seekers. Seeking the Light, they came to the dwelling place of their Guru, the greatest seer of the age, and found it their spiritual home the home of their parents, for the Mother, his companion in the great mission, had come. And these spiritual parents bestowed upon the disciples freely of their Light, their Consciousness, their Power and their Grace. The modern reader may find that the form of these discourses differs from those of the past but it was bound to be so for the simple reason that the times have changed and the problems that puzzle the modern mind are so different. Even though the disciples may be very imperfect representations of what he aimed at in them, still they are his creations. It is in order to repay, in however infinitesimal a degree, the debt which we owe to him that the effort is made to partake of the joy of his company the Evening Talks with a larger public.
***
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
suppose, but this goodwill would certainly not stand any strong
gust of wind!
--
open your mouth. In certain cases, as in this one, it is wiser to
turn your back than to open your mouth.
--
am obliged to part with a certain number of them (you give the
number), and since they have all been hardworking and faithful,
--
and order which causes all this waste. certainly, if there is not
enough room to keep things in order and separate, the good
--
method easier and more certain than the mental process
of reasoning which is based on acquired experience?
--
that should be done in a certain way, you should simply say:
"This is how I think it should be done." If he contradicts you
--
The main door of your being is open, but certain other doors
are still not open. You must open them all, for I am there and I
--
But one thing is certain: you give far too much importance
to the way people treat you. This hypersensitivity is the cause of
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That which Nature has evolved for us and has firmly founded is the bodily life. She has effected a certain combination and harmony of the two inferior but most fundamentally necessary elements of our action and progress upon earth, -
Matter, which, however the too ethereally spiritual may despise it, is our foundation and the first condition of all our energies and realisations, and the Life-Energy which is our means of existence in a material body and the basis there even of our mental and spiritual activities. She has successfully achieved a certain stability of her constant material movement which is at once sufficiently steady and durable and sufficiently pliable and mutable to provide a fit dwelling-place and instrument for the progressively manifesting god in humanity. This is what is meant by the fable in the Aitareya Upanishad which tells us that the gods rejected the animal forms successively offered to them by the Divine Self and only when man was produced, cried out, "This indeed is perfectly made," and consented to enter in. She has effected also a working compromise between the inertia of matter and the active Life that lives in and feeds on it, by which not only is vital existence sustained, but the fullest developments of mentality are rendered possible. This equilibrium constitutes the basic status of Nature in man and is termed in the language of Yoga his gross body composed
The Three Steps of Nature
--
If, then, this inferior equilibrium is the basis and first means of the higher movements which the universal Power contemplates and if it constitutes the vehicle in which the Divine here seeks to reveal Itself, if the Indian saying is true that the body is the instrument provided for the fulfilment of the right law of our nature, then any final recoil from the physical life must be a turning away from the completeness of the divine Wisdom and a renunciation of its aim in earthly manifestation. Such a refusal may be, owing to some secret law of their development, the right attitude for certain individuals, but never the aim intended for mankind. It can be, therefore, no integral Yoga which ignores the body or makes its annulment or its rejection indispensable to a perfect spirituality. Rather, the perfecting of the body also should be the last triumph of the Spirit and to make the bodily life also divine must be God's final seal upon His work in the universe. The obstacle which the physical presents to the spiritual is no argument for the rejection of the physical; for in the unseen providence of things our greatest difficulties are our best opportunities. A supreme difficulty is Nature's indication to us of a supreme conquest to be won and an ultimate problem to be solved; it is not a warning of an inextricable snare to be shunned or of an enemy too strong for us from whom we must flee.
Equally, the vital and nervous energies in us are there for a great utility; they too demand the divine realisation of their possibilities in our ultimate fulfilment. The great part assigned to this element in the universal scheme is powerfully emphasised by the catholic wisdom of the Upanishads. "As the spokes of a wheel in its nave, so in the Life-Energy is all established, the triple knowledge and the Sacrifice and the power of the strong and the purity of the wise. Under the control of the LifeEnergy is all this that is established in the triple heaven."2 It is therefore no integral Yoga that kills these vital energies, forces them into a nerveless quiescence or roots them out as the source
--
Yoga, the inner instrument.4 And Indian tradition asserts that this which is to be manifested is not a new term in human experience, but has been developed before and has even governed humanity in certain periods of its development. In any case, in order to be known it must at one time have been partly developed.
And if since then Nature has sunk back from her achievement, the reason must always be found in some unrealised harmony, some insufficiency of the intellectual and material basis to which she has now returned, some over-specialisation of the higher to the detriment of the lower existence.
0.03 - III - The Evening Sittings, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
What was talked in the small group informally was not intended by Sri Aurobindo to be the independent expression of his views on the subjects, events or the persons discussed. Very often what he said was in answer to the spiritual need of the individual or of the collective atmosphere. It was like a spiritual remedy meant to produce certain spiritual results, not a philosophical or metaphysical pronouncement on questions, events or movements. The net result of some talks very often was to point out to the disciple the inherent incapacity of the human intellect and its secondary place in the search for the ultimate Reality.
But there were occasions when he did give his independent, personal views on some problems, on events or other subjects. Even then it was never an authoritarian pronouncement. Most often it appeared to be a logically worked out and almost inevitable conclusion expressed quite impersonally though with firm and sincere conviction. This impersonality was such a prominent trait of his personality! Even in such matters as dispatching a letter or a telegram it would not be a command from him to a disciple to carry out the task. Most often during his usual passage to the dining room he would stop on the way, drop in on the company of four or five disciples and, holding out the letter or the telegram, would say in the most amiable and yet the most impersonal way: "I suppose this has to be sent." And it would be for someone in the group instantly to volunteer and take it. The expression he very often used was "It was done" or "It happened", not "I did."
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have noticed that in X's presence I dare not do certain things, such as talk in a loud voice or other impolite
things of this kind.
--
You must not exaggerate. certainly there are movements of vanity - rather childish besides - but they are not the only ones.
I am quite sure that while you were listening to the music, you
--
and receive it. And it is certainly not by being rebellious and
discontented that you will be able to do so.
--
and receive it. And it is certainly not by being rebellious
and discontented that you will be able to do so."
--
My dear child, this is certainly a most unexpected way of interpreting this vision. I hadn't given it that meaning at all. The
images in these visions are always symbolic and should be taken
--
bring you peace and silence, and it is absolutely certain that
peace and silence will be established in you some day never to
--
saris all these days? It is certainly not because I dislike wearing
them - quite the contrary. But they are rather heavy and warm
0.04 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I find Tej5 very much reduced. He is certainly ill and needs some
close attention. I would like to know from the doctor if it would
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The results of Hathayoga are thus striking to the eye and impose easily on the vulgar or physical mind. And yet at the end we may ask what we have gained at the end of all this stupendous labour. The object of physical Nature, the preservation of the mere physical life, its highest perfection, even in a certain sense the capacity of a greater enjoyment of physical living have been carried out on an abnormal scale. But the weakness of Hathayoga is that its laborious and difficult processes make so great a demand on the time and energy and impose so complete a severance from the ordinary life of men that the utilisation of its results for the life of the world becomes either impracticable or is extraordinarily restricted. If in return for this loss we gain another life in another world within, the mental, the dynamic, these results could have been acquired through other systems, through Rajayoga, through Tantra, by much less laborious methods and held on much less exacting terms. On the other hand the physical results, increased vitality, prolonged youth, health, longevity are of small avail if they must be held by us as misers of ourselves, apart from the common life, for their own sake, not utilised, not thrown into the common sum of the world's activities. Hathayoga attains large results, but at an exorbitant price and to very little purpose.
Rajayoga takes a higher flight. It aims at the liberation and perfection not of the bodily, but of the mental being, the control of the emotional and sensational life, the mastery of the whole apparatus of thought and consciousness. It fixes its eyes on the citta, that stuff of mental consciousness in which all these activities arise, and it seeks, even as Hathayoga with its physical material, first to purify and to tranquillise. The normal state of man is a condition of trouble and disorder, a kingdom either at war with itself or badly governed; for the lord, the Purusha, is subjected to his ministers, the faculties, subjected even to his subjects, the instruments of sensation, emotion, action, enjoyment. Swarajya, self-rule, must be substituted for this subjection.
--
But the weakness of the system lies in its excessive reliance on abnormal states of trance. This limitation leads first to a certain aloofness from the physical life which is our foundation and the sphere into which we have to bring our mental and spiritual gains. Especially is the spiritual life, in this system, too much associated with the state of Samadhi. Our object is to make the spiritual life and its experiences fully active and fully utilisable in the waking state and even in the normal use of the functions.
But in Rajayoga it tends to withdraw into a subliminal plane at the back of our normal experiences instead of descending and possessing our whole existence.
--
Rajayoga in that it does not occupy itself with the elaborate training of the whole mental system as the condition of perfection, but seizes on certain central principles, the intellect, the heart, the will, and seeks to convert their normal operations by turning them away from their ordinary and external preoccupations and activities and concentrating them on the Divine. It
The Conditions of the Synthesis
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
not to be given any credence. certainly there are difficulties on
the path, but with perseverance the victory is sure.
--
not be apparent. certainly the path of yoga is a very difficult
one, and you should not expect to reap its fruits after only three
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This system is the way of the Tantra. Owing to certain of its developments Tantra has fallen into discredit with those who are not Tantrics; and especially owing to the developments of its left-hand path, the Vama Marga, which not content with exceeding the duality of virtue and sin and instead of replacing them by spontaneous rightness of action seemed, sometimes, to make a method of self-indulgence, a method of unrestrained social immorality. Nevertheless, in its origin, Tantra was a great and puissant system founded upon ideas which were at least partially true. Even its twofold division into the right-hand and left-hand paths, Dakshina Marga and Vama Marga, started from a certain profound perception. In the ancient symbolic sense of the words Dakshina and Vama, it was the distinction between the way of Knowledge and the way of Ananda, - Nature in man liberating itself by right discrimination in power and practice of its own energies, elements and potentialities and Nature in man
The Synthesis of the Systems
--
Yoga each select their own point of departure or their own gate of escape. They specialise certain activities of the lower
Prakriti and turn them towards the Divine. But the normal action of Nature in us is an integral movement in which the full complexity of all our elements is affected by and affects all our environments. The whole of life is the Yoga of Nature. The
--
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. certainly, this is no short cut or easy sadhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine
Strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for our weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It "makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills." The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet, in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
--
Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but
The Synthesis of the Systems
--
functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ananda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ananda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Perfection includes perfection of mind and body, so that the highest results of Rajayoga and Hathayoga should be contained in the widest formula of the synthesis finally to be effected by mankind. At any rate a full development of the general mental and physical faculties and experiences attainable by humanity through Yoga must be included in the scope of the integral method. Nor would these have any raison d'etre unless employed for an integral mental and physical life. Such a mental and physical life would be in its nature a translation of the spiritual existence into its right mental and physical values. Thus we would arrive at a synthesis of the three degrees of Nature and of the three modes of human existence which she has evolved or is evolving. We would include in the scope of our liberated being and perfected modes of activity the material life, our base, and the mental life, our intermediate instrument.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
passing, upon certain imperfections found in those who are about to enter it and
which it removes by the process of purgation. Such travellers are still untried
--
Divine love, and to have a certain realization and foretaste of God.'11 No less
wonderful are the effects of the powerful Divine illumination which from time to
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
here; you would be in the world. These are certain elements in
the being which remain attached to their old activities and refuse
--
From a certain point of view what you say is true; but there is
also a sort of reversal of consciousness in which it comes out of
--
What cannot be acquired or conquered during life can certainly
not be done after death. It is the physical life which is the true
--
It is certainly not with such a state of mind that you can hope
to find the Divine Presence. Far from seeking to fill your heart
--
It is certainly not by becoming morose and melancholy that one
draws near the Divine. One must always keep in one's heart an
--
You speak here of vital love, but certainly not of psychic love
and still less of the Divine Love.
--
Ashram; but those who are without work are certainly so because they do not like to work; and for that disease it is very
difficult to find a remedy - it is called laziness...
--
there is no difference between a certain thing, no matter
which, and me; for the Divine is as much present in that
--
Of course, this shows very good feelings. But a certain amount
of knowledge must be added to these sentiments. For, to communicate peace and joy to others is not so easy, and unless one
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This too is a way which is certainly as good as the other.
There are many ways to attain self-realisation, and each one
--
takes a certain time and you must persist in the effort.
25 September 1959
--
within and without. So we may say with certainty that what we
carry in ourselves in all our states of being, mentally, vitally and
--
This music aims at awakening certain profound feelings.
In listening to it, one should make oneself as silent and
--
are those who have an organised supramental being and supramental life, even admitting that there are any at all. certainly
the very recent descent of the first elements of the Supermind
--
knowledge by identity and certain powers such as that of healing
and, to an extent, of acting upon circumstances.
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then, after a certain length of time, we would see the visitors
themselves slowly, gracefully, calmly descend, without losing
--
But before this contact is established, you can, in certain
circumstances, consciously receive the psychic influence which
--
It is utterly certain that if you were truly in contact with "your
personal divine", you would know perfectly well "how to approach the Transcendent Divine". For the two are identical; it is
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When Sri Aurobindo said, Our Yoga is not for ourselves but for humanity, many heaved a sigh of relief and thought that the great soul was after all not entirely lost to the world, his was not one more name added to the long list of Sannyasins that India has been producing age after age without much profit either to herself or to the human society (or even perhaps to their own selves). People understood his Yoga to be a modern one, dedicated to the service of humanity. If service to humanity was not the very sum and substance of his spirituality, it was, at least, the fruitful end and consummation. His Yoga was a sort of art to explore and harness certain unseen powers that can better and ameliorate human life in a more successful way than mere rational scientific methods can hope to do.
Sri Aurobindo saw that the very core of his teaching was being missed by this common interpretation of his saying. So he changed his words and said, Our Yoga is not for humanity but for the Divine. But I am afraid this change of front, this volte-face, as it seemed, was not welcomed in many quarters; for thereby all hope of having him back for the work of the country or the world appeared to be totally lost and he came to be looked upon again as an irrevocable metaphysical dreamer, aloof from physical things and barren, even like the Immutable Brahman.
--
Here also one must guard against certain misconceptions that are likely to occur. The transformation of human life does not necessarily mean that the entire humanity will be changed into a race of gods or divine beings; it means the evolution or appearance on earth of a superior type of humanity, even as man evolved out of animality as a superior type of animality, not that the entire animal kingdom was changed into humanity.
As regards the possibility of such a consummation,Sri Aurobindo says it is not a possibility but an inevitabilityone must remember that the force that will bring about the result and is already at work is not any individual human power, however great it may be, but the Divine himself, it is the Divine's own Shakti that is labouring for the destined end.
--
From a certain point of view, from the point of view of essentials and inner realities, it would appear that spirituality is, at least, the basis of the arts, if not the highest art. If art is meant to express the soul of things, and since the true soul of things is the divine element in them, then certainly spirituality, the discipline of coming in conscious contact with the Spirit, the Divine, must be accorded the regal seat in the hierarchy of the arts. Also, spirituality is the greatest and the most difficult of the arts; for it is the art of life. To make of life a perfect work of beauty, pure in its lines, faultless in its rhythm, replete with strength, iridescent: with light, vibrant with delightan embodiment of the Divine, in a wordis the highest ideal of spirituality; viewed the spirituality that Sri Aurobindo practisesis the ne plus ultra of artistic creation
The Gita, II. 40
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The New Man will be Master and not slave. He will be master, first, of himself and then of the world. Man as he actually is, is but a slave. He has no personal voice or choice; the determining soul, the Ishwara, in him is sleep-bound and hushed. He is a mere plaything in the hands of nature and circumstances. Therefore it is that Science has become his supreme Dharmashastra; for science seeks to teach us the moods of Nature and the methods of propitiating her. Our actual ideal of man is that of the cleverest slave. But the New Man will have found himself and by and according to his inner will, mould and create his world. He will not be in awe of Nature and in an attitude of perpetual apprehension and hesitation, but will ground himself on a secret harmony and union that will declare him as the lord. We will recognise the New Man by his very gait and manner, by a certain kingly ease and dominion in every shade of his expression.
Not that this sovereign power will have anything to do with aggression or over-bearingness. It will not be a power that feels itself only by creating an eternal opponentErbfeindby coming in constant clash with a rival that seeks to gain victory by subjugating. It will not be Nietzschean "will to power," which is, at best, a supreme Asuric power. It will rather be a Divine Power, for the strength it will exert and the victory it will achieve will not come from the egoit is the ego which requires an object outside and against to feel and affirm itself but it will come from a higher personal self which is one with the cosmic soul and therefore with other personal souls. The Asura, in spite of, or rather, because of his aggressive vehemence betrays a lack of the sovereign power that is calm and at ease and self-sufficient. The Devic power does not assert hut simply accomplishes; the forces of the world act not as its opponent but as its instrument. Thus the New Man shall affirm his individual sovereignty and do so to perfection by expressing through it his unity with the cosmic powers, with the infinite godhead. And by being Swarat, Self-Master, he will become Samrat, world-master.
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its, spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually exclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot of separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres of the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and Overmind meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each distinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all together forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely composite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into Supermind one sees something moreOneness gathering into itself all diversity, not destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness that is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness, the initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in when the supramental light enters the penumbra of the mental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement of light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving, absolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness of Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential and unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression of each one assured truth entering into and upholding every other and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no trial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests on all others and on that which harmonises them all and does not act as a Power diverging from and even competing with other Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play of divergent possibilities the simple, direct, united and absolute certainties of the supramental consciousness retire, as it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out through the interaction first of separately individualised and then of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind there is a conscious underlying Unity but yet each Power, Truth, Aspect of that Unity is encouraged to work out its possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are used by it for its own enhancement until in the denser and darker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of blind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation or manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being into a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends' towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the Spirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakeningsMatter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit.
The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescienceof Involutionhas been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic Time-Space the splendours of the timeless Reality. The material body came into existence bringing with it inevitably, as it seemed, mortality; it appeared even to be fashioned out of mortality, in order that in this very frame and field of mortality, Immortality, the eternal Spirit Consciousness which is the secret truth and reality in Time itself as well as behind it, might be established and that the Divine might be possessed, or rather, possess itself not in one unvarying mode of the static consciousness, as it does even now behind the cosmic play, but in the play itself and in the multiple mode of the terrestrial existence.
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And if there is something in the creative spirit of Sri Aurobindo which tends more towards the strenuous than the genial, the arduous than the mellifluous, and which has more of the austerity of Vyasa than the easy felicity of Valmiki, however it might have affected the ultimate value of his creation, according to certain standards,14 it has illustrated once more that poetry is not merely beauty but power, it is not merely sweet imagination but creative visionit is even the Rik, the mantra that impels the gods to manifest upon earth, that fashions divinity in man.
James H. Cousins in his New Ways in English Literature describes Sri Aurobindo as "the philosopher as poet."
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is Reason, the faculty that is said to be the proud privilege of man, the sovereign instrument he alone possesses for the purpose of knowing? What is the value of knowledge that Reason gives? For it is the manner of knowing, the particular faculty or instrument by which we know, that determines the nature and content of knowledge. Reason is the collecting of available sense-perceptions and a certain mode of working upon them. It has three component elements that have been defined as observation, classification and deduction. Now, the very composition of Reason shows that it cannot be a perfect instrument of knowledge; the limitations are the inherent limitations of the component elements. As regards observation there is a two-fold limitation. First, observation is a relative term and variable quantity. One observes through the prism of one's own observing faculty, through the bias of one's own personality and no two persons can have absolutely the same manner of observation. So Science has recognised the necessity of personal equation and has created an imaginary observer, a "mean man" as the standard of reference. And this already takes us far away from the truth, from the reality. Secondly, observation is limited by its scope. All the facts of the world, all sense-perceptions possible and actual cannot be included within any observation however large, however collective it may be. We have to go always upon a limited amount of data, we are able to construct only a partial and sketchy view of the surface of existence. And then it is these few and doubtful facts that Reason seeks to arrange and classify. That classification may hold good for certain immediate ends, for a temporary understanding of the world and its forces, either in order to satisfy our curiosity or to gain some practical utility. For when we want to consider the world only in its immediate relation to us, a few and even doubtful facts are sufficient the more immediate the relation, the more immaterial the doubtfulness and insufficiency of facts. We may quite confidently go a step in darkness, but to walk a mile we do require light and certainty. Our scientific classification has a background of un certainty, if not, of falsity; and our deduction also, even while correct within a very narrow range of space and time, cannot escape the fundamental vices of observation and classification upon which it is based.
It might be said, however, that the guarantee or sanction of Reason does not lie in the extent of its application, nor can its subjective nature (or ego-centric predication, as philosophers would term it) vitiate the validity of its conclusions. There is, in fact, an inherent unity and harmony between Reason and Reality. If we know a little of Reality, we know the whole; if we know the subjective, we know also the objective. As in the part, so in the whole; as it is within, so it is without. If you say that I will die, you need not wait for my actual death to have the proof of your statement. The generalising power inherent in Reason is the guarantee of the certitude to which it leads. Reason is valid, as it does not betray us. If it were such as anti-intellectuals make it out to be, we would be making nothing but false steps, would always remain entangled in contradictions. The very success of Reason is proof of its being a reliable and perfect instrument for the knowledge of Truth and Reality. It is beside the mark to prove otherwise, simply by analysing the nature of Reason and showing the fundamental deficiencies of that nature. It is rather to the credit of Reason that being as it is, it is none the less a successful and trustworthy agent.
Now the question is, does Reason never fail? Is it such a perfect instrument as intellectualists think it to be? There is ground for serious misgivings. Reason says, for example, that the earth revolves round the sun: and reason, it is argued, is right, for we see that all the facts are conformableto it, even facts that were hitherto unknown and are now coming into our ken. But the difficulty is that Reason did not say that always in the past and may not say that always in the future. The old astronomers could explain the universe by holding quite a contrary theory and could fit into it all their astronomical data. A future scientist may come and explain the matter in quite a different way from either. It is only a choice of workable theories that Reason seems to offer; we do not know the fact itself, apart perhaps from exactly the amount that immediate sense-perception gives to each of us. Or again, if we take an example of another category, we may ask, does God exist? A candid Rationalist would say that he does not know although he has his own opinion about the matter. Evidently, Reason cannot solve all the problems that it meets; it can judge only truths that are of a certain type.
It may be answered that Reason is a faculty which gives us progressive knowledge of the reality, but as a knowing instrument it is perfect, at least it is the only instrument at our disposal; even if it gives a false, incomplete or blurred image of the reality, it has the means and capacity of correcting and completing itself. It offers theories, no doubt; but what are theories? They are simply the gradually increasing adaptation of the knowing subject to the object to be known, the evolving revelation of reality to our perception of it. Reason is the power which carries on that process of adaptation and revelation; we can safely rely upon Reason and trust It to carry on its work with increasing success.
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The fact is that Reason is a lower manifestation of knowledge, it is an attempt to express on the mental level a power that exceeds it. It is the section of a vast and unitarian Consciousness-Power; the section may be necessary under certain conditions and circumstances, but unless it is viewed in its relation to the ensemble, unless it gives up its exclusive absolutism, it will be perforce arbitrary and misleading. It would still remain helpful and useful, but its help and use would be always limited in scope and temporary in effectivity.
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01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A considerable amount of vague misunderstanding and misapprehension seems to exist in the minds of a certain section of our people as to what Sri Aurobindo is doing in his retirement at Pondicherry. On the other hand, a very precise exposition, an exact formula of what he is not doing has been curiously furnished by a well-known patriot in his indictment of what he chooses to call the Pondicherry School of contemplation. But he has arrived at this formula by openly and fearlessly affirming what does not exist; for the things that Sri Aurobindo is accused of doing are just the things that he is not doing. In the first place, Sri Aurobindo is not doing peaceful contemplation; in the second place, he is not doing active propaganda either; in the third place, he is not doing prnyma or even dhyna in the ordinary sense of the word; and, lastly, he is not proclaiming or following the maxim that although action may be tolerated as good, his particular brand of Yoga is something higher and better.
Evidently the eminent politician and his school of activism are labouring under a Himalayan confusion: when they speak of Sri Aurobindo, they really have in their mind some of the old schools of spiritual discipline. But one of the marked aspects of Sri Aurobindo's teaching and practice has been precisely his insistence on putting aside the inert and life-shunning quietism, illusionism, asceticism and monasticism of a latter-day and decadent India. These ideals are perhaps as much obstacles in his way as in the way of the activistic school. Only Sri Aurobindo has not had the temerity to say that it is a weakness to seek refuge in contemplation or to suggest that a Buddha was a weakling or a Shankara a poltroon.
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European science is conquering Nature in a way. It has attained to a certain kind and measure, in some fields a great measure, of control and conquest; but however great or striking it may be in its own province, it does not touch man in his more intimate reality and does not bring about any true change in his destiny or his being. For the most vital part of nature is the region of the life-forces, the powers of disease and age and death, of strife and greed and lustall the instincts of the brute in man, all the dark aboriginal forces, the forces of ignorance that form the very groundwork of man's nature and his society. And then, as we rise next to the world of the mind, we find a twilight region where falsehood masquerades as truth, where prejudices move as realities, where notions rule as ideals.
This is the present nature of man, with its threefold nexus of mind and life and body, that stands there to be fought and conquered. This is the inferior nature, of which the ancients spoke, that holds man down inexorably to a lower dharma, imperfect mode of life the life that is and has been the human order till today. No amount of ceaseless action, however selflessly done, can move this wheel of Nature even by a hair's breadth away from the path that it has carved out from of old. Human nature and human society have been built up and are run by the forces of this inferior nature, and whatever shuffling and reshuffling we may make in its apparent factors and elements, the general scheme and fundamental form of life will never change. To displace earth (and to conquer nature means nothing less than that) and give it another orbit, one must find a fulcrum outside earth.
01.03 - Yoga and the Ordinary Life, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Morality is a part of the ordinary life; it is an attempt to govern the outward conduct by certain mental rules or to form the character by these rules in the image of a certain mental ideal. The spiritual life goes beyond the mind; it enters into the deeper consciousness of the Spirit and acts out of the truth of the Spirit.
The principle of life which I seek to establish is spiritual.
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All movementswhe ther of thought or of life, whether in the individual or in the massproceed from a fundamental intuition which lies in the background as the logical presupposition, the psychological motive and the spiritual force. A certain attitude of the soul, a certain angle of vision is what is posited first; all other thingsall thoughts and feelings and activities are but necessary attempts to express, to demonstrate, to realise on the conscious and dynamic levels, in the outer world, the truth which has thus already been seized in some secret core of our being. The intuition may not, of course, be present to the conscious mind, it may not be ostensibly sought for, one may even deny the existence of such a preconceived notion and proceed to establish truth on a tabula rasa; none the less it is this hidden bias that judges, this secret consciousness that formulates, this unknown power that fashions.
Now, what is the intuition that lies behind the movements of the new age? What is the intimate realisation, the underlying view-point which is guiding and modelling all our efforts and achievementsour science and art, our poetry and philosophy, our religion and society? For, there is such a common and fundamental note which is being voiced forth by the human spirit through all the multitude of its present-day activities.
A new impulse is there, no one can deny, and it has vast possibilities before it, that also one need not hesitate to accept. But in order that we may best fructuate what has been spontaneously sown, we must first recognise it, be luminously conscious of it and develop it along its proper line of growth. For, also certain it is that this new impulse or intuition, however true and strong in itself, is still groping and erring and miscarrying; it is still wasting much of its energy in tentative things, in mere experiments, in even clear failures. The fact is that the intuition has not yet become an enlightened one, it is still moving, as we shall presently explain, in the dark vital regions of man. And vitalism is naturally and closely affianced to pragmatism, that is to say, the mere vital impulse seeks immediately to execute itself, it looks for external effects, for changes in the form, in the machinery only. Thus it is that we see in art and literature discussions centred upon the scheme of composition, as whether the new poetry should be lyrical or dramatic, popular or aristocratic, metrical or free of metre, and in practical life we talk of remodelling the state by new methods of representation and governance, of purging society by bills and legislation, of reforming humanity by a business pact.
All this may be good and necessary, but there is the danger of leaving altogether out of account the one thing needful. We must then pause and turn back, look behind the apparent impulsion that effectuates to the Will that drives, behind the ideas and ideals of the mind to the soul that informs and inspires; we must carry ourselves up the stream and concentrate upon the original source, the creative intuition that lies hidden somewhere. And then only all the new stirrings that we feel in our heartour urges and ideals and visions will attain an effective clarity, an unshaken purpose and an inevitable achievement.
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So instead of the rational principle, the new age wants the principle of Nature or Life. Even as regards knowledge Reason is not the only, nor the best instrument. For animals have properly no reason; the nature-principle of knowledge in the animal is Instinct the faculty that acts so faultlessly, so marvellously where Reason can only pause and be perplexed. This is not to say that man is to or can go back to this primitive and animal function; but certainly he can replace it by something akin which is as natural and yet purified and self-consciousillumined instinct, we may say or Intuition, as Bergson terms it. And Nietzsche's definition of the Superman has also a similar orientation and significance; for, according to him, the Superman is man who has outgrown his Reason, who is not bound by the standards and the conventions determined by Reason for a special purpose. The Superman is one who has gone beyond "good and evil," who has shaken off from his nature and character elements that are "human, all too human"who is the embodiment of life-force in its absolute purity and strength and freedom.
This then is the mantra of the new ageLife with Intuition as its guide and not Reason and mechanical efficiency, not Man but Superman. The right mantra has been found, the principle itself is irreproachable. But the interpretation, the application, does not seem to have been always happy. For, Nietzsche's conception of the Superman is full of obvious lacunae. If we have so long been adoring the intellectual man, Nietzsche asks us, on the other hand, to deify the vital man. According to him the superman is he who has (1) the supreme sense of the ego, (2) the sovereign will to power and (3) who lives dangerously. All this means an Asura, that is to say, one who has, it may be, dominion over his animal and vital impulsions in order, of course, that he may best gratify them but who has not purified them. Purification does not necessarily mean, annihilation but it does mean sublimation and transformation. So if you have to transcend man, you have to transcend egoism also. For a conscious egoism is the very characteristic of man and by increasing your sense of egoism you do not supersede man but simply aggrandise your humanity, fashion it on a larger, a titanic scale. And then the will to power is not the only will that requires fulfilment, there is also the will to knowledge and the will to love. In man these three fundamental constitutive elements coexist, although they do it, more often than not, at the expense of each other and in a state of continual disharmony. The superman, if he is to be the man "who has surmounted himself", must embody a poise of being in which all the three find a fusion and harmonya perfect synthesis. Again, to live dangerously may be heroic, but it is not divine. To live dangerously means to have eternal opponents, that is to say, to live ever on the same level with the forces you want to dominate. To have the sense that one has to fight and control means that one is not as yet the sovereign lord, for one has to strive and strain and attain. The supreme lord is he who is perfectly equanimous with himself and with the world. He has not to batter things into a shape in order to create. He creates means, he manifests. He wills and he achieves"God said 'let there be light' and there was light."
As a matter of fact, the superman is not, as Nietzsche thinks him to be, the highest embodiment of the biological force of Nature, not even as modified and refined by the aesthetic and aristocratic virtues of which the higher reaches of humanity seem capable. For that is after all humanity only accentuated in certain other fundamentally human modes of existence. It does not carry far enough the process of surmounting. In reality it is not a surmounting but a new channelling. Instead of the ethical and intellectual man, we get the vital and aesthetic man. It may be a change but not a transfiguration.
And the faculty of Intuition said to be the characteristic of the New Man does not mean all that it should, if we confine ourselves to Bergson's definition of it. Bergson says that Intuition is a sort of sympathy, a community of feeling or sensibility with the urge of the life-reality. The difference between the sympathy of Instinct and the sympathy of Intuition being that while the former is an unconscious or semi-conscious power, the latter is illumined and self-conscious. Now this view emphasises only the feeling-tone of Intuition, the vital sensibility that attends the direct communion with the life movement. But Intuition is not only purified feeling and sensibility, it is also purified vision and knowledge. It unites us not only with the movement of life, but also opens out to our sight the Truths, the fundamental realities behind that movement. Bergson does not, of course, point to any existence behind the continuous flux of life-power the elan vital. He seems to deny any static truth or truths to be seen and seized in any scheme of knowledge. To him the dynamic flow the Heraclitian panta reei is the ultimate reality. It is precisely to this view of things that Bergson owes his conception of Intuition. Since existence is a continuum of Mind-Energy, the only way to know it is to be in harmony or unison with it, to move along its current. The conception of knowledge as a fixing and delimiting of things is necessarily an anomaly in this scheme. But the question is, is matter the only static and separative reality? Is the flux of vital Mind-Energy the ultimate truth?
Matter forms the lowest level of reality. Above it is the elan vital. Above the elan vital there is yet the domain of the Spirit. And the Spirit is a static substance and at the same a dynamic creative power. It is Being (Sat) that realises or expresses itself through certain typal nuclei or nodi of consciousness (chit) in a continuous becoming, in a flow of creative activity (ananda). The dynamism of the vital energy is only a refraction or precipitation of the dynamism of the spirit; and so also static matter is only the substance of the spirit concretised and solidified. It is in an uplift both of matter and vital force to their prototypesswarupa and swabhavain the Spirit that lies the real transformation and transfiguration of the humanity of man.
This is the truth that is trying to dawn upon the new age. Not matter but that which forms the substance of matter, not intellect but a vaster consciousness that informs the intellect, not man as he is, an aberration in the cosmic order, but as he may and shall be the embodiment and fulfilment of that orderthis is the secret Intuition which, as yet dimly envisaged, nevertheless secretly inspires all the human activities of today. Only, the truth is being interpreted, as we have said, in terms of vital life. The intellectual and physical man gave us one aspect of the reality, but neither is the vital and psychical man the complete reality. The one acquisition of this shifting of the viewpoint has been that we are now in touch with the natural and deeper movement of humanity and not as before merely with its artificial scaffolding. The Alexandrine civilisation of humanity, in Nietzsche's phrase, was a sort of divagation from nature, it was following a loop away from the direct path of natural evolution. And the new Renaissance of today has precisely corrected this aberration of humanity and brought it again in a line with the natural cosmic order.
certainly this does not go far enough into the motive of the change. The cosmic order does not mean mentalised vitalism which is also in its turn a section of the integral reality. It means the order of the spirit, it means the transfiguration of the physical, the vital and the intellectual into the supernal Substance, Power and Light of that Spirit. The real transcendence of humanity is not the transcendence of one or other of its levels but the total transcendence to an altogether different status and the transmutation of humanity in the mould of that statusnot a Nietzschean Titan nor a Bergsonian Dionysus but the tranquil vision and delight and dynamism of the Spirit the incarnation of a god-head.
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01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Both the poets were worshippers, idolaters, of beauty, especially of natural physical beauty, of beauty heaped on beauty, of beauty gathered, like honey from all places and stored and ranged and stalled with the utmost decorative skill. Yet the difference between the two is not less pronounced. A philosopher is reminded of Bergson, the great exponent of movement as reality, in connection with certain aspects of Tagore. Indeed, Beauty in Tagore is something moving, flowing, dancing, rippling; it is especially the beauty which music embodies and expresses. A Kalidasian beauty, on the contrary, is statuesque and plastic, it is to be appreciated in situ. This is, however, by the way.
Sri Aurobindo: "Ahana", Collected Poems & Plays, Vol. 2
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
However, individualism has given us a truth and a formula which collectivism ignored. Self-determination is a thing which has come to stay. Each and every individual is free, absolutely free and shall freely follow his own line of growth and development and fulfilment. No extraneous power shall choose and fix what is good or evil for him, nor coerce and exploit him for its own benefit. But that does not necessarily mean that collectivism has no truth in it; collectivism also, as much as individualism, has a lesson for us and we should see whether we can harmonise the two. Collectivism signifies that the individual should not look to himself alone, should not be shut up in his freedom but expand himself and envelop others in a wider freedom, see other creatures in himself and himself in other creatures, as the Gita says. Collectivism demands that the individual need not and should not exhaust himself entirely in securing and enjoying his personal freedom, but that he can and should work for the salvation of others; the truth it upholds is this that the individual is from a certain point of view only a part of the group and by ignoring the latter it ignores itself in the end.
Now, a spiritual communism embraces individualism and collectivism, fuses them in a higher truth, establishes them in an intimate and absolute harmony. The individual is the centre, the group is the circumference and the two form one whore circle. The individual by fulfilling the truth of his real individuality fulfils also the truth of a commonality. There are no different laws for the two. The individuals do not stand apart from and against one another, the dharma of one does not clash with the dharma of the other. The ripples in the bosom of the sea, however distinct and discrete in appearance, form but a single mass, all follow the same law of hydrodynamics that the mother sea incarnates. Stars and planets and nebulae, each separate heavenly body has its characteristic form and nature and function and yet all fulfil the same law of gravitation and beat the measure of the silent symphony of spaces. Individualities are the freedoms of the collective being and collectivity the concentration of individual beings. The same soul looking inward appears as the individual being and looking outward appears as the collective being.
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If society, that is to say, community, be the fieldkshetra for the individual to live, move and have its being, then we must begin at the very outset with the community itself, at least, with a nucleus that will go to form such a thing. The fear that the untimely grouping together of immature souls may crush out individuality and dig its own grave has, no doubt, sufficient justification behind it to deter one from the attempt; but neither can we be certain that souls nursed and nourished in solitary cells, absolutely apart from any mellowing and broadening influence of the outside world will ever reach to that stage of perfect maturity when they will suddenly and spontaneously break open their cells and recognise in one another the communal brother-self.
As a matter of fact, the individual is not and cannot be such an isolated thing as our egoistic sense would like to have it. The sharp angularities of the individual are being, at every moment, chastened by the very primary conditions of life; and to fail to recognise this is the blindest form of ignorance. It is no easy task to draw exactly the line of distinction between our individual being and our social or communal being. In actual life they are so blended together that in trying to extricate them from each other, we but tear and lacerate them both. The highest wisdom is to take the two together as they are, and by a gradual purifying processboth internal and external, internal in thought and knowledge and will, external in life and actionrestore them to their respective truth and lawSatyam and Ritam.
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"They can no longer tell us that it is only small minds that have piety. They are shown how it has grown best in one of the the greatest geometricians, one of the subtlest metaphysicians, one of the most penetrating minds that ever existed on earth. The piety of such a philosopher should make the unbeliever and the libertine declare what a certain Diocles said one day on seeing Epicurus in a temple: 'What a feast, what a spectacle for me to see Epicurus in a temple! All my doubts vainsh, piety takes its place again. I never saw Jupiter's greatness so well as now when I behold Epicurus kneeling down!"1
What characterises Pascal is the way in which he has bent his brainnot rejected it but truly bent and forced even the dry "geometrical brain" to the service of Faith.
In his inquiry into truth and certitude Pascal takes his stand upon what he calls the geometrical method, the only valid method, according to him, in the sphere of reason. The characteristic of this method is that it takes for granted certain fundamental principles and realitiescalled axioms and postulates or definitionsand proceeds to other truths that are infallibly and inevitably deduced from them, that are inherent and implied in them. There is no use or necessity in trying to demonstrate these fundamentals also; that will only land us into confusion and muddle. They have to be simply accepted, they do not require demonstration, it is they that demonstrate others. Such, for instance, are space, time, number, the reality of which it is foolishness and pedantry to I seek to prove. There is then an order of truths that do not i require to be proved. We are referring only to the order of I physical truths. But there is another order, Pascal says, equally I valid and veritable, the order of the Spirit. Here we have another set of fundamentals that have to be accepted and taken for granted, matrix of other truths and realities. It can also be called the order of the Heart. Reason posits physical fundamentals; it does not know of the fundamentals of the Heart which are beyond its reach; such are God, Soul, Immortality which are evident only to Faith.
But Faith and Reason, according to Pascal, are not contraries nor irreconcilables. Because the things of faith are beyond reason, it is not that they are irrational. Here is what Pascal says about the function and limitation of reason:
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"Ils ne peuvent plus nous dire qu'il n'y a que de petits esprits qui aient de la pit: car on leur en fait voir de la mieux pouss dans run des plus grands go-mtres, l'un des plus subtils mtaphysiciens, et des plus pntrants esprits que aient jamais t au monde. La pit d'un tel philosophe devrait faire dire aux indvots et awe libertins ce que dit un jour un certain Diocls, en voyant Epicure dans un temple: 'Quelle fte,' s'criait-il, 'quelle spectacle pour moi, de voir Epicure dans un temple! Tous mes soupons s'vanouissent: la pit reprend sa place; et je ne vis jamais mieux la grandeur de Jupiter que depuis que je vois Epicure genoux!' " aBayle: Nouvelle de la Rpublique des Lettres.
"La dernire dmarche de la raison, c'est de connatre qu'il y a une infinit de chases qui la surpassent. Elle est bien faible si elle ne va jusque-l
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Any real reconstruction of society, any permanent reformation of the world presupposes a real reconstruction, a permanent reformation of human nature. Otherwise any amount of casting and recasting the mere machineries would not bring about any appreciable result, but leave the thing as it is. Change the laws as much as you like, but if you do not change the nature of man, the world will not change. For it is man that makes laws and not laws that make man. Laws express at best the demand which man feels within himself. A truth must realise itself in human nature before it can be codified. You may certainly legalise an ideal, but that does not necessarily mean realising it. The realisation must come first in nature and character, then it is naturally translated into laws and institutions. A man lives the laws of his soul and being and not the law given him by the shastras. He violates the shastras, modifies them, utilises them according to the greater imperative of his Swabhava.
The French Revolution wanted to remould human society and its ideal was liberty, equality and fraternity. It pulled down the old machinery and set up a new one in its stead. And the result? "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" remained always in effect a cry in the wilderness. Another wave of idealism is now running over the earth and the Bolshevists are its most fiercely practical exponents. Instead of dealing merely with the political machinery, the Socialistic Revolution tries to break and remake, above all, the social machinery. But judged from the results as yet attained and the tendencies at work, few are the reasons to hope but many to fear the worst. Even education does not seem to promise us anything better. Which nation was better educatedin the sense we understood and still commonly understand the wordthan Germany?
--
It is this persuasion which, has led many spiritual souls, siddhas, to declare that theirs is not the kingdom upon this earth, but that the kingdom of Heaven is within. And it is why great lovers of humanity have sought not to eradicate but only to mitigate, as far as possible, the ills of life. Earth and life, it is said, contain in their last analysis certain ugly and loathsome realities which are an inevitable and inexorable part of their substance and to eliminate one means to annihilate the other. What can be done is to throw a veil over the nether regions in human nature, to put a ban on their urges and velleities and to create opportunities to make social arrangements so that the higher impulses only find free play while the lower impulses, for want of scope and indulgence, may fall down to a harmless level. This is what the Reformists hope and want and no more. Life is based upon animality, the soul is encased in an earth-sheathman needs must procreate, man needs must seek food. But what human effort can achieve is to set up barriers and limitations and form channels and openings, which will restrain these impulses, allow them a necessary modicum of play and which for the greater part will serve to encourage and enhance the nobler urges in man. Of course, there will remain always the possibility of the whole scaffolding coming down with a crash and the aboriginal in man running riot in his nudity. But we have to accept the chance and make the best of what materials we have in hand.
No doubt this is a most dismal kind of pessimism. But it is the logical conclusion of all optimism that bases itself upon a particular view of human nature. If we question that pessimism, we have to question the very grounds of our optimism also. As a matter of fact, all our idealism has been so long infructuous and will be so in the future, if we do not shift our foundation and start from a different IntuitionWeltanschauung.
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The recent science of Psycho-analysis has brought to light certain hidden springs and undercurrents of the mind; it has familiarised us with a mode of viewing the entire psychical life of man which will be fruitful for our present enquiry. Mind, it has been found, is a house divided, against itself, that is to say it is an arena where different and divergent forces continually battle against one another. There must be, however, at the same time, some sort of a resolution of these forces, some equation that holds them in balance, otherwise the mind the human being itselfwould cease to exist as an entity. What is the mechanism of this balance of power in the human mind? In order to as certain that we must first of all know the fundamental nature of the struggle and also the character of the more elemental forces that are engaged in it.
There are some primary desires that seek satisfaction in man. They are the vital urges of life, the most prominent among them being the instinct of self-preservation and that of self-reproduction or the desire to preserve one's body by defensive as well as by offensive means and the desire to multiply oneself by mating. These are the two biological necessities that are inevitable to man's existence as a physical being. They give the minimum conditions required to be fulfilled by man in order that he may live and hence they are the strongest and the most fundamental elements that enter into his structure and composition.
--
What is the reason of this elaboration, this check and constraint upon the natural and direct outflow of the animal instincts in man? It has been said that the social life of man, the fact that he has to live and move as member of a group or aggregate has imposed upon him these restrictions. The free and unbridled indulgence of one's bare aboriginal impulses may be possible to creatures that live a separate, solitary and individual life but is disruptive of all bonds necessary for a corporate and group life. It is even a biological necessity again which has evolved in man a third and collateral primary instinct that of the herd. And it is this herd-instinct which naturally and spontaneously restrains, diverts and even metamorphoses the other instincts of the mere animal life. However, leaving aside for the moment the question whether man's ethical and spiritual ideals are a mere dissimulation of his animal instincts or whether they correspond to certain actual realities apart from and co-existent with these latter, we will recognise the simple fact of control and try to have a glimpse into its mechanism.
There are three lines, as the Psycho-analysts point out along which this control or censuring of the primary instincts acts. First, there is the line of Defence Reaction. That is to say, the mind automatically takes up an attitude directly contrary to the impulse, tries to shut it out and deny altogether its existence and the measure of the insistence of the impulse is also the measure of the vehemence of the denial. It is the case of the lady protesting too much. So it happens that where subconsciously there is a strong current of a particular impulse, consciously the mind is obliged to take up a counteracting opposite impulse. Thus in presence of a strong sexual craving the mind as if to guard and save itself engenders by a reflex movement an ascetic and puritanic mood. Similarly a strong unthinking physical attraction translates itself on the conscious plane as an equally strong repulsion.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So, in man also, especially of that order which forms the crown of humanityin poets and artists and seers and great men of actioncan be observed a certain characteristic form of consciousness, which is something other than, greater than the consciousness of the mere self. It is difficult as yet to characterise definitely what that thing is. It is the awakening of the self to something which is beyond itselfit is the cosmic self, the oversoul, the universal being; it is God, it is Turiya, it is sachchidanandain so many ways the thing has been sought to be envisaged and expressed. The consciousness of that level has also a great variety of names given to it Intuition, Revelation, cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness. It is to be noted here, however, that the thing we are referring to, is not the Absolute, the Infinite, the One without a second. It is not, that is to say, the supreme Reality the Brahmanin its static being, in its undivided and indivisible unity; it is the dynamic Brahman, that status of the supreme Reality where creation, the diversity of Becoming takes rise, it is the Truth-worldRitam the domain of typal realities. The distinction is necessary, as there does seem to be such a level of consciousness intermediary, again, between man and the Absolute, between self-consciousness and the supreme consciousness. The simplest thing would be to give that intermediate level of consciousness a negative namesince being as yet human we cannot foresee exactly its composition and function the super-consciousness.
The inflatus of something vast and transcendent, something which escapes all our familiar schemes of cognisance and yet is insistent with a translucent reality of its own, we do feel sometimes within us invading and enveloping our individuality, lifting up our sense of self and transmuting our personality into a reality which can hardly be called merely human. All this life of ego-bound rationality then melts away and opens out the passage for a life of vision and power. Thus it is the poet has felt when he says, "there is this incalculable element in human life influencing us from the mystery which envelops our being, and when reason is satisfied, there is something deeper than Reason which makes us still un certain of truth. Above the human reason there is a transcendental sphere to which the spirit of men sometimes rises, and the will may be forged there at a lordly smithy and made the unbreakable pivot."(A.E.)
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have certain things to confess to You, but I cannot
bring myself to do it. What shall I do? Confess or let
--
scene in which the lawyer Perry Mason seems certain
to lose his case; his client is accused of murder, all the
--
I have received a certain sum of money. I want to
offer it to You, and if I need anything I will ask You for it;
--
Yes, certainly, for someone who knows how to see, and X is very
gifted.
--
of time. It is certainly one of the reasons why your brain is still
in a muddle and lacks clarity.
--
If you are sincere and scrupulously honest, my help is certainly with you and one day you will become aware of it.
22 July 1964
--
Very certainly such a thing has been made possible because the
atmosphere of the Ashram is not pure enough to be invulnerable
--
It is an occult operation, certainly more difficult than the
other for those who don't know how to do it, but less dangerous.
--
We know that we should not do certain things and
we do not really want to do them, but still we do them.
--
hierarchy and certain functions or intermediaries are missing.
(2) The indiscipline of certain members refusing wholly or
in part to occupy the place assigned to them.
--
numbers is certainly fanciful.
It is true that the number of those who take the yoga
--
The victory of the Truth is certain, but it is difficult to say
when and how it will come about.
--
I don't know - believe in the Divine? One thirsts for a certain perfection, perhaps even to transcend oneself, to arrive at
something higher than what one is; if one is a philanthropist,
--
it is the Divine under a certain aspect - a rather distorted one,
but still...
--
see it to be sure that there is a Divine. It is a certainty. One
cannot... it is impossible not to believe. It is like those people
--
also see extravagant spending by certain individuals and
certain departments. Moreover, these expenditures are
--
But perhaps it is just because certain individuals and certain
departments are spending extravagantly that there is a financial
--
if one had, one cannot exactly say an emotion, but a certain
emotional vibration of a circumstance; and that is what is solid,
01.10 - Nicholas Berdyaev: God Made Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Eastern spirituality does not view sorrow and sufferingevilas an integral part of the Divine Consciousness. It is born out of the Divine, no doubt, as nothing can be outside the Divine, but it is a local and temporal formation; it is a disposition consequent upon certain conditions and with the absence or elimination of those conditions, this disposition too disappears. God and the Divine Consciousness can only be purity, light, immortality and delight. The compassion that a Buddha feels for the suffering humanity is not at all a feeling of suffering; pain or any such normal human reaction does not enter into its composition; it is the movement of a transcendent consciousness which is beyond and purified of the normal reactions, yet overarching them and entering into them as a soothing and illumining and vivifying presence. The healer knows and understands the pain and suffering of his patient but is not touched by them; he need not contract the illness of his patient in order to be in sympathy with him. The Divine the Soulcan be in flesh and yet not smirched with its mire; the flesh is not essentially or irrevocably the ooze it is under certain given conditions. The divine physical body is composed of radiant matter and one can speak of it even as of the soul that weapons cannot pierce it nor can fire burn it.
***
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The truth behind a credal religion is the aspiration towards the realization of the Divine, some ultimate reality that gives a permanent meaning and value to the human life, to the existence lodged in this 'sphere of sorrow' here below. Credal paraphernalia were necessary to express or buttress this core of spiritual truth when mankind, in the mass, had not attained a certain level of enlightenment in the mind and a certain degree of development in its life-relations. The modern age is modern precisely because it had attained to a necessary extent this mental enlightenment and this life development. So the scheme or scaffolding that was required in the past is no longer unavoidable and can have either no reality at all or only a modified utility.
A modern people is a composite entity, especially with regard to its religious affiliation. Not religion, but culture is the basis of modern collective life, national or social. Culture includes in its grain that fineness of temperament which appreciates all truths behind all forms, even when there is a personal allegiance to one particular form.
--
The rise of this spirit in modern times and conditions is a phenomenon that has to be explained and faced: it is a ghost that has come out of the past and has got to be laid and laid for good. First of all, it is a reaction from modernism; it is a reaction from the modernist denial of certain fundamental and eternal truths, of God, soul, and immortality: it is a reaction from the modernist affirmation of the mere economic man. And it is also a defensive gesture of a particular complex of consciousness that has grown and lives powerfully and now apprehends expurgation and elimination.
In Europe such a contingency did not arise, because the religious spirit, rampant in the days of Inquisitions and St. Bartholomews, died away: it died, and (or, because) it was replaced by a spirit that was felt as being equally, if not more, au thentic and, which for the moment, suffused the whole consciousness with a large and high afflatus, commensurate with the amplitude of man's aspiration. I refer, of course, to the spirit of the Renaissance. It was a spirit profane and secular, no doubt, but on that level it brought a catholicity of temper and a richness in varied interesta humanistic culture, as it is calledwhich constituted a living and unifying ideal for Europe. That spirit culminated in the great French Revolution which was the final coup de grace to all that still remained of mediaevalism, even in its outer structure, political and economical.
--
The first extremes that met in India and fought and gradually coalesced to form a single cultural and social whole were, as is well known, the Aryan and the non-Aryan. Indeed, the geologists tell us, the land itself is divided into two parts structurally quite different and distinct, the Deccan plateau and the Himalayan ranges with the Indo-Gangetic plain: the former is formed out of the most ancient and stable and, on the whole, horizontally bedded rocks of the earth, while the latter is of comparatively recent origin, formed out of a more flexible and weaker belt (the Himalayan region consisting of a colossal flexing and crumpling of strata). The disparity is so much that a certain group of geologists hold that the Deccan plateau did not at all form part of the Asiatic continent, but had drifted and dashed into it:in fact the Himalayas are the result of this mighty impact. The usual division of an Aryan and a Dravidian race may be due to a memory of the clash of the two continents and their races.
However, coming to historical times, we see wave after wave of the most heterogeneous and disparate elementsSakas and Huns and Greeks, each bringing its quota of exotic materialenter into the oceanic Indian life and culture, lose their separate foreign identity and become part and parcel of the common whole. Even so,a single unitary body was formed out of such varied and shifting materialsnot in the political, but in a socio-religious sense. For a catholic religious spirit, not being solely doctrinal and personal, admitted and embraced in its supple and wide texture almost an infinite variety of approaches to the Divine, of forms and norms of apprehending the Beyond. It has been called Hinduism: it is a vast synthesis of multiple affiliations. It expresses the characteristic genius of India and hence Hinduism and Indianism came to be looked upon as synonymous terms. And the same could be defined also as Vedic religion and culture, for its invariable basis the bed-rock on which it stood firm and erectwas the Vedas, the Knowledge seen by the sages. But there had already risen a voice of dissidence and discord that of Buddha, not so much, perhaps, of Buddha as of Buddhism. The Buddhistic enlightenment and discipline did not admit the supreme authority of the Vedas; it sought other bases of truth and reality. It was a great denial; and it meant and worked for a vital schism. The denial of the Vedas by itself, perhaps, would not be serious, but it became so, as it was symptomatic of a deeper divergence. Denying the Vedas, the Buddhistic spirit denied life. It was quite a new thing in the Indian consciousness and spiritual discipline. And it left such a stamp there that even today it stands as the dominant character of the Indian outlook. However, India's synthetic genius rose to the occasion and knew how to bridge the chasm, close up the fissure, and present again a body whole and entire. Buddha became one of the Avataras: the discipline of Nirvana and Maya was reserved as the last duty to be performed at the end of life, as the culmination of a full-length span of action and achievement; the way to Moksha lay through Dharma and Artha and Kama, Sannyasa had to be built upon Brahmacharya and Garhasthya. The integral ideal was epitomized by Kalidasa in his famous lines about the character of the Raghus:
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
No problem is so vital to the human consciousness as the problem of Evilits why and wherefore It is verily the Sphinx Riddle. In all ages and in all climes man has tried to answer; the answers are of an immense variety, but none seems to be sure and certain. Goethe's was an ardent soul seeking to embrace the living truth whole and entire; the problem was not merely of philosophical interest to him, but a burning question of life and deathlife and death of the body and even of the soul.
One view considers Evil as coeval with Good: the Prince of Evil is God's peer, equal to him in all ways, absolutely separate, independent and self-existent. Light and Darkness are eternal principles living side by side, possessing equal reality. For, although it is permissible to the individual to pass out of the Darkness and enter into Light, the Darkness itself does not disappear: it remains and maintains its domain, and even it is said that some human beings are meant eternally for this domain. That is the Manichean principle and that also is fundamentally the dualistic conception of chit-achit in some Indian systems (although the principle of chit or light is usually given a higher position and priority of excellence).
The Christian too accepts the dual principle, but does not give equal status to the two. Satan is there, an eternal reality: it is anti-God, it seeks to oppose God, frustrate his work. It is the great tempter whose task it is to persuade, to inspire man to remain always an earthly creature and never turn to know or live in God. Now the crucial question that arises is, what is the necessity of this Antagonist in God's scheme of creation? What is the meaning of this struggle and battle? God could have created, if he had chosen, a world without Evil. The orthodox Christi an answer is that in that case one could not have fully appreciated the true value and glory of God's presence. It is to manifest and proclaim the great victory that the strife and combat has been arranged in which Man triumphs in the end and God's work stands vindicated. The place of Satan is always Hell, but he cannot drag down a soul into his pit to hold it there eternally (although according to one doctrine there are or may be certain eternally damned souls).
Goe the carries the process of convergence and even harmony of the two powers a little further and shows that although they are contrary apparently, they are not contradictory principles in essence. For, Satan is, after all, God's servant, even a very obedient servant; he is an instrument in the hand of the Almighty to work out His purpose. The purpose is to help and lead man, although in a devious way, towards a greater understanding, a nearer approach to Himself.
01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It might be objected here however that actually in the history of humanity the conception of Duty has been no less pugnacious than that of Right. In certain ages and among certain peoples, for example, it was considered the imperative duty of the faithful to kill or convert by force or otherwise as many as possible belonging to other faiths: it was the mission of the good shepherd to burn the impious and the heretic. In recent times, it was a sense of high and solemn duty that perpetrated what has been termed "purges"brutalities undertaken, it appears, to purify and preserve the integrity of a particular ideological, social or racial aggregate. But the real name of such a spirit is not duty but fanaticism. And there is a considerable difference between the two. Fanaticism may be defined as duty running away with itself; but what we are concerned with here is not the aberration of duty, but duty proper self-poised.
One might claim also on behalf of the doctrine of Right that the right kind of Right brings no harm, it is as already stated another name for liberty, for the privilege of living and it includes the obligation to let live. One can do what one likes provided one does not infringe on an equal right of others to do the same. The measure of one's liberty is equal to the measure of others' liberty.
Here is the crux of the question. The dictum of utilitarian philosophers is a golden rule which is easy to formulate but not so to execute. For the line of demarcation between one's own rights and the equal rights of others is so undefinable and variable that a title suit is inevitable in each case. In asserting and establishing and even maintaining one's rights there is always the possibilityalmost the certaintyof encroaching upon others' rights.
What is required is not therefore an external delimitation of frontiers between unit and unit, but an inner outlook of nature and a poise of character. And this can be cultivated and brought into action by learning to live by the sense of duty. Even then, even the sense of duty, we have to admit, is not enough. For if it leads or is capable of leading into an aberration, we must have something else to check and control it, some other higher and more potent principle. Indeed, both the conceptions of Duty and Right belong to the domain of mental ideal, although one is usually more aggressive and militant (Rajasic) and the other tends to be more tolerant and considerate (sattwic): neither can give an absolute certainty of poise, a clear guarantee of perfect harmony.
Indian wisdom has found this other, a fairer terma tertium quid,the mystic factor, sought for by so many philosophers on so many counts. That is the very well- known, the very familiar termDharma. What is Dharma then? How does it accomplish the miracle which to others seems to have proved an impossibility? Dharma is self-law, that is to say, the law of the Self; it is the rhythm and movement of our inner or inmost being, the spontaneous working out of our truth-conscious nature.
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In these latest poems of his, Eliot has become outright a poet of the Dark Night of the Soul. The beginnings of the new avatar were already there certainly at the very beginning. The Waste Land is a good preparation and passage into the Night. Only, the negative element in it was stronger the cynicism, the bleakness, the sereness of it all was almost overwhelming. The next stage was "The Hollow Men": it took us right up to the threshold, into the very entrance. It was gloomy and fore-boding enough, grim and seriousno glint or hint of the silver lining yet within reach. Now as we find ourselves into the very heart of the Night, things appear somewhat changed: we look at the past indeed, but can often turn to the future, feel the pressure of the Night yet sense the Light beyond overarching and embracing us. This is how the poet begins:
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As soon as I meet or see certain people, certain lower
and wrong vibrations arise in me. This is an invariable
--
being. certain parts are recalcitrant and refuse to receive. They
have to be educated little by little, just as one educates a child
--
Although there is a certain charm and poetry in the
fact that there is no formal date for the creation of
--
It is said that there are certain methods in the Tantras
to open the chakras from below, whereas in the integral
--
Are they not two ways of saying the same thing? - certainly
two ways of doing the same thing.
--
as long as he lives on earth there is a certain interdependence.
But the condition of the earth is sure to become such that a
--
the Divine Influence and no other, it is certain - and at the same
time it is perfect purity.
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The psychic being knows this with certainty; so, by uniting
with one's psychic, one can know it. But the first condition is
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is very clear. So it is not I who can make Her stay. And I certainly cannot ask Her to stay for egotistical reasons. Moreover, all these Aspects, all these Personalities manifest constantly but they never manifest for personal reason. Not one of them has ever thought of helping my bodybesides, I dont ask them to because that is not their purpose. But it is more than obvious that if the people around me were receptive, She could permanently manifest since they could receive Herand this would help my body enormously because all these vibrations would run through it. But She never gets even a chance to manifestnot a single one. She only meets people who dont even feel Her when Shes there! They dont even notice Her, theyre not even aware of her presence. So how can She manifest in these conditions? Im not going to ask Her, Please come and change my body. We dont have that kind of relationship! Furthermore, the body itself wouldnt agree. It never thinks of itself, it never pays attention to itself, and besides, it is only through the work that it can be transformed.
Yes, certainly had there been any receptivity when She came down and had She been able to manifest with the power with which She came But I can tell you one thing: even before Her coming, when, with Sri Aurobindo, I had begun going down (for the Yoga) from the mental plane to the vital plane, when we brought our yoga down from the mental plane into the vital plane, in less than a month (I was forty years old at the time I didnt seem very old, I looked less than forty, but I was forty anyway), after no more than a month of this yoga, I looked exactly like an 18 year old! And someone who knew me and had stayed with me in Japan5 came here, and when he saw me, he could scarcely believe his eyes! He said, But my god, is it you? I said, Of course!
Only when we went down from the vital plane into the physical plane, all this went awaybecause on the physical plane, the work is much harder and we had so much to do, so many things to change.
0 1955-03-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Such was our old, meaningless name (except for its Germanic root: 'hard bear') until a certain March 3, 1957, when Mother named us Sat-prem ('the one who loves truly').
***
0 1955-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
By continuing this daily little ant-like struggle and by having to confront the same desires, the same distractions every day, it seems to me I am wasting my energy in vain. Sri Aurobindos Yoga, which is meant to include life, is so difficult that one should come to it only after having already established the solid base of a concrete divine realization. That is why I want to ask you if I should not withdraw for a certain time, to Almora,3 for example, to Brewsters place,4 to live in solitude, silence, meditation, far away from people, work and temptations, until a beginning of Light and Realization is concretized in me. Once this solid base is acquired, it would be easier for me to resume my work and the struggle here for the true transformation of the outer being. But to want to transform this outer being without having fully illumined the inner being seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse, or at least condemning myself to a pitiless and endless battle in which the best of my forces are fruitlessly consumed.
In all sincerity, I must say that when I was at Brewsters place in Almora, I felt very near to that state in which the Light must surge forth. I quite understand the imperfection of this process, which involves fleeing from difficulties, but this would only be a stage, a strategic retreat, as it were.
0 1956-05-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When the mind came down upon earth, something like a million years went by between the manifestation of the mind in the earth atmosphere and the appearance of the first man. But it will go faster this time because man is waiting for something, he has a vague idea: he is awaiting in some way or another the advent of the superman. Whereas the apes were certainly not awaiting the birth of man, they never thought of it for the excellent reason that they probably dont think very much! But man has thought about it and is waiting, so it will go faster. But faster probably still means thousands of years. We shall speak of this again in a few thousand years!
(silence)
--
But for this only like can know like. Only the Supramental Consciousness in an individual can perceive the Supramental acting in the earth atmosphere. Those who, for whatever reason, have developed this perception can see it. But those who are not even remotely conscious of their inner beings, who would be quite at a loss to say what their souls look like, are certainly not ready to perceive the difference in the earth atmosphere. They still have quite a way to go for that. Because, for those whose consciousness is more or less exclusively centered in the outer beingmental, vital and physicalthings need to have an absurd or unexpected appearance to be noticeable. And then they call it a miracle.
But we do not call a miracle the constant miracle of the forces that intervene to change circumstances and human natures and which have very far-reaching consequences, for we see only the appearance, and this appearance seems quite natural. But in truth, if you were to reflect upon the least thing that happens, you would be forced to acknowledge that it is miraculous.
--
I knew some people who came here a long time ago, something like (Oh, I dont recall anymore, but quite a long time ago!), certainly more than twenty years ago; the first time someone died in the Ashram, they expressed a considerable dissatisfaction: But I came here because I thought this yoga would make me immortal! If you can still die, then why did I come here?
Well, its the same thing. People take the train to come herethere were about a hundred and fifty more people than usual1simply because they want to benefit. But this may be exactly why they have not benefited from it! Because This [the supramental consciousness] has not come to make people benefit in any way whatsoever!
--
There was indeed a possibility to enter into contact with the Thing individuallythis was even what Sri Aurobindo had described as being the necessary procedure: a certain number of people would enter into contact with this Force through their inner effort and their aspiration. We had called it the ascent towards the Supermind. And IF and when they had touched the Supermind through an inner ascent (that is, by freeing themselves from the material consciousness), they should have recognized it SPONTANEOUSLY as soon as it came. But a preliminary contact was indispensableif you have never touched it, how can you recognize it?
Thats how the universal movement works (I read this to you a few days ago): through their inner effort and inner progress, certain individuals, who are the pioneers, the forerunners, enter into communication with the new Force which is to manifest, and they receive it in themselves. And because a number of calls like this surge forth, the thing becomes possible, and the era, the time, the moment for the manifestation comes. This is how it happened and the Manifestation took place.
But then, all those who were ready should have recognized it.
0 1956-09-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I saw (how shall I put it?) the successive preparations which took place, in certain anterior beings, in order to achieve this.
It felt as if I had several heads.
0 1956-10-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But the divine vision is global. The people in the Ashram do not want this strike but what about the others? They are ignorant, mean, full of ill will, etc., but in their own way they are following a path, and why should they be deprived of the Grace? By the fact that their action is against the Ashram? It is certainly a Grace.
I said that I had not even thought of intervening. When things threatened to turn bad, I simply applied a force so that it wouldnt become too serious.
0 1957-07-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its symbolism was very clear, though of quite a familiar nature, as it were, and because of its very familiarity, unmistakable in its realism Were I to tell you all the details, you would probably not even be able to follow: it was rather intricate. It was a kind of (how can I express it?)an immense hotel where all the terrestrial possibilities were lodged in different apartments. And it was all in a constant state of transformation: parts or entire wings of the building were suddenly torn down and rebuilt while people were still living in them, such that if you went off somewhere within the immense hotel itself, you ran the risk of no longer finding your room when you wanted to return to it, for it might have been torn down and was being rebuilt according to another plan! It was orderly, it was organized yet there was this fantastic chaos which I mentioned. And all this was a symbola symbol that certainly applies to what Sri Aurobindo has written here1 regarding the necessity for the transformation of the body, the type of transformation that has to take place for life to become a divine life.
It went something like this: somewhere, in the center of this enormous edifice, there was a room reservedas it seemed in the story for a mother and her daughter. The mother was a lady, an elderly lady, a very influential matron who had a great deal of authority and her own views concerning the entire organization. Her daughter seemed to have a power of movement and activity enabling her to be everywhere at once while at the same time remaining in her room, which was well, a bit more than a roomit was a kind of apartment which, above all, had the characteristic of being very central. But she was constantly arguing with her mother. The mother wanted to keep things just as they were, with their usual rhythm, which precisely meant the habit of tearing down one thing to rebuild another, then again tearing down that to build still another, thus giving the building an appearance of frightful confusion. But the daughter did not like this, and she had another plan. Most of all, she wanted to bring something completely new into the organization: a kind of super-organization that would render all this confusion unnecessary. Finally, as it was impossible for them to reach an understanding, the daughter left the room to go on a kind of general inspection She went out, looked everything over, and then wanted to return to her room to decide upon some final measures. But this is where something rather peculiar began happening.
--
It is certainly not an arbitrary construction of the type built by men, where everything is put pell-mell, without any order, without reality, and which is held together by only illusory ties. Here, these ties were symbolized by the hotels walls, while actually in ordinary human constructions (if we take a religious community, for example), they are symbolized by the building of a monastery, an identity of clothing, an identity of activities, an identity even of movementor to put it more precisely: everyone wears the same uniform, everyone gets up at the same time, everyone eats the same thing, everyone says his prayers together, etc.; there is an overall identity. But naturally, on the inside there remains the chaos of many disparate consciousnesses, each one following its own mode, for this kind of group identification, which extends right up to an identity of beliefs and dogma, is absolutely illusory.
Yet it is one of the most common types of human collectivityto group together, band together, unite around a common ideal, a common action, a common realization but in an absolutely artificial way. In contrast to this, Sri Aurobindo tells us that a true communitywhat he terms a gnostic or supramental communitycan be based only upon the INNER REALIZATION of each one of its members, each realizing his real, concrete oneness and identity with all the other members of the community; that is, each one should not feel himself a member connected to all the others in an arbitrary way, but that all are one within himself. For each one, the others should be as much himself as his own bodynot in a mental and artificial way, but through a fact of consciousness, by an inner realization.
0 1957-12-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Now, I recently had a very striking experience: a discrepancy occurred between my physical consciousness and the consciousness of the world. In some instances decisions made in the Light and the Truth produced unexpected results, upheavals in the consciousness of others that were neither foreseen nor desired, and I did not understand. No matter how hard I tried, I could not understand and I emphasize this word understand. At last, I had to leave my highest consciousness and pull myself down into the physical consciousness to find out what was happening. And there, in my head, I saw what appeared to be a little cell bursting, and suddenly I understood: the recording had been defective. The physical consciousness had neglected to register certain of your lower reactions. It could not have been through preference or through personal will (these things were eliminated from my consciousness long, long ago). But I saw that this most material consciousness was already completely permeated with the transforming supramental truth, and it could no longer follow the rhythm of normal life. It was much more attuned to the true consciousness than to the world! I couldnt possibly blame it for lagging behind; on the contrary, it was in front, too far ahead! There was a discrepancy between the rhythm of the transformation of my being and the worlds own rhythm. The supramental action on the world is slow, it does not act directlyit acts by infiltration, by traversing the successive layers, and the results are slow to come about. So I had to pull myself violently down in order to wait for the others.
One must at times know how not to know.
--
Humility, a perfect humility, is the condition for all realization. The mind is so cocksure. It thinks it knows everything, understands everything. And if ever it acts through idealism to serve a cause that appears noble to it, it becomes even more arrogant more intransigent, and it is almost impossible to make it see that there might be something still higher beyond its noble conceptions and its great altruistic or other ideals. Humility is the only remedy. I am not speaking of humility as conceived by certain religions, with this God that belittles his creatures and only likes to see them down on their knees. When I was a child, this kind of humility revolted me, and I refused to believe in a God that wants to belittle his creatures. I dont mean that kind of humility, but rather the recognition that one does not know, that one knows nothing, and that there may be something beyond what presently appears to us as the truest, the most noble or disinterested. True humility consists in constantly referring oneself to the Lord, in placing all before Him. When I receive a blow (and there are quite a few of them in my sadhana), my immediate, spontaneous reaction, like a spring, is to throw myself before Him and to say, Thou, Lord. Without this humility, I would never have been able to realize anything. And I say I only to make myself understood, but in fact I means the Lord through this body, his instrument. When you begin living THIS kind of humility, it means you are drawing nearer to the realization. It is the condition, the starting point.
***
0 1958-02-03b - The Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I found myself upon an immense ship, which is the symbolic representation of the place where this work is being carried out. This ship, as big as a city, is thoroughly organized, and it had certainly already been functioning for quite some time, for its organization was fully developed. It is the place where people destined for the supramental life are being trained. These people (or at least a part of their being) had already undergone a supramental transformation because the ship itself and all that was aboard was neither material nor subtle-physical, neither vital nor mental: it was a supramental substance. This substance itself was of the most material supramental, the supramental substance nearest the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a blend of red and gold, forming a uniform substance of luminous orange. Everything was like that the light was like that, the people were like thateverything had this color, in varying shades, however, which enabled things to be distinguished from one another. The overall impression was of a shadowless world: there were shades, but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything worked smoothly and silently. At the same time, I could see all the details of the education, the training in all domains by which the people on board were being prepared.
This immense ship had just arrived at the shore of the supramental world, and a first batch of people destined to become the future inhabitants of the supramental world were about to disembark. Everything was arranged for this first landing. A certain number of very tall beings were posted on the wharf. They were not human beings and never before had they been men. Nor were they permanent inhabitants of the supramental world. They had been delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of all this since the beginning and throughout. I myself had prepared all the groups. I was standing on the bridge of the ship, calling the groups forward one by one and having them disembark on the shore. The tall beings posted there seemed to be reviewing those who were disembarking, allowing those who were ready to go ashore and sending back those who were not and who had to continue their training aboard the ship. While standing there watching everyone, that part of my consciousness coming from here became extremely interested: it wanted to see, to identify all the people, to see how they had changed and to find out who had been taken immediately as well as those who had to remain and continue their training. After awhile, as I was observing, I began to feel pulled backwards and that my body was being awakened by a consciousness or a person from here1and in my consciousness, I protested: No, no, not yet! Not yet! I want to see whos there! I was watching all this and noting it with intense interest It went on like that until, suddenly, the clock here began striking three, which violently jerked me back. There was the sensation of a sudden fall into my body. I came back with a shock, but since I had been called back very suddenly, all my memory was still intact. I remained quiet and still until I could bring back the whole experience and preserve it.
The nature of objects on this ship was not that which we know upon earth; for example, the clothes were not made of cloth, and this thing that resembled cloth was not manufacturedit was a part of the body, made of the same substance that took on different forms. It had a kind of plasticity. When a change had to be made, it was done not by artificial and outer means but by an inner working, by a working of the consciousness that gave the substance its form or appearance. Life created its own forms. There was ONE SINGLE substance in all things; it changed the nature of its vibration according to the needs or uses.
--
As for the people I saw aboard ship, I recognized them all. Some were here in the Ashram, some came from elsewhere, but I knew them as well. I saw everyone, but as I realized that I would not remember everyone when I came back, I decided not to give any names. Besides, it is unnecessary. Three or four faces were very clearly visible, and when I saw them, I understood the feeling that I have had here, on earth, while looking into their eyes: there was such an extraordinary joy On the whole, the people were young; there were very few children, and their ages were around fourteen or fifteen, but certainly not below ten or twelve (I did not stay long enough to see all the details). There were no very old people, with the exception of a few. Most of the people who had gone ashore were of a middle ageagain, except for a few. Several times before this experience, certain individual cases had already been examined at a place where people capable of being supramentalized are examined; I had then had a few surprises which I had noted I even told some people. But those whom I disembarked today I saw very distinctly. They were of a middle age, neither young children nor elderly people, with only a few rare exceptions, and this quite corresponded to what I expected. I decided not to say anything, not to give any names. As I did not stay until the end, it would be impossible for me to draw an exact picture, for it was neither absolutely clear nor complete. I do not want to say things to some and not say them to others.
What I can say is that the criterion or the judgment was based EXCLUSIVELY on the substance constituting the peoplewhe ther they belonged completely to the supramental world or not, whether they were made of this very special substance. The criterion adopted was neither moral nor psychological. It is likely that their bodily substance was the result of an inner law or an inner movement which, at that time, was not in question. At least it is quite clear that the values are different.
When I came back, along with the memory of the experience, I knew that the supramental world was permanent, that my presence there is permanent, and that only a missing link is needed to allow the consciousness and the substance to connectand it is this link that is being built. At that time, my impression (an impression which remained rather long, almost the whole day) was of an extreme relativityno, not exactly that, but an impression that the relationship between this world and the other completely changes the criterion by which things are to be evaluated or judged. This criterion had nothing mental about it, and it gave the strange inner feeling that so many things we consider good or bad are not really so. It was very clear that everything depended upon the capacity of things and upon their ability to express the supramental world or be in relationship with it. It was so completely different, at times even so opposite to our ordinary way of looking at things! I recall one little thing that we usually consider bad actually how funny it was to see that it is something excellent! And other things that we consider important were really quite unimportant there! Whether it was like this or like that made no difference. What is very obvious is that our appreciation of what is divine or not divine is incorrect. I even laughed at certain things Our usual feeling about what is anti-divine seems artificial, based upon something untrue, unliving (besides, what we call life here appeared lifeless in comparison with that world); in any event, this feeling should be based upon our relationship between the two worlds and according to whether things make this relationship easier or more difficult. This would thus completely change our evaluation of what brings us nearer to the Divine or what takes us away from Him. With people, too, I saw that what helps them or prevents them from becoming supramental is very different from what our ordinary moral notions imagine. I felt just how ridiculous we are.
(Then Mother speaks to the children)
0 1958-05-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And the proof I have the proof because I experienced it myselfis that from the minute you are in the other consciousness, the true consciousness, all these things which appear so real, so concrete, change INSTANTLY. There are a number of things, certain material conditions of my bodymaterial that changed instantly. It did not last long enough for everything to change, but some things changed and never returned, they remained changed. In other words, if that consciousness were kept constantly, it would be a perpetual miracle (what we would call a miracle from our ordinary point of view), a fantastic and perpetual miracle! But from the supramental point of view, it would not be a miracle at all, it would be the most normal of things.
Therefore, if we do not want to oppose the supramental action by an obscure, inert and obstinate resistance, we have to admit once and for all that none of these things should be legitimized.
0 1958-05-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have noticed that in at least ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it is an excuse people give to themselves. I have seen that practically, in the case of almost all the people who write to me saying, I am being violently attacked by hostile forces, its an excuse they are giving. It means that certain things in their nature do not want to yield, so they put all the blame on the hostile forces.
As a matter of fact, my tendency is more and more towards something in which the role of these hostile forces will be reduced to that of an examinerwhich means that they are there to test the sincerity of your spiritual quest. These elements have a reality in their action and for the workthis is their great reality but when you go beyond a certain region, it all grows dim to such a degree that it is no longer so well defined, so distinct. In the occult world, or rather if you look at the world from the occult point of view, these hostile forces are very real, their action is very real, quite concrete, and their attitude towards the divine realization is positively hostile; but as soon as you go beyond this region and enter into the spiritual world where there is no longer anything but the Divine in all things, and where there is nothing undivine, then these hostile forces become part of the total play and can no longer be called hostile forces: it is only an attitude that they have adoptedor more precisely, it is only an attitude adopted by the Divine in his play.
This again belongs to the dualities that Sri Aurobindo speaks of in (The Synthesis of Yoga, these dualities that are being reabsorbed. I dont know if he spoke of this particular one; I dont think so, but its the same thing. Its again a certain way of seeing. He has written of the Personal-Impersonal duality, Ishwara-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti but there is still one more: Divine and anti-divine.
***
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
They exist simultaneously; its the same thing. When you start becoming truly conscious, you realize that it depends upon the kinds of activities you have to do. When you do a certain kind of work, it is in the heart that the Force gathers to radiate outwards, and when you do another kind of work, it is above the head that the Force concentrates to radiate outwards, but the two are not separate: the center of activity is here or there depending upon what you have to do.
As for the latest experience,1 I cant say for sure that no one has ever had it, because someone like Ramakrishna, individuals like that, could have had it. But I am not sure, for when I had this experience (not of the divine Presence, which I had already felt in the cells for a long time, but the experience that the Divine ALONE is acting in the body, that He has BECOME the body, yet all the while retaining his character of divine omniscience and omnipotence) well, the whole time it remained actively like that, it was absolutely impossible to have the LEAST disorder in the body, and not only in the body, but IN ALL THE SURROUNDING MATTER. It was as if every object obeyed without even needing to decide to obey: it was automatic. There was a divine harmony in EVERYTHING (it took place in my bathroom upstairs, certainly to demonstrate that it exists in the most trivial things), in everything, constantly. So if that is established in a permanent way, there CAN NO LONGER be illness it is impossible. There can no longer be accidents, there can no longer be illness, there can no longer be disorders, and everything should harmonize (probably in a progressive way) just as that was harmonized: all the objects in the bathroom were full of a joyful enthusiasmeverything obeyed, everything!
As it was the first experience, it started to fade slightly when I began having contact with people; but I really had the feeling that it was a first experience, new upon earth. For I have experienced an absolute identity of the will with the divine Will ever since 1910, it has never left me. It isnt that, its SOMETHING ELSE. It is MATTER BECOMING THE DIVINE. And it really came with the feeling that this thing was happening for the first time upon earth. It is difficult to say for sure, but Ramakrishna died of cancer, and now that I have had the experience, I know in an ABSOLUTE way that this is impossible. If he had decided to go because the Divine wanted him to go, it would have been an orderly departure, in total harmony and with a total will, whereas this illness is a means of disorder.
--
It is likely that the greatest resistance will be in the most conscious beings due to a lack of mental receptivity, due to the mind itself which wants things to continue (as Sri Aurobindo has written) according to its own mode of ignorance. So-called inert matter is much more easily responsive, much moreit does not resist. And I am convinced that among plants, for example, or among animals, the response will be much quicker than among men. It will be more difficult to act upon a very organized mind; beings who live in an entirely crystallized, organized mental consciousness are as hard as stone! It resists. According to my experience, what is unconscious will certainly follow more easily. It was a delight to see the water from the tap, the mouthwash in the bottle, the glass, the spongeit all had such an air of joy and consent! There is much less ego, you see, it is not a conscious ego.
The ego becomes more and more conscious and resistant as the being develops. Very primitive, very simple beings, little children will respond first, because they dont have an organized ego. But these big people! People who have worked on themselves, who have mastered themselves, who are organized, who have an ego made of steel, it will be difficult for them.
--
Its action will be somewhat similar to what is described in the Last Judgment, which is an entirely symbolic expression of something that makes us discern between what belongs to the world of falsehood which is destined to disappear and what belongs to this same world of ignorance and inertia but is transformable. One will go to one side and the other to the other side. All that is transformable will be permeated more and more with this new substance and this new consciousness to such an extent that it will rise towards it and serve as a link between the two but all that belongs incorrigibly to falsehood and ignorance will disappear. This was also prophesied in the Gita: among what we call the hostile or anti-divine forces, those capable of being transformed will be uplifted and go off towards the new consciousness, whereas all that is irrevocably in darkness or belongs to an evil will shall be destroyed and vanish from the Universe. And a whole part of humanity that has responded to these forces rather too zealously will certainly vanish with them. And this is what was expressed in this concept of the Last Judgment.
May 1, 1958.
0 1958-07-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
No, but I know all these people, I know them thoroughly! I know Chaitanya, Ramakrishna and Ramdas thoroughly. They are utterly familiar to me. It doesnt bother them. These are people who live with a certain feeling, who have an entirely concrete experience and live in this experience, but they dont care at all if their formation they have not even crystallized it, they leave it like that, vaguecontains things that are mutually contradictory, because, in appearance, they reconcile them. They do not raise any questions, they do not have the need for an absolutely clear vision; their feeling is absolutely clear, and thats enough for them. Ramakrishna was like that; he said the most contradictory things without being bothered in the least, and they are all exactly and equally true.
But this crystal clear vision Sri Aurobindo had, where everything is in its place, where contradictions no longer existthey never soared to that height. This was the thing, this really crystalline, perfect supramental vision, even from the standpoint of understanding and knowledge. They never went that far.
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For the last, for money, he told me, I still dont know exactly what it depends on. Then one day I entered into trance with this idea in mind, and after a certain journey I came to a place like a subterranean grotto (which means that it is in the subconscient, or perhaps even in the inconscient) which was the source, the place and the power over money. I was about to enter into this grotto (a kind of inner cave) when I saw, coiled and upright, an immense serpent, like an all black python, formidable, as big as a seven-story house, who said, You cannot pass!Why not? Let me pass!Myself, I would let you pass, but if I did, they would immediately destroy me.Who, then, is this they?They are the asuric4 powers who rule over money. They have put me here to guard the entrance, precisely so that you may not enter.And what is it that would give one the power to enter? Then he told me something like this: I heard (that is, he himself had no special knowledge, but it was something he had heard from his masters, those who ruled over him), I heard that he who will have a total power over the human sexual impulses (not merely in himself, but a universal power that is, a power enabling him to control this everywhere, among all men) will have the right to enter. In other words, these forces would not be able to prevent him from entering.
A personal realization is very easy, it is nothing at all; a personal realization is one thing, but the power to control it among all men that is, to control or master such movements at will, everywhereis quite another. I dont believe that this condition has been fulfilled. If what the serpent said is true and if this is really what will vanquish these hostile forces that rule over money, well then, it has not been fulfilled.
It has been fulfilled to a certain extent but its negligible. It is conditional, limited: in one case, it works; in another, it doesnt. It is quite problematic. And naturally, where terrestrial things are involved (I dont say universal, but in any case terrestrial), when it is something involving the earth, it must be complete; there cannot be any approximations.
Therefore, its an affair between the asuras and the human species. To transform itself is the only solution left to the human speciesin other words, to tear from the asuric forces the power of ruling over the human species.
You see, the human species is a part of Nature, but as Sri Aurobindo has explained, from the moment mind expressed itself in man, it put him into a relationship with Nature very different from the relationship all the lower species have with her. All the lower species right up to man are completely under the rule of Nature; she makes them do whatever she wants, and they can do nothing without her consent. Whereas man begins to act and to live as an equal; not as an equal in terms of power, but from the standpoint of consciousness (he is beginning to do so since he has the capacity to study and to find out Natures secrets). He is not superior to her, far from it, but he is on an equal footing. And so he has acquiredthis is a fac the has acquired a certain power of independence that he immediately used to put himself under the influence of the hostile forces, which are not terrestrial but extra-terrestrial.
I am speaking of terrestrial Nature. Through their mental power, men had the choice and the freedom to make pacts with these extraterrestrial vital forces. There is a whole vital world that has nothing to do with the earth, it is entirely independent or prior to earths existence, it is self-existentwell, they have brought that down here! They have made what we see! And such being the case This is what terrestrial Nature told me: It is beyond my control.
--
Perhaps it would not be necessary to have this power over all men, but in any event, it should be great enough to act upon the mass. It is likely that once a certain movement has been mastered to some degree, what the mass does or doesnt do (this whole human mass that has barely, barely emerged into even the mental consciousness) will become quite irrelevant. You see, the mass is still under the great rule of Nature. I am referring to mental humanity, predominantly mental, which developed the mind but misused it and immediately set out on the wrong pathfirst thing.
There is nothing to say since the first thing done by the divine forces which emanated for the Creation was to take the wrong path!6 That is the origin, the seed of this marvelous spirit of independence the negation of surrender, in other words. Man said, I have the power to think; I will do with it what I want, and no one has the right to intervene. I am free, I am an independent being, IN-DE-PEN-DENT! So thats how things stand: we are all independent beings!
0 1958-07-23, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In the final analysis, seeing the world such as it is and seems meant to be irremediably, human intellect has decided that this universe must be an error of God and that the manifestation or creation is certainly the result of a desire, the desire to manifest, know oneself, enjoy oneself. So the only thing to do is to put an end to this error as soon as possible by refusing to cling to desire and its fatal consequences.
But the Supreme Lord answers that the comedy is not entirely played out, and He adds: Wait for the last act; undoubtedly you will change your mind.
0 1958-08-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When I think of the time the hatha yogis devote to the work on the bodythey do nothing but that; they do nothing but that all the time, until they have attained a certain point. This is in fact the reason why Sri Aurobindo wanted none of it: he found that it took a lot of time for a rather meager result.
***
--
Last night, I had many dreams (not really dreams, but ); I used to find them very interesting because they gave me certain indications, all kinds of things, but when I saw it all now, I said to myself, Good Lord! What a waste of time! Instead, I could be living in a supramental consciousness and seeing things. So during the night, I made a resolution to change all this too. My nights have to change. I am already changing my days; now my nights have to change. But then all this subconscious in Matter, all this, it all has to change! Theres no choice, it has to be seen to.
Once you set to this work, it is such a formidable task! But what can I do?
0 1958-08-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In the cells, both things are there. The body is convinced of the divine Presence everywhere, that all is the Divineit lives in that; and at the same time, it shrinks from certain contacts! I saw that this morning, both things at once, and I said, Lord, I know nothing at all!
There (gesture above the head), everything has been resolved, I could write books on how to resolve this or that, how the synthesis is made, etc., but here (the body) I live this synthesis stumblingly. The two coexist, but it is still not THAT (gesture, hands clasped together, pointing upwards).
--
What problems come up! If there were a plague or cholera, for example, would the supramental Force in the cells, the supramental realization, be able to restore order out of the disorder that allows the epidemic to be? I dont mean on an individual levelindividually, if you are in a certain consciousness, you can remain untouched I am not speaking of that, I am speaking impersonally, as it were.
We know nothing. We believe we know, but as soon as it is a question of that (the body), we know nothing. As soon as we are in the subtle physical, we know everything, we live in bliss but here, we know nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing.
0 1958-08-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
certainly man is nearer the Supreme than the gods. Provided he fulfills the necessary conditions, he can be nearerhe isnt so automatically, but he can be, he has the power, the potentiality to be.
Anusuya: wife of the rishi Atri and endowed with a great inner force. In her husband's absence, three gods came (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) disguised as brahmins and asked her for something to eat. Then they refused to eat unless she served them naked. Since they were brahmins, she could not send them away without feeding them, so by her inner power, she changed them into babies and served them naked. This film was shown at the Ashram Playground on August 5, 1958.
0 1958-08-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was just at four oclock in the morning, and it woke me up. It was exactly like this I was apparently in my bathroom, and I had to open the door between the bathroom and Sri Aurobindos room; the moment I put my hand on the doorknob, I knew with an absolute certainty that destruction was awaiting me behind the door. It had the form or image of those great invaders of India, those who had swooped down upon India and destroyed everything in their wake But it was only an impression.
So the door had to be opened and I felt and said, Lord, may your will be done. I opened the door and behind it was Z1 in the same clothes he wears when he drives, and he was leaning against one of those big tractor tiresor perhaps he was holding it at the same time. I was so dumbfounded that I woke up. It took me a little while to be able to understand what it might mean, and afterwards Even now, I still dont know What was I? Was I India, or was I the world? I dont know. And what did Z represent? It was as imperative and clear, as positive and absolute as could be: the certitude that destruction was behind the door, that it was inevitable. And it had the form of those great Tartar or Mongol invaders, those people who came from the North and invaded India, who pillaged everything Thats what it was like. But what Z was doing there I dont know. What does he represent? The first impulse was to tell Abhay Singh, Forbid him to drive the tractor.
0 1958-09-16 - OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
My experience is that, individually, we are in relationship with that aspect of the Divine which is not necessarily the most in conformity with our natures, but which is the most essential for our development or the most necessary for our action. For me, it was always a question of action because, personally, individually, each aspiration for personal development had its own form, its own spontaneous expression, so I did not use any formula. But as soon as there was the least little difficulty in action, it sprang forth. Only long afterwards did I notice that it was formulated in a certain way I would utter it without even knowing what the words were. But it came like this: Dieu de bont et de misricorde. It was as if I wanted to eliminate from action all aspects that were not this one. And it lasted for I dont know, more than twenty or twenty-five years of my life. It came spontaneously.
Just recently one day, the contact became entirely physical, the whole body was in great exaltation, and I noticed that other lines were spontaneously being added to this Dieu de bont et de misricorde, and I noted them down. It was a springing forth of states of consciousness not words.
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The other day when I was in this state of concentration, I had the vision that I mentioned to you. I felt I was being pulled, that something was pulling me and trying to draw my attention. I felt it very strongly. So I opened my eyes, my mental eyes (the physical eyes may remain opened or closed, it makes no difference either way; when I am concentrated, things on the physical plane no longer exist), I deliberately opened the minds eyes, for that is where I felt myself being pulled, and then I had this vision I told you of. Someone was trying to draw my attention, to tell me something. It takes someone really quite powerful, with a very great power of concentration, to do thatthere are certainly a great many people here and elsewhere who try to do this, yet I dont feel a thing.3
In the outer, practical domain, I might suddenly think of someone, so I know that this person is calling or thinking of me. When you left on your trip, I created a special link-up so that if ever, at any moment, you called me for anything, I would know it instantly, and I remained attentive and alert. But I do that only in exceptional cases. Generally speaking, when I havent made this special link-up, things keep coming in and coming in and coming in and coming in, and the answer goes out automatically, here or there or there or therehundreds and hundreds of things that I dont keep in my memory because then it would really be frightful. I dont keep these things in my consciousness; it is rather a work that is done automatically.
--
The other day, for example, though I no longer recall exactly when (I forget everything on purpose)but it was in the last part of the night I had a rather long activity concerning the whole realization of the Ashram, notably in the fields of education and art. I was apparently inspecting this area to see how things were there, so naturally I saw a certain number of people, their work and their inner states. Some saw me and, at that moment, had a vision of me. It is likely that many were asleep and didnt notice anything, but some actually saw me. The next morning, for example, someone who works at the theater told me that she had had a splendid vision of me in which I had spoken to her, blessed her, etc. This was her way of receiving the work I had done. And this kind of thing is happening more and more, in that my action is awakening the consciousness in others more and more strongly.
Naturally, the reception is always incomplete or partially modified; when it passes through the individuality, it becomes narrowed, a personal thing. It seems impossible for each one to have a consciousness vast enough to see the thing in its entirety.
--
The progress above follows a certain trajectory, and in some cases the distance increases, in others it decreases (although on the whole, the distance remains relatively unchanged), but my feeling is that the collective receptivity will increase as the action becomes increasingly supramentalized. And the need for an individual receptivitywith all its distortions and alterations and limitationswill decrease in importance as the supramental influence increasingly imposes its power. This influence will impose itself in such a way that it will no longer be subject to the defects in receptivity.
***
--
In this vision, the d. ceased tantric guru of the guru who initiated Satprem appeared to Mother in a dark blue light and 'imposed' himself on her to tell her certain things.
The disciple's tantric guru.
0 1958-10-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
certain relationships are entirely within me, entirely. It is not a relationship between individuals, but a relationship between states of beingwhich means that with the same individual there may be many different relationships. If it were a single whole but I am still not sure if there is a single person with whom the relationship is global.
So there are parts which are entirely within me, entirely there is no difference; they are myself. There are other parts with which I am conscious of an exchangea very familiar, very intimate exchange. And there are parts outside of me with which I still have relationships, not exactly as with strangers but merely as acquaintances; it is still necessary to observe their reactions in order to do the correct thing. And the ratio between these different parts is naturally different depending upon the different individuals.
0 1958-10-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For example, this question of PowerTHE Powerover Matter. Those who perceive me as the eternal, universal Mother and Sri Aurobindo as the Avatar are surprised that our power is not absolute. They are surprised that we have not merely to say, Let it be thus for it to be thus. This is because, in the integral realization, the union of the two is essential: a union of the power that proceeds from the eternal position and the power that proceeds from the sadhana through evolutionary growth. Similarly, how is it that those who have reached even the summits of yogic knowledge (I was thinking of Swami) need to resort to beings like gods or demigods to be able to realize things?Because they have indeed united with certain higher forces and entities, but it was not decreed since the beginning of time that they were this particular being. They were not born as this or that, but through evolution they united with a latent possibility in themselves. Each one carries the Eternal within himself, but one can join Him only when one has realized the complete union of the latent Eternal with the eternal Eternal.
And this explains everything, absolutely everything: how it works, how it functions in the world.3 I was saying to myself, But I have no powers, I have no powers! Several days ago, I said, But after all, I KNOW WHO is there, I know, yet how is it that ? There, up to there (the level of the head), it is all-powerful, nothing can resist but here it is ineffective. So those who have faith, even an ignorant but real faith (it can be ignorant but nevertheless it is real), say, What! How can you have no powers? Because the sadhana is not yet over.
0 1958-10-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
7) But even in the event you have not made the irrevocable decision at the outset, should you have the good fortune to live during one of these unimaginable hours of universal history when the Grace is present, embodied upon earth, It will offer you, at certain exceptional moments, the renewed possibility of making a final choice that will lead you straight to the goal.
That was the message of hope.
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There is the whole Chaldean tradition, and there is also the Vedic tradition, and there was very certainly a tradition anterior to both that split into two branches. Well, all these occult experiences have been the same. Only the description differs depending upon the country and the language. The story of creation is not told from a metaphysical or psychological point of view, but from an objective point of view, and this story is as real as our stories of historical periods. Of course, its not the only way of seeing, but it is just as legitimate a way as the others, and in any event, it recognizes the concrete reality of all these divine beings. Even now, the experiences of Western occultists and those of Eastern occultists exhibit great similarities. The only difference is in the way they are expressed, but the manipulation of the forces is the same.
I learned all this through Theon. Probably, he was I dont know if he was Russian or Polish (a Russian or Polish Jew), he never said who he really was or where he was born, nor his age nor anything.
--
So personally, I am convinced that there was indeed a tradition anterior to both these traditions containing a knowledge very close to an integral knowledge. certainly, there is a similarity in the experiences. When I came here and told Sri Aurobindo certain things I knew from the occult standpoint, he always said that it conformed to the Vedic tradition. And as for certain occult practices, he told me that they were entirely tantric and I knew nothing at that time, absolutely nothing, neither the Vedas nor the Tantras.
So very probably there was a tradition anterior to both. I have recollections (for me, these are always things I have LIVED), very clear, very distinct recollections of a time that was certainly VERY anterior to the Vedic times and to the Cabala, to the Chaldean tradition.
But now, there is only a very small number of people in the West who know that it isnt merely subjective or imaginative (the result of a more or less unbridled imagination), and that it corresponds to a universal truth.
All these regions, all these realms are filled with beings who exist separately in their own realms, and if you are awake and conscious on a given plane for example, if while going out of a more material body you awaken on some higher planeyou can have the same relationship with the things and people of that plane as with the things and people of the material world. In other words, there exists an entirely objective relationship that has nothing to do with your own idea of things. Naturally, the resemblance becomes greater and greater as you draw nearer the physical world, the material world, and there is even a moment when one region can act directly upon the other. In any case, in what Sri Aurobindo calls the kingdoms of the overmind, you find a concrete reality entirely independent of your personal experience; whenever you come back to it, you again find the same things, with some differences that may have occurred DURING YOUR ABSENCE. And your relationships with the beings there are identical to those you have with physical beings, except that they are more flexible, more supple and more direct (for example, there is a capacity to change the outer form, the visible form, according to your inner state), but you can make an appointment with someone, come to the meeting and again find the same being, with only certain differences that may have occurred during your absence but it is absolutely concrete, with absolutely concrete results.
However, you must have at least a little experience of these things to understand them. Otherwise, if you are convinced that all this is just human fancy or mental formations, if you believe that these gods have such and such a form because men have imagined them to be like that, or that they have such and such defects or qualities because men have envisioned it that wayas with all those who say God is created in the image of man and exists only in human thoughtall such people wont understand, it will seem absolutely ridiculous to them, a kind of madness. You must live a little, touch the subject a little to know how concrete it is.
Naturally, children know a great dealif they have not been spoiled. There are many children who return to the same place night after night and continue living a life they have begun there. When these faculties are not spoiled with age, they can be preserved within one. There was a time when I was especially interested in dreams, and I could return exactly to the same place and continue some work I had begun there, visit something, for example, or see to something, some work of organization or some discovery or exploration; you go to a certain place, just as you go somewhere in life, then you rest a while, then you go back and begin againyou take up your work just where you left it, and you continue. You also notice that there are things entirely independent of you, certain variations which were not at all created by you and which occurred automatically during your absence.
But then, you must LIVE these experiences yourself; you yourself must see, you must live them with enough sincerity to see (by being sincere and spontaneous) that they are independent of any mental formations. Because one can take the opposite line and make an intensive study of the way mental formations act upon eventswhich is very interesting. But thats another field. And this study makes you very careful, very prudent, because you start noticing to what extent you can delude yourself. Therefore, both one and the other, the mental formation and the occult reality, must be studied to see what the ESSENTIAL difference is between them. The one exists in itself, entirely independent of what we think about it, and the other
--
It was the same thing for visions of past lives. I knew NOTHING when I would have the experience, not even the possibility of past lives, and only after having had the experience would I study the question and, for example, even verify certain historical facts that had occurred in my vision but about which I had no prior knowledge.
***
0 1958-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And so, physically, the body followed. My body has been taught to express the inner experience to a certain extent. In the body there is the body-force or the body-form or the body-spirit (according to the different schools, it bears a different name), and this is what leaves the body last when one dies, usually taking a period of seven days to leave.2 With special training, it can acquire a conscious lifeindependent and consciousto such a degree that not only in a state of trance (in trance, it frequently happens that one can speak and move if one is slightly trained or educated), but even in a cataleptic state it can produce sounds and even make the body move. Thus, through training, the body begins to have somnambulistic capacitiesnot an ordinary somnambulism, but it can live an autonomous life.3 This is what took place, yesterday evening it was like that I had gone out of my body, but my body was participating. And then I was pulled downwards: my hand, which had been on the arm of the chair, slipped down, then the other hand, then my head was almost touching my knees! (The consciousness was elsewhere, I saw it from outsideit was not that I didnt know what I was doing, I saw it from outside.) So I said, In any case, this has to stop somewhere because if it continues, my head (laughing) is going to be on the ground! And I thought, But what is there at the bottom of this hole?
Scarcely had these words been formulated when there I was, at the bottom of the hole! And it was absolutely as if a tremendous, almighty spring were there, and then (Mother hits the table) vrrrm! I was cast out of the abyss into a vastness. My body immediately sat straight up, head on high, following the movement. If someone had been watching, this is what he would have seen: in a single bound, vrrrm! Straight up, to the maximum, my head on high.
0 1958-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The link between the two worlds has not yet been built, but it is in the process of being built; this was the meaning of the experience of February 3 1958, 1: to build a link between the two worlds. For both worlds are indeed therenot one above the other, but within each other, in two different dimensions. Only, there is no communication between them; they overlap, as it were, without being connected. In the experience of February 3, I saw certain people from here (and from elsewhere) who already belong to the supramental world in a part of their being, but there is no connection, no link. But now the hour has come in universal history for this link to be built.
What is the relationship between this experience of February 3 and that of November 7 (the almighty spring)? Is what you found in the depths of the Inconscient this same Supramental?
0 1958-11-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I dont have all the information, otherwise certainly Two things made me see I saw them the other day. First of all, when you didnt understand my letter, for I wrote it to a part of you that without any doubt should have understood; I was referring to something other than what is seen and known by this part of you which is this center, this knot of revolt that seems to resist everything, that really remains knotted, in spite of your experiences and the strides you have made, as well as your openings. And what made me see is especially the fact that it resists experiences, it is not touched by experiences; this was the point that did not understand what I wrote. Because the part of you that had the experience must necessarily understand what I wrote, without the shadow of a doubt.
Time is needed
I had two visions which are certainly related to this. The most recent one was yesterday, and it concerned a past life in India. It is something that took place in India about one thousand years ago, perhaps a little more (I am not yet sure about this). And it contains both things. Its strange, both things together the origin of the power of realization in this life and the obstacle to be conquered.
I had the last vision yesterday evening. You were much taller than you are now; you were wearing the orange robe, and you were backed up against a door of bronze, a bronze door like the door of a temple or a palace but at the same time it was symbolic (it was a fact, it actually took place like this, but at the same time it was symbolic). And unfortunately, it didnt last because I was disturbed. But it contained the key.
0 1958-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This is how it works: the psychic being passes from one life to another, but there are cases in which the psychic incarnates in order to to work out2 to pass through a certain experience, to learn a certain thing, to develop a certain thing through a certain experience. And so in this life, in the life where the experience is to be made, it can happen (there may be more than one reason) that the soul does not come down accurately in the place it should have, some shift or other may occur, a set of contrary circumstancesthis happens sometimesand then the incarnation miscarries entirely and the soul leaves. But in other cases, the soul is simply placed in the impossibility of doing exactly what it wants and it finds itself swept away by unfortunate circumstances. Not only unfortunate from an objective standpoint, but unfortunate for its own development, and then that creates in it the necessity to begin the experience all over again, and in much more difficult conditions.
And ifit can happenif the second attempt also miscarries, if the conditions make the experience the soul is seeking still more difficult for example, if one is in a body with an inadequate will or some distortion in the thought, or an egoism too too hardened, and it ends in suicide, it is dreadful. I have seen this many times, it creates a dreadful karma that can be repeated for lifetimes on end before the soul can conquer it and manage to do what it wants. And each time, the conditions become more difficult, each time it requires a still greater effort. And people who know this say, You cannot get out! In fact, it is this kind of desire to escape which pushes you into more foolish things3 that result in a still greater accumulation of difficulty. There are momentsmoments and circumstanceswhen no one is there to help you, and then things become so horrible, the circumstances become so abominable.
--
And then, more and more, I felt that if what I saw, as I saw it, could be realized I saw two things: a journeynot at all a pilgrimage as it is commonly understooda journey towards solitude in arduous conditions, and a sojourn in a very severe solitude, facing the mountains, in arduous physical conditions. The contact with this majesty of Nature has a great influence upon the ego at certain moments: it has the power to dissolve it. But all this complication, all these organized pilgrimages, all that it brings in the whole petty side of human life which spoils everything
Yes, that whole journey was odious
--
As soon as you had left, and since I was following you, I saw that nothing of the kind was going to happen, but rather something very superficial which would not be of much use. And when I received your letters and saw that you were in difficulty, I did something. There are places that are favorable for occult experiences. Benares is one of these places, the atmosphere there is filled with vibrations of occult forces, and if one has the slightest capacity, it spontaneously develops there, in the same way that a spiritual aspiration develops very strongly and spontaneously as soon as one lands in India. These are Graces. Graces, because it is the destiny of the country, it has been so throughout its history, and because India has always been turned much more towards the heights and the inner depths than towards the outer world. Now, it is in the process of losing all that and wallowing in the mud, but thats another story it was like that and it is still like that. And in fact, when you returned from Rameswaram with your robes, I saw with much satisfaction that there was still a GREAT dignity and a GREAT sincerity in this endeavor of the Sannyasis towards the higher life and in the self-giving of a certain number of people to realize this higher life. When you returned, it had become a very concrete and a very real thing that immediately commanded respect. Before, I had seen only a copy, an imitation, an hypocrisy, a pretentionnothing that was really lived. But then, I saw that it was true, that it was lived, that it was real and that it was still Indias great heritage. I dont believe it is very prevalent now, but in any case, it is still there, and as I told you, it commands respect. And then, as I felt you in difficulty and as the outer conditions were not only veiling but spoiling the inner, well, on that day I wrote you a short note I no longer recall when it was exactly, but I wrote you just a word or two, which I put in an envelope and sent you I concentrated very strongly upon those few words and sent you something. I didnt note the date, I dont remember when it was, but its likely that it happened as I wished when you were in Benares; and then you had this experience.
But when you returned the second time, from the Himalayas, you didnt have the same flame as when you returned the first time. And I understood that this kind of difficult karma still clung to you, that it had not been dissolved. I had hoped that your contact with the mountains but in a true solitude (I dont mean that your body had to be all alone, but there should not have been all kinds of outer, superficial things) Anyway, it didnt happen. So it means that the time had not come.
But when here the difficulties returned and because of their obstinacy, their appearance of an inevitable fatality I concluded that it was a karma, although I knew it with certainty only now.
But I always had a presentiment of the true thing: that only a VERY COURAGEOUS act of self-giving could efface the thingnot courageous or difficult from the material point of view, not that There is a certain zone of the vital in you, a mentalized vital but still very material, which is very much under the influence of circumstances and which very much believes in the effectiveness of outer measuresthis is what is resisting.
That is all I know.
0 1958-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Basically, the vast majority of men are like prisoners with all the doors and all the windows shut, so they suffocate (which is quite natural), but they have with them the key that opens the doors and the windows, and they dont use it certainly, there is a period when they dont know that they have the key, but even long after they do know it, long after they have been told, they hesitate to use it and doubt that it has the power to open the doors and windows, or even that it may be advisable to open them. And even once they feel that After all, it might be a good thing, a fear pursues them: What is going to happen once all these doors and these windows open? They become afraidafraid of losing themselves in this light and in this freedom. They want to remain what they call themselves. They love their falsehood and their slavery. Something in them loves it and remains clinging to it. They feel that without their limits, they would no longer exist.
That is why the journey is so long, so difficult. For if one would truly consent no longer to be, everything would become so easy, so swift, so luminous, so joyousthough perhaps not in the way men conceive of joy and ease. At heart, there are very few beings who are not enamored of struggle. There are very few who would consent to having no darkness or who can conceive of light as anything other than the opposite of obscurity: Without shadow, there would be no painting. Without struggle, there would be no victory. Without suffering, there would be no joy. That is what they think, and as long as they think like that, they are not yet born to the spirit.
0 1958-11-27 - Intermediaries and Immediacy, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For example, one thing had always appeared unimportant to me in actionintermediaries between the spiritualized individual being, the conscious soul, and the Supreme. According to my personal experience, it had always seemed to me that if one is exclusively turned towards the Supreme in all ones actions and expresses Him directly, whatever is to be done is done automatically. For example, if you are always open and if at each second you consciously want to express only what the Supreme Lord wants to be expressed, it is done automatically. But with all that I have learned about pujas, about certain scriptures and certain rituals as well, the necessity for a process has become very clear to me. Its the same as in physical life; in physical life, everything needs a process, as we know, and it is the knowledge of processes that constitutes physical science. Similarly, in a more occult working, the knowledge and especially the RESPECT for the process seem to be much more important than I had first thought.
And when I studied this, when I looked at this science of processes, of intermediaries, suddenly I clearly understood the working of karma, which I had not understood before. I had worked and intervened quite often to change someones karma, but sometimes I had to wait, without exactly knowing why the result was not immediate. I simply used to wait without worrying about the reasons for this slowness or delay. Thats how it was. And generally it ended, as I said, with the exact vision of the karmas source, its initial cause; and scarcely would I have this vision when the Power would come, and the thing would be dissolved. But I didnt bother about finding out why it was like that.
One day I had mentioned this to X1 when he was showing me or describing to me the different movements of the pujas, the procedure, the process of the puja. I said to him, Oh, I see! For the action to be immediate, for the result to be immediate, one must acknowledge, for example, the role or the participation of certain spirits or certain forces and enter into a friendly relationship or collaboration with these forces in order to obtain an immediate result, is it not so? Then he told me, Yes, otherwise it leaves an indefinite time to the play of the forces, and you dont know when you will get the result of your puja.
That interested me very much. Because one of the obstacles I had felt was that although the Force was acting well, there was a time lag that appeared inevitable, a time element in the work which seemed unavoidablea play left to the forces of Nature. But with their knowledge of the processes, the tantrics can dispense with all that. So I understood why those who have studied, who are initiated and follow the prescribed methods are apparently more powerfulmore powerful even than those who are conscious in the highest consciousness.
--
It is like the story X told me of his guru2 who could comm and the coming of Kali (something which seems quite natural to me when one is sufficiently developed); well, not only could he commend the coming of Kali, but Kali with I dont know how many crores of her warriors! For me, Kali was Kali, after all, and she did her work; but in the universal organization, her action, the innumerable multiplicity of her action, is expressed by an innumerable multitude of conscious entities at work. It is this individualization, as it were, that gives to these forces a consciousness and a certain play of freedom, and this is what makes all the difference in action. It is in this respect that the occult system is an absolutely indispensable complement to spiritual action.
The spiritual action is direct, but it may not be immediate (anyway, thats my experience). Sri Aurobindo said that with the supramental presence, it becomes immediate and I have experienced this. But this would then mean that the supramental Power automatically commands all these intermediaries, whereas if its not present, even the highest spiritual power would need a specialized knowledge to act in this realm, a knowledge equivalent to an occult or initiatory knowledge of all these realms. This is why I told X, Well, you taught me many things while you were here. There is always something to learn.
0 1958-12-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have just received your letter which I read with all my love, the love that understands and effaces. When you return here, you will always be very welcome, and we shall certainly take up our work together again. I shall be happy, and it is very much needed. But first of all, it will be good for you to go to Rameswaram. I know that you will be welcome there. Stay there as long as necessary to find and consolidate your experience. Afterwards, come back here, stronger and better armed, to face a new period of outer and inner work. At the end of the labor is the Victory.
With all my confident love.
0 1958-12-15 - tantric mantra - 125,000, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother, things are far from being what they were the first time in Rameswaram, and I am living through certain moments that are hell the enemy seems to have been unleashed with an extraordinary violence. It comes in waves, and after it recedes, I am literally SHATTEREDphysically, mentally and vitally drained. This morning, while going to the temple, I lived through one of these moments. All this suffering that suddenly sweeps down upon me is horrible. Yes, I had the feeling of being BACKED UP AGAINST A WALL, exactly as in your vision I was up against a wall. I was walking among these immense arcades of sculptured granite and I could see myself walking, very small, all alone, alone, ravaged with pain, filled with a nameless despair, for nowhere was there a way out. The sea was nearby and I could have thrown myself into it; otherwise, there was only the sanctuary of Parvati but there was no more Africa to flee to, everything closed in all around me, and I kept repeating, Why? Why? This much suffering was truly inhuman, as if my last twenty years of nightmare were crashing down upon me. I gritted my teeth and went to the sanctuary to say my mantra. The pain in me was so strong that I broke into a cold sweat and almost fainted. Then it subsided. Yet even now I feel completely battered.
I clearly see that the hour has come: either I will perish right here, or else I will emerge from this COMPLETELY changed. But something has to change. Mother, you are with me, I know, and you are protecting me, you love me I have only you, only you, you are my Mother. If these moments of utter darkness return and they are bound to return for everything to be exorcised and conqueredprotect me in spite of myself. Mother, may your Grace not abandon me. I want to be done with all these old phantoms, I want to be born anew in your Light; it has to beotherwise I can no longer go on.
0 1958-12-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Doubt not of the Victory, it is certain.
Signed: Mother
0 1958-12-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If you wish, two things can be done to help your action: either X can undertake certain mantric operations upon you here in Rameswaram, or better still, he can immediately come to Pondicherry with Swami and do what is needed in front of you.
Sweet Mother, I indeed suspect that you want to endure, to bear this struggle all alone. Oh, I think I understand a number of things about the mechanism of these attacks and their connection with me, about the Divine Love that embraces all and takes into itself the suffering and the evil of menall this overwhelms me with a sudden understanding. It seems to me that I am seeing and feeling all that you are facing, all that you are taking upon yourself for us. The suffering of the Divine in Matter has been an overwhelming revelation to meAh! I see, I want to fight, I want to be totally on your side; I am now and forever determined.
0 1959-01-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This morning, X told me that he would be most happy to continue his action upon you if it would help your work; he has continued it anyway, even after knowing that the malefic influence was expelled from the Ashram. By the way, X told me that this evil spirit is continuing to circle around the Ashram, but beyond its borders. Therefore, if you agree, it would be necessary for him to come to Pondicherry one of these days to come to grips directly with the evil one and finish him off in such a way that he can no longer come to disturb the sadhaks, or your work, upon the slightest pretext. Then X could force this spirit to appear before him, and thereby free the atmosphere from its influence. Anyway, this trip to Pondicherry would not take place in the near future, and it would be easy to give him an official excuse: seminars on the Tantra Shastra that will interest all the Sanskritists at the Ashram. Moreover, Xs work would be done quietly in his room when he does his daily puja. From here, from Rameswaram, it is rather difficult to attract Pondicherrys atmosphere and do the work with precision. Of course, nothing will be done without your express consent. Swami is writing you on his own to tell you of the revelation that X received from his [deceased] guru concerning your experience and the schemings of certain Ashram members.
In this regard, perhaps you know that X is the tenth in the line of Bhaskaraya (my spelling of this name is perhaps not correct), the great Tantric of whom you had a vision, who could comm and the coming of Kali along with all her warriors. It is from X that Swami received his initiation.
0 1959-01-27, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I am not writing you all this to discourage you from coming. But I want you to succeed; for me that is more important than anything else, no matter what the price. So, know for certain that I am with you all the time and more so especially when you repeat your mantra
In constant communion in the effort towards victory; my love and my force never leave you.
0 1959-01-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have reflected for a long time on that passage in your letter where you say that your body needs a mantra to hasten its transformation. certainly X can do something in this realm, but I have not yet spoken to him (and I shall not speak of this to Swami).
X knows very little about your true work and what Swami has been able to explain to him is rather inadequate, for I do not believe that he himself understands it very well. So I shall have to try to make myself understood quite clearly to X and tell him exactly and simply what it is you need. The word transformation is too abstract. Each mantra has a very specific actionat least I believe soand I must be able to tell X in a concrete way the exact powers or capacities you are now seeking, and the general goal or the particular results required. Then he will find the mantra or mantras that apply.
--
P.S. All the old Questions and Answers will also have to be revised with you, perhaps not in their entirety, but certain problems need clarification. What a grace to be able to work with you!
***
0 1959-03-10 - vital dagger, vital mass, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In this swarming mass, I noticed the presence of some slightly more conscious willswills of the vital plane and I saw how they try to awaken a reaction in the consciousness of human beings to make them think or want, or if possible, do certain things.
For example, I saw one of them trying to incite anger in someone so that this person would deliver a blowa spiritual blow. And this formation had a dagger in his hand (a vital dagger, you see, it was a vital being: gray and slimy, horrible), he was holding a very sharp dagger which he was flaunting, saying, When a person has done something like that (pretending that someone had done an unforgivable thing), this is what he deserves and the scenario was complete: the being rushed forward, vitally, with his dagger.
0 1959-04-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
1) The fact that I am plagued by a lack of time and, occasionally, a certain repugnance for mental work. Then the ensuing suggestion: to have a hut in Rameswaram and devote myself exclusively to inner development.
2) I am very pullednot constantly, but periodicallyby the need to write (not mental things) and exasperated by the fact that this Orpailleur is not published because I have not taken the time to carry out certain corrections. When I am in a good mood, I offer all this to you (is it perhaps a hidden ambition? But I am not so sure; it is rather a need, I believe) and when I am not in a good mood, I fume about not having the time to write something else.
Please, enlighten me, Sweet Mother.
--
With all my love, I envelope you, my child, and I tell you, Have courage, the victory is certainnot a compromise or partial victory, but integral.
Signed: Mother
0 1959-05-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I can easily understand that your task on this earth is not particularly encouraging and you must find our human matter stupid and rebellious. I do not wish to throw upon you more bad things than you already receive, but I wish you could also understand certain things. I am not made for this withered life, not made for putting sentences together all day long, not made for living alone in my holefriendless, loveless, with nothing but mantras, and waiting for a better that never comes. For three years I have wanted to leave and each time I yielded out of scruples that you needed me, though also because I am attached to you. But after the [book on] Sri Aurobindo, there will be something else, there will always be something else that will make my departure look like a betrayal. I am fed up with living in my head, always in my head, with paper and ink. It was not of this that I dreamed when I was ten years old and ran with the wind over the untamed heaths. I am suffocating. You ask too much of me; or rather, I am not worth your expectation.
A love for you might have held me here. And indeed, for you I have devotion, veneration, respect, an attachment, but there has never been this marvelous thing, warm and full, that links one to a being in the same beating of a heart. Through love, I could do all, accept all, endure all, sacrifice all but I do not feel this love. You cannot give yourself with your head, through a mental decision, yet that is what I have been doing for five years. I have tried to serve you as best I could. But I am at the end of my rope. I am suffocating.
0 1959-05-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
2) There is the destiny of the writer in me. And this too is linked to the best of my soul. It is also a profound need, like adventuring upon the heaths, because when I write certain things, I brea the in a certain way. But during the five years I have been here, I have had to bow to the fact that, materially, there is no time to write what I would like (I recall how I had to wrench out this Orpailleur, which I have not even had time to revise). This is not a reproach, Mother, for you do all you can to help me. But I realize that to write, one must have leisure, and there are too many less personal and more serious things to do. So I can also sit on this and tell myself that I am going to write a Sri Aurobindo but this will not satisfy that other need in me, and periodically it awakens and sprouts up to tell me that it too needs to breathe.
3) There is also the destiny that feels human love as something divine, something that can be transfigured and become a very powerful driving force. I did not believe it possible, except in dreams, until the day I met someone here. But you do not believe in these things, so I shall not speak of it further. I can gag this also and tell myself that one day all will be filled in the inner divine love. But that does not prevent this other need in me from living and from finding that life is dry and from saying, Why this outer manifestation if all life is in the inner realms? But neither can I stifle this with reasoning.
So there remains the pure spiritual destiny, pure interiorization. That is what I have been trying to do for the last five years, without much success. There are good periods of collaboration, because one part of my being can be happy in any condition. But in a certain way this achievement remains truncated, especially when you base spiritual life on a principle of integrality. And these three destinies in me have their own good reasons, which are true: they are not inferior, they are not incidental, they are woven from the very threads that created the spiritual life in me. My error is to open the door to revolt when I feel too poignantly one or the other being stifled.
So you see, all this is insoluble. I have only to bow before these unfortunate circumstances. I perceive an injustice somewhere, but I have only to remain silent.
0 1959-06-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
certainly his political rage is not only understandable but justified. However, when one begins looking at things from the external viewpoint of the manifestation, they are not as simple as that. I cannot speak of all this in detail, but as an example I can tell you that here in Pondicherry, those who are maneuvering (and not without some hope) to oust the Congress are our worst enemies, the enemy of all that is disinterested and spiritual, and if they come to power, they would be capable of anything in their hate.
For all these world events, I always leave it to the Divine vision and wisdom, and I say to the Supreme: Lord, may Thy Will be done.
0 1959-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I thought certain details from my conversations with X might interest you:
1) X spoke to me of the Vedic times when a single emperor or sage ruled the entire world with the help of governors; then these governors gradually became independent kings, and conflicts were born. So I asked him what was going to happen after this next war and whether the world would be better. He replied as follows: Yes, great sages like Sri Aurobindo who are wandering now in their subtle bodies will appear. Some sages may take the physical body of political leaders in the West. It will be the end of ignorant atomic machines and the beginning of a new age with great sages leading the world. So it seems that Xs vision links up with Sri Aurobindos prediction for 1967.
--
2) X gave me certain details about his powers of prediction, but perhaps it would be better not to speak of this in a letter. On that occasion, he told me that he did not want to keep any secrets from me: I want you to know everything. I want you to be chief disciple in my tradition. When the time comes, you will understand what I mean. With you I have full connection, not only connection in my mind, but in my blood and body.
On another occasion, he said to me, I am ALWAYS taking care of you. And when I asked him why he was taking such trouble for me, he replied, Because I have orders. This attention that comes to me from you and him surprises me, for I do not feel that I am good, and upon the least occasion I know that I am seriously prepared to quit everything because something in me is profoundly revolted by this excess of suffering, by a lack of love and flowering, by an excess of solitude. Yesterday evening, it was still fully there, with all my approval, and at such a time no one in the world can hold me back. It is this POINT OF SUFFERING that makes me want to turn my back on everything. Not to commit suicide: to turn my back.
0 1959-06-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As of yesterday evening I am a man delivered. It took only a very little word from X, and suddenly a weight seemed to have been lifted from me, and I knew at last that I would be fulfilled. All this is still so new, so improbable that I can scarcely believe it, and I wonder if by chance some evil blow is not still lurking in wait for me behind this promise of happiness; thus I shall be reassured only when I have told you everything, recounted all. But X has asked, me to wait a few more days before telling you this story, for he wants to give me certain additional details so that you may have all the elements, as accurately as possible.
But I did not want to wait any longer to express my gratitude. I am still not so sure how all this will turn out nor how this destiny that he predicts for me can be realized, but I want to repeat to you, with all my confidence: I am your child, may your will be done now and forever.
--
P.S. X is also to give me certain details for you about the forthcoming war.
***
0 1959-06-13a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For me, the inner things seem to have taken a better turn since X revealed certain things to me, but I prefer to say nothing. I dare not say anything since I know from experience that all this is as unstable as dynamite.
Your child,
0 1959-06-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I had said nothing to X about these various dreams before he told me the story of my last three existences: three times I committed suicide the first by fire, the second by hanging, and the third by throwing myself into the void. During the first of these last three existences, I was married to a very good woman, but for some reason I abandoned my wife and I was wandering here and there in search of something. Then I met a sannyasi who wanted to make me his disciple, but I could not make up my mind, I was neither this side nor that side, whereupon my wife came to me and pleaded with me to take her back. Apparently I rejected herso she threw herself into the fire. Horror-stricken, I followed her, throwing myself into the fire in turn. That was when I created a connection with certain beings [of the other worlds] and I fell under their power. For two other lives, under the influence of these beings, the same drama was repeated with a few variations.
During the second of these last three existences, I was married to the same woman whom I again abandoned under the influence of the same monk, and I again remained between two worlds wandering here and there. Again my wife came to plead with me and again I pushed her away. She hung herself, and I hung myself in turn.
0 1959-10-06 - Sri Aurobindos abode, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And Sri Aurobindo was there, with a majesty, a magnificent beauty. He had all his beautiful hair as before. It was all so concrete, so substantialhe was even being served some kind of food. I remained there for one hour (I had looked at my watch before and I looked at it afterwards). I spoke to Sri Aurobindo, for I had some important questions to ask him about the way certain things are to be realized. He said nothing. He listened to me quietly and looked at me as if all my words were useless: he understood everything at once. And he answered me with a gesture and two expressions on his face, an unexpected gesture that did not at all correspond to any thought of mine; for example, he picked up three combs that were lying near the mirror (combs similar to those I use here, but larger) and he put them in his hair. He planted one comb in the middle of his head and the two others on each side, as if to gather all his hair over his temples. He was literally COIFFED with these three combs, which gave him a kind of crown. And I immediately understood that by this he meant that he was adopting my conception: You see, I embrace your conception of things, and I coif myself with it; it is my will. Anyway, I remained there for one hour.
And when I awoke, I didnt have this feeling of returning from afar and of having to re-enter my body, as I usually do. No, it was simply as though I were in this other world, then I took a step backwards and found myself here again. It took me a good half an hour to understand that this world here existed as much as the other and that I was no longer on the other side but here, in the world of falsehood. I had forgotten everythingpeople, things, what I had to do; everything had gone, as if it had no reality at all.
--
It is similar with this japa: an imperceptible little change, and one can pass from a more or less mechanical, more or less efficient and real japa, to the true japa full of power and light. I even wondered if this difference is what the tantrics call the power of the japa. For example, the other day I was down with a cold. Each time I opened my mouth, there was a spasm in the throat and I coughed and coughed. Then a fever came. So I looked, I saw where it was coming from, and I decided that it had to stop. I got up to do my japa as usual, and I started walking back and forth in my room. I had to apply a certain will. Of course, I could do my japa in trance, I could walk in trance while repeating the japa, because then you feel nothing, none of all the bodys drawbacks. But the work has to be done in the body! So I got up and started doing my japa. Then, with each word pronounced the Light, the full Power. A power that heals everything. I began the japa tired, ill, and I came out of it refreshed, rested, cured. So those who tell me they come out of it exhausted, contracted, emptied, it means that they are not doing it in the true way.
I understand why certain tantrics advise saying the japa in the heart center. When one applies a certain enthusiasm, when each word is said with a warmth of aspiration, then everything changes. I could feel this difference in myself, in my own japa.
In fact, when I walk back and forth in my room, I dont cut myself off from the rest of the worldalthough it would be so much more convenient! All kinds of things come to mesuggestions, wills, aspirations. But automatically I make a movement of offering: things come to me and just as they are about to touch my head, I turn them upwards and offer them to the Light. They dont enter into me. For example, if someone speaks to me while I am saying my japa, I hear quite well what is being said, I may even answer, but the words remain a little outside, at a certain distance from the head. And yet sometimes, there are things that insist, more defined wills that present themselves to me, so then I have to do a little work, but all that without a pause in the japa. If that happens, there is sometimes a change in the quality of my japa, and instead of being fully the power, fully the light, it is certainly something that produces results, but results more or less sure, more or less long to fructify; it becomes un certain, as with all things of this physical world. Yet the difference between the two japas is imperceptible; its not a difference between saying the japa in a more or less mechanical way and saying it consciously, because even while I work I remain fully conscious of the japa I continue to repeat it putting the full meaning into each syllable. But nevertheless, there is a difference. One is the all-powerful japa; the other, an almost ordinary japa There is a difference in the inner attitude. Perhaps for the japa to become true, a kind of joy, an elation, a warmth of enthusiasm has to be added but especially joy. Then everything changes.
Well, it is the same thing, the same imperceptible difference, when it comes to entering the world of Truth. On one side there is the falsehood, and on the other, close by, like the lining of this one, the true life. Only a little difference in the inner quality, a little reversal, is enough to pass to the other side, into the Truth and Light.
0 1959-10-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
2) X spoke to me of the Ashrams financial difficulties and said I shall tell you the secret why there are such difficulties. I think he is going to speak to me today or tomorrow. In any case, he told me that he was working (I am preparing) to change these conditions, and he asked me if there had been any improvement as yet. I replied that I did not believe the situation had changed very much. He spoke as well of certain people in the Ashram, but I will tell you about this in person. He had a rather amusing way of speaking about people, people who pretend to worship the Mother but who keep their mind as a dustbin!
7) X wants to send me back to Pondicherry this Sunday (Sunday the 18th, arriving Monday the 19th morning). He says it is useless for me now to remain here any longer since his house is not ready and he can do nothing. But, he said, I will have you come to my house for 3 months and I shall give you a training by which you can know Past, Present and Future, and have the same qualifications as me!
8) He gave me certain methods to follow, about which I shall speak to you in person.
Sweet Mother, I have such a yearning for everything in my consciousness to harmonize and for the tantric discipline, the japa, etc., not to separate me from you. I want to be your child, open to you, without any contradictions. I would like so much to find your almost physical Presence within me again, as before. May all be clear, pure, one.
0 1960-03-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Experiences are coming at a furious pacefabulous experiences. If I were to speak now, its certain that I would not at all speak as I used to. Thats why we must date all these Questions and Answers, at least all which come before the [Supramental] Manifestation of February 1956, so that there will be a clear cut between those before and those after.
Only a few days ago, on the morning of the 29th, I had one of those experiences that mark ones life. It happened upstairs in my room. I was doing my japa, walking up and down with my eyes wide open, when suddenly Krishna camea gold Krishna, all golden, in a golden light that filled the whole room. I was walking, but I could not even see the windows or the rug any longer, for this golden light was everywhere with Krishna at its center. And it must have lasted at least fifteen minutes. He was dressed in those same clothes in which he is normally portrayed when he dances. He was all light, all dancing: You see, I will be there this evening during the Darshan.1 And suddenly, the chair I use for darshan came into the room! Krishna climbed up onto it, and his eyes twinkled mischievously, as if to say, I will be there, you see, and therell be no room for you.
0 1960-05-16, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
X has the power of rendering things very material thats his great power, which is why things get upset when he comes here. Overnight, someone progressing well comes to grips with difficulties; money on the way stops coming; you fall sick, things break downall because he has the power to give materiality to things from above. For, you see, you can go right to the height of your consciousness and from there sweep away the difficulties (at a certain moment of the sadhana, difficulties truly dont exist, its only a matter of nabbing the undesirable vibration and its over, its reduced to dust). And everything is fine up above, but down below its swarming. When X comes, its precisely all this swarming that becomes tangible.
The mastery must be a TRUE mastery, a very humble and austere mastery which starts from the very bottom and, step by step, establishes control. As a matter of fact, it is a battle against small, really tiny things: habits of being, ways of thinking, feeling and reacting.
0 1960-05-21 - true purity - you have to be the Divine to overcome hostile forces, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When X is here, I get the impression that things are going backwards instead of forwards. But once hes left, I suddenly leap ahead. And then I perceive that the progress is a real progress, that things won have really been won and they dont come undone again. That is Xs true power, a very material power. For I often feel that things could come into being, they could be realized in the consciousness above (and the vision is there, the Power is there, I have it the invisible power over the earth). But when you come down to the material plane, everything is un certain. Whereas with X, once things have come down, they no longer dissipate. This is certainly why the Supreme put him on my path.
For example, there was one difficulty he helped me resolve. I have always been literally pestered, constantly, night and day, by all kinds of thoughts coming from peopleall kinds of calls, questions, formations2 that have naturally to be answered. For I have trained myself to be conscious of everything, always. But it disturbed me in the work, particularly when I needed absolute concentration and I could never cut myself off from people or cut myself off from the world. I had to answer all these calls and these questions, I had to send the necessary force, the necessary light, the healing power, I constantly had to purify all these formations, these thoughts, these wills, these false movements that were falling on me.
0 1960-05-24 - supramental flood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
These experiences are always absolute, as long as they last; then, through certain signs that I know (I am accustomed to it), I notice that the body consciousness begins closing up again. Or rather, somethingevidently a Supreme Wisdomdecides its sufficient for this time and that the body has had enough. It ought not to break, which is why certain precautions are taken. So this comes in several little stages that I know quite well. The final one is always a bit unpleasant because my body gets into rather peculiar positions as a result of the work. As its only a sort of machine, towards the end I have some difficulty straightening my knees, for example, or opening my fingers I think they even make a noise, like something forced into one position whose life has become purely spontaneous and mechanical. There are plenty of people like that, plenty, who enter into trance and then can no longer get out by themselves; they get themselves into a certain position and someone has to free them. This has never happened to me; I have always managed to extricate myself. But yesterday evening, the experience lasted a very long time. There was even a little cracking at the end, as when people have rheumatism.
And during all this time, approximately three hours, the consciousness was completely, completely different. It was here, however; it was not outside the earth, it was on earth, but it was completely differenteven the body consciousness was different. And what remained was very mechanical; it was a body, but it could just as well have been anything. All this power of consciousness that for more than seventy years Ive gradually pushed into each of the bodys cells so that each cell could become conscious (and it goes on constantly, constantly), all this seemed to have withdrawn there only remained one almost lifeless thing. However, I could raise myself up from my bed and even drink a glass of water, but it was all so bizarre. And when I went back to bed, it took nearly forty-five minutes for the body to regain its normal state. Only after I had entered into another type of samadhi2 and again come out of it did my consciousness fully return. It is the first time I have had an experience of this kind.
0 1960-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This is the main reason for my japa. Theres a power in the sound itself, and by forcing the body to repeat the sound, you force it to receive the vibration at the same time. But Ive noticed that if something in the bodys working gets disturbed (a pain or disorder, the onset of some illness) and I repeat my mantra in a certain waystill the same words, the same mantra, but said with a certain purpose and above all in a movement of surrender, surrender of the pain, the disorder, and a call, like an openingit has a marvelous effect. The mantra acts in just the right way, in this way and in no other. And after a while everything is put back in order. And simultaneously, of course, the precise knowledge of what lies behind the disorder and what I must do to set it right comes to me. But quite apart from this, the mantra acts directly upon the pain itself.
I also use my mantra to go into trance. After relaxing on the bed and making as total a self-offering as possible of everything, from top to bottom, and after removing as fully as possible all resistance of the ego, I start repeating the mantra.1 After repeating it two or three times, I am in trance (at the beginning it took longer). And from this trance I pass into sleep; the trance lasts as long as necessary and, quite naturally, spontaneously, I pass into sleep. And when I come back, I remember everything. The sleep was like a continuation of the trance. And essentially, the only reason for sleep is to allow the body to assimilate the results of the trance, then to allow these results to be accepted throughout and to let the body do its natural nights work of eliminating toxins. My periods of sleep practically dont exist sometimes they are as short as half an hour or 15 minutes. But in the beginning, I had long periods of sleep, one or even two hours in succession. And when I woke up, I did not feel this residue of heaviness which comes from sleep the effects of the trance continued.
--
Its tamas that gives you a bad sleep. There are two kinds of bad sleep that which makes you heavy and leaden, as if the result of all your effort the day before were wasted, and that which exhausts you, as if you had spent the whole time fighting. And Ive observed that if you cut your sleep up into sections (it becomes a habit), the nights get better. In other words, you must be able to come back to your normal consciousness and your normal aspiration at certain intervals, come back to the call of your consciousness But you must not use an alarm clock. When in trance, its not good to be jolted.
Just as you are drifting off, you can make a formation and say, I shall wake up at such-and-such time (children do it very easily).
0 1960-07-12 - Mothers Vision - the Voice, the ashram a tiny part of myself, the Mothers Force, sparkling white light compressed - enormous formation of negative vibrations - light in evil, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The formation represented by the Ashram was located approximately here, at the height of the navel in relation to what I was but although the body was not delimited, it had certain attributes or undefined forms, each one of which was situated in relation to the other as though each represented one part of the body; each was symbolic of either an activity or a part of the world or a mode of manifestation. So the formation started from about here, near the navel, and went down towards the appendix Here, Ill draw you a sketch:
Image 1
0 1960-07-23 - The Flood and the race - turning back to guide and save amongst the torrents - sadhana vs tamas and destruction - power of giving and offering - Japa, 7 lakhs, 140000 per day, 1 crore takes 20 years, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was as if the doors of destruction had been flung open. Floodsfloods as vast as an oceanwere rushing down onto something the earth? A formidable current pouring down at an insane speed, with an unstoppable power. It was brackish waternot transparent, but brackish. And it was imperative to reach a certain spot BEFORE the water. Had the water reached there ahead of me, nothing could have been done. Whereas if I got there first (I say I, but it was not I with this body), if I got to the other side before the water, I would be completely safe; and from this safe position, I would be able, I would have a chance to help those left behind.
And this vehicle was going faster than the flood (I saw and felt it by its motion)a formidable flood, but the vehicle was going still faster. It was so wonderful. In places there were some especially difficult and dangerous spots, but I ALWAYS got there before the water, just before the water barred the way. And we kept going and going and going. Then, with a final effort (there was no effort, really, it was willed), with a final push, we made it to the other side and the water came rushing just behind! It rushed down at a fantastic speed. We had made it. Then, just on the other side, it changed color. It was it changed in color to a predominant blue, this powerful blue which is the force, the organizing force in the most material world. So there we were, and the vehicle stopped. And then, after having been looking straight ahead the whole time we were speeding along, I turned around and said, Ah, now I can start helping those who are behind.
--
Down below, the water was having a grand time; it was it was hopeless. But here, along this path, there was still a hope, even even after the water had passed; I probably had a certain power at my disposal to help others cross these fissured places. But because I woke up, I didnt see what it was. So that stopped everything. Probably because I woke up rather abruptly, I could not see what it meant.
All this is a translation in human language, actually, because really it was
--
Ive been seeing for a long time that nights are actions. They are no longer images or symbols or representations they are all actions. And they take place certainly not on a human scale.
Does that indicate war?
--
The vehicle and the forward movement are the sadhana, beyond the shadow of a doubt. I understood that the speed of sadhana was greater than the speed of the forces of destruction. And it ended in certain victory, there is not a shadow of doubt. This feeling of POWER once I was firmly grounded there [in the square], enough power to help others.
These were universal forces. I cant say it means war. Ive foreseen many warswidespread wars, local wars, so many warsand up to now they have never been presented to me in that form. Theyve always come as a fireflames, flames, the home burning. Not as an inundation.
--
Ah, that, weve already had some. From all around, people are proclaiming that in 1962, there will be some people have even foreseen the end of the earth, but thats foolish! For the earth was built with a certain purpose, and before things are done, it will not disappear.
But there may be some changes.
0 1960-07-26 - Mothers vision - looking up words in the subconscient, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I was with a certain type, and I was looking for a word, I wanted to conjugate the verb vaincre [to conquer]: je vaincs, tu vaincs, il vaincgood, now nous vainquons, how do you spell that, nous vainquons? It was so funny! And I was looking it up in the dictionaryvainquons, how do you spell that?
And at the same time, I had the feeling of something completely arbitrary, and all this kind of knowledge seemed so unreala completely arbitrary convention corresponding to nothing luminous anywhere.
0 1960-08-10 - questions from center of Education - reading Sri Aurobindo, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
that we no longer know what to believe nor on what to base ourselves. So what should be our foundation upon which to work in the absence of a true and certain knowledge? Please enlighten us, Mother.
I answered. The letters must have left. I wrote (in English) that its not so much a question of organization as of attitudeto begin with. Then I said, It seems to me that unless the teachers themselves get out of this ordinary intellectuality (!), they will never be able to fulfill their duty.
--
Sri Aurobindo and the Transformation of the World, an initial book on Sri Aurobindo by Satprem that was never published. It was meant to be part of a certain 'Series of Spiritual Masters,' but finally Sri Aurobindo never took part.
***
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But this way of seeing is too far removed from the state of mind and spiritual education in which X has lived,4 of course, for him to understand. Nor am I in favor of proselytizing (to convince X); it would disturb him quite needlessly. He has not come here for that. He came here for something special, something I wanted which he brought, and I have learnt it. Now its excellent, he is a part of the group in his own fashion, thats all. And in a certain way, his presence here is having a very good effect on a whole category of people who had not been touched but who are now becoming more and more favorably inclined. It was difficult to reach all the traditionalists, for example, the people attached to the old spiritual forms; well, they seem now to have been touched by something.
When Amrita,5 seized with zeal, wanted to make him understand what we were doing here and what Sri Aurobindo had wanted, it almost erupted into an unpleasant situation. So after that, I decided to identify myself with him to see I had never done this, because normally I only do it when I am responsible for someone, in order to truly help someone, and Ive never felt any responsibility in regard to X. So I wanted to see his inner situation, what could and could not be done. That was the day you saw him coming down from our meditation in an ecstatic state, when he told you that all separation between him and me had dropped awayit was to be expected, I anticipated as much!
--
Actually, it was very different at that time because I was not even aware of any resistance or any difficulty in the outer being; it was automatic, the work was done automatically. Later on, when I had to do both thingswhat he had been doing as well as what I was doingit became rather complicated and I realized there were many what we could call gapsthings which had to be worked out, transformed, set right before the total work could be done without hindrance. So then I began. And several times I thought how unfortunate it was that I had never studied or pursued certain ancient Indian disciplines. Because, for example, when Sri Aurobindo and I were working to bring down the supramental forces, a descent from the mental plane to the vital plane, he was always telling me that everything I did (when we meditated together, when we worked)all my movements, all my gestures, all my postures, all my reactionswas absolutely tantric, as if I had pursued a tantric discipline. But it was spontaneous, it did not correspond to any knowledge, any idea, any will, nothing, and I thought it was like that simply because, as He knew, naturally I followed.
Later on, when Sri Aurobindo left his body, I said to myself, If only I knew what he had known, it would be easier! So when Swami and later X came, I thought, I am going to take advantage of this opportunity. I had written to Swami that I was working on transforming the cells of the body and that I had noticed the work was going faster with Xs influence. So it was understood that X would help when he came thats how things began, and this idea has remained with X. But I have raced on I dont wait. Ive raced on, Ive gone like wildfire. And now the situation is reversed. What I wanted to find out, I found out. I experienced what I wanted to experience, but he is still He is very kind, actually, he wants really to help me. So, when I identified with him the other day during our meditation, I realized that he wanted to give silence, control and perfect peace to the physical mind. My own trick, if you will, is to have as little relationship with the physical mind as possible, to go up above and stay therethis (Mother indicates her forehead), silent, motionless, turned upwards, while That (gesture above the head) sees, acts, knows, decidesall is done from there. Only there can you feel at ease.
--
And he isnt aware of this, actually, he isnt aware at all. If he were told, he would absolutely deny it for him, its an opening onto Infinity! But in fact, its always like that, we are always shut in, each of useach one is enclosed inside certain limits which he doesnt feel, for should he feel it, he would get out! Oh, I know this feeling very well, for when I was with Sri Aurobindo I was open in this way (gesture towards the heights), and I always had this feeling of Yes, my child He tolerated me the way I was and waited for it to change. Thats truly how things are, you know. And now I feel my limits, which are the limits of the world as it is at present, but beyond that theres an unmanifested immensity, eternity and infinityto which we are closed. It merely seeps init is not the great opening. What I am trying to bring about is the great opening. Only when it has opened wide will there really be the (how should I put it?) the irreducible thing, and all the worlds resistance, all its inertia, even its obscurity will be unable to swallow it up the determining and transforming thing I dont know when it will come.
But this experience with X was really interesting. I learned many things that day, many things If you concentrate long enough on any one point, you discover the Infinite (and in his own experience he found the infinite), what could be called your own Infinite. But this is not what WE want, not this; what we want is the direct and integral contact between the manifested universe and the Infinite out of which this universe has emerged. So then it is no longer an individual or personal contact with the Infinite, its a total contact. And Sri Aurobindo insists on this, he says that its absolutely impossible to have the transformation (not the contact, but the supramental transformation) without becoming universalized that is the first condition. You cannot become supramental before being universal. And to be universal means to accept everything, be everything, become everythingreally to accept everything. And as for all those who are shut up in a system, even if it belongs to the highest regions of thought, it is not THAT.
--
So I saw this I saw it moving about. And it kept coming and coming and coming, accumulating, piling up (they work 24 hours a day, six days a weekonly on the seventh do they rest). So I thought that this angry force must have some effect on the peoplewho knows, maybe this is what creates accidents. For I could see that once the sugar cane was fully crushed and had gone back up the chute, this force that had been beaten out was right there. And this worried me a little; I thought that there must be a certain danger in doing such a thing! What saves them is their ignorance and their insensitivity. But Indians are never entirely insensitive in the way Westerners arethey are much more open in their subconscious.
I didnt speak of it to anyone, but it caused me some concern. And just the next day the machine broke down! When I was informed, immediately I thought It was then repaired, and again it broke downthree times. Then the following night, just before ten oclock I should mention that during the day I had thought, But why not attract these forces to our side, take them and satisfy them, give them some peace and joy and use them? I thought about it, concentrated a little, but then I didnt bother any further. At ten oclock that evening, they came upon mein a flood! They kept coming and coming. And I was busy with them the whole time. They were not ugly (not so luminous either! ), they were wholesome, straightforwardhonest forces. So I worked on them. This began exactly at 9:30, and for one hour I was busy working. After an hour, Id had enough: Listen, this is quite fine, youre very nice, but I cant spend all my time like this! We shall see what to do later for it absorbed my whole consciousness. They kept coming and coming (you understand what that means to a body?!). So at 10:30 I told them, Listen, my little ones, be quiet now, thats enough for today At 10:30, the machine broke down!
0 1960-10-02a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Of course, I much prefer being in my great currents of forcefrom a personal standpoint, such immensity of action is much more interesting. But these documentary things are also valuable. It is so tremendously different from the dreams and even the vi. signs you have when you enter certain representative realms of the mind (which is what I used to do). It is so different, it has another content, another life altogether: it carries its light, its understanding, its explanation within itselfyou look, and everything is explained.
It always gives me the feeling that I am shrinking a little, but its interesting. And its useful, for I am constantly moving about and doing things with people; it indicates to me what I have to say and do with each one. Its useful. But all the same, I miss the fullness and joy of the more impersonal Movement of forces.
Before going to bed, sometimes I say to myself, I will do what is necessary to spend my night in these great currents of force(because there is a way to do it). And then I think, Oh, what an egotist you are, my girl! So sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesntwhen theres something important to do, it doesnt happen. But all I have to do is concentrate in a certain way before going to sleep to spend my whole night in these very far from here, very far I cant say very far from the earth, for surely its in an intermediate zone between the forces from above and the earths atmosphere. Thats what it mainly is, in any case. Its a great universal current as well, but mainly its what descends and comes onto the earth, and it is permeating the earths atmosphere all the time, all the time, and it comes with this wide, overall visionit makes for wonderful nights I no longer bother about people at allat least not as such, but in a more impersonal way.
(silence)
0 1960-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I also read On the Veda where Sri Aurobindo speaks of the difference between the modern mind and the ancient mind; and its quite obvious, especially from the linguistic point of view. Sanskrit was certainly much more fluid, a better instrument for a more global, more comprehensive light, a light containing more things within itself.
In these modern languages, its as if things are passed through a sieve and broken up into separate little bits, so then you have all the work of putting them back together. And something is always lost.
0 1960-10-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Even now, when something or other is not all right, I have only to reproduce the thing with the same type of concentration as at the beginning for, when I say the japa, the sound and the words together the way the words are understood, the feel of the wordscreate a certain totality. I have to reproduce that. And the way its repeated is evolving all the time. The words are the same, however, the original sound is the same, but its all constantly evolving towards a more comprehensive realization and a more and more complete STATE. So when I want to obtain a certain result, I reproduce a certain type of this state. For example, if something in the body is not functioning right (it cant really be called an illness, but when somethings out of order), or if I wish to do some specific work on a specific person for a specific reason, then I go back to a certain state of repetition of my mantra, which acts directly on the bodys cells. And then the same phenomenon is reproducedexactly the same extraordinary vibration which I recognized when the supramental world descended. It comes in and vibrates like a pulsation in the cells.
But as I told you, now my japa is different. It is as if I were taking the whole world to lift it up; no longer is it a concentration on the body, but rather a taking of the whole world the entire world sometimes in its details, sometimes as a whole, but constantly, constantlyto establish the Contact (with the supramental world).
--
I can only be sure of something once a certain type of picture comes, and then the whole world could tell me, But things didnt happen like that; I would reply, Sorry, but I see it. And that type of picture is certain, for I have studied it, I have studied their differences in quality and the texture of the pictures. It is very interesting.
***
0 1960-10-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I entered into your sleep last night. I saw you and told you certain things, I even gave you some explanations: You see, you must do it this way you must go like this I also said, One day, we shall meditate together. But more precisely, you had once spoken to me about the problem in your physical mind that it keeps on turning interminably and you had told me that it happens during your japa. So last night I told you, I would like you to do your japa for a few minutes with me one day so that I may see what goes on inside you, in your physical mind.
But I wasnt speaking to you with words Everything I see at night has a special color and a special vibration. Its strange, but it looks sketched When I said that to you, for example, there was a kind of patch,1 a white patch, as I recallwhite, exactly like a piece of white papera patch with a pink border around it, then this same blue light I keep telling you aboutdeep blueencircling the rest, as it were. And beyond that, it was swarminga swarming of black and dark gray vibrations in a terrible agitation. When I saw this, I said to you, You must repeat your mantra once in my presence so that I may see if there is anything I can do about this swarming. And then I dont know whyyou objected, and this objection was red, like a tongue of fire lashing out from the white, like this (Mother draws an arabesque). So I said, No, dont worry, it doesnt matter, I wont disturb a thing2! (Mother laughs mischievously)
All this took place in a realm which is constantly active, everywhere; it is like a permanent mental transcription of everything that physically takes place They arent actually thoughts; when I see this, I dont really get the impression of thinking, but its a transcription its the result of thoughts on a certain mental atmosphere which records things.
And I see it all the time now. If someone is speaking or if Im doing something, I see the two things at the same time I see the physical thing, his words or my action, and then this colored, luminous transcription at the same time. The two things are superimposed. For example, when someone speaks to me, it gets translated into some kind of picture, a play of light or color (which is not always so luminous!)this is why most of the time, in fact, I dont even know what has been said to me. I recall the first time this phenomenon happened, I said to myself, Ah, so thats what these modern artists see! Only, as they themselves arent very coherent, what they see is not very coherent either!
--
Yesterday, I suddenly saw a huge living head of blue lightthis blue light which is the force, the powerful force in material Nature (this is the light the tantrics use). The head was made entirely of this light, and it wore a sort of tiaraa big head, so big (Mother indicates the length of her forearm); its eyes werent closed, but rather lowered, like this. The immobility of eternity, absolutely the repose, the immobility of eternity. A magnificent head, quite similar to the way the gods here are represented, but even better; something between certain heads of the Buddha and (these heads most probably come to the artists). Everything else was lost in a kind of cloud.
I felt that this kind of yes, immobility came from there: everything stops, absolutely everything stops. Silence, immobility truly, you enter into eternity.I told him it wasnt time!
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Which is whyunless you are intentionally and constantly in what here is called the Brahmic consciousness it is practically impossible to control. And this is what gives the impression of certain things happening in the body independently of not only of our will but of our consciousness BUT IT IS NOT TRUE.
Only, there is all that comes from outside thats what is most dangerous. Constantly, constantlywhen you eat, you catch it oh, what a mass of vibrations! The vibrations of the thing you eat when it was living (they always remain), the vibrations of the person who cooked it, vibrations of All the time, all the time, they never stopyou breathe, they enter. Of course, when you start talking to someone or mixing with people, then you become a bit more conscious of what is coming, but even just sitting still, uninvolved with othersit comes! There is an almost total interdependenceisolation is an illusion. By reinforcing your own atmosphere (Mother gestures, as if building a wall around her), you can hold these things off TO A certain EXTENT, but simply this effort to keep them at a distance creates (Im thinking in English and speaking in French) disturbances.8 Anyway, now all this has been SEEN.
But I know in an absolute way that once this whole mass of the physical mind is mastered and the Brahmic consciousness is brought into it in a continuous way, you CAN you become the MASTER of your health.
0 1960-10-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And this lasted quite long (its what I saw most clearly and what I best remember). But there were many, many thingsold things that I know and certainly a VERY INTIMATE relationship which we had in the days of Egypt, at Thebes.
Its the first time I saw this for youit was very, very
--
Then suddenly I went into a little trance. And in it I saw you, but you were physically, you were on one plane, and then I saw another man on a different plane (I saw him quite concretely; he was rather tall, broad-shoulderednot so tall as broad, with a dark, European suit). And he took your hands and started shaking them enthusiastically!but you were quite indifferent, just as you are now, dressed in Indian fashion and sitting cross-legged. He took both your hands and started shaking them! And then I distinctly heard the words: Congratulations, its a great success!it had to do with your book.3 And at the same time, I saw all sorts of people and things who were touched by your bookall kinds of people, obviously French, or Westerners in any case women, men. There was even one woman (she must have been an actress or a singer or anyway, someone whose life was she was even dressed for the stage, with some kind of tightsa beautiful girl!) and she said to someone, Ah, it has even given me a taste for the spiritual life! It was extremely interesting All kinds of things of this nature. And then once again I came out of this trance and In the end, I tried to do some certain thing for you and it turned out well. It turned out quite well.
But then, just before that, there was this powdering of golden light coming down. And as it descended, it was white with a touch of gold (but it was white) and it came down in a column, with such POWER! And then, just at the end, this powdering of gold came and settled into this white light which had remained there the whole timeoh, it was so abundant. A great power of realization. I had a hard time coming out of it! At the start, I had decided to come out of it at half past, so I came out, but still not completely
--
But its still not luminous in the dark. What is normally luminous in the dark is something else I had that when I was working with Theon (after returning to France, we had group meditationsthough he didnt call it meditation, he called it repose, and we used to do this in a darkened room), and there was it was like phosphorescence, exactly the color of phosphorescent light, like certain fish in the water at night. It would come out [of the body], spread forth, move about. But that is the vital, it originates in the vital. It is a force from above, but what manifests is vital. Whereas now it is absolutely, clearly the golden supramental light in an extraordinary pulsation, vibrant in intensity But probably it still lacks a what Theon used to call density, an agent that enables it to be seen in the dark and then it would be visibly gold, not phosphorescent.
But it is very, very concrete, very material.
--
According to tradition, Anubis, the jackal-headed god, helped Isis to rebuild the body of her spouse, Osiris, who had been killed and dismembered by his brother Set. Osiris was the first god to rule over men. Owing to certain special rites, Isis, helped by Anubis, succeeded in bringing him back to life. So we are not very far from the legend of Savitri and Satyavan.
L'Orpailleur, which had just been published. The man's description, as a matter of fact, bears a striking resemblance to the publisher.
0 1960-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
He lives in a region which is largely a kind of vital vibration which penetrates the mind and makes use of the imagination (essentially its the same region most so-called cultured men live in). I dont mean to be severe or critical, but its a world that likes to play to itself. Its not really what we could call histrionics, not thatits rather a need to dramatize to oneself. So it can be an heroic drama, it can be a musical drama, it can be a tragic drama, or quite simply a poetic drama and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, its a romantic drama. And then, these soul states (!) come replete with certain spoken expressions (laughing) Im holding myself back from saying certain things!You know, its like a theatricals store where you rent scenery and costumes. Its all ready and waitinga little call, and there it comes, ready-made. For a particular occasion, they say, Youre the woman of my life (to be repeated as often as necessary), and for another they say Its a whole world, a whole mode of human life which I suddenly felt I was holding in my arms. Yes, like a decoration, an ornament, a nicetyan ornament of existence, to keep it from being flat and dull and the best means the human mind has found to get out of its tamas. Its a kind of artifice.
So for persons who are severe and grave (there are two such examples here, but its not necessary to name them) There are beings who are grave, so serious, so sincere, who find it hypocritical; and when it borders on certain (how shall I put it?) vital excesses, they call it vice. There are others who have lived their entire lives in a yogic or religious discipline, and they see this as an obstacle, illusion, dirtyness (Mother makes a gesture of rejecting with disgust), but above all, its this terrible illusion that prevents you from nearing the Divine. And when I saw the way these two people here reacted, in fact, I said to myself, but you see, I FELT So strongly that this too is the Divine, it too is a way of getting out of something that has had its place in evolution, and still has a place, individually, for certain individuals. Naturally, if you remain there, you keep turning in circles; it will always be (not eternally, but indefinitely) the woman of my life, to take that as a symbol. But once youre out of it, you see that this had its place, its utilityit made you emerge from a kind of very animal-like wisdom and quietude that of the herd or of the being who sees no further than his daily round. It was necessary. We mustnt condemn it, we mustnt use harsh words.
The mistake we make is to remain there too long, for if you spend your whole life in that, well, youll probably need many more lifetimes. But once the chance to get out of it comes, you can look at it with a smile and say, Yes, its really a sort of love for fiction!people love fiction, they want fiction, they need fiction! Otherwise its boring and all much too flat.
--
Its an approach which is not at all mental nor intellectual nor (God knows!) moral in the leastno notion of Good or Evil nor any of those things, absolutely none of that. Theres a moment in life when you begin thinking a little and you see all this from an overall or universal point of view in which all moral notions completely disappearFOR ANOTHER REASON. This experience with Z reminded me of a certain way of approaching Beauty that enables you even to find it in what appears dirty and ugly to the common vision. It is She trying to express herself in this something which to the common vision is ugly, dirty, hypocritical. But of course, if you yourself have striven assiduously and have greatly held yourself in, then you look at it reprovingly.
From my earliest childhood, instinctively, I have never felt the slightest contempt or how should I say (well, well! I was thinking in English) shrinking or disapproval, severe criticism or disgust for the things people call vice.
--
How strange it is! You have the feeling of ascending, of a progress in consciousness, and everything, all the events and circumstances of life follow one another with an unquestioning logic. You see the Divine Will unfolding with a wonderful logic. Then, from time to time, there appears a little set of circumstances (either isolated or repeated), which are like snags on the way; you cant explain them, so you put them aside for later on. Some such accidents have been quite significant, but they dont seem to follow this ascending line of the present individuality. Theyre scattered along the way, sometimes repeated, sometimes only once, and then they vanish. And when you go through such an experience, you sense that they are things put aside for later on. And then, all of a sudden (especially during these last two years when I have again descended to take all that up), all of a sudden, one after another, all these snags return. And they dont follow the same curve; rather, its as if suddenly you reach a certain state and a certain impersonal breadth that far surpasses the individual, and this new state enters into contact with one of those old accidents that had remained in the deepest part of the subconscientand that makes it rise up again, the two meet in an explosion of light. Everything is explained, everything is understood, everything is clear! No explanation is needed: it has become OBVIOUS.
This is entirely another way of understandingits not an ascent, not even a descent nor an inspiration it must be what Sri Aurobindo calls a revelation. Its the meeting of this subconscious notationthis something which has remained buried within, held down so as not to manifest, but which suddenly surges forth to meet the light streaming down from above, this very vast state of consciousness that excludes nothing and from it springs forth a lightoh, a resplendence of light!like a new explanation of the world, or of that part of the world not yet explained.
--
These things are like landmarks along the ascending path: you go forward step by step, and sometimes its painful, sometimes joyful, or with a certain amount of toil that bears witness still to the presence of the personality or the individuality and its limitations (the Questions and Answers are full of this)but the other thing is different, completely different: the other thing is an overflowing joy, and not only the joy of knowing but the joy of BEING. An overflowing joy.2
There, my child.
0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
certainly, we CAN be heard. So far I never said anything. It even surprised me, for I had never paid it any attention, I was quite away from all that: its raining?so what, its raining, it happens. Its not raining?so what, its not raining, its the same thing. And then gradually people started mentioning that should it continue, they wouldnt be able to do their exercises, and they wouldnt be ready for December 2.1 Then I started receiving desperate lettersone person even told me he was doing his puja underwater! So I answered by saying, Take it as the Lords blessing but Im not sure he appreciated it! And then I learned that 200 houses [in the Ashram]200!are leaking. Naturally, each one is in a great hurryits terribly urgent! So perhaps I shall file a complaint and ask them what they mean by this!
Actually, if communications are interrupted, it can be troublesome Let us see.
--
Theres a certain sensibility which makes any increase in humidity felt. Before it starts raining, even several hours before, it feels like there are drops falling on my body. I can always say when its going to rain. Its entirely physical, actually, merely a heightened sensitivity. It feels like very tiny drops (you know, like drizzle), the feeling of a very fine spray falling on the body. And yet the sky is clear; I say, Hmm, its going to rain. And it rains I felt it. I feel the water, and it never fails to come a few hours later.
(silence)
--
He wrote this in a letter, I believe, and he spoke of this system of compensation for example, those who take an illness on themselves in order to have the power to cure; and then theres the symbolic story of Christ dying on the cross to set men free. And Sri Aurobindo said, Thats fine for a certain age, but we must now go beyond that. As he told me (its even one of the first things he told me), We are no longer at the time of Christ when, to be victorious, it was necessary to die.
I have always remembered this.
0 1960-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So I understood that this must correspond to a certain realm of experience; I understood all those who say, If it has to be like this, if it can never be otherwise, then (this opposition, this abyss between a TRUE life, a TRUE consciousness, a TRUE activity, something living, powerful, fulfilling and life as it now is), if there must always be this difference between the physical expression as it is or as it can be in the present circumstances, and the true life, then For if despite everythingdespite this tremendous distance Ive covered in my life (these memories go back more than sixty years) and all the evolutionary effort upwards I have made since that time IN MATTER (Im not speaking of leaving Matter behind, but IN MATTER, IN action)if that doesnt further reduce this gap between the true consciousness and the possible material realization, then I understand I understand why people say, Its hopeless. (Of course, this hopeless is meaningless to me.)
But I (how can I put this?) I lived their experience, I lived it; and even events which seem quite extraordinary when seen from afar, which is the way they appear to most people, even historical things which have furthered the earths transformation and its upheavals the crucial events, the great works, you might sayare woven from the SAME fabric, they are the SAME thing! When you look at all this from afar, on the whole it can make an impression, but the life of each minute, of each hour, of each second is woven from this SAME fabric, drab, dull, insipid, WITHOUT ANY TRUE LIFEa mere reflection of life, an illusion of lifepowerless, void of any light or anything that resembles joy in the least. Oh! if it has always to remain like that, then we dont want any of it.
--
While it was all coming up, I thought, How is this possible? For during those years of my life (Im now outside things; I do them but Im entirely outside, so they dont involve mewhether its like this or like that makes no difference to me; Im only doing my work, thats all), I was already conscious, but nevertheless I was IN what I was doing to a certain extent; I was this web of social life (but thank God it wasnt here in India, for had it been here I could not have withstood it! I think that even as a child I would have smashed everything, because here its even worse than over there). You see, there its its a bit less constricting, a bit looser, you can slip through the mesh from time to time to brea the some air. But here, according to what Ive learned from people and what Sri Aurobindo told me, its absolutely unbearable (its the same in Japan, absolutely unbearable). In other words, you cant help but smash everything. Over there, you sometimes get a breath of air, but still its quite relative. And this morning I wondered (you see, for years I lived in that way for years and years) just as I was wondering, How was I ABLE to live that and not kick out in every direction?, just as I was looking at it, I saw up above, above this (it is worse than horrible, it is a kind of Oh, not despair, for there isnt even any sense of feeling there is NOTHING! It is dull, dull, dull gray, gray, gray, clenched tight, a closed web that lets through neither air nor life nor lightthere is nothing) and just then I saw a splendor of such sweet light above itso sweet, so full of true love, true compassion something so warm, so warm the relief, the solace of an eternity of sweetness, light, beauty, in an eternity of patience which feels neither the past nor the inanity and imbecility of thingsit was so wonderful! That was entirely the feeling it gave, and I said to myself, THAT is what made you live, without THAT it would not have been possible. Oh, it would not have been possible I would not have lived even three days! THAT is there, ALWAYS there, awaiting its hour, if we would only let it in.
(silence)
0 1960-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Not last night but the night before, I touched at least one of the causes (at that time it felt like THE cause) of a certain powerlessness to act directly on Matter You see, when the Will and the Power come, they are extremely effective everywhere UP TO A certain REGION (in other words, whether people are receptive or not, open or not, makes no differencewhen the Will is applied it is all-powerful UP TO a certain region) but once it arrives here, at the most material material, its efficacy depends on many thingsand a power which depends on something is no power! For a long, long time I have been searching for the reasons behind this powerlessness. Ive located a few, one after another, and upon these points there was an immediate effect. But some things resisted (oh, quite a number, in a number of ways), for example it had difficulty acting on illnesses, on the cells, on doubt (not mental doubt, but rather the doubt of the physical consciousness which cant accept certain things that seem impossible to itwhat Sri Aurobindo calls disbelief,1 not a mental doubt, but the disbelief of the physical consciousness which cant accept what is contrary to its own nature and its own working). And as for illnesses, sometimes it has an immediate effect, but sometimes it drags on and has to follow its so-called normal course. On all these three points, I clearly felt that something was hampering it. These are the Enemys strongholds; all that doesnt want the Divine seizes upon it and even the working of the Power coming from above is obstructed, for when it must work here in the body, it is stopped or deformed or altered or diminished.
All this goes on in the subconscient; these are things that were pushed out of the physical consciousness down into the subconscient, so theyre there and they come back up whenever they please.
--
Once or twice I heard certain things about him and I told him (for I told him all I saw or heard), and I said that I was that these suggestions were coming from the Enemy and that I was violently fighting against them. Then he looked at metwicehe looked at me, nodded his head and smiled. And thats all. Nothing more was said. How strange! I thought. And thats all. Then I myself must have forgotten. You see, he wanted me to forget.
I only remembered afterwards.
--
And then, at the same time, some rather interesting things are happening. Imagine, X is starting to understand certain things that is, in his own way he is discovering the progress I am making; hes discovering it as a received teaching (through subtle channels). He wrote a letter to Amrita two or three days ago in which he translates in his own language, with his own words and his own way of speaking, exactly my most recent experiencesthings that I have conquered in a general way.
This interests me, for these things do not at all enter through the mind (he doesnt receive a thing there, hes closed there). So in his letter he says that this thing or that is necessary (he describes it in his own words), and he adds, This is why we must be so grateful to have among us the the great Mother7 (as he puts it), the great Mother who knows these things.Good! I said to myself. (It had to do with something specific concerning the capacity for discrimination in the outside world, the different qualities and different functions of different beings, all of which depends on ones inner construction, as it were.) So I see that even this, even these physical experiences, is received (and yet I hadnt tried, I had never tried to make him receive it); it merely works like this, you see (gesture of a widespread diffusion), and the experience is veryhow should I say?drastic, with a kind of (power of radiation). Imperative.
0 1960-12-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Even stones are beautiful; they are always beautiful in one way or another. When life appeared, there were some forms that were a little difficult, but not to that extent, not like certain human mental creations. Of course, there may have been some animal species which were rather but they were more monstrous than actually ugly. And most probably, it only seems like that to our consciousness. But the mind And its the same for all these ideas of sin, of wrong, of all thatits a falsehood. But it was man who invented falsehood, wasnt it? The mind invented falsehood: to deceive! to deceive! And its a curious fact that animals domesticated by man have also learned to lie!
The curve
--
This realm that Im now investigating, oh! I spend whole nights visiting certain places, and there I meet people I know here materially [in the Ashram]. So many are PERFECTLY satisfied with their their infirmities, their incapacities, their ugliness, their powerlessness.
And they protest when you want them to change!
0 1960-12-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I dont know what all she did, but she prayed to him to bring me money. She fixed a certain sum. And on Christmas Eve, exactly this sum was given to me! And it was a large sum, several thousand rupees. Exactly the amount she had specified. And it came on that very day in quite an unexpected way.
I found it very interesting.
--
If I could only note all this down Its been so interesting all morning, right from the starton the balcony, then upstairs while walking for my japa! And it was on this same theme (experience of the speck of dust) This habit people have (especially in India, but more or less everywhere among those who have a religious nature), this habit of doing all things religious with respect and compunction and no mixing of things, above all there should be no mixing; in some circumstances, at certain times, you MUST NOT think of God, for then it would be a kind of blasphemy.
Theres the religious attitude, and then theres ordinary life where people do thingsworking, living, eating, enjoying life; they regard these as the essentials, and as for the rest, well, when theres time they think about it. But what Sri Aurobindo brought down, precisely I remember at Tlemcen, Theon used to say that there was a whole world of things, such as eating, for example, or taking care of your body, that should be done automatically, without giving it any importanceits not the time to think of things divine.(!) Thats what he preached. So you have the religious attitude of all the religious types, and then ordinary life I found both of them equally unsatisfactory. Then I came here and told Sri Aurobindo my feeling; I said that if someone is truly in union with the Divine, it CANNOT change no matter what he does (the quality of what youre doing may change, but the union cant change no matter what youre doing). And when he said that this was the truth, I felt a relief. And that feeling has stayed with me all through my life.
0 1961-01-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But as its all-powerful, a certain receptivity must be prepared on earth so its effects are not devastating. Sri Aurobindo has explained it in one of his letters. Someone asked him, Why doesnt this Love come now?, and he replied something like this: If divine Love in its essence were to manifest on earth, it would be like an explosion; for the earth is not supple enough or receptive enough to widen to the measure of this Love. The earth must not only open itself but become wide and supple. Matternot just physical Matter, but the substance of the physical consciousness as wellis still much too rigid.
***
0 1961-01-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When we enter a certain state of consciousness, we plainly see that we are capable of anything and that ultimately there is no sin not potentially our own. Is this impression correct? And yet certain things make us rebel or disgust us. We always reach some inadmissible point. Why? What is the true, effective attitude when confronted with Evil?
There is no sin not our own.
You have this experience when for some reason or other, depending on the case, you come into contact with the universal consciousness not in its limitless essence but on any level of Matter. There is an atomic consciousness, a purely material consciousness and an even more generally prevailing psychological consciousness. When, through interiorization or a sort of withdrawal from the ego you enter into contact with that zone of consciousness we can call psychological terrestrial or human collective (there is a difference: human collective is restricted, while terrestrial includes many animal and even plant vibrations; but in the present case, since the moral notion of guilt, sin and evil belongs exclusively to human consciousness, let us simply say human collective psychological consciousness); when you contact that through identification, you naturally feel or see or know yourself capable of any human movement whatsoever. To some extent, this constitutes a Truth-Consciousness, or at such times the egoistical sense of what does or doesnt belong to you, of what you can or cannot do, disappears; you realize that the fundamental construction of human consciousness makes any human being capable of doing anything. And since you are in a truth-consciousness, you are aware at the same time that to feel judgmental or disgusted or revolted would be an absurdity, for EVERYTHING is potentially there inside you. And should you happen to be penetrated by certain currents of force (which we usually cant follow: we see them come and go but we are generally unaware of their origin and direction), if any one of these currents penetrates you, it can make you do anything.
If one always remained in this state of consciousness, keeping alive the flame of Agni, the flame of purification and progress, then after some time, not only could one prevent these movements from taking an active form in oneself and becoming expressed physically, but one could act upon the very nature of the movement and transform it. Needless to say, however, that unless one has attained a very high degree of realization it is virtually impossible to keep this state of consciousness for long. Almost immediately one falls back into the egoistic consciousness of the separate self, and all the difficulties return: disgust, the revolt against certain things and the horror they create in us, and so on.
It is probableeven certain that until one is completely transformed these movements of disgust and revolt are necessary to make one do WITHIN ONESELF what is needed to slam the door on them. For after all, the point is to not let them manifest.
In another aphorism, Sri Aurobindo says (I no longer recall his exact words) that sin is simply something no longer in its place. In this perpetual Becoming nothing is ever reproduced and some things disappear, so to speak, into the past; and when its time for them to disappear, they seemto our very limited consciousness evil and repulsive: we revolt against them because their time is past.
But if we had the vision of the whole, if we were able to contain past, present and future simultaneously (as it is somewhere up above), then we would see how relative these things are and that its mainly the progressing evolutionary Force which gives us this will to reject; yet when these things still had their place, they were quite tolerable. However, to have this experience in a practical sense is impossible unless we have a total vision the vision that is the Supremes alone! Therefore, one must first identify with the Supreme, and then, keeping this identification, one can return to a consciousness sufficiently externalized to see things as they really are. But thats the principle, and in so far as we are able to realize it, we reach a state of consciousness where we can look at all things with the smile of a complete certainty that everything is exactly as it should be.
Of course, people who dont think deeply enough will say, Oh, but if we see that things are exactly as they should be, then nothing will budge. But no! There isnt a fraction of a second when things arent moving: theres a continuous and total transformation, a movement that never stops. Only because its difficult for us to feel that way can we imagine that by our entering certain states of consciousness things would not change. Even if we entered into an apparently total inertia, things would continue to change and we along with them!
Ultimately, disgust, rebellion and anger, all movements of violence, are necessarily movements of ignorance and of limitation with all the weakness that limitation implies. Rebellion is a weakness, for its the feeling of an impotent will. When you feel, when you see that things are not as they should be, then you rebel against whatever is out of keeping with your vision. But if you were all-powerful, if your will and your vision were all-powerful, there would be no opportunity to rebel! You would always see that all things are as they should be! That is omnipotence.1 Then all these movements of violence become not only useless but profoundly ridiculous.
0 1961-01-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But actually, there are really two quite different forms of self-deception. One can be very shocked by certain things, not for personal reasons but precisely because of ones goodwill and ardor to serve the Divine, when one sees people misconducting themselves, being egoistical, unfaithful, treacherous. There comes a stage when one has mastered these things and doesnt permit them to manifest IN ONESELF; but to the extent that one is in contact with ordinary consciousness, ordinary viewpoints, ordinary life and thought, their possibility is still there, latent, because they are the inverse of the qualities one is striving for. And this opposition always exists until one has risen above and no longer has either the quality or the defect. As long as one has virtue, one always has its latent opposite. The opposition disappears only when one is beyond virtue and sin.
But until then, there is this kind of indignation stemming from the fact that one is not entirely above: its a period when one totally disapproves of certain things and would be incapable of doing them. And up to this point, there is nothing to say, unless one gives an external, violent expression to his indignation. If anger interferes, it indicates an entire contradiction between the feeling one wants to have and this reaction towards others. Because anger is a deformation of vital power originating from an obscure and thoroughly unregenerate vital,1 a vital still subject to all the ordinary actions and reactions. When an ignorant, egoistic individual will exploits this vital power and encounters opposition from other individual wills around it, then under the pressure of opposition this power changes into anger and tries to obtain through violence what could not be achieved by the pressure of the Force alone.
Anger, moreover, like all forms of violence, is always a sign of weakness, impotence and incapacity. Here the deception comes from the approval one gives it or the flattering adjective one covers it with; for rage can be no more than blind, ignorant and asuricopposed to the light.
0 1961-01-19, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No. Its purely physical. Its because people. When I came down, I felt fine. Only they kept me standing there, on and on. When I am seated, its all right; but beyond a certain point, speaking also becomes difficult.
***
0 1961-01-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then yesterday afternoon, when I went upstairs to walk,1 a couple of things occurrednot personal, but of a general natureconcerning, for instance, certain old-fashioned conventions having to do with women and their particular nature (not psychological, physical)old ideas like that which had always seemed utterly stupid to me suddenly provoked a kind of reprobation completely out of proportion to the fact itself. Then one or two other things2 happened in regard to certain people, certain circumstances (nothing to do with me personally: it came from here and there). Then suddenly, I saw a Force coming (coming, well, manifesting) which was the same as that thing I had felt within me but even bigger; it began whirling upon the earth and within circumstances oh, like a cyclone of compact power moving forward with the intention of changing all this! It had to change. At all costs, it must change!
I was above, as usual (Mother points above her head, indicating the higher consciousness), and I looked at that (Mother bends over, as if looking down at the earth), and said to myself, Hmm, this is getting dangerous. If it continues like this, it will result in in a war or a revolution or some catastrophea tidal wave or an earthquake. So I tried to counteract it by applying the highest consciousness to it, that of a perfect serenity. And I saw especially that this consciousness has been missioned to transform the earth through the Supermind and by the supramental Force, avoiding all catastrophes as far as possible: the Work is to be done as luminously and harmoniously as the earth would allow, even by going at a slower pace if need be. That was the idea. And I tried to counteract that whirlwind power with this consciousness.
--
It remained like that for a certain time (I knew it was a quarter of an hour because the clock chimed), but it was completely outside time. It was an eternity.
Then, with the same precision, the same calm, the same deliberate, clear and concentrated consciousness (absolutely NOTHING MENTAL), I began to come back down. And as I was descending, I realized that all the difficulty I had been fighting the other day and which had created this illness was absolutely ended, ANNULLEDmastered. Actually, it was not even mastery but the non-existence of anything to be mastered: Simply THE vibration from top to bottom; yet there was neither high nor low nor any direction.
--
In the body now, there is a very clear not only a certitude, but a feeling that a certain omnipotence is not far away, and that very soon when it sees (it sees it! There is only one It in this whole affair, which is neither he nor she nor), when it sees that something must be, it automatically will be.
There is still a long, long way to go. But the first step on the way has been taken.
--
We think these people are the way they are because the environment is bad, the education is poor, the conditions are difficultits not true! In the universal economy of things they REPRESENT something, a certain type of force and vibration. It will have to be either dissolved or transformed. Transformed? But perhaps that is. It may disappear along with the hostile forces. Perhaps once everything has been transformed it will disappear I dont know when.
In any case, I really tried my best, with all the power I had, all the knowledge I had, because I liked this girl a lot, it wasnt at all a question of charity, I found her very interesting. But I watchedwith a kind of horror, reallyas this past repossessed her more and more, more and more each day, until we were finally obliged to dismiss her, to tell her, Go. Yes, I understand, she replied, I cant stay here.
--
Satprem later asked Mother what she meant by these 'things,' and Mother replied: 'For example, there was a certain man's attitude with respect to life and to the Divine, and what he thought of himself, and so forth. You see, what came was a whole range of characters and one particular action of one man, and then something else came up.... How to explain? ... These are POINTS OF WORK which come to me, things that present themselves in the atmosphere for me to seethings I see and which have to be acted upon.'
A few days later, Mother rectified: 'I have looked at the experience again and realized that it's not Vedic but pre-Vedic. The experience put me into contact with a civilization prior to the Vedas the Rishis and the Vedas are a kind of transition between that vanished civilization and the Indian civilization which grew out of the Vedic Age. It was yesterday [January 26] that I perceived this, and it was quite interesting.'
0 1961-01-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(On the moralistic reactions of someone who thought that certain acts 'angered' God:)
They are only too eager to believe that God can get angry with them! I try to dispel this notion as much as I can, because its not trueit isnt true.
--
It was about the Word, the primal sound. Sri Aurobindo speaks of it in Savitri: the essence of the Word and how it will express itself, how it will bring in the possibility of a supramental expression that will take the place of languages. I began by speaking to him about the different languages, their limitations and possibilities; and I warned him against the deformations imposed on languages with the idea of making them a more flexible means of expressing something else. I told him how completely ridiculous it all was, and that it didnt correspond at all to the truth. Then little by little I began ascending to the Origin. So yesterday again, I had this same experience: a whole world of knowledge, of consciousness and of certainTYprecluding the least possibility of contradiction, discussion, or opposition; the possibility DOES NOT EXIST, it doesnt exist. And the mind was absolutely silent and immobile, listening with obvious pleasure because these things had never before come into my consciousness; I had never been concerned with them in that way. It was completely newnot new in principle but completely new in action.
The experiences are multiplying.
--
Oh, another little example. You know those photos I distributed on the 21st for the Saraswati Puja) Amrita told me he was going to send them to X,1 I but I told him, No, dont bother. (The 21st was a terrible day for me. All the dasyus of the world were in league against me, trying to stop me I understood this afterwards, when I saw those things.2 So thats what it is! I said to myself, Thats what has been going on!) Then after the night of the 24th, I went down for balcony-darshan3 with such a foursquare certaintyyou know, cubic: such a cubic certainty and I said to Amrita, You can send him those photos today, without an explanation, without a word, with nothing but a feeling of certainty, a kind of definite and absolute THATS HOW IT IS.
And that is a change, truly a change.
0 1961-01-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But otherwise. Some of the things you note down I just put away. But some I show to Nolini (of them all, Nolini is the one who can best understand). I give him certain things to read, but otherwise, no. It is completely different between us, as I told you completely different. If you benefit from it, so much the better! If it helps you in your inner development, good, I have no objectionon the contrary. Its quite natural, the natural consequence of our meetings.
But if while speaking with Sujata you feel that something might help her, I have no objection to your telling hersimply say that its between the two of you.
0 1961-01-31, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This ought to be noted down, because its important. It has seemed all the more important to me these last two days. Beginning yesterday evening, there was a whole series of experiences, and this morning I came to a certain conclusion, whose starting point, I realized, was that experience I had upon coming out of trance.
The rest will come later.
--
(A little later, concerning the Saraswati Puja photos that Mother first refused to send to X on the 21st, then decided to send on the 25th, with a kind of imperative cubic certainty.)
X has replied. He said something like this, which Amrita translated: I have received the photos. It is a I dont know whether he said illumination or flame, ascending towards the Truth, leading towards the Truth. Thats the impression it gave him: that it was leading somewhere.
--
Now I have begun reading those hymns2. Oh, now I understand! All those obstacles were a preparation straight from Sri Aurobindo. Now I understand! (What I mean by understand is that its a help for making progress.) I understand the nature of certain obstructions and certain difficulties, and what allows certain forces to oppose each other I understand it quite clearly.
I have read only two hymns so far. By the time I reach the end I will probably have found something.
--
It is striking that Mother's body-experiences very often parallel recent theories of modern physics, as if mathematical equations were the means of formulating in human language certain complex phenomena, remote from our day to day reality, which Mother was living spontaneously in her bodyperhaps 'at the speed of light.'
***
0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For Sri Aurobindo, the important thing was always the Mother. As he explained it, the Mother has several aspects, and certain aspects are still unmanifest. So if he has represented the Mother by Kali in particular, I believe its in relation to all those gods. Because, as he wrote in The Mother, the aspects to be manifested depend upon the time, the need, the thing to be done. And he always said that unless one understands and profoundly feels the aspect of Kali, one can never really participate in the Work in the worldhe felt that a sort of timid weakness makes people recoil before this terrible aspect.
***
--
You see, theres a curious fluctuation possibly indicating that your dream is part of the present attack which continues with such violence. The night before last, between midnight and half-past, there was a formidable attack. When I emerged from it, I felt that something had lifted, a victory had been won and that the bodys condition had improved. It happens like that, the horizon clears and this certainty comes with. (The presence is always hereSri Aurobindo and I are together almost every night but the night when I saw that formation, the illness spell over the Ashram, Sri Aurobindo was quite sick in his bed, just as I saw him in 1950.) So when it lifts, all is well: once again there is harmony, there is joy, there is force and again the whole thing continues, the effort continues, consciously. Yet there is a kind of fluctuation: it will go on like that for a few moments or a few hours and then suddenly everything becomes muddled again and I am beset by a fatigue. A fatigue which is I cant say almost unbearable, because nothing in the consciousness feels it to be unbearable but it makes me like this (Mother clenches her fist tightly in a tension to hold on).
For example, at five-thirty in the evening, after Ive spent an hour and a half here with people, its a labor to climb the stairs; and by the time I get upstairs, I feel strained to the breaking point. Then I begin to walk (I dont stop, I dont rest), I immediately begin to walk with my japa, and within half an hour, pfft! it has lifted.
--
Yet I havent the slightest impression that the horizon is blockedyou know, that the end is at hand, that the condition has to be changed and the Work begin again on another plane and in another way; in other words, that everything attempted so far would have been only a preparation for for later. I still dont have that feeling. If I ever do, I will say, Very well, thats quite all right with me, but I dont have this feeling. Will I ever have it? I dont knowusually (laughing), I know these things! For instance, I know for certain when someone is going to die, even before theres the least indication. So.
In the present case, of course, the body is always saying, I am ready for everything I will do anything at all; yet I still cant say that it has this. Its trying to be completely pure according to the spiritual conceptit doesnt sense its separate personality. More and more, year after year, it has been striving to feel only the divine Presence, the divine Life, the divine Force and the divine Will, all within itself; and to feel that without them it is nothing, it doesnt exist. This is fully realized in its consciousness (the conscious part). In the subconscient and inconscient,5 obviously it is not realized otherwise, logically, it shouldnt be ill.
--
I certainly hope not!
Yes, the grain of rice rather makes me think otherwise that it comes from that quarter.
--
I know for certain that if I can keep going until 1964, then. That isnt long, but it will be dangerous until 1964. Its these years in particular: 61, 62 63 is better, 64 is decidedly better, and from 1965, we should be on the safe side.
But truly speaking, the minute one completely emerges from the ordinary mind, NO EXTERIOR SIGN IS A PROOF, absolutely none. There is absolutely no standard to go byneither splendid good health nor good equilibrium, nor an almost general disorganizationnone of these. All depends exclusivelyexclusivelyon what the Lord has decided. Exclusively. Consequently, if one remains very quiet, one is sure to know what He has decided.
--
A recentand unifying (!)theory postulated by the American Nobel Laureate, Murray Gell-Mann, would reduce this somewhat startling enumeration to more reasonable proportions through the introduction of a unique sub-particle constituting all matter: the quark. Nevertheless, there would still exist several kinds of quarks (e.g., 'strange,' 'charmed,' 'colored' in red, yellow and blue) for accommodating the various qualities of matter. A proton, for example, would consist of three quarks: red, yellow and blue. However, it should be noted that quarks are basically mathematical intermediaries to facilitate the comprehension or interpretation of certain experiments thus far unexplained. Moreover, the simple question still remains, even if they do exist materially: 'What are quarks made of?'
Nevertheless, a mathematical model resulting from a recent theory that attempts to represent our material universe strangely resembles Mother's perception, for it postulates a milieu consisting entirely of electromagnetic waves of very high frequency. According to this theory, Matter itself is the 'coagulation' of these waves at the moment they exceed a certain frequency threshold; our perception of emptiness, of fullness, of the hard or the transparent, being finally due only to the differences in vibratory frequencies'vibratory modes within the same thing.'
But what is this 'same thing'?
0 1961-02-14, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo wants to make the distinction between the progressive soul (the soul which has experiences and progresses from life to life), what can be called the lower soul, and the higher soul, that is, the eternal, immutable and divine soulessentially divine. He wrote this when he was in contact with certain Theosophical writings, before I introduced Theons vocabulary to him. For Theon, there is the divine center which is the eternal soul, and the psychic being; similarly, to avoid using the same word in both cases, Sri Aurobindo speaks in later writings of the psychic being and of the divine center or central being the essential soul.
What if we translate it la partie suprieure de lme, [the higher part of the soul], rather than me suprieure?
0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It has given the physical consciousness a certain self-confidence in the sense that when I see something now, I am sure of it, there are no hesitations: Is this right or not? Is this true, is this.All that has vanishedwhen I see, there is certainty. That is, there has really been a great change in the material CONSCIOUSNESS; but that formidable power is not there. I tell you, had that power stayed here, had I remained constantly as I was during those hours that night, well, many things would obviously have changed.
All this must be a preparation; there is a lot to be cleared out before the experience can be firmly established. Thats logical, it is quite natural.
--
Sri Aurobindo had made certain statements about me in those letters, and Z deleted them. (Anyway, it makes no difference for your book, because Im not at all keen on having any statements about me published.)
But Z is not honest. He hasnt been honest at all. We were forced to intervene once or twice because his deletions distorted the meaning. We finally told him (for the book published here), We wont publish it unless you restore these things.
0 1961-02-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I replied very briefly in English. I havent brought my answer with me, but I can tell you right away that there are two signstwo certain, infallible signs. I know them through personal experience, for they are two things that can ONLY come with the supramental consciousness; without it, one cannot possess themno yogic effort, no discipline, no tapasya can give them to you, while they come almost automatically with the supramental consciousness.
The first sign is perfect equality as Sri Aurobindo has described it (you must know it, theres a whole chapter on equality, samat, in The Synthesis of Yoga)exactly as he described it with such wonderful precision! But this equality (which is not equanimity) is a particular STATE where one relates to all things, outer and inner, and to each individual thing, in the same way. That is truly perfect equality: vibrations from things, from people, from contacts have no power to alter that state.
--
The second sign is a sense of ABSOLUTENESS in knowledge. As I have already told you, I had this with my experience of January 24. This state CANNOT be obtained through any region of the mind, even the most illumined and exalted. Its not a certainty, its (Mother lowers both hands like an irresistible block descending), a kind of absoluteness, without even any possibility of hesitation (theres no question of doubt), or anything like that. Without (how to say it ?). All mental knowledge, even the highest, is a conclusive knowledge, as it were: it comes as a conclusion of something elsean intuition, for instance (an intuition gives you a particular knowledge, and this knowledge is like the conclusion of the intuition). Even revelations are conclusions. Theyre all conclusions the word conclusion comes to me, but I dont know how to express it. This isnt the case, however, with the supramental experiencea kind of absolute. The feeling it gives is altogether uniquefar beyond certainty, it is (Mother again makes the same irresistible gesture) it is a FACT, things are FACTS. It is very, very difficult to explain. But with that one naturally has a complete power the two things always go together. (In my reply to this man I didnt speak of power because the power is almost a consequence and I didnt want to speak of consequences.) But the fact remains: a kind of absoluteness in knowledge springing from identityone is the thing one knows and experiences: one is it. One knows it because one is it.
When these two signs are present (both are necessary, one is incomplete without the other), when a person possesses both, then you can be sure he has been in contact with the Supermind. So people who speak about receiving the Light well, (laughing) its a lot of hot air! But when both signs are present, you can be sure of your perception.12
--
Even in this, right now, in what I am saying, theres a sense of tapasya; theres the whole inner consciousness making the body do a tapasya. But my knowledge and my certainty (what I KNOW) is that it may be a necessary preparation, but it is NOT what accomplishes the work.15 Rather, it is something acting like that (Mother abruptly turns her hand over to indicate a reversal of states). And when it goes like that, it is done, all is done. All is done.
Are these disorders necessary for it to become like that? I have my doubts. I have my doubts. But the question cant even be asked, because what it implies seems to verge on a fatalism having no truth in itselfit is not a fatalism, not at all. What is it? Something that defies expression.
--
Even the body, the body itself, has the constant perception of bathing in the vibration of the CONCRETE divine Presence; so certainly from a psychological standpoint there is not the slightest shadow in the picture. Even from the material standpoint, this Presence is here. Yet although it is here, felt, perceived and experienced, there is still this disorder! (I call it disorder.)
(long silence)
--
Its a curious thing speaking evidently helps me follow the experience. But I cant just begin speaking all alone up in my room! And talking to a tape recorder is useless. Up to now, it certainly flows the best with youby far. I havent tried with others, although occasionally Ive said something to Nolini, but his receptivity is fuzzy (I dont know whether you can understand this impression: its as though my. words were going into cotton-wool). Once, as I told you, I spoke with R., and with him I felt that three quarters of it was absolutely lostand as a matter of fact it was. But with you I begin to SEE, and the need to formulate makes me concentrate on my vision. And this I experience with you more than I ever have with anyone. So.
So you are bearing the consequences!
--
2) An absolute certainty in knowledge.
To be perfect, the equality must be invariable and spontaneous, effortless, towards all circumstances, all happenings, all contacts, material or psychological, irrespective of their character and impact.
The absolute and indisputable certainty of an infallible knowledge through identity.
Mother then made the following commentary regarding the 'impact' of circumstances, happenings, etc.:
0 1961-03-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I knew when I caught it: it was at the Playground.4 certain people poisoned me with a mosquito bite the instant the mosquito bit me, I knew, because it so happens I am a little bit conscious! But I controlled it like this (gesture of holding the disease in abeyance and under control), so it couldnt stir. Probably it would never have stirred if I hadnt had that experience of January 24 and the body didnt need to be made ready. For the body to be ready, a host of things belonging to the dasyus, as the Vedas say, cant be stored inside it! These are very nasty little dasyus (laughing), they have to be chased away!
When the disease came back, I said to myself, Very well, this means it must be dealt with in a new way.
0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
From an historical viewpoint (not psychological, but historical), based on my memories (only I cant prove it, nothing can be proved, and I dont believe any truly historical proof has come down to usor in any case, it hasnt been found yet), but according to my memories. (Mother shuts her eyes as if she were going off in search of her memories; she will speak all the rest of the time with eyes closed.) certainly at one period of the earths history there was a kind of earthly paradise, in the sense that there was a perfectly harmonious and perfectly natural life: the manifestation of Mind was in accordwas STILL in complete accord and in total harmony with the ascending march of Nature, without perversion or deformation. This was the first stage of Minds manifestation in material forms.
How long did it last? Its hard to say. But for man it was a life like a sort of flowering of animal life. My memory is of a life where the body was perfectly adapted to its natural surroundings. The climate was in harmony with the needs of the body, the body with the demands of the climate. Life was wholly spontaneous and natural, as a more luminous and conscious animal life would be, with absolutely none of the complications and deformations brought in later by the mind as it developed.
--
It was certainly with the progress of evolution, the march of evolution, when the mind began to develop for and in itself, that ALL the complications, all the deformations began. Indeed, this story of Genesis that seems so childish does contain a truth. The old traditions like Genesis resembled the Vedas in that each letter6 was the symbol of a knowledge; it was the pictorial rsum of a traditional knowledge, just as the Veda contains a pictoral rsum of the knowledge of its time. But whats more, even the symbol had a reality in the sense that there was truly a period when life upon earth (the first manifestation of mentalized Matter in human forms) was still in complete harmony with all that preceded it. It was only later that.
The tree of knowledge symbolizes this kind of knowledge a material knowledge, no longer divine because its origin was the sense of division and this is what began to spoil everything. How long did this period last? I am unable to say. (Because my recollection is of an almost immortal life; it seems that it was through some sort of evolutionary accident that the destruction of forms became necessary for progress.) And where did it take place? From certain impressions (but these are only impressions), it would seem that it was in the vicinity of either this side of Ceylon and India or the other, I dont know exactly (Mother indicates the Indian Ocean either west of Ceylon and India or to the east between Ceylon and Java), although certainly the place no longer exists; it must have been swallowed up by the sea. I have a very clear vision of the place and a consciousness of that life and its forms, but I cant give precise material details. Did it last for centuries, was it ? I dont know. To tell the truth, when I was reliving those moments I wasnt curious about such details (for one is in another mental state where there is no curiosity about material details: all things turn into psychological facts). It was something so simple, luminous, harmonious, far removed from all our usual preoccupationsthose very preoccupations with time and space. It was a spontaneous life, extremely beautiful, and so close to Naturea natural flowering of animal life. There were no oppositions or contradictions, nothing of the kindeverything happened in the best way possible.
(silence)
A similar memory has recurred several times under different circumstancesnot exactly the same scene and the same images, because it wasnt something I was seeing but A LIFE I was living. During a certain period, at any time, night or day, I would experience a particular state of trance in which I was rediscovering a life I had lived. I was fully conscious that this life had to do with the first flowering of the human form upon earth, the first human forms able to incarnate the divine being from above. This was the first time I could manifest in a particular terrestrial form (not a general life but an individual form); that is, for the first time, through the mentalization of this material substance, the junction between the higher Being and the lower being was made. I have lived that several times, and always in a similar setting and with quite a similar feeling of such joyous simplicity, without complexity, without problems, without all these questions. It was the blossoming of a joy of lifenothing but that; love and harmony prevailed: flowers, minerals, animals all got along together perfectly.
Things began to go wrong only a LONG time afterwards, long after (but this is a personal impression), probably because certain mental crystallizations were necessary, inevitable, for the general evolution, so that the mind might prepare itself to move on to something else. That was when oh, it seems like a fall into a pitinto ugliness, darkness! Everything became so dark, so ugly, so difficult, so painful. Really really the sense of a fall.
(silence)
--
Probably no, not probably, its absolutely certain that this was necessary for kneading matter, churning it, to prepare it to receive THAT, the new thing yet to manifest.
Matter was very simple and very harmonious and very luminous not complex enough. This complexity is what ruined everything, but it will lead to an INFINITELY more conscious realizationinfinitely more conscious. And when the earth again becomes as harmonious, simple, luminous, puresimple, pure, purely divine then, with this complexity added, something can be achieved.
--
It doesnt matter. Fundamentally, it doesnt matter. Yesterday, while I was walking I was walking in a kind of universe that was EXCLUSIVELY the Divineit could be touched, felt: it was within, without, everywhere. For three-quarters of an hour, NOTHING but that, everywhere. Well, I can assure you, at that moment there were certainly no more problems! And what simplicitynothing to think about, nothing to want, nothing to decide: to BE, be, be! (Mother seems to dance) To be in the infinite complexity of a perfect unity: all was there but nothing was separate; all was in movement yet nothing changed place. Truly an experience.
When we become like that, it will be very easy.
0 1961-03-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Man questions himself because the mental instrument is made for seeing all possibilities and because the human being feels he has freedom of choice and the immediate consequences are the notions of good and evil, right and wrong, and all the ensuing miseries. This cant be called a bad thing: its an intermediate stagenot a very pleasant stage, but nevertheless it was certainly inevitable for a total development.
***
0 1961-03-21, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
First of all, on the mental plane (the physical-mind, the material mind) I saw an individual. I am not entirely certain of his identity (when I saw him last night I didnt associate him with anyone in particular) but from his outer appearance he is evidently a sannyasi. He was pursuing me, blocking my way and trying to stop me from doing my work (it was a long, long affair). But I was very conscious and could foresee everything he was about to do, so it had no effect. After a long while I emerged from this I had something else to do and I leftand on my way home he was everywhere, hiding and trying to catch me; but he didnt succeed in doing anything. And I knew he had been acting in this manner for a long time.
Then I woke up (I always wake up three or four times during the night) and when I went back to bed I had an attack of what the doctor and I have taken to be filariasis but a strange type of filariasis, for as soon as I master it in one spot it appears in another, and when I master it there it reappears somewhere else. Last night it was in the arms (it lasted quite a while, between 2:30 and 4 a.m.); but I was fully conscious, and each time the attack came, I went like this (gestures over the arms, to drive away the attack) and my arms were not affected at all. When it was over, I consciously entered the most material subtle physical, just beyond the body. I was sitting in my room there (an immense, cubic room) reading or writing something, when I heard the door open and close, but I was busy and didnt pay attention, presuming it was one of the people usually around me. Then suddenly I had such an unpleasant sensation in my body that I raised my head and looked, and I saw someone there. Do you know how the magicians in Europe dress, in short satin breeches and a shirt? He was wearing something like that. He was Indian, tall and rather dark, with slicked-down hairwhat you would normally call a handsome young man. He seemed to have been drawn1 there becausehe was standing in front of me staring into space, not looking at me. And the moment I saw him, there was the same sensation in all my cells as I have with what Ive been calling filariasis (its a special, minute kind of pain) and simultaneously all the cells felt disgusta tremendous will of rejection. Then I sat up straight (I didnt stand up) and said to him as forcefully as possible, How do you dare to come in here! I said it so loudly that the noise woke me up! I dont know what happened then, but things went much better afterwards.
--
X told me he has been doing something for me in his puja3since December, it seemsso this morning I thought he should know about the experience and I sent Amrita to tell him. He replied to Amrita that this confirmed his certainty that Z has been making black magic against me since December. He had been told that Z was practicing black magic in Kashmir. Could this be the same person I saw before [during the December 1958 attack]? Since it was someone who concealed his identity, I cant say but this form was robed as a sannyasi. Perhaps its he, I dont know. I reserve my judgment because I dont know personally. But this is what X said, and hes going to redouble his efforts.
Thats the situation.
--
Of course, there are certain symptoms which never appear with filariasis. And the doctor has been astounded at the control Ive had over it: it began in the feet, I checked it there; it went higher, I checked it there; then it went higher still and I continued to control it. Finally, the other day, it tried to get into the arms, but it couldnt hold outand last night there was a real riot! (Mother laughs) So perhaps its the deformation or transposition of some sort of mantric effort, like last time in 58 when there was an attempt to make me throw up all my blood but only food came out! Its probably something similar. My impression (Ive had it from the start) is that they have made a try at thrombosis (you know, when something blocks the circulation). Besides, it seems that X asked the doctor if blood-poisoning might be involved, so he must have seen this possibility. There has been absolutely nothing of the kind, but there has been an effort to block the circulation in the veins, probably an adaptation of the magic attack. And along with this have come all the usual things: all the usual suggestions, all the usual prophecies [about Mothers departure]. But for me, these are the normal facts of life, thats all. I am used to it. It has no importance.
Do you really believe Z could be behind this magician you saw?
0 1961-03-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Several times in my life I have met with the particular phenomenon of having an absolutely exceptional and unique experience and at the same time feeling that a part of my being was unaware of it! I would tell myself, if I hadnt been both here and there at the same moment (Mother indicates two different levels in her consciousness), I might have had all these experiences and never known it! And this happened not just once but many times. Some were utterly unique, like certain ancient Vedic experiencesutterly unique. When I recounted them to Sri Aurobindo, he told me, Oh, its extremely rare! Some people try all their lives to attain that. And it happened to me not just once but often: the experience took place there (gesture above) and something up there knew, and yet there was something down here that would never have known if the other hadnt (same gesture). Nevertheless the total experience was there.
Its very difficult to explain, its extremely subtle.
0 1961-03-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not that I was disappointed by his way of being, certainly not; but it has suddenly confronted me with a terrible problem: Is it impossible to live a truth in material consciousness? Is it really impossible? An absolute, I mean an absolute truthnot something entirely subjective and relative, each one living his own truth in his own manner. Will one person always be like this and the other like that and the third like something else? So that only by putting all the pieces together do we actually amount to anything and yet to what?! Is it completely impossible for absolute truth to manifest in the present state of Matter? This is the problem that has seized me.
Why? Probably because I was ready to face it. But it has been posed so intensely. It was so intense that it was painful.
--
Its best to wait and see. I put a certain force into that note I wrote this morning (I wrote it at a very early hour) and you know that a formation4 is created when I write; I willed it to go to himand he may have received it. Well see what happens. Its better not to speak of it because it might speaking is too external.
On other occasions (as I have told you) I had difficulties with X on the mental plane; now all that has cleared up, cleared up very well. But this present situation is on another plane, so lets wait. Perhaps probably it will clear up.
--
I probably needed the experience. You remember that type of detachment I spoke of when I had that experiencewhen the BODY had that experience of January 24, 1961well, it has increased to such an extent that it now applies to anything and everything linked with action on earth. This detachment was probably necessary. It began with something like things dissolving (Mother makes a gesture of crumbling something between her fingers); certain kinds of links between my consciousness and the Work were dissolving (not links with me, because I dont have any, but with the body; the whole physical consciousness, all that attaches it to the things in its environment, to the Work and to the entourage I spoke to you about that in regard to physical immortality; well, thats what is happening now). Its like things dissolvingdissolving, dissolving, dissolving. And its more and more pronounced. During these last days, things have been becoming increasingly difficultdifficulties have been coming one after another, one after another. Formerly, I had the power to get a grip on them and hold them (Mother tightens her grip as though mastering circumstances); but now that this type of detachment has begun, things drift away everywhereeverywhere, everywhere.
So this episode with X is probably part of the same process. What has been affected is a certain confidence in the REALITY of the Power, the REALITY of spiritual action; there seems to be no communication between here (above) and there (below).
Does that mean youre breaking all contacts with the earth?
--
And Im not exactly a baby; I have been here forty-seven years, and for something like yes, certainly for sixty years I have been doing a conscious yoga, with all that memories of an immortal life can bring and see where I am! When Sri Aurobindo says you must have endurance, I think he is right!
This path is not for the weak, thats for sure.
--
The absolute certainty of the Victory is unquestionable; but I am not speaking at the scale of our bounded mind. Its up to us to CHANGE TACKthis is whats expected of us, to change tack and not keep going round in circles.
There you are, petit.
0 1961-04-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He certainly hasnt understood Sri Aurobindos yoga. And its useless to try to explain anything to him.
He began to understand after a year, and he understands much better now. But he is shut up in his construction. He doesnt have the kind of personality that can see the earth as something very small. And thats basically what is needed with Sri Aurobindo: the earth must be seen as just a small field of experience within an eternity.
--
I havent the slightest doubt. Its a certainty, a certainty.
I have never written or spoken to X about this, but through mental contact I have told him I dont know how many times: Satprem has a work to accomplish that is INFINITELY more important than reciting mantras. If it can help him to discipline himself, fine, but its nothing more; he will not accomplish his work by reciting mantras. He has something to do and he will do it. I have hammered that into his head (Mother laughs).
0 1961-04-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, I made a pact with cats, with the King of the Catsit goes back very, very far. And its extraordinary (it happened in Tlemcen, entirely on the occult plane), extraordinary! For certain reasons, the King of the Cats gave me a power over these creaturesand its true. Only I have to see them.
We shall try.
--
Mind you, I would never have considered having any, but two cats were already there when I came to the house. They were not very interesting cats, but they became the parents of the one I just told you about (those boys who were living with Sri Aurobindo had already had some experience; they knew quite a few things about cats), and that was the origin of all the cats I had here. But people (you know how simplistic they always are!) believed I had some special attachment for cats, so then of course everybody started keeping cats! It was no use my telling them, No, its a particular study were making I wanted to see, to learn certain things, and I learned what I had to but now that I have moved to another house, the cat era is over; the old friends are gone, only the younger generation is left. I gave them all away and said) Thats enough. But its hard to make people understandsome people here have 25 cats! Thats unreasonable! Its not the way to deal with cats. You have to look after them as I did, and then it becomes interesting.
There was one I know I SAW it: when he died there was already the embryo of a psychic being, ready for a human incarnation. I made them progress like wildfire.
0 1961-04-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I live in the constant feeling of PUSHING against a world of tremendous obstacles, with the certainty thatsuddenly the resistance will give way and there will be enlightenmentno, far more than that!
Thats all.
0 1961-04-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For example, if I were asked how much time it takes for a thing decided upon there to be realized here, I would answer that it is absolutely indeterminate. That is my experience. I always give the following example because its so clear: Thirty-five years before India became free, I saw that she was free. It was already done. And I have also seen things which for us are almost instantaneous something is decided there and realized almost instantly here. And there are all sorts of possibilities between these two extremes, because the notion of time is not at all the sameso we cant judge. It is facile to say that what you are seeing will happen in a year or in a week or in an hour but in fact, this is impossible. It depends upon the case and certain factors which are part of the whole.
In one chapter of The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo says that there is a state of consciousness in which all is from all eternityeverything, without exception, that is to be manifested here.
--
In a certain state of consciousness (I no longer remember what he calls it I think its in the Yoga of Self-Perfection), one is perfectly identified with the Supreme, not in his static but in his dynamic aspect, the state of becoming. In this state, everything is already there from all eternity, even though here it gives us the impression of a becoming. And Sri Aurobindo says that if you are capable of maintaining this state,2 then you know everything: all that has been, all that is and all that will bein an absolutely simultaneous way.
But you must have a firm head on your shoulders! Reading some of these chapters in Self-Perfection, I thought it would be better if it didnt fall into just anyones hands.
--
But things as they are wouldnt be changed at all. I have had a very clear experience of this: the absoluteness of all that is materially; everything we think we are doing, or are planning, or intending, doesnt change anything about anything. But then, I was intent upon understanding what difference there can be between the true and the false state, SINCE MATERIALLY EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD BE. (We think that things are like this or like that because of certain reactions we have, but our very reactions are as absolute and decreed as the thing itself.) And yet.
I have had this experience, and I remember it even went on for several days; I saw all material circumstances as an absolutean absolute that we perceive as an unfolding, but which is an eternally existing absolute. I had this experience, and at the same time I had a very clear perception of what falsehood is the lie; what, from the psychological, the mental point of view, Sri Aurobindo, translating from the Sanskrit, called crookedness.3 We attribute the course of circumstances to our psychological reactionsand indeed, they are used momentarily because everything collaborates either consciously or unconsciously to make things be what they have to be but things could be what they have to be without the intervention of this falsehood. I lived in that consciousness for several days, and it became apparent that this was what separated falsehood from truth. In this state of knowledge-consciousness, the distinction can be made between falsehood and truth; and when seen in that truth-consciousness, material circumstances change character.
--
Let me tell you about a recent occurrence. E. had sent a telegram saying that she had a perforated intestine (but it must have been something else because they operated on her only after several days, and when you are not operated on immediately in such cases, you die). Anyway, it was very serious and she was on the threshold of death that much is certain. She wrote me a letter the day before the operation (what is interesting is that now she doesnt even remember what she wrote). It was a magnificent letter saying that she was conscious of the Divine Presence and of the Divine Plan. Tomorrow they will operate on me, she said. And I am entirely aware that this operation has ALREADY been done, that it is a fact accomplished by the Divine Will; otherwise it could be a fatal ordeal. And she said she was conscious of the supreme Wills action, in a perfect peace. It was a magnificent letter. And the whole thing went off almost miraculously; she recovered in such a miraculous way that the surgeon himself said, I must congratulate you, to which she replied, How surprising! You did the operation! Yes, he said, we did the operation, but it is your body that willed to be healed, and I congratulate you for your bodys willpower. Of course she wrote to me that she knew who had been there to see that all went well. And this feeling of the thing being already accomplished is a beginning of the consciousness Sri Aurobindo speaks of in the Yoga of Self-Perfection, where one is simultaneously both here and there. Because, as Sri Aurobindo says, some people have managed to be entirely there, but what he has called the realization is to be both there and here simultaneously.
Of course, one might wonder what the meaning of everything here is, if it has all been already accomplished above, on an occult plane, and we are merely re-enacting it.
--
This has made it very clear to me why certain things can illuminate some people (I have clearly seen it) and drive others utterly madcompletely destroy their balance. You might say to me, Then its because they had to go mad! Yes, evidently.
But even if its put in absolute terms, the relationships remain exactly the same.6 You see, the initial impulse is to say, Whats the use of doing anything? But look here, the very fact that you might want to do something is part of the general determinism! Because we always keep something back and wont admit it into the total scheme of things, otherwise. There is no way to get out of it thats just the way it is.
--
Now I know that its not necessary at allnot at all. Simply the aspiration must be constantly like this (gesture of a rising flame). Aspiration that is, knowing what you want, wanting it. But it cannot be given a definite form; Sri Aurobindo has used certain words, we use other words, others use still other words, and all this means nothing they are simply words. But there is something beyond all words, and that for me, the simplest thing (the simplest to express) is, The Supremes Will.
And its The Supremes Will FOR THE EARTHwhich is quite a special thing. I am in a universal consciousness at the moment and the earth seems to me to be a very tiny thing, like this (Mother sketches a tiny ball in the air) in the process of being transformed. But this is from the standpoint of the Work, its another matter.
--
Once again, Mother's experience coincides with modern science, which is beginning to discover that time and space are not fixed and INDEPENDENT quantitiesas, from the Greeks right up to Newton, we had been accustomed to believe but a four-dimensional system, with three coordinates of space and one of time, DEPENDENT UPON THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA DEVELOPING THEREIN. Such is 'Riemann's Space,' used by Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity. Thus, a trajectoryi.e., in principle, a fixed distance, a quantity of space to be traversed-is a function of the time taken to traverse it: there is no straight line between two points, or rather the I straight' line is a function of the rate of speed. There is no 'fixed' quantity of space, but rather rates of speed which determine their own space (or their own measure of space). Space-time is thus no longer a fixed quantity, but, according to science, the PRODUCT ... of what? Of a certain rate of unfolding? But what is unfolding? A rocket, a train, muscles?... Or a certain brain which has generated increasingly perfected instruments adapted to its own mode of being, like a flying fish flying farther and farther (and faster and faster) but finally failing back into its own oceanic fishbowl. Yet what would this space-time be for another kind of fishbowl, another kind of consciousness: a supramental consciousness, for example, which can be instantaneously at any point in 'space'there is no more space! And no more time. There is no more 'trajectory': the trajectory is within itself. The fishbowl is shattered, and the whole evolutionary succession of little fishbowls as well. Thus, as Mother tells it, space and time are a 'PRODUCT Of the movement of consciousness.' A variable space-time, which not only changes according to our mechanical equipment, but according to the consciousness utilizing the equipment, and which ultimately utilizes only itself; consciousness, at the end of the evolutionary curve, has become its own equipment and the sole mechanism of the universe.
***
0 1961-04-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Soon afterwards, concerning X, who had stated that the most recent attacks against Mother, and even those of two years earlier when she had been forced to withdraw to her room, were the result of black magic, and that certain members of the Ashram were DIRECTLY responsible for them, or in any case, had served as intermediariesas a switchboard, to quote himin connection with an outside magician.)
I have been racking my brains, but really, I cant hit on who, IN THE ASHRAM, could be doing magic against me! Having bad thoughts is very widespread, but that doesnt matter in the least.
Yet I dont understand how someone might be doing something positively evil, to the extent that X says, They will repent of it. I dont understand it, I just dont. Because usually when people are like that, they cant stay, they go. certain people have left for just that reason. Its like this story of black magic performed at the Ashram the first time I fell ill two years ago; I cant believe it, because it would prove that I am totally unconscious! And I dont think I am.
I know all the people here. I know everything thats going on, I see it night and day. But I havent seen this. Yes, there are ill-intentioned people, but they are even obliged to tell me so! There are people who oh, they almost wish I would leave, because they feel my presence as a constraint! They tell me so very frankly: As long as youre here, were obliged to do the yoga, but we dont want to do the yoga, we want to live quietly; so if you werent here, well, we wouldnt have to think about yoga anymore! But they are a bunch of fools with no power in them at all. As I said, they are even forced to tell me their true feelings.
0 1961-04-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a question of contagion. Spiritual vibrations are quite clearly contagious. Mental vibrations are contagious, and to a certain extent even vital vibrations are contagious (not often in their finer effects, but anyway, its cleara mans anger, for instance, spreads very easily). Well then, the quality of cellular vibrations should also be contagious.
But the difficulty. You see, so far as Mind is concerned, the whole yoga has been donelike a path blazed through the virgin forest. And since it has been done, its relatively simple: the landmarks are there and one follows them. But here, nothing has been done! One doesnt know which end to take hold ofno one has ever done it! [186] You meet all the same obstacles before which others have simply said, Its impossible. Sri Aurobindo explains that its not impossible, but nothing more. And he himself hadnt done it.
0 1961-05-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I dont know. I dont know if they had it PHYSICALLYin the inner worlds of course, certainly! Its all very well, one is very happy living in those worlds. But it is hereHERE! How to make of this life here, this world here, something really worth living. Havent yet found the trick.
Thats all I can say. Thats what I am up against.
--
Its certainly not the way it is just to be the way it isits meant to become something else. And its this something else that I want. What is worth seeking is the something else that He wants, but as long as I dont have it.
The notebook of a disciple who asks questions on the Aphorisms which Mother 'must' answer regularly.
0 1961-05-19, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The more I see these texts, the more. At first I had the impression of a certain nebulous quality in the English text, and that precisely this quality could be used to introduce the spirit of another language. Now I see that this nebulousness was in my head! It was not in what he wrote.
Yes, I see what you meantheres a sense in the way it is put.
--
(Later, Satprem wanted to read certain past conversations to Mother for her to add to her Agenda. Mother refused to listenit wasnt the first time, either and lively protestations ensued.)
You dont want to hear them?
0 1961-05-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If you become identified with the Supreme and there is but ONE willHis then of course you have supreme mastery. Otherwise its all nothing but illusion. You imagine that by wanting a certain thing you can change circumstances, but you still have to be in total ignorance to believe that the change occurs because YOU want it toin fact, the Supreme is making use of you. Consequently, you have no mastery at all; you are an instrument used by the Supreme, and thats all.
So all these things [the earlier Questions and Answers] seem quite childish to me, quite childishirrelevant chatter. You are outside the garden talking about what is within. It would be best to delete the whole thing.
0 1961-06-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Dont know. I didnt bother much about it. He certainly wanted to make me see it but what is it? What does it mean? Dont know.
It was the dress I wear when I go out. Why? It must have had a meaning, although I must say I didnt exert myself to understand! I simply saw, smiled (it made me smile), and that was all. It was just before the meditation ended.
--
(Satprem remarks on the gap between the inner realization of certain yogis like X and their outer behavior, which doesnt always seem up to the mark.)
I truly have the impression of a kind of abyss between the X I can sense, who attracts me, and the outer man.
--
And to a certain extent it has a healing power (to a certain extent). But its not that supramental thing Sri Aurobindo had: he would pass his hand like this (gesture), and the disorder would be gone completely!
I have never seen anyone but Sri Aurobindo do that.
0 1961-06-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother remains silent for a moment, then says:) Over the years I have had a considerable number of experiences in this realm, and my first action is always the same: send the Peace (I do this in all cases, for everyone) and apply the Force, the Power of the Lord, for the best thing to happen. Some people are very sick, sick to the point where there is no hope, where they cannot be cured, where the end is coming; but they sense that their souls must still need to have certain experiences, so they hang on-they dont want to die. In such cases I apply the Force for them to last as long as possible. In other cases, on the contrary, they are weary of suffering, or indeed the soul has finished its experience and desires to be liberated. In such a case, if I am sure of it, sure that they themselves are expressing the desire to depart, its over in a few hours I say this with certainty because Ive had a considerable number of experiences. There is a certain force which goes out and does what is necessary. I havent done either of these things for your fathernei ther to prolong his life (because when people are suffering its not very kind to prolong their lives indefinitely), nor to finish it, because I didnt knowone cant do either without knowing the persons conscious wish.
As for your mother, she must have been thinking of me, for otherwise she wouldnt have come in that wayshe would have come through you (its different when things come through you). But she came to me directly, so I thought that for some reason she must have remembered me. I dont know. And I looked and said to myself (it came just like that), Now that she will be left all alone, why doesnt she come here? I havent done anything about that, either, one way or the other.
--
These things are very interesting. They must form part of the work I have come on earth to do. Because even before encountering Theon, before knowing anything, I had experiences at night, certain types of activities looking after people who were leaving their bodiesand with a knowledge of the process; I didnt know what I was doing nor did I seek to know, yet I knew exactly what had to be done and I did it. I was around twenty.
As soon as I came upon Theons teaching (even before meeting him personally), and read and understood all kinds of things which I hadnt known before, I began to work quite systematically. Every night, at the same hour, I was working to constructbetween the purely terrestrial atmosphere and the psychic atmospherea path of protection across the vital, so that people wouldnt have to pass through it (for those who are conscious but without knowledge its a very difficult passageinfernal.) I was preparing this path, doing this work (it must have been around 1903 or 1904, I dont remember exactly) for months and months and months. All sorts of extraordinary things happened during that timeextraordinary. I could tell long stories.
0 1961-06-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its like asking if certain elements will disappear from the universe. What can it mean, the destruction of a universe? Once we are out of our stupidity, what can we call destruction? Only the form is destroyed, the appearance (that, yesall appearances are destroyed, one after the other). It is also said (its written everywhere) that the adverse forces will either be converted that is, become aware of their own divinity and become divineor be destroyed. But what does destroyed mean? Their form? Their form of consciousness can be dissolved, but what about the something which brings itand everything elseinto existence? How can that something be destroyed? This, mon petit, is difficult to comprehend. The universe is a conscious objectification of That which exists from all eternity. Well, how can the All cease to be? The infinite and eternal All, without limits of any kindhow can anything be thrown out of it? There is nowhere to go! (You can rack your brains over it, you know!) Go where? There is only THAT.
And even when we say there is only that we are situating it somewherewhich is perfectly idiotic. It is everywhereso how can anything be thrown out of it?
--
I have had an oft repeated experience of reliving the past1 (its a phenomenon of consciousness, possible because everything is preserved and continues to exist somewhere), with a kind of willwhich would be the sign of a powerto change it. I dont know, but at the moment of reliving it, instead of reliving the past just as it had been preserved, a power to make it different was introduced. I am not speaking of the power to change the consequences of the past (that is obvious and functions all the time)it wasnt that; it was the power to change the circumstances themselves (circumstances not quite material but of the subtle physical, with a predominantly psychological content). And since the will was there, from the standpoint of consciousness it actually happened that is, instead of circumstances developing in one direction, they developed in another. So it must correspond to something real, otherwise I would not have had the experience. It wasnt a product of the imagination; it wasnt something one thinks of and would really like to be differentit wasnt that; it was a phenomenon of consciousness: my consciousness was reliving certain circumstances (which are still quite living and obviously continue to exist within their own domain), but reliving them with the power and the knowledge acquired between that past moment and the present, and with a power to change the past moment. A new power entered the scene and turned the circumstance being relived in a new direction. I have had this experience many times and it has always surprised meits not a phenomenon of mental imagination, which is something else entirely.
It opens the door to everything.
0 1961-07-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
certain things can be called sin, if you like, such as cruelty. Well, the only explanation I see for such things is the deformation of the need or taste for extremely strong sensations. I have noticed that cruel people experience an Ananda in their cruelty they find an intense joy in it. It is thereby legitimized. Only its in such a deformed state that its repugnant.
The idea that things are not in their place, mon petit, is something I understood even as a youngster, and it was eventually explained to me by Theon.
--
No, the only solution is occult power. But that. Before anything at all can be done, it already demands a certain number of individuals who have reached a great perfection of realization. Granting this, a place is conceivable (set apart from the outside worldno actual contacts) where each thing is exactly in its place, setting an example. Each thing exactly in its place, each person exactly in his place, each movement in its place, and all in its place in an ascending, progressive movement without relapse (that is, the very opposite of what goes on in ordinary life). Naturally, this also means a sort of perfection, it means a sort of unity; it means that the different aspects of the Supreme can be manifested; and, necessarily, an exceptional beauty, a total harmony; and a power sufficient to keep the forces of Nature obedient: even if this place were encircled by destructive forces, for example, these forces would be powerless to act the protection would be sufficient.
It would all require the utmost perfection in the individuals organizing such a thing.
--
There are stories like this, you know, about people who lived in an ideal solitude, and its not at all impossible to imagine. When one is in contact with this Power, when it is within you, you can see that such things are childs play! It even reaches the point where there is the possibility of changing certain things, of influencing vibrations and forms in the surrounding environment by contagion, so that automatically they begin to be supramentalized. All that is possible but confined to the individual scale. While if we take the example of what is happening here, where the individual remains right in the midst of all this chaos. Thats the difficulty! Doesnt this very fact make a certain perfection in realization impossible to attain? But the other case, the individual isolated in the forest, is always the same thingan example giving no proof that the rest will be able to follow; while whats happening here should already have a much broader radiating influence. At some point this has to happenit MUST happen. But the problem still remains: can it happen simultaneously with or even before the supramentalization of the single individual?
(silence)
0 1961-08-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, in a certain way. It will become receptive. The mode of life wont necessarily change, but the form of life will change. Matter will become responsive. Do we say that in French?
Receptive?
--
Every night, you know, I continue to see more and more astounding things emerging from the Subconscient to be transformed. Its a kind of mixturenot clearly individualizedof all the things that have been more or less closely associated in life. For example, some people are intermingled there. One relives things almost as in a dream (although these are not dreams), one relives it all in a certain setting, within a certain set of symbolic, or at any rate expressive, circumstances. Just two days ago I had to deal with someone (I am actively at work there and I had to do something with him), and upon seeing this person, I asked myself, is he this one or that one? As I became less involved in the action and looked with a more objective consciousness, the witness-consciousness, I saw that it was simply a mixture of both personseverything is mixed in the Subconscient. Already when I lived in Japan there were four people I could never distinguish during my nighttime activitiesall four of them (and god knows they werent even acquainted!) were always intermingled because their subconscious reactions were identical.
In fact, this is what legitimizes the ego; because if we had never formed an ego, we would have lived all mixed up (laughing), now this person, now another! Oh, it was so comical, seeing this the other day! At first it was a bit bewildering, but when I looked closely, it became utterly amusing: two little people with no physical resemblance, yet of a similar typesmall and in short, a similarity. Its like the four men I used to see in Japan: there was an Englishman, a Frenchman, a Japanese and one more, each from a different country; well, at night they were all the same, as if viewed one through the other, all intermingledvery amusing!
--
Otherwise there could be no permanent material life for this [individuality] is the very nature of materialization. Were it destined to disappear, then the phenomenon of physical dissolution would become permanent, and there would never be physical immortality; because, after exhausting a certain basically, a certain number of illusions or disorders or falsehoods, one would return to the Truth. But according to Sri Aurobindo, it isnt like that: this individualization, this individual personalization is the Truth, a real, au thentic divine phenomenon the only falsehood is the deformation of consciousness. Well, when we rediscover the true consciousness of Unity that Unity which is both in and above the manifest and the non-manifest (above in that it contains both the manifest and non-manifest equally), well, this Truth includes material personalization, otherwise that2 could not exist.
But each individual has a different personality.
--
I knew how it was with her because I remember the days when Sri Aurobindo was here and I used to go downstairs to give meditations to the people assembled in the hall. Theres a ledge above the pillars there, where all the gods used to sitShiva, Krishna, Lakshmi, the Trimurti, all of them the little ones, the big ones, they all used to come regularly, every day, to attend these meditations. It was a lovely sight. But they didnt have this kind of adoration for the Supreme. They had no use for that concepteach one, in his own mode of being, was fully aware of his own eternal divinity; and each one knew as well that he could represent all the others (such was the basis of popular worship,7 and they knew it). They felt they were a kind of community, but they had none of those qualities that the psychic life gives: no deep love, no deep sympathy, no sense of union. They had only the sense of their OWN divinity. They had certain very particular movements, but not this adoration for the Supreme nor the feeling of being instruments: they felt they were representing the Supreme, and so each one was perfectly satisfied with his particular representation.
Except for Krishna. In 1926, I had begun a sort of overmental creation, that is, I had brought the Overmind down into matter, here on earth (miracles and all kinds of things were beginning to happen). I asked all these gods to incarnate, to identify themselves with a body (some of them absolutely refused). Well, with my very own eyes I saw Krishna, who had always been in rapport with Sri Aurobindo, consent to come down into his body. It was on November 24th, and it was the beginning of Mother.8
0 1961-08-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I remember once (I must have been ten or twelve years old at the time), there was a luncheon at my parents house for a dozen or so people, all decked out in their Sunday bestthey were family but all the same it was a luncheon and there was a certain protocol; in short, one had to behave properly. I was at one end of the table next to a first-cousin of mine who later became director of the Louvre for a while (he had an artistic intelligence, a rather capable young man). So there we were, and I remember I was observing something rather interesting in his atmosphere (mind you, although the faculties were already there, I knew nothing about occult things; if someone had spoken to me of auras and all that. I knew nothing). I was observing a kind of sensation I had felt in his atmosphere and then, just as I was putting the fork into my mouth, I took off! What a scolding I got! I was told that if I didnt know how to behave, I shouldnt come to the table! (Mother goes into peals of laughter)
It was during this period that I used to go out of my body every night and do the work Ive spoken of in Prayers and Meditations (I only mentioned it in passing).8 Every night at the same hour, when the whole house was very quiet, I would go out of my body and have all kinds of experiences. And then my body gradually became a sleepwalker (that is, the consciousness of the form became more and more conscious, while the link remained very solidly established). I got into the habit of getting up but not like an ordinary sleepwalker: I would get up, open my desk, take out a piece of paper and write poems. Yes, poems I, who had nothing of the poet in me! I would jot things down, then very consciously put everything back into the drawer, lock everything up again very carefully and go back to bed. One night, for some reason or other, I forgot and left it open. My mother came in (in France the windows are covered with heavy curtains and in the morning my mother would come in and violently throw open the curtains, waking me up, brrm!, without any warning; but I was used to it and would already be prepared to wake upotherwise it would have been most unpleasant!). Anyway, my mother came in, calling me with unquestionable authority, and then she found the open desk and the piece of paper: Whats that?! She grabbed it. What have you been up to? I dont know what I replied, but she went to the doctor: My daughter has become a sleepwalker! You have to give her a drug.
0 1961-08-08, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He has tried very hard to understand. But his spiritual conception has remained like this: one canone MUSTmaster life, and in life, to some extent, a certain adaptation to the higher forces can be achieved; but there is no question of transformation: the physical world remains the physical world. It can be a little better organized, more harmonious, but there is no question of something else, of divinizationno question at all.
And this is probably why there are things he cant make out in his contact with me, because he simply doesnt understand. For example, these physical disorders baffle him, they seem incompatible with my realization. As long as the question of transformation does not come into play, the realization I had was sufficient to establish a kind of very stable orderreaction against the transformative will is what causes these disorders. And this he does not understandto him something seems not to be functioning properly. He must feel a contradiction between certain things he perceives in my consciousness and my contact with the material world. This being this, he thinks, that ought to be like that; so why? He doesnt understand.1
X's astonishment raises an extremely important point, drawing the exact dividing line between all the traditional yogas and the new yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Mother. To a tantric, for example, it seems unthinkable that Mother, with a consciousness so powerful as to scoff at the laws of nature and comm and the elements (if she wishes), could be subjected to absurd head colds or an eye hemorrhage or even more serious disorders. For him, it is enough to simply lift a finger and emit a vibration which instantly muzzles the disorderyes, of course, but for Mother it is not a question of 'curing' a head cold by imposing a higher POWER on Matter, but of getting down to the cellular root and curing or transforming the source of the evil (which causes death as easily as head colds, for it is the same root of disorder). It is not a question of imposing oneself on Matter through a 'power,' but of transforming Matter. Such is the yoga of the cells.
0 1961-08-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Three or four years ago I had to make a little effort to meditate or give a meditation to someone in a very bad condition. But now absolutely no more effort. No effort at all. And I dont notice a bit when X is having difficulty, not a bit. I prepare myself as usual before he comes and as soon as he arrives, all I have to do is call (although generally thats not necessary); I call, and then I become blissful. And I havent found more difficulties in certain cases than in others I DONT FEEL THE RESISTANCE, neither in the atmosphere nor in people. The Force is imperative. Thats why I was so astounded those other times when he began to say he needed at least ten minutes to put himself into meditationit seemed fantastic to me! He said so himself, otherwise I would never have believed it.3
Well, we shall see.
--
I go there almost every night for half or three-quarters of an hour, and Sri Aurobindo shows it all to me. Some people are waiting for himin certain corners everything is ready and waiting and when he comes they show him what they have done. Then he explains: a word, a gesture, not much, and then, ah! It takes a form. Its an interesting place. I am putting you in touch with it all the time, all the time, every dayit doesnt matter if you dont remember, its not important.
(Satprem doesnt seem to agree)
0 1961-09-03, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You understand, if I were British and writing in English, I could try to do a book on Sri Aurobindo using Savitri alone. With quotations from Savitri one can maintain a certain poetical rhythm, and this rhythm can generate an opening. But in French it isnt possiblehow could it be translated?
Yes, thats what I mean-but even in English.
0 1961-09-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I feel this so often now. How to put it. I always try not to talktalking bothers me. Yes, its a real nuisance. When I see someone, the first thing I do is to avoid talking. Then, when the Vibration comes, its good; there is a sort of communication, and if the person is the least bit receptive, what comes is like a its subtler than music; its a vibration bringing its own principle of harmony. But people usually get impatient after a while and, wanting something more concrete, oblige me to talk. They always insist on it. Then, being in a certain atmosphere, a certain vibration, I immediately feel something going like this (gesture of a fall to another level), and then hardening. Even when I babble (you see, the very effort of trying to be more subtle makes me babble), even my babblings (laughing) become dry by comparison. There are all sorts of things that are so much fullerfull, packed with an inner richnessand as soon as this is put into words, oh!
The night before last, around 3 in the morning, I was in a place where there were a lot of people from here (you were there), and I was trying to play some music, precisely in order to SAY something. There were three pianos there, which seemed to be interlocked into each other, so I leaned over sideways to get at one of the three and began playing on it. It was in a large hall with people seated at a distance, but you were just at my left alongside a young lady who was a symbol figure (that is, the vibration or impression I received from her and the relationship I had with her could be applied as well to four or five persons here: it was like relating to an amalgam something that is very interesting and often happens to me). Anyway, I was leaning over one of the keyboards and trying trying to work something out, to illustrate how this would translate into that. Finally I realized that playing half-standing, half-leaning was unnecessary acrobatics, because a grand piano was right there in front, so I sat down before it. Well, the most amusing part of it was that the keys (there were two keyboards) were all bluelike the marbled paper we are making now, all blue, and with every possible marbled effect. Black keys, white keys, high keys, low keys (all of them were the same width, quite wide, like this), all seemed to be coated but it wasnt paperwith this blue. Facing the piano I said to myself, Well now, this cant be played with physical eyesit has to be played FROM ABOVE.
--
Yes, I would certainly like to.
It will come. Ah, it will come!
0 1961-09-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What struck me is that he never wanted to write anything else. To write those articles for the Bulletin1 was really a heavy sacrifice for him. He had said he would complete certain parts of The Synthesis of Yoga,2 but when he was asked to do so, he replied, No, I dont want to go down to that mental level!
Savitri comes from somewhere else altogether.
0 1961-10-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I know that at a certain moment I was making the distinction between the two states, between the person the individual, personal beingturning towards the Lord, imploring Him to reveal His Will, and then this experience of becomingby extending oneself, by opening, by enlarging, by merging into the creationof BECOMING the Will of the Lord, the Supremes Will. No longer any need to implore Him, to know His Will and receive it like something foreign to youyou become that Will.
The experience was there at that moment, and it was eloquent enough.
--
This concentration on finding the mechanism sprang from the fact that there were disorders in the body which were vanishing and then reappearingpermanent cure seemed impossible. So I told myself, Somewhere, probably in the subconscient, something must be justifying their presence. Then, after concentrating and searching and concentrating some more, suddenly a memory rose up from the subconscient (a memory which is a kind of continued existence under a certain form), the memory of a particular set of movements and actions (not physical movements, but attitudes) that go back many years and had never attracted my attention. None of it had ever been included in the general clearing-out because, like so many other things, it all seemed to be due to normal, ongoing circumstances. But thats just where I saw (what to call it?) the hue, the taint of Falsehood. Its very subtle. These are very subtle things. But suddenly, oh! It caught hold of me and created a revolution in the whole being. All those vibrations were cast up and transformedan extraordinary thing. It stirred up much more commotion and revolution than I had ever expected. And ah! A relief. Something was clarified, bringing a brilliant, new comprehension, and then quite interesting physical results. Before this, I was really feeling rather poorly, extremely tired, with the impression of a decline into decrepituderelatively speaking! (It was in a very superficial part of the being, but it was enough to be disagreeable.) And all of itpfft! Gone in a single stroke.
And that very day, I had this experience with the possessed personit all came together. And then afterwards, a sort of mastery over the problem and the impression of a breakthroughan opening up of the WAY to change, which is this enlargement. First, the movement of generosity (not that shriveling movement, but its exact opposite the movement of expansion), and from there you go on to universality, and from universality to Totality.
0 1961-10-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And within all this, I no longer existed. I seemed to vanish into a kind of trance, yet I was consciousnot I: the consciousness was conscious of what Sri Aurobindo was conscious of. And he was following the reading. But I couldnt remember anything; at the time, it was impossible to observe. I can only describe it all to you now because the experience remained for at least an hour and a half afterwards; when I left here, I began to objectify it, to see what it wasaside from that, it was merely a STATE I found myself in. But in this state there was an awareness of what he was hearing, and at two or three places in your reading he seemed to be saying (I cant be exact, I can only give the impression), Not necessary. In fact, thats what made me call this passage too philosophical (although when you first asked my opinion I was in a peculiar condition, nothing was active in me). With him, it was very clear, it was almost as if there were a certain number of words about which he said, That, not necessary. That, not necessary. Not many, not often, but once in a while. Especially at the end (he was still there inside my head while you were talking), when you were saying that its necessary to explain to people; there he very clearly said, No, not necessary.
But I was incapable of remembering or of registering anything the only head present there was his.
--
I dont know, I didnt hear the beginning, but certainly everything dealing with physical events [of Sri Aurobindos life] will be expressed in a very reasonable and normal style so that there will be no danger of people saying, Hes a half-cracked visionary! I dont know, the first part of what you read to me was so good! Gusts of golden light kept coming. Perhaps you wanted to explain too much. You dont know what happened?
Yes, its precisely this need to explain.
--
Simply awaken hope in them the Hope. A hope based on the certainty of an experience. You know, if they could imagine the Supreme Himself coming and saying, Listen now, Im here to tell you that this is the way it is, get ready.
Always, always, the first reaction of people on earth has been to say, Hes mad.
--
Well, after a certain length of timebecause after all, time passes I have to work.
Ah, but perhaps thats not the way!
--
All youve read to me now is quite fine, and it would certainly be less fine if something were there connecting it all up.
To me its clear that some segments are unsuitable.
--
This has happened to me very, very oftensuddenly, poff! And with such certainty!
Mother, give me one single indication. Dont you think I should cut out what I read to you yesterday? It would be a relief if you told me.
--
Its not always when you think youre wasting your time that things go slowest. I have found out that theres a certain attitudean attitude of openness towards eternity, to be precise that makes things happen more quickly. Much more quickly.
***
0 1961-10-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When he first read the Vedastranslated by Western Sanskritists or Indian pandits they appeared to Sri Aurobindo as an important document of [Indian] history, but seemed of scant value or importance for the history of thought or for a living spiritual experience.2 Fifteen years later, however, Sri Aurobindo would reread the Vedas in the original Sanskrit and find there a constant vein of the richest gold of thought and spiritual experience.3 Meanwhile, Sri Aurobindo had had certain psychological experiences of my own for which I had found no sufficient explanation either in European psychology or in the teachings of Yoga or of Vedanta, and which the mantras of the Veda illuminated with a clear and exact light.4 And it was through these experiences of his own that Sri Aurobindo came to discover, from within, the true meaning of the Vedas (and especially the most ancient of the four, the Rig-veda, which he studied with special care). What the Vedas brought him was no more than a confirmation of what he had received directly. But didnt the Rishis themselves speak of Secret words, clairvoyant wisdoms, that reveal their inner meaning to the seer (Rig-veda IV, 3.16)?
It is not surprising, therefore, that exegetes have seen the Vedas primarily as a collection of propitiatory rites centered around sacrificial fires and obscure incantations to Nature divinities (water, fire, dawn, the moon, the sun, etc.), for bringing rain and rich harvests to the tribes, male progeny, blessings upon their journeys or protection against the thieves of the sunas though these shepherds were barbarous enough to fear that one inauspicious day their sun might no longer rise, stolen away once and for all. Only here and there, in a few of the more modern hymns, was there the apparently inadvertent intrusion of a few luminous passages that might have justifiedjust barely the respect which the Upanishads, at the beginning of recorded history, accorded to the Veda. In Indian tradition, the Upanishads had become the real Veda, the Book of Knowledge, while the Veda, product of a still stammering humanity, was a Book of Worksacclaimed by everyone, to be sure, as the venerable Authority, but no longer listened to. With Sri Aurobindo we might ask why the Upanishads, whose depth of wisdom the whole world has acknowledged, could claim to take inspiration from the Veda if the latter contained no more than a tapestry of primitive rites; or how it happened that humanity could pass so abruptly from these so-called stammerings to the manifold richness of the Upanishadic Age; or how we in the West were able to evolve from the simplicity of Arcadian shepherds to the wisdom of Greek philosophers. We cannot assume that there was nothing between the early savage and Plato or the Upanishads.5
--
Yet beyond the lower triple world, the Rishis had discovered a certain fourth, touryam svid; they found the vast dwelling place, the solar world, Swar: I have arisen from earth to the mid-world [life], I have arisen from the mid-world to heaven [mind], from the level of the firmament of heaven I have gone to the Sun-world, the Light (Yajur-veda 17.67). And it is said, Mortals, they achieved immortality (Rig-veda I.110.4). What then was their secret? How did they pass from a heaven of mind to the great heaven without leaving the body, without, as it were, going off into ecstasies?
The secret lies in matter. Because Agni is imprisoned in matter and we ourselves are imprisoned there. It is said that Agni is without head or feet, that it conceals its two extremities: above, it disappears into the great heaven of the supraconscient (which the Rishis also called the great ocean), and below, it sinks into the formless ocean of the inconscient (which they also called the rock). We are truncated. But the Rishis were men of a solid realism, a true realism resting upon the Spirit; and since the summits of mind opened out upon a lacuna of lightecstatic, to be sure, but with no hold over the worldthey set upon the downward way.6 Thus begins the quest for the lost sun, the long pilgrimage of descent into the inconscient and the merciless fight against the dark forces, the thieves of the sun, the panis and vritras, pythons and giants, hidden in the dark lair with the whole cohort of usurpers: the dualizers, the confiners, the tearers, the COVERERS. But the divine worker, Agni, is helped by the gods, and in his quest he is led by the intuitive ray, Sarama, the heavenly hound with the subtle sense of smell who sets Agni on the track of the stolen herds (strange, shining herds). Now and again there comes the sudden glimmer of a fugitive dawn then all grows dim. One must advance step by step, digging, digging, fighting every inch of the way against the wolves whose savage fury increases the nearer one draws to their denAgni is a warrior. Agni grows through his difficulties, his flame burns more brilliantly with each blow from the Adversary; for, as the Rishis said, Night and Day both suckled the divine Child; they even said that Night and Day are the two sisters, Immortal, with a common lover [the sun] common they, though different their forms (I.113.2,3). These alternations of night and brightness accelerate until Day breaks at last and the herds of Dawn7 surge upward awakening someone who was dead (I.113.8). The infinite rock of the inconscient is shattered, the seeker uncovers the Sun dwelling in the darkness (III.39.5), the divine consciousness in the heart of Matter. In the very depths of Matter, that is to say, in the body, on earth, the Rishis found themselves cast up into Light that same Light which others sought on the heights, without their bodies and without the earth, in ecstasy. And this is what the Rishis would call the Great Passage. Without abandoning the earth they found the vast dwelling place, that dwelling place of the gods, Swar, the original Sun-world that Sri Aurobindo calls the Supramental World: Human beings [the Rishis emphasize that they are indeed men] slaying the Coverer have crossed beyond both earth and heaven [matter and mind] and made the wide world their dwelling place (I.36.8). They have entered the True, the Right, the Vast, Satyam, Ritam, Brihat, the unbroken light, the fearless light, where there is no longer suffering nor falsehood nor death: it is immortality, amritam.
0 1961-11-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact, the books he wrote (especially the first one, The Living Ether) were based on my knowledge; he put my knowledge into French and beautiful French, I must say! I would tell him my experiences and he would write them down. Later he wrote The Gods (it was incomplete, one-sided). Then he became a lawyer and entered politics (he was a first-class orator and fired his audiences with enthusiasm) and was sent to Pondicherry to help a certain candidate who couldnt manage his election campaign single-handed. And since Richard was interested in occultism and spirituality, he took this opportunity to seek a Master, a yogi. When he arrived, instead of involving himself in politics, the first thing he did was announce, I am seeking a yogi. Someone said to him, Youre incredibly lucky! The yogi has just arrived. It was Sri Aurobindo, who was told, Theres a Frenchman asking to see you. Sri Aurobindo wasnt particularly pleased but he found the coincidence rather interesting and received him. This was in 1910.
When Richard had finished his work, he returned to France with a poor photograph of Sri Aurobindo and a completely superficial impression of him, yet with the feeling that Sri Aurobindo KNEW (he hadnt at all understood the man that Sri Aurobindo was, he hadnt felt the presence of an Avatar, but he had sensed that he had knowledge). Moreover, I think he always held this opinion, because he used to say that Sri Aurobindo was a unique intellectual giant without many spiritual realizations! (The same type of stupidity as Romain Rollands.) Well, my relationship with Richard was on an occult plane, you see, and its difficult to touch upon. What happened was far more exciting than any novel imaginable.
--
When we returned to France, Richard got himself declared unfit for military service on health groundsa yogic heart ailment! But life in France was impossible; and my presence there was dangerous because monstrous things were going on, monstrous; as Sri Aurobindo said, my sitting at home all alone was generating revolutionsarmies were revolting.6 I saw that happening and I didnt want the Germans to win, which would have been even worse, so I said, I had better go. Then Richard managed to have himself sent to Japan on business (an admirable feat!), representing certain companies. People didnt want to travel because it was dangerousyou risked being sunk to the bottom of the sea; so they were pleased when we offered and sent us to Japan.
Once there (this would also make a great novel), Richard continued writing and sending his manuscripts to Sri Aurobindo. Finally, when the Peace Treaty was signed and it was possible to travel, the English said that if we tried to return to India they would throw us in jail! But it all worked out miraculously, almost becoming a diplomatic incident: the Japanese government decided that if we were put in prison they would protest to the British government! (What a story I could write novels!) In short, Richard returned here with me. And thats when the tragi-comedy began.
--
It was certainly Sri Aurobindos power that made Richard decide to leave. For twelve years I had been Richards guru (thats where our relationship stood), but I hadnt succeeded in converting him, and when we came back here I said, Im through with it. Ive tried and Ive failed. Ive failed completely. Ask Sri Aurobindo. When Sri Aurobindo took him in hand, that was another story. He couldnt take i the left.
But the whole affair was diabolic, you know; it had turned into something fantastic.
--
But the ifs. There is a domain where no more ifs exist, and when I am there, I still dont find any signs of inevitability. The place X looks from is all mixed up. I have had a certain number of visions, but not THE vision of inevitable war.
Not that they arent trying!
--
No, they had a hint, like a vision of the thing, but there is no proof that they realized it. Whats more, had they realized it, it seems to me that we would certainly have found some traces but no traces remain.
Theon knew something about it, and he called it the new world or the new creation on earth and the glorified body (I dont remember his exact terminology); but he knew of the Superminds existenceit had been revealed to him and he announced its coming. He said it would be reached THROUGH the discovery of the God within. And for him, as I told you the other day, this meant a greater densitywhich seems to be a correct experience. Well, on my side, I have made investigations and had innumerable visions concerning the earths history, and I spoke about it a good deal with Sri Aurobindo.
0 1961-11-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One thing is certainas soon as one goes beyond the terrestrial atmosphere, beyond the higher minds highest region, the sensation of high and low totally vanishes. There are no longer movements of ascent and descent, but (Mother turns her hand over) something like inner reversals.
I think the problem arises only when you try to see and understand with the mental consciousness, even with the higher mind.
--
It depends upon the level of development, thats what Theon used to say: One goes into trance only when certain links are missing. He saw people as made up of innumerable small bridges, with intermediary zones. If you have an intermediary zone that is undeveloped, he said, a zone where you are not conscious because its not individualized, then you will be in trance when you cross it. Trance is the sign of non-individualization the consciousness is not awake and so your body goes into trance. But if your consciousness is wide awake you can sit, keeping full contact with things, and have the total experience. I could go out of my body with no need of trance, except when Theon wanted me to do a particular work. That was a different business the vital force (not the consciousness, the vital force) had to go out for that work, so the body had to go into trance. But even then. For instance, very often when I am called and go to do something in response, my body does become still, but its not in trance; I can be sitting and, even in the middle of a gesture, suddenly become immobile for a few seconds.7 But I was doing another type of work with Theondangerous work, at thatand it would last for an hour. Then all the bodys vital energy would go out, all of it, as it does when you die (in fact, thats how I came to experience death).
But it isnt necessary to have all those experiences, not at allSri Aurobindo never did. (Theon didnt have experiences, either; he had only the knowledgehe made use of Madame Theons experiences.) Sri Aurobindo told me he had never really entered the unconsciousness of samadhi for him, these domains were conscious; he would sit on his bed or in his armchair and have all the experiences.
--
When one has these experiences, like the ones Ive had in the subtle physical, for example, the body is certainly in trance but the part having the experience doesnt AT ALL feel deprived or lacking in anything. The experience comes with a fullness of life, consciousness, independence, individuality. Its not like going out in trance to accomplish a work and feeling linked to the body its not that: the body no longer exists nor has any reason to! Its simply not there. And its a nuisance to go back into itwhat is this useless burden! you wonder. As a result, if this experience becomes permanent, you live in a world thats just as concrete, just as real and just as TANGIBLE as our physical world, with the same qualities of duration, permanence and stability.
Its very difficult to express, because as soon as we notice it.
--
But a certain work [of adaptation] is required to express this experience, and the first impression upon returning is that theres no way to do it. It simply doesnt correspond to anything.9
II Peter 3.13.
0 1961-11-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, it was simply a question of linking certain things up.
But is it necessary to link up? I doubt it. It was an extremely mental idea.
0 1961-11-16a, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But worknot a stroke. Ah, yes, I am translating The Synthesis of Yoga and it seems much easier. I go slower, a certain tension has disappeared, and the meaning is far clearer than usual. In other words, Im interiorized there you have it.
But its deplorable from an external viewpoint! Unread letters are piling up; I dont reply to people, I forget everything I dont even try to remember. From an external point of view, Im pretty worthless.
0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Dear Sir I must begin by telling you that although this text is an excellent essay, it is not, in its present form, a book for the Spiritual Masters series. Let us enumerate the reasons for this. First of all, the general impression is of an ABSTRACT text. I can straight-away imagine your reaction to this and I dread misunderstandings! But putting myself in the readers place, since, once again, it does involve a collection intended for a wide public that we are beginning to know well, I can assure you that this public will not be able to follow page after page of reflections upon what one is bound to call a philosophical and spiritual system. Obviously this impression is caused primarily by the fact that you have begun with twenty-one pages where the reader is assumed to already know of Sri Aurobindos historical existence and the content of the Vedas and the Upanishads, plus I dont know how many other notions of rite, truth, divinity, wisdom, etc., etc. In my view, and the solution is going to appear cruel to you, for you certainly value these twenty-one pages [on the Secret of the Veda], they should purely and simply be deleted, for everything you say there, which is very rich in meaning, can only become clear when one has read what follows. There are many books in which readers can be asked to make the effort entailed in not understanding the beginning until they have read the end: but not books of popular culture. One could envisage an introduction of three or four pages to situate the spiritual climate and cultural world in which Sri Aurobindos thought has taken place, provided, however, that it is sufficiently descriptive, and not a pre-synthesis of everything to be expounded upon in what follows. In a general way you are going to smile, finding me quite Cartesian! But the readership we address is more or less permeated by a widespread Cartesianism, and you can help them, if you like, to reverse their methodology, but on the condition that you make yourself understood right from the start. Generally, you dont make enough use of analysis and, even before analysis, of a description of the realities being analyzed. That is why the sections of pure philosophical analysis seem much too long to us, and, even apart from the abstract character of the chapter on evolution (which should certainly be shorter), one feels at a positive standstill! After having waited patiently, and sometimes impatiently, for some light to be thrown on Sri Aurobindos own experience, one reads with genuine amazement that one can draw on energies from above instead of drawing on them from the material nature around oneself, or from an animal sleep, or that one can modify his sleep and render it conscious master illnesses before they enter the body. All of that in less than a page; and you conclude that the spirit that was the slave of matter becomes again the master of evolution. But how Sri Aurobindo was led to think this, the experiences that permitted him to verify it, those that permit other men to consider the method transmittable, the difficulties, the obstacles, the realizationsdoesnt this constitute the essence of what must be said to make the reader understand? Once again, it is the question of a pedagogy intimately tied in with the spirit of the collection. Let me add as well that I always find it deplorable when a thought is not expressed purely for its own sake, but is accompanied by an aggressive irony towards concepts which the author does not share. This is pointless and harms the ideas being presented, all the more so because they are expressed in contrast with caricatured notions: the allusions you make to such concepts as you think yourself capable of evoking the soul, creation, virtue, sin, salvationwould only hold some interest if the reader could find those very concepts within himself. But, as they are caricatured by your pen, the reader is given the impression of an all too easily obtained contrast between certain ideas admired and others despised. Whereas it would be far more to the point if they corresponded to something real in the religious consciousness of the West. I have too much esteem for you and the spiritual world in which you live to avoid saying this through fear of upsetting you.
Amen.
--
One more thing. Despite their blockage from the deep spiritual viewpoint, they evidently represent a certain goodwill which can be utilized and should be recognizedit must be given a place. Thats why I was telling you to write a book on a much less elevated level, a book like the one I would write, if I ever wrote one!
But Mother.
--
Here, just to give you an example: when I first began to work (not with Theon personally but with an acquaintance of his in France, a boy4 who was a friend of my brother), well, I had a series of visions (I knew nothing about India, mind you, nothing, just as most Europeans know nothing about it: a country full of people with certain customs and religions, a confused and hazy history, where a lot of extraordinary things are said to have happened. I knew nothing.) Well, in several of these visions I saw Sri Aurobindo just as he looked physically, but glorified; that is, the same man I would see on my first visit, almost thin, with that golden-bronze hue and rather sharp profile, an unruly beard and long hair, dressed in a dhoti with one end of it thrown over his shoulder, arms and chest bare, and bare feet. At the time I thought it was vision attire! I mean I really knew nothing about India; I had never seen Indians dressed in the Indian way.
Well, I saw him. I experienced what were at once symbolic visions and spiritual FACTS: absolutely decisive spiritual experiences and facts of meeting and having a united perception of the Work to be accomplished. And in these visions I did something I had never done physically: I prostrated before him in the Hindu manner. All this without any comprehension in the little brain (I mean I really didnt know what I was doing or how I was doing itnothing at all). I did it, and at the same time the outer being was asking, What is all this?!
--
As for Theon, he was European and wore a long purple robe that wasnt at all like the one in my vision. (Im not sure, but I think he was either Polish or Russian, but more probably Russian, of Jewish descent, and that he was forced to leave his country; he never said anything about this to anyone, its only an impression.) When I saw him I recognized him as a being of great power. And he bore a certain likeness to Sri Aurobindo: Theon was about the same size (not a tall man, of medium height) and thin, slim, with quite a similar profile. But when I met Theon I saw (or rather I felt) that he was not the man I saw in my vision because he didnt have that vibration. Yet it was he who first taught me things, and I went and worked at Tlemcen for two years in a row. But this other thing was always there in the background of the consciousness.
Then when Richard came here he met Sri Aurobindo (he was haunted by the idea of meeting the Master, the Guru, the Great Teacher). Sri Aurobindo was in hiding, seeing no one, but when Richard insisted, he met him, and Richard returned with a photograph. It was one of those early photos, with nothing in it. It was empty, the remnants of the political man, not at all resembling what I had seen I didnt recognize him. Its strange, I said to myself, thats not it (for I saw only his external appearance, there was no inner contact). But still, I was curious to meet him. At any rate, I cant say that when I saw this photograph I felt, Hes the one! Not at all. He impressed me as being a very interesting man, but no more.
--
But this was merely the beginning of my vision. Only after a series of experiencesa ten months sojourn in Pondicherry, five years of separation, then the return to Pondicherry and the meeting in the same house and in the same waydid the END of the vision occur. I was standing just beside him. My head wasnt exactly on his shoulder, but where his shoulder was (I dont know how to explain itphysically there was hardly any contact). We were standing side by side like that, gazing out through the open window, and then TOGETHER, at exactly the same moment, we felt, Now the Realization will be accomplished. That the seal was set and the Realization would be accomplished. I felt the Thing descending massively within me, with the same certainty I had felt in my vision. From that moment on there was nothing to sayno words, nothing. We knew it was THAT.
But between these two meetings he participated in a whole series of experiences, experiences of gradually growing awareness. This is partly noted in Prayers and Meditations (I have cut out all the personal segments). But there was one experience I didnt speak of there (that is, I didnt describe it, I put only the conclusion)the experience where I say Since the man refused I was offering participation in the universal work and the new creation and the man didnt want it, he refused, and so I now offer it to God.6
I dont know, Im putting it poorly, but this experience was concrete to the point of being physical. It happened in a Japanese country-house where we were living, near a lake. There was a whole series of circumstances, events, all kinds of thingsa long, long story, like a novel. But one day I was alone in meditation (I have never had very profound meditations, only concentrations of consciousness Mother makes an abrupt gesture showing a sudden ingathering of the entire being); and I was seeing. You know that I had taken on the conversion of the Lord of Falsehood: I tried to do it through an emanation incarnated in a physical being [Richard]7, and the greatest effort was made during those four years in Japan. The four years were coming to an end with an absolute inner certainty that there was nothing to be done that it was impossible, impossible to do it this way. There was nothing to be done. And I was intensely concentrated, asking the Lord, Well, I made You a vow to do this, I had said, Even if its necessary to descend into hell, I will descend into hell to do it. Now tell me, what must I do?The Power was plainly there: suddenly everything in me became still; the whole external being was completely immobilized and I had a vision of the Supreme more beautiful than that of the Gita. A vision of the Supreme.8 And this vision literally gathered me into its arms; it turned towards the West, towards India, and offered meand there at the other end I saw Sri Aurobindo. It was I felt it physically. I saw, sawmy eyes were closed but I saw (twice I have had this vision of the Supremeonce here, much later but this was the first time) ineffable. It was as if this Immensity had reduced itself to a rather gigantic Being who lifted me up like a wisp of straw and offered me. Not a word, nothing else, only that.
Then everything vanished.
--
It was after this vision, when I returned from Japan, that this meeting with Sri Aurobindo took place, along with the certainty that the Mission would be accomplished.
(silence)
--
But it never passed through my head first, never, never, never! Experiences came in my childhood that I didnt understand until Sri Aurobindo told me certain things; then I said, Ah, so thats what it was! But I never had that kind of curiosity, I never cared to understand with the head, I wasnt interested. I was interested in the result, in the inner change: how my attitude towards the world changed, my position relative to the creation that interested me from my infancy; how what seemed to be quite ordinary incidents could so completely change my relationship with that whole little world of children. And it was always the same thing: instead of feeling burdened, with a weight on your head, and just plodding on like a donkey, something would lift (gesture) and you would be on top of ityou could smile and begin to change. See that thing thats out of place? Why not set it right! Like arranging things in a drawer.
Why? How? What does it all mean? What do I care! Setting it right is whats important!
0 1961-12-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because there comes a time when one perceives the entire universe in such a total and comprehensive way that, in truth, it is impossible to remove anything from it without disturbing everything. And going a couple of steps further, one knows for certain that things which shock us as contradictions of the Divine are simply things out of place. Each thing must be exactly in its place, and whats more, be supple enough, plastic enough, to admit into a harmonious, progressive organization all the new elements constantly being added to the manifest universe. The universe is in a perpetual movement of internal reorganization, and at the same time its growing: its becoming more and more complex, more and more complete, more and more integralindefinitely. And as the new elements manifest, the whole reorganization must be built on a new basis, and thus there isnt a second when ALL is not in perpetual movement. And when the movement is in accord with the divine order, its harmonious, so perfectly harmonious that its almost imperceptible. Now, if you descend from this consciousness towards a more external consciousness, you begin naturally to have a very precise feeling of what helps you attain the true consciousness and what bars the way or pulls you backwards or even fights against your progress. And so the perspective changes and you are obliged to say: this is divine or a help towards the Divine; and that goes against the Divine, its the Divines enemy. But this is a pragmatic standpoint, geared to action, to movement in material lifebecause you havent yet attained the consciousness surpassing all that; because you havent reached that inner perfection where you no longer have to fight, since you have gone beyond the field or the time or the utility of struggle. But before reaching that state in your consciousness and action, there is necessarily struggle; and if there is struggle, there is choice; and to choose, you need discrimination.
(Mother remains silent)
--
It was a truly stupendous experience, petty though the object is (she is insignificant, without any great substance or powera very minor incarnation; she does have certain not quite human capacities, but they are so veiled by a tiny human personality that scarcely anyone but I can see them).
And in the experience there was no difference between my physical and my inner being (actually, its that way more and more for me); even physically, externally, there was a kind of love full of adoration, and so spontaneousnot even any sense of wonder! And there was such a formidable Power in it, formidable from the standpoint of the entire earth. It lasted one hour. After an hour, the experience slowly began to fade (it had to fade for purely practical reasons). But it left me so confident of a radical changenot a total change, for it wasnt permanent but so radical that even outwardly, way down below in me, something was saying, Ah, how will the meditations with X be now? I caught Myself not thinking, not myself: someone thought like that, somewhere way down below. This pulled me out of the experience and I wondered, Thats strange, whos thinking like that? It was one of the personalities4 (in terms of work, its the one that gives each action its proper place), someone way down below, spontaneously feeling: But thats going to change the meditations! What will they be like now? When I returned and began to look at things with the usual discernment, I told myself that perhaps there actually will be a change.
But truly, EVERYTHING was changed at that moment: something was achieved. It was the perception of Power the Power that comes from Love (what Love is to the Supreme Consciousness, which has nothing to do with what we usually mean by the word love). And it was it was simple! None of those complications resulting from thought, intellect, understandingall that was gone, all gone. A formidable Power! And it made me understand one thing, that the state I had been put in (by the Lord of Yoga, in fact) was for obtaining the particular power that comes through an identity with all material things, a power possessed by certain personsnot always yogis, certain mediums, for instance. I saw it with Madame Theon: she would will a thing to come to her instead of going to the thing herself; instead of going to get her sandals when she wanted them, she made the sandals come to her. She did this through a capacity to radiate her mattershe exercised a will over her matterher central will acted upon matter anywhere, since she WAS THERE. With her, then, I saw this power in a methodical, organized way, not as something accidental or spasmodic (as it is with mediums), but as an organization of Matter. And so I began to understand: With this comes the power to put each thing in its place! provided one is universal enough.
Well, I have understood. And now I know where I stand.
--
And if to this material capacity of identification, of exercising the will, is added that Something which was there during my experience and is truly the expression. I dont know if its the supreme expression, but for the time being its certainly the highest I know of. (Its far superior to pure Knowledge through identity, to knowing the thing because one IS itits infinitely more powerful than that.) its something formidable! It has the power to change everything and how!
One IS simply Thatone vibration of THAT.
0 1962-01-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Afterwards, I looked into it a bit. Whats wrong with you, anyway? I said. If you dont have the strength to bear experiences you wont be able to do the work! My body answered me very clearly that I was overworking it; and Sri Aurobindos will was clearly behind it, saying, Its overwork. You cant keep on seeing people and talking for hours on end and then going into these kinds of experiences. You cant do both, you have to choose, or at least strike a better balance. Well, I certainly wasnt going to stop my experiences, so I took advantage of this little incident to get some rest. It was nothing, really! The doctors were saying, Take care, the heart isnt working properly, and all that. They wanted to start drugging me! All I need is peace and quiet, not drugs. So I took a restand since I had to have an excuse, I said I wasnt well and needed rest.
But following that, and because of the overwork, an old thing I thought I had cured has come back. It was originally brought on by overwork when I was going to the Playground and resting only two hours out of twenty-four, which wasnt enougha sort of ulcer formed between my nose and throat. Its an old complaint, dating from the removal of adenoids in my childhood; the operation left a kind of small cavity, which was nothing in itself, except that occasionally it would give me a cold. But as a result of overwork it came back in the form of an ulcer, and gave me artificial colds; it was so sour and corrosive, a terrible irritation in the throat and nose. It got much worse when I was giving classes at the Playground, and once I showed it to the doctor. Why, you have an ulcer! he said. A big fuss. He offered to treat me. No thanks! I said. Dont worry, it will pass. And I began my own yogic treatment. It was over in a week and for three years there was no further sign of it. Recently (the last two or three months) I had felt it trying to come back, for exactly the same reason of overwork. And with that little adventure the other day, it did come backit gave me one of those stupid colds: sneezing, coughing. Its not quite over yet. But its nothing, it just gives me an excuse (laughing) to tell people I am still not quite well!
--
Given the worlds present set-up, this is normal but if the supramental world were to be realized, it shouldnt remain normal. Clearly, a considerable change has to take place in the physical substance. That will probably be the essential difference between the bodies fashioned by Natures methods and those to be fashioned by supramental knowledgea new element will come in, and we will no longer be natural. But so long as this natural element is present, well, a certain amount of patience is probably requiredlet the body catch its breath, otherwise something gives way.
It gets much less winded, of course, when you have the inner equality of the divine Presence. So much fatigue is due to excess tension produced by desire or effort or struggle, by the constant battle against all opposing forces. All that can go.
--
Yesterday evening I read something in the book9. Sri Aurobindo is writing to someone who said, How lucky people are who live near the Mother. You dont know what youre talking about! he replies. To live in the Mothers physical presence is one of the most difficult things. Do you remember this passage? I didnt know he had written that. Well, well I thought. He writes, It is hard to stay near her, because the difference between the physical consciousness of all you people and her physical consciousness is so enormous.10 Indeed, thats what tires me out. Thats what tires my body, because it is used to living in a certain rhythm, a universal rhythm.
(silence)
--
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 1962-01-12 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Not that the problem hasnt been partially solved: hatha yogis have solved it, partiallyprovided you do nothing else (thats the trouble). Yet having the knowledge, we should have the power to do whats necessary without making it our exclusive preoccupation. At any rate, this possibility is certainly not altogether unknown; for the first few months after I retired to my room,4 when I had cut all contact with the outside, it was working very well even extraordinarily so! Lots of disorders in my body were surmounted, and I had many fairly precise indications that if I continued like that long enough I would regain everything that had been lost, and with an even better equilibrium. I mean that the functional equilibrium was far superior. Only when I came back into contact with the world did it all come to a halt and begin to deteriorateall the more so as it was aggravated by this discipline of expansion making me constantlyCONSTANTLYabsorb mountains of difficulties to be resolved. And so.
With the mind, its rather easyyou can put things back in order in five minutes, its not difficult. With the vital its already a bit more troublesome, it takes a little longer. But when you come to the material level, well. Theres a CONTAGION of wrong cellular functioning and a kind of internal disorganizationthings not staying in their proper places. Each vibration absorbed from the outside instantly creates a disorder, dislocates everything, creates wrong contacts and disrupts the organization; it sometimes takes HOURS to put it all back in order. Consequently, if I really want to make use of this bodys possibility without having to face the necessity of changing it because it cant follow along, then, materially, I would really need, as much as possible, to stop having to gulp down all sorts of things that drag me years backwards.
--
So long as theres no question of physical transformation, the psychological and in large part, the subjective point of view is sufficientand thats relatively easy. But when it comes to incorporating matter into the work, matter as it is in this world where the very starting point is false (we start off in unconsciousness and ignorance), well, its very difficult. Because, to recover the consciousness it has lost, Matter has had to individualize itself, and for that for the form to last and retain this possibility of individualityit has been created with a certain indispensable measure of rigidity. And that rigidity is the main obstacle to the expansion, to the plasticity and suppleness necessary for receiving the Supermind. I constantly find myself facing this problem, which is utterly concrete, absolutely material when youre dealing with cells that have to remain cells and not vaporize into some nonphysical reality, and at the same time have to have a suppleness, a lack of rigidity, enabling them to widen indefinitely.
There have been times, while working in the most material mind (the mind ingrained in the material substance), when I felt my brain swelling and swelling and swelling, and my head becoming so large it seemed about to burst! On two occasions I was forced to stop, because it was (was it only an impression, or was it a fact?) in any event it seemed dangerous, as if the head would burst, because what was inside was becoming too tremendous (it was that power in Matter, that very powerful deep blue light which has such powerful vibrations; it is able to heal, for example, and change the functioning of the organsreally a very powerful thing materially). Well then, thats what was filling my head, more and more, more and more, and I had the feeling that my skull was (it was painful, you know) that there was a pressure inside my skull pushing out, pushing everything out. I wondered what was going to happen. Then, instead of following the movement, helping it along and going with it, I became immobile, passive, to see what would happen. And both times it stopped. I was no longer helping the movement along, you see, I simply remained passive and it came to a halt, there was a sort of stabilization.
--
And in that state, expansion follows almost automatically, necessitating certain adjustments in the body which are difficult to work out. I am still completely immersed in this problem.
Then that suppleness. It means a capacity for decrystallizing oneself; the whole span of life given over to self-individualization is a period of conscious, willed crystallization, which then has to be undone. To become a conscious, individualized being there has to be a constant, constant, willed crystallization, in everything; and afterwards, again constantly, the opposite movement has to be madewith an even greater will. But at the same time, the consciousness must not lose the benefit of what has been acquired through individualization.
0 1962-01-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And EXACTLY five years later, it happened. Later I met people coming from China who told me it had all been the work of a secret society. They told me about it because that society used a certain sign, and instinctively, unknowingly, I had made that sign while one of them was talking to me (Mother puts one fist on top of the other). And the person said, Ah, so youre one of us! I didnt reply. Then he told me everything.
But its really interesting because the exact date was given. The revolution will take place in exactly five years, he told me. He knew it before he left. And that, he continued, will be the beginning, the first terrestrial movement heralding the transformation of. (Theon didnt use the word supramental; he used to talk about the new world on earth.)2
0 1962-01-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Your practice of psycho-analysis was a mistake. It has, for the time at least, made the work of purification more complicated, not easier. The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mindto take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow termsruns riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners,is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges. If one wishes to purify and transform the nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being. Even this should be done with care, not prematurely or rashly, following a higher guidance, keeping always the right attitude; for otherwise the force that is drawn down may be too strong for an obscure and weak frame of nature. But to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of ones way to invite trouble. First, one should make the higher mind and vital strong and firm and full of light and peace from above; afterwards one can open up or even dive into the subconscious with more safety and some chance of a rapid and successful change.
0 1962-01-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But there is one advantage: without those beings, without the worlds distortion, many things would be lacking. Those beings potentially embodied certain absolutely unique elementsunderstandably so, since they were the first wave. And precisely because they still WERE the Supreme to such a great extent, each one felt he was the Supreme, and that was that. Only it wasnt quite sufficient, for the simple reason that they were already divided into four, and one single division is enough to make everything go wrong. Its readily understandable: its not something essentially evil, but a question of wrong FUNCTIONING; its not the substance, not the essence. The essence isnt evil, but the functioning is faulty.
But if you understand.
--
The divisions and subdivisions of the being were described down to the slightest detail and with perfect precision. I went through the experience again on my own, without any preconceived ideas, just like that: leaving one body after the other, one body after the other, and so on twelve times. And my experienceapart from certain quite negligible differences, doubtless due to differences in the receiving brainwas exactly the same.
(the clock strikes)
0 1962-02-03, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because before you were told about your karma, I had already seen certain things about you and was trying to set you freenot from the thing itself, but from the tendency that remained in your nature. That, yes.
But Sujata, for example, was completely, COMPLETELY free of the whole (what shall I say?) what could be called the unhappy aspect of her karmacompletely free. For I know the people around me and what they carry with them very well, and there was nothingjust one thing remained, the one part that was rather constructive, so I had left that totally intact. And when the events of her past life were revealed to her, I took the greatest care to destroy the revelation as it was being given. And I did it ruthlessly. You see, it was like dumping a load of mud on someone completely unsullied, and I didnt let it happen (I couldnt stop what entered through her physical brain, but inwardly I utterly annihilated it). The only thing I left untouched was the constructive part of the bond that had existed between you two, and so when she met you, she. Thats all I left, because it was good, pure, lovelyit was good. But all the rest. And you saw how strongly I protested when I was told she had committed suicide. No, no, no! I said; even if somebody with perfect knowledge were to tell me so, Id still say NO.
--
For some time now I have been running into difficulties with my morning japa. Its complex. I wont go into details, but certain things seemed to be trying to interfere, either preventing me from going on to the end, or plunging me into a kind of trance that brought everything to a halt. So I began wondering what it was and why. A very, very long curve was involved, but the result of my observations is the following. (All this is purely from the bodys standpoint; I mean it doesnt concern the conscious, living, independent being that would remain the same even without the bodyto be exact, the being whose life, consciousness, freedom and action do not depend on the body. I am speaking here of that which needs the body for its manifestation; that alone was in question.)
There has been a kind of perception of a variety of bodily activities, a whole series of them, having to do exclusively (or so it seems) with the maintenance of the body. Some are on the borderlinesleep, for instance: one portion of it is necessary for good maintenance of the body, and another portion puts it in contact with other parts and activities of the being; but one portion of sleep is exclusively for maintaining the bodys balance. Then there is food, keeping clean, a whole range of things. And according to Sri Aurobindo, spiritual life shouldnt suppress those things; whatever is indispensable for the bodys well-being must be kept up. For ordinary people, all other bodily activities are used for personal pleasure and benefit. The spiritual man, on the other hand, has given his body to serve the Divine, so that the Divine may use it for His work and perhaps, as Sri Aurobindo said, for His joyalthough given the present state of Matter and the body, that seems to me unlikely or at best very intermittent and partial, because this body is much more a field of misery than a field of joy. (None of this is based on speculation, but on personal experience I am relating my personal experience.) But with work, its different: when the body is at work, its in full swing. Thats its joy, its needto exist only to serve Him. To exist only to serve. And of course, to reduce maintenance to a bare minimum while trying to find a way for the Divine to participate in the very restricted, limited and meager possibilities of joy this maintenance may give. To associate the Divine with all those movements and things, like keeping clean, sleeping (although sleep is different, its already a lot more interesting); but especially with personal hygiene, eating and other absolutely indispensable things, the attempt is to associate them with the Divine Presence so that they may be as much an expression of divine joy as possible. (This is realized to a certain extent.)
Now where does japa fit into all this?
--
In the course of my observation, I also saw the position of X and people like him, who practically spend their lives doing japa, plus meditation, puja,4 ceremonies (I am talking only about sincere people, not fakers). Well, thats their way of working for the world, of serving the Divine, and it seems the best way to themperhaps even the only way but its a question of mental belief. In any case, its obvious that even a bit of not exactly puja, but some sort of ceremony that you set yourself to dohabitual gestures symbolizing and expressing a particular inner statecan also be a help and a way of offering yourself and relating to the Divine and thus serving the Divine. I feel its important looked at in this waynot from the traditional viewpoint, I cant stand that traditional viewpoint; I understand it, but it seems to me like putting a brake on true self-giving to the Divine. I am speaking of SELF-IMPOSED japa and rules (or, if someone gives you the japa, rules you accept with all your heart and adhere to). These self-imposed rules should be followed as a gesture of love, as a way of saying to the Divine, I love You. Do you see what I mean? Like arranging flowers in a certain way, burning incense, dozens of little things like that, made beautiful because of what is put into themit is a form of self-giving.
Now, I think that doing japa with the will and the idea of getting something out of it spoils it a little. You spoil it. I dont much like it when somebody says, Do this and you will get that. Its trueits true, but its a bit like baiting a fish. I dont much like it.
0 1962-02-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because a day or two ago (I dont remember exactly, it was rather fleeting but very interesting), I went through such a moment while walking in my room (it lasted while I was out on the balcony, too): suddenly a kind of absolute certainty that I knew nothing (there was no I at all) that one knew nothing (one, there was no one, there was only); one couldnt know (I have to use words), one couldnt know, there was nothing to know, it was totally hopeless, it was completely IMPOSSIBLE to understand anything, even, even going beyond the mind, and no formulation was possible, there was no possibility of understanding. It was really so absolute that helping others, making the world progress, spiritual life, seeking the Divine, all of that seemed idle talk, empty words! There was nothing in it, it was nothing, and there was nothing to understand, it was impossible to understandit was impossible to BE. The feeling of a total incapacity. The experience was like a solventeverything seemed to dissolve: the world, the earth, people, life, intelligence, all of it, everything was dissolved. An absolutely negative state. And my solution was the same as always: when the experience was total and complete, when nothing was left, then: Who cares! (it could really be put in the most ordinary words), I adore You! And the I was something utterly insubstantial: there was no form, no being, no qualityonly I adore You. This I was I adore You, there was just enough I to adore You with.
From that moment on there was an inexpressible Sweetness, and within that Sweetness, a Voice so sweet and harmonious too! There was a sound but no wordsyet it held a perfectly clear meaning for me, like very precise words: You have just had your most creative moment!
0 1962-02-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Concerning a European disciple who praises the merits of a certain pseudo-spiritual book, which Mother calls "spiritual romanticism":)
Its very European theyre like that.
--
Take Z, for instanceshe told me that Maharshi1 wrote in his book that if I were Hindu and did asanas every day, all India would be at my feet! This has certainly been Zs biggest difficulty: it was easy to come here, she could speak to me perfectly freely, I didnt behave mysteriously. So of course, it was too simple!
***
0 1962-02-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, its peoples thoughts that are so annoying! Everybody, everybody is constantly thinking about old age and death, and death and old age and illness oh, theyre such a nuisance! Me, I never think of it. Thats not the question. The difficulty lies in the Work itself; it doesnt depend on a certain number of years, which besides is completely its nothing, one second in eternity, a mere nothing!
But truly, if someone (I dont know who or what this Someone is) if I am given the time, I will know I am convinced of it. For despite all the growing difficulties, there is also a growing knowledge, a constant progress. So from that standpoint, I CANNOT be mistaken; it is impossible. This Presence is becoming so concrete and so (what shall I say?) so helpful, so concrete in its help. But it obviously takes a long time.
0 1962-02-17, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All sorts of things. But quite often we are looking for things related to expression sometimes images, sometimes sentences, sometimes. I have told you I frequently meet you in a kind of library without books. Its very interesting. It is open on top, below too, and no walls; it is extremely spacious, certainly almost as vast as the earth. And there are pigeonholes that seem to hang in the air, with all kinds of things filed in them. We are often sorting through these pigeonholes to find certain txtsideas, I mean. Ideas, explanations, sometimes memories, all kinds of things. This world is mental but very luminous and clear; full of clarity, perfectly ordered, without confusion, and all open. Wide open.
I frequently find you there.
--
Unfortunately, Satprem didn't keep Mother's reply, nor the long story she told afterwards about squabbles among certain Ashram people. Only the end of the conversation still exists.
I climb not to thy everlasting Day... Earth is the chosen place of mightiest souls; Earth is the heroic spirit's battlefield... Thy servitudes on earth are greater, king, Than all the glorious liberties of heaven... Oh, to spread forth, oh to encircle and seize More hearts till love in us has filled thy world!... Are there not still a million fights to wage?
0 1962-02-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because. Ive noticed there are always several ways of explaining things. But certainly one very common explanation would be that it was some type of magic spell for my health too.
The last time X came, I was very ill the day he arrived and he was called to my room upstairsactually I wanted him to come upstairs for several reasons, so he could see certain things. But he didnt see a thing, or if he did, he was reluctant to say so. Oh, its a physical ailment, he said (it isnt true, I had no physical ailmentperhaps he didnt want to say it), its a physical ailment; something may be acting from outside, but it doesnt amount to much. But it seems to me the formation was made a long time ago I was always feeling attacked and it must have been skillfully made!4
It was that or else, as I often thought, some necessary preparation for the work something that had to be done.
--
This explanation is clear; and the healing was the result of tapasya. Its self-explanatory. Something was even saying to my body, to the bodys SUBSTANCE, O unbelieving substance, now you wont be able to say there are no miracles. Throughout all the work that was being done on the 20th, something was saying (I dont know who, because it doesnt come like something foreign to me any more, its like a Wisdom, it seems like a Wisdom, something that knows: not someone in particular, but that which knows, whatever its form), something that knows was insisting to the body, by showing it certain things, vibrations, movements, From now on, O unbelieving substance, you cant say there are no miracles. Because the substance itself is used to each thing having its effect, to illnesses following a particular course and certain things even being necessary for it to be cured. This process is very subtle, and it doesnt come from the intellect, which can have a totally different interpretation of it; its rather a kind of consciousness ingrained in physical substance, and thats what was being addressed and being shown certain movements, certain vibrations and so forth: You see, from now on you cant say there are no miracles. In other words, a direct intervention of the Lord, who doesnt follow the beaten path, but does things in His own way.
There was also that attack (it was rather serious and threw the doctor into a fit of anxiety) which took place, I think, the day before sari distribution.6 The next morning, throughout the distribution, someone else seemed to have taken possession of my body and to be doing what had to be done, taking care of all the difficulties; I was comfortable, serene, simply like a carefree spectator. I had nothing to worry about, someone was. (What someone? Someone, something, I dont know, theres no more difference, its not delineated like that any more; but anyway, it was a being, a force, a consciousness perhaps a part of myself, I dont know; none of this is clear-cut; its quite precise, but not divided, very smoothMo ther makes a rounded gestureno breaks.) Something, then, a will or a force or a consciousness plainly a powerhad taken possession of the body and was doing all the work, looking after everything. I was witnessing everything, smiling. But its gone now. It came specifically for that work (I was in pretty bad shape); when the work was over, it dissolvedit didnt leave abruptly but it became inactive. Afterwards, I felt rather confident. Well in any case, I thought, something similar could happen on the 21st, since it just happened now.
--
I did it myself for years, using the same system: inhale, hold, exhale, remain empty. But holding the lungs empty is said to be dangerous, so I dont advise it. I did it for years. Without knowing it, Sri Aurobindo and I did it nearly the same way, along with all sorts of other things that arent supposed to be done! This is to tell you that the danger is mainly in what you think. In the course of certain movements, both of us made the air go out through the crown of the headapparently thats only to be done when you want to die! (Mother laughs) It didnt kill us.
No, the danger is MAINLY a thought formation.
0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The closer you approach absolute certainty, the greater is the time span, because the realm of such visions is quite close to the Origin, and a long time can pass between the revelation of what will be and its realization. But being so near the Origin, the revelation is very certain.
When one is identified with the Supreme, there is a place where all is unequivocally known: in the past, in the present, in the future and everywhere. But when they return, those who go there usually forget what they have seen. A particularly strict discipline is needed to remember. Thats the only realm where you cant be mistaken.
--
But as soon as you move into a subtler realm, like the vital (and the mental even more so), there is a narrow margin of possibilities. You can see the rough outlines of what is going to take place, but in the details it can be this way or that way: it is possible for certain wills or influences to interfere and create discrepancies.
This is so because the original Will is reflected, as it were, in different realms, and in each realm the organization and relation of the images are changed. The world we live in is a world of imagesnot THE thing itself in its essence, but its reflection. We could say that in our material existence we are merely a reflection, an image of what we are in our essential reality. And the modalities of these reflections are what introduce all the errors and all the falsifications (what is seen in its essence is perfectly true and pure, existing from all eternity, while images are essentially variable). And according to the amount of falsehood introduced into the vibrations, the amount of distortion and alteration increases. Each circumstance, each event and each thing can be said to have one pure existenceits true existence and a considerable number of impure or distorted existences in the various realms of being. There is a substantial beginning of distortion, for instance, in the intellectual realm (indeed, the mental realm holds a considerable amount of distortion), and it increases as all the emotional and censorial realms interfere. Arriving at the material plane, the vision is most often unrecognizable. Completely distorted. To such a point that its sometimes very hard to realize that this is the material expression of thattheres not much resemblance any longer!
--
Take the case of someone you know well and are used to seeing materially: seeing him in the subtle physical, certain aspects become more prominent, more visible, more marked; physically they went unseen because in the material grayness they had blended with many other things. certain character traits that never showed up physically now become so marked as to be quite visible. When you look at someone physically, you see the color of his complexion, the shape of his features, his expression. Seeing him at the same moment in the subtle physical, you suddenly notice different colors on different parts of the face, in the eyes an expression or a particular light you hadnt seen beforea strong impression of a very different overall appearance, which to our physical eyes would seem rather outlandish. But for the subtle vision its all very expressive and revealing of the persons character, or even of the influences hes under (what I am talking about is something I observed a few days ago).
So, according to the plane where you are conscious and can see, you perceive images and see events from varying distances and with varying degrees of accuracy. The only true and sure vision is the vision of the Divine Consciousness. The problem, therefore, is to become conscious of the Divine Consciousness and constantly maintain it in all lifes details.
Meanwhile, there are all sorts of ways to receive indications. That exact, precise and (whats the word?) habitual vision certain people have may stem from various sources. It may be a vision through identity with circumstances and things when you have learned to expand your consciousness. It may be an indication from some chatterbox of the invisible world, who has got it into his head to let you know whats going to happenthis is often the case. Then everything depends on your harbingers morals: if he is having fun at your expense, he spins stories for youthis almost always happens to those who receive their information from entities. To bait you, they may repeatedly tell you how things are going to turn out (for they have a universal vision in some vital or mental realm); then, when they are sure you trust them, they may start telling you fibs and, as they say in English, you make a fool of yourself. This happens frequently! You have to be in a higher consciousness than these fellows, these entities (or these minor gods, as some call them) and able to check from above the value of their statements.
With a universal mental vision, you can see (and this is very interesting) how the mental world operates to get realized on the physical plane. You see the various mental formations, how they converge, conflict, combine and relate to one another, which ones get the upper hand, exert a stronger influence and achieve a more total realization. Now, if you really want a higher vision, you must get out of the mental world and see the original wills as they descend to take expression. In this case, you may not have all the details, but the central FACT, the fact in its central truth, is indisputable, undeniable, absolutely correct.
--
This type of thing has happened to me very, very oftenfour times with snakes. There was one incident here near the fishing village of Ariankuppam, a place where a river empties into the sea. Night had fallen swiftly, it was pitch dark, and I was walking along a road when right in the middle of a step (I had already lifted my foot and was about to lower it), I distinctly heard a voice in my ear: Watch out! Yet no one had spoken. So I looked, and just as my foot was about to touch the ground, I saw an enormous black cobra right where I was casually going to put my foot. Those fellows dont like that sort of thing! It slithered away and swam across the waterwhat a beauty, mon petit! Hood wide open, head held high, he swam across like a king. I would certainly have been punished for my impertinence!
I have had hundreds and hundreds of experiences like thatinformed just at the last moment (not one second too soon)and in very different circumstances. Once in Paris I was crossing the Boulevard Saint Michel (I had resolved to attain union with the psychic presence, the inner Divine, within a certain number of months, and these were the last weeks I was thinking of nothing but that, engrossed in that alone). I lived near the Luxembourg Gardens and was going there for a stroll, to sit in the gardens that eveningstill indrawn. I came to a kind of intersectionnot a very sensible place to cross when youre interiorized! So, in that state, I started to cross when all of a sudden I had a shock, as if something had hit me, and I instinctively jumped back. As I jumped back a streetcar rushed by. I had felt the streetcar at a little more than arms length. It had touched my aura, the protective aura (that aura was very strong at the time I was deep into occultism and knew how to maintain it). My protective aura was touched, and it literally threw me backwards, just like a physical shock. Accompanied by the drivers insults!
I leapt back just in time, and the streetcar passed by.
0 1962-03-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Really, I dont understand anything any more. I dont understand. I have absolute faith in Something Else thats always been there, it doesnt waver. But there seems to be no progress. I see nothing ahead of me, nothing behind me, nothing. I dont know, Ive already been here a good number of years and I dont feel Ive made an inch of progress, nothing I see nothing. Not that Im losing faith, thats my only reason for living; without this certainty of Something Else, I would kill myself. But practically speaking.
There are periods like that.
--
My feeling is that if you try to hurry, to rush, to speed things up a little, it jams, it becomes like stoneit turns to stone again. It took the stone a long time to become a man. So I dont want that. You cant get too impatientits not even impatience, but pressure. Beyond a certain pressure, it turns to stone. So I understand people who attain realization and, blissfully enjoying it, kick the whole thing out: Fine, Ill do without it!
Thats what has always happened.
--
So when people ask me, I say (to tell them something), We shall see. Its certainly not that I dont know; I know perfectly well how it will be. But (laughing) I dont know when! That, I dont know. Even at this point, I dont know when.
In fact, if something wants to know when, then its still in a hurry.
0 1962-03-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Satprem suggests he read certain past Agenda conversations to Mother. She refuses:)
You know, Ive almost felt like telling you that all this Agenda stuff isnt meant for circulation. Its only for when I have come to the endand then whats in it wont matter at all. Or else I will have gone, leaving a note saying I dont want it published
--
certain stages of your development even require the gurus physical presence: you must no longer go into trance unless he is there, sitting beside you. Out of the question! Cant you just imagine me saddled with loads of people! Its impossible; I couldnt even do the job properly. No, its impossible, it would simply mean exposing a lot of people to permanent danger and I dont want to.
So well put this Talk aside.
0 1962-03-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, its certainly not publishable right now.
And I made a date with you for fifty years from now. I was very serious: I was laughing. When I laugh I am being serious.
--
Published? certainly not in the newspapers. It will be for those interested in the yoga.
Well, thats different.
--
I certainly hope not!
Well then, is that all right? Are you satisfied? Thats what I meant to say. Perhaps I didnt make myself clear.
--
Listen, I told you onceit wasnt just wordsand I thought you understood and would remember: everything I write is absolutely dependent on your work, in the sense that if you werent here I wouldnt write another wordjust letters with I send you my blessings. Period. Not that I dont have time or cant do it, but I dont enjoy it. When we do something together, when we write, I get the feeling its complete and has a certain quality that makes it useful. When you arent here to write it, I feel something missing. So if you think its useless to do this for me, I am sorry that hurts!
No, of course not!
0 1962-04-03, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Just between eleven and twelve [last night] I had an experience by which I discovered that there is a group of peoplepurposely their identity was not revealed to mewanting to create a kind of religion based on the revelation of Sri Aurobindo. But they have taken only the side of power and force, a certain kind of knowledge and all which could be utilized by Asuric forces. There is a big Asuric being that has succeeded in taking the appearance of Sri Aurobindo. It is only an appearance. This appearance of Sri Aurobindo has declared to me that the work I am doing is not his. It has declared that I have been a traitor to him and to his work and has refused to have anything to do with me.
There is in that group a man whom I must have seen once or twice, who is not with them in spirit, but only in appearance, but without knowledge. He does not know what kind of being it is. And he always hopes to make him accept me, believing it is truly Sri Aurobindo. I saw this being last night. I wont tell you all the details of the vision. It is not necessary. But I must say that I was fully conscious, aware of everything, knowing that there was an Asuric Force there, but not rejecting it, because of the infinity of Sri Aurobindo. I knew that everything is part of him and I do not want to reject anything. I met this being last night three times, even apologized for sins that I have not committed, and in full love and surrender.
0 1962-04-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And we set off again on the way, certain of the Victory.
The heavens are ringing with chants of Victory!
0 1962-05-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Did I tell you about it? It was a sort of vision that I took for a beginning of work on the subconscient. I had come to a place where Sri Aurobindo was staying and found him closeted in his room. There was a sort of large hall, an immense hall with rooms opening onto it, and his apartment was off to one side (gesture). I asked to see him. I was told it wasnt possible and I had to wait. I was astonished. Then certain things happened in the hall concerning A. and M. (rather interesting things, but concerning them personally). And at the same time, I was waiting. When it was all over, I asked once again to go into the room. Then through the doorway I saw I saw a tall Sri Aurobindomuch taller than he actually wasstrong but rather thin, thin in a way that not the way he really wasit was rather a gauntness, very harsh, very cold; and he was somewhat darker than he used to be. I saw him there, walking up and down; and when he was told I was asking to see him, I saw him in the distance saying, No, I dont want to see her. I wont acknowledge her and I dont want anything to do with hershe has betrayed me. Something like that (I couldnt hear the actual words, but the gestures were plain enough). Well, that was the very first timenothing of the kind had ever occurred before.
And I immediately felt that it was the expression of certain peoples thoughts. During the war there was a whole clique (I know their names and all the details) who said I had influenced Sri Aurobindo, made him deviate from his nationalist path and turn towards the Allies; they considered me to have ruined his life, his consciousness, his workeverything, you understand.1
And I was seeing the very IMAGE of that in this vision. A person I wont name (but I spoke to him afterwards; hes still here) came out of the room to tell me all this. In my vision I told him two things (it seems very distant nowit was back in 59and I no longer recall if I told him one thing after the other or both together). First of all, I protested against everything that fake Sri Aurobindo was saying about me, and at the same time I was going towards the person coming out of the room (its someone living here, you know, who is, who was quite close to Sri Aurobindo. Apparently he was under the influence of certain doubting thoughts, certain doubts, thats why he was there). I called him by name and spoke to him in English: But surely we have had a true spiritual relationship, a true union! Immediately he melted and said yes, and rushed headlong into my arms. In other words, that was his conversion, and thats why I spoke to him about it afterwards; I didnt tell him about the experience but I spoke of the doubt that was in him. It was truly a beginning of conversion in one part of his being, and for that reason I wont name him. And along with this, in answer to what that fake Sri Aurobindo was saying, I said forcefully (also in English): This means the negation of all spiritual experience! And immediately the whole scene, the whole construction, everythingpoof! Vanished, dissolved. The Force swept it all away.
Later, when I had that second vision April 3, 1962, I saw that the same being was behind this would-be Sri Aurobindo (and with a whole group organized around himpeople, ceremonies and so on). So from that I concluded that the thing had been developing. But when I first encountered those people [in 1959] it was merely something in the Subconscient and the effect was only psychological (an hour or two was enough to sort things out and put them in order). It didnt affect my health. But this time.
--
No, nomy visions are in the subtle physical, but those people exist here on earth, although I dont know who they are. As I said, I knew only one of them. But its certain that a physical organization corresponding to these visions does exist. I dont know the details they just havent been given to me. But it corresponds to a group of PHYSICAL people.
Powerful?
--
There is certainly at least one Tantric among them and a highly skilled Tantric, someone who knows his business. That, yesall the signs are there!
But how powerful are they outwardly? The people around that fellow [the fake Sri Aurobindo], who leveled all those reproaches at me, used to be in the Ashram they have since left. They were quite real. But the ones in the last group [in the most recent vision], I dont know I dont know them physically, so I cant say.
--
When I was those gusts, those gusts of Love. When I was conscious of the last one, the one organized outwardly, as it were, by Sri Aurobindomaterializing as the avatar Sri Aurobindo then came the absolute certainty that the thing was done, that it was decreed.
And the moment I became aware that it was decreed, I thought, But how can THAT be translated into that? How can the two be joined? That was when the words came: You promised to do it, therefore you will do it; and slowly the transition began, as if I were again being sent back to do it. Yes, as if You promised to do it and you will do it; well, thats what I meant by a promise. And I came back towards this body to do it.
--
And when I said, I have left the body,4 it certainly didnt mean I have left the physical consciousness my overall contact with the terrestrial world has remained the same. It concerns only the purely bodily aspect, the specific concretization or concentration of substance giving each of us a different bodya different APPEARANCE.
And a rather illusory appearance, besides. As soon as you rise to a certain height (I saw it quite clearly during that progressive reconcretization5), this appearance quickly loses its reality. Our external appearance is very, very illusory. Our particular form (this ones form, that ones form), the form we see with our physical eyes is very superficial, you know. From the vital world onwards, its completely different.
Well. I think thats all I can say for today.
0 1962-05-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There was a relation, I kept a link with it, but it took some days to get established (I dont know how many, because for a long time I couldnt keep track of anything). After some days (say ten days, twenty days, I dont know), the will began to function, the body was again under the control of the will. But that didnt happen right away for some days, the will that deals with the body was annulled (I was entirely conscious and alive, but not in my body). The body was merely something moved around by the people looking after me. Not that it was separate, but I couldnt even say, its a body it wasnt anything any more! Something. Having undergone so much preparation, the universalization of the body-consciousness and all that, the experience didnt even seem strange to me (in fact, it was certainly the result of all that preparation). The body was something like a mass of substance being driven by the will of the three people looking after it. Not that I was unaware of it but. I wasnt much concerned with it, to tell the truth; but as far as my attention was turned to it, it was a corporeal mass being moved around by a few wills. The supreme Will was in full agreement; the body had been entrusted, in a way (I dont know how to express this) yes, it was like something entrusted, and I was simply looking on I watched it all for I dont know how many days, with hardly any interest.
The one really concrete link was pain. Thats how the contact was kept.
--
It has gradually come back, in the sense that actively. No, I cant even say thatits not true. What has come back is the increasingly precise memory of how I had organized the life of this body, the whole formation I had made, down to the smallest details for the things I was using, how I was making use of them, how I had organized all the objects around the body, all that. What has come back is the memoryis it memory? The awareness of all that has returned, as if I were putting the two back into contact. And so, instead of the body being left totally in the hands of those around me, the formation I had made is coming back, with certain changes, certain improvements and simplifications (but mind you, I had neither the intention nor the will to change anythingthose things are simply coming back into the consciousness like that, with certain changes made). In short, its a kind of conscious formation recrystallizing around this body.
And I have the perception a sensation, really, the sensation of something not at all me, but entrusted to me. More and more now, there is the feeling of something being entrusted to me in the universal organization for a definite purpose. Thats really the sensation I have now (the mind is very calm, so its difficult to express I dont think all these things, they are more like perceptions). And its not the usual kind of sensation: the ONLY (I insist on this), the ONLY sensation that remains in the old way is physical pain. And really, those points of pain they seem like the SYMBOLIC POINTS of what remains of the old consciousness.
--
If that state remained, I would truly be free of the world as it is. Nonetheless, people can still hear me, cant they? And I can still see, but in a peculiar waya very peculiar way. At times I see with greater precision than ever before (generally, as I told you the other day, I seem to see from behind a veil; thats constant). I hear things that way too. certain sounds. On one occasion I noticed a sound, a seemingly imperceptible sound, coming from about a hundred yards away, and it seemed to be right here. All this has changed I mean the whole way the organs function. Have the organs themselves changed, or is it their functioning? I dont know. But they all obey another lawabsolutely.
And I have the definite impression that that so-called illness was the external and ILLUSORY form of an indispensable process of transformation; without that so-called illness there could be no transformationit is not an illness, I KNOW it: when people speak of illness, something in me laughs and says, What a bunch of geese!
0 1962-05-22, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The beginning of this conversation, unfortunately not kept, dealt with certain instances of human ugliness. The topic, in fact, was Satprem's break with X who had been his guru for the past few years. The reasons for this rupture may one day be told, but it should be stressed right now that the fault did not really lie with X, whom Satprem continued to respect, but with a group of schemers at the Ashram who fastened onto X in the hope of god knows what "powers." It is perhaps just as well that the human "ugliness" here in question has vanished from Satprem's records, foralthough it did come up again immediately after Mother's departureit concerned only the Ashram disciples. All the details and all Mother's reflections on the subject have thus been lost, with the exception of this last fragment:)
What a world!
0 1962-05-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But in any case, if it could be absolutely total (theres an if here), objective, scientific knowledge pushed to its extreme limits would certainly bring you to the threshold. Thats what Sri Aurobindo means. But he also says its fatal, because all those who went in for that knowledge believed in it as an absolute truth, thus closing the door to the other approach. In this respect it is fatal.
From my own experience, though, I could say to all those who believe EXCLUSIVELY in the spiritual approach, the approach through inner experience, that thisat least if its exclusiveis equally fatal. For it reveals to them ONE aspect, ONE truth of the Whole but not THE Whole. The other side seems just as indispensable to me, for when I was so utterly in that supreme Realization, this other falsified, outer realization was undeniably just a distortion (and probably accidental) of something EQUALLY TRUE.
--
I dont think any single individual on earth (as it is now) no matter how great he may be, no matter how eternal his consciousness and origin, can all by himself change and realize. Change the world, change the creation as it is, and realize that higher Truth, the Truth that will be a new worlda truer, if not absolutely true, world. A certain number of individuals (until now they seem to have come in succession, in time, but they might also come as a collectivity, in space) would seem indispensable for this Truth to be concretized and realized.
On a practical level, I am sure of it.
In other words, no matter how great he may be, no matter how conscious, how powerful, ONE avatar all alone cannot realize the supramental life on earth. Either a group in time, a number of individuals staggered over a certain period of time, or a group spread out over a certain spaceor maybe bothis indispensable for this Realization. I am convinced of it.
The individual can give the initial impulse, point out the path, WALK the path himself (I mean show the path by realizing it) but he cant bring the work to fulfillment. The fulfillment of the work depends on certain collective laws that are the expression of a particular aspect of the Eternal and Infinitenaturally, its all one and the same Being! There arent different individuals and personalities, its all one and the same Being. But the same Being expressing itself in a particular way that for us translates as a group or a collectivity.
Well, thenany other questions on this?
--
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!
--
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.
0 1962-05-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont say for certain; I dont know. But there is a risk. Anyway as I said, from the external angle, the being would certainly be enriched.
From the collective viewpoint, of course, the work would be greatly inconvenienced: even if we could just manage to finish the Bulletin for August, the November Bulletin would be in real jeopardy.
--
A lack of vitality, too much tension; I dont knowmaybe the climate saps me. A certain number of physical things making it. Anyway, thats whats behind the idea.
What youre asking of Sujata is nothing short of sacrifice. Not outwardly, perhaps, but it would be a sacrifice for her. She would be sacrificing something to you, something very precious. To help you she would have to sacrifice her own realization. Well, that in itself has a place in the spectrum of realizations.
--
(After a silence) Among those who have gone beyond the stage of needing successive reincarnations to develop their psychic beings, among those whose souls are conscious, fully developed, there are some who (what shall I say?) who are chosen or destined to participate in a certain terrestrial action. And in the process of reincarnation, there is always always some degree of confusion and disarray, you see. I can speak of my own case, if you like; despite every precaution, certain kinds of confusion couldnt be avoided and of course this complicated the work. It was the same for Sri Aurobindo. And all this confusion sometimes greatly disrupts the work.
But there are a certain number of beingsnot manywho have come back on earth ONLY to take part in a particular work, in a particular way. And outer things, personal and individual things, are virtually sacrificed to that. certain faculties, for instance, whose source is the higher entity, faculties that in an ordinary life would result in a measure of power or fame or success or realization, are placed under conditions where their outer effect is subordinated to the needs of a particular work.
Let me put it to you more clearly: your physical body, for example, should have been either stronger or more supple or endowed with certain very strong vital compensations, so that you wouldnt suffer from your working conditions. Of course, for someone following a yogic ascent, whose soul is in the process of formation, the external conditions of life are normally what is best for inner development, whatever that may beeven if, on the surface, those conditions arent good. So the only advice you can give such a person is, Well, either renounce the spiritual life or else putup with it. But thats not your case. There is a Mission, a work, and a kind of gap between a certain physical formation and that Mission. So if you ask me plainly what I see, I can tell you plainly, instead of saying as I would to certain sadhaks or anyone sincerely wanting to do yoga, Take it or leave it; you must learn to transform yourself inwardly to the point where you can master the body and its needs. I cant tell you that, because thats not how it is for you.
I mean it may beit may be that even an inner transformation (a complete conversion of the vital being, for instance) wouldnt necessarily bring an improvement in your health. It is here where. Its not something I see imperatively. And to go back to ordinary life would be the end of everythingof your physical life and your inner life too.
--
But it may not be unimportant to take a few precautions and make use of certain external aids. Thats why I cant say, Dont mind your bodyjust keep going and everything will be all right. No. Spending two or three months in the mountains, for example, might help you. It might. But I dont see anything, mind you; I dont know.
And this blockage in my meditationsis it also due to this special work? I have a sort of feeling that Ive already had those yogic realizations, you see
--
certainly.
and that its all. Well, I feel Im in exileyou see what I mean?
0 1962-05-29, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For my taste (do I still have tastes? I certainly have no preferences, but some things do come more spontaneously than others) my spontaneous movement, you know, would be this (all-embracing gesture, open to all horizons)and then just let go.
If I could plunge you into certain vibrations, you wouldnt need the mountains.
I know what its like in the mountains the body feels fine for a while, but. Z, you know, had the same feeling (she comes from the mountains); she felt that without mountain air she would always be sick. I knew, that wasnt it, that it was certain inner difficulties, but I let her go to the mountains. Her body was exuberant! But she came back sicker than when she left. And yet her body was exuberant. Its very superficial.
No, I dont really feel any need for the mountains. The idea came to me because of this book.
0 1962-05-31, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a strange thing that happens to me all the time, at least fifty times a day (and its particularly clear at night). In its most external form its like moving from one room to another, or from one house to another, and you go through the door or the wall almost without noticing it, automatically. Being in one room is reflected outwardly by quite a comfortable condition, a state where theres no pain at all, no pain anywhere, and a great peacea joyous peace, a state of perfect calm an ideal condition, at any rate, which sometimes lasts a long, long time. Its mainly at night, actually; during the day people interrupt me with all sorts of things, but for a certain number of hours at night this state is practically constant. And then suddenly, with no perceptible or apparent reason (I havent yet discovered the why or the wherefore of it), you seem to FALL into the other room, or into the other house, as though you had made a false step and then you have a pain here, an ache there, youre uncomfortable.
Obviously its the continuation of the same experience I told you about,1 but now it has come to this. I mean the two states are now distinctnoticeably distinct; but so far I havent found either the why or the wherefore. Is it something coming from outside or just an old rut: yes, it really feels like an old rut, like a wrinkle in a piece of cloth; you know, you iron it out again and again, and the wrinkle comes back. Thats more the feeling it gives menot at all a conscious habit, just an old rut. But might something from outside also be provoking it?
And the dreams it gives me! Oh, theres a whole series of them, with particular styles and categories. You start down a flight of stairsno more stairs; you want to take a certain road the road closes; you want to catch someoneyou cant. All kinds of things. And although these dreams (I have a whole collection of them, in fact) recur with certain minor outward differences, they are all of the same type. Its a well-known type which I now classify as self-imposed troubles. When I get out of it and look, I see very clearly that its only this nasty habit we have of fretting over nothing! (Laughingly) Oh, whatever we want to do, immediately theres a complication, a difficulty.
Yes, these dreams arise from the subconscient; they are primarily subconscious habits. But the pain, the thorns in the garmentits so clear! (Mother laughs) And no way to get comfortable!
In the past, a dream like that would nag me for hours, I would worry, wondering what calamities were going to befall me (this was long, long agoages ago). But that was idiotic, as I later understood; its a certain something in the subconscient, a symbolic form of well, of certain bad psychological habits we have, thats all. And I used to torment myself: How can I get rid of this? (Were all loaded with a multitude of such weaknesses built into the body.) And then through experience I understood I saw it was merely certain bad habits.
The only thing to do is not torment yourself and to say to the Lord (in all sincerity, of course), Its up to You. Rid me of this. And it is very effective. Very effective. At times I have had old things like that dissolved in a flash; certain inveterate little habitsso stupid, but so ingrained you cant get rid of them. Then, while doing japa or walking or meditating or whatever, suddenly the flame flares up and (you have really had enough of it; it disgusts you, you want it to change, you really want the change) and you say to the Lord, I cant do it on my own. (You very sincerely know you cant do it; you have tried and tried and tried and have achieved exactly nothingyou cant do it.) Well then, I offer it to YouYou do it. Just like that. And all at once you see the thing fading away. It is simply wonderful. You know how Sri Aurobindo used to take away someones pain? Its exactly the same. certain habits bound up with the bodys formation.
One day I will certainly use the same method on those room changes, but for that it will have to become very clear and distinct, well defined in the consciousness. Because that change of room (intellectually you would call it a change of consciousness, but that means nothing at all; were dealing here with something very, very material) I have sometimes gone through it without experiencing ANY CHANGE OF EFFECT, which probably means I was centered not in the material consciousness but in a higher consciousness dwelling and looking on from elsewherea witness consciousness and I was in a state where everything flows flows like a river of tranquil peace. Truly, its marvelousall creation, all life, all movements, all things, and everything like a single mass, with the body in the midst of it all, blending homogeneously with the whole and it all flows on like a river of peace, peaceful and smiling, on to infinity. And then oops! You trip (gesture of inversion2) and once again find yourself SITUATEDyou ARE somewhere, at some specific moment of time; and then theres a pain here, a pain there, a pain. And sometimes I have seen, I have witnessed the change from the one to the other WITHOUT feeling the pains or experiencing the thing concretely, which means that I wasnt at all in the body, I wasnt BOUND to the body I was seeing, only seeing, just like a witness. And its always accompanied by the kind of observation an indulgent (but not blind) friend might make: But why? Why that again? Thats how it comes. Whats the use of that? And I cant catch hold of what makes it happen.
It will come.
--
And its the same thing: whats needed is the path of vastness, widening, relaxation, ease, of BLOSSOMING in the vitalnot so much a censorial vital as as gentleness, a certain sweetness. The vital blossoming into beauty: sweetness and beauty. I dont want to speak of sentiments because oh, that lands us right in a quagmire! No, but a sweetness and charm and beauty but not there (in the head): here. And then restnot a stiff and stony and stagnant rest, a rest within the undulation. You let yourself float.3
(silence)
--
Words that repeat themselves automatically, with no effort of will (but the body itself is quite aware that although these three particular Words happen to have been given to it, it might also have been something elseit was originally the choice of a higher Intelligence). This has become an automatic accompaniment. It is not so much the words in themselves as what they will represent and bring with them in their vibration. I mean it would be quite inaccurate to say, Only these Words are helpful, no, not that. But they provide an accompaniment, an accompaniment of subtle, physical vibrations, which has built up a certain state or experience, a sort of association between the presence of those words and this movement of eternal Life, that undulating vibration.
Obviously, another center of consciousness, another (how shall I put it?) another concretization, another amalgam, mightwould of coursehave another vibration.
In ordinary language, the vibration of the mantra is what helps the body to enter a certain state but it is not particularly THIS mantra: it is the particular relationship established between a mantra (it has to be a true one, a mantra endowed with power) and the body. It surges up spontaneously: as soon as the body starts walking, it walks to the rhythm of those Words. And the rhythm of the Words quite naturally brings about a certain vibration, which in turn brings about the state.
But to say its these particular Words exclusively would be ridiculous. What counts is the sincerity of the aspiration, the exactness of the expression and the power; that is, the power that comes from the mantra being accepted. This is something very interesting: the mantra has been ACCEPTED by the supreme Power as an effective tool, and so it automatically contains a certain force and power.5 But it is a purely personal phenomenon (the expression is the same, but the vibrations are personal). A mantra leading one person straight to divine realization will leave another person cold and flat.
What is your experience when you say your mantra? You once told me you felt good saying it.
--
For me, the most concrete approach to this is through the vibration of pure Love; not love for something, a love you give or receive, but Love in itself: Love. It is something self-existent. And it is certainly the most concrete approach for me. (But it isnt exclusiveit contains everything else within itself; it doesnt exclude all the other approaches, all the other contacts.)
You see, throughout my childhood and youth and the whole beginning of my yoga, there was a sort of refusal in my being to use the word God, because of all the falsehood behind that word (Sri Aurobindo rid me of that; in the same way he got rid of all limitations, he rid me of that one too). But its not a word that comes to me spontaneously.
--
And yet I have noticed that to associate a certain state and a certain aspiration with a certain sound helps the body. No one told me the mantra; I had begun doing japa before we met X (it had come to me when I was trying to find a means of getting the body to take part in the experience the body itself, you know: THIS). And this help was certainly given to me, because the method imposed itself very, very imperiouslywhen I heard certain Words it was like an electric shock. And then, disregarding all Sanskrit rules, I made myself a sentence; it isnt really a Sanskrit sentence, or any kind of sentence at alla phrase made up of three Words. And these three Words are full of meaning for me. (I wouldnt mention it to a Sanskritist!) They have a full, living meaning. And they have been repeated literally millions and millions of times, I am not exaggerating they surge up from the body spontaneously.
It was the first sound that came from the body when I had that last experience [April 13]. Along with the first pain, came that first soundso it must be quite well rooted.6 And it brings in exactly that vibration of eternal Life: the first thing I felt, all of a sudden, was a kind of strong calm, confident and smiling.
--
Mother is not speaking here of only her mantra but of all mantras. As she later added: "No mantra has any effect unless it is ACCEPTED by the Power being addressed. When (like the Tantrics, for example) you do a mantra for a certain deity, if this deity accepts the mantra, that gives it power; but if the deity doesn't accept your mantra, it has no power at all. This isn't something I got out of a book, I know it from my own experience but I believe it has been explained in Tantric texts."
In the substance of the body.
0 1962-06-02, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was a very interesting experienceespecially interesting for some people because I became aware of certain reincarnations. I was in a state that might be called a state of knowledge, where I knew things with certainty, without any doubt.
But whats strikingits connected to what I was telling you the other dayis that I was going to see some people who were on the other side of a river. Ordinarily the river water wasnt clean and you needed a boat or something to cross; but yesterday I was in a special state I just sat down on the water and said, I am going there. And then, quite naturally, a current of pure, crystal clear water simply took me where I wanted to go. It was a very pleasant sensation I was sitting on the water, all smiles, and prrt! I was taken to the other side. Oh, very good! I thought. Will it continue? And so once again I said, I am going there (that is, back to this side) and prrt! Back I came.
Then someone came. There are symbolic people in these dreams; they seem to be made up of various parts of the beings of those around me, people who have a particular relationship with me and bring a particular help to the Work. They are symbolic characters and always the same: one of them is tall and thin, some are small, there are young ones, old ones. I cant say its this person or that person, but rather that something IN this or that person is represented in these characters. And one of them is like a big brotherhe helps out in certain circumstances; if theres a boat, for instance, the big brother steers it. So he came up to me and said, Yes, I know the method, and began to try. Stop, for heavens sake! I said. Youll spoil everything; to make it work I have to say: I WANT TO GO THERE. When he began trying to bring me across with his own methods, the water grew muddy again and I started to sink! No no no! I protested. Dont do that, thats notit at all! THAT has to (although I wasnt formulating it to myself, what I meant was the sense of a certain higher Will) THAT has to say: I WANT TO GO THERE; then it works.
After that, the experience changed, other things happened. But what I have just related is certainly part and parcel of that experience the other day [the two rooms, one inside the other], because the two were coexistent.1
And the water was so real! The experience was so real that I could feel the coolness of the water; I had the pleasant sensation of sitting on something very soft and cool and swift, carrying me along.
--
And I know I was in a state of knowledge, because I suddenly knew who certain people herepeople I have known for a very, very long timewere the reincarnations of (I had never tried to find that out, it just came). I was almost calling them by their former names. Yes, a special state, a state of knowledge but not spiritual knowledge: a knowledge related to the material world. In such visions, water always represents the vital. When everything is harmonious with the water, it means the vital is harmonious.
It was delightful (it happened around 1:30 in the afternoon): sitting on the water the way you would sit on a chair! And the water was so clear, crystal clear, transparent, rippled with tiny waves; the depths were dark blue, but the surface was perfectly clear, transparent, almost colorless. Then when the big brother came, boasting that he knew how to do it too, and would take me across, the water began to get muddy, as river water always isa dirty grayish yellow.
--
There are boxes that can only be opened in a certain way, and if you dont know the way. Some cupboards are like that, too. Its not obvious. It really is a trick, but even more than a trick, a kind of very subtle little mechanism. Like being just on the verge of attaining something, and suddenlyah! You know youve got it!
***
--
I have seen instances of people having quite unexpected experiences, experiences out of all proportion to their normal state of consciousness, and very clearly resulting from that movement. It wouldnt be kind to name them, because really, you would never expect them to have such experiences! And it certainly comes from that.
Yes, it has effectsfar and near. The people nearest to me dont seem to be the most receptive; but with them the action is much more complex and SOLIDI mean instead of a sudden experience thats almost, as I said, out of proportion to their normal condition, something is being progressively BUILT. I constantly find myself in the midst of constructions, immense constructions in the making. It was like that last night; I had to flounder about in something like cement, a kind of batter. And then I meet all sorts of people who are also more or less symbolic, but who sometimes have the features of a specific person. Its a whole WORLD of circumstances, symbolic down to the most minute details. I remember everything, but I would have to describe a whole world and an apparently uninteresting world, at that (outwardly uninteresting, I mean); but it gives me the key, from every point of view, to the present state of things, to the world now in the making.
--
The afternoon experience was very intriguing; I was busy working (organizing things for one of the departments, I no longer remember which) and then I said to the person I was with, Now I am going to my cousins place! When I was very young I had a cousin, the eldest son of one of my fathers brothers (he had a large family, such as you seldom see in France). This cousin became some kind of engineera civil engineer, maybe, or a mechanical engineer (he was an outstanding chemist). Anyway, this boy was very attracted to me. He went off to the war as an officer and caught some disease (I forget what) and died around 1915, at the time I returned to France. Well, in my experience yesterday afternoon, a certain family living HERE gave me exactly the same sensation I had had towards those people when I was young. And especially for this cousin (for the rest of the family it was more vague, like a background to the experience). I am going to their place, I said. They have a lovely estate here, just as they had a lovely estate in France before (they had Madame de Sevignes chateau at Sucy, near Parisa beautiful property). And it was all so concrete! It wasnt coming through the head; it wasnt a thought but a sensation. I have to go see him now, I said. And even as I was having my vision I was telling myself, You must be going crazy! Can they really be here in Pondicherry? This uncle with whom I had only rather distant relations and this cousin I never saw much of, but whom I knew to be very nice and very loyalAre they really here?! The sensation was most strange (the head wasnt functioning at all; it was a SENSATION). So off I went to see this cousin, and it was on the way to see him that I had the experience of crossing the river. And on the way back, after the discussion with the spiritual brother (whom I really told off: Get out of here! I dont need you!), after that, when I found myself back on the bank, I started collecting my consciousness again, telling myself, Look here now! Lets try to see clearly. And then I realized that the cousin who died prematurely during the war had reincarnated in someone here. How strange, I thought. And the dates coincided.
But that is a singular state: there is no mental intervention at all; you live things POSITIVELY, just as you experience them physically, in the same way that this (Mother knocks on the table next to her) is physically a table. Its that kind of perception something positive. I positively said, I am going to my cousins place, and the relationship had an absolutely positive vibrationit wasnt at all something thought or even remembered: theres no remembering anything, its simply there, alive. A strange state. I have had it on several occasions, and when I have it I am aware that this must be the state people who know what is happening and make predictions are inin this state there is no possibility of doubt. No thoughts intervenenone at all, not one. Absolutely nothing intellectual: simply certain vital-physical vibrations, and then you know. And you dont even wonder how you know; its not that kind of thingits self-evident. And since I was in that state when I saw the reincarnation of the cousin, I am perfectly sure of what I saw. And god knows (Mother laughs), when I came out of it and began to look at it all with my usual consciousness, I said to myself, My word! I would never have thought of such a thing! It was millions of miles from any thought of mine. Besides, I never used to think of that cousin; he was a fine boy but I never paid much attention to him, he had no place in my active consciousness.
Its fun.
0 1962-06-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But one thing has happened practically without my noticing it. In the past, before that experience [April 13], the body used to feel the struggle against the forces of wear and tear (different organs wearing out, losing their endurance, their power of reaction, and certain movements, for instance, becoming less easy to make). Thats what the body felt, although the body-consciousness never sensed any aging, never, none that simply didnt exist. But in actual material fact, there was some difficulty. And now, looking at it in the ordinary way, externally, superficially, you might say there has been a great deterioration; well, the body doesnt feel that way at all! What it feels is that a particular movement, effort, gesture or action belongs to the worldthis world of ignorance and isnt being performed in the true way: its not the true movement, done in the true way. And its sensation or perception is that the state I was speaking of, soft, with no angles, has to develop along a certain line and produce effects on the body that will make true action possible, action expressing the true will. With no difference on the surface, perhaps (I dont know about that yet) but done in another way. And I am not talking about grandiose things, mind you, but of everyday activities: getting up, walking, taking a bath. I no longer have a feeling of incapacity, but a feeling of (whats the word for it?) an unwillingnessa bodily unwillingnessto do things in the old way.
There is another way to be found.
--
I remember reading something by Sri Aurobindo, I think, about certain philosophical or spiritual theories which held that there was only one Soul, or one Purusha (I dont remember what he called it); this Soul had the entire experience of the distortion of the universe, and this same Soul was also experiencing the Return. And it was pointed out with indisputable logic that if there really is but ONE Soul, then from the moment mastery is attainedregardless of whether it is by an individual or a world, a god or an ant the moment the power to change the distortion into the Truth exists, its all over and done with! The change automatically comes into force.
But then it was noted that some people did accomplish this Returnsince they lived it and described it but all the same, everything else continues to exist, to coexist. Therefore.
0 1962-06-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He says he never uttered the words hes supposed to have said, yet on my side, I practically made N.1 swear an oath that he was telling the truth. X says he never said I had no more than two months left to live (and he certainly never said it like that).
Of course not!
--
You know, for me all this is nothing but surface drama, the whole business means nothing. The only thing I did see clearly was more or less what you felt: that is, if X is to remain intimately linked with us, he had better learn not to tell tales or, to put it as favorably as possible, not to give voice to a certain unconscious part of his being.
Thats exactly it! I detest gossip, you know, so I never spread any, but he has told some people incredible things. I dont tell on him to you because I find it a kind of its something I dislike. Thats why I spoke to himin such a case, I always refer to something within, to the deep affection I had for him. I mean I was trying to help. I had NO OTHER kind of reaction. I saw him in a bad spot and tried to help him out, thats all.
--
You see, the trouble is hes a man whose principles and education prevent him from believing in progress and transformation. He believes that if you fulfill the conditions you get the siddhi,3 and thats the end of it the goal is reached. He had already attained his goal before meeting us, and then he could have kept his distance, but he became intimately connected with something full of all kinds of difficulties (which we neither ignore nor call for), but its essentially a Power for progressan awesome force for progress. Well, when I saw that, I wondered, How can he possibly bear it? I thought he would keep his distance and not enter the atmosphere, but he did try to enterhe linked up with certain people, and particularly when he started meditating with me (he asked for it, not me), suddenly something responded. And that triggered the conflict in him. One part of his being has gone along with the Movement, while the other is left strandeddoesnt budge. That created a gap.
Of course, one has to be in a terribly superficial consciousness to react the way he did. He had a rather deep contact with you, and there were moments when he understood very well who you arehe knows, he told me so. Consequently, had he truly been in a yogic state, then even if you had done something tactless or wrong, he would have just smiled! He would have said, Oh, hes just impetuous, but I dont mind.
--
Anyway, what will happen will happen, and it will certainly be whats best for everyone, including him!4
But through that event I have been put in contact with a certain realm of mental distortion which is a bit bewildering. Ive realized that I say something, something clear as crystal for me, and then.
(silence)
--
I feel like an egg that has yet to hatch I mean a certain period of incubation is needed, isnt it?
And I am more and more aware that people really panicked this time; they imagined I was going to die I could have died, had the Lord willed it. But it has been a sort of death, thats for suresure, sure, surealthough I dont say so, because. After all, one must have some regard for peoples common sense!
--
That whole way of seeing, feeling and reacting belongs really to another world. Really to another world to such a degree that if I had no regard for peoples peace of mind I would say, I dont know whether I am dead or alive. Because there is a life, a type of life vibration that is completely independent of. No, Ill put it another way: the way people ordinarily feel life, feel that they are alive, is intimately linked with a certain sensation they have of their bodies and of themselves. If you totally eliminate that sensation, the type of relation that allows people to say I am alive well, eliminate that, but then how can you say, I am alive, or I am not alive? The distinction NO LONGER EXISTS. Well, for me, it has been completely eliminated. That night April 12-13, it was definitively swept out of me. It has never come back. Its something that seems impossible now. So what they mean by I am alive is I cant say I am alive the way they doits something else entirely.
Better not keep thisin the end theyll be worrying about my sanity! (Mother laughs.)
--
Oh, yes! certainly.
It doesnt stir but nothings there!
0 1962-06-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
My own experience is going on in the tiniest details, details imperceptible in themselves but pointing in a certain direction that, increasingly, is this: when you take a wrong attitude, it immediately sets off all the disorders. Almost as if you shift into a wrong gear the image is too rigid, of course, its not really that but we can say that the whole universe is rolling smoothly along and its only when you go like this or like that (Mother indicates a shifting of gears) that disorders arise. You can have a wrong attitude in a number of ways. Its like a slight shifting of gears: things still work (assuming the mechanism to be particularly supple) but they gratethey grate and therefore wear out and deteriorate and break down. But if they were in the true position, there would be no friction.
The sense of friction doesnt existit disappears, theres no friction. Friction results only from the wrong angle from something, a sort of shift.
0 1962-06-23, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a whole range of things from the subconscient (vital and physical subconscient) quite new, things I didnt have before. It isnt my subconscient, its much more general, and it comes with what are practically revelations; I mean I suddenly see certain things concerning people (people I know extremely well, whose inner beings I know very well) and I get a lot of surprises: Well! So that was there!
People, people lots of people.
0 1962-06-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Two nights ago, I had an experience I hadnt had for perhaps more than a year. A sort of concentration and accumulation of divine Energy in the cells of the body. During a certain period (I dont remember when), every night I had a kind of recharging of batteries through contact with universal forces; I had it again two nights ago, spontaneously. Then last night, when I wanted to look, to study, to understand how it worked, I was given a lavish demonstration of the inadequacy and utter uselessness of all processes of consciousness working through the mind. They are useless, they simply spoil the experience.
Previously, when I had an experience, I took great care to keep everything quiet and still so that it wouldnt be interrupted; but afterwards it was always made use of by the mind in its typical way (not exactly typical, but typical to the mind), and this appeared to be inevitable. But now it doesnt work in the same way: its limited to a few inevitable interventions; I mean people speak to me or I to them (I keep as silent as I can, but they still chatter away about every possible subject and I am obliged to answer), and its limited to that. But as it is, even that as soon as I am a bit concentrated, even that seems so not wrong or distorted, not that, but INADEQUATE. It expresses absolutely nothing, thats all I can say.
--
I have been given certain promisesgreat promises. Not promises, but what comes is: This is how it will be. Great thingsconcrete manifestations of the divine Power, the divine Consciousness, the divine Action. And spontaneous, natural, inevitable.
This is obviously being prepared (Mother touches her body) so that it wont put the usual obstacles in the way of expression.
--
You know, mon petit, I said one day that in the history of earth, wherever there was a possibility for the Consciousness to manifest, I was there1; this is a fact. Its like the story of Savitri: always there, always there, always there, in this one, that oneat certain times there were four emanations simultaneously! At the time of the Italian and French Renaissance. And again at the time of Christ, then too. Oh, you know, I have remembered so many, many things! It would take volumes to tell it all. And then, more often than not (not always, but more often than not), what took part in this or that life was a particular yogic formation of the vital beingin other words something immortal.2 And when I came this time, as soon as I took up the yoga, they came back again from all sides, they were waiting. Some were simply waiting, others were working (they led their own independent lives) and they all gathered together again. Thats how I got those memories. One after the other, those vital beings camea deluge! I had barely enough time to assimilate one, to see, situate and integrate it, and another would come. They are quite independent, of course, they do their own work, but they are very centralized all the same. And there are all kindsall kinds, anything you can imagine! Some of them have even been in men: they are not exclusively feminine.
At first, I used to think they were fantasies.
0 1962-06-30, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As a child, when I was around ten or twelve years old, I had some rather interesting experiences which I didnt understand at all. I had some history booksyou know, the textbooks they give you to learn history. Well, Id read and suddenly the book would seem to become transparent, or the printed words would become transparent, and Id see other words or even pictures. I hadnt the faintest idea what was happening to me! And it appeared so natural to me that I thought it was the same for everybody. But my brother and I were great chums (he was only a year and a half older), so I would tell him: They talk nonsense in history, you knowit is LIKE THIS; it isnt like that: it is LIKE THIS! And several times the corrections I got on one person or another turned out to be quite exact and detailed. And (I see it now I understood it later on) they were certainly memories. About some passages I would even say, How stupid! It was never that; THIS is what was said. It never happened like that; THIS is how it happened. And the book was simply open before me; I was just reading along like any other child and suddenly something would occur. It was something in me, of course, but I used to think it was in the book!
I found out many, many things about Joan of Arcmany things. And with stunning precision, which made it extremely interesting. I wont repeat them because I dont remember with exactness, and these things have no value unless they are exact. And then, for the Italian Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa; and for the French Renaissance: Franois I, Marguerite de Valois,2 and so forth.
Twice I knew that it wasnt just images but something that had happened to ME, but it took another form. Once (when I was older, around twenty) it happened at Versailles. I had been invited to dinner by a cousin who, with no warning, served me dry champagne during dinner and I drank it unsuspectingly (I who never drank at all, neither wine nor liquor!). When I had to get up and cross the crowded room, oh, how very difficult it became, so difficult! Then we went to a place near the chateau, with a view of the whole park. And I was staring at the park, when I saw I saw the park filling up with lights (the electric lights had vanished), with all kinds of lights, torches, lanterns and then crowds of people walking about in Louis XIV dress! I was staring at this with my eyes wide open, holding on to the balustrade to keep from falling down (I wasnt too sure of myself!). I was seeing it all, then I saw myself there, engrossed in conversation with some people (I dont remember now, but there were certain corrections here too). I mean I was a certain person (I dont remember who) and there were those two brothers who were sculptors (Mother vainly tries to recollect the names3) anyhow, all kinds of people were there and I saw myself talking, chatting. And I seem to have been sufficiently in control of myself, because when I related all that I had seen, there were some quite interesting details and corrections. That was one time.
There was another time at Blois. They make Anjou wine at Blois. It was the same story: I never drank anything but water or herb tea, but there was a luncheon and they served us sparkling Anjou wine it seemed so light! Afterwards (I was with an artist friend, we were all artists) we went to see the museum, and it appears I was sparkling with wit! And I suddenly halted in front of a painting by now lets see, who was it? Cou? No, Clouet! Clouet: the princess one of the princesses.4 And I started making a few remarks out loud (it took me a little while to notice that people were listening). Look at this! I was saying. Just look at this! Look what this fellow has done to me! See what hes done to meit wasnt at all like that! It was actually a beautiful painting, but I was quite unhappy about it: Look what hes done to me! Lookhe made this like that, but thats not at all how it was, it was LIKE THIS! Details. And then I became aware (I wasnt too conscious physically) I realized that people were standing around listening, so I got a grip on myself, and left without a word. But I told my friends, Listen, it was definitely me! It was MY portrait, it was ME!
0 1962-07-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There must be certain lawslaws expressing a Wisdom far beyond us for the experience seems to follow a sort of curve which, because I am in it, I dont understand. And it wont be understood till the end is reached; but I am right in the middle of it, or maybe at the very beginning.
(long silence)
0 1962-07-07, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Keep on. certain sections can be made into magazine articles for serious readers, the few who like to think.
Just send it to your publisher, youll see. Well cut if they ask us to, and send what we cut to a magazine. Then theyll have their nice little storybook!1
--
This is what I am doing (gesture of applying pressure with the thumb). Who knows, anything can happen! Some rather interesting things are happening in the world, showing me that after all, there is a response there is a little response. I do this (same gesture with the thumb), and the effort isnt completely wasted. The events in Algeria2 and certain things in America too. Theres a response. And then (I think Ive told you this), some people are suddenly having experiences out of all proportion to their inner state, as though theyd been projected into a curve absorbing several lifetimes. This seems to be whats happening individually. People with the least bit of trust are gaining lifetimes perhaps many lifetimesand the world as well.
The work is getting done in double timeeven a lot more than double.
0 1962-07-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Recently, for a short part of my nights, I suddenly find a certain task set before me dealing with this ones or that ones mental constructions. And then I feel I am facing a tremendous, destructive falsehooda TOTAL contradiction, in fact, of this endlessly unfolding creative vibration.
Some of the people concerned are here, others elsewhere that is, its the mental state (even the higher mind in some cases, not necessarily very down-to-earth) of this one or that one or. It comes individually (and the persons name along with it). And a kind of uneasiness takes hold of my body, as if I were in the presence of I dont know, in ordinary life I would say, Go away! (Mother brusquely shoos something away) But here it is presented for me to do a particular work (I know the people, some are here, others elsewhere; theyre people I am in touch with for the yoga). So I am faced with these mental formations and each one is HELD like this (Mother grips the thing with both hands) so that I dont simply brush it aside. Then (its certainly a good opportunity to go completely crazy!) I slowly bring in the divine Vibration, and I hold it like this, without moving (Mother holds this vibration tight and drives it in like a sword of light), without moving until everything fades away into silence.
I havent had the chance (laughing) to ask them what happened to them!
0 1962-07-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A strange dream, very strange. A crowd of people was waiting for you to come out, and you did come, you appeared. Then suddenly you fainted. Im not sure why you fainted, you were physically sick or something. So you were carried away. A crowd was waiting to see you and they shoved me to the back (by the way, I noticed I was dressed as a Sannyasin). Finally, I came up close to you all of a sudden, leaving the crowd behind; I came up very close and then you told me certain things, I dont know what. You seemed so frailall white, very frail and tired, as if you had just fainted. Anyway, things like that, you see.1
No, I wasnt sleeping, I was concentrating; and in this concentration, while I was fully enveloped in those forces, THROUGH THAT you came to me. It was truly fine!
--
And simultaneously there is an automatic perception of timeclock timewhich is rather curious (everything is regulated by the comings and goings of the people around me, you see: such a thing at this time, such a thing at that time), I dont need to hear the clock I am warned just before it strikes. I repeat one part of the japa in a particular way while lying down, because the Power is greater (these arent meditations, they are actions), and another part while walking. So I stay stretched out for a certain time, I walk for a certain time, and at a fixed hour this one goes, another comes, and so on. But none of them are people; I dont tell them so, but theyre not people: they are movements of the Lord. And its extremely interestingone of the Lords movements will have this particular character, another movement will have a different type of vibration, and they all harmonize very nicely into a whole. But I know what time it is just before the clock strikes: six oclock, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30, like that. Not with the words six, seven, but: its time, its time, its time. And along with thisthis clockwork precision I have that other notion of time which is quite different, its. Although its a very rigid convention, our time is a living formation with its own living power here in the world of action. The other time is the rhythm of consciousness. So according to the intensity of the Presence (theres a concentration and an expansion, I mean), according to this pulsationwhich can vary, its not regular and mechanicalwalking around the room takes either no time at all, or else an ENORMOUS amount of time. But this doesnt interfere with the other time, theres no contradiction. Our time is on a different plane, something far more external; but it has its usefulness and its own law, and the one doesnt hinder the other.4
And its gradually becoming foreseeable that.5
--
Asked later about this unfinished sentence, Mother said, "I stopped because it was an impression and not a certainty. We'll talk about it again later." Was Mother hinting at a stage when she would live in both times simultaneously?...
***
0 1962-07-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I can bring it on at will simply by putting myself in a certain state. But then I notice that someone (someone well, thats a way of speaking) is dosing it out, allowing the contact for a certain length of time or in a certain amount; and theres nothing to be done about it, its an Order from above. A mere hint of impatience would spoil everything the power to establish the contact would probably be lost. I have never done this and I dont intend to.
(silence)
--
But now the body the body itself, its very own selffeels it is WITHIN things or WITHIN people or WITHIN an action. There are no more limits, none of this (Mother touches the skin of her hands as if all separation had disappeared). Take this example: someone accidentally bumps me (it does happen) with an object or a part of his body. Well, it is NEVER something external: it happens INSIDE the bodys consciousness is much larger than my body. Yesterday, the table leg bumped my foot; so there was the ordinary outward reaction (it operates automatically and in a curious way the body jumped), and then the body-consciousness now I am speaking of the body-consciousness saw that an unexpected and involuntary collision of two objects had taken place INSIDE ITSELF. And it also saw that if it made a certain movement of concentration at that particular spot, inside itself, some pain or damage would result; but if it made the other movement of (how shall I put it?) of union, of abolishing all separation (which it can do very well), well, then the results of the blow would be annulled. And thats what happened, I did it. I was simply sitting down, and I let my body cope with the whole thing (while I watched with keen interest); and I noticed it really did feel the blow inside and not outsideit wasnt that something from outside had struck it, but that there had been an unexpected, or rather an unforeseen and involuntary collision of two things inside itself. And I clearly followed how the body made a more complete movement of identification (you see, someone with the sense of separation had moved the table, so the sense of separation accompanied the blow, and then of course there was all the regret,2 and so on and so forth); well, the body simply went into its usual state where theres no sense of separation, and the effect vanished instantaneously. Had I been asked, Where were you hit, what spot?, I couldnt have told, I dont know. All I know, because of words I heard spoken, is that the table leg bumped into my foot. But where? I cant say; I couldnt have said even five minutes after the incidentit had utterly disappeared, and disappeared through a VOLUNTARY movement.
This body-consciousness has a will; it is constantly, constantly calling upon the Lords will: Lord, take possession of this, take possession of that, take. Theres no question of taking possession of the will, that was done ages ago, but: Take possession of these cells, those cells, this, that. It is the BODYS aspiration. Well, the blow wasnt caused by this will acting in the body; the blow didnt come directly from the body, but from something that had slipped in through an unconscious element; and the body simply erased, or absorbed, digested this unconsciousness and the thing vanished without a trace!
0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ah, look at thisyesterday someone read me a letter Sri Aurobindo wrote to Barin in April 1920, a few days before I returned from Japan. It was written in Bengalitremendously interesting! He speaks of the state of the world, particularly India, and of how he envisaged a certain part of his action after completing his yoga. Its extremely interesting. And theres some very high praise for Europe. Sri Aurobindo says something like this: You all think Europe is over and done with, but thats not true, its not finished yet. In other words, its power is still alive.
This was in 1920.
--
This is no easy change to make. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this siddhi will be complete, then I am absolutely certain that through me God will give to others the siddhi of the Supermind with less effort. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in Gods appointed time. I have no hasty or disorderly impulse to rush into the field of work in the strength of the little ego. Even if I did not succeed in my work I would not be shaken. This work is not mine but Gods. I will listen to no other call; when God moves me then I will move.
I know very well that Bengal is not really ready. The spiritual flood which has come is for the most part a new form of the old. It is not the real transformation. However this too was needed. Bengal has been awakening in itself the old yogas and exhausting their samskaras [old habitual tendencies], extracting their essence and with it fertilizing the soil. At first it was the time of VedantaAdwaita, Sannyasa, Shankaras Maya and the rest. It is now the turn of Vaishnava DharmaLila, love, the intoxication of emotional experience. All this is very old, unfitted for the new age and will not endure for such excitement has no capacity to last. But the merit of the Vaishnava Bhava [emotional enthusiasm] is that it keeps a connexion between God and the world and gives a meaning to life; but since it is a partial bhava the whole connexion, the full meaning is not there. The tendency to create sects which you have noticed was inevitable. The nature of the mind is to take a part and call it the whole and exclude all other parts. The Siddha [illuminated being] who brings the bhava, although he leans on its partial aspect, yet keeps some knowledge of the integral whole, even though he may not be able to give it form. But his disciples do not get that knowledge precisely because it is not in a form. They are tying up their little bundles, let them. The bundles will open of themselves when God manifests himself fully. These things are the signs of incompleteness and immaturity. I am not disturbed by them. Let the force of spirituality play in the country in whatever way and in as many sects as may be. Afterwards we shall see. This is the infancy or the embryonic condition of the new age. It is a first hint, not even the beginning.
--
You write about the Deva Samgha and say, I am not a god, I am only a piece of much hammered and tempered iron. No one is a God but in each man there is a God and to make Him manifest is the aim of divine life. That we can all do. I recognize that there are great and small adharas [vessels]. I do not accept, however, your description of yourself as accurate. Still whatever the nature of the vessel, once the touch of God is upon it, once the spirit is awake, great and small and all that does not make much difference. There may be more difficulties, more time may be taken, there may be a difference in the manifestation, but even about that there is no certainty. The God within takes no account of these hindrances and deficiencies. He breaks his way out. Was the amount of my failings a small one? Were there less obstacles in my mind and heart and vital being and body? Did it not take time? Has God hammered me less? Day after day, minute after minute, I have been fashioned into I know not whether a god or what. But I have become or am becoming something. That is sufficient, since God wanted to build it. It is the same as regards everyone. Not our strength but the Shakti of God is the sadhaka [worker] of this yoga.
Let me tell you in brief one or two things about what I have long seen. My idea is that the chief cause of the weakness of India is not subjection nor poverty, nor the lack of spirituality or dharma [ethics] but the decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the motherl and of Knowledge. Everywhere I see inability or unwillingness to thinkthought-incapacity or thought-phobia. Whatever may have been in the middle ages, this state of things is now the sign of a terrible degeneration. The middle age was the night, the time of the victory of ignorance. The modern world is the age of the victory of Knowledge. Whoever thinks most, seeks most, labors most, can fathom and learn the truth of the world, and gets so much more Shakti. If you look at Europe, you will see two things: a vast sea of thought and the play of a huge and fast-moving and yet disciplined force. The whole Shakti of Europe is in that. And in the strength of that Shakti it has been swallowing up the world, like the tapaswins [ascetics] of our ancient times, by whose power even the gods of the world were terrified, held in suspense and subjection. People say Europe is running into the jaws of destruction. I do not think so. All these revolutions and upsettings are the preconditions of a new creation.
0 1962-07-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So, when youre told become conscious of your psychic being, its for the being formed by external Nature to contact the divine Presence through the psychic being. Then the psychic takes charge of the whole being; in fact, it is the inner Guide. Well, when I was a little child, this person (which wasnt a person, but an expression of a certain consciousness and will) was actually the psychic presence; there was something else behind, but thats a rather special case. And what happened to me happens to everyone whose psychic being has deliberately incarnated: the psychic being guides your life, and if you let it act freely, it arranges ALL circumstancesits truly wonderful! I have seennot only for myself but for so many people who also had conscious psychic beings that everything is arranged with a view to not at all your personal egoistic satisfaction, but your ultimate progress and realization. And all circumstances of life, even those you call disastrous, are there to lead you where you have to go as swiftly as possible.
Yours is more than a psychic being. As I have told you, your psychic being is accompanied by something which has come for a special purpose, with a particular intellectual powera luminous, conscious powerwhich has come from regions higher than the mind, regions Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind, to do a special work. It is here (gesture enveloping the chest and head) and, along with the psychic, its trying to organize everything. This, in your psychic, is what you are feeling. It must have great power. Dont you feel a kind of luminous force?
--
The conscious and deliberate manipulation of certain luminous vibrations in addition to sound.
Thought, by comparison (thought as we now know it), is much more material. Thoughtformulation in wordsis much lower down on the scale.
--
Of course! We can dip into it with our head or with the tips of our toes, but everything bathes in this same river of Force (except what's shut up within the walls of our minds). At certain moments, or in certain places, we are less hardened and it naturally "enters" there. And so we call it the Shakti "From above" or the Shakti "from below" or "from within." But when the walls tumble down, there is neither high nor lowwe are drenched in it.
Mother is referring to a letter of Sri Aurobindo's which Satprem had quoted in his manuscript: "... in the calm mind, it is the substance of the mental being that is still, so still that nothing disturbs it. If thoughts or activities come, they do not rise at all out of the mind, but they come from outside and cross the mind as a flight of birds crosses the sky in a windless air. It passes, disturbs nothing, leaving no trace. Even if a thousand images or the most violent events pass across it, the calm stillness remains as if the very texture of the mind were a substance of eternal and indestructible peace. A mind that has achieved this calmness can begin to act, even intensely and powerfully, but it will keep its fundamental stillnessoriginating nothing from itself but receiving from Above and giving it a mental form without adding anything of its own, calmly, dispassionately, though with the joy of the Truth and the happy power and light of its passage."
0 1962-08-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive been observing all this in a neuro-physical realm, subtle-physical, that is but its still physical and in a complete mental silence where all judgments (you know, judgments) have disappeared, along with a certain way of observing things. Thats why I cant talk about it.
These vibrations have various qualities; if they were expressed through a mental observation, it would be done through such things as taste, color, and so forth, everything Ive just mentioned1but thats not how theyre expressed. They come almost exclusively as sensations, but those sensations some, I mean some vibrations, have rounded edges. Some come horizontally (I was in fact studying everything that comes horizontally), others result from the state of consciousness (vertical gesture from top to bottom). While at the same time, others are. Yes, its like looking through a high-powered microscope: some are rounded, others pointed; some are darker, some brighter. Some are very upsetting to the body, and some even feel dangerous. On the other hand, certain ones make the body receptive to the vibration, which we might call the Lords Vibration, the supreme Vibration. You see, all this is the outcome of a discipline, a tapasya, for preparing the body to receive the Lords Vibrations (the first step is receiving, being able to receive them; afterwards you have to hold on to and then manifest them). Those vibrations are unmistakable, they are something else entirely. But other vibrations are helpful, beneficial, while still others are disruptive, contradictory.
And each one is beginning to reveal its own particular nature. There are those stemming from peoples thoughts (I sense them in my body, not in the mind: the material consequence of peoples psychological state, and even their state of health). Some things are general and last a bit longer; others are momentary, lasting only a few seconds. The first step is to study the different vibrational qualitiesyou could practically draw diagrams: if we had a machine sensitive enough to record these things, it would produce all kinds of zigs and zags.2 certain vibrations immediately stop or change or are dissolved or repelled. Others are adopted, as it were, and transformed. The majority are simply pushed back and worked on from a distancequite a distance! I keep them at a fair distance (Mother laughs). Very few are let in. But some are let in for the sake of the experience, to see how much they upset the body. Theres also the effect of peoples permanent auras: I know a certain person is arriving by his auras effect on the body; because (laughing) each vibration has its particular effect on the bodyperfectly prosaic things, maybe, but by studying them you realize that each thing has its own law.
The interchange of vibrations among people is something tremendous, and were swimming in it all, all, all the timeeven when were alone! Because these things travel: for instance, its enough for someones thought to come and strike against yours, and for you to think of him (which means responding)there is an immediate effect in the body. So to imagine that solitude would make yoga any easier is sheer childishness.
--
And through certain things, I can perceive the very clear, precise and absolute Direction coming from the Supreme. And He is arranging all those thingsforms, various intellectual formsexactly as they should be. Because here (pointing to the crown of the head), and even from here (lower) down to here (the forehead), its all immobile. All these vibrations come, pass through, whirl around, they come from everywhere, but here (the head) nothing moves, theres no response. And yet I have seen that on the intellectual level there are a number of what Sri Aurobindo calls frames, certain principles of organization6 giving a precise orientation to the yogas action. One of them, the strongest, is my translation of The Synthesis of Yoga. I do a page almost every day and on that page I invariably find an idea or a sentence that EXACTLY expresses the field of experiences I was in that day and the night before; and some of the details. And interestingly enough, certain points in the pages you read me today were the EXACT frame of a series of experiences Ive been havingalmost word for word, with the same words.7 That sort of thing. Its like intellectual forms being assembled to give the field of experience precision, because theres nothing here (the forehead), its blankyet some form is necessary! Well, the forms Sri Aurobindo has given predominate, but what you write has its place, and a very precise and interesting place: the way of thinking. And I see that theres an immense field of intellectual thought, intellectual formulation, with varying degrees of intensity and precision, serving as a SIEVE for the Supremes Will to pass through. And the sievethis sort of immense universal sieveis what gives the precision.8 Its very interesting. That way, the mind remains perfectly stillit has nothing to do, everything is done for it! It is nothing but a mirrora living mirror where everything gets inscribed and which can reflect back its image without becoming active.
The nature of my nights is changing, the nature of my days is changing.
0 1962-08-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Superficially, it [the bodys characteristic of attracting ordeals] could be called a sort of karma, but thats not what it is. Its actually like one of the pivotsnot a central one, but one of the pivots of the bodys invisible action, of its consciousness. And it is expressed by attracting certain circumstances. A whole range of things having to do with the physical body has thus become very clear and precise to meand thats what the body was made for: to go full speed ahead.
Intellectually, I dont at all believe in taking others misfortunes upon oneself thats childish. But certain vibrations in the world must be accepted, exhausted and transformed. Inwardly, thats the work I have been doing all my lifeconsciously, gloriously. But now its on a purely physical level, independent of all the realities of other worlds: its in the body, you see. And this has given me a key, one of the necessary keys to the Work.
Maybe there will be something else another time.
--
Its not that I receive bad vibrations, but that the physical substance is not entirely (how can I explain?) in the proper movement or rhythm. For instance, between the vision of that old formation I spoke of and this (I cant call it a toothache, but anyway, something went wrong) there was no visible connection to speak of. The toothache wasnt caused by a particular vibration, its rather as if one thing or another provided the opportunity for absorbing a certain quantity or type of vibration (its more a quantity than a typeprobably both), a vibratory MODE, in order to put it in contact with THE vibratory mode the divine one.
But I understand your question. You want to know if this has an effect on all identical vibratory modes in the world. In principle, yes. But the effects may not be immediately visible; in the first place, our field of observation is nothingmaterially, what do we know? Only our immediate surroundings thats nothing. In 1920, for example, I had an experience of that type, which resulted in a symbolic but terrestrial action. It was a vision (I dont remember enough details to make it interesting) where each nation was represented by a symbolic entity, and there was a certain type of horrorof terror, rather. A certain will of terror was trying to manifest in that gathering of all nations. And I was witness to the whole thing. I remember it being a very conscious and rather long and detailed vision with a more intense reality than physical things have (it was in the subtle physical). And after it was over and I had done what needed to be done (I am not saying what because I dont remember all the details, and without accuracy it loses its value), when I came out of it I could say with TOTAL conviction: Terror has been overcome in the world. Of course, its not literally true, plenty of people still feel terror, but a certain type of terror was as if UNDERMINED at the foundations. What had already manifested kept on and is gradually being exhausted, but the terror that was trying to increase and dominate the life of nations was stopped cold.
I have had other similar experienceson Durgas day, for instance, when Sri Aurobindo was still here (you know, thats the day when Durga masters an asura; she doesnt kill him, she masters him). Well, each year one particular type of thing was undermined (and my experiences were never mental: the experience would suddenly come, and AFTERWARDS I would realize it was Durgas day), and each time I used to tell Sri Aurobindo, Looktoday this (or that) thing has been cut off at the roots. Thats how it works with the adverse forcesyes, like something being uprooted from the world. Whatever has already spread out keeps going and follows its karma, but the SOURCE is dried up. Thats also what happened (it was in 1904, I believe) when the Asura of Consciousness and Darkness made his surrender and was converted; he told me, I have millions and millions of emanations, and these will keep on living, but their source has now run dry.4 How much time will it take to exhaust it all? We cant say, but the source has dried up and that is something extremely important. In 1920, that terror was trying to spread all over the world and to become really catastrophic; and then in my inner vision I could see that a whole movement had dried up at its source. This means that little by little, little by little, little by little the karma is being exhausted.
--
To change a karma, to stop a karma, to withdraw a certain number of vibrations from circulation, as it were, requires yet another movement, another movement altogether and that Power isnt yet at hand. Thats what will yield visible, tangible results. The other movement has very tangible and concrete results, but theyre invisible (to human observation, that is, which is much too limited and superficial). But it obviously does have results. That vision of terror clearly diverted the course of events that nations were being pushed into. But only someone with inner vision can see it.
(silence)
0 1962-08-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And the Light that descends. You see, its as though as though I am SEEING that eternal, universal, immense, wondrous Vibration from without, from within, from above, from below, from everywhere at the same time. And at a certain place theres something so fine, delicate, of a silver-gray (something thats spread all around the world, all around the creation), and THE Vibration passes through it and it becomes ideas. Not ideas, something higher than ideas the origin of ideas. Things take form. And the sieve is fine, fine, fine, so fine and tenuous, and its everywhere (gesture enveloping the earth).
And its there all the time! I saw it the other day, I am seeing it nowit seems to be a permanent feature. And its the origin of all intellectual formulations (those closest to the Truth, of course, with no distortion). Very interesting.
--
Its going all right, mon petit. And I am more and more certain that I have given you your true name (this seems to be coming out of the blue, but). The more I come into conscious contact with the future (because it is right HERE, you see, just as we are pushing to go forward, it is pushing to descend), well its good. Its good.
Dont worrydont worry; simply let yourself BE what you truly are.
0 1962-08-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have often seen him in his supramental light; he has come very often (he used to come when I went to the balcony; sometimes he was above the Samadhi; he came very often). But that first of all, the proportions were enormoussitting down, I tell you, he extended beyond the compound; and he materialized in a way that could be PHYSICALLY felt. And there was such confidence, such joy, such certainty; everything was so sure, so altogether certain, as though all had been accomplished. There was none of that anguish, that tension for things to get done.
It lasted about three quarters of an hour; afterwards things returned to normal.
0 1962-08-28, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It seems to be the process, or certainly one important process, for the physical transformation.
(silence)
0 1962-09-05, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats the first thing I told Sri Aurobindo: This was the resolution made by my psychic being (my psychic being was in a certain person I know who). And when I left, it declared categorically: I want NO MORE of this!
The rest doesnt matter much to me, it didnt leave such an acute impression.
--
Yes, Mother, thats all right. But theres no outer encouragement. I have the feeling that nothing is happening I wake up each morning and theres nothing. I meditate, theres nothing theres never anything! Just the certainty that its the only thing worth doing.
But dont you see, mon petit: the unwavering Light above you (Mother gazes above Satprems head). Thousands of people would give anything for that!
--
For a long, long time, that was also the one thing I felt was worth living forConsciousness. When I met Thon and came to understand the mechanism, I also understood why I wasnt conscious at a certain level. I think Ive told you how I spent ten months one year working to connect two layerstwo layers of consciousness; the contact wasnt established and so I couldnt have the spontaneous experience of a whole spectrum of things. Madame Thon told me, Its because theres an undeveloped layer between this part and that part. I was very conscious of all the gradations: Thon had explained it all in the simplest terms, so you didnt need to be, as I said, a genius to understand. He had made a quadruple division, and each of them was divided into four, and then again into four, making innumerable divisions of the being; but with that mental simplification you could make in-depth psychological studies of your own being. And so by observation and elimination I eventually discovered that between this and that (gesture indicating two levels of Mothers consciousness), there was an undeveloped layerit wasnt conscious. So I worked for ten months on nothing but that: absolutely no results. I didnt care, I kept right on, telling myself, Well, it may take me fifty years to get anywhere, who knows. And then I left for the country (I was living in Paris at the time). I lay down on the grass, and all at once, with the contact of earth and grass, poof! There was a sort of inner explosion the link was established, and full consciousness came, along with all the ensuing experiences. Well, I said to myself, it was worth all the trouble!
And I am sure thats how the work is done, slowly, imperceptibly, like a chick being formed in the egg: you see the shell, you see only the shell, you dont know whats inside, whether its just an egg or a chick (normally, I meanof course, you could see through with special instruments) and then the beak goes peck-peck! And then cheep! Out comes the chick, just like that. Its the same thing exactly for the contact with the psychic being. For months on end, sometimes years, you may be sitting before a closed door, push, push, pushing, and feeling, feeling the pressure (it hurts!), and theres nothing, no results. Then all at once, you dont know why or how, you sit down and poof! Everything bursts wide open, everything is ready, everything is doneits over, you emerge into a full psychic consciousness and become intimate with your psychic being. Then everything changeseverything changesyour life completely changes, its a total reversal of your whole existence.
--
One can get certain hints, one can find ones own method.
But one has to. Look, its the same as for japa. Your japa is given to you, isnt it? You receive it (unless you find it on your own, but thats harder and already requires another level of realization); you receive your japa along with the power to do it but you have to learn how to do it, right? For a long while you dont fully succeed; all sorts of things happenyou forget it right in the middle or fall asleep or grow tired, get a headache, all sorts of things; or even outer circumstances interfere and disturb you. Well, here its the same: you tell yourself, Ill do it, and you will do it, even if. You have to go at it just like a mule: everything blocks the way but you keep going. You said youd do it and you will do it. There are no results I dont care. Everything is against me I dont care. I said Id do it and I will I said Id do it and I will. And you keep on going like that.
0 1962-09-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a strange sensation, a bizarre perception of both the true functioning and the functioning distorted by the sense of being an individual body. Theyre not even you cant even say theyre superimposed, theyre almost simultaneous, and thats why it is so hard to explain. A number of things are malfunctioning in the body; I dont know if they can be called illnesses (maybe the doctors would call them illnesses), but in any case, theyre malfunctionings in the bodys organs: the heart, the stomach, the intestines, the lungs and so on. And at the same time theres (it cant be called a functioning) the true state. And thus certain disorders appear only when the consciousness as if the consciousness were pulled or pushed or poised in a certain way, and then, those malfunctionings INSTANTLY appearnot as a consequence: I mean the consciousness becomes aware of their existence. And if the consciousness stays in that position long enough, there are what we conventionally call consequences: the malfunctioning has its consequences (tiny things, such as physical discomforts, for instance). And if through (is it yogic discipline, is it the Lords intervention? Call it what you will) but if the consciousness regains its true position, the consequences cease IMMEDIATELY. Sometimes, though, its like this (Mother makes a gesture of an overlapping or interpenetration by interlacing the fingers of her two hands), in other words, this way, then that, this way, then that (Mother slips the fingers of her right hand back and forth through the fingers of her left to show the consciousness alternating between two states), this position, then that position, this one, then that one. This movement takes only a few seconds, so I can almost perceive the two functionings simultaneously. Thats what gave me the knowledge of the process, otherwise I wouldnt understand; I would simply think I am falling from one state into another. Thats not it, its just. The substance, the vibrations, everything is probably following its normal course, you see, and all that is really changing is the way consciousness perceives things.
So pushing this knowledge to its limit that is, applying it generallylife (what we usually call life, the physical life of the body) and death are THE SAME THING, simultaneous its just that the consciousness moves back and forth, back and forth (same gesture). I dont know if I am making myself clear. But its fantastic.
--
I could see something almost like the fire of battlean interesting spectacle! The body was very conscious of the Help it was getting, and that gave it a lot of confidence: it came out of the battle with a kind of increased certainty that it was being led just as it had to be in order to do the thing something nobody knows how to do externally, nobody! Nobody can knownei ther the process nor anything. Its entirely new.
Of course, the supreme Consciousness knows what Its doing and whats going to happen, in that It knows what It wants; but it isnt something that operates from cause to effect, and from events or circumstances to consequences, the way ordinary consciousness operates; its not like that at all, and thats why were unable to express it outwardly for the moment. Maybe later we will be able to spell something out, but it will never be more than (how can I put it?) just a story, right? Not THE thing itself.
--
No, its not! I tell you, he cant understand. To him, sadhana. I sent him word that I was fully engrossed in sadhana, and then I immediately saw his mental image of me sitting cross-legged doing a perpetual puja! You get the idea. For him, sadhana means certain fixed rules, and if you let the rules go, you let go of the sadhana. But it doesnt matter, dont worry about it.
He is ill because something is trying to make him go through several lifetimes in one. If it succeeds, well, he will eventually understand; if it doesnt succeed, we will have done what we could, he will have done what he could, and everything will be for the best. Thats all.
0 1962-09-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It wasnt written for anyone and wasnt meant to be read. I showed it to Sri Aurobindo because he was speaking of certain things and I said, Ah, yes, thats the experience I had in. Then I showed him my notebook for that date (there was something written for each day).
Five thick notebooks, year after year. Even here I kept on writing for a while.
--
So Ive said that if people want to read what I have written (of course I have written certain things in English, like Conversations with the Mother, which I later rewrote in Frenchnot exactly in the same way, but nearly; so thats all right, its written in English) but those who want to read me, well, let them learn French, it wont do them any harm!
French gives a precision to thought like no other language.
0 1962-09-26, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sometimes that happens to me when I read English for my translation: suddenly certain things come [from elsewhere], so I look for a translation, and when I want to refer back to the English text, I cant find the word I had seen at all I dont find it!
So dont pay any attention! (Laughing) The doctors think I am cracking up!
0 1962-09-29, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This change, this abrupt transformation of the universal element, will most certainly bring about a kind of chaos in the perceptions, from which a new knowledge will emerge. That, in the most general terms, is the result of the new Manifestation.
Its not a question of new things, as if they didnt exist before, but they were unmanifested in the universe. Nothing can exist which doesnt already exist in the Supreme from all eternity. But it is new in the Manifestation. The element isnt new, but it is newly manifest, newly emerged from the Nonmanifest. Something new what does that mean? It makes no sense! It is new FOR us, in the manifestation, thats all.
0 1962-10-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo is speaking here of knowledge through inspiration or revelation. In other words, when something suddenly descends and illuminates your understanding: all of a sudden, you feel you know a certain thing for the very first time, because it comes to you directly from the domain of Light, the domain of true knowledge, and it comes with all its innate force of truthit illuminates you. And indeed, when youve just received it, it seems as though nothing could resist that Light. And if you make sure to let it work in you, it brings about as much transformation as it can in its own domain.
It is a fairly common experience. When it occurs, and for some time afterwards (not very long), everything seems to organize itself quite naturally around that Light. Then, little by little, it blends with all the rest. The intellectual awareness of it remains, formulated in one way or another that much is left but its like an empty husk. It no longer has the driving force that transforms all movements of the being in the image of that Light. And this is what Sri Aurobindo means: the world moves fast, the Lord moves ever forward, and all that remains is but a trail He leaves in His wake: it no longer has the same instantaneous and almighty force it had at the MOMENT He projected it into the world.
--
But any transformation in the being, on any plane, always has repercussions on the planes below. There is always an action. Even those things which seem purely intellectual certainly have an effect on the structure of the brain.
And these kinds of revelations happen only in a silent mindor at least a mind at rest. Unless the mind is absolutely tranquil and still, it doesnt come. Or if it does come, you dont even notice anything with all the racket youre making! And of course, these experiences help the tranquillity, the silence and receptivity to become better and better established. This sense of something utterly immobile, but not closedimmobile, but open and receptivegets more established the more you have these experiences. There is a big difference between a dead, lackluster, unresponsive silence and the receptive silence of a quieted mind. It makes a big difference. And it results from these experiences. All the progress we make is always, quite naturally, the result of truths coming down from above.
It has an effect: all these things have an effect on the way the body functions the workings of the organs, the brain, the nerves and so forth. And this will certainly take place long before there is any effect on the external form.
Actually, when people speak of transformation, theyre mainly thinking of a picturesque transformation, arent they? A beautiful appearanceluminous, supple, plastic, changing at will. But they dont give much thought to this other thing, this rather anesthetic transformation of the organs! And yet its certainly whats going to happen first, long before the appearance is transformed.
Sri Aurobindo spoke of the working of the chakras1 replacing the organs.
--
But physically, for instance, you see this object [Satprem picks up a paperweight]. Now, I see it in a certain way but you, with a supramental consciousness?
I just see through it, thats all.
--
In a way, I think I see better. But in a particular way. If, for instance, I have to thread a needle (I have experimented with this kind of thing), well, if I try to thread the needle while looking at it, its literally impossible. But sometimes (when I am in a certain attitude), if I have to thread a needle, it threads itself I have nothing to do with it: I hold the needle, I hold the thread, and thats that.
I think (in fact, its quite simply a matter of experience), I think that if this state gets perfected one should be able to do everything in the OTHER way, the way that doesnt depend on external senses. And then, well, it will clearly be the beginning of a supramental expression. Because its a sort of innate knowledge which DOES things. When That comes, you know, you can act.
0 1962-10-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Just try for a moment (laughing), try and imagine youre the Divine! Everything is in you; you simply play at bringing it all out in a certain order. But for you, in your consciousness, its all there simultaneously: there is no time, neither past, future, nor presentits all there together, every possible combination. Hes just playing at bringing out one thing and then another; but the poor devils down below see only a small part of the whole (about as much as this) and say, Heres an error! How is it an error? Simply because what they see is only a small part.
Its clear, isnt it? Its easy to understand. The notion of error belongs to time and space.
--
This is plainly what he meant: Error is one of the innumerable, infinite possibilities (infinite means that absolutely nothing is outside the possibility of being). So where is there room for error in this? Its WE who call it error, its totally arbitrary. Thats an error, we say but in relation to what? To our judgment of what is true, yes, but certainly not in relation to the Lords judgment, since it is part of Him!
Few people can bear this widening of understanding.
--
Yes, out of habit it all tries to start up again. But all you need to say is, Look, Lord; see, see how it is. Thats all. Look at this, Lord, look at that, look at this idiot here and its over. Immediately. And the change comes automatically, mon petit, without the slightest effort. Simply simply be sincere, in other words, TRULY want the right thing. One is quite conscious of being powerless, utterly incompetent: more and more, I feel that this amalgam of matter, of cells and all the rest, is just pitiful! Pitiful. I dont know, under certain conditions people may feel powerful, wonderful, luminous, competent but as far as I am concerned, thats because they have no idea what theyre really like! When you really see what youre made of its nothing, really nothing. But its capable of anything, provided provided you let the Lord do it. The trouble is that something always wants to do things on its own. If it werent like that.
People come, letters arrive, various circumstances and problems arise (its over now, but at the timeeven a year ago that kind of thing was sometimes a problem for me). Well, right away, I (Mother opens her hands in front of her forehead, palms upwards, as though presenting the problem to the Lord): Here, Lord, look at this. All I am good for is (same gesture): I am presenting it to You, Lord. And then I keep still, I just keep still: I wont move unless You move me, I wont speak unless You make me speak. And then you stop thinking about it. You think about it just for a second, long enough to do this (same gesture). It comes in like this, then up it goes (gesture showing a problem coming to Mother from one side and being sent above). And later, you suddenly realize youre speaking or acting or making a decision or writing a letter or and He has done it all.
0 1962-10-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Higher up, there is a fourth zone, a zone of colored lights, plays of colored lights. Thats the order: first form, then sound, then ideas, then colored lights. But that zone is already more distant from humanity; it is a zone of forces, a zone which appears as colored lights. No formscolored lights representing forces. And one can combine these forces so that they work in the terrestrial atmosphere and bring about certain events. Its a zone of action, independent of form, sound and thought; it is above all that. A zone of active power and might you can use for a particular purposeif you have the capacity to do so.
Thats the highest zone.
0 1962-10-30, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
H.S.1 has written to me, and there was a sentence in his letter that brought a certain problem to my attention. He said, I have done so many hours of translationits a mechanical task. I wondered what he meant by mechanical task because, as far as I am concerned, you cant translate unless you have the experienceif you start translating word for word, it no longer means anything at all. Unless you have the experience of what you translate, you cant translate it. Then I suddenly realized that the Chinese cant translate the way we do! In Chinese, each character represents an idea rather than a separate word; the basis is ideas, not words and their meanings, so translation must be a completely different kind of work for them. So I started identifying with H.S., to understand how he is translating Sri Aurobindos Synthesis of Yoga into Chinese charactershes had to find new characters! It was very interesting. He must have invented characters. Chinese characters are made up of root-signs, and the meaning changes according to the positions of the root-signs. Each root-sign can be simplified, depending on where its placed in combination with other root-signsat the top of the character, at the bottom, or to one side or the other. And so, finding the right combination for new ideas must be a fascinating task! (I dont know how many root-signs can be put in one character, but some characters are quite large and must contain a lot of them; as a matter of fact, I have been shown characters expressing new scientific discoveries, and they were very big.) But how interesting it must be to work with new ideas that way! And H.S. calls it a mechanical task.
The mans a genius!
--
I dont know if you can look at things from that angle, because its only one angle. certainly if we asked the Lord, Whats the use of it? He would either say Its all the same to Me, or Its none of your business, or I get some fun out of it that would be enough for Him!
But.
--
What Sri Aurobindo says is, Yes, true, its the only permanent thinga certain permanent Nonbeing behind everything. But why shouldnt He sometimesnot sometimes, but at the SAME time, the same momenthave the fun of being both permanent and impermanent? Theres no objection to that. In any case, He has none!
Our minds may not like it, but He.
0 1962-11-03, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At times its hellish, certain beings and situations.
Yes, frightful, unimaginable situations and ways of being.
0 1962-11-07, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"This state is clearly outside time and space, that's certain. So you go from the state in time and space to the state where you're outside time and space, and NOT by a change of place ... something! It's something that happens inside, instantaneously. It's not a long passage like the long and gradual movement you experience in meditation, for instance; the passage into Sat isn't a gradual transition from one state to another: it is sudden, like an immediate reversal. But as I just said, there are no words for it; 'reversal' is infinitely too violent for expressing it."
***
0 1962-11-10, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They certainly prefer this to the blind and stupefied worship most humans offer up to them.
Well, thats all for today.
0 1962-11-17, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then there have been certain political problems2all this making for a bit of work, which turned out rather well. But its always mixed, never the full thing; theres always a result, but not THE result. I dont think the result is possible with the present conditions on earth: it would be a miracle, upsetting too many things. The consequences would be worse than.
Well, then.
Ive had my eye on this gentleman since the Second World War (and even earlier), and I know thats just what he wants. He has foretold all sorts of catastrophic things. So I suppose thats what X is seeing too, without knowing where it comes from I dont know. I wonder. At any rate, he wrote it so categorically that you might nearly think he wanted it! I cant believe he wants it. I simply replied, Well, yes, its ONE possibility. Which of the two will prevail? That, I dont know. Its a secret the Lord doesnt reveal because He thinks (and this is altogether certain) that it wouldnt be good to know whats going to happenwe wouldnt do what had to be done. Its always that way: we dont know whats going to happen because then we wouldnt do what had to be done.
I do what He tells me to do, but He doesnt say what the consequences will be. And I dont ask Him; I know its none of my business.
--
Yet people have fought beforepeople have fought everywhere, havent they? Since the last war they have never stopped fighting in one place or another: in Africa, in Asia, everywhere. Theyve been constantly fighting. There was always something, constantly. This whole Algerian story terrible things went on there; and all the trouble in the Congo and so forthbattles everywhere. But I dont know why (its not that I wasnt concerned with these events, they were in my consciousness), but this time two things have happened: a greater Power has descended (something very concrete, almost tangible), a great Power has descended, has been especially sent; and also a certain receptivityeverywhere, even in the Chinese (I dont mean locally: its all over the world). Is it because, materially, theres some anxiety at the idea of? If a new world war starts, its obviously going to be something unspeakable, frightful, frightfulwhole civilizations will be swallowed up. It will put a stop to life on earth in a terrible way. Is that what made people? Has this awakened some aspiration? Possibly. Theres clearly a greater receptivity. I see this from the fact that whenever the Will spreads out (Mother makes a gesture of emanation), well, it has a more concrete and more immediate effect.
The other conflicts were really very superficial, like minor ailmentsskin diseases! Superficial things. There were some appalling horrors, utterly repugnant things, too, everywhere (I remember what happened in Algeria, I was kept informed and I knew what took place: horrible things) and yet they seemed yes, they seemed like skin diseases of the earth! They were very superficial. But then suddenly up there [in Nefa and Ladakh], oh, it became something different.
--
But everything Sri Aurobindo said has always come true. You know he also said (but it was in jest, he didnt write it) concerning reuniting with Pakistan he told me: Ten years. It will take ten years. The ten years passed and nothing happenedOFFICIALLY nothing happened. But the truth is (I learned it through certain government officials), Pakistan did make some overtures in that direction, asking for a union to be reestablished (they would have kept some sort of autonomy, but the two countries would have UNITED, it would have been a UNION), and Nehru refused.
How foolish!
--
He had seen it happen. After ten years, when that man who headed Pakistan died,4 they found themselves in grave difficulty and were unable to get organized; so they sent somebody (unofficially, of course) to ask India to reestablish union on certain bases but they refused, the Indians refused. It was a repetition of the same stupidity as when Cripps came to make his proposal, when Sri Aurobindo sent a message saying, Accept, whatever the conditions, otherwise it will be worse later on. Thats what Sri Aurobindo told them. Gandhi was there and he retorted, Why is that man meddling? He should be concerned only with spiritual life.5
They have conscientiously ruined the country.
--
I do not know why you want a line of thought to be indicated to you for your guidance in the affair of Korea. There is nothing to hesitate about there, the whole affair is as plain as a pike-staff. It is the first move in the Communist plan of campaign to dominate and take possession first of these northern parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continentin passing, Tibet as a gate opening to India.9 If they succeed, there is no reason why domination of the whole world should not follow by steps until they are ready to deal with America. That is, provided the war can be staved off with America until Stalin can choose his time. Truman seems to have understood the situation if we can judge from his moves in Korea, but it is to be seen whether he is strong enough and determined enough to carry the matter through. The measures he has taken are likely to be incomplete and unsuccessful, since they do not include any actual military intervention except on sea and in the air. That seems to be the situation; we have to see how it develops. One thing is certain that if there is too much shillyshallying and if America gives up now her defence of Korea, she may be driven to yield position after position until it is too late: at one point or another she will have to stand and face the necessity of drastic action even if it leads to war. Stalin also seems not to be ready to face at once the risk of a world war and, if so, Truman can turn the tables on him by constantly facing him with the onus of either taking that risk or yielding position after position to America. I think that is all that I can see at present; for the moment the situation is as grave as it can be.10
Sri Aurobindo
0 1962-11-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If they want to bomb Madras, thats just too close. Between the oil wells in Assam (thats what they wantvery useful to have) and the Chinese, theres the same distance as between Pondicherry and Madras, so you understand. They certainly have a motorized army, so its nothing at all.
Anyhow.
--
The qualifier5 we use depends on our limited individual vision, but the fact in itself is probably quite correct: there will be a serious upheaval. But this doesnt mean it will be catastrophic. You see, it may be precisely the opening to something higher, and a new birth to Truth. Personally, I am certain of a very rapid progress [for you], because I see it. But I dont see any personal catastrophes. I havent seen that at all.
Unless. Once, you know, when Sri Aurobindo was still here, I saw. But it was just a vision, and lots of visions come (this was especially true at that time) as possibilities formed in a given world and descending towards the terrestrial manifestation. They come for me to give them the support of my consent, if I find them interesting. So there are all kinds of things! And most of them get sorted out at that point. But anyway, I had a vision in which Pondicherry was completely engulfed by a bomb (in those days there werent such powerful bombsso the vision was partly premonitory). So if that happens! (Mother laughs) As a result of the bombing, I was trapped in a radioactive area (it had been buried underground but not flatteneda kind of cave had been formed), where I stayed for two thousand years.
0 1962-11-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I didnt seek this experience, nothing. I simply sat down. The previous time,3 there was that massive presence of Sri Aurobindo. I had been forewarned that this time it would be different (besides, Ive never had the same experience twice), but this was utterly unexpectedit didnt come as a response to a will to know or anything at all. I seemed to be simply faced with a fact: it was shown to me. I was witness to my own experience, thats all. And I was absolutely certain of its meaningas when you KNOW and theres no need to discuss or elaborate or explain: thats how it is. And when it was gone, it was gone suddenly, and nothing remained but a blissful tranquillity, a sort of absolute certainty that things ARE like that. Although the appearances may seem altogether different, things ARE like that.
(silence)
--
And the Power! The Power was tremendous. And I could see in detail everything it was doing, but in another way. I can say it was a certainty (I knew exactly what it was doing), but I couldnt have described it with the words we use here.
(silence)
--
Yes, the mantra! certain words or vibrations that have a power.
(long silence)
0 1962-11-30, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A. has a neighbor who is an educational officer (retired). He does serious Puja daily and has certain powers of foretelling, mind-reading etc. He is under instructions from his Guru never to send back people without answering their questions of whatever kind; never to get angry under any conditions; never to accept money; and never to tell things of his own accord. He is in great demand among ministers and officials of the Madras Government, and Nehru too had an interesting experience at his hands.
This gentleman told A. on October 20 that the Chinese hostilities will be under Cease-Fire by the end of November. It actually came to be on November 20. Here are a few other things he has said in reply to A. on his return from here:
0 1962-12-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This body is very conscious, it was BORN conscious, and throughout those years its consciousness went on growing, perfecting itself, proliferating, as it were; this was its concern, its joy. And with Sri Aurobindo, there was such peaceful certitude, there were no more problems, no more difficulties: the future was opening up, luminous and peaceful and certain. Nothing, nothing, no words can describe what a collapse it was for the body when Sri Aurobindo left.
Its only because Sri Aurobindos conscious will entered into itleft one body and entered the other. I was standing facing his body, you know, and I materially felt the friction as his will entered into me (his knowledge and his will): You will accomplish my Work. He said to this body: You will accomplish my Work. Its the one thing that kept me alive.
0 1962-12-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was in both French and English. He called it Fundamental Axioms of Cosmic Philosophy. It was the work of a certain French metaphysician who was well known around the turn of the centuryhis name began with a B. He met Theon in Egypt when Theon was with Blavatski; they started a magazine with an ancient Egyptian name (I cant recall what it was), and then he told Theon (Theon must have already known French) to publish a Cosmic Review and the Cosmic Books. And this B. is the one who formulated all this gobbledygook.
There used to be the name of the printer and the year it was printed, but its not there any more.
--
Yes, theyre stupid. They are affirmations of contradictions I mean affirmations aimed at contradicting certain things. Its not meant at all to affirm something that has been SEEN, seen and transmitted, but to contradict all the stories of original sin and all the religions, which, according to Thon, always address themselves to more or less hostile beings.
Theon also used to say that man was born perfect, but had taken a tumble.
--
Oh, if you mean the puritans, the Protestants dreadful! Theyre the worst. Catholicism still retains something of the occult sense, and after all, they have a certain adoration for the Virgin, which keeps them in contact with something thats not asuric.
The last Pope, whos dead now [Pius XII], had broadened both his own mind and Church doctrine a lot: he was a devotee of the Virgin.
0 1962-12-19, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For instance, those who witness the phenomenon on a day-to-day basis (such as the doctor, for example) say, I dont understand. Oh, is that how it is? I dont understand. Yes, of course, there are certain reasons. When something happens, I ask him, How do you account for this? I dont know. But if I tell him, Well, I think I know what it depends on, he stares at me as if to say, Bats in her belfry! So I dont say anything. I tried two or three times, just to seetheres no reaction, nobody understands, nobody!
Even if I speak to someone more intelligent or better informed. Once or twice I said something to Pavitra, to see what would happen: he immediately dogmatizes, makes a mental principle out of it (consistent with Sri Aurobindos teaching, of course!). And it becomes something rigid, like a box. And he tries! He tries, he KNOWS he shouldnt do that, but. Which means one cannot understand unless one has the experienceyou must have the experience of all this somewhere, mon petit, otherwise you couldnt write about it!
0 1962-12-22, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have had some rather strange things have been happening. I dont know whether you understand the difference between the memory of an inner experience (from the subtle physical, the subconscient, all the inner regions) and the memory of a physical fact. There is a very great difference in quality, the same difference that exists between inner vision and physical vision. Physical vision is precise, well defined, and at the same time flat I dont know how to explain it: its very flat, totally superficial, but very accurate, with the kind of accuracy and precision that defines things which are really not defined at all. Well, theres the same difference in quality between the two types of memory as between the two types of vision. And in the last few days Ive realized that I had the memory of having gone downstairs, of having seen certain people and things, spoken and organized certain thingsseveral different scenes of the PHYSICAL memory. Not at all things I saw with the inner vision while exteriorized, but the MATERIAL memory of having done certain things.
Afterwards, I had to look into it: it really was a memory. It suddenly struck me, and I wondered, Did I really go downstairs physically? There are plenty of people here to prove that I didnt, that I didnt stir from here. And yet I have the physical memory of having done so, and of having done certain other things as well; I even remember going outside.
Well, it confronts me with a real problem. Not only is that memory absolutely physical, but the EFFECTS of what I said and did are there.
--
Yes, they are. Tiny things, certain arrangements in a room, slight changes in regard to the meals, things of absolutely no importance in themselves the little things life is full of, the things one does all the time, not big events (I know theres also an action on terrestrial events and all that, but it belongs to the other type of memory).
Youve been able to verify these changes?
--
Heres how this should be, I would say, and it became like that. For example, if I told someone to put something in a certain place, he did it. The person doesnt know I told him, because hes not in the same consciousness as I am, but he did it.
And I found out about the immediate effects of it even before recalling it, for it all unfolded in reverse: when a certain thing was done, I thought, What on earth! This person is wonderful. And then I suddenly realized, But I told him to do that! I told him. Then the image came the image I dont mean the sort of memory one has of a vision, but the memory of something one has DONE. With that kind of image, its not that you look: it just enters into you quite naturally. It has a particular quality. Thats how I became aware of these changes. I noticed them on my own.
And they are facts. Theres nothing to discuss: they are facts. And yet materially, according to physical appearances, that is, I didnt stir from here.
--
Yes, but I tell you, I have seen certain things and asked people about them and what they answer is, A dream; yes, I had a dream. (Mother laughs) So I havent said anything. Well see. Well, see you at Christmas.
This is the beginning of a phenomenon that will become quite acute over the years, as if an increasingly inexorable force were trying to swallow up Mother's conversations with Satprem the story of the transformation, in other wordsin favor of small parochial doings.
0 1963-01-12, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Which means it took twelve days for all his elements to form again. You see, they burned his body. (He was Christian, but his familyhis wife is alive and his brother toofound it less costly to let us handle it than to bury him as a Christian! So they had him cremated.) We cremated him, but I demanded a certain interval of time,4 although in his case it was really a gradual exhaustion and nothing much remained in his body; nonetheless, even then the consciousness is flung out of the cells violentlyit took twelve days to form again. It wasnt his soul (it had already left) but the spirit of his body that came to me, the body consciousness gathered in a well-dressed, neat Benjamin with his hair neatly brushed. He was quite trim when he came to me, just as he would have been in life: he always wanted to be well-groomed and impeccable to see me, that was his way. It took twelve days to gather together because I didnt see to it (I can do it in a few hours but only if I see to it), but in his case, his soul having been at rest for a long time, it didnt matter much. So over twelve days it took form again and when he was ready (laughing), he came to reoccupy his room! And there was no furniture left, nothing!
I found that very funny.
--
For instance, two or three nights ago (I dont remember), I was with Sri Aurobindo, we were doing a certain work (it was in a mental zone with certain vital reactions mixed in), well, a general work. I was with Sri Aurobindo and we were doing the work together. He wanted to explain to me how a particular movement is turned into a distorted movement; he was explaining this to me (but theres nothing mental or intellectual about it, nothing to do with theories). And without even (how can I put it?) without even a thought or an explanation to forewarn you, a true movement is changed into a movement that is not false but distorted. I was speaking to Sri Aurobindo and he was answering, then I turn my head away like this (not physicallyall this is an inner life, naturally), I turned my head as if to see the [vibratory] effect. Then I turn back and send Sri Aurobindo the movement necessary to carry on with the experience, and I receive a reply which surprises me because of the quality of its vibration (it was a reply of ignorance and weakness). So I turn my attention back again, and as a matter of fact in Sri Aurobindos place I saw the doctor. Then I understood! Superficially, one may say, So, Sri Aurobindo and the doctor are the same! (To people who would see such a thing it would occur that they are the sameof course its all, all the same! All is one, people just dont understand this complete oneness.) Naturally it didnt surprise me for the thousandth of a second, there wasnt any surprise, but oh, I understood! This way (Mother slightly tilts her hand to the left), its Sri Aurobindo, and that way (slightly to the right), its the doctor. This way its the Lord, and that way its a man!!
Really interesting.5
0 1963-01-14, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Taking life seriously generally consists of two movements: the first is to give importance to things that probably have none, and the second is to want life to be limited to a certain number of qualities considered to be pure and worthy. With some (for instance, those Sri Aurobindo refers to here: the prudish or the puritans), that virtue becomes dry, barren, gray, aggressive, and almost always finds fault in all that is joyful, free and happy.
The only way to make life perfect (I mean here life on earth, of course) is to look at it from a sufficient height to see it in its totality, not only its present totality, but over the whole past, present and future: what it has been, what it is, what it must beyou must be able to see it all at once. Because thats the only way to put everything in its place. Nothing can be done away with, nothing SHOULD be done away with, but each thing must find its own place in total harmony with the rest. Then all those things that appear so evil, so reprehensible and unacceptable to the puritan mind would become movements of joy and freedom in a totally divine life. And then nothing would stop us from knowing, understanding, feeling and living this wonderful Laughter of the Supreme who takes infinite delight in watching Himself live infinitely.
--
But especially all the prohibitions. For instance, let me quote you a statement from X which I heard from a third person: I will do a special puja to help money come. I will prepare a special yantram1 to bring money. But FOR GODS SAKE dont say anything [to Mother], dont do anything or give anything before January 14, because until January 14, a certain planet is in opposition to a certain other planet (Mother laughs), so things follow a downward trend and wont be successful. But afterwards, that particular planet will be ascending and everything will be successful! (Mother laughs) Something in me said spontaneously (something, well, someone), spontaneously and immediately, But why? I can always hear! And I laughed. So they thought I was making fun of him I dont make fun: I laugh, its not the same!
So, mon petit, thats all.
0 1963-01-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As I told you, Sri Aurobindo lives there permanently, as though in a house of his own: you can see him, you can stay with him, he is busy. It is very much like the physical, but a physical that would be less grating, you understand, where things are more harmonious and satisfying, less excited. There is less of that feeling of haste and un certainty. In that house where Sri Aurobindo lives, life unfolds very, very harmoniously: people come and go, there are meals even. But all that obeys more general laws, and a sense of security and certainty not to be found in physical life. And the symbolism is more exact (I dont know how to express it), the symbolic transcription of things is less distorted, more exact.
This is the subtle physical as I know it, I cant say if it is the same for everyone. Sri Aurobindo said, There is a true physical, well, I have a feeling that this is what he calls the true physicala subtler physical, the true physical which is behind.
0 1963-01-30, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The way it comes is both exclusive and positiveits really interesting. Theres none of the minds ceaseless wavering, Is this better? Is that better? Should it be like this? Should it be like that? Noit is LIKE THIS (Mother brings down her hand in a gesture of imperative descent). And then in certain cases (without anything to do with the literary angle or even the sound of the wordnei ther sound nor anything, but meaning), Sri Aurobindo himself suggests a word. Its as if he were telling me, Isnt this better French, tell me?(!)
I am simply the recording machine.
--
So I will go on. If there are corrections, they can only come through the same process, because at this point to correct anyhow would spoil it all. There is also the mixing (for the logical mind) of future and present tenses but that too is deliberate. It all seems to come in another way. And well, I cant say, I havent read any French for ages, I have no knowledge of modern literatureto me everything is in the rhythm of the sound. I dont know what rhythm they use now, nor have I read what Sri Aurobindo wrote in The Future Poetry. They tell me that Savitris verse follows a certain rule he explained on the number of stresses in each line (and for this you should pronounce in the pure English way, which somewhat puts me off), and perhaps some rule of this kind will emerge in French? We cant say. I dont know. Unless languages grow more fluid as the body and mind grow more plastic? Possible. Language too, maybe: instead of creating a new language, there may be transitional languages, as, for instance (not a particularly fortunate departure, but still), the way American is emerging from English. Maybe a new language will emerge in a similar way?
In my case it was from the age of twenty to thirty that I was concerned with French (before twenty I was more involved in vision: painting; and sound: music), but as regards language, literature, language sounds (written or spoken), it was approximately from twenty to thirty. The Prayers and Meditations were written spontaneously with that rhythm. If I stayed in an ordinary consciousness I would get the knack of that rhythm but now it doesnt work that way, it wont do!
0 1963-02-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But it was all a living, palpable experience which lasted for a day and a half. The entire universal movement was LIVED and sensed. Not merely seen but lived and in what light! What stupendous power! With that kind of certitude at the core of everything something very odd. Its very difficult to express. But the experience lasted so long that it became perfectly familiar. To translate it into words I might say: it is the Supremes way of seeingof feeling, of living. I was living things the way He does. And it gives a power of certitude of realization. In the sense that what we are heading for is already here; the road we look back on, the road we have traveled and the road yet to travel, it all lives simultaneously. And with such logic! An eternal, wonderful superlogic which makes it obviousness itselfeverything is obviousness itself. Struggle, effort, fear, all of that, oh, absolutely, absolutely nonexistent. And together with this, the explanation of the feeling we have of not wanting certain things any more: they leave the Manifest. You see, its like a sieve into which everything is thrown and where He to Him, everything, but everything is the same, but there is the vision of what He wants, and also of what is useless for what He wants or would prevent the fullness and totality of what He wants (contradictions of sorts, I dont know how to explain it)so with that He just goes this way (gesture of reswallowing) and it goes out of the Manifestation.
At the time I could have said it in a more understandable language, while now
--
I dont know how to explain it. Putting it like this implies an arbitrary fiat, but theres no such thing: it isnt a gentleman who decides to withdraw certain things he no longer likes! Its not that way. They are things which, owing to their own propensity (what we might call their essential truth), had at a given moment their place in the Manifestation, and which, once they have lost their purpose, quite naturally leave the Manifestation I could put it in fifty different ways just as poorly, I cant see how to explain it properly. But the fact was evident. It was part of such a wonderfully complete and harmonious Whole that Harmony is beyond us, we cannot understand it, caught as we are in the sensation of opposites. But there, opposites do not exist, there are only things that Like the fact of the Supreme seemingly dominated by His creation, wholly obedient to His creationas though He had no power, no knowledge, no vision, so things follow their course in the chaos we know. Well, when we put it like this, there is something unbelievable and shocking about it, yet it was so very natural, so very true, and part of such a perfect whole!
Only, you cannot see it unless you see the whole. At the time, everything was preexistent, although unfolding in time for the Manifestation. But it was preexistent. Not preexistent as we understand it, not everything at a given moment. Oh, how impossible! Its impossible to express it. I still feel what I could call the warmth of the experience the reality, the life, the warmth of the experience are there. You know, I have lived in a Light! A Light which isnt our light, which has nothing to do with what we call light, a Light so warm and powerful! A creative Light. So powerful! Everything was so perfectly harmonious: everything, everything without exception, even the things that appear to be the very negation of divinity. And a rhythm! (gesture as of great waves) A harmony, so wonderful a TOTALITY, where the sense of sequence Sequence doesnt mean things being like this (chopping gesture), one being abolished by the next, it is At the time I might have been able to find or invent the words, I dont know, now now, its only the memory of it. The memory, not the presence itself.
0 1963-02-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Simply for want of training. If you train yourself, you remember quite well. There are small holes in the consciousness, gaps, and when you go through such a gap you forget. You may suddenly get a fleeting impression of something, and then it eludes youoh, its gone! Only, it takes a long time to train yourself; you shouldnt be in a hurry or too busy. I went through it at a time when I was bedridden for five months. I had nothing to do. (You cant keep reading all the timeduring those five months I read some eight hundred books no, nine hundred and fifty! But it tires the eyes.) So the rest of the time (you cant sleep too much either when youre in bed all the time), I trained myself: that was when I learned to have completely conscious nights. But its a discipline. When you wake up, either in the middle of the night or in the morning, dont budge, stay absolutely still, concentrated, very silent, and PULL the memory back. For one month, two months, you seem to get nowhere; after six months it begins to work; and eventually you remember everything. At the end, you do the opposite movement, in the sense that whenever you have an interesting dream, you wake up: you learn to wake up in the middle of the night every time you have a vision or a dream, or some activity (there are various cases), so that you can remember, and then you repeat it to your consciousness (once youre awake, you repeat it to yourself two or three or ten times, till youre certain not to forget), and then off you go again.
But you cant do that if, when morning comes, you have to leap out of your bed and attend to fifty thousand pressing matters. It isnt indispensable for the yoga, not at all. Its a hobby, rather, something to amuse yourself with.
--
In the body consciousness, there are two attitudes which are both No, one is becoming much more natural: it is a sort of (whats the word in French?) everlasting attitude, everlasting, there is no reason why it shouldnt continue. The cells feel themselves everlasting, with a certain state of harmonious inner peace which partakes of eternity, that is to say, free from the kind of disorder and friction that causes aging and disintegration (its a kind of grating in the gears that causes it). Peoples ordinary consciousness (its not a question of ideas, concepts or anything of that kind: its the bodys consciousness, the consciousness of the bodys cells), the ordinary, NATURAL, NORMAL consciousness is a consciousness full of grating and friction, in perpetual disorder, and thats the cause of aging. Well, this is beginning to fade away.
It is rarely felt, except when the pressure from outside is too great. When there is a huge accumulation of scores of small you cant call them wills, but impulses coming from things (from things or people or circumstances) that want to be fulfilled, attended toas long as its within a certain limit you receive it with a smile and it doesnt have any effect, but when the dose is exceeded, suddenly something says, Oh, no! Enough is enough! At that point, the consciousness is hopeless. It falls back into the old rhythm, and consequently that must cause wear and tear. But the other way is a sort of harmonious, undulating movement (Mother draws big waves in the air), ALMOST beyond time, not quite: there is some sort of time sense, but secondary, somewhat in the distance. And this movement (gesture of waves) gives a sense of eternityof everlastingness, at any ratethere is no reason for it to cease. There is no friction, no conflict, no wear and tear, it can go on indefinitely.
It is beginning to be that way.
--
Yesterday evening (was it yesterday? No, the day before), when I went out on the balcony-terrace,3 the difference in perception between the consciousness I have now and the one I had before felt enormous! Before, as I have always said, I would stay there, call the Lord, be in His presence, and only when He withdrew would I come in again thats how it was. And I had a certain relationship with people, things, the outside world (outside, well, not outsideanyway, the world). The day before yesterday, when I went to the balcony, I wasnt thinking of anything or observing anything, I simply went I didnt want to know what was going on, it didnt interest me, I wasnt observing. The other experience [of the previous balcony, one year ago] seemed to go back centuries! It was so much OTHER! And so spontaneous, so natural, and so immense too! The earth was tiny. Yet it was very much here: I wasnt over there, the BODY itself was feeling that way. And at the same time (I was two floors above people), every time I looked, I recognized scores and scores of people, they seemed to leap to my eyesa crystal clear vision, much sharper (the vision I had before was always a bit hazy because what I saw wasnt entirely physical: I saw the movement of forces), and yesterday, it was as if as if I had risen above the very possibility of haziness! It was far less physicalFAR MORE accurate.4
Formerly too, I used to sense the Force, the Consciousness, the Power concentrated in a particular point and then spreading out. While here, there was an IMMENSITY of Power, of Light, of Consciousness, of perception, concentrated in a tiny point: the people gathered there.
So colossal a difference that I didnt expect it I wasnt thinking about it nor was I expecting it. I stayed there as long as it lasted, then at a certain point someone said, Thats enough, they are getting tired. (It wasnt I who said it.) Enough, they cant take any more. So I came back inside. Thats what made me come inside. It lasted five minutes. In five minutes, they were full to bursting.
I think this body has become another person, its not the same any more. Its no longer what it used to be. Yet the memory of its earthly existence hasnt gone, it isnt another body. Yet it is another person. I am referring here only to the material consciousness (Mother touches her body). The other thing up there (gesture above) is all very easy to explain, the work was done long ago, thats not what I meanno, its here. The change is HERE. Its odd. There, petit.
--
Fairly often, its Sri Aurobindo. But this time it was entirely impersonal. It was something that WILL NO LONGER tolerate in the world a certain kind of selfish stupidityto trample this childs finer feelings just because she isnt stupidly attached to her family (who didnt even give her a single thought all the time she was here, she didnt exist for them).
If you want your children to love you, you should at least love them a little, care for them a little, no? Its elementary, you dont have to be very bright to understand that but they wont understand: It is a childs DUTY to love his parents!! And if you dont fulfill your duty, youre put in jail.
0 1963-03-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To see the world as it is, accurately, starkly, in the most practical and down-to-earth way, and to see the world as it can be, with the highest and freest vision, filled with hope and aspiration and a marvelous certainty these are the two poles of discernment. All the most splendid, marvelous, powerful, expressive and total things we are able to imagine are nothing compared to what they can be; and at the same time, our minute observation of the smallest detail can never be sufficiently exact. Both things must go together. When you know this (gesture below) and you know That (gesture above), you are able to make the two meet.
This is the best possible use of the need for miracles. The need for miracles is a gesture of ignorance: Oh, I wish it were that way! Its a gesture of ignorance and impotence. On the other hand, those who tell you, You live in a world of miracles, know only the lower end of things (and quite imperfectly at that), and they are impervious to anything else.
--
But what people call miracles nowadays are almost always performed by beings of the vital world, or by men in relation with such beings, so theres a mixtureit accepts the reality of certain things, the truth of certain things that arent true. And it works on that basis. So its unacceptable.
Some other day Ill tell you more, though what Ill have to say will be personally to you, for the Agenda, it just wont do for the Bulletin. There you are.
0 1963-03-09, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Take the example of someone ill, even feeling pain. When Sri Aurobindo was in possession of this supramental Power (at certain times he said it was totally under his control, he could do whatever he wanted with it and apply it wherever he wanted), then he would put this Will on some disorder or other, physical or vital, say (or mental, of course), he would put this Force of a superior harmony, a superior, supramental order, keep it there, and it would act instantly. And it was an orderit created an order and harmony superior to natural harmony. Which means that if the object was to cure, for example, the cure was more perfect and total than a cure brought about by the ordinary physical and mental methods.
There were hosts of instances. But people are so blind, you know, so bogged down in their ordinary consciousness, that they always have ready explanations. They can always explain it away. Only those who had faith and aspiration and something very pure in them, that is, those who really wanted to know, were aware of it.
--
But flung like that! For a very long time the memory of the SENSATION remained: something that went like this (same gesture of a leaf falling) and simply set me down on the road. When I worked with Thon, the memory came back, and I saw it was an entity: what people in Europe call angels (what do they call it?) guardian angels, thats right. An entity. Thon had told me of certain worlds (worlds of the higher intellect I dont remember, he had named all the different planes), and in that world are winged beingswho have wings of their own free choice, because they find it pretty! And Madame Thon had always seen two such beings with me. Yet she knew me more than ten years later. And it appears they were always with me. So I took a look and, sure enough, there they were. One even tried to draw: he asked me to lend him my hand to do drawings. I lent my hand, but when I saw the drawing (he did one), I told him, The ones I do without you are much better! So that was the end of the matter!
What did it depict?
--
It was the same thing when I made that overmental formation (we were heading for miracles!). One day Sri Aurobindo told me I had brought down into Amrita6 a force of the creative Brahma (its the creative Word, the Word that realizes itself automatically). And I dont know what happened something, I cant recall what, that showed me it was working very well. Then a sort of idea occurred to me: Why, we could try this power on mosquitoes: let mosquitoes cease to exist! What would happen? (We were pestered by mosquitoes at the time.) Before doing it (the meditation was over, it would have been for the next time), I said to Sri Aurobindo, Well, what if we tried with that force which responds; if we said, Let mosquitoes cease to exist, we could at least get rid of them within a certain field of action, a certain field of influence, couldnt we? So he looked at me (with a smile), kept silent, and, after a moment, turned to me and said, You are in full Overmind. That is not the Truth we want to manifest. I told you the story. It was on that occasion.
We could have done things of that sort.
He told me (Mother speaks with an ironic tone), Oh, you can certainly perform miracles! People will be wonderstruck.
(silence)
--
The memory of all these things returned AFTERWARDS, when I met Thonlong afterwards, when I was more than twenty, that is, more than ten years later. I met Thon and got the explanation of these things, I understood. Then I remembered all that had happened to me, and I thought, Well! Because Madame Thon said to me (I told her all my childhood stories), she said to me, Oh, but I know, you are THAT, the stamp of THAT is on you. I thought over what she had said, and I saw it was indeed true. All those experiences I had were very clear indications that there were certainly people in the invisible looking after me! (Mother laughs)
Interestingly there was nothing mental about it: I didnt know the existence of those things, I didnt know what meditation was I meditated without the least idea of what it was. I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, my mother had kept it all completely taboo: those matters are not to be touched, they drive you crazy!
--
Its vaguenot vague but incomplete. The details are precise, what I see is precise, but everything isnt there. Only certain points here and there its incomplete.
But one thing I know, I want your book to be published by then, to come out by the end of February, possibly for the 21st. But those people take ages to do things properly. Thats why I ask you.
0 1963-03-13, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Well, this is certainly a beautiful choice!
Thats it, theres no doubt.
0 1963-03-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont remember in detail (I wrote it down), but the idea was like this: the Lord makes you die only with your consentyour consent is necessary for you to die. And unless He decides, you can never die. Those two things: for you to die, something (the inmost soul, that is) must consent, the soul must say yes, then you die; and when the soul says yes, its for the Lord to decide. Ever since that experience, there had been the certainty that you can die only when the Lord wills it, that it depends entirely and exclusively on His Will, that there are no accidents, no unforeseeable mishaps, as human beings thinkall that doesnt exist: its His Will. From that experience till this latest one [the death of death], I lived in that knowledge. Yet with the feeling of not quite the unknown but the incomprehensible. The feeling of something in the consciousness which doesnt understand (what I mean by understand is having the power to do and undo, thats what I call to understand: the power to realize or to undo, thats the real understanding, the POWER), well, of something which eluded me. It was still the mystery of the Infinite Supreme. And when that experience [the death of death] came, then, Ah, there it is! I have it, Ive caught it! At last, I have it.
I didnt have it long (laughing), it went away! But my position changed. Its one more thing I see from above; I rose above, my position is above.
--
Later, Mother added: "That is to say, an extremely powerful experience but which doesn't stay, except in its effect: becoming another person, changing position. I wouldn't be able to describe the experience, but my position changed. That's what happened every time. It's very different from the other experiences: they stay, you understand them fully, they don't fade away but they don't have the power to change your person. They are two types of experience, both very useful, but very different from each other. The experiences of the very powerful but very brief type are those that, afterwards, are expressed in the form of the other type. The other experiences are those that ESTABLISH in a certain domain of consciousness that first experience which had come only as a shocka compelling but transient shock. And sometimes it may take longformerly it took years between the first experience and the resulting ones; now the interval seems a bit shorter, though it still takes some time. And it follows the same course every time: something comes, has the necessary effect, and then the consciousness seems to go to sleep on that point, as if a silent incubation period were neededyou stop dealing actively with the subjectand it reemerges at the end of a long curve, but as if it had been digested, assimilated, and you were now ready for the full experience."
With a sort of incomprehensible comprehension, we are reminded of the words of the Vedic Rishis: "He uncovered the two worlds, eternal and in ONE nest."
0 1963-03-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Nothing spectacular whatsoeverspectacular, you know, thats what people enjoy. Nothing of the sort. For instance, there are two things that give you (and others too) a sense that youre making progress: one is the direct knowledge of whats happening in a given place; the other is the foreknowledge of coming events. Well, ever since the beginning of my Yoga, the two possibilities or capacities have been there, with all the admixture (as Sri Aurobindo says) of the movements of the mind, which befuddles everything. Already around 1910, not only was the capacity there (it would come off and on), but along with it, a discernment which showed me the mixture, and thus left me without any certainty. In this regard, therefore, I cant even say there has been a big change the change is in the proportion, its just a question of proportion: proportion in the certainty, proportion in the accuracy, proportion in the mixture. The mixture keeps decreasing, the certainty keeps increasing but thats all. With, now and then (but that has always happened), now and then, a clear, precise, definite indicationbang! Its a bit more frequent. Thats all. So? Sixty-three years. Sixty-three years of methodical effort, of constant will, of opportunities for the workpeople who want quick results, they make me laugh, you know!
This body isnt even one that is unprepared. It had capabilities, it was born with certain capabilities and was prepared for all kinds of experiences. There was also the sort of intuitive discernment Sri Aurobindo refers to, it had been there since my earliest childhoodveiled, mixed, no doubt, but present all the same, it was there. Afterwards, it was purified, developed, streng thened, the mixture lessened and the body was somewhat (laughing) to perfect itself it went through quite a great deal of friction of all types. Its certainly more apt today than it was fifty years ago, there isnt a shadow of doubt about it! But you understand, theres nothing to boast about!
I feel very strongly that things are that way because the Earth is that way.
--
Its the same with people who get cured. That I know, to some extent: the Power acts so forcefully that it is almost miraculousat a distance. The Power I am very conscious of the Power. But, I must say, I find it doesnt act here so well as it does far away. On government or national matters, on the terrestrial atmosphere, on great movements, also as inspirations on the level of thought (in certain people, to realize certain things), the Power is very clear. Also to save people or cure themit acts very strongly. But much more at a distance than here! (Although the receptivity has increased since I withdrew because, necessarily, it gave people the urge to find inside something they no longer had outside.) But here, the response is very erratic. And to distinguish between the proportion that comes from faith, sincerity, simplicity, and what comes from the Power Some people I am able to save (naturally, in my view, its because they COULD be saved), this is something that for a very long time I have been able to foresee. But now I dont try to know: it comes like this (gesture like a flash). If, for instance, I am told, So and so has fallen ill, well, immediately I know if he will recover (first if its nothing, some passing trouble), if he will recover, if it will take some time and struggle and difficulties, or if its fatalautomatically. And without trying to know, without even trying: the two things come together.2 This capacity has developed, first because I have more peace, and because, having more peace, things follow a more normal course. But there were two or three little instances where I said to the Lord (gesture of presenting something, palms open upward), I asked Him to do a certain thing, and then (not very often, it doesnt happen to me often; at times it comes as a necessity, a necessity to present the thing with a commentfrom morning to evening and evening to morning I present everything constantly, thats my movement [same gesture of presenting something] but here, there is a comment, as if I were asking, Couldnt this be done?), and then the result: yes, immediately. But I am not the one who presents the thing, you see: its just the way it is, it just happens that way, like everything else.3 So my conclusion is that its part of the Plan, I mean, a certain vibration is necessary, enters [into Mother], intervenes, and No stories to tell, mon petit! Nothing to fill people with enthusiasm or give them trust, nothing.
Three or four days ago, a very nice man, whom I like a lot, who has been very useful, fell ill. (He has in fact been ill for a long time, and he is struggling; for all sorts of reasons of family, milieu, activities and so on, he isnt taken care of the way he should be, he doesnt take care of his body the way he should.) He had a first attack and I saw him afterwards. But I saw him full of life: his body was full of life and of will to live. So I said, No need to worry. Then after some time, maybe not even a month, another attack, caused not by the same thing but by its consequences. I receive a letter in which I am informed that he has been taken to the hospital. I was surprised, I said, But no! He has in himself the will to live, so why? Why has this happened? The moment I was informed and made the contact, he recovered with fantastic speed! Almost in a few hours. He had been rushed to the hospital, they thought it was most serious, and two days later he was back home. The hospital doctor said, Why, he has received a new life! But thats not correct: I had put him back in contact with his bodys will, which, for some reason or other, he had forgotten. Things like that, yes, theyre very clear, they take place very consciously but anyway, nothing worth talking about!
--
These last few days, while walking in meditation, I said to the Lord, What do I have? I have no certainty, no foreknowledge, no absolute power, I have nothing. (I dont mean I, I mean the bodythis body.) The body was saying: Do you see my condition? I am still full of (it was complaining bitterly), oh, full of the silliest movements. Petty movements of apprehension, petty movements of un certainty, petty movements of anxiety, petty movements of all kinds of very, very petty thingsthose who live a normal life dont take any notice, they dont know, but when you observe whats going on deep down with that discernment oh, mon petit! Its so petty, so petty, so petty.
Only one thing (which is not even absolute): a sort of equality that has come into the bodynot an equality of soul (laughing): an equality in the cells! It has come into the body. There is no longer that clash of joy and painalways and for everything, every minute, every reaction, You, Lord, to You, Lord. As though the cells were chanting, To You Lord, to You Lord, to You Lord. And well, thats how it is.
--
No, in spite of everything, the body doesnt have that sort of eternal stability, the sense of its immortality (immortality isnt the right word), of its permanence. Not that it has a sense of impermanence, far from it, the cells feel eternal that much is there. But a certain something that would be sheltered from all attacks. It still feels the attacks. It feels an instability, it doesnt have a sense of absolute security, it hasnt yet reached a state of absolute security thats it: the sense of security. There are still vibrations of insecurity. Yet that seems so mean, so silly! It still lives in insecurity. Security, the sense of security only comes through union with the Supremenothing in life as it is, nothing in the world as it is, can offer the sense of security, its impossible. But to feel the Supremes presence so constantly, to be able to pass everything on to Him, To You, to You, to You, and yet not to have a sense of security! A shock or a blow comes (not necessarily personally, but in life), and theres still a particular vibration: the vibration of insecurityit still exists. The body finds that disquieting, painful: Why? Not that it complains, but it complains about itself, it finds itself not up to the mark.
To know that all is You, that You alone exist, to feel You everywhere, to feel You always, and still to be open to the first thing that comes from outside to give you a blow, a sense of insecurityhow absurd!
0 1963-03-30, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But its so dull! So dull, so lackluster, so unchanging, souninteresting, really dull that the slightest light shines like a bright star! The smallest, slightest, tiniest progress seems like an extraordinary thing. Like, for example, the attitude in certain cells towards a physical disorder which, naturally, like all physical disorders, tends to recur. The attitude in the cells changesnot the disorder (!), the disorder changes only because of the cells reaction, thats what makes it change; but it recurs with clockwork regularity thats its job. It is the way its received by the cells, their reaction to it, that brings about the change. And there is now a difference in the cells reaction. The result of my observation (an impersonal, general observation) is that there are two types of change (I cant call it progress), two types of change in the reaction: a change that goes on improving, in the sense that the reaction grows less sharp, the cells are less affected and become not only more conscious but more IN COMMAND of the reaction (something people are not generally conscious of, but which is what brings about the cure). And, on the other hand, deterioration: under the unrelenting attack, the cells panic, become more and more affected and afraid, and it eventually results in a terrible mess and a catastrophe. Well, the whole thing is observed, studied, experienced; but (laughing) in ordinary medicine its explained away in two words! You see, what I see now is the process they dont know the process, only the result. And, well, I notice that as the consciousness grows, the cells panic less and less and a sort of mastery develops. Of course, its a pleasing observation, if I may say so, but it doesnt even make me happy! It seems rather obvious. Also the proportion is such that to get a really telling result, it would take years and years and years! Oh, how many years! How slow things are.
So I dont feel impelled to talk about it. Id rather concern myself with something else I do the work, but thats all.
0 1963-04-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If He wants, certainly He will find a way for it to hold out. But the thing is rather new.
(silence)
0 1963-04-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So I advised him to be sure to keep his eyes open: it maintains a certain activity. When you close your eyes, you plunge into trance (you are perfectly conscious, but you go into trance and the body is absolutely stilled). Thats what Thon had taught me: you free the body consciousness and train it in such a way that it can act on its own, so that while you are deep in trance, you can get up, write, speak, do anythingyou are outside the body, theres just a link left. But its a whole training. Its not too easy, but still it can be done.
I did it to the point that even if the link is cut (I had the experience), the body can go on speaking. Very useful.
--
No, I am certain that you went into trance, because I saw you, but you didnt know it.
In meditation?
0 1963-04-25, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I received your card of the 23rd yesterday, and it coincided with an improvement in the atmosphere and even a physical improvement. I have rarely felt your Force and your Presence so concretely, continuously and powerfully as since I arrived here. To say that it is the only reality is almost superfluousThat alone really LIVES. All the rest is a false show. I am anxious to leave this place, but X said he wants to make certain changes in my japa, so I have to wait for the right moment. It is difficult to hurry X, as you know. I will wire you as soon as the time comes. Otherwise, I am experiencing Xs power of mental stillness, which is quite remarkable. All the rest I find rather poor.
More and more I feel, live and see that That alone is real. It is a very engrossing experience.
--
I am waiting for X to make certain changes in my japa, as he said he would, and will then come back without further delay. These last two days my health has been better. I am no longer constantly tired as I was before. In the evening I take a walk alone in the vast dunes near Rameshwaram, it feels like Arabia, and no loudspeakers! You rest in a sort of tranquil infinity.
The monkeys stole my mirror while I was taking my bath, and after marveling at themselves in it at length, they broke it. Then they threw my toothpaste into the well. They were kind enough, however, to leave me my razor, for fear I would end up looking like them, probably!
0 1963-05-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He said what he always says, that there is going to be war. That war is certain.
War is always there, it seems!
--
The effect on others is increasing considerably, though it too isnt the result of an attempt in that direction, not at all: those things are automatic. Yet, as I said, at certain seconds, there rises something that wills. Wills, but not in the ordinary way: something that its between knowing, seeing and willing. A little something that has something of all three and is as hard as diamond (oh, how can I explain it? I dont know, there are no words for it), it has something of the emotive vibration, but thats not it; it has nothing to do with anything intellectual, nothing at all; its neither intellectual vision nor supramental knowledge, thats not it, its something else. It is a diamondlike, live forcelive, living. And thats all-powerful. But extremely fleetingit immediately gets covered over by a heap of things, like visions, supramental vision, understanding, discernmentall this has become a constant mass, you understand.
From the standpoint of sensitivity or sensation (I dont know what to call it), when the body rests and enters the static state of pure Existence Before, it was (or gave) a sense of total immobilitynot something motionless: a non-movement, I dont know; not the opposition between something motionless and something in motion, not that the absence of any possibility of movement. But now, as it happens, the body has the sense not only of a terrestrial movement, but of a universal movement so fantastically rapid that it is imperceptible, beyond perception. As if beyond Being and Non-Being, there were a something thats both I mean, that doesnt move WITHIN a space but is both beyond immobility and beyond movement, in the sense that its so rapid as to be absolutely imperceptible to ALL the senses (I dont mean merely the physical senses), all the senses in all the worlds.
--
When I lie down, I go from one state to the other with extraordinary speed. And Ive noticed (the thing is just at its beginning, so I cant really say), Ive noticed that in that state, the Movement2 exceeds the force or power that concentrates the cells into an individual form. And that state seems to be all-powerful, although devoid of conscious will or vision (for the moment). Its a state (how can I explain this?) whose characteristics exceed the power that concentrates the cells into an individual body. The effect is automatic (not willed): as soon as something takes the form of a physical pain, it disappears INSTANTLY. But then, and this is most interesting, the second the body reverts to a certain stateits ordinary state, which isnt the ordinary human state, of course, but its ordinary, habitual stateit recaptures the MEMORY of its pain, and along with the memory comes the possibility of reverting to it if a certain number of conditions are not automatically fulfilled. I dont know if what I am saying makes any sense, but thats how the experience is. It is probably the passage from the true thing to the thing no longer truenot what is meant by Falsehood here on earth (thats something else altogether), but a first alteration compared to the pure Vibration. It gives the impression of a wrong habit, what remains is merely a question of a wrong habit. Its not the principle of distortion that works here, but the wrong habit due to the effect of ANOTHER principle. And something is to be found to checkcheck, eliminate, prevent that effect from recurring automatically.
Because it happens CONSTANTLY. Its a constant phenomenon: passing from this to that, this to that, this to that, to such a pointits so strong that a second comes, or a minute, or anyway a certain interval of time (I dont know), when you are neither this nor that; then you have a feeling of nothingness. It lasts just an instant; if it lasted longer, it would probably result in fainting or something, I cant say what. But it happens all the time: this, that (oscillating gesture). And between this and that, there is a passage.
Life on the surface (what people see of it, what they are in contact with) is certainly a sort of mixture of the two, with something going on behind the screen, but what you see on the screen is a sort of combination of the twothey dont really combine, but the visual effect is odd [for Mother]. By visual, I dont mean just for the eyes but for the outer consciousness. Its a bizarre life, neither this nor that, nor a mixture of the two, nor a juxtaposition, but as though both were operating through each other. It must be intercellular: something that goes this way (Mother intertwines the fingers of one hand with the fingers of the other in a continuous movement of interpenetration), so that the mixture must be very microscopic, on the surface.
(Mother remains engrossed, looking at the experience)
--
Thats exactly what made a sharp division in the whole spiritual thought or spiritual will of mankind. The point doesnt seem to have been understood. Some, like Buddha and that whole line, have declared that the world is incorrigible, that the only thing to do is to get out of it, and that it can never be otherwiseit changes, but really remains the same. The result is a certain attitude of perfect acceptance. So, for them, the goal is to get out that is, you escape: you leave the world as it is and escape. Then there are the others, who sense a perfection towards which men strive indefinitely and which is realized progressively. And I see more and more that the two movements complement each other, and not only complement each other but are almost indispensable to each other.
In other words, the change that arises from a refusal to accept the world as it is has no force, no power: what is needed is an acceptance not only total but comprehensive, joyousto find supreme joy in things in order to have (its not a question of right or power) in order to make it possible for things to change.
0 1963-05-11, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Why not? It doesnt occur to him [X] because hes used to sitting and writing on the ground. Its the same as if I thought it impossible to meditate unless I sat cross-legged and bolt upright! Fortunately, I lived with Sri Aurobindo, who never used to sit cross-legged. He told me right away that it was all a question of habitssubconscious habits. It has no importance whatsoever. And how well he explained: if a posture is necessary for you, it will come by itself. And its perfectly true, for instance, that when necessary, the body will suddenly sit up straightit comes spontaneously. As he said, the important thing is not the external frame but the inner experience, and if there is a physical necessity and your inner experience is entirely sincere, that physical necessity will come ALL BY ITSELF.2 This is something I am absolutely sure of. And he gave me his own example (I had mine, too) of certain things considered dangerous or bad, which we both did independently and spontaneously, and which were a great help to us! Consequently, all those stories of posture and so on are the petty mechanical bounds of the human mind.
It came to me while I was walking [for the japa]. I had a kind of vision of you squatting askew and writing. And I thought, But thats awful! Hell ruin his health!
--
It is clearly taken as a symbol of the gestation of the new birth, the second birth, the divine birth. Thats certain.
He said 72 days?
0 1963-05-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As an experience, its absolutely certain: when you come in touch with eternal Love, supreme Love, the first, immediate (what should I say?) perception or sensation (its not an understanding, it is much more concrete) is that even the most enlightened, kneaded, prepared material consciousness is INCAPABLE of manifesting That! The first impression is that sort of incapacity. Then comes the experience of something manifesting a type of not exactly cruelty, because its not cruelty as we conceive it; but in the totality of circumstances, there is a vibration which is felt as a certain intensity of refusal of love as it is manifested here thats exactly the thing: something in the material world refuses the manifestation of love as it exists at present (I dont refer to the ordinary world but to the consciousness at its present highest). Its an experience, I am speaking of something that has taken place. Then the part of the consciousness that has been touched by that opposition calls out directly to Loves origin WITH AN INTENSITY IT COULD NOT HAVE HAD WITHOUT THE EXPERIENCE OF THE REFUSAL. Limits are broken, a flood descends which could NOT manifest before, and something is expressed which was not expressed before.
That happened not very long ago.
--
And for the being that sort of individual aggregateto be transformed, it needs in effect to grow simpler and simpler. All those complexities of Nature which man is now beginning to understand and study, which for the smallest thing are so complex (the smallest of our physical workings is the result of such a complex system that its almost unthinkable certainly it would be impossible for the human mind to think up and contrive all those things), are now being discovered by science. And its quite plain to see that for the functioning to become divine, that is, to escape Disorder and Confusion, it must grow simpler and simpler.
(long silence)
0 1963-05-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So personally, my attitude (all this has nothing to do with the Bulletin, by the way), my attitude is to watch it all: this opinion, that opinion, this attitude, that attitude, and I stay like this (gesture of a Witness completely outside and passive). I refrain from deciding or acting, I become exclusively a witnessa non-interfering witness. I say to the Lord, Its for You to decide; it isnt my business, You will decide. Whatever happens is Your concern. So far, this has always resulted in an intervention that restored order, but but with no positive proof that the order was restored in this way or that, because of this or that. There is no certainty.2
In this field, we know nothing. Oh, as soon as we get into the field even the field of sensation, the vital, all problems are solved. Nothing could be easier, theres nothing to discuss; in the field of feelings, the work was done long ago. Thats not what I mean: I mean when we get to the bottom of the problem. There, everything, everything is in a sort of incomprehension, of total ignorance, along with all the ideas that result from the intellectual and scientific development and are so sure of themselves, so full of impregnable certainty! The certainty of the material experience, of the thing you touch.
To use that without being governed by it, to base yourself on that without being influenced by it, is very difficult.
--
They are still in infancy, with the kind of dogmatic certainties characteristic of infancy.
On the other hand, the others, those who know the inside of things, dont have the experienceno one has transformed his body so far! No one can tell you, Well, its done this way and it happened that way; this is what I did and thats what happenedno one. Thats why it is so difficult.
0 1963-05-25, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Once WE have published it, I am certain certain that there will be people who will want to publish it. Besides, its not the kind of book to have a success for a while and then fall away. It will have a lasting action.
What does he mean by clumsy passages? Whatever he couldnt understand!
0 1963-05-29, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It isnt role! The role is a fact, a sort of ineluctable fact, absolutely independent of the individual will and consciousness I am more and more convinced of it, fantastically so. The Work is done through a certain number of elementswhe ther they are aware of it or not, whether they collaborate or not makes little difference. It has been decided that way, it has been chosen that way and it is done that way. Whether you like it or not, whether you are aware of it or not, whether you collaborate or notvery little difference. Its more a question of personal satisfaction!
And in as much as the very cells of the body no longer feel their separateness (that is almost entirely gone, even in the sensation), then something is done (or takes place), but without any self-observation. Somewhere (gesture above), something knows, wills and acts; somewhere else, there is a certain number of things in a state of happy receptivity, and absolutely, extraordinarily passive, not interfering. And the less it observes, the better. It remains in an inner contemplation, or rather turned to the Heights (a Height that is everywhere, of course, not just above), a Height perfectly luminous, perfectly conscious, perfectly effective. And thats all that is needed.
The less the consciousness is turned to the outside, the less it perceives obstacles, resistancesall that appears more and more unreal, transient, extremely relative.
In the necessary and unavoidable everyday contact with people, there is a growing perception that whatever the circumstance (which in itself is so simple, simpler than a child, you knowa perfect simplicity), as soon as it comes into contact with the terrestrial human atmosphere, it becomes ever so complicated! And quite unnecessarily. It seems as if the normal human occupation is to complicate all that could be extremely simple. I see this day after day, for all the small events of every day, of each and every minute. With certain consciousnesses as soon as it touches certain consciousnesses it is twisted, sometimes into terrible knots. Then it takes a fantastic labor to undo it the whole thing PERFECTLY unnecessary!
These last few days, in fact, I have been observing it all and wondering, Why are things this way? It must have been the meansprobably the most effective means, I dont knowto emerge from inertia, from tamas. If everything worked in that Simplicity, that perfect Quietness, well, human consciousness would be in such a state that it would have simply fallen asleep. It would have reached the state not even of an animal, perhaps of a slumbering plant!
0 1963-06-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
certainly I do! But it will tire you.
No, it doesnt tire me.
--
Because its very material the brain is material! Its just a little less mechanical than the cellular mind. But it Is material; it isnt the higher mind, certainly: its a mind confined to the body (same gesture to the temples). But the mind I was speaking of, the body-mind, is EVERYWHERE, in every cell: every cell has it within it; whereas that power is specifically situated at the brain level. Its a very cerebral action, enveloping the forehead and the lower part of the face, not even down to the throat.
***
0 1963-06-08, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was yesterday, I think, in the night (not last night, the night before, the 6th of June, that is), for more than three hours without stop, there was no consciousness of anything any morenot a thought, not a will, not an action, not an observation, nothing. Everything was at a standstill. For instance, all that happens when you have experiences and you work in the subconscientall that, everything, everything was at a standstill. It was like the action of a Force. Without any thought or idea, only the sensation and a sort of perception (awareness is the right word) of a Force, but a stupendous Force, you know, like the Force of the earthall the combinations of the forces along with an action that came from above and worked on them. It was going through me (especially around the head down to the chest, but it was going on in the whole body, and it was spherical), it went through me and out, and out, and out in this direction, that direction, another direction, innumerable directions, and nothing but movements of Force (there was something like a perception of colors, but not in the ordinary way: like a knowledge that certain vibrations corresponded to a particular color), but it was an incalculable MASS, almost indefinite, at any rate, and simultaneous. At first I said to myself (laughing), Whats going on? Then I thought, All right, it doesnt matter, Ill just let it happen. And it went on and on and onthree hours without letup.
I didnt know I didnt know anything any more, didnt understand anything any more, had no bearings any more; there was only a Force on the move, and what Force! It was a Force that came from beyond and acted upon all the forces of the earth: on big things, on small things, on small, precise points, on enormous things, and it was going on and on and on, on this point, that point, all points together and everywhere. I suppose that if the mind had been associated with the experience, it would have gone a bit mad! It gave that impression, you see, because it was so overwhelming that And all the time, all the time in the physical center (the physical center, that is, in the corporeal base), with something in an ecstatic state; it was very interesting how that ecstasyan ecstasy that sparkled like a diamondwas there, so sweet, so sweet, so peaceful, as though it were there all the while, telling the body, Dont be afraid, (laughing) dont worry, dont be afraid, all is well. As though the supreme Power were saying all the while, Dont worry, dont worry, leave it to me, leave it to me. It lasted more than three hours.
--
The mind was absolutely silent, absolutely: all the connections with all that people keep sending from everywhere were cutall of it was completely gone. There were only the universal forces in action, with something that came from above and impregnated them all, sent them all out. And with it, a pointit was like a point in that immensitya sparkling point, absolutely ecstatic, in such a peace! An extraordinary ecstasy, which was deliberately saying, Dont worry; you can see whats going on, cant you, so dont worry, dont worry, because certainly the thing had gone beyond all possible individual proportions.
Its the first time. Ive had currents of force, Ive had actions on the earth, Ive had forces coming to me, all sorts of things; but this was different: it was all of that together. It was everywhere at the same time, everything at the same time, with that Inrush, and it was There was certainly something that wanted me to be very quiet and not to worry. It was necessary that I should keep very quiet.
I had a feeling that I was given the awareness of something thats taking place right now. Because at night, generally, I disconnect myself from everything and universalize myselfno, universalize isnt the word: I identify myself with the Lord. Thats my way of resting. I do it every night, it is the time when I have my deep rest. But now Ive been made aware of this Force at work. Often experiences come (there have been a number of them lately), but its the first time this one has come, because It was certainly something happening FOR the earth; but it didnt come from the center of forces that generally acts on the earth. It wasnt the usual working of forces on the earth. It was something happening. And it gave the sense that the earth was very small the movement was towards the earth, it was for the earth, but the earth was very small.
Very small.
0 1963-06-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother smiles) Not so extraordinary. But at any rate, its proof of a certain receptivity.
Theyd rather have a mental and political domination than wage war. They arent bent on slaughtering people, you understand.
--
I didnt know them (I know them, but I dont know them!), but I understood who the person was just from the way his face reacted to the atmosphere of the place! It was very funny. Two of them, in particular, when they came in, I thought, Oh, it must be so and so, and the other, Oh, this is certainly so and so, merely from the reaction on their faces the contortion of their features on entering the bath! But in all that crowd there was one man, a sturdy fellow, in a military uniformonly onewhose face (whats the word in French?) became dignified. A sense of dignity suddenly came over his face. He was the chief of the Madras police (!)
Only one.
0 1963-06-22, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In order to be complete, we should add that we are aware (not aware: we know it, its a certainty) that all the upward paths are open, traveled, you can go there as you like and when you like. Thats it, and thats why, when I wanted to come out of the experience, it meant going upward, quite naturally. Not that the passage above is closed, on the contrary, its traveled, explored but inadequate. We must find the corresponding passage down below.
(silence)
--
There is a period (a period which from the human point of view may seem long, but which can certainly), a transitional period which must begin with the perception of what has to come, followed by the aspiration, the will to become it, and then the work of transformation.
How far have we gone in that work of transformation?
--
And quite clearly, certainties as WE conceive of them, I mean someone who knows (and someone who knows can only be the Supreme) and tells you clearly, Here is where you stand, and with YOUR way of seeing things, well (Mother laughs), such certainties arent to be expected, it seems! Probably its quite stupid to ask the question.
You do feel its a bit stupid, but you often feel the need to know! (laughter) Its stupid, but.
--
There is somewhere a sort of capacity for acute discernment, which can very easily turn into a censor (its still there; probably it serves a purpose), and thats what demands certainties. The major part of the being says, Its not my concern. I am here because You want me to be here. If You didnt want me to be here, I wouldnt be here. There is nothing like an attachment or a desire. (That went away quite a while ago! But now it has become an almost cellular condition.) And since You keep me here, it means I am doing something here, and if I am doing something here, thats all I need, thats why You keep me here. It comes full circle, of course.
How long will it last? Thats not my concern. Maybe something would be a bit frightened if it were told the time it will take (we cant say, we cant foresee the reaction). So its best to keep quiet. But theres nothing of interest. Nothing to make interesting literaturenothing, nothing at all absolutely nothing.
0 1963-06-29, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Catholicism has two things that Protestantism lacks: the occult sense (not only the sense but even a certain occult knowledge), and the Mother the Virgin. The Protestants have something the Catholics lack: the inner divine presence.
Its only through those two things that you can catch them. But
--
Which means it seemed to be the man of his choice, because he certainly went to the conclave and saw the situation, thats how he workedhe influenced the vote. Among all those people ([laughing] there are eighty of them, mon petit!), among all those people, this one was probably the one the most likely to do what we want him to.
He may do it for unavowed reasons, but anyway It generally happens that way in the present state of the earth: peoples motives for doing things should not be taken too seriouslywhats important is what they do. And if you look at things from a certain height (where everything is DECIDED, you understand), people and things are COMPELLED to act in a certain way, but the conscious human motives that determine their actions are irrelevantirrelevant in the sense that theyre not always to put it more clearly: you VERY rarely do things from the TRUE motive.
At any rate, Sri Aurobindo is interested in world events, which means he considers the Popes election has a certain importance.
(silence)
--
But clay, that was something really newand lovely! Pink. Pink, a warm, golden pink. They were cutting out [of the clay] rooms, stairways, ship decks and funnels, captains cabins. Sri Aurobindo himself is as he was, but more with a harmony of form: very, very broad here (in the chest), broad and solid. And very agile: he comes and goes, sits down, gets up, always with great majesty. His color is a sort of golden bronze, a color like the coagulation of his supramental gold, of his golden supramental being; as if it were very concentrated and coagulated to fashion his appearance; and it doesnt reflect light: it seems as if lit from within (but it doesnt radiate), and it doesnt cast any shadows. But perfectly natural, it doesnt surprise you, the most natural thing in the world: thats the way he is. Ageless; his hair has the same color as his body: he has hair, but you cant say if its hair, its the same color; the eyes too: a golden look. Yet its perfectly natural, nothing surprising. He sits down just as he used to, with his leg as he used to put it [the right leg in front], and at the same time, when he gets up, he is agile: he comes and goes. Then when he went out of the house (he had told me he would have to go, he had an appointment with someone: he had promised to see two people, he had to go), he went out into a big garden, and down to the boatwhich wasnt exactly a boat, it was a flat boatand he had to go to the captains cabin (he had to see the captain about some work), but it was with that boat that he was returning to his room elsewherehe has a room elsewhere. Then after a while I thought, Ill follow him so I can see. So I followed him; as long as I saw him in front of me I followed him. And when I came to the boat, I saw it was entirely built out of pink clay! Some workmen were working thereadmirable workmen. So Sri Aurobindo went down quite naturally, down into the ship under construction, without (I dont think there were any stairs), and I followed him down. Then I saw him enter the captains room; as he had told me he had some work to do, I thought (laughing), I dont want to meddle in others business! Ill go back home (and I did well, I was already late in waking up!), Ill go back home. And I saw one of the workmen leaving (as Sri Aurobindo had come back to the ship, they stopped the work). He was leaving. I called him, but he didnt know my language or any of the languages I know; so I called him in thought and asked him to pull me up, as I was below and there was a sheer wall of slippery clay. Then he smiled and with his head he said, I certainly dont mind helping you, but it isnt necessary! You can climb up all by yourself. And indeed he held out his hand, I took it (I only touched him slightly), and climbed up all by myself without the slightest difficulty I was weightless! I didnt have to pull at his hand, he didnt pull me up. And as soon as I was up, I went back home I woke up and found myself in my bed five minutes later than my usual time.
But what struck me was the clayit means something very material, doesnt it? And pink! A pink, oh, lovely! A golden pink.
0 1963-07-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have to say that I know this man. I have met him several times. I dont know whether he is conscious, I mean I dont think he remembers when he returns to his body. But for a long time (not recently, certainly at least for a year, maybe two), the man has been involving himself in world affairs, which means he takes interest in global movements.1 I met him in this connection. I cannot say weve had interesting conversations or anything of that sort, but he is part of the organizations.
I hadnt seen that at all in the other photo [published by the daily newspapers] its his eyes. The mouth is bad as in the other photo, but bad in another way: he looks almost malicious. But the man has powerreal power; not a Popes power, I mean: real power, inside him.
--
But maybe The very fact that I met him (he may have been already thinking of becoming Pope, I dont know), but anyway, long before anyone except him thought of it, the fact that I met him while seeing to certain terrestrial arrangements shows that, probably unconsciously (I told you right away: I dont think he is conscious in his body), he is nevertheless under the influence, if not the control, of the higher forces.
Why is my attention drawn all of a sudden in that direction? Generally, I am not interested in all those things. For the action, I am concerned only with the little field of experience I have been given, and my terrestrial action is of quite another nature; its on a higher plane, very independent of individuals.
--
(Mother looks at the Time magazine photo again:) With these photos its very interesting, I have intriguing experiences: all at once Ill see crystal clear (much clearer than I see physically), Ill see the individual very clearlyhe comes alive, the eyes speak to meand Ill say, Oh, hes like this and like that. Everybody brings me photos, because I am used to reading peoples characters in their photos, thats very easy for me, elementary; but sometimes when I am given a photo, suddenly I see somebody and I say, Oh, but its such and such person, hes like this and like that. But if I am shown the SAME photo a few days afterwards, its just a photo and I see nothing. Its a method thats used to let me know certain things, and once I know them, its finished. For instance, the first time I saw this photo of the Pope, when they brought it to me, I saw the man (I know him, you see) JUST AS I see him over there. But if I look at it nowit doesnt evoke anything in me any more, only the kind of things you see in a photo: a mouth thats not good, far from it. certainly, that he chose this photo means he LIKES authorityhe wants to be seen in his aspect of authority.
The odd thing is that he is seated [in the photo], while all the time I see him standing. He is seated with his hand on the armrest, but I keep seeing him standingholding his head high, facing life, standing. He must be fairly tall: the man I know is fairly tall, he looks very much like this one. Its unmistakable, I mean, when I saw the photo I saw the man I knew.
--
In a certain state of consciousness, it becomes absolutely impossible to worry about what may happen2; everything becomes visibly, obviously, the work of one and the same Force, one and the same Consciousness, one and the same Power. So that sense and will and ambition to be moremore powerful, greateris again the SAME Force which pushes you to expand to the Limitless. As soon as you cross the limit, its finished.
Those are old ideas the old ideas of two powers opposing each other: the power of Good and the power of Evil, the battle between the two, which of the two will have the last word. There was a time when children were entertained with such stories. Theyre just childrens stories.
--
I saw two examples of this, one physically and the other intellectually (I am referring to things I was in contact with materially). Intellectually, it was a studio friend; for years we had done painting together, she was a very gentle girl, older than I, very serious, and a very good painter. During the last years of my life in Paris, I saw her often and I spoke to her, first of occult matters and the Cosmic philosophy, then of what I knew of Sri Aurobindo (I had a group there and I used to explain certain things), and she would listen with great understandingshe understood, she approved. Now, one day, I went to her house and she told me she was in a great torment. When she was awake, she had no doubts, she understood well, she felt the limitations and obscurities of religion (she came from a family with several archbishops and a cardinalwell, one of those old French families). But at night, she told me, I suddenly wake up with an anguish and somethingfrom my subconscient, obviouslytells me, But after all this, what if you go to hell? And she repeated, When I am awake it doesnt have any force, but at night, when it comes up from the subconscient, it chokes me.
Then I looked, and I saw a kind of huge octopus over the earth: that formation of the Churchof hellwith which they hold people in their grip. The fear of hell. Even when all your reason, all your intelligence, all your feeling is against it, there is, at night, that octopus of the fear of hell which comes and grips you.
0 1963-07-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That day, he was very busy with the external organization; he asked me for some information and made remarks about everything. Then there was an incident (I dont yet know what it means), and he said, Oh, there (but I cant remember which country that waswe were dealing with countries and governments), oh, there, all is all right, isnt it? And I answered him, Yes, certainly, all is all right since all the people in the government are our people. And he seemed to be showing me (at night, Europe is always to my left, and America is always to my right, as if I were always facing north), he was showing me the left side and I too was pointing to the left, and it was there, all the people were ours: Everything is quite smooth. But I cant remember (probably on purpose); the name of the country or place or whatever has been wiped out I could not remember it.
But I can still see Sri Aurobindo, a little taller than me, and myself bent forward and smiling, pointing to the left, and he said, Yes. And I could see I saw lots of people. Because its a strange thing, the eyesight is absolutely different (its in the subtle physical), the sight is absolutely different from physical sight: you see thousands of miles away and very near at the same time, and distance is implied only by a given place in the atmosphere (I dont know how to explain this), but whats far away is as near from the standpoint of action as whats very close by. You see, the action is just as concrete and close, but it is as though differently placed (Mother shows different levels in the atmosphere). I never gave it a thought, but probably in that activity of the subtle physical we are physically much taller, I think; yet the proportions remain the same; but things are smaller [than Mother or Sri Aurobindo]. Its the same for going up or down, it doesnt have the meaning it has here. And that country I was pointing to was to the left, a little not backward, a little forward and lower down, like this (gesture).
--
But some of the faces I saw had come with the intention of making certain suggestions I saw that (I dont know what their suggestions were, it didnt interest me and I kept sweeping it all away, so it went away). I didnt attach any importance to it, except that I kept answering in the same way (the feather duster), and I thought, This must be putting order somewhere! But today, N. read me a letter and told me the story of a boy who was herea very nice boy who worked well and who suddenly was overcome by disquiet and fear and got so ill at ease that finally he said, My family is calling me, they want me, I must go. Then (I dont know when it happened, it was a while ago), he wrote that some time after he came back home (I dont recall the details), he came to know that a magician was regularly doing black magic against him (he was seeing ugly faces, incense burning, all kinds of odd little gestureshe tells the whole story in his letter and it affected him very much), and that the magician (who I believe was more or less connected with the family!) was doing that regularly to make him leave the Ashram. Then he went to see the magician, or rather someone went to see the magician and told him, The boy is back now, you need not continue, he is here, so there is no more reason to And from that moment on, everything immediately disappeared: his feeling of disquiet and all his visions. Anyway, it was clear proof that the magicians work had put him in that state, and that as soon as the magician stopped his work, everything ceased.
Well, I have lived many years, and we know those things to exist, but I didnt attach any importance to them because to me they seemed powerless. Indeed, they have never affected me (a few Tantrics did do some magic and succeeded in making me ill, but that had quite another character; this boys story is in the lowest, most material vital domain, you see), and only lately did I notice those little games. They didnt affect me in the leastit was like images shown on a cinema screen, unsightly images, and I just thought, Whats the point? Still, I did my cleanup, out of habit. But then, when I heard that story, I thought, Well, I must be teaching a good lesson or two to all those people who do dirty magic!
0 1963-07-10, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ultimately, its simply a question of consciousness: people (ordinary people) have a consciousness that reaches up to a certain point (a point not very far away generally), and whats beyond it, to them, is the unconscious (although its full of consciousness!), but its unconscious to them because they cant make contact. Its the same as when at night you wake up in another state of being, become conscious and have a dream (what people call a dream, meaning an experience), then you return to your ordinary consciousness, and as there is no contact between the two consciousnesses, you dont even remember your dream. But you can, through methodical development, extend your consciousness and make a connection between the two; and the minute the connection is mader to bring you into contact with your soul, your psychic b, it takes very little to remember everything. But whats difficult is to extend your consciousness.
Basically, the gurus real power is to fill up the gaps! To bring you into contact: when you are in the higher planes, to bring you into contact with the Highest. Or to bring you into contact with your soul, your psychic being within, or to bring you into contact with the Supreme but that not many can do.
0 1963-07-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, yes! certainly.
But apart from that, Ive had a great sense of inner stagnation for a few months: theres no progress. Up there, theres always something: if I climb up there and meditate, if I connect myself up there, everything is fine, but it seems to me it can go on for centuries!
--
The body had based its sort of sense of good health on a certain number of vibrations, and whenever those vibrations were present, it felt in good health; when something came and disturbed them, it felt that it was about to fall ill or that it was ill, depending on the intensity. All that has changed now: those basic vibrations have simply been removed, they no longer exist; the vibrations on which the body based its sense of good or ill healthremoved. They are replaced by something else, and something else of such a nature that good health and illness have lost all meaning! Now, there is the sense of an established harmony among the cells, increasingly established among the cells, which represents the right functioning, whatever that may be: its no longer a question of a stomach or a heart or this or that. And the slightest thing that comes and disturbs that harmony is VERY painful, but at the same time there is the knowledge of what to do to reestablish the harmony instantly; and if the harmony is reestablished, the functioning isnt affected. But if out of curiosity, for instance (its a mental illness in humans), you start asking yourself, Whats that? What effect will it have? Whats going to happen? (what the body calls the desire to learn), if you are unlucky enough to be that way, you can be sure (laughing) that youll have something very unpleasant which, according to the doctor (according to ignoramuses), becomes an illness or disrupts the bodys functioning. While if you dont have that unhealthy curiosity and, on the contrary, will the harmony not to be disrupted, you only have to, we could say poetically, bring one drop of the Lord on the troubled spot for everything to be fine again.
The body is unable to know things in the way it did formerly.
--
Thats too muchagitation is too much, its rather a lack of rest. Not agitation really, but something that lacks the rest of certainty. I constantly catch my cells being like that. Naturally I react, but for them its a very normal state: always straining after the next moment, never the quietude of the present moment. The result (the words I use give a very concrete character to something rather fluid), the result is the feeling that you have to bear or endure, and the haste to get out of that enduring, along with the hope (a very faint and flimsy hope) that the next moment will be better. Thats how it is from moment to moment, from moment to moment, from moment to moment. As soon as the Consciousness comes (gesture of descent) and concentrates, as soon as I bring the Consciousness into the present moment, everything becomes quiet, immobile, eternal. But if I am not CONSTANTLY attentive, the other condition [of restlessness] comes almost as a subconsciousness: its always there. And VERY tiringit must be one of the most important sources of fatigue in mankind. Especially here (Mother touches her forehead and temples), its very tiring. Only when you can live in the eternity of the present minute does it all stopeverything becomes white, immobile, calm, everything is fine.
But it means constant vigilanceconstant. Its infinitely more difficult than when one worked even in the vital; in the vital, its nothing, its childs play in comparison. But here, phew! Because, you see, in the mind or the vital, its all movements of organization, of action, of choice, of decisionits very easy to decide, to rule! But that cellular tension is there EVERY SECOND: its the activity inherent in material existence. Its only when you go into samadhi that it stops. That is, when outwardly you are in trance. Then it stops.
0 1963-07-27, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Naturally, they rushed to cremate him; they asked me candidly (because his nephew was coming but not before the next morning, that is, a little less than twenty-four hours after M.s deathnearly twenty hours), they asked me, Should we keep him or not? I answered, It depends. If you ask me as far as HE is concerned, certainly the longer you keep him the better. Then I see eyes open wide, a mouth open widedont understand anything! I told them, It takes QUITE A WHILE for the consciousness to come out slowly! Otherwise, when you burn him, its pushed out violently, it gives a terrible shock.
To tell the truth, people burn the dead in that way to destroy the vital, I am sure of it. The idea is not to have any ghosts.
0 1963-07-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There was a sort of periodicity in the attackscan I call them physical? Theyre not physical, although theyre on the body. They didnt recur at exactly regular intervals, because the periods of time in between werent always the same, but there was a sort of analogy, of similarity in the circumstances. And now I have come to a kind of certainty.
The work consists, I could say, in either removing or transforming (I am not sure which of the two) all the bodys cells that are or have been under the influence of Falsehood (not lie but falsehood), of the state contrary to the Divine. But since probably a radical purge or transformation would have resulted in nothing but the bodys dissolution, the work goes on in stages, progressively (I am going very far back in time, to my first attacks). So the sequence is the following: first, a series of activities or visions (but those visions are always activities at the same time: both activities and visions) in the subconscious domain, showing in a very living and objective way the Falsehood that has to be removed (transformed or removed). At first, I took them as adverse attacks, but now I see they are states of falsehood to which certain elements in the physical being are linked (at the time, I thought, I am brought into contact with that because of the correspondence in me, and I worked on that level but its another way of seeing the same thing). And it produces certainly there is a dissolution there is a transformation, but a dissolution tooand that dissolution naturally brings about an extreme fatigue or a sort of exhaustion in the body; so between two of those stages of transformation, the body is given time to recover strength and energy.1 And I had noticed that those attacks always come after the observation (an observation I made these last few days) of a great increase in power, energy and force; when the body grows more and more solid, there always follows the next day or the day after, first, a series of nights I could call unpleasant (they are not, for theyre instructive), and then a terrible battle in the body. This time I was consciousnaturally, I am conscious every time, but (smiling) more so every time.
I had observed lately that the body was getting much stronger, much more solid, that it was even putting on weight (!), which is almost abnormal. Then, I had a first vision (not vision: an activity, but very clear), then another, and then a third. Last night, I was fed a subtle food, as if to tell me that I would need it because I wouldnt take any physical food2 (not that I thought about it, I simply noticed I had been fed, given certain foods). And with the visions I had the two preceding nights, I knew that at issue were certain elements forming part of the bodys construction (psychological construction), and that they had to be eliminated. So I worked hard for their elimination. And today, the battle was waged.
But then, as I had worked hard for the elimination, the battle was quite formidablewhen it exceeds a certain measure, the heart has trouble, and then I need to rest. Thats how it happened. But it was so clear, so obvious! And the entire process was SEEN from the beginning, every single step of it, its a marvel! A marvel of consciousness, of measure, of dosage, to allow the purification and transformation to take place without disrupting the balance, so that dissolution does not occur. Its based on the capacity to endure and withstand (naturally, if the body were unable to endure, that work couldnt be done).
And now the body KNOWS (in the beginning it didnt, it thought it was attacks from the outside, adverse forces; and it can always be explained like that, it was true in a certain way, but it wasnt the true truth, the deepest truth), now the body KNOWS where it all comes from, and its so marvelous! A marvel of wisdom. It puts everything in its place, it makes you REALIZE that all that play of the adverse forces is a way of seeing things (a necessary way at a given time, maybeby necessary, I mean practical), but its still an illusion; illnesses are a necessary way of seeing things to enable you to resist properly, to fight properly, but its still an illusion. And now, the BODY itself knows all thisas long as it was only the mind that knew it, it was a remote notion in the realm of ideas, but now the body itself knows it. And it is full not only of goodwill but also of an infinite gratitudeit always wonders (thats its first movement), Do I have the capacity? And it always gets the same answer, It isnt YOUR capacity. Will I have the strength?It isnt YOUR strength. Even that sense of infirmity disappears in the joy of infinite gratitude the thing is done with such goodness, such insight, such thoughtfulness, such care to maintain, as far as possible, a progressive balance.
It came with a certitude, an OBVIOUSNESS: this is the process of transformation.
--
Except for certain specialized cells, the other cells arent different, I believe.
But the specialized cells must be the ones in question, because those in question are fully conscious cellsthey are specialized cells.
0 1963-08-07, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw in France a patch of garden: it was surrounded by walls, and the land had belonged to someone who took great care of it and had planted flowers in it. It was fairly large, but completely enclosed. That person died. It was in southern France. He died and no one (there were no heirs), no one looked after the garden: it was closed and stayed that way. I saw that garden I dont remember now, but certainly more than five years afterwards. It probably happened that the lock broke little by little and came loose; I pushed the door open and entered. Ive never seen anything more beautiful! There werent any paths any more, there was no order any more, nothing but confusion but what confusion! Ive never seen anything more beautiful. I stood there in a sort of ecstasy. There is a book (I think its Le Paradou by Zola) in which there is a description of a fairy placeit was just like that: all the flowers and plants entangled, in an absolutely disorderly growth, but with a harmony of another type, a much vaster, much stronger harmony.
It was extraordinarily beautiful.
--
For a very long timea very long time I preferred one path to the other, and all the while when I lived with Sri Aurobindo physically, I quite certainly preferred the path of harmonious growth to that of the general throwing back into the melting pot!
(silence)
--
It seems (its quite certain) that the closer you come to the other side, the more it appears the more you see the difference.
As long as you wallow in your Ignorance, you dont notice it.
0 1963-08-10, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But its still going on. Now, theres a great battle against all the ideas, the habits, the sensations, the possibilities, everything, concerning deathdeath (laughing), not death in the sense of the consciousness departing (that, of course, people talk about, but those things no longer exist), no: WHAT THE CELLS MUST FEEL.2 And all the possibilities are presented to me With that consciousness (the consciousness accumulated, compressed in all those cells), when the heart stops beating and its understood that, according to human ignorance, you are dead, how does the force that groups all those cells together abdicate its will to hold them all together? Naturally, I was told right away (because the problemall the problemscome from everywhere, and its purposely that I am shown the problem and made to struggle with it; its not just as an idea), I was told right away that that force, that consciousness which holds everything together in really superconscious cells (they dont have at all the ordinary type of consciousness; ordinarily, its the inner, vital being [Mother touches the heart center] thats conscious of oneness, that is, conscious of being a being), that this aggregate of cells is now an aggregate OF ITS OWN WILL, with an organized consciousness which is a sort of collective gathering of that cellular consciousness; well Obviously this is an exceptional condition, but even in the past, in those beings who were very developed outwardly, there was a beginning of willed, conscious cellular gathering, and thats certainly why in ancient Egypt, where occultism was very developed. exceptional beings such as the pharaohs, the high priests, etc., were mummified, so as to preserve the form as long as possible. Even here in India, generally they were petrified (in the Himalayas there were petrifactive springs). There was a reason.3
And I saw for Sri Aurobindo (although he hadnt yet started this systematic transformation; but still, he was constantly pulling the supramental force down into his body), even in his case, it took five days to show the first slight sign of decomposition. I would have kept his body longer, but the government always meddles in other peoples business, naturally, and they pestered me awfully, saying it was forbidden to keep a body so long and that we should So when the body began to (whats the word?) shrinkit was shrinking and contracting, that is, dehydrating then we had to do it. He had had enough time to come out, since almost everything came into my bodyalmost everything that was material came into my body.
--
During all that period of concentration and meditation on what happens in a body after death (I am speaking of the bodys experience after what is now called death), well, several times the same kind of vision came to me. I had been told (shown and told) of certain saints whose bodies did not decompose (theres one here, there was one in Goafantastic stories). Naturally, people always romanticize those things, but there remains the material fact of a saint who died in Goa, left his body in Goa, but whose body didnt decompose.5 I dont know the story in all its details, but the body was removed from India, taken away to China and remained buried there, in Hong-Kong, I believe (or somewhere in that region) for a time; then it was taken out, brought back here, buried again. For ten or twelve years it stayed buried in those two places: it didnt decompose. It dried out, became mummified (dried out, that is, dehydrated), but it remained preserved. Well, this fact was presented to me several times as ONE of the possibilities.
Which means, to tell the truth, that everything is possible.
0 1963-08-17, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I always hesitate to ask you questions, because it sets you on a certain line which isnt necessarily what would come to you.
(silence)
0 1963-08-21, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Every time an experience of that kind occurs, the entire vision of things and of the relationship between things is changed (gesture of reversal). Even from a quite practical viewpoint. You see, Life is a sort of chessboard on which all the pawns are arranged according to certain inner laws, and every time it all changes: everything changes, the chessboard changes, the pawns change, the types of organization change. Also the inner quality of the pawnsvery much so.
For instance, these last few days I had a whole vision of X, of what he represents, the people around him, his relationship with the Ashramall that entirely changed. Every element took a new place in relation to all the others. And I have nothing to do with it, I dont try to understand, I dont try to see, nothing: the thing is simply shown to me. Like pictures that are shown to me. Each thing has its own special flavor, its own special color, its own special quality and its own special relationship with the restall the relationships are different.
0 1963-08-24, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That idea of renunciation can occur only in an egocentric consciousness. Naturally, people (those whom I call quite unevolved) are attached to thingswhen they have something, they dont want to let go of it! That seems so childish to me! For them, if they are obliged to give it up, it hurts! Because they identify with the things they hold on to. But thats childish. The real process behind is the amount of resistance in the things that developed on a certain basis of knowledgea knowledge at a given time, no longer a knowledge at another timea partial knowledge, not fleeting but impermanent. There is a whole collection of things built on that knowledge, and they resist the Force that says, No! Its not true, (laughing) your basis is no longer true, away with it! But then, Oh, it hurts!thats what people feel as renunciation.
The difficult thing is perhaps not so much to renounce as to accept [Mother smiles] when you see life as it is now. But then if you accept, how can you live in the midst of all that while having that untroubled rapture the untroubled rapture not up there but here?1
--
And probably Its certain too that one cant go too fast: if the body had that Joy in it, if it had that ecstasy in it, that rapture continually, surely that would bring too rapid a transformation there are still a lot of things to be changed, a lot, a whole lot of things.
What people see [when they look at Mothers body] is only the appearance, but this appearance is a reflection of something else. (silence) Theres a sort of knowledge (is it a knowledge?) or foreknowledge given to the body of how this appearance will be changed. And it sounds so simple, so easy, it can be done in a flash, because its not AT ALLit wont AT ALL be done in the way people think or expect. Its rather like the vision of the TRUE internal movement that would IMPOSE itself in such a way that it would veil the false vision which sees things like that [on the surface]. Its very hard to explain, but its Ive felt it several times for a few seconds (I have a sort of sensation of the thing): there is something true, the true Physical, which, although its not perceptible to our eyes as they see, could make itself perceptible through an INTENSIFICATION. And that intensification would be what would effect the transformation outwardly that would replace the false appearance with the real form.
0 1963-08-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The same goes for a teaching, in the sense that you have a certain power, which acts with a view to a result on those who, naturally, are receptivea certain power intended to produce a certain result or effectand owing to the worlds condition, which is almost exclusively mental, there is a need to add words (what people call a teaching) to that power. And thats where there should be an exact proportion between the sentence and the power: the sentence shouldnt express more or less than the power, it should be an exact expression of the powersay neither too much nor too little but say exactly the appropriate words that will clo the the power (in a mentally receivable way), that will be a vehicle of the power. And the proportion between the two gives the exact measure of the sincerity.
I dont know if I can make myself understood, but for two days I was engrossed in that work of establishing an absolutely true ratiowhich in fact can be true only in a complete simplicity and complete sincerity. I saw the power that acts in the words and the power that acts without words, and the proportion between the two powers must be exact, entirely correct, to have a complete sincerity. You follow?
0 1963-09-04, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Only, it may be that because of the work I am doing, you are brought into contact with a certain layer of possibilities and so you become more conscious of that. As for Sujata, she must be unknowingly under your influence, so what you feel she feels too thats my impression.
Ill look, but I havent seen anything lately. On the contrary, that thing I used to see over you at that time and drive away deliberately, since the beginning of this year in particular I havent seen it Ill look.
--
But I remember that for a few days I was occupied with that memory, as part of a vast work on certain physical vibrations, in all the physical domains with which I deal. And it came (strangely, its always LOCATED, located somewhere), and the perception I have is very acute, absolutely like the perception of something that happened to me personally (but all that comes to me now comes in this way). Only, there was the knowledge that it was your own body that had gone through that experience. And then yes, I remember, there was a certain quality of vibration (Mother looks silently), and it was connected with a study on the experience the cells gain in the process of death. I remember, I was studying the cellular experiences (which the cells have more often than not semiconsciously and often unconsciously), those semiconscious experiences that stay in the subconscient and help to make some cells more and more receptive and prepared for the new Force. And as I was studying that, your experience of the camps came, and I saw in fact that a certain number of your cells, a rather considerable number (cells that are partly in the brain, partly in the throat center and partly here [gesture to the upper part of the chest]) have had the preliminary experience of death.
And that gives them a very special capacity of consciousness.
Could this be what gave you that sense of death? But you say it has been there for a long time. While, for me, its recent (it was perhaps ten days ago), my study is recent. It was very interesting. I can still see them now, they were as if located in certain parts of your body.
But thats a favorable observation, not a dangerous one!
0 1963-09-07, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The other day, for some question of work, I was led to explain my position from the standpoint of the materialist conviction (I dont know what their position is today, because thats something I am not concerned with generally), but anyway I was led to do it because of a certain work.1
For them, all the experiences men have are the result of a mental phenomenon: we have reached a progressive mental development (they are at a loss to explain why or how!), anyhow it was Matter that developed Life, Life that developed Mind, and all of mens so-called spiritual experiences are mental constructions (they use other words, but I believe thats their idea). It is, at any rate, a denial of all spiritual existence in itself and of a Being or Force or Something superior which governs everything.
--
That work, I think, must have had worldwide repercussions. I was in it, in that state (with the sense of a very great power and a wonderful freedom) for certainly at least six or eight hours. (The work had started long before, but it became rather acutely present these last few days.)
And afterwards, everything was held in a solid gripwhat do you have to say?
--
But naturally, from an intellectual point of view, all those things are explained and find their placeman has never thought anything that wasnt the distortion of a truth. Thats not the difficulty, its that for religious people there are certain things they have a DUTY to believe, and to allow the mind to discuss them is a sinso naturally they close themselves and will never be able to make any progress. Whereas the materialists, on the other hand, are on the contrary supposed to know and explain everything they explain everything rationally. So (Mother laughs), precisely because they explain everything, you can lead them where you want to.
There.
0 1963-09-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But in that state, it seems that what you see MUST beand inevitably (I should say necessarily), it is. And probably instantly so. But you have to see the whole at once for your vision to be all-powerful. If you see only one point (as, for example, when you feel that the action on earth is limited to a certain field that depends on you), as long as you see that way, you cant be all-powerful, its not possiblenot possible. Its inevitably conditioned.
(long silence)
0 1963-09-25, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But a swarm, you know! Its certainly some mental world or other.
(silence)
0 1963-09-28, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There was a time when I looked at all that with a smilea long time. For years and years it was a smile, the way you smile at a childish question. Now, I dont know why it has come it has been THRUST on me like a sort of acute anguishwhich certainly is necessary to get out of the problem.
To get out, I mean, to cure, to changenot to flee. I dont like flight.
0 1963-10-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If divine Love were to descend first, before divine Truth, certain beings with a special power or receptivity might draw it into themselves, personally, and then all those wrong impulses might occur.1 But if this divine Love descends only in the Truth, in the Truth-Consciousness, it will enter someone only if that person is ready to receive it. Without a preparation of Truth, there might occur a very powerful attraction of elements unable to keep that Love in its purity; whereas if the preparation of Truth has been done, with that preparation, It will CHOOSE, in order to manifest, the persons, the individualities, who are ready.
***
0 1963-10-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Every time a new truth has attempted to manifest upon earth, it has been immediately attacked, corrupted and diverted by pseudo-spiritual forceswhich did represent a certain spirituality at a given time, but precisely the one that the new truth wants to go beyond. To give but one example of those sad spiritual diversions which clutter History, Buddhism was largely corrupted in a sizable part of Asia by a whole Tantric and magic Buddhism. The falsity lies not in the old spirituality which the new truth seeks to go beyond, but in the eternal fact that the Past clings to its powers, its means and its rule. As Mother said in her simple language, Whats wrong is to remain stuck there. And Sri Aurobindo with his ever-present humor: The traditions of the past are very great in their own place, in the past. We could expect the phenomenon to recur today. In India, Tantrism represents a powerful discipline from the Past and it was inevitable that Mother should experience the better and the worse of that system in her attempt to transform all the means and elements of the old earththis Agenda has made abundant mention of a certain X, symbol of Tantrism. Now, as it happens, we are witnessing the same phenomenon of diversion, and today this same Tantrism is seeking to divert the new truth by convincing as many adepts as possible not to say Mothers Mantra, which is too advanced for ordinary mortals, and to say Tantric mantras in its stead. This is purely and simply an attempt to take Mothers place. One has to be quite ignorant of the mechanism of forces not to understand that saying a mantra of the old gods puts you under the influence and into the orbit of precisely that which resists the new truth. Mother had foreseen the phenomenon and forewarned me in the following conversation. Unfortunately, until recently, I always wanted to believe that Tantrism would be converted. Nothing of the sort. It is attempting to take Mothers place and lead astray those who are not sincere enough to want ONE SINGLE THING: the new world.
***
--
He certainly has no understanding of whats taking place here, of your work, for sure; but I had rather the feeling of a goodwill.
Yes, he does have goodwill, but such an ignorant one!
--
Its still there; even in those who have developed their higher mind, who are able to emerge from that darkness and ignorance, its still there its still there in a sort of mental or vital subconscient. And its so dark! Thoroughly stupid, you know: it can be given hundreds and thousands of proofs, it remains unaffecteda kind of incapacity to understand. And then it constantly rises to the surface, and I am constantly obliged (gesture of offering to the Heights) to present it: This is still there, that is still there, that And I see very well that the distinction between what goes on in this body and its atmosphere, and what goes on in all other bodies is I dont know if the distinction still exists, but its imperceptible. And the consciousness is aware of all those movements as if they were personal to the physical person. But the physical person (Mother touches her body) isnt just this body I am not yet sure whether the physical person isnt the whole earth (for certain things, it is the whole earth), or whether the physical person is the entirety of all the bodies of the people I am in contact with. During the last hours of the night, that is, between 2 and 4, I see precise forms; but those precise forms are themselves representative, meaning there are TYPES and those types take on the image of someone I am in contact with or was in personal contact with. But to me they are types: Oh, its such and such a type but that can be thousands of people. And the action (its always for an action), the action on the person-type has repercussions on all that he represents.
And thats a labor which seems infiniteendless, at any rate.
0 1963-10-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not to give me faith I have it; its not to give me consciousness I have it; its for an outward reason. I cannot yet grasp why. Because inwardly, even if I were told that everything would be demolished in the most tragic manner, I would say, Very well. And in all sincerity, you know, nothing anywhere in me starts protesting or vibrating, nothing at all. I say, All right. But I see I do see that in that tension, a certain power is released, like a power intense enough to cure a tamas, to change a tamas.1
Yesterday (this is an example I give you, but in all three domains its similar), yesterday it was a question of money. The question of money, for more than twelve years, has been a problemgrowing increasingly acute because the expenses are increasing fantastically while the income is decreasing! (laughing) So the two things together make the problem very acute. It results in things to be paid but no money, which means that the cashier (the poor cashier, it does him a lot of good from the yogic viewpoint: he has acquired a calm that he never had before! But still he is the one who has to stand the greatest tension), the cashier spends money and I cannot reimburse him. Very well. And then its not for me to run about, look for money, arrange things, discuss with people, of course, that wouldnt be proper (!), and those who do it for me have in them a rather sizable amount of tamas, which I cannot yet shake up. Anyway, yesterday they proposed something absurd to me (I dont want to go into the details, it doesnt matter), but their proposal was absurd and put me in a totally unacceptable situation. In other words, it might have brought a legal action against me, I might have been summoned before the court, anyway, all kinds of inadmissible thingsnot that I care personally, but theyre inadmissible. When they proposed their idea to me, I looked and saw it was silly; I was very quiet, when, suddenly, there came into me a Power (I told you it happens now and then) like this (massive gesture). When it comes, you feel as though you could destroydestroy everything with it you see, its too awesome for the present state of the earth. So I answered very quietly that it was unacceptable, I said why, and I returned the paper. Then something COMPELLED me to add: If I am here, it is not because of any necessity or obligation; it is not a necessity from the past, not a karma, not any obligation, any attraction, any attachment, but only, solely and absolutely because of the Lords Grace. I am here because He keeps me here, and when He no longer keeps me here, when He considers I am not to stay any longer, I wont stay. And I added (I was speaking in English), As for me (as for me [gesture upward] that is, not this [gesture to the body]), as for Me, I consider that the world isnt ready: its way of responding inwardly and outwardly, even visibly in those around me, proves that the world isnt ready something must happen for it to be ready. Or else it will take QUITE SOME TIME for it to be prepared. Its all the same to me: whether it is ready or not makes no difference. And everything could collapse, Icouldntcareless. And with what force I said that! My arm rose, my fist banged on the tablemon petit, I thought I was going to break everything!
--
Then I said to myself: thats how it is, there must be a certain tamasan uncomprehending tamaswhich in order to change needs to be violently shaken up. With illnesses, its the same thing, in the sense that only when things really seem about to topple over on the wrong side I go out of my body deliberately, hovering over all things, and the body recoversnow it takes very little time: a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.
From the point of view of government, it also seems to be the same thing, as if all the difficulties little by little BROUGHT to power people who are under my influence.2 But its still sporadic I think it is the thing that will give way last. Sri Aurobindo said it would happen in 67 we still have some time, its only 63, four years to go. Its not that well govern ourselves (God knows we dont have the time!), but to be the government means that in the government, there will be people directly under the Influence. And its not enough if its local (God knows! [laughing] I have never seen anything more rotten!), its not enough if its local, its not enough if its Indian, not at all: it has to be global for And clearly, for the moment, we are still very far from iteven in the invisible, even in the Inconscient.
--
So, yesterday, there was first the visit of those young people, then that question of money, and then that manifestation [of Power], which comes from time to time. Afterwards, I asked myself, How is it..? How is it that I was that way? It lasts for a time, I do a certain thing, then it disappears completely. And I feel surprised, you know, surprised. The first times it happened, something in the body was having some difficulty holding it [the Power]; now, nothing whatsoever, the body doesnt feel anything, its grown accustomed to it. Perhaps thats what is being done: the body is being accustomed. But if that Power were there all the time, good grief! People would have to behave themselves, because
So I was looking at it and thinking, How come? I was neither angry nor upset nor anything at allwithin, there was always that same Love, unchanging, always, always there, for everything; even when I perceive things with a kind of discernment (not even an intuitive one, a discernment higher than intuitive, which is like a clear visionclear, precise, in the white Light), the discernment of all the stupidity, all the ill will, all the crookednessa very clear discernmentit is always with a Smile, there is always that same Vibration of an eternal Love. Then that Power comesit doesnt disturb anything, it doesnt take the place of anything: its an addition. Its an action: it does its action and then goes away. But while its there you know, the Force that made me bang my fist on the table could have smashed everything. But of course, a poor little hand, a poor little arm, could only shake the table! (Mother laughs) It could only make a lot of noise and shake the table. But the perception was tremendous.
--
certain times, I dont budge; at times it comes when I am alone, so naturally I dont say a word and dont budge, but after a while, there comes a kind of (what can I call it?) I wonder, Whats going to happen? Its not an anxiety but something that observes and asks, But is it really possible to let this let this manifest? And it always comes in connection with a circumstance, an action, a movement (sometimesvery rarelyan idea in someone, but thats rare), and it comes almost as a NECESSITY: This must be struck down (gesture of bringing down a sword of light). And what a mighty striking-force! Out of all proportion with earthly things. Then away it goes I dont pull it down nor do I send it back: I witness the thing, and the body is used, nothing else. And then its gone.
There is a constant aspiration in the body for everything that can perfect itperfect the instrument, I mean and there is very, very little asking for Power. When Sri Aurobindo was here, there was a clear awareness of the necessity of Power, and several times I said, It is the supramental Power that will manifest first. Because, without Power, it will be impossible: the mass of opposition in the world is sufficient to swallow up everything, just as the Light was swallowed up in 60the supramental Light and Consciousness were swallowed up; it will be the same thing. But afterwards, when I had to do the whole task, I no longer insisted on this point [Power], there wasnt the sense of this necessity any more but rather the feeling of a WHOLE that has to progress together and manifest together. A kind of perfection of the Whole.
0 1963-11-04, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Me too. Me too, I saw myself (laughing) from a new angle! And the things that in the past were, not positively problems, but anyway questions to be resolved ( certain actions, certain relationships), all gone! And there is something that thoroughly enjoys itself I dont know what that something is, but it thoroughly enjoys itself.
Outwardly, as I told you, everything is heaped on me (on me, well, it isnt on me), on this body, which is obliged to answer questions, obliged to read letters, obliged to see people whereas it has so much more fun when it can enjoy the inner experience and have this new vision of thingsbecause all that is very material, its not going out of Matter to see the world in another way (that has been done for a long time, of course, its nothing new, and its nothing marvelous), thats not it: its Matter looking at itself in an entirely new way, and thats where the fun is! It sees the whole affair anew and altogether differently. Then they plunge me back into that stupid way of seeing things, the ordinary human way in which everything becomes a problem, a complication. And I am obligedobliged to answer people, to listen to what they tell me. Its a shame.
--
But during that period of time, I made a study and observation of the phenomenon: how the vibration of desire is added to the vibration of the Will sent out by the Supreme (for small everyday acts). And with the vision from above (if you take care, of course, to remain conscious of that vision from above), you see how the vibration sent out was exactly the one sent out by the Supreme, but instead of producing the immediate result which the superficial consciousness expected, it was intended to trigger a whole set of vibrations in order to reach another result, more distant and more complete. I am not talking of big things or terrestrial actions, I am talking of very small things in life. For example, you tell someone, Give me this, and the person, instead of giving that, misunderstands and gives something else; so if you dont take care to keep an overall vision, a certain vibration may occur, say of impatience, or a dissatisfaction, along with the feeling that the Lords vibration is neither understood nor received. Well, its that little ADDED vibration of impatience (or, in fact, of incomprehension of what happens), its that feeling of a lack of receptivity or response that has the quality of desirewe cant call it a desire, but its the same kind of vibration. And thats what comes and complicates things. If you have the complete, exact vision, you know that Give me this will produce a result different from the immediate one and that that other result will bring about yet another, which is exactly what should be. I dont know whether I am making myself clear, its a bit complicated! But it gave me the key to the difference in quality between the vibration of the Will and the vibration of desire. And together with this, the possibility of doing away with that vibration of desire through a broader and more total visionbroader, more total, more distant, that is to say, the vision of a vaster totality.
I am insisting on this, because it eliminates all moral elements. It eliminates the derogatory notion of desire. The vision increasingly eliminates all those notions of good and evil, good and bad, inferior and superior, and so forth. There is only what I might almost call a difference of vibratory qualityquality still evokes the idea of superiority and inferiority, it isnt quality, not intensity either, I dont know the scientific term they use to distinguish one vibration from another, but thats it.
But then, the remarkable thing is that the Vibration (what we could call the quality of the vibration that comes from the Lord) is constructive: it constructs, it is peaceful and luminous; while that other vibration, of desire and such like, complicates, destroys and confuses, it twists thingsconfuses and distorts them, twists them. And it takes away the light: it makes for a dullness, which can be intensified with violent movements to the point of very dark shadows. But even where there is no passion, where passion doesnt interfere, thats how it is. You see, the physical reality has become nothing but a field of vibrations mingling together and, unfortunately, clashing together too, in conflict with one another. And the clash, the conflict, is the climax of that kind of turmoil, of disorder and confusion created by certain vibrations, which are ultimately vibrations of ignorance (they come because people dont know, they are vibrations of ignorance), and are too small, too narrow, too limitedtoo short. The problem isnt seen from a psychological standpoint at all: its nothing but vibrations.
If we look at it from a psychological standpoint On the mental plane, its very easy; on the vital plane, its not too difficult; on the physical plane, its a little heavier, because desires are passed off as needs. But there too, there has been a field of experience these last few days: the study of medical and scientific conceptions on the bodys makeup, its needs, and whats good or bad for it. And all this, in its essence, again boils down to the same question of vibrations. It was quite interesting: there was an appearance (because all things as the ordinary consciousness sees them are nothing but appearances), there was an appearance of food poisoning (mushrooms that are thought to have been bad). It was the object of a particular study to find out whether there was something absolute about the poisoning, or whether it was relative, that is, based on ignorance, a wrong reaction and the absence of the true Vibration. And the conclusion was as follows: its a question of proportion between the amount, the sum of the vibrations that belong to the Supreme, and the sum of the vibrations that still belong to darkness. Depending on the proportion, the poisoning appears as something concrete, real, or else as something that can be eliminated, in other words, that doesnt resist the influence of the Vibration of Truth. And it was very interesting, because, immediately, as soon as the consciousness became aware of the cause of the trouble in the bodys functioning (the consciousness perceived where it came from and what it was), immediately the observation began, with the idea: Lets see what happens. First set the body perfectly at rest with the certainty (which is always there) that nothing happens except by the Lords Will and that the effect too is the Lords Will, all the consequences are the Lords Will, and consequently one should be very still. So the body is very still: untroubled, not agitated, it doesnt vibrate, nothingvery still. Once this is achieved, to what extent are the effects unavoidable? Because a certain quantity of matter that contained an element unfavorable to the bodys elements and life was absorbed, what is the proportion between the favorable and the unfavorable elements, or between the favorable and the unfavorable vibrations? And I saw very clearly: the proportion varies according to the amount of cells in the body that are under the direct Influence, that respond to the supreme Vibration alone, and the amount of other cells that still belong to the ordinary way of vibrating. It was very clear, because I could see all the possibilities, from the ordinary mass [of cells], which is completely upset by that intrusion and where you have to fight with all the ordinary methods to get rid of the undesirable element, to the totality of the cellular response to the supreme Force, which renders the intrusion perfectly innocuous. But this is still a dream for tomorrowwere on the way. But the proportion has become rather favorable (I cant say all-powerful, far from it, but rather favorable), so that the consequences of the ill-being didnt last very long and the damage was, so to say, minimal.
But all the experiences nowadays, one after the otherall the PHYSICAL experiences, of the bodypoint to the same conclusion: everything depends on the proportion between the elements that respond exclusively to the Supremes Influence, the half-and-half elements, on the road to transformation, and the elements that still follow Matters old vibratory process. The latter appear to be decreasing in number, to a great extent, but there are still enough of them to bring about unpleasant effects or unpleasant reactionsthings that are untransformed, that still belong to ordinary life. But all problems, whether psychological or purely material or chemical, all problems boil down to this: they are nothing but questions of vibrations. And there is the perception of that totality of vibrations and of what we could call (in a very rough and approximative way) the difference between the constructive and the destructive vibrations. We can say (to put it very simply) that all the vibrations that come from the One and express Oneness are constructive, while all the complications of the ordinary, separative consciousness lead to destruction.
--
So, from the smallest thing to even terrestrial things I dont want to be personal at all, so I wont give examples, but there were some amusing ones, like, for instance, making people such as presidents, prime ministers, make certain decisionsif the right intermediary is there.
It can even be a terrestrial action.
0 1963-11-13, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding an old Playground Talk of January 8, 1951, in which Mother said: "The history of the earth seems to be a history of victories followed by defeats, and not of defeats followed by victories.... [ But ] in truth, the movements of Nature are like those of the tides: things go forward, then backward, then forward, then backward... which implies, in universal life, even in earthly life, a progressive advance though apparently broken with retreats. But those retreats are only an appearance, as when you take a run in order to jump. You seem to move back, but it's only to enable you to jump higher. You may tell me that this is all very well, but how do you give a child the certainty that truth will triumph? For when he learns history, he will see that things do not always end well.")
(Mother remains pensive)
0 1963-11-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
My faith doesnt waver, but I have the impression that except for a certain number of things I have to do and for which I receive a precise help, a help really from above, for the rest, nothing. You understand, its ten years now since I came here, well, theres nothingnot that I lack faith, but theres no development.
Maybe not the development youre expecting.
--
Yes, certainly; what am I conscious of?
Mon petit
--
We are given everythingEVERYTHING. All the difficulties that have to be overcome, all of them (and the more capable we are, that is, the more complex the instrument is, the more numerous the difficulties are), all the difficulties, all the opportunities to overcome them, all the possible experiences, and limited in time and space so they can be innumerable. And it has repercussions and consequences all over the earth (I am not concerned with what goes on in the universe because, for the time being, that isnt my work). But it is certain (because it has been said so and I know it) that what goes on on the earth has repercussions throughout the universe. Sitting there, you live the everyday life with its usual insignificance, its unimportance, its lack of interest and its a WONDERFUL field of experiences, of innumerable experiences, not only innumerable but as varied as can be, from the most subtle to the most material, without leaving your body. Only, you should have RETURNED to it. You cannot have authority over your body without having left it.
Once the body is no longer you at all, once it is something that has been added and TACKED onto you, once it is that way and you look at it from above (a psychological above), then you can come down into it again as its all-powerful master.
0 1963-11-27, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There was something about China, something about America, something about all the time, everywhere, everywhere. As though he had realized a certain thing through my experience on earth; and there is an action which he does accordingly, and then the result everywhere.
A mass of thingsvery interesting.
0 1963-11-30, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And there were no letters: the words were ready-made, she took them and arranged them; then when there was a certain number of them on the paper, she would put the paper in front of you.
(silence)
--
At night, I often see beings who are like the genii of literary form Ive seen quite a number of them lately. Oh, they are extremely interested in small points and details of form so it may be very harmonious and exact at the same time. I surprised some (two or three together) almost arguing about the best way to say a certain thing. So it means you must be in the company of people like that.
They are certainly the beings that were in the past taken for the Muses, the genii of inspiration. They are the genii of the form. Not so much for what has to be said as for the way to say it.
They are a pleasant company; there is a sense of harmony, something that doesnt clash. Its a company that gives the feeling that everything unfolds harmoniouslywhich isnt all that common!
0 1963-12-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding the difficulties of certain disciples)
But anyway, its settling downwe are in the years of settling down. Everyone is caught by his own illusionits always the mirage of an illusion. She [Y.] is convinced, it is her very deep belief, that she is causing the Supermind to descend upon earth. And many, many people among those I know are caught by that illusion; so they go off at a tangent far away from the Truth, towards a fabulous realization.
--
But in this case, on December 2nd, the thing was observed very attentively, because it was a limited field, and it lasted a certain number of hours (all the other occupations went on automatically, without interfering with the active consciousness, with the observation).
(silence)@
0 1963-12-07 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are lots of things which people dont even take notice of in life (when they live an ordinary life, they dont take any notice), theres a whole field of things that are absolutely not quite unconscious, but certainly not conscious; they are reflexesreflexes, reactions to stimuli, and so on and also the response (a semiconscious, barely conscious response) to the pressure exerted from above by the Force, which people are totally unconscious of. It is the study of this question which is now in the works; I am very much occupied with it. A study of every second. You see, there are different ways for the Lord to be present, its very interesting (the difference isnt for Him, its for us!), and it depends precisely on the amount of habitual reflex movements that take place almost outside our observation (generally completely outside it) And this question preoccupied me very, very much: the ways of feeling the Lords Presence the different ways. There is a way in which you feel it as something vague, but of which you are sureyou are always sure but the sensation is vague and a bit blurred and at other times it is an acute Presence2 (Mother touches her face), very precise, in all that you do, all that you feel, all that you are. There is an entire range. And then if we follow the movement (gesture in stages, moving away), there are those who are so far away, so far, that they dont feel anything at all.
This experience made me write something yesterday (but it has lasted several days), it came as the outcome of the work done, and yesterday I wrote it both in English and in French:
0 1963-12-11, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I wasnt conscious of an instrument, but I was conscious of plenty of spots2 to which the thing clings. It clings not even to beings, but to ways of being of beings: to certain tendencies, certain attitudes, certain reactionsit clings to all that. Its not at all one person or one will, thats not it, but its a way of being. Its all universal ways of being that are destined to disappear from the field of activity and are being eliminated.
But the reaction on the body was painful, as it was the first time. The first time (according to X and the Swami), it was supposed to kill meit didnt even make me seriously ill, but it had a very unpleasant effect. I told you at the time that it was a mantra intended to drain you of all your blood; Ive seen several examples of people who died in that way: it was found afterwards to be the result of a mantric formation. In my case, all it succeeded in doing was to make me sick, as if everything came out I vomited terribly. Then there was something pulling me and I absolutely had to go my consciousness told me I had to go and see someone (I was all alone in my bathroom when it happened), a particular person whom I had to go and see; and when I opened the door, Z was there, waiting to prepare my bath, but I didnt see him at all and I absolutely wanted to go somewhere, into the other room, so I pushed against him, thinking, Whats this obstacle in my way? And he thought I was fainting on him! It caused quite a to-do.
0 1963-12-14, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
certainly.
Yes, but it has to be understandable, really understandable I am not sure it is. Because when I talk to you, I communicate to you the vibration of the experience, so insofar as you are receptive, you feel it. But it doesnt pass into the printed wordsvery little, very, very little.
0 1963-12-21, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, the fact of no longer having the physical support of Sri Aurobindos presence was a blow that might have been mortal (I prevented it from being mortal by closing a door, because he had asked me to continue and I decided to continue), but it made certain things rather difficult because it became necessary to have a constant perception of what has to be done and a constant effort to change what is into what should be. Probably its a period of work that must be completed now, and he was asking of me the capacity to live in the positive side. The trouble is, the body is itself a kind of contradiction but it was suggested to me that those contradictions of the body arise from the fact that I admit in the consciousness all the contradictions, and that consequently they are there in the body, too. Instead of looking at the body and saying, Oh, this (this limitation, that narrowness) is still here, I should look only at WHAT SHOULD BE, and the body would be forced to follow.
This seems to be the preparation of the program for next yeara long, long way to go yet. But anyway, there are still a few days left (!)
--
The Lords Presence is there, his Action is there, in a way that I could almost call perpetual because It rarely It never withdraws, but the times when It isnt active, when It becomes a little passive, are far less frequent than the times when It is activefar less, there is a big difference. And yet, the result this ought to bring is not there. Therefore, since It uses this body and this atmosphere [of Mother], there must be something that dims, that limits, that alters. I could give some quite precise and concrete examples, but anyway they involve certain people here, so I wont mention them. But thats what made me question: why, why?
I have a feeling that something is pressing to eliminate in my active consciousness that discernment which is so sharp, so imperativesharp, you know, with a vision (like the vision I had the other day of the nearness and farness), a vision almost microscopically exact. Obviously, this is helpful to get rid of all the things that shouldnt be, but now there is a will for this attitude to move into the background, and for the active consciousness to see constantly and almost exclusively only WHAT SHOULD BE.
--
The body consciousness is still very timid, very timid in the sense that it doesnt have confidence in itself. It feels that if it isnt constantly vigilant, watching, watching, observing, discerning, some things (gesture below) may get through that shouldnt get through. Thats what hinders. And that is why this certainty comes more and more: no criticism, no criticism at all, none at all, dont see what shouldnt besee only WHAT SHOULD BE.
Its a great victory to be wona great victory.
--
It is certainly, of all the movements within the reach of human consciousness, the one that draws you the most out of your ego.
And when it can be a gratitude without motive, that vibration (basically, the vibration of what exists towards the Cause of existence) then a great many barriers vanish instantly.
0 1964-01-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I had X told about a rather interesting encounter of mine with Ganapati1 (quite a few years ago), and how he had promised to give me whatever I needed and actually gave it for quite a long time, certainly more than ten years, and generously so. Then everything changed in the Ashram. It was after the war, the children came and we spilled over; we became much more complex, much larger, and began to be in touch with foreign countries, particularly America. And I continued to be in contact with Ganapati; I cant say I used to do a puja to him (!), but every morning I would put a flower in front of his image. Then one morning I asked him, Why have you stopped doing what you had been doing for such a long time? I listened, and he clearly replied, Your need has grown too large. I didnt quite understand, because he has at his disposal fortunes larger than what I needed. But then, some time afterwards, I had this told to X, who answered me from the height of his punditism, Let her not be concerned with the gods, I will look after that! It was needlessly insolent. Then I turned to Ganapati and asked him, What does all that mean? And I clearly saw (it wasnt he who answered, it was Sri Aurobindo), I clearly saw that Ganapati has power only over those who have faith in him, which means its limited to India, while I needed money from America, France, England, Africa and that he has no power there, so he couldnt help. It became very clear, I was at peace, I understood: Very well, he did his best, thats all. And its true that I keep receiving from India, though not sufficiently; especially as since Independence half of India has been ruined, and all those who used to give me a lot of money no longer do, because they no longer canit isnt that they no longer want to, but that they no longer can.
For instance, M. was greatly interested in my story about Ganapati, and I saw that there was a connection between him and Ganapati, so I told him, But turn to him and he will give you the right inspiration. And since then M. has been perfect, really; all that he can do he does to the utmost of his ability. So all this is very good.
0 1964-01-15, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am giving these two examples because they are recent and a little unexpected (or at least, they didnt correspond to my occupations or preoccupations), but they come in hundreds! Every day thirty, forty of them will come and take hold of me, and then, all at once, Ill go into a concentration, Ill LIVE a certain thing, until I have seenseen, known through the vision something that had to be seen, and as soon as it is seen, pfft! gone away, finished. It loses its interest, its gone.
Ill go into a sort of concentration for a time during which I am completely isolated, absorbed; then when its over, hup! it goes away abruptly (gesture of pulling a curtain).
0 1964-01-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, the British No, the British haughtiness certainly isnt just a legend. What gave them that? Where does it come from? Because, basically, they are Normans, arent they.
But they became islanders, its an island.
0 1964-01-22, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And moment, what does it mean? What does it correspond to in the truth of the Supreme? I dont know for us, thats how it is translated, because everything is translated that way for us. All change is translated for us as the sense of timeONE sense of time, a certain sense of time, which may be infinite and eternal, but is a time all the time. And for Him, the change is timeless. What is it? What does it correspond to? I dont know.
Because the consciousness [Mothers] is outside time and space, completely, and yet there is this
--
Now, its a little better, but it has become Why not me? Mother has seen such and such a category of people, therefore the entire category has a right to be seen! The birthdays1 too, it depends on the ages and occupations: if I see people of a certain age and occupation on their birthdays, all those of about the same age and similar occupation have a RIGHT to comethey have the rightand it is my DUTY to see them. And when I say that I dont have the time theyre upset.
Its a farce, you know! And that farce has been going on since 1929.
--
Now, according to what I have seen and tested (with little tests done casually), there are certainlyoh, being EXTREMELY generous, patient and (what shall I say?) merciful there are a good third who are here only because they are comfortable: you work if you want to, you dont work if you dont want to, you always eat, you always have shelter and clothes, and, ultimately, you sort of do as you please (you must pretend to obey, thats all). And if youre denied a convenience, you start grumblingYoga is simply out of the picture! Its a hundred thousand miles away from their consciousness (their mouths are full of words, but its only lip service). Sometimes you have a little scruple in order to appear to be doing some work. And some have grown very old or come here because they have become unfit for life outside so we cant send them away! (It was wrong to accept them I must say I have little to do with that acceptance: Ill say no, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, theyll pretend they heard yes, but anyway thats life.) So I cant send them away. But I am going to make life ascetic for them: one wont be here to be comfortable anymore then for what?
Well, well see. We have started restrictionsoh, theyre not very serious, but anyway
Mother receives certain disciples on their birthdays.
***
0 1964-01-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, it certainly did bring something. But they just remain there.
Ah, the Falsehood is to remain stuck there, yes.
0 1964-01-29, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And yet, difficulties pour in from everywhere, not only with regard to health (which is still linked to moral things: the mood, the state of consciousness, the thoughts and mental formations, etc.), but to money, the paper money which refuses to come! And in this connection, lately I have seen in a fairly interesting way the difference in the material mental atmosphere: there was a sort of certainty that all that was necessary would come somehowit was impossible for it not to come (I am referring to the general atmosphere); then it was replaced by you know, like when you bang your nose against a wall! That sort of very childlike, carefree trustvanished! It just vanished So I had to look deeply at it, at what was behind, and thats how I saw this change in the Inertia (how is it going to express itself? I dont know; in what way?), which I had never seen before.
It is something there, down below. Before, it was here (gesture to the level of the forehead), like this, in the atmosphere; now, its there (gesture at ground level), that is to say, very low.
0 1964-02-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then, probably, the photo was found to be one too many and they left it out something like that. But the photo certainly EXISTS somewhere.
And it exists in connection with this book.
--
But when you have the experience perfectly sincerely, that is, when you dont kid yourself, its necessarily one single point, ONE WAY of putting it, thats all. And it can only be that. There is, besides, the very obvious observation that when you habitually use a certain language, the experience expresses itself in that language: for me, it always comes either in English or in French; it doesnt come in Chinese or Japanese! The words are necessarily English or French, with sometimes a Sanskrit word, but thats because physically I learned Sanskrit. Otherwise, I heard (not physically) Sanskrit uttered by another being, but it doesnt crystallize, it remains hazy, and when I return to a completely material consciousness, I remember a certain vague sound, but not a precise word. Therefore, the minute it is formulated, its ALWAYS an individual angle.
It takes a sort of VERY AUSTERE sincerity. You are carried away by enthusiasm because the experience brings an extraordinary power, the Power is there its there before the words, it diminishes with the words the Power is there, and with that Power you feel very universal, you feel, Its a universal Revelation. True, it is a universal revelation, but once you say it with words, its no longer universal: its only applicable to those brains built to understand that particular way of saying it. The Force is behind, but one has to go beyond the words.
--
I have the feeling it has always been this way, but now its a very normal, very common state; the difference is that, before, one was satisfied with an approximation (when I see again certain things written in that way, I realize that there is an approximation, that one was satisfied with an approximation), while now one is more level-headed, more reasonablemore patient, too. One waits until it has taken form.
In this connection, I have noticed another thing, that I no longer know in the same way the languages I know! Its very peculiar, especially for English. There is a sort of instinct based on the rhythm of the words (I dont know where it comes from, maybe from the superconscient of the language) that lets you know whether a sentence is correct or notits not at all a mental knowledge, not at all (thats all gone, even the knowledge of spelling is completely gone!), but its a sort of sense or feeling of the inner rhythm. I noticed this a few days ago: in the birthday cards, we put quotations (someone types the quotations, sometimes he makes mistakes), and there was a quotation from me (I didnt at all remember having written it or having thought it either). I saw itit was in English I saw it, and in one place it was as if you tripped: it wasnt correct. Then there came to me clearly, Put this way and that way, the sentence would be correct. (To say this mentalizes it too much: its a sort of sensation, not a thought, but a sensation, like a sensation of the sound.) With the sentence written this way, the sound is correct; with the sentence written that other way, using the same words but reversing their order (as was the case), the sentence isnt correct, and to correct that sentence where the order of the words had been reversed, it was necessary to add a little word (in that case it was it), and then, with the sound it, the sentence became correct. All sorts of thingsif I were asked mentally, I would say, I havent the faintest idea! It doesnt correspond to any knowledge. But so precise! Extraordinary.
0 1964-02-15, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I know it was the first time I went to Tlemcen. And I remember having said that I began my conscious yoga when I was twenty-five (twenty-five, thats in 19082), what I call my conscious yoga, that is, certain practices. It was in 1908. And Thon was three years earlier. Only, I had known Thon one year before going to Tlemcen, so it was perhaps 1904, and the photo was perhaps taken in 1905. But you know, I am not much good with dates! Anyway, it was between 1903 and 1908.
But I hadnt changed: my appearance was exactly the same when I came here. So for your book, well say 1914, according to the appearance; in other words, thats how I looked when I met Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1914. Voil.
0 1964-03-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Last night it became a certainty.
And something began to descendnot descend: to manifest and permeate; permeate and fill this terrestrial consciousness. What a force it had! What a power! I had never felt that kind of intensity in the material world. A stability, a power! Everything in the sense of a power, everything in the sense of a thrust forwarda thrust forward: progress, evolution, transformation. Everything like that. As if everything, everything were filled with a power of transformationnot transformation, not transmutation, I dont know how to explain it. Not the final transformation that will change the appearance, not that: it was the ananda of progress. The ananda of progress, like the ananda of progress of the animal becoming man, of man becoming supermanit wasnt transformation, it wasnt what will respond to that progress: it was progress. And with a plenitude, a constancy, and No RESISTANCE ANYWHERE: there was no panic anywhere, no resistance anywhere; everything was enthusiastically participating.
--
For a very long time the body hasnt felt in the least separatenot in the least. There is even a sort of constant identification with the people around which at times is troublesome enough, but which I see as a means of action (of control and action). Ill give an example: on the 4th, the last time I saw you, the doctor left for America. He had his lunch here (I told you he was very moved); he was given a sort of little ceremony for his departure. He was sitting on the floor as usual, next to me (I was seated at the table, facing the light), and they served him his lunch; he turned towards me to receive the things. He was in a state of intense emotion (nothing apparent at all; the appearance was very quiet, he didnt say or do anything extraordinary, but inwardly). At one point I looked at him to encourage him to eat, and our eyes met. Then there came into me from him such a violent emotion that I almost started sobbing, can you imagine! And its always there, in the lower abdomen (really in the abdomen), that this identification with the outside world takes place. There (gesture above the heart center), it dominates; the identification is here (gesture to the abdomen), but the Force dominates (Mother holds up her head); while here (the abdomen), it seems to be still its the lower vital, I mean the lower vital OF MATTER, the vital subdegree OF MATTER. Its on the way to transformation, this is where the work is being done materially. But all those emotions have rather unpleasant repercussions. Even, when I looked at it in detail, I came to think that there must be something analogous in you; you must be open to certain currents of force in the lower vital, and those kinds of spasms which you get must be the result. So then, the solution there is only one solution, because immediately I called, I put the Lords Presence there (gesture to the abdomen), and I saw it was extremely CONTAGIOUS. Because I had received the vibrations, they had entered straight in without meeting any obstacles; so the response had a considerable contagious power I saw it immediately: I stopped the doctors vibrations; it took me a few minutes, and everything was back in order again. Then I understood that this opening, this contagion was kept as a means of actionit isnt pleasant for the body (!), but its a means of action.
Its the same thing with that necessity of returning to the superficial consciousness. In the beginning, in the very beginning, when I identified myself with that pulsation of Love that creates the world, for many days I refused to resume entirely the ordinary, habitual consciousness (to which I was just referring: that sort of surface consciousness which is like bark), I no longer wanted it. Thats why I was outwardly so helpless; in other words, I refused to make any decisions (Mother laughs), the others had to decide and do things for me! Thats what convinced them that I was extremely ill!
--
And when I came back (it took me perhaps five or six minutes to come back), it was with a sort of quiet certainty that the return was a necessity, and that something else would occur thanks to which it wont be necessary to leave one state for the other (thats the trouble, we still have to leave one state for the other). It hasnt left, but its in the backgroundit should be in the front.
And then I realized When I got up, I asked myself, Am I again going to come up against all the same material drawbacks that come from this sort of not even contagion, of identification with the people and things around? The slightest thing causes a reaction there wasnt even one thought, you see [in the incident with the doctor], not one sensationyet there was a disorder here (gesture to the abdomen).
--
This, in the realm of thought, is something that has been there for a very long timevery long, years and years: the shock that comes from outside exactly as if it were its YOUR thought, but it comes from over there, it isnt actually here; and then the response. Since soon after the beginning of the century, this work has been going on. Afterwards, there was all the psychic work, in the same way (gesture of widening): the identification and the response. Then the vital work, which I began with Sri Aurobindo when we were staying over there [at the Guest House]; then the physical work, but there its gropingly learning ones job. Now there is a sort of certainty (not absolute and constant, but not far away), a sort of certainty: you see, you come into contact with something, and then you know instantly what should be done and how it should be done; the vibration comes, meets a response, and goes back and this is going on every minute, all the time.
A sort of assurance and confirmation came last night with that experience.
0 1964-03-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To translate I go to the place where things are crystallized and formulated. Nowadays my translations are not exactly an amalgamation, but they are under the influence of both languages: my English is a little French and my French is a little Englishits a mixture of the two. And I see that from the standpoint of expression, its rather beneficial, for a certain subtlety comes from it.
I dont translate at all, I never try to translate: I simply go back to the place where it came from, and instead of receiving this way (gesture above the head, like scales tipping to the right for French) I receive that way (the scales tip to the left for English), and I see that it doesnt make much difference: the origin is a sort of amalgamation of the two languages. Perhaps it could give birth to a somewhat more supple form in both languages: a little more precise in English, a little more supple in French.
--
Personally I would like it to be neither English nor French, to be something else! But for the moment, what words are to be used? I clearly feel that to me, both in English and French (and maybe in other languages if I knew any), words have another meaning, a slightly unusual and far more PRECISE meaning than they do in languages as we know themfar more precise. Because, to me, a word means exactly a certain experience, and I clearly see that people understand quite differently; so I feel their understanding as something hazy and imprecise. Every word corresponds to an experience, to a particular vibration.
I dont say I have reached the satisfactory expressionits taking shape.
0 1964-03-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You see, this aphorism would eventually lead to an absolute subjectivity, and only that absolute subjectivity would be truewell, its NOT like that. Because that means pralaya, it means Nirvana. Well, there isnt only Nirvana, there is an objectivity thats real, not false but how can you say what it is! Its something I have felt several timesseveral times, not just in a flash: the reality of (How can we express ourselves? We are always deceived by our words) In the perfect sense of Oneness and in the consciousness of Oneness there is room for the objective, for objectivityone doesnt destroy the other, not at all. You may have the sense of a differentiation; not that it isnt yourself, but its a different vision. I told you, all that we can say is nothing, its nonsense, because the purpose of words is to express the unreal world, but Yes, that may be what Sri Aurobindo calls the sense of Multiplicity in Unity (maybe that corresponds a little), just as you feel the internal multiplicity of your being, something of that sort. I dont at all have the sensation of a separate self anymore, not at all, not at all, not even in the body, yet that doesnt prevent me from having a certain sense of an objective relationshipwell, yes, it leads us back to his change in the relation of sun-consciousness and earth-consciousness. (Laughing) Maybe thats really is the best way of putting it! Its a relation of consciousness. It isnt at all the relationship between oneself and othersnot at all, thats entirely canceled but it might be like the relation of consciousness between the various parts of ones being. And it gives objectivity to those various parts, obviously.
(long silence)
--
I dont know if I can make myself understood, but it is something I have felt very, very clearly, and which one cannot feel as long as the physical ego is there, because the physical ego has the sense of its own importance, and that disappears entirely with the physical ego. When it disappears, one has a clear perception that the intervention or manifestation of the true Vibration doesnt depend on egos or individualities (human or national individualities, or even individualities of Nature: animals, plants and so on), it depends on a certain play of the cells and Matter in which there are aggregates particularly favorable for the transformation to occurnot transformation: the substitution, to be precise, the substitution of the Vibration of Truth for the vibration of Falsehood. And the phenomenon may be very independent of groupings and individualities (it may happen in one part here, another part there, one thing here, another thing there); and it always corresponds to a certain quality of vibration that causes a sort of swellinga receptive swelling and then, the thing can occur.
Unfortunately, as I said at the beginning, all words belong to the world of appearances.
--
Maybe the sense of wonder comes when the quantity that has infiltrated is large enough to be perceptible. But I have an impressiona very acute impression that this phenomenon is going on all the time, all the time, everywhere, in a minuscule, infinitesimal way (gesture of a twinkling infiltration), and that in certain circumstances or conditions that are visible (visible to this vision: its a sort of luminous swelling I cant explain), then, the mass of infiltration is sufficient to give the impression of a miracle. But otherwise, its something going on all the time, all the time, all the time, continuously, in the world (same twinkling gesture), like an infinitesimal amount of Falsehood replaced by Light Falsehood replaced by Light constantly.
And this Vibration (which I feel and see) gives the feeling of a fire. Thats probably what the Vedic Rishis translated as the Flamein the human consciousness, in man, in Matter. They always spoke of a Flame.1 It is indeed a vibration with the intensity of a higher fire.
0 1964-03-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This very morning, I was following the movement, observing the control this Vibration of Truth has in the body in the presence of certain disorders (very small things in the body, you know: discomforts, disorders), I was observing how this Vibration of Truth abolishes those disorders and discomforts. It was very clear, very obvious, and ABSOLUTELY REMOVED from any spiritual notion, from any religious notion, from any psychological notion, so that the person who possessed this knowledge of opposition of one vibration to the other very clearly didnt in any way need to be a disciple or someone with philosophical knowledge or anything at all: he only had to have mastered this in order to realize a perfectly harmonious existence.
It was absolutely concrete and irrefutable. It was a lived, absolute experience.
--
All that I am doing, all that this body is doing, it has the power to pass on to others thats precisely what I am studying now. I am studying this. Its a sort of power to put people in contact with the Vibration of the Consciousness (radiating gesture around the head), which is concentrated on a number of people and things (all over the earth, naturally), but also on certain points. Its the Power that came the night when there was that descent in the brain: at any moment I was able to direct a beam here, another beam there, touch a point here, another point there (gesture like a beacon).
Thats what Sri Aurobindo never stopped repeating: Do not try to do it all by yourself, the Mother will do it for you, if you trust Her.
0 1964-04-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How empty the days arethey are full of empty things, of empty people and empty movement. You feel you must constantly pull down the Force in order to fill up this enormous Emptiness, or else you would be utterly crushed. I keep my watch by Indian time, so that I always know where you are, although I never know what time it is in France! I have to make a complicated calculation and subtract four and a half hours: its now 2:30 P.M. in our garden, therefore 10 A.M. here, and I have an appointment. I will probably see Corra1 tomorrow. My friend M. tells me that they definitely agree to publish the book, but they would like to cut certain passages! So I will have to argue to try and keep my book more or less whole! What a world! I will write to Mother tomorrow, once I know what the publishers demands are.
I have to see a doctor day after tomorrow but no doctor can close the hole in my heart.
0 1964-05-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You ask me if I see you. You do not come to me in a subtle body, but I am with you very concretely, so concretely that I see through your eyes and speak through your mouth. In this way, you made me meet people whom I dont know at all physically and have strange conversations with them. A useful preparation is certainly going on.
Through repeated, everyday experience, I am increasingly convinced that all disorders in the body and all diseases are the result of DOUBT in the cells or a certain group of cells. They doubt the Divines concrete reality, they doubt the Divine Presence in them, they doubt their being divine in their very essence, and this doubt is the cause of all disorders.2
As soon as you succeed in infusing into them the certitude of the Divine, the disorder disappears almost instantly, and it recurs only because, not having been definitively driven away, the doubt reappears.
--- Overview of adj certain
The adj certain has 7 senses (first 4 from tagged texts)
1. (131) certain ::: (definite but not specified or identified; "set aside a certain sum each week"; "to a certain degree"; "certain breeds do not make good pets"; "certain members have not paid their dues"; "a certain popular teacher"; "a certain Mrs. Jones")
2. (16) certain, sure ::: (having or feeling no doubt or uncertainty; confident and assured; "felt certain of success"; "was sure (or certain) she had seen it"; "was very sure in his beliefs"; "sure of her friends")
3. (8) certain ::: (established beyond doubt or question; definitely known; "what is certain is that every effect must have a cause"; "it is certain that they were on the bus"; "his fate is certain"; "the date for the invasion is certain")
4. (4) certain, sure ::: (certain to occur; destined or inevitable; "he was certain to fail"; "his fate is certain"; "In this life nothing is certain but death and taxes"- Benjamin Franklin; "he faced certain death"; "sudden but sure regret"; "he is sure to win")
5. sealed, certain ::: (established irrevocably; "his fate is sealed")
6. certain, sure ::: (reliable in operation or effect; "a quick and certain remedy"; "a sure way to distinguish the two"; "wood dust is a sure sign of termites")
7. certain, sure ::: (exercising or taking care great enough to bring assurance; "be certain to disconnect the iron when you are through"; "be sure to lock the doors")
--- Similarity of adj certain
7 senses of certain
Sense 1
certain(prenominal)
=> definite (vs. indefinite)
Sense 2
certain(predicate) (vs. uncertain), sure (vs. unsure)
=> convinced(predicate), positive(predicate), confident(predicate)
Sense 3
certain(predicate) (vs. uncertain)
=> definite
=> indisputable, sure
=> sure as shooting
Sense 4
certain (vs. uncertain), sure
=> bound(predicate), destined
=> doomed, fated
=> foreordained, predestinate, predestined
=> in for(predicate)
Also See-> predictable#1
Sense 5
sealed (vs. unsealed), certain
Sense 6
certain, sure
=> reliable (vs. unreliable), dependable (vs. undependable)
Sense 7
certain, sure
=> careful (vs. careless)
--- Antonyms of adj certain
7 senses of certain
Sense 1
certain(prenominal)
INDIRECT (VIA definite) -> indefinite
Sense 2
certain(predicate) (vs. uncertain), sure (vs. unsure)
uncertain (vs. certain), unsure (vs. sure), incertain
=> ambivalent
=> doubtful, dubious
=> groping
Sense 3
certain(predicate) (vs. uncertain)
uncertain (vs. certain)
=> indefinite
=> up in the air
Sense 4
certain (vs. uncertain), sure
uncertain (vs. certain)
=> chancy, fluky, flukey, iffy
=> contingent
=> up in the air
Sense 5
sealed (vs. unsealed), certain
Sense 6
certain, sure
INDIRECT (VIA reliable, dependable) -> unreliable, undependable
INDIRECT (VIA reliable, dependable) -> unreliable, undependable
Sense 7
certain, sure
INDIRECT (VIA careful) -> careless
--- Pertainyms of adj certain
7 senses of certain
Sense 1
certain(prenominal)
Sense 2
certain(predicate) (vs. uncertain), sure (vs. unsure)
Sense 3
certain(predicate) (vs. uncertain)
Sense 4
certain (vs. uncertain), sure
Sense 5
sealed (vs. unsealed), certain
Sense 6
certain, sure
Sense 7
certain, sure
--- Derived Forms of adj certain
--- Grep of noun certain
certainty
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Wikipedia - National poet -- Poet traditionally held to represent a certain national culture
Wikipedia - National Wild and Scenic Rivers System -- Conservation effort of certain rivers in the United States and its territories
Wikipedia - National Wildlife Refuge -- designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service
Wikipedia - Natural rubber -- Polymer harvested from certain trees
Wikipedia - Navajo song ceremonial complex -- Spiritual practice used by certain Navajo ceremonial people to restore and maintain balance and harmony in the lives of the people
Wikipedia - Neo-ultramontanism -- Belief of certain Roman Catholics that papal infallibility was not restricted to a small number of papal statements but applied ipso facto (by virtue of being said by the Pope) to all papal teachings and statements.
Wikipedia - Neurolathyrism -- Neurological disease of humans, caused by eating certain legumes of the genus Lathyrus
Wikipedia - New Federalism -- Transfer of certain powers from the United States federal government back to the states
Wikipedia - No-fly zone -- Area established by a military power over which certain aircraft are not permitted to fly
Wikipedia - North American Christian Convention -- Former convention associated with certain churches
Wikipedia - On Certainty
Wikipedia - Option (finance) -- Right to buy or sell a certain thing at a later date at an agreed price
Wikipedia - Orris root -- Term for the roots of certain iris plants
Wikipedia - Palaeoptera -- Taxonomic grouping of winged insects without a certain form of wing-folding
Wikipedia - Pantelleria Vecchia Bank Megalith -- An anomalous underwater artifact of uncertain origin
Wikipedia - Parasitic worm -- A commonly used term to describe certain parasitic worms with some similarities, many of which are intestinal worms
Wikipedia - Parole -- Provisional release of a prisoner who agrees to certain conditions
Wikipedia - Partial capo -- Musical device to fret only certain strings
Wikipedia - Pelargonidin -- A red anthocyanidin pigment found in certain flowers and fruits
Wikipedia - Person -- Being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness
Wikipedia - Philosophical skepticism -- Philosophical views that question the possibility of knowledge or certainty
Wikipedia - Phycomycetes -- Obsolete polyphyletic taxon for certain fungi with nonseptate hyphae
Wikipedia - Planck's law -- Describes the amount of spectral radiance at a certain wavelength radiated by a black body cavity in thermal equilibrium
Wikipedia - Planetary surface -- Where the solid (or liquid) material of the outer crust on certain types of astronomical objects contacts the atmosphere or outer space
Wikipedia - Pluralis excellentiae -- In Hebrew grammar, certain morphologically plural forms (-im, -oth etc.) that are grammatically/semantically singular, interpreted as due to the M-bM-^@M-^\excellenceM-bM-^@M-^] of these morphemes; e.g. elohim, behemoth; words for M-bM-^@M-^XuprightnessM-bM-^@M-^Y, M-bM-^@M-^XblessednessM-bM-^@M-^Y, etc.
Wikipedia - Polos -- Headdress of certain ancient Greek female gods
Wikipedia - Poverty -- State of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money
Wikipedia - Primate (bishop) -- High-ranking bishop in certain Christian churches
Wikipedia - P ring -- A part of certain bacteria
Wikipedia - Probability -- Branch of mathematics concerning chance and uncertainty
Wikipedia - Procrastination -- Avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished by a certain deadline
Wikipedia - Pro-drop language -- Language in which certain pronouns may sometimes be omitted
Wikipedia - Prohibition of death -- Law prohibited death, typically in certain buildings and areas
Wikipedia - Protosalvinia -- Devonian fossil plant of uncertain affinity
Wikipedia - Pseudocertainty effect
Wikipedia - Public notice -- Given to the public regarding certain types of legal proceedings
Wikipedia - Pyroelectricity -- Property of certain crystals which are naturally electrically polarized and contain large electric fields
Wikipedia - Quantum noise -- Quantum effect of uncertainty
Wikipedia - Quenching -- Rapid cooling of a workpiece to obtain certain material properties
Wikipedia - Rapture -- An eschatological concept of certain Christians
Wikipedia - Regional lockout -- Digital system to prevent use of a product or service outside of a certain region or territory
Wikipedia - Relevance -- Usefulness of considering certain information in the context of a given topic
Wikipedia - Representation theorem -- A proof that every structure with certain properties is isomorphic to another structure
Wikipedia - Resonance -- Tendency to oscillate at certain frequencies
Wikipedia - River Brethren -- Certain Anabaptist Christian groups
Wikipedia - Robust fuzzy programming -- Mathematical optimization approach to deal with optimization problems under uncertainty
Wikipedia - Roe -- Egg masses of fish and certain marine animals
Wikipedia - Role -- Set of behaviours, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms expected from an individual that has a certain social status
Wikipedia - Royal prerogative -- custom found in common or civil law of monarchies that gives the sovereign certain privileges and power
Wikipedia - Sabantuy -- Summer festival of certain Turkic people
Wikipedia - Sabesdiker losn -- Linguistic merger of certain consonants in a dialect of Yiddish
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Wikipedia - Sacred lotus in religious art -- Attribute in certain Indian religions
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Wikipedia - Tablet (religious) -- Term used for certain religious texts
Wikipedia - Talisman -- Object believed to contain certain magical impacts
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Wikipedia - Territorial spirit -- Angels or demons who rule over certain geographical areas
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Wikipedia - That Certain Age -- 1938 film by Edward Ludwig
Wikipedia - That Certain Thing -- 1928 film by Frank Capra
Wikipedia - That Certain Woman -- 1937 film by Edmund Goulding
Wikipedia - That Uncertain Feeling (film) -- 1941 film by Ernst Lubitsch
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Wikipedia - The End of the Certain World -- 2005 Biography of Max Born by Nancy Thorndike Greenspan
Wikipedia - Theorem of the gnomon -- Certain parallelograms occurring in a gnomon have areas of equal size
Wikipedia - There's a certain Slant of light -- Poem
Wikipedia - Thermoregulation -- Ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries
Wikipedia - The Uncertainty Principle (film) -- 2002 film
Wikipedia - The Woman with That Certain Something -- 1925 film
Wikipedia - Thompson uniqueness theorem -- On certain subgroups of a minimal simple finite group of odd order
Wikipedia - Thomsen's theorem -- A certain path of line segments parallel to a triangle's edges ends at its starting point
Wikipedia - Three Musketeers (Supreme Court) -- Nickname for certain members of US Supreme Court
Wikipedia - Three-self formula -- Missiological strategy to establish indigenous churches: self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation. First coined in the late-19th century by various missions theorists, and still used today in certain contexts.
Wikipedia - Tibetan script -- writing system used to write certain Tibetic languages
Wikipedia - Title Badge (India) -- Badge for holders of certain titles bestowed by British India.
Wikipedia - Title -- Prefix or suffix added to someone's name in certain contexts
Wikipedia - Tone terracing -- Where the high or mid tones shift downward in pitch after certain other tones
Wikipedia - Transport Infrastructure Ireland -- State agency overseeing certain roads and rail projects
Wikipedia - Trap-lining -- Feeding strategy amongst certain families of birds
Wikipedia - Trefftz method -- Numerical method for solving certain differential equations
Wikipedia - Trichome -- Fine outgrowths or appendages on plants, algae, lichens, and certain protists. A unicellular or multicellular plant structure that forms a non-sclerified outgrowth from the epidermis
Wikipedia - Triple-negative breast cancer -- Type of breast cancer lacking certain gene expressions
Wikipedia - Trombi-Varadarajan theorem -- Relates spherical functions on a semisimple Lie group to certain holomorphic functions
Wikipedia - Tuoba -- Extinct people of uncertain origin
Wikipedia - Type rating -- Certification of an airplane pilot to fly a certain type of aircraft
Wikipedia - Tzoah Rotachat -- Location in Gehenna where the souls of Jews who committed certain sins are sent for punishment.
Wikipedia - Uncertain data
Wikipedia - Uncertain (EP) -- 1991 extended play by the Cranberries
Wikipedia - Uncertain inference
Wikipedia - Uncertain Lady -- 1934 film
Wikipedia - Un Certain Matin -- 1991 Burkinese short film
Wikipedia - Un Certain Regard -- Section of the Cannes Film Festival
Wikipedia - Uncertain T (show car) -- Show car built by Steve Scott in 1965
Wikipedia - Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy
Wikipedia - Uncertainty (book) -- Biography of Werner Heisenberg by David C. Cassidy
Wikipedia - Uncertainty coefficient
Wikipedia - Uncertainty principle -- Foundational principle in quantum physics
Wikipedia - Uncertainty quantification -- Characterization and reduction of uncertainties in both computational and real world applications
Wikipedia - Uncertainty -- Situation which involves imperfect and/or unknown information, regarding the existing state, environment, a future outcome or more than one possible outcomes
Wikipedia - Une certaine vision du Liban -- 2007 book by Michel Aoun
Wikipedia - Universal chord theorem -- Guarantees chords of length 1/n exist for functions satisfying certain conditions
Wikipedia - Untouchability -- Status of certain social groups confined to menial group and despised jobs
Wikipedia - Urinary cast -- Cylindrical protein structure in urine in certain disease states
Wikipedia - Verderer -- Officials who administer the local laws of certain forests
Wikipedia - Vexillological symbol -- Ideogram used to indicate certain characteristics of national flags
Wikipedia - Vocal register -- Range of tones a certain voice type can reliably produce
Wikipedia - Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity -- Concept in leadership studies
Wikipedia - Vulnerability -- The inability of an entity to withstand the adverse effects of a hostile or uncertain environment
Wikipedia - Web beacon -- Method for ascertaining whether a page has been loaded and by whom
Wikipedia - Welfare chauvinism -- Policy advocating welfare benefits just for certain groups
Wikipedia - Wikipedia:Wikilawyering -- Pejorative term applied to certain practices occurring on Wikipedia
Wikipedia - Zero-rating -- Internet access under certain conditions
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Integral World - Ken Wilber vs John Heron, How a very early (1999) and certainly one of the most important challenges against Ken Wilber's nondual view of the Divine went wrong, Oliver Griebel
Integral World - The Suffering Saint, Reflections of an Uncertain Mystic, David Lane
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Inhabit: Your Uncertainty
selforum - gita certainly does not advocate war
selforum - she has worked out certain possibility
selforum - they were certainly not avatars
selforum - their tone of certain informality also
selforum - mans immediate certainty that there are
selforum - this ambiguity and uncertainty can also
selforum - certain misunderstandings can arise
selforum - certain exposure to clash and
selforum - sri aurobindo tends to twist certain
selforum - with fantasy identity becomes uncertain
https://thoughtsandvisions-searle88.blogspot.com/2010/09/certain-ethical-problem-in-esotericism.html
Psychology Wiki - Uncertainty
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - certainty
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Certain
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Certain_Kind_of_Silence
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Certainty
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Uncertainty
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/What_men_really_want_is_not_knowledge_but_certainty
Scooby-Doo (1969 - Current) - Hit cartoon series featuring Scooby Doo, a dog who joins Velma, Daphne, Fred, and Shaggy on many quests to solve mysterious. Each mystery is new and unusual and involves the group stopping someone from wreaking certain havoc on the world.The first incarnation of what has become a franchise-of-sorts....
Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea (1985 - 1987) - Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea revolved around two children, Matt and Rebecca, as they tried to save an underground race of humans known as Arkadians from certain doom, as their artificial sun was beginning to fail. With the help of Tehrig (a fully sentient flying robot vehicle), Arkana ( Ava...
Turbo Teen (1984 - 1984) - Not only was Brett Matthews a great sports car driver, he was also a great sports car! Following an accident in which he crashed into a science lab where a top-secret transfer ray was being developed, Brett had the ability to turn himself into a car whenever his body temperature reached a certain le...
Bill Cosby's PicturePages (1984 - 1984) - Bill Cosby hosts educational vigniettes for kids. Kids were asked to match some things with others, or put the steps to a certain task in the correct order. Despite only lasting one season, books of PicturePages were made available and viewers could follow along at home. Syndicated until the early...
Sabrina the teenage witch (70s) (1971 - 1974) - Based on the comic book. Toon version of the Archie Comics witch who uses her powers to aide the uncertainty of adolescence.
Lassie (1997 - 1999) - The story: Widowed veterinarian Karen Cabot and her young son Timmy have moved back to Karen's old home town of Hudson Falls, Vermont, where Karen bought out the practice of elderly Dr. Donald Stewart, the town's vet. Timmy is uncertain of the move and still smarting from his father's recent death....
Marcia Adams Kitchen (1989 - 1990) - Based on the book "Amish Cooking from Quilt Country" Marcia Adams hosts this PBS show all about cooking food with Heartland love. This popular cooking program aired in 26 episodes between 1989 and 1990 and still airs in reruns on certain PBS channels as well as on the PBS Create Channel.
This Art Club has a Problem! (2016 - 2016) - Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru! focuses on an art club in a certain middle school, and its members: Subaru Uchimaki, who is a genius at drawing faces, but only wants to draw the perfect 2D wife; Colette, a rich troublemaker who never stops making mischief; and the club president, who sleeps thro...
Betsy's Kindergarten Adventures (2008 - 2009) - The show follows a girl named Betsy as she starts out her school years. The series premiere shows Betsy facing the uncertainty of her first day of school and the adjustments she must make as she meets her new teacher and classmates, encounters unfamiliar rules and routines, and finds herself in an e...
A Certain Magical Index (2008 - 2019) - Toaru Majutsu no Indekkusu) is a Japanese light novel series written by Kazuma Kamachi and illustrated by Kiyotaka Haimura, which has been published by ASCII Media Works under their Dengeki Bunko imprint since April 2004. The plot is set in a world where supernatural abilities exist. The light novel...
Kobato (2009 - 2010) - Kobato is a sweet, perky, cute yet nave girl who has a contract: to go to a certain place, she must fill a mysterious bottle with people's "healed hearts" to do so. However, the restriction is that she must finish before the four seasons end. As Kobato attempts to fulfill her mission, she is accomp...
Rat-A-Tat (2015 - 2016) - Don, a darling house-dog is at war with Charly, Marly & Larry - the mice-trio that has set camp in his house. Don's ally and only aide is his brother Colonel, an ex-army dog. He may be smarter than Don, but certainly no match for the terrific trio! Watch Don's desperate efforts to chase the trio and...
Gremlins 2: The New Batch(1990) - A few years after the incident in Gremlins, Billy and Kate have movied to New York where they work for media mogul Daniel Clamp. Meanwhile, Gizmo's former owner has just died and he's been captured for the genetics part of the Clamp building. A little while later, a certain someone gets wet, creates...
Pocahontas(1995) - In 1607 a group of young men travel to virgina looking for gold, there are already native americans living on the land though, and both groups of people want to fight each other, the natives want the new comers gone, and the english men are certain that the natives will mean nothing but trouble. But...
Halloween II(1981) - It is still Halloween, 1978, and Michael Myers is on the loose after escaping certain death at Dr. Loomis' hands. By now, the entire sheriff's department is hunting for him, and Laurie Strode - his intended victim - has been taken to Haddonfield Hospital to be treated for wounds inflicted by Michael...
Falling Down(1993) - Michael Douglas plays a person having a very bad day because of a divorce that had turned him the wrong way. This man is trying to get along but certain issues are driving him away. An urban tale of a man at war with the every day life.
Dream a Little Dream(1989) - An unfortunate bike accident leaves the minds of an elderly man and a young teenager swapped over - and the teenager uses the mind of the elderly man to win the girl of his dreams. An excellent comedy with a superb cast and is certainly well worth watching if you get
D.A.R.Y.L.(1985) - A young boy is found wandering without any memory of who he is. A family takes him in and begin to look for clues to help him find his way home. In the meantime, they notice that the boy seems to have certain special abilities, not usually found in kids his age, or even fully-grown adults. D.A.R.Y.L...
She's Having a Baby(1988) - Jake and Kristy Briggs are newlyweds. Being young, they are perhaps a bit unprepared for the full reality of marriage and all that it (and their parents) expect from them. Do they want babies? Their parents certainly want them to. Is married life all that there is? Things certainly aren't helped by...
Dr. Strange(1978) - Dr. Steven Strange, the Marvel Comics magician/superhero created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, made his long-awaited screen debut in this 1978 TV pilot film. Peter Hooten certainly fills the costume as Strange, while Sir John Mills plays the doctor's sorcerer shaman "The Ancient One" with an...
Beethoven's 2nd(1993) - The gargantuan St. Bernard finds love in this sequel to the box-office hit. Beethoven happens to meet Missy, another St. Bernard, in the park and the two find they share a certain chemistry. Unfortunately, Missy is being held captive by Regina (Debi Mazar), a spiteful ex-wife attempting to leverage...
Dreamscape(1984) - Alex Gardner is a down on his luck psychic whogambles . After a run in with a gangster named Sneed,Gardner joins his former mentor Dr. Paul Novotny for a university project:a way to project the minds of certain individuals into the dreams of others.He uses this gift to help those troubled by disturb...
Convict 762(1997) - Billy Drago and Shannon Sturges star in this science fiction thriller. A spaceship,with an all female crew,makes an emergency landing on a planet used a penal colony.The only two survivors of the planet is a guard and psycho convict.The females find themselves in the midst of a war,uncertain who is...
Blink(1994) - A young,blind woman,receives a cornea transplant.While recovering,she believes she witnessed a murder. But due to side effects of the surgery,she isn't certain of the murderer's existence.Starring Madeline Stowe and Aidan Quinn.
Certain Fury(1985) - During a shooting in court young prostitute Scarlet manages to flee. In a state of confusion, the black Tracy, who was arrested for a minor delict, follows her. When she decides to leave Scarlett, an accident makes it impossible. So they're bound together on a flight from the police and some of the...
Fairy Tail the Movie: Phoenix Priestess(2012) - One day, a request flew in with the words "I want the leader of the bandit group that's eating the nest in a certain harbor town, Geese, to be apprehended". Natsu and the team, who are looking forward to the big reward, set out to the place of request in high spirits. However, because of a mistake L...
Immortal Beloved(1994) - Immortal Beloved is a 1994 film about the life of composer Ludwig van Beethoven (played by Gary Oldman). The story follows Beethoven's secretary and first biographer Anton Schindler (Jeroen Krabb) as he attempts to ascertain the true identity of the Unsterbliche Geliebte (Immortal Beloved) addresse...
Nothing Sacred(1937) - Certain she was dying from radium poisoning, Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard) is delighted to learn from her doctor that it was a false alarm. But when dapper and desperate New York City reporter Wally Cook (Fredric March) shows up looking for a story about a young girl braving terminal illness, Hazel d...
Pray TV(1982) - 1982 TV movie about a newly ordained minister(John Ritter)who takes a job working with a dynamic televangelist(Ned Beatty).The minister soon feels conflicted after discovering certain disheartening things about the evangelist.
Planet Of The Vampires(1965) - After landing on a mysterious planet, a team of astronauts begin to turn on each other, swayed by the uncertain influence of the planet and its strange inhabitants.
Questions(2008) - On the evening of his 40th birthday, Harvey Furst seems to have it all. A successful musician of renown, he is engaged to be married to a beautiful fashion model. For a while now he's been hearing a certain 7 note melody in his mind, over and over, but is unable to remember it after a few seconds. U...
Telefon(1977) - A Russian officer is sent to USA to try and stop sleeper agents who will mindlessly attack government entities when they hear certain coded words.
H.O.T.S(1979) - College exploitation film focusing on the wild escapades of the women of H.O.T.S. Sorority. The antics include but are certainly not limited to a wet t-shirt contest, a sky-diving eposide, plenty of fraternity boys and even a house-keeping robot. Can the girls of H.O.T.S. overcome the scrutiny of th...
The Mysterians(1957) - Aliens arrive on Earth and ask permission to be given a certain tract of land for their people to live on. But when they are discovered to be invaders, responsible for the giant robot that is destroying cities, the armed forces attempt to stop them with every weapon available.
True Love(1989) - Donna and Michael are getting married. But first, they have to plan the reception, get the tux, buy the rings, and cope with their own uncertainty about the decision. Michael fears commitment. Donna has her doubts about Michael's immaturity. Both are getting cold feet.
Stan & Ollie(2018) - Laurel and Hardy -- the world's greatest comedy team -- face an uncertain future as their golden era of Hollywood films remain long behind them. Diminished by age, the duo set out to reconnect with their adoring fans by touring variety halls in Britain in 1953. The shows become an instant hit, but S...
Christopher Robin(2018) - The young boy who embarked on countless adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood with his band of spirited and lovable stuffed animals has grown up and lost his way. Christopher Robin is stuck in a job where he is overworked, underpaid, and facing an uncertain future. He has a family of his own, but his...
https://myanimelist.net/anime/4535/Candy_Boy__Nonchalant_Talk_of_the_Certain_Twin_Sisters_in_Daily_Life -- Romance, School, Shoujo Ai
A Certain Magical Index - To aru majutsu no indekkusu (original tit ::: TV-14 | 23min | Animation, Action, Comedy | TV Series (2008-2019) Episode Guide 74 episodes A Certain Magical Index Poster -- Index is still a fugitive and many powerful Magical organizations and individuals want to take her to use the books in her memory eliminating her in the process. War between those ... S Stars:
A Certain Scientific Railgun - To aru kagaku no rerugan (original tit ::: TV-14 | 24min | Animation, Action, Comedy | TV Series (2009- ) Episode Guide 76 episodes A Certain Scientific Railgun Poster -- A spin off series from "A Certain Magical Index" that follows Academy city's third ranked psychic power user or "esper", named Misaka. The series follows her and her friends in events ... S Stars:
Alfred Hitchcock Presents ::: TV-14 | 25min | Comedy, Crime, Drama | TV Series (19551962) -- Series of unrelated short stories covering elements of crime, horror, drama, and comedy about people of different backgrounds committing murders, suicides, thefts, and other sorts of crime caused by certain motivations, perceived or not. Stars:
Archangel (2005) ::: 6.5/10 -- R | 2h 13min | Crime, Drama, Mystery | TV Movie 5 January 2006 -- A British college professor, working in Russia, investigates certain mysteries surrounding the life and death of Joseph Stalin. Director: Jon Jones Writers: Robert Harris (novel), Dick Clement (screenplay) | 1 more credit Stars:
Babylon ::: 23min | Animation, Drama, Mystery | TV Series (2019- ) Episode Guide 12 episodes Babylon Poster Seizaki Zen is a prosecutor with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors' Office. While investigating illegal acts by a certain pharmaceutical company, Seizaki stumbles across a conspiracy ... S Stars: Yichi Nakamura, Mao Ichimichi, Takahiro Sakurai
Certain Women (2016) ::: 6.3/10 -- R | 1h 47min | Drama | 22 February 2017 (France) -- The lives of three women intersect in small-town America, where each is imperfectly blazing a trail. Director: Kelly Reichardt Writers: Kelly Reichardt (screenplay by), Maile Meloy (based on stories by)
Fandango (1985) ::: 6.8/10 -- PG | 1h 31min | Comedy, Drama | 25 January 1985 (USA) -- Five college buddies from the University of Texas circa 1971 embark on a final road trip odyssey across the Mexican border before facing up to uncertain futures, in Vietnam and otherwise. Director: Kevin Reynolds Writer: Kevin Reynolds Stars:
Fog Hill of Five Elements ::: 28min | Animation | TV Mini-Series (2020) Episode Guide 3 episodes Fog Hill of Five Elements Poster A legend tells that a long time ago, monsters could give the ability to certain elected officials to master the five elements. But for that, you have to go through the dangerous foggy ... S Add to Watchlist Reviews 5 user
Men of a Certain Age ::: TV-14 | 1h | Comedy, Drama | TV Series (20092011) -- A group of college buddies in the throes of middle age keep their friendship going long after they've graduated. Creators: Mike Royce, Ray Romano
Radius (2017) ::: 6.3/10 -- Not Rated | 1h 33min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi | 10 November 2017 (USA) -- A man wakes up with no memory of who he is, and finds that everyone who comes within a certain distance of him suddenly dies. Directors: Caroline Labrche, Steeve Lonard Writers: Caroline Labrche, Caroline Labrche | 2 more credits
Run Silent Run Deep (1958) ::: 7.3/10 -- Approved | 1h 33min | Action, Drama, War | 27 March 1958 (USA) -- A U.S. sub commander, obsessed with sinking a certain Japanese ship, butts heads with his first officer and crew. Director: Robert Wise Writers: John Gay (screenplay), Edward L. Beach (based on novel by) (as Commander Edward L. Beach) Stars:
So I'm a Spider, So What? ::: Kumo Desu ga, Nanika? (original title) 24min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy | TV Series (2021- ) Episode Guide 10 episodes So I'm a Spider, So What? Poster The world where the Hero and the Demon King continue to oppose each other. The grand magic from the Hero and the Demon King cross over worlds and exploded in the classroom of a certain high... S Stars: Aoi Yki, Shun Horie, Eri Kitamura
Spaced ::: TV-14 | 25min | Action, Comedy | TV Series (19992001) -- Friends Tim and Daisy, 20-something North Londoners with uncertain futures, must pretend to be a couple to live in the only apartment they can afford. Stars:
Telefon (1977) ::: 6.6/10 -- PG | 1h 42min | Action, Crime, Drama | 16 December 1977 (USA) -- A Russian officer is sent to the U.S. to try and stop sleeper agents who will mindlessly attack government entities when they hear certain coded words. Director: Don Siegel Writers: Peter Hyams (screenplay), Stirling Silliphant (screenplay) | 2 more credits
The Master (2012) ::: 7.2/10 -- R | 2h 18min | Drama | 21 September 2012 (USA) -- A Naval veteran arrives home from war unsettled and uncertain of his future - until he is tantalized by the Cause and its charismatic leader. Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Writer:
Village of the Damned (1960) ::: 7.3/10 -- Not Rated | 1h 17min | Horror, Sci-Fi | 7 December 1960 (USA) -- In the English village of Midwich, the blonde-haired, glowing-eyed children of uncertain paternity prove to have frightening powers. Director: Wolf Rilla Writers: Stirling Silliphant (screenplay), Wolf Rilla (screenplay) | 2 more
https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Attack_on_Titan:_Escape_from_Certain_Death
https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Certain_freedom
https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Fevered_certainty_of_Caiphon
https://earth.fandom.com/wiki/Uncertainty
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/A_Certain_Tome
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Minor_Uncertainty
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Uncertainty
https://fanfiction.fandom.com/wiki/A_Certain_Mobile_Weapon_Gundam
https://fanfiction.fandom.com/wiki/From_a_Certain_Point_of_View
https://fanfiction.fandom.com/wiki/From_a_Certain_Point_of_View:_Marvel
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Uncertain_Destinations
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Uncertain_Futures
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Amaunator%27s_uncertainty
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Amaunator's_uncertainty
https://jormungand.fandom.com/wiki/Certain_Eastern_European_country
https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Certainty
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Uncertain_Logic
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Mulligan_Certainty_Field
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Uncertain_Logic
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Uncertain_Prescriptions
https://nyankoi.fandom.com/wiki/A_Certain_Night's_Events
https://orphanblack.fandom.com/wiki/Certain_Agony_of_the_Battlefield
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/A_Certain_Point_of_View_(short_story)
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/A_Certain_Point_of_View_(Star_Wars_Insider)
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/From_a_Certain_Point_of_View
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/From_a_Certain_Point_of_View_(audiobook)
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/From_a_Certain_Point_of_View:_The_Empire_Strikes_Back
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/From_a_Certain_Point_of_View:_The_Empire_Strikes_Back_(audiobook)
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Second_Whill_(From_a_Certain_Point_of_View)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Uncertain_Shore_(audio_story)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Uncertain-Tea_Principle
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Uncertainty_Principle_(audio_story)
https://the-good-doctor.fandom.com/wiki/The_Uncertainty_Principle
https://the-haunting.fandom.com/wiki/The_Romance_of_Certain_Old_Clothes
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https://vocaloidlyrics.fandom.com/wiki/Certain_Languages
https://walkingdead.fandom.com/wiki/Volume_28:_A_Certain_Doom
https://weissschwarz.fandom.com/wiki/A_Certain_Magical_Index/A_Certain_Scientific_Railgun_Series
https://weissschwarz.fandom.com/wiki/A_Certain_Magical_Index/A_Certain_Scientific_Railgun_Seriesls.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Quest_(Skyrim)
https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Quest:Towers_of_Certain_Doom_(Horde)
Ajin 2nd Season -- -- Polygon Pictures -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Action Horror Mystery Seinen Supernatural -- Ajin 2nd Season Ajin 2nd Season -- After escaping certain death, Kei Nagai and his new companion Kou Nakano plot revenge on Satou, their fellow Ajin who is hellbent on world domination. As Satou embarks on a string of public executions, the human race rushes to come up with a solution to stop the immortal villain. -- -- Kei discovers unlikely allies in the form of two former adversaries: high-ranking government official Yuu Tosaki, whose extensive research on Ajin gives him a tactical advantage in the fight against Satou, and Tosaki's Ajin assistant Izumi Shimomura. As his faction continues to gather allies, Kei races against time to put a stop to Satou's crusade before it brings about an end to civilization as he knows it. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 235,591 7.65
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu: 365-nichi no Jikan -- -- Lerche -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Comedy School Shounen -- Ansatsu Kyoushitsu: 365-nichi no Jikan Ansatsu Kyoushitsu: 365-nichi no Jikan -- A year can change a person's life forever. The 365 days Class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High spent with their eccentric teacher, Koro-sensei, certainly did. Carrying the memories of that year close to their hearts, alumni Nagisa Shiota and Karma Akabane return to their former classroom to recall the events of that momentous time of their lives. -- -- Nagisa and Karma are reminded by the familiar rooms, desks, chalkboard, and the class album of the events that shaped them into "assassins" and prepared them for the real world. That is the legacy of their octopus-like teacher—who had introduced himself by threatening to destroy the world if they didn't kill him by the end of the school year—and the time spent in the bizarre yet exceptional "Assassination Classroom." -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- Movie - Nov 19, 2016 -- 71,344 7.35
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu: 365-nichi no Jikan -- -- Lerche -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Comedy School Shounen -- Ansatsu Kyoushitsu: 365-nichi no Jikan Ansatsu Kyoushitsu: 365-nichi no Jikan -- A year can change a person's life forever. The 365 days Class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High spent with their eccentric teacher, Koro-sensei, certainly did. Carrying the memories of that year close to their hearts, alumni Nagisa Shiota and Karma Akabane return to their former classroom to recall the events of that momentous time of their lives. -- -- Nagisa and Karma are reminded by the familiar rooms, desks, chalkboard, and the class album of the events that shaped them into "assassins" and prepared them for the real world. That is the legacy of their octopus-like teacher—who had introduced himself by threatening to destroy the world if they didn't kill him by the end of the school year—and the time spent in the bizarre yet exceptional "Assassination Classroom." -- -- Movie - Nov 19, 2016 -- 71,344 7.35
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu: 365-nichi no Jikan -- -- Lerche -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Comedy School Shounen -- Ansatsu Kyoushitsu: 365-nichi no Jikan Ansatsu Kyoushitsu: 365-nichi no Jikan -- A year can change a person's life forever. The 365 days Class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High spent with their eccentric teacher, Koro-sensei, certainly did. Carrying the memories of that year close to their hearts, alumni Nagisa Shiota and Karma Akabane return to their former classroom to recall the events of that momentous time of their lives. -- -- Nagisa and Karma are reminded by the familiar rooms, desks, chalkboard, and the class album of the events that shaped them into "assassins" and prepared them for the real world. That is the legacy of their octopus-like teacher—who had introduced himself by threatening to destroy the world if they didn't kill him by the end of the school year—and the time spent in the bizarre yet exceptional "Assassination Classroom." -- -- Movie - Nov 19, 2016 -- 72,040 7.34
Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm -- -- Gonzo -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Sci-Fi Sports Drama School -- Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm -- With the invention of anti-gravitational shoes known as Grav-Shoes, the ability to fly freely has become an everyday experience for the people inhabiting a four-island archipelago south of Japan. This invention has brought the people new ways of living and also a new sport known as "Flying Circus," where participants gain points by either touching floating buoys or their opponent's back. -- -- The gullible and clumsy Asuka Kurashina, newly transferred to Kunahama High School, enters this world of flight unknowingly when she is able to pull off a difficult maneuver the first time she participates in a Flying Circus match. Eventually, this leads her to join her school’s Flying Circus club. Led by their coach, Masaya Hinata, their members consist of the experienced Misaki Tobisawa and her overprotective friend, Mashiro Arisaka. Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm follows this rookie group soaring high above the skies and toward their dreams, armed only with their unwavering passion against an uncertain future. -- -- 129,466 6.69
Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm -- -- Gonzo -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Sci-Fi Sports Drama School -- Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm -- With the invention of anti-gravitational shoes known as Grav-Shoes, the ability to fly freely has become an everyday experience for the people inhabiting a four-island archipelago south of Japan. This invention has brought the people new ways of living and also a new sport known as "Flying Circus," where participants gain points by either touching floating buoys or their opponent's back. -- -- The gullible and clumsy Asuka Kurashina, newly transferred to Kunahama High School, enters this world of flight unknowingly when she is able to pull off a difficult maneuver the first time she participates in a Flying Circus match. Eventually, this leads her to join her school’s Flying Circus club. Led by their coach, Masaya Hinata, their members consist of the experienced Misaki Tobisawa and her overprotective friend, Mashiro Arisaka. Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm follows this rookie group soaring high above the skies and toward their dreams, armed only with their unwavering passion against an uncertain future. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Crunchyroll, Funimation -- 129,466 6.69
Ashita no Joe 2 -- -- Tokyo Movie Shinsha -- 47 eps -- Manga -- Action Drama Shounen Slice of Life Sports -- Ashita no Joe 2 Ashita no Joe 2 -- Yabuki Joe is left downhearted and hopeless after a certain tragic event. In attempt to put the past behind him, Joe leaves the gym behind and begins wandering. On his travels he comes across the likes of Wolf Kanagushi and Goromaki Gondo, men who unintentionally fan the dying embers inside him, leading him to putting his wanderings to an end. His return home puts Joe back on the path to boxing, but unknown to himself and his trainer, he now suffers deep-set issues holding him back from fighting. In attempt to quell those issues, Carlos Rivera, a world renowned boxer is invited from Venezuela to help Joe recover. -- TV - Oct 13, 1980 -- 32,084 8.66
Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror -- -- Toei Animation -- 11 eps -- Other -- Mystery Historical Horror Fantasy -- Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror -- A collection of three classic Japanese horror stories: "Yotsuya Kaidan", the story of a wife betrayed by her husband who seeks vengeance even in death. "Tenshu Monogatari", the story of forbidden love between a goddess and a human, and "Bakeneko", the story of a mysterious cat monster with a vendetta against a certain family. -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media, Geneon Entertainment USA -- TV - Jan 13, 2006 -- 58,520 7.44
Azumanga Daioh -- -- J.C.Staff -- 26 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Slice of Life Comedy School -- Azumanga Daioh Azumanga Daioh -- Chiyo Mihama begins her high school career as one of the strangest students in her freshman class—a tiny, 10-year-old academic prodigy with a fondness for plush dolls and homemade cooking. But her homeroom teacher, Yukari Tanizaki, is the kind of person who would hijack a student's bike to avoid being late, so "strange" is a relative word. -- -- There certainly isn't a shortage of peculiar girls in Yukari-sensei's homeroom class. Accompanying Chiyo are students like Tomo Takino, an energetic tomboy with more enthusiasm than brains; Koyomi Mizuhara, Tomo's best friend whose temper has a fuse shorter than Chiyo; and Sakaki, a tall, athletic beauty whose intimidating looks hide a gentle personality and a painful obsession with cats. In addition, transfer student Ayumu Kasuga, a girl with her head stuck in the clouds, fits right in with the rest of the girls—and she has a few interesting theories about Chiyo's pigtails! -- -- Together, this lovable group of girls experience the ups and downs of school life, their many adventures filled with constant laughter, surreal absurdity, and occasionally even touching commentary on the bittersweet, temporal nature of high school. -- -- 268,177 7.97
Azumanga Daioh -- -- J.C.Staff -- 26 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Slice of Life Comedy School -- Azumanga Daioh Azumanga Daioh -- Chiyo Mihama begins her high school career as one of the strangest students in her freshman class—a tiny, 10-year-old academic prodigy with a fondness for plush dolls and homemade cooking. But her homeroom teacher, Yukari Tanizaki, is the kind of person who would hijack a student's bike to avoid being late, so "strange" is a relative word. -- -- There certainly isn't a shortage of peculiar girls in Yukari-sensei's homeroom class. Accompanying Chiyo are students like Tomo Takino, an energetic tomboy with more enthusiasm than brains; Koyomi Mizuhara, Tomo's best friend whose temper has a fuse shorter than Chiyo; and Sakaki, a tall, athletic beauty whose intimidating looks hide a gentle personality and a painful obsession with cats. In addition, transfer student Ayumu Kasuga, a girl with her head stuck in the clouds, fits right in with the rest of the girls—and she has a few interesting theories about Chiyo's pigtails! -- -- Together, this lovable group of girls experience the ups and downs of school life, their many adventures filled with constant laughter, surreal absurdity, and occasionally even touching commentary on the bittersweet, temporal nature of high school. -- -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Sentai Filmworks -- 268,177 7.97
Azur Lane: Bisoku Zenshin! -- -- CANDY BOX, Yostar Pictures -- 12 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Military Sci-Fi Slice of Life Comedy -- Azur Lane: Bisoku Zenshin! Azur Lane: Bisoku Zenshin! -- In a seemingly peaceful time without looming threats of Sirens or war, shipgirls from different nations live together in harmony. Some girls, such as the destroyers Ayanami, Javelin, Laffey, and Z23, attend school. Others immerse themselves into various other activities, including sports, foraging, training, going to formal parties, or even vying for the commander's attention! But one thing is for certain: the girls will continue to deepen their friendship in the pleasant port of Azur Lane! -- -- 25,992 7.01
Battle Programmer Shirase -- -- AIC -- 15 eps -- Original -- Comedy Ecchi Sci-Fi -- Battle Programmer Shirase Battle Programmer Shirase -- Battle Programmer Shirase, also known as BPS, is a free programmer with super hacking abilities who doesn't work for money. What he does work for is certainly something that only people like him would appreciate. But, his demeanor certainly doesn't suit the jobs he is hired for. With the evil King of America causing trouble via the internet, Shirase is nothing but busy as each new adventure brings even more interesting people into the picture. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Maiden Japan -- TV - Oct 4, 2003 -- 30,537 6.93
Big Order -- -- Asread -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Super Power Shounen -- Big Order Big Order -- The story centers on an introverted high school student named Eiji Hoshimiya with a huge secret—he wished for the destruction of the world when he was younger. Fairies give certain people special powers called Orders, and what Order Users can do with their power depends on their wishes. Ten years after the Great Destruction, Eiji struggles to come to terms with his immense power. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- OVA - Oct 3, 2015 -- 33,817 5.79
Biohazard 4D-Executer -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Game -- Action Adventure Military Horror -- Biohazard 4D-Executer Biohazard 4D-Executer -- Biohazard 4D Executor was a 20 minute CG movie that people in Japan could see in a special theater. -- -- Though the CG was primitive, (the rendering and models aren’t much better than that seen in Resident Evil 2, it’s certainly not on par with Resident Evil 3) it told the story enough. Below is a summary of the events within the 20 minute movie. -- -- The story focuses on an elite unit of 5 UBCS members, sent into Raccoon City to try and rescue Dr. Cameron. An Umbrella scientist lost in all the confusion. The UBCS team, consisting of members Rodrigo, Roger, Klaus, Ed and Norman, have a GPS device used to track down Dr. Cameron’s last known location, which is near a large food factory. -- -- Upon entering the factory they are attacked by a large creature, a sort of hybrid between a Tyrant and the more evolved forms of Nemesis. -- -- (Source: rehorror.net) -- Special - ??? ??, 2000 -- 3,774 5.49
B-Legend! Battle B-Daman -- -- Nippon Animation -- 52 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Fantasy Game Kids -- B-Legend! Battle B-Daman B-Legend! Battle B-Daman -- Upon the creation of marble launching machines known as B-Daman, people started to participate in the competitive sport B-DaBattles. However, B-Daman contain hidden powers which enhance marble shooting that can be misused for combative purposes. -- -- One night, a certain object residing behind the walls of a restaurant calls upon Yamato Daiwa—a boy raised by cats. Yamato has been having visions of the object which resembles a machine familiar to everyone. Little does he know, hidden behind the walls is not a mere machine, but the fate of the world. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Hasbro -- 11,333 6.29
Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising -- -- Bones -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Super Power Shounen -- Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising -- Izuku "Deku'' Midoriya and his fellow students in Class 1-A of UA High's hero course have been chosen to participate in a safety program on Nabu Island. To further improve their skills and gain experience in more ordinary heroics, the students aid the kind citizens with small services and everyday chores. With the low crime rate in the quiet community, all seems well and good, but the rise of a new villain threatens to put the students' courage to the test and challenge their capabilities as heroes. -- -- A merciless villain by the name of Nine is in search of a certain "quirk" needed to fulfill his diabolical plan—creating a society where only those with the strongest quirks reign supreme. As his attack on Nabu Island endangers the lives of the residents, securing the citizens becomes the first priority for Class 1-A; defeating Nine along with his wicked accomplices is also imperative. A straightforward strategy is formulated until a young boy named Katsuma Shimano, whom Deku had befriended, suddenly requires particular protection. Concerned for the boy's wellbeing, Deku and his classmates must now devise a plan to ensure Katsuma's safety at all costs. -- -- With Nine wreaking havoc to find the catalyst for his ill-intended schemes and the heroes desperate to defend Katsuma from harm, will Deku and his friends be able to come out victorious, or will they find themselves unable to escape a hopeless situation? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- Movie - Dec 20, 2019 -- 311,218 8.07
Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising -- -- Bones -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Super Power Shounen -- Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising -- Izuku "Deku'' Midoriya and his fellow students in Class 1-A of UA High's hero course have been chosen to participate in a safety program on Nabu Island. To further improve their skills and gain experience in more ordinary heroics, the students aid the kind citizens with small services and everyday chores. With the low crime rate in the quiet community, all seems well and good, but the rise of a new villain threatens to put the students' courage to the test and challenge their capabilities as heroes. -- -- A merciless villain by the name of Nine is in search of a certain "quirk" needed to fulfill his diabolical plan—creating a society where only those with the strongest quirks reign supreme. As his attack on Nabu Island endangers the lives of the residents, securing the citizens becomes the first priority for Class 1-A; defeating Nine along with his wicked accomplices is also imperative. A straightforward strategy is formulated until a young boy named Katsuma Shimano, whom Deku had befriended, suddenly requires particular protection. Concerned for the boy's wellbeing, Deku and his classmates must now devise a plan to ensure Katsuma's safety at all costs. -- -- With Nine wreaking havoc to find the catalyst for his ill-intended schemes and the heroes desperate to defend Katsuma from harm, will Deku and his friends be able to come out victorious, or will they find themselves unable to escape a hopeless situation? -- -- Movie - Dec 20, 2019 -- 311,218 8.07
Bokura ga Ita -- -- Artland -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Drama Romance Shoujo -- Bokura ga Ita Bokura ga Ita -- Going into her first year of high school, Nanami Takahashi is filled with the hope of making many new friends. After meeting the shy Yuri Yamamoto, she hears about a popular boy in their class: Yano Motoharu. Yuri cares little for Yano because of his past relationship with her older sister Nana, and at first, Nanami doesn't like his attitude either. However, Nanami soon begins to warm up to Yano and takes a liking to him. The two spend more of their time together and eventually decide to start dating. But their love is not without challenges; Yano has trouble opening up to Nanami, since his first girlfriend, Nana, died in a car accident the year before, and she had been with one of her ex-boyfriends at the time. -- -- Finding themselves living in the shadow of Yano's relationship with Nana, Nanami and Yano struggle to keep their relationship afloat amid misunderstandings and heartache with the certainty of their love for each other. -- -- 200,437 7.30
Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Next -- -- AIC Build -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Harem Slice of Life Comedy Romance School -- Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Next Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Next -- The Neighbor's Club—a club founded for the purpose of making friends, where misfortunate boys and girls with few friends live out their regrettable lives. -- -- Although Yozora Mikazuki faced a certain incident at the end of summer, the daily life of the Neighbor's Club goes on as usual. A strange nun, members of the student council and other new faces make an appearance, causing Kodaka Hasegawa's life to grow even busier. -- -- While they all enjoy going to the amusement park, playing games, celebrating birthdays, and challenging the "school festival"—a symbol of the school life normal people live—the relations amongst the members slowly begins to change... -- -- Let the next stage begin, on this unfortunate coming-of-age love comedy!! -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Jan 11, 2013 -- 440,043 7.38
Bubuki Buranki -- -- SANZIGEN -- 12 eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Drama Mecha -- Bubuki Buranki Bubuki Buranki -- Away from home for 10 years, Azuma Kazuki had no idea what was awaiting him upon his return. He certainly did not expect to be attacked by dozens of heavily armed people and taken as their prisoner. Fortunately, Azuma's stay in captivity is short. Wielding a strange sentient weapon—known as "Bubuki"—upon her right arm, his childhood friend, Kogane Asabuki, rescues him. -- -- After escaping, Azuma learns that he too has the power to control Bubuki. Together with his new companions, he must revive the Buranki titan named Oubu, that sleeps somewhere deep underground. With this knowledge and purpose, a new path to unearth the truths behind the Buranki opens before Azuma. -- -- 67,375 6.29
Busou Renkin -- -- Xebec -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Action Fantasy Supernatural Comedy School Shounen -- Busou Renkin Busou Renkin -- The story begins when high school student Kazuki Muto is killed one night saving a mysterious girl from a monster, only to wake up in his school dorm, believing it to have been a dream; however, he soon finds out that dream wasn't a dream at all when a giant serpentine monster attacks him and his sister. Tokiko Tsumura, the girl he saved, explains that the monster is a homunculus. Kazuki had been attacked and killed by it when he was rescuing her; however, she, feeling responsible for him, revived him by placing a Kakugane medallion in his chest, serving as a replacement heart. -- -- The Kakugane, as Tokiko explains, is an alchemical device that, when activated, takes a certain form based on the Kakugane's user, forming a unique Buso Renkin. The Buso Renkin is the only thing that can destroy a homunculus monster. Using this, Kazuki creates his own Buso Renkin (the "Sunlight Heart," a huge lance). Along with Tokiko and her own Buso Renkin (the "Valkyrie Skirt," an execution scythe), Kazuki joins the fight against the homunculi and their master. -- 154,261 7.34
Busou Renkin -- -- Xebec -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Action Fantasy Supernatural Comedy School Shounen -- Busou Renkin Busou Renkin -- The story begins when high school student Kazuki Muto is killed one night saving a mysterious girl from a monster, only to wake up in his school dorm, believing it to have been a dream; however, he soon finds out that dream wasn't a dream at all when a giant serpentine monster attacks him and his sister. Tokiko Tsumura, the girl he saved, explains that the monster is a homunculus. Kazuki had been attacked and killed by it when he was rescuing her; however, she, feeling responsible for him, revived him by placing a Kakugane medallion in his chest, serving as a replacement heart. -- -- The Kakugane, as Tokiko explains, is an alchemical device that, when activated, takes a certain form based on the Kakugane's user, forming a unique Buso Renkin. The Buso Renkin is the only thing that can destroy a homunculus monster. Using this, Kazuki creates his own Buso Renkin (the "Sunlight Heart," a huge lance). Along with Tokiko and her own Buso Renkin (the "Valkyrie Skirt," an execution scythe), Kazuki joins the fight against the homunculi and their master. -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- 154,261 7.34
Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren: The Rikka Wars -- -- Kyoto Animation -- 1 ep -- Light novel -- Comedy Drama Romance School Slice of Life -- Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren: The Rikka Wars Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren: The Rikka Wars -- One normal school day, Rikka Takanashi notices Makoto Isshiki secretly passing a flash drive to Yuuta Togashi. Curious, Rikka talks to her friends about the case, who agree that Yuuta is hiding something from her. They decide to discover the contents of the flash drive by any means necessary, but to their surprise, it merely contained pictures of an idol that Yuuta adored back in middle school. However, Rikka takes offense, as she claims that this breaks their contract as lovers and demands Yuuta to return the flash drive. -- -- Although having seen Yuuta return the flash drive, she still felt uncertain about the situation. This leads to her sneaking into Yuuta's room during the night, only to find out that the flash drive had not been returned! Scanning through its contents, she hurriedly rushes to bed when Yuuta enters her room. To her terror, she finds the flash drive crushed due to her negligence in keeping it in a safe place. Yuuta quickly finds out and demands an apology. However, Rikka too, demands an apology from him, resulting in both of them refusing to be the one to apologize first. Will the two lovebirds be able to resolve their argument? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- Special - Sep 17, 2014 -- 96,547 7.46
Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren: The Rikka Wars -- -- Kyoto Animation -- 1 ep -- Light novel -- Comedy Drama Romance School Slice of Life -- Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren: The Rikka Wars Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren: The Rikka Wars -- One normal school day, Rikka Takanashi notices Makoto Isshiki secretly passing a flash drive to Yuuta Togashi. Curious, Rikka talks to her friends about the case, who agree that Yuuta is hiding something from her. They decide to discover the contents of the flash drive by any means necessary, but to their surprise, it merely contained pictures of an idol that Yuuta adored back in middle school. However, Rikka takes offense, as she claims that this breaks their contract as lovers and demands Yuuta to return the flash drive. -- -- Although having seen Yuuta return the flash drive, she still felt uncertain about the situation. This leads to her sneaking into Yuuta's room during the night, only to find out that the flash drive had not been returned! Scanning through its contents, she hurriedly rushes to bed when Yuuta enters her room. To her terror, she finds the flash drive crushed due to her negligence in keeping it in a safe place. Yuuta quickly finds out and demands an apology. However, Rikka too, demands an apology from him, resulting in both of them refusing to be the one to apologize first. Will the two lovebirds be able to resolve their argument? -- -- Special - Sep 17, 2014 -- 96,547 7.46
Deadman Wonderland -- -- Manglobe -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Horror Sci-Fi Shounen Supernatural -- Deadman Wonderland Deadman Wonderland -- It looked like it would be a normal day for Ganta Igarashi and his classmates—they were preparing to go on a class field trip to a certain prison amusement park called Deadman Wonderland, where the convicts perform dangerous acts for the onlookers' amusement. However, Ganta's life is quickly turned upside down when his whole class gets massacred by a mysterious man in red. Framed for the incident and sentenced to death, Ganta is sent to the very jail he was supposed to visit. -- -- But Ganta's nightmare is only just beginning. -- -- The young protagonist is thrown into a world of sadistic inmates and enigmatic powers, to live in constant fear of the lethal collar placed around his neck that is slowed only by winning in the prison's deathly games. Ganta must bet his life to survive in a ruthless place where it isn't always easy to tell friend from foe, all while trying to find the mysterious "Red Man" and clear his name, in Deadman Wonderland. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 982,221 7.21
Detective Conan Movie 14: The Lost Ship in the Sky -- -- Tokyo Movie Shinsha -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Mystery Police Shounen -- Detective Conan Movie 14: The Lost Ship in the Sky Detective Conan Movie 14: The Lost Ship in the Sky -- One night, the Tokyo National Institute of Microorganisms is attacked by a mysterious organization calling themselves the "Red Siamese Cats." The group causes the explosion of a high-security lab storing a virus—said to have a mortality rate of 80% with no known cure. This act of terror dominates the headlines, overshadowing the unveiling of the world's biggest airship developed under Jirokichi Suzuki. Peculiarly, the unveiling has a note attached for Kaito "Kaitou Kid" Kuroba, challenging him to steal the jewel on display—the illustrious Lady Sky. -- -- Conan Edogawa is permitted to board the airship along with Kogorou Mouri, Ran Mouri, Sonoko Suzuki, Professor Agasa, and the Detective Boys. However, their fun comes to a halt when an unknown caller contacts Jirokichi and declares that they have released a certain virus in the smoking room. Soon after, symptoms begin to appear among the passengers and chaos ensues. Seizing the opportunity, the Red Siamese Cats suddenly appear and hijack the airship! -- -- To stop the assailants, Conan and Kaitou Kid, along with their allies, must work together to decipher the clues and discover the Red Siamese Cats' real objective before time runs out. -- -- Movie - Apr 17, 2010 -- 44,019 8.14
Diamond no Ace: Second Season -- -- Madhouse, Production I.G -- 51 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Sports School Shounen -- Diamond no Ace: Second Season Diamond no Ace: Second Season -- After the National Tournament, the Seidou High baseball team moves forward with uncertainty as the Fall season quickly approaches. In an attempt to build a stronger team centered around their new captain, fresh faces join the starting roster for the very first time. Previous losses weigh heavily on the minds of the veteran players as they continue their rigorous training, preparing for what will inevitably be their toughest season yet. -- -- Rivals both new and old stand in their path as Seidou once again climbs their way toward the top, one game at a time. Needed now more than ever before, Furuya and Eijun must be determined to pitch with all their skill and strength in order to lead their team to victory. And this time, one of these young pitchers may finally claim that coveted title: "The Ace of Seidou." -- -- 105,319 8.31
Digimon Adventure: -- -- Toei Animation -- 66 eps -- Other -- Action Adventure Comedy Fantasy Kids -- Digimon Adventure: Digimon Adventure: -- In the year 2020, technology is everywhere. Every digital device around the world is connected by a singular network where data travels. Unbeknownst to humans, this network has become home to life forms known as "Digimon." -- -- Fifth-grader Taichi Yagami is preparing for summer camp when strange occurrences begin in Tokyo; certain electronic systems have started going haywire. When he discovers that his sister and mother are trapped on an unstoppable train, he rushes to the nearby station. Suddenly, Taichi is transported to another world where he meets a strange creature by the name of Agumon, who somehow already knows his name. Taichi also receives a strange device called a "Digivice," which allows him to communicate with the undigitized world. -- -- Taichi discovers he is in the "Network," and virus-like Digimon are attacking the areas that maintain Tokyo’s electronic systems. It is up to Taichi and his new partner Agumon to stop these cyberattacks before the whole world is threatened by the actions of mischievous Digimon. -- -- 43,352 6.70
Digimon X-Evolution -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Adventure Fantasy Sci-Fi -- Digimon X-Evolution Digimon X-Evolution -- A virtual world was created by the present-day network called the "Digital World." The "Digital Monster," which is a digital life object, was born, and the host computer Yggdrasil managed the different Digital World areas. However, it developed the X Program of fear to eliminate all Digimon in the old world and develop a new Digital World for only certain Digimon... Now, the greatest crisis ever approaches the Digital World. -- -- The X-Digimon, a new type of Digital Monster, is hunted by the Royal Knights who protect the Digital Worlds. Their master, the network overseer Yggdrasil, seeks to set in motion Project Ark to renew the Digital Worlds and create new Digimon, but at the cost of all other digital life. This new X-Digimon will seek out the answers to its own existence as it tries to protect the life of all Digimon, and in the process it will change the Digital Worlds forever. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Movie - Jan 3, 2005 -- 18,291 7.10
D.N.Angel -- -- Xebec -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Magic Romance Fantasy School Shoujo -- D.N.Angel D.N.Angel -- Daisuke Niwa is a clumsy, block-headed, and wimpy middle school student who has few redeeming qualities. On his 14th birthday, he finally decides to confess his love to his longtime crush Risa Harada, but is rejected. -- -- In an unexpected turn of events, however, Daisuke finds himself transforming into Dark Mousy, the infamous phantom thief, whenever his mind is set on Risa. Though Daisuke is unaware of this strange heritage, his mother is certainly not: since before the boy was born, his mother had been planning for him to steal valuable works of art and let the name of the elusive art thief be known. -- -- With doubt and confusion constantly clouding his mind, Daisuke finds himself struggling in his relationships with classmates and family. And it is not long before Daisuke realizes that he is not the only one with a fated family legacy—his greatest adversary could be the one classmate he is most unwilling to fight. -- -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Discotek Media -- TV - Apr 3, 2003 -- 169,463 7.19
D.N.Angel -- -- Xebec -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Magic Romance Fantasy School Shoujo -- D.N.Angel D.N.Angel -- Daisuke Niwa is a clumsy, block-headed, and wimpy middle school student who has few redeeming qualities. On his 14th birthday, he finally decides to confess his love to his longtime crush Risa Harada, but is rejected. -- -- In an unexpected turn of events, however, Daisuke finds himself transforming into Dark Mousy, the infamous phantom thief, whenever his mind is set on Risa. Though Daisuke is unaware of this strange heritage, his mother is certainly not: since before the boy was born, his mother had been planning for him to steal valuable works of art and let the name of the elusive art thief be known. -- -- With doubt and confusion constantly clouding his mind, Daisuke finds himself struggling in his relationships with classmates and family. And it is not long before Daisuke realizes that he is not the only one with a fated family legacy—his greatest adversary could be the one classmate he is most unwilling to fight. -- -- TV - Apr 3, 2003 -- 169,463 7.19
Dogs: Bullets & Carnage -- -- David Production -- 4 eps -- Manga -- Action Seinen -- Dogs: Bullets & Carnage Dogs: Bullets & Carnage -- It is sometime in the future, where a certain European city extends far underground, even secret, dark levels that have the key to the past. Ex-assassin Mihai has returned and is living with Kiri, who now runs a restaurant. Sword-wielding Naoto, Haine (white hair), a mysterious product of genetic engineering and his sometime partner Badou (eyepatch). -- -- (Source: ANN) -- OVA - May 19, 2009 -- 56,156 7.34
Doraemon (2005) -- -- Shin-Ei Animation -- ? eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Comedy Kids Shounen -- Doraemon (2005) Doraemon (2005) -- Doraemon (2005) is the most recent anime series based on Fujiko Fujio's manga of the same name. -- -- It is the 2005 version of 1979 series, with certain changes in the animation and other things. -- -- Doraemon is a cat-like robot who appears in the present to steer Nobita/Noby, who is a dumb, naive and clumsy boy on the right path in order to secure his future. Nobita's love interest is Shizuka Minamoto/Sue, his frenemies are Takeshi Goda/Big G and Suneo/Sneech. -- -- (Source: Wikipedia) -- 12,791 7.54
Doraemon -- -- - -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Comedy Fantasy Kids Shounen -- Doraemon Doraemon -- Nobita Nobi is so hapless that his 22nd century decendants are still impoverished as a result of his 20th century bumbling. In a bid to raise their social status, their servant, a robotic cat named Doraemon, decides to travel back in time and guide Nobita on the proper path to fortune. Unfortunately Doraemon, a dysfunctional robot that the familly acquired by accident (but chose to keep nonetheless), isn't much better off than Nobita. The robot leads Nobita on many adventures, and while Nobita's life certainly is more exciting with the robot cat from the future, it is questionable if it is in fact better in the way that Doraemon planned. -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- -- Note: The series has been poorly preserved, and never released on any format, nor has it ever been re-aired. -- -- Nearly all the footage within the series (except for the opening and closing credits) was destroyed in an accidental fire sometime after the series was cancelled. -- -- Surviving reels from the show are occasionally shown at Doraemon fan conventions in Japan. In addition, the audio of several episodes still survives. Still images from episodes 1 and 24 exists. -- -- (Source: Wikipedia) -- 16,840 7.37
Dorei-ku The Animation -- -- TNK, Zero-G -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Drama Psychological -- Dorei-ku The Animation Dorei-ku The Animation -- Eager to know why her best friend’s boyfriend dumped her for a man, the headstrong Eiya Arakawa suggests a meeting with them. Gathered together at a café, Yuuga Oota agrees to answer Eiya’s questions only if she can correctly ascertain the relationship of a couple sitting across from them, which she does on her first attempt. Amazed by her astounding intellect and intuition, he invites her to a private meeting where he introduces her to the concept of Slave Control Method, or SCM, a retainer-like device that has the ability to turn people into slaves. -- -- When two SCM users enter a duel, the devices exert a powerful influence on their brains. Once the duel is over, the SCM amplifies the loser’s sense of obligation and forces them to bend to the will of the winner. Wanting desperately to test his own abilities, Yuuga asks Eiya to act as his insurance in the event that he himself becomes a slave. Granted access to 10 million yen, Eiya’s job is to convince Yuuga’s would-be master to free him from his servitude. Though hesitant at first, Yuuga’s words resonate with her personal yearning for something more from her life, and she agrees to his request. However, when a mysterious organization begins rapidly accruing slaves, Eiya becomes entangled in a game far more dangerous than she ever could have imagined. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 51,942 5.98
Dragon Ball Z Movie 06: Gekitotsu!! 100-oku Power no Senshi-tachi -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Fantasy Shounen -- Dragon Ball Z Movie 06: Gekitotsu!! 100-oku Power no Senshi-tachi Dragon Ball Z Movie 06: Gekitotsu!! 100-oku Power no Senshi-tachi -- A mysterious entity known as the "Big Gete Star" clings onto planet New Namek to absorb its energy, putting all Namekians in grave danger. Dende, Earth's new guardian, learns about the prevailing situation in his homeland and quickly requests Gokuu Son and his friends for help. -- -- Upon arrival in New Namek, they discover that the Namekians are held captive by powerful robots, whose leader turns out to be Cooler. He explains that the advanced technology of the Big Gete Star saved him from what otherwise would have been certain death. Alongside his mechanical army, Cooler proceeds to attack Gokuu and his friends to get rid of them once and for all. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- Movie - Mar 7, 1992 -- 100,803 6.82
Dragon Ball Z Movie 06: Gekitotsu!! 100-oku Power no Senshi-tachi -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Fantasy Shounen -- Dragon Ball Z Movie 06: Gekitotsu!! 100-oku Power no Senshi-tachi Dragon Ball Z Movie 06: Gekitotsu!! 100-oku Power no Senshi-tachi -- A mysterious entity known as the "Big Gete Star" clings onto planet New Namek to absorb its energy, putting all Namekians in grave danger. Dende, Earth's new guardian, learns about the prevailing situation in his homeland and quickly requests Gokuu Son and his friends for help. -- -- Upon arrival in New Namek, they discover that the Namekians are held captive by powerful robots, whose leader turns out to be Cooler. He explains that the advanced technology of the Big Gete Star saved him from what otherwise would have been certain death. Alongside his mechanical army, Cooler proceeds to attack Gokuu and his friends to get rid of them once and for all. -- -- Movie - Mar 7, 1992 -- 100,803 6.82
Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka -- -- J.C.Staff -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Comedy Romance Fantasy -- Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka -- Life in the bustling city of Orario is never dull, especially for Bell Cranel, a naïve young man who hopes to become the greatest adventurer in the land. After a chance encounter with the lonely goddess, Hestia, his dreams become a little closer to reality. With her support, Bell embarks on a fantastic quest as he ventures deep within the city's monster-filled catacombs, known only as the "Dungeon." Death lurks around every corner in the cavernous depths of this terrifying labyrinth, and a mysterious power moves amidst the shadows. -- -- Even on the surface, survival is a hard-earned privilege. Indeed, nothing is ever certain in a world where gods and humans live and work together, especially when they often struggle to get along. One thing is for sure, though: a myriad of blunders, triumphs and friendships awaits the dauntlessly optimistic protagonist of this herculean tale. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 1,138,573 7.61
Elfen Lied: Tooriame nite Arui wa, Shoujo wa Ikani Shite Sono Shinjou ni Itatta ka? - Regenschauer -- -- Arms -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Horror Psychological Supernatural Drama Ecchi Seinen -- Elfen Lied: Tooriame nite Arui wa, Shoujo wa Ikani Shite Sono Shinjou ni Itatta ka? - Regenschauer Elfen Lied: Tooriame nite Arui wa, Shoujo wa Ikani Shite Sono Shinjou ni Itatta ka? - Regenschauer -- Having been accepted into the Kaede Inn, Nana struggles to find some way to contribute, though she inadvertently brings more trouble than assistance. However, Nana's worries are directed more towards fellow resident Nyu, whom she had only known as Lucy, the violent Diclonius. Fearful that Nyu will unleash the same horrific savagery—violence that scars Nana to this day—upon those close to her, Nana faces a dilemma: attempt to live peacefully alongside Lucy with all the uncertainty that that entails or dispose of the source of her worries, shattering the relationships she has formed at the inn. As Nana struggles to come to a decision, Nyu recalls a painful memory of one of her dearest friends and one of her greatest rivals. -- -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films -- Special - Apr 21, 2005 -- 168,792 7.19
Elfen Lied: Tooriame nite Arui wa, Shoujo wa Ikani Shite Sono Shinjou ni Itatta ka? - Regenschauer -- -- Arms -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Horror Psychological Supernatural Drama Ecchi Seinen -- Elfen Lied: Tooriame nite Arui wa, Shoujo wa Ikani Shite Sono Shinjou ni Itatta ka? - Regenschauer Elfen Lied: Tooriame nite Arui wa, Shoujo wa Ikani Shite Sono Shinjou ni Itatta ka? - Regenschauer -- Having been accepted into the Kaede Inn, Nana struggles to find some way to contribute, though she inadvertently brings more trouble than assistance. However, Nana's worries are directed more towards fellow resident Nyu, whom she had only known as Lucy, the violent Diclonius. Fearful that Nyu will unleash the same horrific savagery—violence that scars Nana to this day—upon those close to her, Nana faces a dilemma: attempt to live peacefully alongside Lucy with all the uncertainty that that entails or dispose of the source of her worries, shattering the relationships she has formed at the inn. As Nana struggles to come to a decision, Nyu recalls a painful memory of one of her dearest friends and one of her greatest rivals. -- -- Special - Apr 21, 2005 -- 168,792 7.19
Eureka Seven AO -- -- Bones -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Drama Mecha Sci-Fi -- Eureka Seven AO Eureka Seven AO -- The story is set on Okinawa's isolated island of Iwado, which has seen a growing movement advocating a return to an autonomous government. Ao Fukai, a 12-year-old boy with a missing father, lives on the island with an old doctor named Toshio and is about to enter middle school. Ao's mother was taken away a decade ago by unknown individuals. Naru Arata, Ao's 12-year-old childhood friend and the story's heroine, lives with her father, older sister, and grandmother. She has a "Yuta" power awakened within her due to an incident when she was young. A mysterious entity called "Secret" suddenly appears and launches an attack on the Scub Coral lifeform on the island. Ao launches a certain military FP called "Nirvash" aboard a Japanese military transport in his fervent desire to protect the island. -- -- (Source: FUNimation) -- 85,142 6.69
Eureka Seven AO -- -- Bones -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Drama Mecha Sci-Fi -- Eureka Seven AO Eureka Seven AO -- The story is set on Okinawa's isolated island of Iwado, which has seen a growing movement advocating a return to an autonomous government. Ao Fukai, a 12-year-old boy with a missing father, lives on the island with an old doctor named Toshio and is about to enter middle school. Ao's mother was taken away a decade ago by unknown individuals. Naru Arata, Ao's 12-year-old childhood friend and the story's heroine, lives with her father, older sister, and grandmother. She has a "Yuta" power awakened within her due to an incident when she was young. A mysterious entity called "Secret" suddenly appears and launches an attack on the Scub Coral lifeform on the island. Ao launches a certain military FP called "Nirvash" aboard a Japanese military transport in his fervent desire to protect the island. -- -- (Source: FUNimation) -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 85,142 6.69
Fate/Grand Order: Shuukyoku Tokuiten - Kani Jikan Shinden Solomon -- -- - -- ? eps -- Game -- Action Supernatural Magic Fantasy -- Fate/Grand Order: Shuukyoku Tokuiten - Kani Jikan Shinden Solomon Fate/Grand Order: Shuukyoku Tokuiten - Kani Jikan Shinden Solomon -- (No synopsis yet.) -- - - ??? ??, ???? -- 22,965 N/A -- -- Aa! Megami-sama!: Sorezore no Tsubasa Specials -- -- - -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Magic Romance Seinen Supernatural -- Aa! Megami-sama!: Sorezore no Tsubasa Specials Aa! Megami-sama!: Sorezore no Tsubasa Specials -- When Keiichi found his grandpa's diary and saw a treasure map inside, Skuld and Urd started to feel a great urge to search it. With the company of his friends, Keiichi arrives to Honda Inn, the place indicated on the map. Once the party is inside, they meet Honda Chieko, who seems to share a certain promise with Keiichi. Apart from all that confusion, it's time for Keiichi to have enough courage to say the words "I love you" to Belldandy. -- Special - Feb 23, 2007 -- 22,925 7.53
Final Approach -- -- Zexcs -- 13 eps -- Visual novel -- Comedy Drama Romance Slice of Life -- Final Approach Final Approach -- Ever since their parents died a few years ago, Ryo and his sister Akane have been living alone together. Despite their difficult situation, they are still living reasonably happy and normal lives. However, everything is about to be flipped upside-down due to a secret government project. Due to increasingly low birth rates in Japan, the Japanese government is testing a program in which two young people are forced to marry. Ryo wants no part of it, but he is given little choice in the matter; his new fiancée, Shizuka, comes to his home late one night with several dozen government issued bodyguards, who are there to ensure the success of the new couple. Unlike Ryo, Shizuka couldn’t be more willing to go along with this new program, and eagerly goes about her wifely duties, despite his objections. With meddling friends, pushy bodyguards, and an overenthusiastic new fiancée, Ryo’s life has taken a turn in a direction the young man certainly didn’t expect. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- TV - Oct 3, 2004 -- 32,102 6.55
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within -- -- Square Enix -- 1 ep -- Game -- Sci-Fi -- Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within -- The year is 2065, and the planet of Earth is far removed from the place that it was in the past. Deadly alien creatures known as Phantoms have appeared all over the planet, and mere contact with these entities is lethal, whether it be an instant death or a prolonged decline. In order to try and salvage what little of the human race is left, large force-field barriers have been constructed around certain cities to repel the Phantoms. -- -- Seeking a more permanent solution to this invasion are scientists Aki Ross and her mentor, Dr. Sid, whose investigations have revealed that there exists a form of spiritual, Gaia energy that can eradicate the Phantom's presence from this world. Aki and Sid aren't alone in their quest through Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within; the human council and the military squad "Deep Eyes" are ready to help. Not everyone is convinced of this plan though. -- -- Aki, Sid, Grey, and their allies have to band together against forces both alien and human if they are to have any chance at restoring peace to Earth. An enemy whose mere touch is fatal, the Phantoms appear the more dangerous enemy, but as they will come to find out, their human nemeses are also not to be trifled with. -- Movie - Jul 2, 2001 -- 65,855 6.35
Free! Movie 1: Timeless Medley - Kizuna -- -- Kyoto Animation -- 1 ep -- Original -- Drama School Slice of Life Sports -- Free! Movie 1: Timeless Medley - Kizuna Free! Movie 1: Timeless Medley - Kizuna -- Haruka Nanase has reconciled with his rival Rin Matsuoka, and they have re-established their friendship, determined to race each other again. Now Haruka, along with Makoto Tachibana, Rei Ryuugazaki, and Nagisa Hazuki, prepare for their upcoming tournaments, determined to compete wholeheartedly and achieve victory as a team. At Samezuka Academy, Rin resolves to do the same. -- -- Further, the seniors near graduation, and Rin has decided his future plans. However, Haruka and Makoto remain uncertain, and they begin to feel the pressure of having to choose their own paths. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- Movie - Apr 22, 2017 -- 31,787 7.52
Fumikiri Jikan -- -- EKACHI EPILKA -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Slice of Life -- Fumikiri Jikan Fumikiri Jikan -- Every day, all kinds of different people stop at railroad crossings on their way to work or school, resulting in all sorts of different conversations. Friends, enemies, acquaintances, and complete strangers—there's always a new encounter to be had. -- -- Fumikiri Jikan documents the discussions that take place at these locations. Whether these are funny or depressing, expected or completely unexpected, they certainly have the potential to be quite interesting. -- -- 33,594 6.39
Gakkou no Kaidan -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 19 eps -- Original -- Mystery Horror Supernatural -- Gakkou no Kaidan Gakkou no Kaidan -- Years ago, all of the ghosts in a haunted schoolhouse were banished by a certain student. Now, they're back—and they want revenge... -- -- Satsuki and Keiichirou Miyanoshita are two siblings recovering from the tragic loss of their mother. After moving to their mother's hometown, they learn that the local school they have transferred to is an old building—one said to be haunted. Despite initially brushing it off as a silly rumor, the two soon discover that ghosts are indeed real and that they're after them! Gakkou no Kaidan is the creepy tale of the lives of these siblings and their newfound friends as they try to survive the school's ghosts—with a little help from their pet cat along the way. -- -- 125,502 7.69
Gakkou no Kaidan -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 19 eps -- Original -- Mystery Horror Supernatural -- Gakkou no Kaidan Gakkou no Kaidan -- Years ago, all of the ghosts in a haunted schoolhouse were banished by a certain student. Now, they're back—and they want revenge... -- -- Satsuki and Keiichirou Miyanoshita are two siblings recovering from the tragic loss of their mother. After moving to their mother's hometown, they learn that the local school they have transferred to is an old building—one said to be haunted. Despite initially brushing it off as a silly rumor, the two soon discover that ghosts are indeed real and that they're after them! Gakkou no Kaidan is the creepy tale of the lives of these siblings and their newfound friends as they try to survive the school's ghosts—with a little help from their pet cat along the way. -- -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Discotek Media -- 125,502 7.69
Genshiken OVA -- -- Ajia-Do -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Parody Slice of Life Comedy -- Genshiken OVA Genshiken OVA -- It's the start of a new year for the Genshiken crew, and that means recruiting new members. Always a dreaded task, The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture manages to get Chika Ogiue pushed onto them from the Manga Club. With her introduction of "I'm Ogiue and I hate otaku," this year certainly will be anything but boring. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters -- OVA - Dec 22, 2006 -- 45,756 7.65
Gensoumaden Saiyuuki Movie: Requiem - Erabarezaru Mono e no Chinkonka -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Adventure Shounen Supernatural -- Gensoumaden Saiyuuki Movie: Requiem - Erabarezaru Mono e no Chinkonka Gensoumaden Saiyuuki Movie: Requiem - Erabarezaru Mono e no Chinkonka -- The gang is traveling along when they find a girl in need. Of course, they all can't resist going after her. This girl isn't all that she seems... her motive or her "humanity".... and soon the whole gang has Sanzo's past on their hands and one certain young boy who can keep a grudge for decades... -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Movie - Aug 18, 2001 -- 8,647 7.35
Ginga Tetsudou 999 -- -- Toei Animation -- 113 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Space Drama -- Ginga Tetsudou 999 Ginga Tetsudou 999 -- In the distant future, humanity has found a way to live forever by purchasing mechanical bodies, but this way to immortality is extraordinarily expensive. An impoverished boy, Tetsurou Hoshino, desires to purchase a pass on the Galaxy Express 999—a train that travels throughout the universe—because it is said that at the end of the line, those aboard can obtain a mechanical body for free. When Tetsurou's mother is gunned down by the villainous machine-man hybrid Count Mecha, however, all seems lost. -- -- Tetsurou is then saved from certain death by the mysterious Maetel, a tall woman with blonde hair and a striking resemblance to his mother. She gives him a pass to the Galaxy Express under one condition: that they travel together. Thus, Tetsurou begins his journey across the universe to many unique planets and thrilling adventures, in hopes of being able to attain that which he most desires. -- -- 26,416 7.80
Ginga Tetsudou 999 -- -- Toei Animation -- 113 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Space Drama -- Ginga Tetsudou 999 Ginga Tetsudou 999 -- In the distant future, humanity has found a way to live forever by purchasing mechanical bodies, but this way to immortality is extraordinarily expensive. An impoverished boy, Tetsurou Hoshino, desires to purchase a pass on the Galaxy Express 999—a train that travels throughout the universe—because it is said that at the end of the line, those aboard can obtain a mechanical body for free. When Tetsurou's mother is gunned down by the villainous machine-man hybrid Count Mecha, however, all seems lost. -- -- Tetsurou is then saved from certain death by the mysterious Maetel, a tall woman with blonde hair and a striking resemblance to his mother. She gives him a pass to the Galaxy Express under one condition: that they travel together. Thus, Tetsurou begins his journey across the universe to many unique planets and thrilling adventures, in hopes of being able to attain that which he most desires. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- 26,416 7.80
Given Movie -- -- Lerche -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Drama Music Romance Shounen Ai Slice of Life -- Given Movie Given Movie -- The band "given"—comprised of Ritsuka Uenoyama, Mafuyu Satou, Haruki Nakayama, and Akihiko Kaji—has advanced to the final screening of the Countdown-fes Amateur Contest, in which they will be judged on their live act. Although enthusiastic, they worry about having only one original song to perform. -- -- Mafuyu embraces the idea of learning more about music in order to create new, emotionally resonant songs. In this regard, he unexpectedly receives help from Ugetsu Murata, Akihiko's on-again, off-again lover. Ugetsu has unsuccessfully tried to let go of Akihiko, who himself is torn between lingering feelings for his past and an uncertain resolve for the future. -- -- As the competition draws near, Haruki uncharacteristically begins to doubt his place in the band and the trust he shares with Akihiko. It is a given that not all attachments last forever, but it remains to be seen what can be salvaged from the ruins of heartbreak—or if only regrets will endure. -- -- Movie - Aug 22, 2020 -- 98,087 8.16
Gundam Evolve -- -- Sunrise -- 15 eps -- Original -- Action Military Space Mecha -- Gundam Evolve Gundam Evolve -- A series of short films packaged with certain model kits and aired at conventions, the Gundam Evolve series chronicles a number of side-stories, alternative scenes, and even bonus omake from all around the Gundam canon. Featuring a mix of animation media—from traditional cels to 3-D CG rendering to even cel-shaded 2-D animation—these often 3-5 minute shorts cover such events as Domon Kasshu's training (and a bit of a romantic tift with Rain Mikamura) from G Gundam, Amuro Ray battling Quess Paraya from Char's Counterattack, Kamille Bidan training in the Gundam Mk.II from Zeta Gundam, and Canard Pars dueling Prayer Reverie from the Gundam SEED X Astray manga. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Nozomi Entertainment -- OVA - ??? ??, 2001 -- 9,319 6.61
.hack//Intermezzo -- -- Bee Train -- 1 ep -- Original -- Adventure Fantasy Game Magic Mystery Sci-Fi -- .hack//Intermezzo .hack//Intermezzo -- A virtual multiplayer online role-playing game exists, known as "The World." In "The World," there is an event held in the Dungeon of Nankoflank that Mimiru, a character in the game, undertakes with Bear, another character of the game. Mimiru confesses to Bear that she's not doing the event for the treasures or experiences, but for the memories and experiences of when she had first started playing. The two later meet a certain character named Mimika and together, the three proceed through quests and events as Mimiru learns the meaning of the game. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment -- Special - Mar 28, 2003 -- 21,341 6.56
.hack//Intermezzo -- -- Bee Train -- 1 ep -- Original -- Adventure Fantasy Game Magic Mystery Sci-Fi -- .hack//Intermezzo .hack//Intermezzo -- A virtual multiplayer online role-playing game exists, known as "The World." In "The World," there is an event held in the Dungeon of Nankoflank that Mimiru, a character in the game, undertakes with Bear, another character of the game. Mimiru confesses to Bear that she's not doing the event for the treasures or experiences, but for the memories and experiences of when she had first started playing. The two later meet a certain character named Mimika and together, the three proceed through quests and events as Mimiru learns the meaning of the game. -- -- Special - Mar 28, 2003 -- 21,341 6.56
Hataraku Saibou Black (TV) -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Action Drama Seinen -- Hataraku Saibou Black (TV) Hataraku Saibou Black (TV) -- Due to poor lifestyle choices, a certain human's body is in constant turmoil. With germs, bacteria, and foreign substances abound, the jobs of various cells become increasingly difficult and dangerous. As some of the unfortunate ones who matured in this chaotic environment, Sekkekkyuu AA2153 and Hakkekkyuu U-1196 strive to fulfill their duties—even if it means seeing many of their fellow cells lose their lives in duty. -- -- Set in an environment vastly different from its parent story, Hataraku Saibou Black portrays the cells' struggles as they try to maintain the body's health. However, the human's condition continues to deteriorate, and whether or not these efforts will amount to something concrete depends on the cells! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 147,097 7.56
Hello!! Kiniro Mosaic -- -- Studio Gokumi -- 12 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Slice of Life Comedy School Seinen -- Hello!! Kiniro Mosaic Hello!! Kiniro Mosaic -- Although learning different languages continues to be an interest for Shinobu and her friends, the new school year brings unexpected difficulties. Not only is there always something new and different to distract them from their studies, but Alice and Yoko also are having trouble adjusting to being in a different class from Shinobu and Aya. -- -- Meanwhile, Karen isn't getting along at all with her new homeroom teacher, and it doesn't help that the teacher is having trouble figuring out how to make herself seem friendlier to her students as well. Craziness may ensue, but sometimes, all it takes is the right mutual experience to bring everyone together. -- -- While some of those experiences may not be as well-thought-out as others (like when Alice and Aya act like juvenile delinquents to seem more grown up), the gang's new adventures are certain to warm everyone's heart as the fun and friendships keep growing in HELLO!! KINMOZA! -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 67,078 7.52
High School Fleet OVA -- -- Production IMS -- 2 eps -- Original -- Action Military School -- High School Fleet OVA High School Fleet OVA -- The mutinous Musashi has been defeated, and the girls from Yokosuka Girls' Marine High School are safely back home. However, the Harekaze sustained critical damage during its final encounter with the Musashi and may not be able to sail again. Moreover, rumors spread that the Harekaze-class will be dissolved due to it lacking a ship. -- -- Other classes' attempts to scout members from the Harekaze's crew only make the situation even more uncertain. The answer to this dire problem may be found in the sealed orders that the secretary of the Harekaze, Kouko Nosa, is to deliver to its crewmembers. But time is running short... -- -- OVA - Mar 31, 2017 -- 16,327 7.21
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou -- -- Passione -- 24 eps -- Visual novel -- Dementia Horror Mystery Psychological Supernatural Thriller -- Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou -- Rika Furude and her group of friends live in the small mountain village of Hinamizawa; in June 1983, they welcome transfer student Keiichi Maebara into their ranks, making him the only boy in their group. After school, they have fun playing games and spending each day living their lives to the fullest. Despite this seemingly normal routine, Keiichi begins noticing strange behavior from his friends, who seem to be hiding the town's dark secrets from him. -- -- Elsewhere, a certain person watches these increasingly unsettling events unfold and remembers all the times that this, and other similar stories, have played out. Using that knowledge, this person decides to fix these broken worlds. However, when certain variables change, the individual is faced with a horrifying realization: they have no idea what to expect or how to stop the impending tragedy. -- -- 176,218 7.17
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou -- -- Passione -- 24 eps -- Visual novel -- Dementia Horror Mystery Psychological Supernatural Thriller -- Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou -- Rika Furude and her group of friends live in the small mountain village of Hinamizawa; in June 1983, they welcome transfer student Keiichi Maebara into their ranks, making him the only boy in their group. After school, they have fun playing games and spending each day living their lives to the fullest. Despite this seemingly normal routine, Keiichi begins noticing strange behavior from his friends, who seem to be hiding the town's dark secrets from him. -- -- Elsewhere, a certain person watches these increasingly unsettling events unfold and remembers all the times that this, and other similar stories, have played out. Using that knowledge, this person decides to fix these broken worlds. However, when certain variables change, the individual is faced with a horrifying realization: they have no idea what to expect or how to stop the impending tragedy. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 176,218 7.17
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu -- -- - -- ? eps -- Visual novel -- Mystery Dementia Horror Psychological Supernatural Thriller -- Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu -- Sequel to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou. -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Jul ??, 2021 -- 22,024 N/A -- -- Mizu no Kotoba -- -- Studio Rikka -- 1 ep -- Original -- Drama Psychological Sci-Fi -- Mizu no Kotoba Mizu no Kotoba -- Several people are spending their evening in a cafe. Two gossiping girls, two debating men, a bookworm and a boy, who just broke up with his girlfriend. The cafe's waitress starts a chat with him, persuading him to take a look at certain easel, while other customers begin to notice unusual things. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Special - Oct 26, 2002 -- 21,905 6.80
Hisone to Maso-tan -- -- Bones -- 12 eps -- Original -- Comedy Drama Fantasy Military -- Hisone to Maso-tan Hisone to Maso-tan -- Straightforward and innocent Hisone Amakasu is a Self-Defense Force rookie stationed at the Air Self-Defense Force's Gifu Base. She was struggling with the fact that she sometimes hurts people unintentionally by her innocent words and decided to join the Air Self-Defense Force, hoping to maintain a certain distance from people. This decision led her to a fateful encounter which profoundly changed her life. It was the "OTF" dragon hidden in the base and it chose Hisone as his pilot. When it soared into the sky with Hisone, her fate as a dragon pilot was decided. It is said that dragons have a key to the future of the world... -- -- (Source: ANN) -- 66,634 7.36
Infini-T Force -- -- Tatsunoko Production -- 12 eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Super Power -- Infini-T Force Infini-T Force -- Emi is a seventeen-year-old girl living in Shibuya. Her father is always away with work and she's grown listless. Suddenly, a twist of fate involving a certain magical item changes everything. A mysterious pencil, of all things, is linked to the appearance of heroes from another world! Could this be the start to the excitement she's so desperately craving, or is there something more? -- -- (Source: VIZ Media) -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- 7,690 6.48
Isekai Quartet -- -- Studio PuYUKAI -- 12 eps -- Original -- Comedy Fantasy Parody -- Isekai Quartet Isekai Quartet -- It is a normal day; everyone from deranged military girl Tanya Degurechaff and 16-year-old isekai protagonist Satou Kazuma to expansionist overlord Ainz Ooal Gown and demon sisters Rem and Ram go on with their daily lives. Suddenly, a conspicuous red button begging to be pressed appears before them. Overcome by curiosity, the otherworldly characters push the button, sending them to an unfamiliar world. -- -- With no way of escaping, the characters must lead a normal school life and make acquaintances with the others. One thing is certain: the classroom full of fan-favorite eccentric personalities never gets boring! -- -- 291,946 7.44
Island -- -- feel. -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Drama Sci-Fi -- Island Island -- On a remote island far from the mainland named Urashima, a man washes ashore, with no recollection of his name or homeland. What he does recall, however, is that he is a time traveler with a mission: to save a certain girl from harm. As nightfall arrives, he meets Rinne Ohara, a girl who sings a tune that reminds him of a specific name—Setsuna—and decides to use it as his own. -- -- Knowing another "Setsuna" herself, Rinne takes him to her household as a servant, hoping that he is the same one she remembers. On the other hand, Setsuna continues to learn more about Urashima, desiring to identify his lost past. He comes to know about the island's folklore, its three great families, and the endemic disease that prevents anyone afflicted from stepping out into the daylight. -- -- As the mysteries of his missing memories and Urashima itself unfold, Setsuna must remember his purpose and fulfill his mission as soon as possible. But, as he witnesses the myriad of troubles plaguing the island, Setsuna begins to question—is his temporal displacement merely an effort to change a single girl's fate? -- -- 106,760 6.33
Island -- -- feel. -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Drama Sci-Fi -- Island Island -- On a remote island far from the mainland named Urashima, a man washes ashore, with no recollection of his name or homeland. What he does recall, however, is that he is a time traveler with a mission: to save a certain girl from harm. As nightfall arrives, he meets Rinne Ohara, a girl who sings a tune that reminds him of a specific name—Setsuna—and decides to use it as his own. -- -- Knowing another "Setsuna" herself, Rinne takes him to her household as a servant, hoping that he is the same one she remembers. On the other hand, Setsuna continues to learn more about Urashima, desiring to identify his lost past. He comes to know about the island's folklore, its three great families, and the endemic disease that prevents anyone afflicted from stepping out into the daylight. -- -- As the mysteries of his missing memories and Urashima itself unfold, Setsuna must remember his purpose and fulfill his mission as soon as possible. But, as he witnesses the myriad of troubles plaguing the island, Setsuna begins to question—is his temporal displacement merely an effort to change a single girl's fate? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 106,760 6.33
Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu. II -- -- - -- ? eps -- Light novel -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Fantasy -- Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu. II Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu. II -- Second season of Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu. -- TV - ??? ??, 2022 -- 53,031 N/A -- -- Shangri-La -- -- Gonzo -- 24 eps -- Novel -- Action Drama Sci-Fi -- Shangri-La Shangri-La -- In a post-apocalyptic society, much of earthquake-riddled Japan has been left to ruin, resulting in an abundance of greenery. Governments manage much of the world's emissions, resulting in a massive class divide and economic disparity. The Japanese government launches "Project Atlas," a utopian city that will replace Tokyo but can only fit a certain amount of people. This limitation means that some people will have to live outside the city in jungles, as refugees. -- -- However, with any flawed plan comes those who are willing to challenge it. These include Kuniko Houjou, an heir to a renegade town; Mikuni, a mysterious and powerful child kept in a secret temple; Kunihito Kusanagi, a soldier for the high-tech and exclusive monopoly Atlas; Karin Ishida, a genius economics whiz with her hand in markets across the world; and the villainous Ryouko Naruse, leading Atlas in its domination of this future world. -- -- Can this group of rebels, forming a movement known as "Metal-Age," band together to demonstrate that inclusion and teamwork prevail over cruel segregation? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Apr 6, 2009 -- 52,746 7.07
Iwa Kakeru!: Sport Climbing Girls -- -- Blade -- 12 eps -- Web manga -- Comedy Sports School -- Iwa Kakeru!: Sport Climbing Girls Iwa Kakeru!: Sport Climbing Girls -- Video games, especially puzzle games, were always at the center of Konomi Kasahara's life. However, upon entering Hanamiya High School, she decides to break away from this lifestyle. As Konomi wanders the halls in search of a new activity to engage herself in, she stumbles upon a gigantic wall owned by the school's rock climbing team. Fascinated, she attempts to scale the wall, discovering that she can use her puzzle-solving skills to help her reach the top. -- -- Certain that she has found her calling, Konomi immediately joins the club. As she strives to improve her climbing skills, Konomi, alongside the rest of the Hanamiya Climbing Team, will learn what it truly means to be a "sports climber" and work to achieve victory in the upcoming competitions. -- -- 64,490 6.48
Junior high school student Kimichika Haijima moves back to his hometown, Fukui, after causing trouble in the Tokyo Junior High School volleyball club. There, he is reunited with his childhood friend, Yuni Kuroba, who possesses outstanding physical abilities, but is vulnerable under pressure. Haijima, with his overwhelming passion and talent for volleyball, forms an ace combination with Kuroba. -- -- The two enroll at Seiin High School, where they join the volleyball club. Awaiting them are the 163 cm hot-blooded captain Shinichirou Oda, the talented and sharp-tongued vice-captain Misao Aoki and his third-year pair, and second-year students, including Akito Kanno, who is always wearing long sleeves due to his allergy to sunlight. -- -- The newborn team breaks its former shell of weakness and becomes Fukui's rising star. This is a certain team's journey to victory, with a series of fascinating rivals standing in their way. -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- 77,064 6.21
Junior high school student Kimichika Haijima moves back to his hometown, Fukui, after causing trouble in the Tokyo Junior High School volleyball club. There, he is reunited with his childhood friend, Yuni Kuroba, who possesses outstanding physical abilities, but is vulnerable under pressure. Haijima, with his overwhelming passion and talent for volleyball, forms an ace combination with Kuroba. -- -- The two enroll at Seiin High School, where they join the volleyball club. Awaiting them are the 163 cm hot-blooded captain Shinichirou Oda, the talented and sharp-tongued vice-captain Misao Aoki and his third-year pair, and second-year students, including Akito Kanno, who is always wearing long sleeves due to his allergy to sunlight. -- -- The newborn team breaks its former shell of weakness and becomes Fukui's rising star. This is a certain team's journey to victory, with a series of fascinating rivals standing in their way. -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 77,064 6.21
Kaibutsu Oujo -- -- Madhouse -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Supernatural Horror Vampire Shounen -- Kaibutsu Oujo Kaibutsu Oujo -- When Hiro Hiyorimi tries to save a beautiful young woman from certain death, he ends up a dead hero himself! However, since the drop-dead girl is Hime, daughter of the King of the Monsters, his "reward" is to come back as a not-quite-living soldier in her honor guard of horror! That means helping fight off the army of supernatural monstrosities Hime's siblings are unleashing against her in hopes of moving up the ladder of succession. -- -- And if facing off with vampires and zombies isn't bad enough, how can anyone be prepared for the REALLY weird ones, like were-sharks, pandas and killer dumplings? This sure as hell isn't the afterlife Hiro was hoping for, but the really sad part is that Hime is the good girl in all of this... or at least as close to good as you can come when you're on the wrong side of the gates of hell! -- -- (Source: RightStuf) -- 68,782 7.01
Kaibutsu Oujo -- -- Madhouse -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Supernatural Horror Vampire Shounen -- Kaibutsu Oujo Kaibutsu Oujo -- When Hiro Hiyorimi tries to save a beautiful young woman from certain death, he ends up a dead hero himself! However, since the drop-dead girl is Hime, daughter of the King of the Monsters, his "reward" is to come back as a not-quite-living soldier in her honor guard of horror! That means helping fight off the army of supernatural monstrosities Hime's siblings are unleashing against her in hopes of moving up the ladder of succession. -- -- And if facing off with vampires and zombies isn't bad enough, how can anyone be prepared for the REALLY weird ones, like were-sharks, pandas and killer dumplings? This sure as hell isn't the afterlife Hiro was hoping for, but the really sad part is that Hime is the good girl in all of this... or at least as close to good as you can come when you're on the wrong side of the gates of hell! -- -- (Source: RightStuf) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Sentai Filmworks -- 68,782 7.01
Kai Byoui Ramune -- -- Platinum Vision -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Psychological Supernatural Shounen -- Kai Byoui Ramune Kai Byoui Ramune -- As long as hearts exist inside people, there will always be those who suffer. And then something "strange" enters their mind and causes a strange disease to manifest itself in the body. The illness, which is called a "mystery disease" is unknown to most, but certainly exists. There is a doctor and apprentice who fights the disease, which modern medicine cannot cure. -- -- His name is Ramune. He acts freely all the time, is foul-mouthed, and doesn't even look like a doctor! However, once he is confronted with the mysterious disease, he is able to quickly uncover the root cause of his patients' deep-seated distress and cure them. And beyond that... -- -- (Source: Crunchyroll) -- 41,336 7.15
Kakuchou Shoujo-kei Trinary -- -- feel. -- 34 eps -- Original -- Sci-Fi -- Kakuchou Shoujo-kei Trinary Kakuchou Shoujo-kei Trinary -- The story centers on five girls who fight with a special mission in the plane of existence on the other side of the screen. The setting of the story is the metropolitan area of the Japanese capital, after it was beset by a certain abnormality. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- ONA - Apr 12, 2017 -- 22,763 6.03
Kamisama Hajimemashita -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Demons Supernatural Romance Fantasy Shoujo -- Kamisama Hajimemashita Kamisama Hajimemashita -- High schooler Nanami Momozono has quite a few problems of late, beginning with her absentee father being in such extreme debt that they lose everything. Downtrodden and homeless, she runs into a man being harassed by a dog. After helping him, she explains her situation, and to her surprise, he offers her his home in gratitude. But when she discovers that said home is a rundown shrine, she tries to leave; however, she is caught by two shrine spirits and a fox familiar named Tomoe. They mistake her for the man Nanami rescued—the land god of the shrine, Mikage. Realizing that Mikage must have sent her there as a replacement god, Tomoe leaves abruptly, refusing to serve a human. -- -- Rather than going back to being homeless, Nanami immerses herself in her divine duties. But if she must keep things running smoothly, she will need the help of a certain hot-headed fox. In her fumbling attempt to seek out Tomoe, she lands in trouble and ends up sealing a contract with him. Now the two must traverse the path of godhood together as god and familiar; but it will not be easy, for new threats arise in the form of a youkai who wants to devour the girl, a snake that wants to marry her, and Nanami's own unexpected feelings for her new familiar. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 460,758 8.04
Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara -- -- Hoods Entertainment -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Harem Romance School -- Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara -- In visual novels, an imaginary flag is defined as an event that serves as a turning point for the whole story. A player triggering the romance flag for a heroine will proceed to her route, or a death flag will signify that a certain character will die afterwards. -- -- High school student Souta Hatate can see these flags above a person's head, and has the ability to bring them down to stop certain events from happening. Using this power, he has prevented other people's deaths. But, after a past accident with him as a sole survivor, he ended up believing that only misfortune will befall those who are near him, and has refrained from making friends or having relationships ever since. -- -- However, everything starts to change after transferring to a new school. After toppling another death flag, his classmate Nanami Knight Bladefield notices his powers and tries to learn more about him, promising that she will remain at his side no matter what may happen. Thus begins Souta's journey as he meets new friends and acquaintances while uncovering the mysteries of his ability... which might run deeper than what anyone expects. -- -- TV - Apr 7, 2014 -- 159,162 6.43
Katanagatari -- -- White Fox -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Historical Martial Arts Romance -- Katanagatari Katanagatari -- In an Edo-era Japan lush with a variety of sword-fighting styles, Shichika Yasuri practices the most unique one: Kyotouryuu, a technique in which the user's own body is wielded as a blade. The enigmatic seventh head of the Kyotouryuu school, Shichika lives quietly in exile with his sister Nanami until one day—the wildly ambitious strategist Togame barges into their lives. -- -- Togame brazenly requests that Shichika help in her mission to collect twelve unique swords, known as the "Deviant Blades," for the shogunate. Shichika accepts, interested in the girl herself rather than petty politics, and thus sets out on a journey. Standing in their way are the fierce wielders of these legendary weapons as well as other power-hungry entities who seek to thwart Togame's objective. In order to prevail against their enemies, the duo must become an unbreakable team as they forge ahead on a path of uncertainty and peril. -- -- -- Licensor: -- NIS America, Inc. -- 457,873 8.36
Killing Bites -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Ecchi Sci-Fi Seinen -- Killing Bites Killing Bites -- After unknowingly participating in a kidnapping, college student Yuuya Nomoto finds his friends brutally murdered by Hitomi Uzaki, the high school girl they attempted to abduct. Forced to drive her to an undisclosed location, he finds himself being wagered as the prize for a death match between two Therianthropes, superpowered human-animal hybrids created through advanced gene therapy. As one of these hybrids, Hitomi uses the speed and fearlessness she gained from her ratel genes to viciously dispatch her foe and save Yuuya from certain death. -- -- Waking up hours later hoping the whole event was only a nightmare, Yuuya realizes that he has become embroiled in a secret proxy war between four large Japanese business conglomerates, with the winner taking control of the economy. As her sole albeit unwilling investor, his life is now directly linked to Hitomi's ability to participate in underground bloodsport matches known only as Killing Bites. -- -- 138,683 6.62
Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Tou no Kuni - Free Lance -- -- A.C.G.T. -- 1 ep -- Light novel -- Adventure Psychological Fantasy -- Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Tou no Kuni - Free Lance Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Tou no Kuni - Free Lance -- Waking up from a nap, Kino is relieved to see that a certain tower from afar is still proudly standing. Located in the heart of the Tower Country, the immensely tall tower stretches high into the sky, reaching seemingly infinite heights. The tower looks like something out of a dream, but the breathtaking construction is unmistakably real. Intrigued, the traveling partners Kino and Hermes—the talking motorcycle—journey to the tower to get a closer look at the building. -- -- Despite already being unbelievably tall, the tower is still being built by the townspeople to this day. Puzzled by the origins of the tower, Kino and Hermes ask around the town for information, but they fail to obtain any definitive answer. They continue to observe both the tower and the townspeople during their stay, hoping to understand the reasoning behind building a tower that requires so much effort. After all, there is always something to learn... even from the strangest of countries. -- -- Special - Oct 19, 2005 -- 33,066 7.60
Kizumonogatari III: Reiketsu-hen -- -- Shaft -- 1 ep -- Light novel -- Action Mystery Supernatural Vampire -- Kizumonogatari III: Reiketsu-hen Kizumonogatari III: Reiketsu-hen -- After helping revive the legendary vampire Kiss-shot Acerola-orion Heart-under-blade, Koyomi Araragi has become a vampire himself and her servant. Kiss-shot is certain she can turn him back into a human, but only once regaining her full power. -- -- Araragi has hunted down the three vampire hunters that defeated Kiss-shot and retrieved her limbs to return her to full strength. However, now that Araragi has almost accomplished what he’s been fighting for this whole time, he has to consider if this is what he really wants. Once he revives this powerful immortal vampire, there is no telling what she might do, and there would be no way of stopping her. -- -- But there is more to the story that Araragi doesn’t understand. If a newborn vampire like him could defeat the hunters, how did they overpower Kiss-shot? Can he trust her to turn him back to a human? And how is that even possible in the first place? -- -- Araragi is at his limit but he must come to a decision, and it may not be possible to resolve this situation without doing something he’ll regret… -- -- Movie - Jan 6, 2017 -- 329,409 8.81
Koi wa Ameagari no You ni -- -- Wit Studio -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Drama Romance Seinen -- Koi wa Ameagari no You ni Koi wa Ameagari no You ni -- Akira Tachibana, a reserved high school student and former track runner, has not been able to race the same as she used to since she experienced a severe foot injury. And although she is regarded as attractive by her classmates, she is not interested in the boys around school. -- -- While working part-time at the Garden Cafe, Akira begins to develop feelings for the manager—a 45-year-old man named Masami Kondou—despite the large age gap. Kondou shows genuine concern and kindness toward the customers of his restaurant, which, while viewed by others as soft or weak, draws Akira to him. Spending time together at the restaurant, they grow closer, which only strengthens her feelings. Weighed down by these uncertain emotions, Akira finally resolves to confess, but what will be the result? -- -- 207,337 7.53
Koi wa Ameagari no You ni -- -- Wit Studio -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Drama Romance Seinen -- Koi wa Ameagari no You ni Koi wa Ameagari no You ni -- Akira Tachibana, a reserved high school student and former track runner, has not been able to race the same as she used to since she experienced a severe foot injury. And although she is regarded as attractive by her classmates, she is not interested in the boys around school. -- -- While working part-time at the Garden Cafe, Akira begins to develop feelings for the manager—a 45-year-old man named Masami Kondou—despite the large age gap. Kondou shows genuine concern and kindness toward the customers of his restaurant, which, while viewed by others as soft or weak, draws Akira to him. Spending time together at the restaurant, they grow closer, which only strengthens her feelings. Weighed down by these uncertain emotions, Akira finally resolves to confess, but what will be the result? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 207,337 7.53
Kokoroya -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- - -- Kids Psychological Sci-Fi -- Kokoroya Kokoroya -- An educational film about empathy in Japan. In the movie's example, uses a sci-fi twist to show how the hearts of others to the main character in certain situations. -- OVA - ??? ??, 2014 -- 436 N/A -- -- Chikotan -- -- - -- 1 ep -- - -- Music Psychological -- Chikotan Chikotan -- Okamoto Tadanari short film. -- Movie - ??? ??, 1971 -- 426 5.52
Kokuhaku -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Original -- Horror -- Kokuhaku Kokuhaku -- Beside a certain building, a girl appears to meet an important person. She is shy and carefully prepares herself before delivering what she has come to convey. Reaching behind her back, she lets her feelings come forth... But is it a confession of love, or something else entirely? -- -- ONA - Aug 27, 2015 -- 4,318 2.29
K-On! Movie -- -- Kyoto Animation -- 1 ep -- 4-koma manga -- Music Slice of Life Comedy -- K-On! Movie K-On! Movie -- Graduation looms for the founding members of the Light Music Club. With only a few precious weeks of school left, the girls decide to make the most of it and plan a trip abroad. Hawaii, New York, Dubai—many destinations are suggested, but after a little help from the club's precious pet turtle, Ton-chan, London is chosen as the host of their next misadventure! -- -- Yui Hirasawa, Mio Akiyama, Tsumugi Kotobuki, Ritsu Tainaka, and Azusa Nakano will visit famous landmarks, perform live music for Londoners, and eat all sorts of delicious food, all while stumbling clumsily from place to place. But the fun won't last forever, as heartfelt songs and goodbyes will be made as their high school days together come to a close. One thing is for certain though: the undeniable friendships these girls have formed is something that will carry on long after the final scene rolls. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- Movie - Dec 3, 2011 -- 248,642 8.33
Kurogane no Linebarrels -- -- Gonzo -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Action Mecha Sci-Fi -- Kurogane no Linebarrels Kurogane no Linebarrels -- Fourteen-year-old Kouichi Hayase's life has always been a mediocre one, if not dismal. However, those days of being bullied by classmates and escaping to a fantasy of being a hero are put to an end when a certain "accident" bestows on him a girl and a gigantic humanoid robot called "LINEBARREL." The extraordinary power that Kouichi obtains puts him and everything around him on a sudden rollercoaster ride of battles, intrigues and friendship! During the course of his adventure, the boy starts to learn what life has to offer; he meets new friends, bids farewell to the old ones, but most of all he now has considerable responsibilities and is forced to confront the world around him. -- -- (Source: Official site) -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Oct 3, 2008 -- 39,326 6.94
Kuroshitsuji II -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Historical Demons Supernatural Shounen -- Kuroshitsuji II Kuroshitsuji II -- The stage of Kuroshitsuji II opens on the life of Alois Trancy, the young heir to the Trancy earldom. Though he is privileged now, such was not always the case for the hot-tempered boy. Kidnapped and forced into slavery at a young age, he was eventually rescued and returned home, only to have his beloved father pass away soon after. -- -- However, there are certain individuals who doubt Alois' story and legitimacy. And rightfully so, because things in the Trancy household are not as they appear, starting with Alois' black-clad butler with supernatural abilities, Claude Faustus. Who exactly is the mysterious Claude, and what connection does he have with Alois? -- -- Amid the web of lies and deceit running rampant in the mansion, the bond between Alois and Claude will be tested as hell itself arrives at their doorstep. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Jul 2, 2010 -- 453,724 7.21
Kuroshitsuji II -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Historical Demons Supernatural Shounen -- Kuroshitsuji II Kuroshitsuji II -- The stage of Kuroshitsuji II opens on the life of Alois Trancy, the young heir to the Trancy earldom. Though he is privileged now, such was not always the case for the hot-tempered boy. Kidnapped and forced into slavery at a young age, he was eventually rescued and returned home, only to have his beloved father pass away soon after. -- -- However, there are certain individuals who doubt Alois' story and legitimacy. And rightfully so, because things in the Trancy household are not as they appear, starting with Alois' black-clad butler with supernatural abilities, Claude Faustus. Who exactly is the mysterious Claude, and what connection does he have with Alois? -- -- Amid the web of lies and deceit running rampant in the mansion, the bond between Alois and Claude will be tested as hell itself arrives at their doorstep. -- -- TV - Jul 2, 2010 -- 453,724 7.21
Kyokou Suiri -- -- Brain's Base -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Mystery Demons Supernatural Romance Shounen -- Kyokou Suiri Kyokou Suiri -- Hidden in plain sight, spirits known as youkai inhabit the world. While most are benign, a certain subset threatens the tenuous peace between youkai and humanity. Ever since she agreed to become their "God of Wisdom," Kotoko Iwanaga has served as a mediator between the two realms, resolving any supernatural problems that come her way. -- -- At a local hospital, Kotoko approaches Kurou Sakuragawa, a university student whose long-term relationship ended with an unfortunate breakup. Kotoko harbors feelings for him and suspects that something supernatural lurks within his harmless appearance, so she asks Kurou for his assistance in helping out youkai. -- -- Two years later, news of an idol who was accidentally crushed to death by steel beams flooded the press. However, months later, sightings begin to tell of a faceless woman who wields a steel beam. As is the case for any supernatural problem, Kotoko and her partner set out to stop this spirit from wreaking havoc—but this case may prove to be far more sinister and personal than they could have ever thought. -- -- 284,310 6.94
Kyousou Giga -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Fantasy Supernatural -- Kyousou Giga Kyousou Giga -- It's Kyoto, and yet it is not. -- -- A microcosm of peculiar origins, "Mirror Kyoto." -- -- A small incident causes a young girl, Koto, to wander into this world. -- -- She runs into a mysterious monk, gets chased around by a tech-obsessed girl, and heartily enjoys her chaotic and colorful new life, but meanwhile, out of sight, a certain plan is being set into motion... -- -- In this mysterious city where spirits and humans have been thrown together, the festivities are about to begin! -- -- (Source: translated from the official website by lygerzero0zero) -- ONA - Dec 1, 2011 -- 41,778 6.94
Liar Liar -- -- - -- ? eps -- Light novel -- Game Psychological School -- Liar Liar Liar Liar -- At Academy Island, everything is settled through "Games" waged for a certain number of stars, with the strongest student being granted the ranking of Seven Stars. Hiroto, a transfer student, unexpectedly beats the strongest empress and becomes the pseudo-strongest in the school! A mind game of lies and bluffs begins! -- -- (Source: Kadokawa, translated) -- - - ??? ??, ???? -- 1,536 N/A -- -- Children -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Original -- Dementia Psychological Drama -- Children Children -- A short film by Takuya Okada set in a conformist society. -- -- (Source: IMDB) -- ONA - Jun 30, 2011 -- 1,532 6.02
Liar Liar -- -- - -- ? eps -- Light novel -- Game Psychological School -- Liar Liar Liar Liar -- At Academy Island, everything is settled through "Games" waged for a certain number of stars, with the strongest student being granted the ranking of Seven Stars. Hiroto, a transfer student, unexpectedly beats the strongest empress and becomes the pseudo-strongest in the school! A mind game of lies and bluffs begins! -- -- (Source: Kadokawa, translated) -- - - ??? ??, ???? -- 1,536 N/AUsogui -- -- Shueisha -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Game Psychological Seinen -- Usogui Usogui -- There are gamblers out there who even bet their lives as ante. But to secure the integrity of these life-threatening gambles, a violent and powerful organization by the name of "Kagerou" referees these games as a neutral party. Follow Bak Madarame a.k.a. Usogui (The Lie Eater) as he gambles against maniacal opponents at games—such as Escape the Abandoned Building, Old Maid, and Hangman—to ultimately "out-gamble" and control the neutral organization of Kagerou itself. -- -- (Source: MU) -- OVA - Oct 19, 2012 -- 1,527 5.48
Liz to Aoi Tori -- -- Kyoto Animation -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Drama Music School -- Liz to Aoi Tori Liz to Aoi Tori -- Liz's days of solitude come to an end when she meets a blue bird in the form of a young girl. Although their relationship blossoms, Liz must make a heart-wrenching decision in order to truly realize her love for Blue Bird. -- -- High school seniors and close friends Mizore Yoroizuka and Nozomi Kasaki are tasked to play the lead instruments in the third movement of Liz and the Blue Bird, a concert band piece inspired by this fairy tale. The introverted and reserved Mizore plays the oboe, representing the kind and gentle Liz. Meanwhile, the radiant and popular Nozomi plays the flute, portraying the cheerful and energetic Blue Bird. -- -- However, as they rehearse, the distance between Mizore and Nozomi seems to grow. Their disjointed duet disappoints the band, and with graduation on the horizon, uncertainty about the future spurs complicated emotions. With little time to improve as their performance draws near, they desperately attempt to connect with their respective characters. But when Mizore and Nozomi consider the story from a brand-new perspective, will the girls find the strength to face harsh realities? -- -- A spin-off film adaptation of the Hibike Euphonium! series, Liz to Aoi Tori dances between the parallels of a charming fairy tale, a moving musical piece, and a delicate high school friendship. -- -- Movie - Apr 21, 2018 -- 85,893 8.21
Made in Abyss -- -- Kinema Citrus -- 13 eps -- Web manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Mystery Drama Fantasy -- Made in Abyss Made in Abyss -- The Abyss—a gaping chasm stretching down into the depths of the earth, filled with mysterious creatures and relics from a time long past. How did it come to be? What lies at the bottom? Countless brave individuals, known as Divers, have sought to solve these mysteries of the Abyss, fearlessly descending into its darkest realms. The best and bravest of the Divers, the White Whistles, are hailed as legends by those who remain on the surface. -- -- Riko, daughter of the missing White Whistle Lyza the Annihilator, aspires to become like her mother and explore the furthest reaches of the Abyss. However, just a novice Red Whistle herself, she is only permitted to roam its most upper layer. Even so, Riko has a chance encounter with a mysterious robot with the appearance of an ordinary young boy. She comes to name him Reg, and he has no recollection of the events preceding his discovery. Certain that the technology to create Reg must come from deep within the Abyss, the two decide to venture forth into the chasm to recover his memories and see the bottom of the great pit with their own eyes. However, they know not of the harsh reality that is the true existence of the Abyss. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 910,072 8.73
Mahou Shoujo Ai -- -- - -- 5 eps -- Visual novel -- Action Hentai Horror Supernatural -- Mahou Shoujo Ai Mahou Shoujo Ai -- In a certain town, there were consecutive phantom assaults. Because the incidents were extraordinarily, there was a rumor that a ghost or supernatural creature caused them. The students in the school which Akitoshi went to were frightened. One day, an unknown girl appeared in the school. However, all the students except Akitoshi thought they had known her. Feeling strange, he shadowed her in order to investigate her but he lost sight of her. At that moment, he heard the scream of a woman from the nearby material yard and went to the place where the scream came from. There he found the beautiful girl of the school, Mikage. Mikage was surrounded by monsters "Yuragi" (fluctuation), and she was hanged naked. Yuragi noticed Akitoshi and began to attack him. Then, the fighter, Ai, appeared and cut them down. -- Akitoshi stared at Ai. What was her true character, an enemy or an ally? -- -- (Source: AnimeNfo) -- OVA - Aug 25, 2003 -- 7,532 6.53
Maryuu Senki -- -- AIC -- 3 eps -- Original -- Fantasy Horror -- Maryuu Senki Maryuu Senki -- Once upon a time, there was a certain family having strong influence on the rule of the Imperial Court. They had their own might called "Kidou" and yet got hated because of the might itself. At last, the patriarch of the family was entrapped to his death, and all the family was doomed to ruin... The present day — the survived descendants of this family, now calling themselves "Kidousyuu" schemed to resurrect their murdered patriarch once again, and the ferocious evil spell went into action. -- -- (Source: BakaBT) -- OVA - Mar 5, 1987 -- 2,215 5.21
Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Demons Fantasy Mystery Shoujo Supernatural -- Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin -- The Nocturnal Community Relations Division is a team of people who specialize in solving cases involving the ominous occult creatures of the night unseen by ordinary humans. Young and unsuspecting Arata Miyako has been assigned to the Shinjuku Ward Office of the division, where he meets his fellow members Theo Himezuka and Kyouichi Sakaki. -- -- On his first night, Arata finds himself on a mission where he discovers to his surprise that not only does every supernatural creature he once thought to be fictional actually exist, but also that he is the only human who can understand their non-human speech. Arata's surprises do not end there, as later that night, he meets a legendary creature called a Tengu that refers to him as the famous Heian-era exorcist, Abe no Seimei. Unfamiliar with the exorcist, Arata pays no mind and continues to work with his team, utilizing his unique ability to assist in the resolution of their cases. -- -- Mistaken by many occult creatures as Abe no Seimei and quickly becoming notorious for his special ability during his work, Arata becomes curious of his origins and invests himself more into solving cases regarding occult creatures he encounters once he learns of a certain connection between himself and the exorcist. However, Arata will quickly find that dealing with supernatural creatures is not as simple as he thought, as danger begins to play a fundamental role in his everyday findings and his ability starts to present an unexpected issue. -- -- 51,199 6.71
Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Demons Fantasy Mystery Shoujo Supernatural -- Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin -- The Nocturnal Community Relations Division is a team of people who specialize in solving cases involving the ominous occult creatures of the night unseen by ordinary humans. Young and unsuspecting Arata Miyako has been assigned to the Shinjuku Ward Office of the division, where he meets his fellow members Theo Himezuka and Kyouichi Sakaki. -- -- On his first night, Arata finds himself on a mission where he discovers to his surprise that not only does every supernatural creature he once thought to be fictional actually exist, but also that he is the only human who can understand their non-human speech. Arata's surprises do not end there, as later that night, he meets a legendary creature called a Tengu that refers to him as the famous Heian-era exorcist, Abe no Seimei. Unfamiliar with the exorcist, Arata pays no mind and continues to work with his team, utilizing his unique ability to assist in the resolution of their cases. -- -- Mistaken by many occult creatures as Abe no Seimei and quickly becoming notorious for his special ability during his work, Arata becomes curious of his origins and invests himself more into solving cases regarding occult creatures he encounters once he learns of a certain connection between himself and the exorcist. However, Arata will quickly find that dealing with supernatural creatures is not as simple as he thought, as danger begins to play a fundamental role in his everyday findings and his ability starts to present an unexpected issue. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 51,199 6.71
Mermaid Forest OVA -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Mystery Horror Drama Fantasy -- Mermaid Forest OVA Mermaid Forest OVA -- It is said that consuming the flesh of a mermaid confers immortality. This certainly proved to be the case for the 500-year-old Yuta and his friend Mana. However, most people who try to become immortal either die or transform into monsters. -- -- Fifty-five years ago, Towa Kannagi was given mermaid blood by her sister, Sawa, in order to cure a fatal illness. Now, Towa maintains her youthful appearance, save her white hair and beastly arm. For years she has dreamed of restoring her body, resorting to blood transfusions from youthful corpses aided by the local doctor, Shiina. -- -- Mana, mistaken for dead by Shiina, is brought in to have her blood used by Towa. When she discovers that Mana is alive, what lengths will Towa go to in order to restore herself? Will Yuta be able to save Mana in time? -- -- OVA - Aug 16, 1991 -- 6,001 6.77
Mimi wo Sumaseba -- -- Studio Ghibli -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Slice of Life Drama Romance Shoujo -- Mimi wo Sumaseba Mimi wo Sumaseba -- Shizuku Tsukishima is an energetic 14-year-old girl who enjoys reading and writing poetry in her free time. Glancing at the checkout cards of her books one evening, she notices that her library books are frequently checked out by a boy named Seiji Amasawa. Curiosity strikes Shizuku, and she decides to search for the boy who shares her love for literature. -- -- Meeting a peculiar cat on the train, Shizuku follows the animal and is eventually led to a quaint antique shop, where she learns about a cat statuette known as "The Baron." Taking an interest in the shop, she surprisingly finds Seiji, and the two quickly befriend one another. Shizuku learns while acquainting herself with Seiji that he has a dream that he would like to fulfill, causing her dismay as she remains uncertain of her future and has yet to recognize her talents. -- -- However, as her relationship with Seiji grows, Shizuku becomes determined to work toward a goal. Guided by the whispers of her heart and inspiration from The Baron, she resolves to carve out her own potential and dreams. -- -- -- Licensor: -- GKIDS, Walt Disney Studios -- Movie - Jul 15, 1995 -- 238,719 8.23
Mimi wo Sumaseba -- -- Studio Ghibli -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Slice of Life Drama Romance Shoujo -- Mimi wo Sumaseba Mimi wo Sumaseba -- Shizuku Tsukishima is an energetic 14-year-old girl who enjoys reading and writing poetry in her free time. Glancing at the checkout cards of her books one evening, she notices that her library books are frequently checked out by a boy named Seiji Amasawa. Curiosity strikes Shizuku, and she decides to search for the boy who shares her love for literature. -- -- Meeting a peculiar cat on the train, Shizuku follows the animal and is eventually led to a quaint antique shop, where she learns about a cat statuette known as "The Baron." Taking an interest in the shop, she surprisingly finds Seiji, and the two quickly befriend one another. Shizuku learns while acquainting herself with Seiji that he has a dream that he would like to fulfill, causing her dismay as she remains uncertain of her future and has yet to recognize her talents. -- -- However, as her relationship with Seiji grows, Shizuku becomes determined to work toward a goal. Guided by the whispers of her heart and inspiration from The Baron, she resolves to carve out her own potential and dreams. -- -- Movie - Jul 15, 1995 -- 238,719 8.23
Mix -- -- OLM -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Drama Romance School Shounen Sports -- Mix Mix -- Because of the legend left by Tatsuya Uesugi, Meisei Academy High School was well-known for their strong baseball team. But 26 years after their glory, the team has not been able to keep their record and has since lost their fame. -- -- Two stepbrothers, Souichirou and Touma Tachibana, aim to revive of the once-strong Meisei Academy baseball team and enter the National High School Baseball Championship. -- -- Souichirou and Touma are second years in Meisei Academy Middle School. Both boys are talented baseball players. Souichirou has shown excellent skill as a catcher and batter. Though having an extraordinary skill as a pitcher, Touma no longer pitches due to a certain reason. -- -- Once the two enter high school, they pair as a battery and aim to enter the National High School Baseball Championship! -- -- (Source: YTV, edited) -- 17,728 7.25
Mizu no Kotoba -- -- Studio Rikka -- 1 ep -- Original -- Drama Psychological Sci-Fi -- Mizu no Kotoba Mizu no Kotoba -- Several people are spending their evening in a cafe. Two gossiping girls, two debating men, a bookworm and a boy, who just broke up with his girlfriend. The cafe's waitress starts a chat with him, persuading him to take a look at certain easel, while other customers begin to notice unusual things. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Special - Oct 26, 2002 -- 21,905 6.80
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 The Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer -- -- Sunrise -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Mecha Sci-Fi Space -- Mobile Suit Gundam 00 The Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer Mobile Suit Gundam 00 The Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer -- In the year 2314 AD, the world is at peace. Thanks to the sacrifices of Celestial Being and its mobile suit pilots, the people of Earth experience a time of prosperity and unity, enjoying tranquil lives once thought impossible. Celestial Being, an organization once painted as villains by the Earth Sphere Federation, now exists in public perception as a group of heroes, celebrated in film and culture. -- -- When an extraterrestrial threat arrives on Earth, threatening the newly acquired calm stasis, Celestial Being springs back into action. Led by ace pilot Setsuna F. Seiei, the Gundam Meisters of the group battle the hostile alien forces, teaming up with old rivals to protect the human race from certain doom. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment -- Movie - Sep 18, 2010 -- 53,047 7.31
Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash -- -- Sunrise -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Action Military Sci-Fi Space Drama Mecha -- Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash -- —Do you know the Nejen? -- If you know it, then I'll take you there— -- -- The year is U.C. 0105. Twelve years have passed since the end of the second Neo Zeon War (Char's Rebellion). Even after "the Axis Shock," which seemed to indicate the future of humanity and the Universal Century, the world is still in a chaotic situation where intermittent military conflicts continue to break out. The Earth Federation government is more corrupt than ever, and its leadership has not only accelerated Earth's pollution, but also implemented an inhuman "Man Hunting" policy in which civilians are forcibly exiled to outer space. -- -- The anti-Federation government organization "Mafty," led by someone called "Mafty Navue Erin," has taken a stand against the corruption of the Earth Sphere. Mafty carries out fierce acts of terrorism, assassinating high officials of the Federation government one after another, but it gains a certain level of support from the populace who are growing more opposed to the Federation government. -- -- The person who calls himself "Mafty" and leads this organization is Hathaway Noa, the son of Bright Noa, an officer of the Earth Federation Forces who once participated in the One Year War. Hathaway himself joined the forces trying to stop Char’s Rebellion. With firsthand knowledge of the ideals and ideologies of Amuro Ray and Char Aznable, he has become a warrior following in their footsteps, and plans to clear a path forward through armed resistance. His destiny, however, is drastically altered as he encounters the Federation Forces officer Kenneth Sleg and a mysterious young beauty named Gigi Andalucia. -- -- (Source: Gundam.info) -- Movie - May 7, 2021 -- 6,999 N/A -- -- MD Geist II: Death Force -- -- Zero-G Room -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Military Sci-Fi Mecha -- MD Geist II: Death Force MD Geist II: Death Force -- After unleashing the Death Force machines all over the planet Jerra, Geist has kept himself busy by dismantling them one by one. But now he faces a formidable opponent in the form of Krauser, another M.D.S. (Most Dangerous Soldier) who has aligned himself as the only savior of mankind. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Central Park Media -- OVA - Mar 1, 1996 -- 6,817 5.03
Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash -- -- Sunrise -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Action Military Sci-Fi Space Drama Mecha -- Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash -- —Do you know the Nejen? -- If you know it, then I'll take you there— -- -- The year is U.C. 0105. Twelve years have passed since the end of the second Neo Zeon War (Char's Rebellion). Even after "the Axis Shock," which seemed to indicate the future of humanity and the Universal Century, the world is still in a chaotic situation where intermittent military conflicts continue to break out. The Earth Federation government is more corrupt than ever, and its leadership has not only accelerated Earth's pollution, but also implemented an inhuman "Man Hunting" policy in which civilians are forcibly exiled to outer space. -- -- The anti-Federation government organization "Mafty," led by someone called "Mafty Navue Erin," has taken a stand against the corruption of the Earth Sphere. Mafty carries out fierce acts of terrorism, assassinating high officials of the Federation government one after another, but it gains a certain level of support from the populace who are growing more opposed to the Federation government. -- -- The person who calls himself "Mafty" and leads this organization is Hathaway Noa, the son of Bright Noa, an officer of the Earth Federation Forces who once participated in the One Year War. Hathaway himself joined the forces trying to stop Char’s Rebellion. With firsthand knowledge of the ideals and ideologies of Amuro Ray and Char Aznable, he has become a warrior following in their footsteps, and plans to clear a path forward through armed resistance. His destiny, however, is drastically altered as he encounters the Federation Forces officer Kenneth Sleg and a mysterious young beauty named Gigi Andalucia. -- -- (Source: Gundam.info) -- Movie - May 7, 2021 -- 6,999 N/A -- -- Vandread: Taidou-hen -- -- Gonzo -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Adventure Comedy Ecchi Mecha Sci-Fi Space -- Vandread: Taidou-hen Vandread: Taidou-hen -- Vandread The First Stage (season one) was immediately followed up by this TV special. This TV special, also known as Vandread Taidouhen Stage (The Movement Stage) was a recap of the first 13 episodes with additional footage. So, Vandread Taidouhen is not really a bridge between Vandread The First Stage and Vandread The Second Stage (season two). It was made to bring new viewers up to date as to what happened during the first season -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- OVA - Jan 21, 2001 -- 6,833 6.79
Mon-Soni!: Senritsu no Lucifer, Tada Hitotsu no Hajimari no Uta -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 1 ep -- Game -- Action Game Music Fantasy -- Mon-Soni!: Senritsu no Lucifer, Tada Hitotsu no Hajimari no Uta Mon-Soni!: Senritsu no Lucifer, Tada Hitotsu no Hajimari no Uta -- Golden Week Special episode of Monsuto Anime. -- -- "Change the world with music? Foolish." -- -- Lucifer's world stops after her band disbands. Meaningless days pass, until she meets her cousin Satan and his bandmate Ibaraki Douji. They ask her to join their indie band, the "Wicked Pistols." Satan talks about his dream of going major after winning the MONSTERS ROCK competition, only for Lucifer to reject him outright. However, Lucifer's heart begins to thaw after a certain event... -- -- (Source: Official YouTube Channel) -- ONA - May 3, 2017 -- 1,257 6.23
Motto To LOVE-Ru -- -- Xebec -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Harem Comedy Ecchi School Shounen -- Motto To LOVE-Ru Motto To LOVE-Ru -- Rito Yuuki never gets a break—he's always finding himself in lewd accidents with girls around him. Although his heart still yearns for Haruna, his childhood love, Rito can't help but question his feelings for Lala, the alien princess who appeared in front of him and declared she would marry him. But now, it's not just Lala he has to deal with: her younger twin sisters, Momo and Nana, have also travelled to Earth, wanting to meet their older sister’s fiancé, and just as luck would have it, they end up staying at Rito's home. -- -- Meanwhile, amidst the bustle of his new family members, Yami, the human weapon girl, begins her pursuit for Rito. It's not an easy life for Rito as he deals with uncertain love, punishment for being a pervert, and a girl dead set on murdering him. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Oct 6, 2010 -- 267,436 7.33
Motto To LOVE-Ru -- -- Xebec -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Harem Comedy Ecchi School Shounen -- Motto To LOVE-Ru Motto To LOVE-Ru -- Rito Yuuki never gets a break—he's always finding himself in lewd accidents with girls around him. Although his heart still yearns for Haruna, his childhood love, Rito can't help but question his feelings for Lala, the alien princess who appeared in front of him and declared she would marry him. But now, it's not just Lala he has to deal with: her younger twin sisters, Momo and Nana, have also travelled to Earth, wanting to meet their older sister’s fiancé, and just as luck would have it, they end up staying at Rito's home. -- -- Meanwhile, amidst the bustle of his new family members, Yami, the human weapon girl, begins her pursuit for Rito. It's not an easy life for Rito as he deals with uncertain love, punishment for being a pervert, and a girl dead set on murdering him. -- -- TV - Oct 6, 2010 -- 267,436 7.33
Musekinin Galaxy☆Tylor -- -- Seven -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Military Sci-Fi Space Comedy Parody -- Musekinin Galaxy☆Tylor Musekinin Galaxy☆Tylor -- Taking place in a very distant in future, the adventure begins when a boy meets a certain girl. The Pan Galaxy Republic has declined and so have many empires. This resulted to people in the galaxy being scattered. Living in the peaceful side of their world, Banjou, who picks up trashes at the spherical wall met a girl, frozen, in a broken spaceship. There are bad guys who chase her, and thus, the quiet galaxy suddenly became lively. Little did he know that the frozen girl is Goza 168th, the key to decide the destiny of the whole universe. Overcoming hardship, the two embarks on a trip to make the Galaxy Republic alive again. It may be a difficult challenge, but it's alright, let's progress slowly! A comedy of irresponsible galaxy trip begins! -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- 5,139 4.00
Nakanohito Genome [Jikkyouchuu] -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 12 eps -- Web manga -- Game Comedy Drama -- Nakanohito Genome [Jikkyouchuu] Nakanohito Genome [Jikkyouchuu] -- Iride Akatsuki has unlocked hidden content in the game he's playing, 'Nakanohito Genome,' and it turns out that this content is a real-life game! -- He soon wakes up to find that he has been kidnapped and taken to a strange place, along with a number of other teammates. Each of them specializes in a certain sort of game, like cultivation games, fighting games, puzzle games, etc. -- A llama-headed 'teacher' gathers them after level 1 is cleared to explain how the game will proceed. -- Will this group of gamers succeed, and make it back to their real lives? -- -- (Source: MangaHelpers) -- 90,395 6.87
Nakanohito Genome [Jikkyouchuu] -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 12 eps -- Web manga -- Game Comedy Drama -- Nakanohito Genome [Jikkyouchuu] Nakanohito Genome [Jikkyouchuu] -- Iride Akatsuki has unlocked hidden content in the game he's playing, 'Nakanohito Genome,' and it turns out that this content is a real-life game! -- He soon wakes up to find that he has been kidnapped and taken to a strange place, along with a number of other teammates. Each of them specializes in a certain sort of game, like cultivation games, fighting games, puzzle games, etc. -- A llama-headed 'teacher' gathers them after level 1 is cleared to explain how the game will proceed. -- Will this group of gamers succeed, and make it back to their real lives? -- -- (Source: MangaHelpers) -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 90,395 6.87
Nanako Kaitai Shinsho -- -- Radix -- 6 eps -- Original -- Military Sci-Fi Comedy Mecha -- Nanako Kaitai Shinsho Nanako Kaitai Shinsho -- Nanako is a an inept apprentice nurse to the brilliant young Dr. Kouji. Now for some reason, Nanako is always being targeted by various elements which makes Nanako wonder if she has done anything wrong. But there are certain secrets to Nanako's past that only Dr. Kouji and his family know about. -- -- Licensor: -- Geneon Entertainment USA -- OVA - Jul 5, 1999 -- 9,398 5.56
Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Comedy Martial Arts Shounen Super Power -- Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono -- After being sent to investigate the alarming disappearance of four bloodline limit-wielding ninjas from different countries, Kakashi Hatake, Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sai successfully discover their whereabouts and inform the Hokage. Unexpectedly, Tsunade's further arrangements fall apart when Hiruko—the mastermind behind the incident and also a former Konohagakure ninja obsessed with power—appears to announce that he has absorbed the missing ninjas' unique abilities. On the verge of becoming invincible, he seeks one more bloodline limit before starting an all-out war to take over the world. -- -- As Konohagakure's past connections with Hiruko raise suspicions among the nations about its involvement in the affair, Tsunade receives an ultimatum to solve the crisis. Left with no other choice, she decides to follow Kakashi's lead after he presents a daring yet salutary scheme—a proposal that could send him to certain death. However, Naruto opposes such a plan! Despite the Hokage's decision, he is determined to save his teacher's life, even if it means fighting friend and foe alike. -- -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- Movie - Aug 1, 2009 -- 154,081 7.34
Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Comedy Martial Arts Shounen Super Power -- Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono -- After being sent to investigate the alarming disappearance of four bloodline limit-wielding ninjas from different countries, Kakashi Hatake, Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sai successfully discover their whereabouts and inform the Hokage. Unexpectedly, Tsunade's further arrangements fall apart when Hiruko—the mastermind behind the incident and also a former Konohagakure ninja obsessed with power—appears to announce that he has absorbed the missing ninjas' unique abilities. On the verge of becoming invincible, he seeks one more bloodline limit before starting an all-out war to take over the world. -- -- As Konohagakure's past connections with Hiruko raise suspicions among the nations about its involvement in the affair, Tsunade receives an ultimatum to solve the crisis. Left with no other choice, she decides to follow Kakashi's lead after he presents a daring yet salutary scheme—a proposal that could send him to certain death. However, Naruto opposes such a plan! Despite the Hokage's decision, he is determined to save his teacher's life, even if it means fighting friend and foe alike. -- -- Movie - Aug 1, 2009 -- 154,081 7.34
Non Non Biyori Repeat -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy School Seinen Slice of Life -- Non Non Biyori Repeat Non Non Biyori Repeat -- Far from the hustle and bustle of urban life, and with only a single candy store and bus route to its name, the rural Asahigaoka is certainly not a place for everyone. Nevertheless, the village's children still manage to cheerfully spend their days exploring and having fun in the wilderness around them. One such child, Renge Miyauchi, the youngest of the group, looks forward to the entrance ceremony of the upcoming school year, signalling her entry into first grade and the beginning of her elementary school life. Attending the only school in town, Renge and her friends, seventh grader Natsumi Koshigaya and her eighth grade sister Komari, make the most out of their rural lifestyle, playing and studying everyday. -- -- Meanwhile, fifth grader Hotaru Ichijou has just moved to Asahigaoka from Tokyo, unaware of the numerous adventures and memories that await her. -- -- 150,733 8.19
Non Non Biyori Repeat -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy School Seinen Slice of Life -- Non Non Biyori Repeat Non Non Biyori Repeat -- Far from the hustle and bustle of urban life, and with only a single candy store and bus route to its name, the rural Asahigaoka is certainly not a place for everyone. Nevertheless, the village's children still manage to cheerfully spend their days exploring and having fun in the wilderness around them. One such child, Renge Miyauchi, the youngest of the group, looks forward to the entrance ceremony of the upcoming school year, signalling her entry into first grade and the beginning of her elementary school life. Attending the only school in town, Renge and her friends, seventh grader Natsumi Koshigaya and her eighth grade sister Komari, make the most out of their rural lifestyle, playing and studying everyday. -- -- Meanwhile, fifth grader Hotaru Ichijou has just moved to Asahigaoka from Tokyo, unaware of the numerous adventures and memories that await her. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 150,733 8.19
Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai: Under the Innocent Sky. -- -- Nomad -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Comedy Drama Ecchi Harem Romance -- Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai: Under the Innocent Sky. Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai: Under the Innocent Sky. -- Haneda Takashi has a secret he cannot speak of. To leave his dull school-life, he was supposed to have escaped to another world. However, he is reeled in by certain ties on his heart. One of these is Kobato, his awkward younger sister. The other is Watarai Asuka, his negligent girlfriend. -- -- Chitose Shuusuke is a poor freeloader. He passes his days working at various part-time jobs. One day, he has a disastrous first encounter with Tamaizumi Hiyoko. The next time they meet, Shuusuke discovers that they are fellow employees at his part-time job. -- -- Narita Hayato sees himself as a "hard-boiled" person. Back-breaking jobs are nothing to him. Hayato shuns normal human contact, but, during the nights, he would get together with delinquents and other denizens of the night. One such night, he meets the cheerful and oblivious Otori Naru. -- -- The relationships with these girls will greatly affect these 3 young men. But what, exactly, is the relationship these young men have with each other? -- -- (Source: AnimeNFO) -- TV - Apr 4, 2011 -- 76,824 6.70
Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta... -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Harem Comedy Drama Romance Fantasy School Shoujo -- Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta... Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta... -- Most people would prefer being the protagonist of a world full of adventure, be it in a game or in another world. But, unfortunately, a certain girl is not so lucky. Regaining the memories of her past life, she realizes that she was reborn in the world of Fortune Lover—one of the games she used to play. -- -- Unfortunately, the character she was reincarnated into—Katarina Claes—is the game's main antagonist, who faces utter doom in every ending. Using her extensive knowledge of the game, she takes it upon herself to escape from the chains of this accursed destiny. -- -- However, this will not be an easy feat, especially since she needs to be cautious as to not set off death flags that may speed up the impending doom she is trying to avoid. Even so, to make a change that will affect the lives of everyone around her, she strives—not as the heroine—but as the villainess. -- -- 258,252 7.49
Overlord III -- -- Madhouse -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Action Magic Fantasy Game Supernatural -- Overlord III Overlord III -- Following the horrific assault on the Re-Estize capital city, the Guardians of the Great Tomb of Nazarick return home to their master Ainz Ooal Gown. After months of laying the groundwork, they are finally ready to set their plans of world domination into action. -- -- As Ainz's war machine gathers strength, the rest of the world keeps moving. The remote Carne Village, which Ainz once saved from certain doom, continues to prosper despite the many threats on its doorstep. And in the northeastern Baharuth Empire, a certain Bloody Emperor sets his sights on the rising power of Nazarick. -- -- Blood is shed, heroes fall, and nations rise. Can anyone, or anything, challenge the supreme power of Ainz Ooal Gown? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 583,077 7.93
Princess Principal: Crown Handler 1 -- -- Actas -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Mystery Historical -- Princess Principal: Crown Handler 1 Princess Principal: Crown Handler 1 -- The film is set in London at the end of the 19th century and after the attempted assassination of the Imperial princess in the television anime. The Empire is increasing counter-spy actions in the wake of the incident, and finds Control, the Commonwealth group in charge of covert operations against the Empire, at unease and suspecting its spy within the royal family as a double agent. Control assigns their spy ring Dove with a new mission to extract a secondhand bookstore owner and deliver him to Commonwealth hands. Ange, Dorothy, and Chise successfully spring the bookstore owner from an Imperial prison. Control also assigns Dove to make contact with Bishop, their spy within the royal family, to ascertain their loyalties. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Movie - Feb 11, 2021 -- 28,086 N/ASupernatural The Animation -- -- Madhouse -- 22 eps -- Other -- Action Demons Horror Supernatural -- Supernatural The Animation Supernatural The Animation -- Monsters walk the earth. While some may refute their existence as myths or urban legends, the Winchester brothers—Sam and Dean—know all too well what dangers lurk out there in the dark. Driving around in their 1967 Chevrolet Impala, these brothers have made it their life's mission to destroy anything supernatural that would threaten human lives. -- -- From shapeshifters to werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and even demons, the Winchesters track down and kill every evil being they can find, while also searching for the creature that caused them so much personal tragedy. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Warner Bros. Japan -- OVA - Feb 23, 2011 -- 28,086 7.01
Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan 2 -- -- Egg Firm, J.C.Staff -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Supernatural School Shounen -- Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan 2 Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan 2 -- The disastrous life of the gifted psychic Kusuo Saiki continues, despite his utmost effort to live an ordinary life. Although he has certainly grown accustomed to dealing with his troublesome friends—who are his biggest hurdle to achieving a peaceful life—he still has a long way to go. Also joining the usual oddballs are a few new faces whose shenanigans add to Saiki's misery, making his dreams of a hassle-free life a distant fantasy. -- -- 385,115 8.46
Samurai Champloo -- -- Manglobe -- 26 eps -- Original -- Action Adventure Comedy Historical Samurai Shounen -- Samurai Champloo Samurai Champloo -- Fuu Kasumi is a young and clumsy waitress who spends her days peacefully working in a small teahouse. That is, until she accidentally spills a drink all over one of her customers! With a group of samurai now incessantly harassing her, Fuu desperately calls upon another samurai in the shop, Mugen, who quickly defeats them with his wild fighting technique, utilizing movements reminiscent to that of breakdancing. Unfortunately, Mugen decides to pick a fight with the unwilling ronin Jin, who wields a more precise and traditional style of swordfighting, and the latter proves to be a formidable opponent. The only problem is, they end up destroying the entire shop as well as accidentally killing the local magistrate's son. -- -- For their crime, the two samurai are captured and set to be executed. However, they are rescued by Fuu, who hires the duo as her bodyguards. Though she no longer has a place to return to, the former waitress wishes to find a certain samurai who smells of sunflowers and enlists the help of the now exonerated pair to do so. Despite initially disapproving of this idea, the two eventually agree to assist the girl in her quest; thus, the trio embark upon an adventure to find this mysterious warrior—that is, if Fuu can keep Mugen and Jin from killing each other. -- -- Set in an alternate Edo Period of Japan, Samurai Champloo follows the journey of these three eccentric individuals in an epic quest full of action, comedy, and dynamic sword fighting, all set to the beat of a unique hip-hop infused soundtrack. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation, Geneon Entertainment USA -- 935,197 8.50
Sankarea OVA -- -- Studio Deen -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Ecchi Horror Romance Shounen Supernatural -- Sankarea OVA Sankarea OVA -- Two OVA episodes are bundled as DVDs with each of volumes 6 and 7 of the manga. -- -- The first OVA is a prequel story written by the manga's author. Before the beginning of the main story, Rea and Chihiro have already met at a certain place: an outdoor hot-spring bath. -- -- The second OVA takes place after the series (effectively episode 14). The Furuya family finds a mysterious young girl hiding under the household temple. -- OVA - Jun 8, 2012 -- 92,528 7.24
Scrapped Princess -- -- Bones -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Drama Fantasy Mecha Shounen -- Scrapped Princess Scrapped Princess -- Born to the royal family, Pacifica Casull has earned the nickname "Scrapped Princess" after an apocalyptic prophecy foretells her destroying the world on her 16th birthday. Rescued from certain death by a kindly family, she takes shelter with her adoptive older brother and sister, Shannon and Raquel Casull. When news of her survival reaches the ears of the God Mauser's worshippers, they issue her death at all costs, forcing Pacifica to flee for her life. -- -- Plagued by threats from the church, the nobility and even the common people, the three siblings attempt to outrun the fate Pacifica is destined to bring, all the while questioning if one girl's life is worth the world's demise. The true nature of the Scrapped Princess, along with the harrowing revelations of the world itself, becomes more and more apparent as the princess' 16th birthday fast approaches. -- -- 83,016 7.41
Scrapped Princess -- -- Bones -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Drama Fantasy Mecha Shounen -- Scrapped Princess Scrapped Princess -- Born to the royal family, Pacifica Casull has earned the nickname "Scrapped Princess" after an apocalyptic prophecy foretells her destroying the world on her 16th birthday. Rescued from certain death by a kindly family, she takes shelter with her adoptive older brother and sister, Shannon and Raquel Casull. When news of her survival reaches the ears of the God Mauser's worshippers, they issue her death at all costs, forcing Pacifica to flee for her life. -- -- Plagued by threats from the church, the nobility and even the common people, the three siblings attempt to outrun the fate Pacifica is destined to bring, all the while questioning if one girl's life is worth the world's demise. The true nature of the Scrapped Princess, along with the harrowing revelations of the world itself, becomes more and more apparent as the princess' 16th birthday fast approaches. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Funimation -- 83,016 7.41
Sekaiichi Hatsukoi 2 -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Romance Shounen Ai -- Sekaiichi Hatsukoi 2 Sekaiichi Hatsukoi 2 -- First loves are messy. While settling in as a shoujo manga editor at the famous Marukawa Publishing House, Ritsu Onodera is quite troubled. Working under the stern and superb Masamune Takano is hard enough as it is. However, Masamune is not only Ritsu's first love from middle school but he also suddenly declares that he will make Ritsu fall for him again. -- -- Unknown to them, another editor in the department, Yoshiyuki Katori, is in a relationship with the popular manga artist Chiaki Yoshino. The carefree Chiaki fails to notice, however, that his high school friend—Yuu Yanase—thinks of him as more than a friend. The stoic but caring Hatori will not surrender his love so easily. -- -- Falling in love for the first time when you are 30 is certainly troublesome. Shouta Kisa, yet another editor, is going out with 21-year-old Kou Yukina, an art student. Despite Yukina's assurances, Kisa cannot help but doubt whether someone like himself is truly worthy of his younger, "sparkling" boyfriend. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Oct 8, 2011 -- 130,512 7.94
Sekai no Yami Zukan -- -- ILCA -- 13 eps -- Original -- Horror Supernatural -- Sekai no Yami Zukan Sekai no Yami Zukan -- Tucked away in the darkest depths of this world, tales of the bizarre and the supernatural quietly unfold. These inexplicable stories are chronicled throughout the pages of a certain strange encyclopedia, sheltered within a crumbling, decrepit building. Do you dare to open its cover and experience the horrors firsthand? -- -- Each of the macabre tales held within the book's pages details some unusual, surreal experiences that often come to a gruesome end. A man searches for his adulterous wife, only to find himself at the mercy of otherworldly visitors; a boy befriends a snowman who harbors a sinister secret; crop circles suddenly form on a family farm, created by some unexpected visitors; hidden in plain sight, menacing mechanical beings continue on undetected. In all of these horrifying stories, nothing is as simple as it seems, revealing a terrifying darkness that perhaps might have been best left alone. -- -- 19,834 4.68
Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru -- -- SILVER LINK., Studio Palette -- ? eps -- Light novel -- Action Fantasy -- Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru -- "I'm going to live for myself!" -- -- The greatest assassin on Earth knew only how to live as a tool for his employers—until they stopped letting him live. Reborn by the grace of a goddess into a world of swords and sorcery, he's offered a chance to do things differently this time around, but there's a catch...He has to eliminate a super-powerful hero who will bring about the end of the world unless he is stopped. -- -- Now known as Lugh Tuatha Dé, the master assassin certainly has his hands full, particularly because of all the beautiful girls who constantly surround him. Lugh may have been an incomparable killer, but how will he fare against foes with powerful magic? -- -- (Source: Yen Press) -- TV - Jul ??, 2021 -- 10,570 N/A -- -- Karen Senki -- -- Next Media Animation -- 11 eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi -- Karen Senki Karen Senki -- In the post-apocalyptic aftermath of a war between machines and their creators, machines rule while humans exist in a state of servitude. Titular character Karen leads Resistance Group 11, an eclectic group of humans who find themselves fighting for their lives as they are hunted by the robots in each episode. Is this the end of humanity? Are they fighting a losing battle? -- -- Through Karen, we delve into a struggle between right and wrong, between indifference and love that explores some of the deepest questions about humanity. What is the difference between a thinking machine and a human being? What is a soul? -- -- (Source: Crunchyroll) -- ONA - Sep 27, 2014 -- 10,550 5.78
Shangri-La -- -- Gonzo -- 24 eps -- Novel -- Action Drama Sci-Fi -- Shangri-La Shangri-La -- In a post-apocalyptic society, much of earthquake-riddled Japan has been left to ruin, resulting in an abundance of greenery. Governments manage much of the world's emissions, resulting in a massive class divide and economic disparity. The Japanese government launches "Project Atlas," a utopian city that will replace Tokyo but can only fit a certain amount of people. This limitation means that some people will have to live outside the city in jungles, as refugees. -- -- However, with any flawed plan comes those who are willing to challenge it. These include Kuniko Houjou, an heir to a renegade town; Mikuni, a mysterious and powerful child kept in a secret temple; Kunihito Kusanagi, a soldier for the high-tech and exclusive monopoly Atlas; Karin Ishida, a genius economics whiz with her hand in markets across the world; and the villainous Ryouko Naruse, leading Atlas in its domination of this future world. -- -- Can this group of rebels, forming a movement known as "Metal-Age," band together to demonstrate that inclusion and teamwork prevail over cruel segregation? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Apr 6, 2009 -- 52,746 7.07
Shinryaku! Ika Musume -- -- Diomedéa -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Shounen Slice of Life -- Shinryaku! Ika Musume Shinryaku! Ika Musume -- Humans have been polluting the ocean for a long time, carelessly pouring their garbage and desecrating the waters that many creatures call home. The denizens of the sea have suffered at their poisoning hands. Finally, one certain squid has had enough and vows to punish the humans' selfish actions. -- -- Possessing all the fearsome abilities of a squid such as powerful hair-tentacles, the ability to spit ink, and even use bioluminescence at will, Ika Musume takes it upon herself to rise from the depths of the ocean and exact revenge upon humanity! She surfaces at a certain Lemon Beach House, a restaurant managed by the sisters Eiko and Chizuru Aizawa. Thinking them to be an easy first step toward world domination, she immediately declares war against them, only to find out that she is, quite literally, a fish out of water! To make things worse, she destroys a part of a wall of the beach house in an attempt to flaunt her squiddy superiority and is consequently forced into becoming a waitress to pay the repair costs. Beached for the time being after tasting a thorough defeat at the hands of the Aizawa sisters, Ika Musume is forced to put her plans for world domination on hold. -- -- Despite these setbacks, Ika Musume soon finds herself right at home in her unexpected position as Lemon Beach House's newest employee. Wacky and hilarious, Shinryaku! Ika Musume follows her brand new life on the surface as she makes precious memories and meet lots of new people. With her newfound acquaintances, Ika Musume is looking to take the world by storm, one squid ink spaghetti at a time! -- -- TV - Oct 5, 2010 -- 162,731 7.45
Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle -- -- Project No.9 -- 12 eps -- Game -- Action Adventure Magic Fantasy -- Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle -- The world is divided into two kingdoms: the Kingdom of White, which floats in the heavens and is ruled by their queen Iris, and the Kingdom of Black, which stands upon desolate land below and houses the King of Darkness as its ruler. As of late, forces of evil have amassed great power, posing a threat to the entire world. Being the main representative of the Light, it is Iris' duty to maintain the balance of the world and fight off the darkness in her kingdom. -- -- Meanwhile in the Kingdom of Black, rampaging monsters annihilate a certain boy's village, leaving him the sole survivor. As he grieves in hopelessness, an armored man named Skeer notices the child and comforts him. Soon after, Skeer recognizes the boy's potential to change the kingdom's status quo and makes him his heir before passing away. The boy then vows to become the Prince of Darkness—the one who will replace the King—to bring the world back to its rightful path. -- -- As Iris and Prince of Darkness each challenge the impending doom the world faces in their own respective ways, their destinies will converge with each other, and perhaps, their bond will decide the fate of the world. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 63,136 5.29
Slam Dunk -- -- Toei Animation -- 101 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama School Shounen Sports -- Slam Dunk Slam Dunk -- Hanamichi Sakuragi, infamous for his temper, massive height, and fire-red hair, enrolls in Shohoku High, hoping to finally get a girlfriend and break his record of being rejected 50 consecutive times in middle school. His notoriety precedes him, however, leading to him being avoided by most students. Soon, after certain events, Hanamichi is left with two unwavering thoughts: "I hate basketball," and "I desperately need a girlfriend." -- -- One day, a girl named Haruko Akagi approaches him without any knowledge of his troublemaking ways and asks him if he likes basketball. Hanamichi immediately falls head over heels in love with her, blurting out a fervent affirmative. She then leads him to the gymnasium, where she asks him if he can do a slam dunk. In an attempt to impress Haruko, he makes the leap, but overshoots, instead slamming his head straight into the blackboard. When Haruko informs the basketball team's captain of Hanamichi's near-inhuman physical capabilities, he slowly finds himself drawn into the camaraderie and competition of the sport he had previously held resentment for. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Flatiron Film Company, Geneon Entertainment USA -- TV - Oct 16, 1993 -- 210,906 8.52
Slam Dunk -- -- Toei Animation -- 101 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama School Shounen Sports -- Slam Dunk Slam Dunk -- Hanamichi Sakuragi, infamous for his temper, massive height, and fire-red hair, enrolls in Shohoku High, hoping to finally get a girlfriend and break his record of being rejected 50 consecutive times in middle school. His notoriety precedes him, however, leading to him being avoided by most students. Soon, after certain events, Hanamichi is left with two unwavering thoughts: "I hate basketball," and "I desperately need a girlfriend." -- -- One day, a girl named Haruko Akagi approaches him without any knowledge of his troublemaking ways and asks him if he likes basketball. Hanamichi immediately falls head over heels in love with her, blurting out a fervent affirmative. She then leads him to the gymnasium, where she asks him if he can do a slam dunk. In an attempt to impress Haruko, he makes the leap, but overshoots, instead slamming his head straight into the blackboard. When Haruko informs the basketball team's captain of Hanamichi's near-inhuman physical capabilities, he slowly finds himself drawn into the camaraderie and competition of the sport he had previously held resentment for. -- -- TV - Oct 16, 1993 -- 210,906 8.52
Slayers Try -- -- J.C.Staff -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Demons Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Slayers Try Slayers Try -- For nearly a millennium, demons have imposed a magical barrier that has impeded the people trapped within it from reaching the outside world. Now that it is broken, several kingdoms seek to explore the lands that were once beyond their grasp. To this end, they establish a peace delegation to make contact with the inhabitants of the new world. -- -- Meanwhile, the young sorceress Lina Inverse receives a message from a mysterious woman named Filia ul Copt. When they meet, Filia expresses interest in hiring Lina and her friends, having heard of their great deeds, for a certain task that will take them to the outside realm. Despite that, Filia feels the need to put their strength to the test and pits them against a dragon in the middle of the city! After proving themselves, the sorceress and her fellow adventurers set off for the unexplored lands, where many adventures and a worrying prophecy await them. -- -- 47,772 7.83
Slayers Try -- -- J.C.Staff -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Demons Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Slayers Try Slayers Try -- For nearly a millennium, demons have imposed a magical barrier that has impeded the people trapped within it from reaching the outside world. Now that it is broken, several kingdoms seek to explore the lands that were once beyond their grasp. To this end, they establish a peace delegation to make contact with the inhabitants of the new world. -- -- Meanwhile, the young sorceress Lina Inverse receives a message from a mysterious woman named Filia ul Copt. When they meet, Filia expresses interest in hiring Lina and her friends, having heard of their great deeds, for a certain task that will take them to the outside realm. Despite that, Filia feels the need to put their strength to the test and pits them against a dragon in the middle of the city! After proving themselves, the sorceress and her fellow adventurers set off for the unexplored lands, where many adventures and a worrying prophecy await them. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Central Park Media, Funimation -- 47,772 7.83
Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru -- -- Shaft -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Seinen -- Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru -- Hotori Arashiyama loves mysteries, but there's one she just can't solve: why does the solution to one problem inevitably seem to lead to another? Like how when Hotori has to start working at the Seaside Maid Cafe after school to pay off a debt and her friend Toshiko fortunately knows exactly how a Maid Cafe should be run. Which is fortunate since Hotori has no clue. Except that, unfortunately, Toshiko has no interest in working at the cafe—until she discovers that Hotori's childhood friend Hiroyuki is a regular. Which SEEMS fortunate. Except that Hotori doesn't know that, while Toshiko likes Hiroyuki, Hiroyuki secretly likes Hotori, while Hotori secretly has a crush on... No, no more spoilers! -- -- But if that's not enough drama, there's work, angst with a certain math teacher, table tennis between her classmates, her younger brother versus the school's bad girl... And yet, even though everything seems like it's going to crash at any moment, somehow Hotori's life keeps going hilariously forward. -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 51,364 7.44
Soul Buster -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Samurai -- Soul Buster Soul Buster -- Keishuu, China. -- -- The history books say that in the era of the Three Kingdoms, this land was a place of never-ending war. A young high school boy, Sonshin, who hates his city's history, is troubled by a certain dream. When he wakes up from the dream, strange things begin to happen one after another, and without understanding what's going on, he suddenly finds himself facing Gien, one of the generals from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, who's trying to kill him! Just before Gien's blade strikes home, a mysterious beautiful woman appears in front of Sonshin. What trials await Sonshin, as he witnesses this terrible battle between two generals of the Three Kingdoms? -- -- (Source: Crunchyroll) -- 19,640 5.80
Stranger: Mukou Hadan -- -- Bones -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Adventure Historical Samurai -- Stranger: Mukou Hadan Stranger: Mukou Hadan -- In the Sengoku period of Japan, a young orphan named Kotarou and his dog Tobimaru steal from unsuspecting villagers in order to make ends meet. However, Kotarou is forced to remain on the run when he finds himself being hunted down by assassins sent by China's Ming Dynasty for mysterious reasons not involving his petty crimes. -- -- Fortunately, the duo run into Nanashi, a ronin who has taken refuge in a small temple, when Kotarou is attacked and Tobimaru poisoned. Although the samurai saves the helpless pair from their pursuers, he feels that there is no need to help them further; but when offered a gem in exchange for his services as a bodyguard, he reluctantly accepts Kotarou's offer of employment—just until Tobimaru is healed and the two reach their destination. As the three set out on a perilous journey, it soon becomes evident that their path is riddled with danger, as the Ming Dynasty has now sent a terrifying swordsman after them to capture Kotarou and fulfill a certain prophecy. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Funimation -- Movie - Sep 29, 2007 -- 267,914 8.31
Stranger: Mukou Hadan Pilot -- -- Bones -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Adventure Historical Samurai Seinen -- Stranger: Mukou Hadan Pilot Stranger: Mukou Hadan Pilot -- Young Nanashi is a drifting samurai under the service of an enigmatic monk who teaches the ways of life. In search for the meaning of life, Nanashi is forced to partake in certain horrendous acts to overcome the corrupt governments of China and Japan. The mysterious and observant samurai is forced to show a dark side to accomplish his goals and rescue society. -- -- Special - Apr 11, 2009 -- 9,850 7.03
Suisei no Gargantia -- -- Production I.G -- 13 eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Mecha -- Suisei no Gargantia Suisei no Gargantia -- In the distant future, a majority of humans have left the Earth, and the Galactic Alliance of Humanity is founded to guide exploration and ensure the prosperity of mankind. However, a significant threat arises in the form of strange creatures called Hideauze, resulting in an interstellar war to prevent humanity's extinction. Armed with Chamber, an autonomous robot, 16-year-old lieutenant Ledo of the Galactic Alliance joins the battle against the monsters. In an unfortunate turn of events, Ledo loses control during the battle and is cast out to the far reaches of space, crash-landing on a waterlogged Earth. -- -- On the blue planet, Gargantia—a large fleet of scavenger ships—comes across Chamber and retrieves it from the ocean, thinking they have salvaged something of value. Mistaking their actions for hostility, Ledo sneaks aboard and takes a young messenger girl named Amy hostage, only to realize that the residents of Gargantia are not as dangerous as he had believed. Faced with uncertainty, and unable to communicate with his comrades in space, Ledo attempts to get his bearings and acclimate to a new lifestyle. But his peaceful days are about to be short-lived, as there is more to this ocean-covered planet than meets the eye. -- -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- 289,134 7.49
Switch -- -- Actas -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Action Mystery Police -- Switch Switch -- Two newbies at the Narcotic Control Department in Japan, Haru and Kai, struggle against: drug dealers, gangs, murderers, psychopaths, mysterious organizations, and mad people in general. The gentle and caring one of the group, Kai, who has problems of his own, has the tendency of turning into a lethal killing machine in certain scenarios. The way he acts changes like that of a "switch". As the two do their job, answers of what is behind Kai's strange behavior and who exactly he is, is revealed. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- OVA - Oct 24, 2008 -- 24,474 6.93
Sword Art Online II -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Game Adventure Romance Fantasy -- Sword Art Online II Sword Art Online II -- A year after escaping Sword Art Online, Kazuto Kirigaya has been settling back into the real world. However, his peace is short-lived as a new incident occurs in a game called Gun Gale Online, where a player by the name of Death Gun appears to be killing people in the real world by shooting them in-game. Approached by officials to assist in investigating the murders, Kazuto assumes his persona of Kirito once again and logs into Gun Gale Online, intent on stopping the killer. -- -- Once inside, Kirito meets Sinon, a highly skilled sniper afflicted by a traumatic past. She is soon dragged in his chase after Death Gun, and together they enter the Bullet of Bullets, a tournament where their target is sure to appear. Uncertain of Death Gun's real powers, Kirito and Sinon race to stop him before he has the chance to claim another life. Not everything goes smoothly, however, as scars from the past impede their progress. In a high-stakes game where the next victim could easily be one of them, Kirito puts his life on the line in the virtual world once more. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 1,507,504 6.75
Taifuu no Noruda -- -- Studio Colorido -- 1 ep -- Original -- Drama School Sci-Fi Supernatural -- Taifuu no Noruda Taifuu no Noruda -- The film takes place on a certain isolated island, at a certain middle school, and on the eve of the culture festival. A boy quits baseball after playing his whole life and has a fight with his best friend. Then, they suddenly meet a mysterious, red-eyed girl named Noruda, and a huge typhoon hits the middle school. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- Movie - Jun 5, 2015 -- 31,585 6.23
Tamayura no Yume -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Original -- Psychological Drama -- Tamayura no Yume Tamayura no Yume -- A girl is informed by her doctor that she is pregnant. Surprised by the unexpected announcement, falls into an anguish. The fleeting dream is a despairing dream. -- -- (Source: Geidai Animation) -- Movie - ??? ??, 2011 -- 292 N/A -- -- Byulbyul Iyagi 2 -- -- - -- 6 eps -- - -- Psychological Drama -- Byulbyul Iyagi 2 Byulbyul Iyagi 2 -- This film consists of 6 animated shorts produced by the Human Rights Commission of Korea. Like the previous movie, the stories deal with seeing the world through the eyes of people who are different from social norms. The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature in 2008 from the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. -- -- 1. "The Third Wish” (AN Dong-hui, RYU Jeong-wu). A fairy godmother appears before a visually impaired young woman to grant her three wishes. But this is no fairytale. The irritable middle-aged fairy wants to finish her job as soon as possible. Yet she proves to be helpful as she leads the woman through a busy marketplace, which is delightfully reminiscent of "Amelie". But it's no walk in the park, as busy urbanites show no consideration for our protagonist. Yet she prevails through obstacles. With a walking stick, she taps together the heels of her shiny new shoes and follows the "yellow brick road" (guiding tiles for the visually impaired) around the city. -- -- 2. "Ajukari” (HONG Deok-pyo) is a street-style cartoon. It comically depicts how a certain macho "complex" can cripple men. Male circumcision becomes the ultimate standard for being "manly" and those who have failed to do the deed are forever fearful of going to public baths. -- -- 3. "Baby" (LEE Hong-su, LEE Hong-min) portrays the difficulties a career woman faces in having a child. "I'm not saying you can't have maternity leave, but can you afford to raise a child while working?" asks her boss. This smart story portrays everything from mother and daughter-in-law relationships to a parody of "Tazza: The High Rollers" and hilarious episodes where an "ambulance bus" picks up several patients en route. -- -- 4. "Shine Shine Shining" (KWON Mi-jeong) is drawn like a warm, watercolor storybook for children. Grade schooler Eun-jin is smart and popular, but she has a secret. She hides her curly hair, which she gets from her Filipino mother, in braids. -- -- 5. "Merry Golasmas" is an adorable claymation, or stop motion animation of models constructed from clay, plasticine, etc. It explores physical discrimination or stereotypes. In an open audition to find a Santa Claus, the real Santas ― one who's black, another who's Asian, a female Santa and one in a wheelchair ― lose to a fake Santa, a pot-bellied, Caucasian. -- -- 6. “Lies" explores homosexuality. Drawn in pastel-like sketches with art deco-esque details, it is a stunning digital cut-out animation, A homosexual man is forced by his parents to marry a woman, while others are pressured to fake having a girlfriend or receive "therapy" to become straight. -- -- (Source: The Korean Times) -- Movie - Apr 17, 2008 -- 257 N/A -- -- Hyoutan -- -- - -- 1 ep -- - -- Psychological -- Hyoutan Hyoutan -- Independent animation by Suzuki Shin'ichi. -- Movie - ??? ??, 1976 -- 252 N/A -- -- Pianoman Trailer -- -- Echoes -- 1 ep -- Original -- Music Psychological -- Pianoman Trailer Pianoman Trailer -- Trailer for Echoes' PIANOMAN with original animation that was not reused in the resulting short film. -- ONA - Dec 28, 2017 -- 243 5.41
Toaru Majutsu no Index Movie: Endymion no Kiseki -- -- J.C.Staff -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Magic Sci-Fi Super Power -- Toaru Majutsu no Index Movie: Endymion no Kiseki Toaru Majutsu no Index Movie: Endymion no Kiseki -- In the scientifically advanced Academy City, a miracle is about to occur: the completion of the world's first space elevator, "Endymion." Meanwhile, a certain high school student, Touma Kamijou, and his companion Index are going about their daily lives when they encounter and befriend Arisa Meigo, a cheerful and ambitious singer. When strange occurrences begin taking place throughout the city, they lead to the discovery of an intricate plot surrounding Arisa and Endymion. Things only get more complicated when the Stiyl Magnus appears, signifying that the magical world is somehow involved too... -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- Movie - Feb 23, 2013 -- 107,678 7.49
Toaru Majutsu no Index Movie: Endymion no Kiseki -- -- J.C.Staff -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Magic Sci-Fi Super Power -- Toaru Majutsu no Index Movie: Endymion no Kiseki Toaru Majutsu no Index Movie: Endymion no Kiseki -- In the scientifically advanced Academy City, a miracle is about to occur: the completion of the world's first space elevator, "Endymion." Meanwhile, a certain high school student, Touma Kamijou, and his companion Index are going about their daily lives when they encounter and befriend Arisa Meigo, a cheerful and ambitious singer. When strange occurrences begin taking place throughout the city, they lead to the discovery of an intricate plot surrounding Arisa and Endymion. Things only get more complicated when the Stiyl Magnus appears, signifying that the magical world is somehow involved too... -- -- Movie - Feb 23, 2013 -- 107,678 7.49
Tokyo Ghoul:re 2nd Season -- -- Pierrot Plus, Studio Pierrot -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Drama Horror Mystery Psychological Seinen Supernatural -- Tokyo Ghoul:re 2nd Season Tokyo Ghoul:re 2nd Season -- After the conclusion of the Tsukiyama Family Extermination Operation, the members of the Commission of Counter Ghouls (CCG) have grown exponentially in power and continue to pursue their goal of exterminating every ghoul in Japan. Having resigned from Quinx Squad, the now seemingly emotionless Haise Sasaki begins taking on more and more tasks from the CCG with no regard to the difficulty. Despite his vacant expressions, Ken Kaneki's memories are resurfacing in Haise, leaving him in a state of internal conflict. Meanwhile, his new coldhearted behavior is affecting the people around him. Quinx Squad are left in shambles, having to cope with the death of one of their members without the support of their former mentor. -- -- Amidst this turmoil, both Quinx Squad and Haise must continue to fulfill their duties to the CCG, whether willingly or not. However, the presence of a mysterious group behind the CCG has been made known to Haise, and certain whispers of corruption have not gone unheard by the Quinx Squad as well. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 521,694 6.35
To LOVE-Ru Darkness -- -- Xebec -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Ecchi Harem Romance School Sci-Fi Shounen -- To LOVE-Ru Darkness To LOVE-Ru Darkness -- As close encounters of the twisted kind between the residents of the planet Develuke (represented primarily by the female members of the royal family) and the inhabitants of Earth (represented mainly by one very exhausted Rito Yuki) continue to escalate, the situation spirals even further out of control. When junior princesses Nana and Momo transferred into Earth School where big sister LaLa can (theoretically) keep an eye on them, things SHOULD be smooth sailing. But when Momo decides she'd like to "supplement" Rito's relationship with LaLa with a little "sisterly love," you know LaLa's not going to waste any time splitting harems. Unfortunately, it's just about that point that Yami, the Golden Darkness, enters the scene with all the subtleness of a supernova, along with an army of possessed high school students! All of which is certain to make Rito's life suck more than a black hole at the family picnic. Unless, of course, a certain semi-demonic princess can apply a little of her Develukean Whoop Ass to exactly that portion of certain other heavenly bodies! -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Oct 6, 2012 -- 294,694 7.49
To LOVE-Ru Darkness -- -- Xebec -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Ecchi Harem Romance School Sci-Fi Shounen -- To LOVE-Ru Darkness To LOVE-Ru Darkness -- As close encounters of the twisted kind between the residents of the planet Develuke (represented primarily by the female members of the royal family) and the inhabitants of Earth (represented mainly by one very exhausted Rito Yuki) continue to escalate, the situation spirals even further out of control. When junior princesses Nana and Momo transferred into Earth School where big sister LaLa can (theoretically) keep an eye on them, things SHOULD be smooth sailing. But when Momo decides she'd like to "supplement" Rito's relationship with LaLa with a little "sisterly love," you know LaLa's not going to waste any time splitting harems. Unfortunately, it's just about that point that Yami, the Golden Darkness, enters the scene with all the subtleness of a supernova, along with an army of possessed high school students! All of which is certain to make Rito's life suck more than a black hole at the family picnic. Unless, of course, a certain semi-demonic princess can apply a little of her Develukean Whoop Ass to exactly that portion of certain other heavenly bodies! -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- TV - Oct 6, 2012 -- 294,694 7.49
Tomie -- -- Studio Deen -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Drama Horror Josei Supernatural -- Tomie Tomie -- Memories, both good and bad, suffuse the high school experience. Whether it's hanging out with friends or cramming for tests, everyone has something they will remember from that time in their lives. At a certain high school, one class is faced with an event that can cause people to look back on their high school days in sadness: the death of a student. -- -- The deceased is not just any student—she's Tomie Kawakami, a popular girl with an almost otherworldly beauty. Her death was particularly gruesome: her body was dismembered and the pieces scattered. As the class tries to make sense of the situation, they are shocked when a familiar voice calls out to them from the doorway, apologizing for being late. -- -- With raven hair and a beauty mark under her left eye, this girl is the spitting image of their murdered classmate. But she can't actually be Tomie, right? -- -- Special - Apr 27, 2018 -- 19,452 5.97
Tonikaku Kawaii -- -- Seven Arcs -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Romance Shounen -- Tonikaku Kawaii Tonikaku Kawaii -- Nasa Yuzaki is determined to leave his name in the history books. Ranking first in the national mock exam and aiming for a distinguished high school, he is certain that he has his whole life mapped out. However, fate is a fickle mistress. On his way home one snowy evening, Nasa's eyes fall upon a peerless beauty across the street. Bewitched, Nasa tries to approach her—only to get blindsided by an oncoming truck. -- -- Thankfully, his life is spared due to the girl's swift action. Bleeding by the side of an ambulance, he watches as the girl walks away under the moonlight—reminiscent of Princess Kaguya leaving for the moon. Refusing to let this chance meeting end, he forces his crippled body to chase after her and asks her out. Surprised by his foolhardiness and pure resolve, the girl accepts his confession under a single condition: they can only be together if he marries her! -- -- 375,441 7.94
Tsubasa: Tokyo Revelations -- -- Production I.G -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Drama Romance Fantasy Shounen -- Tsubasa: Tokyo Revelations Tsubasa: Tokyo Revelations -- Continuing their journey from Record Country (the place that held the book of memories), Syaoran and company land into Tokyo Country, a blood-filled country under war from opposing factions for natural resources and survival. While reluctantly involved in the race to live, the group faces their own problems as certain revelations are made, changing their journey forever. -- -- A shocking betrayal and a battle that risks all of their lives. After this revelation, they will never be the same again. -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- OVA - Nov 16, 2007 -- 83,274 8.31
Tsubasa: Tokyo Revelations -- -- Production I.G -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Drama Romance Fantasy Shounen -- Tsubasa: Tokyo Revelations Tsubasa: Tokyo Revelations -- Continuing their journey from Record Country (the place that held the book of memories), Syaoran and company land into Tokyo Country, a blood-filled country under war from opposing factions for natural resources and survival. While reluctantly involved in the race to live, the group faces their own problems as certain revelations are made, changing their journey forever. -- -- A shocking betrayal and a battle that risks all of their lives. After this revelation, they will never be the same again. -- OVA - Nov 16, 2007 -- 83,274 8.31
Tsugumomo -- -- Zero-G -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Ecchi School Seinen Supernatural -- Tsugumomo Tsugumomo -- In Japanese folklore, a "tsukumogami" is an object that has gained a soul, becoming alive and self-aware. There are two types of tsukumogami: the mature "tsugumomo," who have developed through long years of harmony with their owners, and the aberrant "amasogi," premature spirits that are only born to grant the destructive wishes of certain people. -- -- Kazuya Kagami has never gone without his mother's obi after her death. Be it at home or school, he keeps it safe with him at all times. One day, he nearly loses his life when a wig amasogi attacks him. When all seems to be over, his treasured obi defends him, transforming into a beautiful girl. She introduces herself as Kiriha, a tsugumomo owned by Kazuya's mother. -- -- With Kiriha's arrival, Kazuya enters a reality he has never seen before, a world with gods and tsukumogami. -- -- 140,274 7.06
Tsugumomo -- -- Zero-G -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Ecchi School Seinen Supernatural -- Tsugumomo Tsugumomo -- In Japanese folklore, a "tsukumogami" is an object that has gained a soul, becoming alive and self-aware. There are two types of tsukumogami: the mature "tsugumomo," who have developed through long years of harmony with their owners, and the aberrant "amasogi," premature spirits that are only born to grant the destructive wishes of certain people. -- -- Kazuya Kagami has never gone without his mother's obi after her death. Be it at home or school, he keeps it safe with him at all times. One day, he nearly loses his life when a wig amasogi attacks him. When all seems to be over, his treasured obi defends him, transforming into a beautiful girl. She introduces herself as Kiriha, a tsugumomo owned by Kazuya's mother. -- -- With Kiriha's arrival, Kazuya enters a reality he has never seen before, a world with gods and tsukumogami. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Crunchyroll, Funimation -- 140,274 7.06
Uchuu no Kishi Tekkaman Blade -- -- Tatsunoko Production -- 49 eps -- Original -- Action Adventure Space Mecha Romance Military Drama Sci-Fi Shounen -- Uchuu no Kishi Tekkaman Blade Uchuu no Kishi Tekkaman Blade -- Tekkaman Blade takes place in the year 2300 AD. On a certain moment, the Radam attack earth. A few months after the beginning of the invasion, a tekkaman appears, he calls himself Blade and with the help of the Space Knights, Blade starts to fight the radam. But there are a few things that Blade isn't telling about his past. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters -- TV - Feb 18, 1992 -- 13,528 7.45
Uchuu Senkan Yamato Pilot Film -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Original -- Military Sci-Fi Space -- Uchuu Senkan Yamato Pilot Film Uchuu Senkan Yamato Pilot Film -- The pilot film to Uchuu Senkan Yamato. It was created in August 1974 for Yomiuri Television executives but released to the public 16 years later on the Uchuu Senkan Yamato LD Box Set. The pilot was included on later releases for DVD/BD but they lack certain sounds/audio due to a copyright issue that came about in the time between the LD and DVD/BD releases. -- Special - Jul 27, 1990 -- 836 5.82
Uzumaki -- -- Drive -- 4 eps -- Manga -- Dementia Horror Psychological Supernatural Drama Romance Seinen -- Uzumaki Uzumaki -- In the town of Kurouzu-cho, Kirie Goshima lives a fairly normal life with her family. As she walks to the train station one day to meet her boyfriend, Shuuichi Saito, she sees his father staring at a snail shell in an alley. Thinking nothing of it, she mentions the incident to Shuuichi, who says that his father has been acting weird lately. Shuuichi reveals his rising desire to leave the town with Kirie, saying that the town is infected with spirals. -- -- But his father's obsession with the shape soon proves deadly, beginning a chain of horrific and unexplainable events that causes the residents of Kurouzu-cho to spiral into madness. -- -- TV - ??? ??, 2021 -- 33,169 N/A -- -- Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Tou no Kuni - Free Lance -- -- A.C.G.T. -- 1 ep -- Light novel -- Adventure Psychological Fantasy -- Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Tou no Kuni - Free Lance Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - Tou no Kuni - Free Lance -- Waking up from a nap, Kino is relieved to see that a certain tower from afar is still proudly standing. Located in the heart of the Tower Country, the immensely tall tower stretches high into the sky, reaching seemingly infinite heights. The tower looks like something out of a dream, but the breathtaking construction is unmistakably real. Intrigued, the traveling partners Kino and Hermes—the talking motorcycle—journey to the tower to get a closer look at the building. -- -- Despite already being unbelievably tall, the tower is still being built by the townspeople to this day. Puzzled by the origins of the tower, Kino and Hermes ask around the town for information, but they fail to obtain any definitive answer. They continue to observe both the tower and the townspeople during their stay, hoping to understand the reasoning behind building a tower that requires so much effort. After all, there is always something to learn... even from the strangest of countries. -- -- Special - Oct 19, 2005 -- 33,066 7.60
Vatican Kiseki Chousakan -- -- J.C.Staff -- 12 eps -- Novel -- Mystery Supernatural Drama -- Vatican Kiseki Chousakan Vatican Kiseki Chousakan -- Vatican City—Holy Land of the Catholics. Amidst the land, there is an organization that conducts rigorous investigations on "claims of miracles" from all over the world to ascertain their credibility. The organization is referred to as "Seito no Za" (Assembly of Saints) and the priests that belong there are called miracle investigators. Robert Nicholas, an ancient archive and cryptanalysis expert is partnered and good friends with Hiraga Josef Kou, a genius scientist. Together, the brilliant duo investigates the "miracles" and uncovers the incidents and conspiracies hidden behind them. -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- 41,284 6.39
Vatican Kiseki Chousakan -- -- J.C.Staff -- 12 eps -- Novel -- Mystery Supernatural Drama -- Vatican Kiseki Chousakan Vatican Kiseki Chousakan -- Vatican City—Holy Land of the Catholics. Amidst the land, there is an organization that conducts rigorous investigations on "claims of miracles" from all over the world to ascertain their credibility. The organization is referred to as "Seito no Za" (Assembly of Saints) and the priests that belong there are called miracle investigators. Robert Nicholas, an ancient archive and cryptanalysis expert is partnered and good friends with Hiraga Josef Kou, a genius scientist. Together, the brilliant duo investigates the "miracles" and uncovers the incidents and conspiracies hidden behind them. -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 41,284 6.39
Vinland Saga -- -- Wit Studio -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Drama Historical Seinen -- Vinland Saga Vinland Saga -- Young Thorfinn grew up listening to the stories of old sailors that had traveled the ocean and reached the place of legend, Vinland. It's said to be warm and fertile, a place where there would be no need for fighting—not at all like the frozen village in Iceland where he was born, and certainly not like his current life as a mercenary. War is his home now. Though his father once told him, "You have no enemies, nobody does. There is nobody who it's okay to hurt," as he grew, Thorfinn knew that nothing was further from the truth. -- -- The war between England and the Danes grows worse with each passing year. Death has become commonplace, and the viking mercenaries are loving every moment of it. Allying with either side will cause a massive swing in the balance of power, and the vikings are happy to make names for themselves and take any spoils they earn along the way. Among the chaos, Thorfinn must take his revenge and kill Askeladd, the man who murdered his father. The only paradise for the vikings, it seems, is the era of war and death that rages on. -- -- 744,449 8.71
Wake Up, Girls! -- -- Ordet, Tatsunoko Production -- 12 eps -- Original -- Drama Music -- Wake Up, Girls! Wake Up, Girls! -- On Christmas 2013, the band Wake Up, Girls plays their debut song to a small audience without much fanfare. After the concert, the group’s manager takes off with the money, leaving Green Leaves Entertainment on the verge of closure and the band without a future. -- -- Despite this tumultuous beginning, the girls get a second chance, thanks to a mysterious benefactor and a shady business proposal. From here it’s a rocky climb to the top, but it’s a climb the girls are ready to make. Wake Up, Girls! follows the internal and external struggles of being a small-time idol girl band, from finding and accepting gigs to competing in popularity against other pop bands. -- -- Through the band, the girls come to accept their pasts and become more certain about their futures. Faced with increasing stakes and popularity, each of the band’s seven members must find the strength and courage inside herself to give her all to the band. -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 47,169 6.98
Watashi ni Tenshi ga Maiorita! Special -- -- Doga Kobo -- 1 ep -- 4-koma manga -- Comedy Shoujo Ai Slice of Life -- Watashi ni Tenshi ga Maiorita! Special Watashi ni Tenshi ga Maiorita! Special -- Hinata Hoshino, Hana Shirosaki, and Noa Himesaka are off to the countryside for a camping trip. At Hinata's behest, her elder sister, Miyako, reluctantly tags along. Seeing how gloomy Miyako is, the trio do their best to get her to enjoy herself too. -- -- Besides the camping trip, Watashi ni Tenshi ga Maiorita! Special contains three more short stories of the girls. Although their lives seem normal, one thing is certain: there is definitely no shortage of cuteness here! -- -- Special - May 24, 2019 -- 22,031 7.28
Weiß Kreuz -- -- Magic Bus, Plum -- 25 eps -- Original -- Action Drama Shounen -- Weiß Kreuz Weiß Kreuz -- Aya, Yoji, Ken, and Omi are the four young men who comprise Weiss Kruez (WK), an assassin group who eliminates certain menaces to society. Each member has his own trademark fighting style. Aya is adept at fighting with a katana, Yoji has mastered the art of strangulation via strings, Ken is lethal with his metal claws, while Omi specializes in a wide array of projectiles. Under the command of a mysterious man known only as "Persia", the WK is dispatched to take care of drug rings, terrorist factions, and the like. But as things go along, they discover that most, if not all, the bad elements they have dealt with are somehow connected to the Takatori family. The Takatori family is rich, powerful, and influential. It seems if the problem is to be nipped in the bud, the WK would have to put an end to one of Japan's most prominent clans. -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters -- TV - Apr 9, 1998 -- 16,739 6.72
Weiß Kreuz -- -- Magic Bus, Plum -- 25 eps -- Original -- Action Drama Shounen -- Weiß Kreuz Weiß Kreuz -- Aya, Yoji, Ken, and Omi are the four young men who comprise Weiss Kruez (WK), an assassin group who eliminates certain menaces to society. Each member has his own trademark fighting style. Aya is adept at fighting with a katana, Yoji has mastered the art of strangulation via strings, Ken is lethal with his metal claws, while Omi specializes in a wide array of projectiles. Under the command of a mysterious man known only as "Persia", the WK is dispatched to take care of drug rings, terrorist factions, and the like. But as things go along, they discover that most, if not all, the bad elements they have dealt with are somehow connected to the Takatori family. The Takatori family is rich, powerful, and influential. It seems if the problem is to be nipped in the bud, the WK would have to put an end to one of Japan's most prominent clans. -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- TV - Apr 9, 1998 -- 16,739 6.72
Working!!! -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 13 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Comedy Romance Seinen Slice of Life -- Working!!! Working!!! -- As the stories of those connected to Wagnaria come to a close, only one thing is certain: the workplace is about to get crazier than ever before! Whether it be incredibly awkward romances, relentless searches for lost relatives, or even uncomfortable family reunions, lover of all things cute and tiny Souta Takanashi and his motley crew have plenty on their plates. With more Napoleon complexes, androphobia, and katana-wielding than you can shake a frying pan at, Working!!! delivers a final serving of the staff's hilarious misadventures working at everybody's favorite family restaurant. -- -- 201,076 8.01
Working!!! -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 13 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Comedy Romance Seinen Slice of Life -- Working!!! Working!!! -- As the stories of those connected to Wagnaria come to a close, only one thing is certain: the workplace is about to get crazier than ever before! Whether it be incredibly awkward romances, relentless searches for lost relatives, or even uncomfortable family reunions, lover of all things cute and tiny Souta Takanashi and his motley crew have plenty on their plates. With more Napoleon complexes, androphobia, and katana-wielding than you can shake a frying pan at, Working!!! delivers a final serving of the staff's hilarious misadventures working at everybody's favorite family restaurant. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 201,076 8.01
Wu Shan Wu Xing -- -- Nice Boat Animation, Samsara Animation Studio -- 3 eps -- Original -- Action Historical Martial Arts Fantasy -- Wu Shan Wu Xing Wu Shan Wu Xing -- A legend tells that a long time ago, monsters could give the ability to certain elected officials to master the five elements. But for that, you have to go through the dangerous foggy mountains... -- -- We follow the adventures of one of these elected officials. -- -- (Source: Nautiljon) -- ONA - Jul 26, 2020 -- 26,299 8.00
Yesterday wo Utatte -- -- Doga Kobo -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Drama Romance Seinen -- Yesterday wo Utatte Yesterday wo Utatte -- Rikuo Uozumi has all but resigned himself to a bleak future, aimlessly working at a convenience store in Tokyo after graduating from college. His monotonous life is interrupted when the peculiar Haru Nonaka makes a lively appearance, frequently dropping by his workplace to befriend him. When Rikuo learns that an old college friend and crush, Shinako Morinome, has moved back into town, he reaches out to further their relationship. Unbeknownst to Rikuo however, Shinako is carrying painful memories from her past that were holding her back from accepting his feelings. Meanwhile, as Haru continually opens up to Rikuo, he discovers that she, much like him, is living by herself and wants to step out of her comfort zone into an uncertain future. -- -- The past lingers long in the mind, and the future remains elusive. At a crossroads along their intertwined paths, these three experience what it means to let go of their feelings of yesterday and embrace the change that tomorrow brings. -- -- 224,381 6.98
Ys -- -- Tokyo Kids -- 7 eps -- Game -- Action Adventure Demons Drama Fantasy Magic -- Ys Ys -- Mythical beasts lay siege on the people of Esteria, who have raised an army to fight back. The beasts are relentless and seemingly have no end to their numbers, while the population of defenders dwindle in every skirmish. Even in the town of Minea, where the people are safely nestled behind castle walls, the constant attacks have left them hopeless. It is then that a prophecy is made, proclaiming the arrival of a brave young soul that could be the one who will bring their salvation. -- -- Ys follows Adol Christin, an adventurer driven by wanderlust towards the island of Esteria, who washes up on shore after a shipwreck. Following the guidance of the fortuneteller Sarah Tovah, he and his allies will travel the island in search of the legendary tomes known as the Books of Ys. It will be a long and perilous journey, but if fate is truly at work then Adol will certainly be the hero who returns peace to Esteria. -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters -- OVA - Nov 21, 1989 -- 6,790 6.48
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A Certain Ambiguity
A Certain Girl
A Certain Magical Index
A Certain Magical Index II
A Certain Magical Index III
A Certain Magical Index: The Movie The Miracle of Endymion
A Certain Mister
A Certain Ratio
A Certain Scientific Accelerator
A Certain Scientific Railgun
A Certain Scientific Railgun (2009 TV series)
A Certain Scientific Railgun S
A Certain Scientific Railgun T
A Certain Smile
A Certain Smile, a Certain Sadness
A Certain Trigger
An Uncertain Place
Anxiety/uncertainty management
ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems
A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain
Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World
Beyond Uncertainty
Certain Affinity
Certain Chapters
Certain Distant Suns
Certain General
Certain Honorable Men (film)
Certain Iranian Assets
Certain (racehorse)
Certains l'aiment froide
CertainTeed
Certainty
Certainty in English law
Certain Women
Certain Women (film)
Certain Women (TV series)
Certificate of ascertainment
Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010
Code scaling, applicability, and uncertainty
Cone of Uncertainty
Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons
Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws
Convention on the Unification of Certain Points of Substantive Law on Patents for Invention
Corridor of uncertainty
Date certain
Dead Certain
Death Is Certain
Deferred tax uncertainty
Degrees of Certainty
Entropic uncertainty
Expected value of including uncertainty
Fear, uncertainty, and doubt
For Certain Because
Franois Certain
Franois Certain de Canrobert
Generalised likelihood uncertainty estimation
Got to Be Certain
Hell for Certain, Kentucky
In Danger and Deep Distress, the Middleway Spells Certain Death
International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems
In Uncertain Times
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty
Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act, 1978
Knightian uncertainty
Korea Anti-Dumping Duties on Imports of Certain Paper from Indonesia
Kpfmller's uncertainty principle
Legal certainty
List of A Certain Magical Index albums
List of A Certain Magical Index chapters
List of A Certain Magical Index characters
List of A Certain Magical Index episodes
List of A Certain Magical Index light novels
List of A Certain Scientific Railgun albums
List of A Certain Scientific Railgun episodes
List of ICD-9 codes 760779: certain conditions originating in the perinatal period
List of Victoria Cross recipients of uncertain nationality
Measurement uncertainty
Melanocytic tumors of uncertain malignant potential
Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons
Men of a Certain Age
Moral certainty
Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications
On Certainty
Policy uncertainty
Postpone to a certain time
Propagation of uncertainty
Prostatic stromal tumour of uncertain malignant potential
Protection of Life and Property in Certain Parts of Ireland Act 1871
Pseudocertainty effect
Reality of Certainty
Risk Governance: Coping with Uncertainty in a Complex World
Royal Commission of Inquiry into Certain Activities of the RCMP
Statute IV of 1947 regarding the abolition of certain titles and ranks (Hungary)
Statutes of uncertain date
Stronger uncertainty relations
Substantial certainty doctrine
Success Is Certain
Swift, certain, and fair
Tax uncertainty
That Uncertain Feeling
The Age of Uncertainty
The Attraction to All Things Uncertain
The End of the Certain World
The Uncertainty Principle (audio drama)
The Uncertainty Principle (film)
The Woman with That Certain Something
Three certainties
Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea
Uncertain
Uncertain (EP)
Uncertain Glory
Uncertain Glory (novel)
Un Certain Regard
Uncertain, Texas
Uncertainty
Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy
Uncertainty (book)
Uncertainty coefficient
Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory
Uncertainty parameter
Uncertainty principle
Uncertainty Principle (Numbers)
Uncertainty quantification
Uncertainty reduction theory
Uncertain worm lizard
Une certaine vision du Liban
Variant of uncertain significance
Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity
You Must Be Certain of the Devil
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