541 Integral Yoga
109 Poetry
106 Occultism
55 Philosophy
49 Yoga
47 Christianity
41 Fiction
29 Psychology
18 Islam
9 Mysticism
8 Mythology
8 Integral Theory
7 Hinduism
7 Education
4 Science
3 Sufism
3 Cybernetics
2 Theosophy
2 Buddhism
1 Zen
1 Thelema
1 Baha i Faith
1 Alchemy
310 The Mother
260 Sri Aurobindo
171 Satprem
94 Nolini Kanta Gupta
57 Aleister Crowley
35 H P Lovecraft
28 James George Frazer
27 Carl Jung
20 Sri Ramakrishna
18 Muhammad
18 A B Purani
17 Plotinus
16 Saint Augustine of Hippo
16 Robert Browning
14 William Wordsworth
13 Swami Vivekananda
13 Swami Krishnananda
11 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
10 Plato
10 John Keats
9 Aldous Huxley
8 Saint John of Climacus
8 Lucretius
7 Ovid
6 Rudolf Steiner
6 Percy Bysshe Shelley
6 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
5 Rabindranath Tagore
5 Jordan Peterson
5 Friedrich Nietzsche
5 Edgar Allan Poe
4 William Butler Yeats
4 Thubten Chodron
4 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
4 Saint Teresa of Avila
4 Nirodbaran
4 Jorge Luis Borges
4 Hafiz
4 George Van Vrekhem
4 Franz Bardon
3 Norbert Wiener
2 Walt Whitman
2 Vyasa
2 Rainer Maria Rilke
2 Patanjali
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Lewis Carroll
2 Lalla
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Ibn Arabi
2 Henry David Thoreau
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Bokar Rinpoche
2 Anonymous
2 Al-Ghazali
38 Magick Without Tears
37 Record of Yoga
35 Lovecraft - Poems
34 Letters On Yoga IV
32 The Synthesis Of Yoga
28 The Golden Bough
26 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
24 Letters On Yoga II
22 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
21 Liber ABA
19 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
19 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
18 Quran
18 Letters On Yoga III
18 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
18 Agenda Vol 08
17 Questions And Answers 1953
17 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
17 Agenda Vol 03
16 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
16 Browning - Poems
16 Agenda Vol 06
15 Questions And Answers 1956
15 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
15 Agenda Vol 04
15 Agenda Vol 01
14 Wordsworth - Poems
14 The Life Divine
14 Questions And Answers 1955
14 Agenda Vol 12
14 Agenda Vol 02
13 The Study and Practice of Yoga
13 Essays On The Gita
13 City of God
12 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
12 Questions And Answers 1954
12 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
11 Agenda Vol 11
11 Agenda Vol 09
10 Talks
10 Keats - Poems
10 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
9 The Practice of Psycho therapy
9 The Perennial Philosophy
9 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
9 Agenda Vol 05
8 Words Of The Mother II
8 Words Of Long Ago
8 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
8 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
8 Some Answers From The Mother
8 Of The Nature Of Things
8 Mysterium Coniunctionis
8 Letters On Yoga I
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
8 Agenda Vol 13
7 Prayers And Meditations
7 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
7 On Education
7 Metamorphoses
7 Agenda Vol 10
7 Agenda Vol 07
6 Vedic and Philological Studies
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Phenomenon of Man
6 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
6 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
6 Shelley - Poems
6 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
6 Essays Divine And Human
6 Collected Poems
6 Bhakti-Yoga
5 Tagore - Poems
5 Raja-Yoga
5 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
5 Maps of Meaning
5 Letters On Poetry And Art
5 Faust
4 Yeats - Poems
4 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Savitri
4 Preparing for the Miraculous
4 Poe - Poems
4 Labyrinths
4 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
4 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
4 Aion
3 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
3 The Secret Of The Veda
3 The Problems of Philosophy
3 The Human Cycle
3 The Future of Man
3 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
3 On the Way to Supermanhood
3 Hafiz - Poems
3 Cybernetics
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
3 Amrita Gita
3 5.1.01 - Ilion
2 Words Of The Mother III
2 Whitman - Poems
2 Walden
2 Vishnu Purana
2 Twilight of the Idols
2 The Way of Perfection
2 The Practice of Magical Evocation
2 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
2 The Blue Cliff Records
2 The Bible
2 The Alchemy of Happiness
2 Tara - The Feminine Divine
2 Selected Fictions
2 Rilke - Poems
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
2 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
2 Kena and Other Upanishads
2 Isha Upanishad
2 Initiation Into Hermetics
2 Alice in Wonderland
2 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to brea the the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.
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0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Ramkumar could hardly understand the import of his young brother's reply. He described in bright colours the happy and easy life of scholars in Calcutta society. But Gadadhar intuitively felt that the scholars, to use one of his own vivid illustrations, were like so many vultures, soaring high on the wings of their uninspired intellect, with their eyes fixed on the charnel-pit of greed and lust. So he stood firm and Ramkumar had to give way.
--- KALI TEMPLE AT DAKSHINESWAR
--
Totapuri asked the disciple to withdraw his mind from all objects of the relative world, including the gods and goddesses, and to concentrate on the Absolute. But the task was not easy even for Sri Ramakrishna. He found it impossible to take his mind beyond Kali, the Divine Mother of the Universe. "After the initiation", Sri Ramakrishna once said, describing the event, "Nangta began to teach me the various conclusions of the Advaita Vedanta and asked me to withdraw the mind completely from all objects and dive deep into the Atman. But in spite of all my attempts I could not altogether cross the realm of name and form and bring my mind to the unconditioned state. I had no difficulty in taking the mind from all the objects of the world. But the radiant and too familiar figure of the Blissful Mother, the Embodiment of the essence of Pure Consciousness, appeared before me as a living reality. Her bewitching smile prevented me from passing into the Great Beyond. Again and again I tried, but She stood in my way every time. In despair I said to Nangta: 'It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the unconditioned state and come face to face with Atman.' He grew excited and sharply said: 'What? You can't do it? But you have to.' He cast his eyes around. Finding a piece of glass he took it up and stuck it between my eyebrows. 'Concentrate the mind on this point!' he thundered. Then with stern determination I again sat to meditate. As soon as the gracious form of the Divine Mother appeared before me, I used my discrimination as a sword and with it clove Her in two. The last barrier fell. My spirit at once soared beyond the relative plane and I lost myself in samadhi."
Sri Ramakrishna remained completely absorbed in samadhi for three days. "Is it really true?" Totapuri cried out in astonishment. "Is it possible that he has attained in a single day what it took me forty years of strenuous practice to achieve? Great God! It is nothing short of a miracle!" With the help of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna's mind finally came down to the relative plane.
--
The Master knew Hari's passion for Vedanta. But he did not wish any of his disciples to become a dry ascetic or a mere bookworm. So he asked Hari to practise Vedanta in life by giving up the unreal and following the Real. "But it is not so easy", Sri Ramakrishna said, "to realize the illusoriness of the world. Study alone does not help one very much. The grace of God is required. Mere personal effort is futile. A man is a tiny creature after all, with very limited powers. But he can achieve the impossible if he prays to God for His grace." Whereupon the Master sang a song in praise of grace. Hari was profoundly moved and shed tears. Later in life Hari achieved a wonderful synthesis of the ideals of the Personal God and the Impersonal Truth.
--- GANGADHAR
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0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
a thousand thousand, and it becomes easy; a
thousand thousand times a thousand thousand,
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0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The two pamphlets in English entitled the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna appeared in October and November 1897. They drew the spontaneous acclamation of Swami Vivekananda, who wrote on 24th November of that year from Dehra Dun to M.:"Many many thanks for your second leaflet. It is indeed wonderful. The move is quite original, and never was the life of a Great Teacher brought before the public untarnished by the writer's mind, as you are doing. The language also is beyond all praise, so fresh, so pointed, and withal so plain and easy. I cannot express in adequate terms how I have enjoyed them. I am really in a transport when I read them. Strange, isn't it? Our Teacher and Lord was so original, and each one of us will have to be original or nothing.
I now understand why none of us attempted His life before. It has been reserved for you, this great work. He is with you evidently." ( Vednta Kesari Vol. XIX P. 141. Also given in the first edition of the Gospel published from Ramakrishna Math, Madras in 1911.)
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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 gospel of the Supermind which Sri Aurobindo brought to man envisages a new level of consciousness beyond Mind. When this level is attained it imposes a complete and radical reintegration of the human personality. Sri Aurobindo was not merely the exponent but the embodiment of the new, dynamic truth of the Supermind. While exploring and sounding the tremendous possibilities of human personality in his intense spiritual Sadhana, he has shown us that practically there are no limits to its expansion and ascent. It can reach in its growth what appears to man at present as a 'divine' status. It goes without saying that this attainment is not an easy task; there are conditions to be fulfilled for the transformation from the human to the divine.
The Gita in its chapters on the Vibhuti and the Avatar takes in general the same position. It shows that the present formula of our nature, and therefore the mental personality of man, is not final. A Vibhuti embodies in a human manifestation a certain divine quality and thus demonstrates the possibility of overcoming the limits of ordinary human personality. The Vibhuti the embodiment of a divine quality or power, and the Avatar the divine incarnation, are not to be looked upon as supraphysical miracles thrown at humanity without regard to the process of evolution; they are, in fact, indications of human possibility, a sign that points to the goal of evolution.
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0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Do you believe it is so easy to strike at the root of a stupidity?
Stupidities are always rooted deep down in the subconscient.
--
it is easy to understand that someone who carries in and around
himself peace and goodwill, will in a way impose on others
--
which is very easy to understand: doubt veils the consciousness
and the subconscious sincerity, and into the action some small
--
identification. But it is not very easy to do and there are other
means of knowing besides reasoning - intuition, for example
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0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
quite easy to feel my presence constantly.
With love and blessings.
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0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
An undiscriminating combination in block would not be a synthesis, but a confusion. Nor would a successive practice of each of them in turn be easy in the short span of our human life and with our limited energies, to say nothing of the waste of labour implied in so cumbrous a process. Sometimes, indeed,
Hathayoga and Rajayoga are thus successively practised. And in a recent unique example, in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity first driving straight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were, the kingdom of heaven by violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after another and extracting the substance out of it with an incredible rapidity, always to return to the heart of the whole matter, the realisation and possession of God by the power of love, by the extension of inborn spirituality into various experience and by the spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge. Such an example cannot be generalised. Its object also was special and temporal, to exemplify in the great and decisive experience of a master-soul the truth, now most necessary to humanity, towards which a world long divided into jarring sects and schools is with difficulty labouring, that all sects are forms and fragments of a single integral truth and all disciplines labour in their different ways towards one supreme experience. To know, be and possess
--
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.
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
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0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
more reveal the author's skill as a director of souls. They are easy chapters to
understand, and of great practical utility, comparable to those in the first book of
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0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
soul, then it is a very easy thing for me.
Not only of the soul, but of the whole being, without reserve.
--
of knowledge must be added to these sentiments. For, to communicate peace and joy to others is not so easy, and unless one
has within oneself an unshakable peace and joy, there is a great
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0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To talk of surrender is easy, very easy indeed. To think of
surrender in all its complexity is not so easy, it is not so
easy at all. But to achieve even the beginning of a genuine
--
Let me carry you in my arms and the climbing will become easy.
Love and blessings to my dear child.
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0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
you; that is why it is easy for you to approach me with a loving
confidence, without fear and without hesitation. Sri Aurobindo
--
The easy paths generally lead nowhere.
28 July 1960
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01.01 - Sri Aurobindo - The Age of Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Well, the view expressed in these words is not a new revelation. It has been the cry of suffering humanity through the ages. Man has borne his cross since the beginning of his creation through want and privation, through disease and bereavement, through all manner of turmoil and tribulation, and yetmirabile dictuat the same time, in the very midst of those conditions, he has been aspiring and yearning for something else, ignoring the present, looking into the beyond. It is not the prosperous and the more happily placed in life who find it more easy to turn to the higher life, it is not the wealthiest who has the greatest opportunity to pursue a spiritual idea. On the contrary, spiritual leaders have thought and experienced otherwise.
Apart from the well-recognised fact that only in distress does the normal man think of God and non-worldly things, the real matter, however, is that the inner life is a thing apart and follows its own line of movement, does not depend upon, is not subservient to, the kind of outer life that one may happen to live under. The Bible says indeed, "Blessed are the poor, blessed are they that mourn"... But the Upanishad declares, on the other hand, that even as one lies happily on a royal couch, bathes and anoints himself with all the perfumes of the world, has attendants all around and always to serve him, even so, one can be full of the divine consciousness from the crown of the head to the tip of his toe-nail. In fact, a poor or a prosperous life is in no direct or even indirect ratio to a spiritual life. All the miseries and immediate needs of a physical life do not and cannot detain or delay one from following the path of the ideal; nor can all your riches be a burden to your soul and overwhelm it, if it chooses to walk onit can not only walk, but soar and fly with all that knapsack on its back.
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01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not easy, however, nor is it necessary for the moment to envisage in detail what this divinised man would be like, externallyhis mode of outward being and living, kimsita vrajeta kim, as Arjuna queriedor how the collective life of the new humanity would function or what would be the composition of its social fabric. For what is happening is a living process, an organic growth; it is being elaborated through the actions and reactions of multitudinous forces and conditions, known and unknown; the precise configuration of the final outcome cannot be predicted with exactitude. But the Power that is at work is omniscient; it is selecting, rejecting, correcting, fashioning, creating, co-ordinating elements in accordance with and by the drive of the inviolable law of Truth and Harmony that reigns in Light's own homeswe dame the Supermind.
It is also to be noted that as mind is not the last limit of the march of evolution, even so the progress of evolution will not stop with the manifestation and embodiment of the Supermind. There are other still higher principles beyond and they too presumably await manifestation and embodiment on earth. Creation has no beginning in time (andi) nor has it an end (ananta). It is an eternal process of the unravelling of the mysteries of the Infinite. Only, it may be said that with the Supermind the creation here enters into a different order of existence. Before it there was the domain of Ignorance, after it will come the reign of Light and Knowledge. Mortality has been the governing principle of life on earth till now; it will be replaced by the consciousness of immortality. Evolution has proceeded through struggle and pain; hereafter it will be a spontaneous, harmonious and happy flowering.
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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."
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01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is spiritual matter and spiritual manner that can never be improved upon. This is spiritual poetry in its quintessence. I am referring naturally here to the original and not to the translation which can never do full justice, even at its very best, to the poetic value in question. For apart from the individual genius of the poet, the greatness of the language, the instrument used by the poet, is also involved. It may well be what is comparatively easy and natural in the language of the gods (devabhasha) would mean a tour de force, if not altogether an impossibility, in a human language. The Sanskrit language was moulded and fashioned in the hands of the Rishis, that is to say, those who lived and moved and had their being in the spiritual consciousness. The Hebrew or even the Zend does not seem to have reached that peak, that absoluteness of the spiritual tone which seems inherent in the Indian tongue, although those too breathed and grew in a spiritual atmosphere. The later languages, however, Greek or Latin or their modern descendants, have gone still farther from the source, they are much nearer to the earth and are suffused with the smell and effluvia of this vale of tears.
Among the ancients, strictly speaking, the later classical Lucretius was a remarkable phenomenon. By nature he was a poet, but his mental interest lay in metaphysical speculation, in philosophy, and unpoetical business. He turned away from arms and heroes, wrath and love and, like Seneca and Aurelius, gave himself up to moralising and philosophising, delving 'into the mystery, the why and the how and the whither of it all. He chose a dangerous subject for his poetic inspiration and yet it cannot be said that his attempt was a failure. Lucretius was not a religious or spiritual poet; he was rather Marxian,atheistic, materialistic. The dialectical materialism of today could find in him a lot of nourishment and support. But whatever the content, the manner has made a whole difference. There was an idealism, a clarity of vision and an intensity of perception, which however scientific apparently, gave his creation a note, an accent, an atmosphere high, tense, aloof, ascetic, at times bordering on the supra-sensual. It was a high light, a force of consciousness that at its highest pitch had the ring and vibration of something almost spiritual. For the basic principle of Lucretius' inspiration is a large thought-force, a tense perception, a taut nervous reactionit is not, of course, the identity in being with the inner realities which is the hallmark of a spiritual consciousness, yet it is something on the way towards that.
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01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact, the individual is not and cannot be such an isolated thing as our egoistic sense would like to have it. The sharp angularities of the individual are being, at every moment, chastened by the very primary conditions of life; and to fail to recognise this is the blindest form of ignorance. It is no easy task to draw exactly the line of distinction between our individual being and our social or communal being. In actual life they are so blended together that in trying to extricate them from each other, we but tear and lacerate them both. The highest wisdom is to take the two together as they are, and by a gradual purifying processboth internal and external, internal in thought and knowledge and will, external in life and actionrestore them to their respective truth and lawSatyam and Ritam.
The individual who leads a severely individual life from the very beginning, whose outlook of the world has been fashioned by that conception, can hardly, if at all, enter at the end the communal life. He must perforce be either a vagabond or a recluse: But the recluse is not an integral man, nor the vagabond an ideal personality. The individual need not be too chaste and shy to associate with others and to give and take as freely and fully as he can. Individuality is not necessarily curtailed or mutilated in this process, but there is this other greater possibility of its getting enlarged and enhanced. Rather it is when you shut yourself up in your own self, that you stick to only one line of your personality, to a single phase of your self and thus limit and diminish yourself; the breadth and height and depth of your self, the cubic completeness of your personality you can attain only through a multiple and variegated stress by which you come in contact with the world and things.
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01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It would have been an easy matter if these vital urges could flow on unhindered in their way. There would have been no problem at all, if they met satisfaction easily and smoothly, without having to look to other factors and forces. As a matter of fact, man does not and cannot gratify his instincts whenever and wherever he chooses and in an open and direct manner. Even in his most primitive and barbarous condition, he has often to check himself and throw a veil, in so many ways, over his sheer animality. In the civilised society the check is manifold and is frankly recognised. We do not go straight as our sexual impulsion leads, but seek to hide and camouflage it under the institution of marriage; we do not pounce upon the food directly we happen to meet it and snatch and appropriate whatever portion we get but we secure it through an elaborate process, which is known as the economic system. The machinery of the state, the cult of the kshatriya are roundabout ways to meet our fighting instincts.
What is the reason of this elaboration, this check and constraint upon the natural and direct outflow of the animal instincts in man? It has been said that the social life of man, the fact that he has to live and move as member of a group or aggregate has imposed upon him these restrictions. The free and unbridled indulgence of one's bare aboriginal impulses may be possible to creatures that live a separate, solitary and individual life but is disruptive of all bonds necessary for a corporate and group life. It is even a biological necessity again which has evolved in man a third and collateral primary instinct that of the herd. And it is this herd-instinct which naturally and spontaneously restrains, diverts and even metamorphoses the other instincts of the mere animal life. However, leaving aside for the moment the question whether man's ethical and spiritual ideals are a mere dissimulation of his animal instincts or whether they correspond to certain actual realities apart from and co-existent with these latter, we will recognise the simple fact of control and try to have a glimpse into its mechanism.
--
The human mind naturally, without any effort on its part, takes to one or more of these devices to control and conceal the aboriginal impulses. But this spontaneous process can be organised and consciously regulated and made to serve better the purpose and urge of Nature. And this is the beginning of yoga the conscious fulfilment of Nature. The Psycho-analysts have given us the first and elementary stage of this process of yoga. It is, we may say, the fourth line of control. With this man enters a new level of being, develops a new mode of life. It is when the automatism of Nature is replaced by the power of Conscious Control. Man is not here, a blind instrument of forces, his activities (both indulging and controlling) are not guided according to an ignorant submission to the laws of almost subconscious impulsions. Conscious control means that the mind does not fight shy of or seek to elude the aboriginal insistences, but allows them to come up freely, meets them squarely, recognises them and establishes an easy mastery over them.
The method of unconscious or subconscious nature is fundamentally that of repression. Apart from Defence Reaction which is a thing of pure coercion, even in Substitution and Sublimation there always remains in the background a large amount of repressed complexes in all their primitive strength. The system is never entirely purified but remains secretly pregnant with those urges; a part only is deflected and camouflaged, the surface only assumes a transformed appearance. And there is always the danger of the superstructure coming down helplessly by a sudden upheaval of the nether forces. The whole system feels, although not in a conscious manner, the tension of the repression and suffers from something that is unhealthy and ill-balanced. Dante's spiritualised passion is a supreme instance of control by Sublimation, but the Divina Comedia hardly bears the impress of a serene and tranquil soul, sovereignly above the turmoils of the tragedy of life and absolutely at peace with itself.
In conscious control, the mind is for the first time aware of the presence of the repressed impulses, it seeks to release them from the pressure to which they are habitually and normally subjected. It knows and recognises them, however ugly and revolting they might appear to be when they present themselves in their natural nakedness. Then it becomes easy for the conscious determination to eliminate or regulate or transform them and thus to establish a healthy harmony in the human vehicle. The very recognition itself, as implied in conscious control, means purification.
Yet even here the process of control and transformation does not end. And we now come to the Fifth Line, the real and intimate path of yoga. Conscious control gives us a natural mastery over the instinctive impulses which are relieved of their dark tamas and attain a purified rhythm. We do not seek to hide or repress or combat them, but surpass them and play with them as the artist does with his material. Something of this katharsis, this aestheticism of the primitive impulses was achieved by the ancient Greeks. Even then the primitive impulses remain primitive all the same; they fulfil, no doubt, a real and healthy function in the scheme of life, but still in their fundamental nature they continue the animal in man. And even when Conscious Control means the utter elimination and annihilation of the primal instinctswhich, however, does not seem to be a probable eventualityeven then, we say, the basic problem remains unsolved; for the urge of nature towards the release and a transformation of the instincts does not find satisfaction, the question is merely put aside.
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01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
If you are told you are still full of sins and you are not worthy to follow the path, that you must go and work out your sins first, here is your answer: "Go shrive thee better: trow not this saying, for it is false, for thou art shriven. Trust securely that thou art on the way, and thee needeth no ransacking of shrift for that that is passed, hold forth thy way and think on Jerusalem." That is to say, do not be too busy with the difficulties of the moment, but look ahead, as far as possible, fix your attention upon the goal, the intermediate steps will become easy. Jerusalem is another name of the Love of Jesus or the Bliss in Heaven. Grow in this love, your sins will fade away of themselves. "Though thou be thrust in an house with thy body, nevertheless in thine heart, where the stead of love is, thou shouldst be able to have part of that love... " What exquisite utterance, what a deep truth!
Indeed, there are one or two points, notes for the guidance of the aspirant, which I would like to mention here for their striking appositeness and simple "soothfastness." First of all with regard to the restless enthusiasm and eagerness of a novice, here is the advice given: "The fervour is so mickle in outward showing, is not only for mickleness of love that they have; but it is for littleness and weakness of their souls, that they may not bear a little touching of God.. afterward when love hath boiled out all the uncleanliness, then is the love clear and standeth still, and then is both the body and the soul mickle more in peace, and yet hath the self soul mickle more love than it had before, though it shew less outward." And again: "without any fervour outward shewed, and the less it thinketh that it loveth or seeth God, the nearer it nigheth" ('it' naturally refers to the soul). The statement is beautifully self-luminous, no explanation is required. Another hurdle that an aspirant has to face often in the passage through the Dark Night is that you are left all alone, that you are deserted by your God, that the Grace no longer favours you. Here is however the truth of the matter; "when I fall down to my frailty, then Grace withdraweth: for my falling is cause there-of, and not his fleeing." In fact, the Grace never withdraws, it is we who withdraw and think otherwise. One more difficulty that troubles the beginner especially is with regard to the false light. The being of darkness comes in the form of the angel of light, imitates the tone of the still small voice; how to recognise, how to distinguish the two? The false light, the "feigned sun" is always found "atwixt two black rainy clouds" : they are "highing" of oneself and "lowing" of others. When you feel flattered and elated, beware it is the siren voice tempting you. The true light brings you soothing peace and meekness: the other light brings always a trail of darknessf you are soothfast and sincere you will discover it if not near you, somewhere at a distance lurking.
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0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Who among you sincerely follows this path? It is easy to
judge, but more difficult to understand, and far more difficult
--
That is an easy answer which one gives when one will not or
cannot take the trouble to understand.
--
All of you young people here have had a very easy life, and
instead of taking advantage of it to concentrate your efforts on
--
To discipline one's life is not easy, even for those who are
strong, severe with themselves, courageous and enduring.
--
That proves that life is too easy here and that for the most part
you are all too tamasic to make an effort unless goaded by the
--
murmur in the depths of our heart which is easy to ignore.
However, there are cases where one acts wrongly out of
--
Why? It is very easy. Because these are only words. When one
practises without believing in God or the Divine, one practises
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01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
--
Still, the conception of duty cannot finally and definitively solve the problem. It cannot arrive at a perfect harmonisation of the conflicting claims of individual units; for, duty, as I have already said, is a child of mental idealism, and although the mind can exercise some kind of control over life-forces, it cannot altogether eliminate the seeds of conflict that lie imbedded in the very nature of life. It is for this reason that there is an element of constraint in duty; it is, as the poet says, the "stern daughter of the Voice of God". One has to compel oneself, one has to use force on oneself to carry out one's dutythere is a feeling somehow of its being a bitter pill. The cult of duty means rajas controlled and coerced by Sattwa, not the transcendence of rajas. This leads us to the high and supreme conception of Dharma, which is a transcendence of the gunas. Dharma is not an ideal, a standard or a rule that one has to obey: it is the law of self-nature that one inevitably follows, it is easy, spontaneous, delightful. The path of duty is heroic, the path of Dharma is of the gods, godly (cf. Virabhava and Divyabhava of the Tantras).
The principle of Dharma then inculcates that each individual must, in order to act, find out his truth of being, his true soul and inmost consciousness: one must entirely and integrally merge oneself into that, be identified with it in such a manner that all acts and feelings and thoughts, in fact all movements, inner and outerspontaneously and irrepressibly well out of that fount and origin. The individual souls, being made of one truth-nature in its multiple modalities, when they live, move and have their being in its essential law and dynamism, there cannot but be absolute harmony and perfect synthesis between all the units, even as the sun and moon and stars, as the Veda says, each following its specific orbit according to its specific nature, never collide or haltna me thate na tas thatuh but weave out a faultless pattern of symphony.
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0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The disciples of the Ashram have a sure and easy way to
put their money at the disposal of the Divine: they offer
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0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You wrote to me that it is not easy to come in contact
with the psychic being. Why do You consider it difficult?
--
I said "not easy" because the contact is not spontaneous - it
is voluntary. The psychic being always has an influence on the
--
It must be said that this is not easy. Only he who no longer
has any ego can do it correctly.
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0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But actually, to tell you the truth, I think your lives are so easy that you dont exert yourselves very much! How many among you have truly an INTENSE need to find their psychic beings? To find out truly who they are? To find out what their roles are, why they are here? You just let yourselves drift. You even complain when things arent easy enough! You just take things as they come. And sometimes, should an aspiration arise in you and you encounter some difficulty in yourself, you say, Oh, Mother is there! Shell take care of it for me! And you think about something else.
Mother, previously things were very strict in the Ashram, but not now. Why?
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0 1956-05-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But inevitablyit will increase more and more! Which is why I cannot do what I used to do when there were one hundred and fifty people in the Ashram. If they had just a little bit of common sense, they would understand that I cannot have the same relationship with people now (just imagine, 1,800 people these last days!), so I cannot have the same relationship with 1,845 people (exactly, I believe) as with thirty or even a hundred. That seems an easy enough logic to understand.
But they want everything to remain as it was and, as you say, to be the first to benefit.
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0 1956-10-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
People say, I gave everything, I sacrificed everything. In exchange, I expect exceptional conditionseverything should be beautiful, harmonious, easy.
But the divine vision is global. The people in the Ashram do not want this strike but what about the others? They are ignorant, mean, full of ill will, etc., but in their own way they are following a path, and why should they be deprived of the Grace? By the fact that their action is against the Ashram? It is certainly a Grace.
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0 1957-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There is no question of my abandoning the path and I remain convinced that the only goal in life is spiritual. But I need things to help me along the way: I am not yet ripe enough to depend upon inner strength alone. And when I speak of the forest or a boat, it is not only for the sake of adventure or the feeling of space, but also because they mean a discipline. Outer constraints and difficulties help me, they force me to remain concentrated around that which is best in me. In a sense, life here is too easy. Yet it is also too hard, for one must depend on ones own discipline I do not yet have that strength, I need to be helped by outer circumstances. The very difficulty of life in the outside world helps me to be disciplined, for it forces me to concentrate all my vital strength in effort. Here, this vital part is unemployed, so it acts foolishly, it strains at the leash.
I doubt that a new experience outside can really resolve things, but I believe it might help me make it to the next stage and consolidate my inner life. And if you wish, I would return in a year or two.
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0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
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.
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0 1958-10-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Once we know this, everything becomes easy.
***
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0 1958-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
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.
***
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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.
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0 1959-05-19 - Ascending and Descending paths, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When you follow the ascending path, the work is relatively easy. I had already covered this path by the beginning of the century and had established a constant relationship with the SupremeThat which is beyond the Personal and the gods and all the outward expressions of the Divine, but also beyond the Absolute Impersonal. Its something you cannot describe; you must experience it. And this is what must be brought down into Matter. Such is the descending path, the one I began with Sri Aurobindo; and there, the work is immense.
The thing can still be brought down as far as the mental and vital planes (although Sri Aurobindo said that thousands of lifetimes would be needed merely to bring it down to the mental plane, unless one practiced a perfect surrender1). With Sri Aurobindo, we went down below Matter, right into the Subconscient and even into the Inconscient. But after the descent comes the transformation, and when you come down to the body, when you attempt to make it take one step forwardoh, not even a real step, just a little step!everything starts grating; its like stepping on an anthill And yet the presence, the help of the supreme Mother, is there constantly; thus you realize that for ordinary men such a task is impossible, or else millions of lives would be needed but in truth, unless the work is done for them and the sadhana of the body done for the entire earth consciousness, they will never achieve the physical transformation, or else it will be so remote that it is better not even to speak of it. But if they open themselves, if they give themselves over in an integral surrender, the work can be done for themthey have only to let it be done.
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0 1960-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And just imagine! The other day, in the middle of the night, I suddenly found myself inside you. Ah, so thats what hes like, I said. I woke up in the middle of the night with that. And right away I said to myself, But (laughing) but why is he like that!? And this lasted perhaps one or two minutes, maybe more. I was I felt like kicking out in every direction in a kind of rage. And the next second, I thought, But why all this? My goodness, its so easy; the remedy is simply to do this and immediately (I did what I always do, you seeits how I am constantly), quite simply, I melted into the Supreme. Enough of all thisand the very next second, everything was all right.
So then I thought, This surely must have had some effect (on the disciple). What has happened? I am I was literally in peace.
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0 1960-10-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I looked at this problem yesterday; it occupied me for much of the day. And Im sure this head came to give me the solution. For me, its very easyat once three seconds, and everything stops, everything. But the others are stubborn! And yet Im positive, Im positive, I tell them, But relax; why are you on pins and needles like that? Relax! Its the only way to overcome your fatigue. But they immediately start feeling that theyll lose their faculties and become inert the opposite of life!
And this is surely what oriented my night, for I started my night looking at this problem: How can I make them accept this? For neither should they fall into the other extreme and slip from this weary agitation into tamas.3 Thats obvious.
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0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As of now, I have no other news Theyve been caught, so they cant do any wrong OUTWARDLY, but still their power is there. Were going to have to be And everyone here says the same thinglike a black veil of unconsciousness that has fallen upon us. Even those who arent accustomed to such things have felt it. Im presently cleaning the whole placeits not easy. Everything is upside down.
I had X informed. But I didnt tell him my difficulty (this mantra they threw on me to kill me), I didnt speak of that at all. For he had insisted, from the beginning he had said, Mother must see to it, only Mothers grace can save them. And I understood their attack came just at the time of Durga Puja, so I understood that Durga had to intervene. So thats the story.
--
Its so contrary not only to the education but to the make up of people from the West! For an Indian for a modern Indian it would be difficult, but for those who have kept something of the old tradition it would not be difficult. Its easy for children raised in a monastery or near the guru
(silence)
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0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo had also written to the effect, If Divine Love were to manifest now in all its fullness and totality, not a single material organism would but burst. So we must learn to widen, widen, widen not only the inner consciousness (that is relatively easyat least feasible), but even this conglomeration of cells. And Ive experienced this: you have to be able to widen this sort of crystallization if you want to be able to hold this Force. I know. Two or three times, upstairs (in Mothers room), I felt the body about to burst. Actually, I was on the verge of saying, burst and be done with. But Sri Aurobindo always intervenedall three times he intervened in an entirely tangible, living and concrete way and he arranged everything so that I was forced to wait.
Then weeks go by, sometimes even months, between one thing and another, so that some elasticity may come into these stupid cells.
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0 1960-12-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its fairly easy to manage and control this in the realm of thought, but when it comes to those reactions that rise up from the very bottom theyre so petty that you can barely express them to yourself. For example, if someone mentions that so-and-so ate such-and-such a thing, immediately something somewhere starts stealing in: Ah, hes going to get a stomach-ache! Or you hear that someone is going somewhereOh, hes going to have an accident! And it applies to everything; its swarming down below. Nothing to do with thought as such!
Its quite a nasty habit, for it keeps the most material state in a condition of disharmony, disorder, ugliness and difficulty.
I tried every possible way To get out of it is relatively easy. But then it doesnt change.
The problem appeared again to me very intensely when I read Sri Aurobindos The Yoga of Self-Perfection. I was confronted with a whole formidable world to be transformedto transform what is already luminous is quite easy, but to transform that! ughthis stuff of life, so low and so coarse, so ordinary its much more difficult.1
For the last several days, Ive been at grips fighting with it. How can I stop this idiotic, coarse and above all defeatist automatism from constantly manifesting? Its truly an automatism; it doesnt respond to any conscious will, nothing. So what will it take to ? And its QUITE INTIMATELY related to the bodys illnesses (the old habits the body has of coming out of its rhythmic movement, of entering into confusion)the two things are very intimately linked.
--
For me, the problem doesnt mean explaining the thing (its easy to explain), but controlling, mastering and transforming it. That will take some time.
We shall see.
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0 1960-12-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its not always easy.
Why isnt it easy!?
Oh, but you know, night after night, night after night, I SEE how things which in their truth are so simple become complicated here in the human atmosphere. Really, its so interesting; I have visions you see, the thing in its truth is so simple its stupefying, and then here it becomes so complicated, painful, exhausting, upsetting.
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0 1961-01-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its easy to understand how someone who has this experience can spread it and act upon others, since to have it you must touch the unique, supreme Essence of the whole manifestation the Origin and the Essence, the Source and the Reality of all that is; then you immediately enter the realm of Unity where there is no more separation among individuals: its a single vibration that can repeat itself endlessly in outer forms.2
If you go high enough, you come to the Heart of everything. Whatever manifests in this Heart can manifest in all things. This is the great secret, the secret of divine incarnation in an individual form. For in the normal course of things, what manifests at the center is only realized in the outer form with the awakening and RESPONSE Of the will within the individual form. But if the central Will is constantly, permanently represented in one individual, he can then serve as an intermediary between that Will and all beings, and will FOR THEM. Whatever this being perceives and consciously offers to the supreme Will is replied to as if it came from each individual being. And if individuals happen to be in a more or less conscious and voluntary relationship with this representative being, their relationship increases his efficacy and the supreme Action can work in Matter in a much more concrete and permanent way. This is the reason for these descents of what could be called polarized consciousnesses that always come to earth for a particular realization, with a definite purpose and missiona mission decided upon before the actual embodiment. These mark the great stages of the supreme incarnations upon earth.
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0 1961-01-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Savitri is really a condensation, a concentration of the universal Mother the eternal universal Mother, Mother of all universes from all eternityin an earthly personality for the Earths salvation. And Satyavan is the soul of the Earth, the Earths jiva. So when the Lord says, he whom you love and whom you have chosen, it means the earth. All the details are there! When she comes back down, when Death has yielded at last, when all has been settled and the Supreme tells her, Go, go with him, the one you have chosen, how does Sri Aurobindo describe it? He says that she very carefully takes the SOUL of Satyavan into her arms, like a little child, to pass through all the realms and come back down to earth. Everything is there! He hasnt forgotten a single detail to make it easy to understand for someone who knows how to understand. And it is when Savitri reaches the earth that Satyavan regains his full human stature.
These seem to be the forces ruling the subconscious mechanisms or reactions of the body: all the automatism produced by evolution and atavismwhat might be termed evolutionary habits. This is the 'descending path,' which started forty years earlier, as Mother said (or the 'physical plunge' referred to by Sri Aurobindo), leading to the pure cellular consciousness.
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0 1961-01-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The remainder of the evening passed as usual. I went to bed, and at exactly a quarter to twelve I got up with the feeling that this presence in me had increased even further and really become rather formidable. I had to instill a great deal of peace and confidence into my body, which felt as though it wasnt so easy to bear. So I concentrated, I told my body to be calm and to let itself go completely.
At midnight I was lying in bed. (And I remained there from midnight until I oclock fully awake. I dont know if my eyes were open or closed, but I was wide awake, NOT IN TRANCEI could hear all the noises, the clocks, and so forth.) Then, lying flat, my entire body (but a slightly enlarged body, exceeding the purely physical form) became ONE vibration, extremely rapid and intense but immobile. I dont know how to explain this, because it did not move in space but was a vibration (that is, it wasnt motionless); yet it was motionless in space. And the exact form of my body was absolutely the most brilliant white Light of the supreme Consciousness, the consciousness OF the Supreme. It was IN the body and it was as though in EACH cell there was a vibration, and it was all part of a single BLOCK of vibration. It extended this much beyond the body (gesture indicating about six centimeters). I was absolutely immobile in my bed. Then, WITHOUT MOVING, without shifting, it began consciously to rise upwithout moving, you understand: I remained like this (Mother holds her two joined and motionless hands at the level of her forehead, as if her entire body were mounting in prayer)consciously like an ascension of this consciousness6 towards the supreme Consciousness.
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0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Basically, if we were capable of. When I am up in my room, its very easy, very easy: it comes and what is a little more difficult is getting out of that state. There I am, like this (gesture of blissful abandonment), and when I feel its time to go downstairs or I have something to do or someone is coming with lunch or whatever, then its a little difficult; otherwise, I am like that (same gesture). Whats difficult is my contact with the Ashram people. As soon as I go down and simply that, having to fidget on my feet, giving people flowers. And they are so unconsciously egotistical! If I dont go through the usual concentration on each one of them, they wonder, What is it? Whats wrong? Have I done something? And and it turns into a big drama.
Otherwise, concentration is very good, it doesnt tire mewhen my body is not drained, when it isnt constantly aware that it exists because it hurts here, hurts there, aches here, aches there (pain is what gives it a sense of existing), when the body is able to forget itself, things go well, its nothing. Now the Force passes through me without causing fatigue, while many years ago, too much Force created tension; but its not like that now, not at allon the contrary, the body feels better when a lot of force has passed through it.
--
For example, each time I have been able to master something, I mean find the true solution for an illness or a malfunctioning (the TRUE solution, not a mental one, not some ordinary knowledge, but the spiritual solution: the vibration that will UNDO the wrong working or set you on your feet again), it has always been very easy for me to cure the same thing in others, through the emission of this vibration.
Thats how it works. Because all substance is ONE. All is onewe constantly forget that! We always have a sense of separation, and that is total, total falsehood; its because we rely on what our eyes see, on (Mother touches her hands and arms, as if to indicate a separate body, cut off from other bodies). That is truly Falsehood. As soon as your consciousness changes a little, you realize that what we see is like an image plastered over something. But its not true, NOT TRUE AT ALL. Even in the most material Matter, even a stoneeven in a stoneas soon as ones consciousness changes, all this separation, all this division, completely vanishes. These are (how to put it?) modes of concentration (something akin to yet not quite that), vibratory modes WITHIN THE SAME THING.8
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0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So well see how long this is going to last. I understand why people have never tried to change it: stir up that quagmire? No! It takes a lot (laughing), a lot of courage! Oh, its so easy to escape, so easy to say, None of that concerns me. I belong to higher spheres, it doesnt concern me.
Anyway, its obvious that nobody has succeeded, so far not a single person and I understand! I understand. When you find yourself face to face with it, you wonder, How could anything possibly withstand this!
My body was strongly built, solid, full of enduranceit had a tremendous energy, yet its beginning to feel that it isnt easy.
(silence)
--
Even mastery can be achievedits quite easy to do from above. But for the transformation one must descend, and that is terrible. Otherwise, the subconscient will never be transformed, it will remain as it is.
One can even pose as a superman! (Mother laughs) But it remains like that (gesture in the air), its not the real thing. Its not the new creation, its not the next step in terrestrial evolution.
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0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When we become like that, it will be very easy.
Good-bye, petit. You know, I enjoy myself, I enjoy myself every day!
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0 1961-04-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This paucity, this narrowness. Its relatively easy to get out of mental paucity, mental narrowness: one has only to pierce a hole, go beyond, and view things from above; and yes, immediately, it all widens. Thats relatively easy. But this vital and PHYSICAL paucity, material narrowness ohh!
For mental narrowness, we know the meansone has only to go beyond itwe know the means. But this (Mother touches her body), however much one keeps bringing in, bringing in, bringing in the Light and the Force. Yes, for a few moments one can live a universal life, even in the sensations but in the body.
--
It came last night. It came slowly, but last night it was very strong: no more sequence, no more linking of cause and effect, no more goal, no more purpose, no more intentiona kind of Absolute which does not exclude the creation. It is not Nirvana, it has nothing to do with Nirvana (I know Nirvana very well, Ive had itjust yesterday evening, for instance, while walking for japa, and even this morning. You see, I begin by an invocation to the Supreme under his three aspects, and no sooner have I uttered the sound, TAT when all is abolished: Nirvana. And the last few days I have noticed that its instantaneous, so easy! Oh, a delight! Bah!). But its not Nirvana, its beyond that; it contains Nirvana and it contains the manifested world and it contains everything else; all the appearances and disappearances13all of that is contained in it.
Something.
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0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At the age of eighteen, I remember having such an intense need in me to KNOW. Because I was having experiences I had all kinds of experiences but my surroundings offered me no chance to receive an intellectual knowledge which would have given me the meaning of it all: I couldnt even speak of them. I was having experience after experience. For years, I had experiences during the night (but I was very careful never to speak about them!)memories from past lives, all sorts of things, but without any base of intellectual knowledge. (Of course, the advantage of this was that my experiences were not mentally contrived; they were entirely spontaneous.) But I had such a NEED in me to know! I remember living in a house (one of these houses with a lot of apartments), and in the apartment next door were some young Catholics whose faith was very they were very convinced. And seeing all that, I remember saying to myself one day while brushing my hair, These people are lucky to be born into a religion and believe unquestioningly! Its so easy! You have nothing to do but believehow simple that makes it. I was feeling like this, and then when I realized what I was thinking (laughing), well, I gave myself a good scolding: Lazybones!
To know, know, KNOW! You see, I knew nothing, really, nothing but the things of ordinary life: external knowledge. I had learned everything I had been given to learn. I not only learned what I was taught but also what my brother was taughthigher mathematics and all that! I learned and I learned and I learned and it was NOTHING. None of it explained anything to menothing. I couldnt understand a thing!
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0 1961-06-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here is something interesting. I am translating the Yoga of Self-Perfection. My first look at it stiffened menow its a delight! And I have done nothing in between but simply let it work within; its so easy!
My translation is poorly written, hardly French at all, but to me it is limpid.
And I see that the translation would go quickly if one moved into another domain. In one domain it is laborious, terrible, difficult, and the result is never very satisfying. But contrary to what I had thought, the domain of comprehension does not suffice, even the domain of experience does not suffice: something else is needed (oh, how to explain it?), a state in which effort is left totally behind. There is a state (which probably must be beyond the mind, because one no longer thinks at all, not at all) where everything is smiling and easy, and the sentences come to you all by themselves. Its peculiar I read, and even before I finish reading the sentence to be translated I know whats in it; and then without waitingalmost without waiting to know whats in it I know what to put for it. When its like that I can translate a page in half an hour.
But it doesnt lastit ought to last. Usually it ends in a trance: I go off into the experience, I am in a beatific state and ten minutes later I notice that Ive been in that state with my pen poised in my hand. Its not favorable to the work! But otherwise its I cant even say its like someone dictating (its not that, I dont hear); it comes by itself. Oh, the other day there were one or two sentences! I wrote something and suddenly saw what I was writing and doing so pulled me out of that state. Well, I said to myself, how nicely put! And plop! (Mother laughs) Everything was gone.
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0 1961-07-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For the past two days there has been the feeling of not knowing anythingNOTHING at all. I have had this feeling for a very long time, but now it has become extremely acute, as it always does at times of crisis, at times when things are on the verge of changingor of getting clarified, or of exploding, or. From the purely material standpointchemically, biologically, medically, therapeutically speaking I dont believe many people do know (there may be some). But it doesnt seem very clear to mein any case, I dont know. Yogically (I dont mean spiritually: that was the first stage of my sadhana), its very easy to be a saint! Oh, even to be a sage is very easy. I feel I was born with itits spontaneous and natural for me, and so simple! You know all that has to be done, and doing it is as easy as knowing it. Its nothing. But this transformation of Matter! What has to be done? How is it to be done? What is the path?
Is there a path? Is there a procedure? Probably not.
--
I dont know what to do. Its not easy.
(Mother rises)
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0 1961-07-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What would it be like, for instance, to have a small supramental creation as a nucleus of action and influence radiating upon earth (to limit it to the earth)? Is it possible? Its easy to conceive of a superhuman nucleusa creation of supermen, that is, of men who by virtue of evolution and transformation (in the true sense of the word) have succeeded in manifesting the supramental forces; yet since their origin is human, there is inevitably a contact; even if everything is transformed, even if their organs are transformed into centers of force, a sort of human coloration still remains. These are the beings who, according to tradition, will discover the secret of direct, supramental creation, bypassing the process of ordinary Nature. Then through them the true supramental beings will be born, who will necessarily have to live in a supramental world. But how would contact be made between these beings and the ordinary world? How to conceive of a transformation of nature sufficient to enable this supramental creation to take place on earth? I dont know.
Of course, we know that such a thing will require a considerable amount of time to be done, and it will probably go by stages, by degrees, with faculties appearing that at the moment we cant know or imagine, and which will change the conditions of the earththis is looking ahead a few thousand years.
--
It isnt difficult to conceive of an individual in the solitude of the Himalayas or in a virgin forest beginning to create around himself his miniature supramental worldthis is easy to imagine. But the same thing would be necessary: he would need to have attained such perfection that his power would act automatically to prevent any outside intrusion.
Because such beings would automatically become the target of outside attacks?
--
But I dont see how all this work could be done in the solitude of the Himalayas or the forest. Theres a great risk of entering into that very impersonal, universal consciousness where things are relatively easy the material consequences are so far below that it doesnt much matter! One can act directly only in the MIDST of things.
Anyway, at the moment I have no choice and I am not looking for any. Things are what they are and as they are; and taking them as they are, the work has to be done. The manner of working depends on the way things are.
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0 1961-07-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, with experience it becomes easy to understand.
Take the experience of Mind, for example: Mind, in the evolution of Nature, gradually emerging from its involution; well and this is a very concrete experience these initial mentalized forms, if we can call them that, were necessarily incomplete and imperfect, because Natures evolution is slow and hesitant and complicated. Thus these forms inevitably had an aspiration towards a sort of perfection and a truly perfect mental state, and this aspiration brought the descent of already fully conscious beings from the mental world who united with terrestrial formsthis is a very, very concrete experience. What emerges from the Inconscient in this way is an almost impersonal possibility (yes, an impersonal possibility, and perhaps not altogether universal, since its connected with the history of the earth); but anyway its a general possibility, not personal. And the Response from above is what makes it concrete, so to speak, bringing in a sort of perfection of the state and an individual mastery of the new creation. These beings in corresponding worlds (like the gods of the overmind,4 or the beings of higher regions) came upon earth as soon as the corresponding element began to evolve out of its involution. This accelerates the action, first of all, but also makes it more perfectmore perfect, more powerful, more conscious. It gives a sort of sanction to the realization. Sri Aurobindo writes of this in SavitriSavitri lives always on earth, with the soul of the earth, to make the whole earth progress as quickly as possible. Well, when the time comes and things on earth are ready, then the divine Mother incarnates with her full powerwhen things are ready. Then will come the perfection of the realization. A splendor of creation exceeding all logic! It brings in a fullness and a power completely beyond the petty shallow logic of human mentality.
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0 1961-08-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It wasnt easy.
I remember once. She scolded me quite often (but it was very good, a very good lesson), she scolded me very, very often for things I hadnt even done! Once she came down on me for something I had done but which she hadnt understood (I had done it with the best of intentions); I had given something to someone without her permission, and she reproached me for it as though it were a crime! At first I stiffened and said, I didnt do it. She started to say I was lying. Then all at once, mutely, I looked at her and felt I felt all this human misery and all this human falsehood, and soundlessly the tears began to fall. What! Now youre crying! she said. At that, I became a bit fed up. Oh, Im not crying about myself, I told her, but about the worlds misery.
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0 1961-10-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its very easy to explain: she was already more than half possessed, and of course this spirit of falsehood hardly felt comfortable! And the identification2 (not only mental but sensory, vital) was so complete that she felt this love as a movement of hatred. When I saw the two phenomena, I also saw that this is exactly what happens in the world! Its exactly what EVERYONE is.
I must add that the experience came after I had been concentrating for three days (concentrating almost constantly) on finding an explanation for this: why has it become this way? It is impossible to find the why because its the reason asking and this goes beyond reason but what is the MECHANISM? Finding the mechanism would already be somethingto have the experience of the mechanism. And then came this CONCRETE superposition of the vibration of Love and the reception of hate. But this is exactly what happens! I said. The Lord is All-Love, All-Truth, All-Bliss, All-Deligh tHe is CONSTANTLY like thatand the world, especially the human world, constantly receives him in the other way. And the two things are superposed (Mother covers her left hand with her right).
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0 1962-01-12 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And, over and above this, for the realization to be total, there are two other conditions, which arent easy either. Intellectually, theyre not too difficult; in fact, for someone who has practiced yoga, followed a discipline (I am not speaking here of just anyone), theyre relatively easy. Psychologically too, given this equality, theres no great difficulty. But as soon as you come to the material plane the physical plane and then to the body, it isnt easy. These two conditions are first, the power to expand, to widen almost indefinitely, enabling you to widen to the dimensions of the supramental consciousness which is total. The supramental consciousness is the consciousness of the Supreme in his totality. By totality, I mean the Supreme in his aspect of Manifestation. Naturally, from a higher point of view, from the viewpoint of the essence the essence of that which in Manifestation becomes the Supermindwhats necessary is a capacity for total identification with the Supreme, not only in his aspect of Manifestation, but in his static or nirvanic aspect, outside of the Manifestation: Nonbeing. But in addition, one must be capable of identifying with the Supreme in the Becoming. And that implies both these things: an expansion that is nothing less than indefinite, and that should simultaneously be a total plasticity enabling one to follow the Supreme in his Becoming. You dont merely have to be as vast as the universe at one point in time, but indefinitely in the Becoming. These are the two conditions. They must be potentially present.
Down to the vital, we are still in the realm of things that are more than feasible they are done. But on the material level it results in my misadventures of the other day.2
--
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.
Its difficult difficult.
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.
--
The question, of course, is the supramentalization of MATTER the consciousness, thats nothing at all. Most people who have had that experience had it on the mental level, which is relatively easy. Its very easy: abolition of limits set by the ego, indefinite expansion with a movement following the rhythm of the Becoming. Mentally, its all very easy. Vitally. A few months after I withdrew to my room, I had the experience in the vitalwonderful, magnificent! Of course to have the experience there, the mind must have undergone a change, one must be in complete communion; without exception, any individual vital being that hasnt been prepared by what might be called a sufficient mental foundation would be panic-stricken. All those poor people who get scared at the least little experience had better not dabble with thistheyd panic! But as it happensthrough divine grace, you might saymy vital, the vital being of this present incarnation, was born free and victorious. It has never been afraid of anything in the vital world; the most fantastic experiences were practically childs play. But when I had that experience, it was so interesting that for a few weeks I was tempted to stay in it; it was. I once told you a little about that experience (it was quite a while ago, at least two years).5 I told you that even during the day I seemed to be sitting on top of the Earth that was this realization in the vital world. And what fantastic nights it gave me! Nights I have never been able to describe to anyone and never mentioned but I would look forward to the night as a marvelous adventure.
I voluntarily renounced all that in order to go further. And when I did it, I understood what people here in India mean when they say: he surrendered his experience. I had never really understood what that meant. When I did it, I understood. No, I said, I dont want to stop there; I am giving it all to You, that I may go on to the end. Then I understood what it meant.
--
For thought, its elementary, very simple. Its not difficult for the feelings either; for the heart, the emotional being, to expand to the dimensions of the Supreme is relatively easy. But this body! Its very difficult, very difficult to do without the body losing its center (how can I put it?) its center of coagulationwithout it dissolving into the surrounding mass. Although, if one were in a natural environment, with mountains and forests and rivers, with lots of space and lots of natural beauty, it could be rather pleasant! But its physically impossible to take a single step outside ones body without meeting unpleasant, painful things. At times you come in contact with a pleasant substance, something harmonious, warm, vibrating with a higher light; it happens. But its rare. Flowers, yes, sometimes flowers sometimes, not always. But this material world, oh! It batters you from all sides; it claws you, mauls youyou get clawed and scraped and battered by all sorts of things which which just dont blossom. How hard it all is! Oh, how closed human life is! How shriveled, hardened, without light, without warmth let alone joy.
While sometimes, when you see water flowing along, or a ray of sunlight in the treesoh, how it sings! The cells sing, they are happy.
--
All the rest is easy. Everything up to that point is settledsettled very nicely.
Since the physical transformation is so difficult, one is tempted to wonder whether it wouldnt be advantageous to materialize something, to work occultlyto create a new body by occult means.
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0 1962-01-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the story is easy to understand, and quite evocative. On the surface, for intellectuals, its very childish; but once you have the experience you understand it very well I understood and felt the thing immediately.
And once the world has become like that, has become the vital world in all its darkness, and they, from this vital world, have created Matter, the supreme Mother sees (laughing) the result of her first four emanations and She turns towards the Supreme in a great entreaty: Now that this world is in such a dreadful state, it has to be saved! We cant just leave it this way, can we? It has to be saved, the divine consciousness must be given back to it. What to do? And the Supreme says, Thrust yourself into a new emanation, an emanation of the ESSENCE of Love, down into the most material Matter. That meant plunging into the earth (the earth had become a symbol and a representation of the whole drama). Plunge into Matter. So She plunged into Matter, and that became the primordial source of the Divine within material substance. And from there (as is so well described in Savitri), She begins to act as a leaven in Matter, raising it up from within.
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0 1962-02-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Of course, the explanation is universal progress, the Becoming: what must be and what ceases to be thats all very well; its easy to understand in general terms.
Perhaps the problem is the opposition (if it is an opposition) between two attitudes, both of which should express our relationship with the Supreme. One is the acceptancenot only voluntary but perfectly contentof everything, even the worst calamities (what are conventionally called the worst calamities). I wont use this story as an example because its self-explanatory, but if Andromeda were a yogi (with ifs you can build castles in the air, but I am trying to explain what I mean), she would accept the idea of death readily, easily. Well, its precisely this conflict between an attitude quite ready to accept death (I am not talking about what happens in the story itself, but merely giving a case in point to make myself clear) because it is the divine Will, for this reason aloneits the divine Will, so its quite all right; since thats how it is, its quite all rightand at the same time, the love of Life. This love of Life.3 Following the story, you would say: she lived because she had to live and everything is explained. But thats not what I mean. I am looking at this outside the context of the story.
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0 1962-02-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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!
***
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0 1962-02-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its easy reading, it wont tax their brains.
Still, its worth saying.
--
I understand very well that this present state is necessary for getting out of it. For as long as something seems normal, natural, acceptable, theres no escaping it. You have one life on the side and then this [the life in the body], thats the way people with a spiritual life always lived: they had their spiritual life and let this continue on automatically, without attaching any importance to itits very easy.
But what a relief to live the Truth at each instant!
--
You see, its like trying to alter the functioning of the organs. What is the process? Already the two are beginning to exist simultaneously. What does it take for one to disappear and the other to remain on its own, changed? Changed, because as it is now it wouldnt be enough to make the body function; the body wouldnt perform all the things it must perform, it would stay in a blissful state, delighting in its condition, but not for longit still has a lot of needs! Thats the trouble. It will be very easy for those who come in one or two hundred years; they will only have to choose: not to belong to the old system any more or else to belong to the new.2 But now. A stomach has got to digest, after all! Well, that will mean a new way of adapting to the forces of Nature, a new functioning.
But for that to happen, some beings would have to prepare this new functioning.
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0 1962-02-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I had trouble breathing in slowly enough thats a bit hard. I began with 4 and eventually managed to do 12. I did 12-12-12-12. It took me months to reach that, it cant be done quickly. To brea the in very slowly and hold all that air isnt easy.
Now I have lost the knack, I can barely do more than 6 (Mother demonstrates). I count: 1-2-3-4 no quicker.
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0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, the method is quite easy! There are various disciplines. It depends on what you want to achieve.
It depends. Each thing has its method. But the primary method is to want it, to make a decision. Then you are given a description of all these senses and how they function thats a lengthy process. You choose one sense (or several), perhaps the one for which you have the greatest initial aptitude, and you decide. Then you follow the discipline. Its similar to doing exercises for developing muscles. You can even manage to create willpower in yourself.
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0 1962-03-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You can lie down on a mat, look at a flower or a patch of sky if theres any to see; if need be (teasingly), smoke a cigarette to keep yourself busy, and just stay like that, relaxed. And if you do your pranayama along with this relaxation you will notice yourself growing extremely strongstoring, storing, storing up energies. And then if you have to make an effort, theres nothing to itits as easy as pie.
Its that old habit, the old fear of being lazy. It took me. But Sri Aurobindo cured me of that rather quickly. Thats how it was before I met him. And thats the first thing he did: he gave me a tap on the head, and all activity ceasedtotal silence, all mental constructions and habits swept away in the blink of an eye.
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0 1962-03-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Only its perfectly true that to deal with those realms one must either be fully protected by a guru, a real guru, a man with knowledge, or else have purity (not saintliness), an unmixed vital and mental purity. Very, very often, bhaktas [devotees] of Sri Aurobindo or mewhen they are sincere, truly sincere, that is, people of great spiritual purityhave dozens of beings appear to them, saying, I am Sri Aurobindo. It happens all the time, with all the right external appearancesits very easy for such beings to put on a disguise. It takes the inner psychic purity not to be deceivedyou invariably FEEL something that makes it impossible for you to be duped. But otherwise, many, many people are taken in.
I dont like to talk about this because people here have no discrimination; they would be left with nothing but fear and would no longer believe in anything, forever asking me, Oh, isnt this a trick? Which paralyzes everything. Thats why I didnt speak about that in this Talk.
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0 1962-05-22, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres such a wonderful passage in The Synthesis of Yoga (The Yoga of Self-Perfection), where he mentions four things (you surely remember this), four things the disciple needs (I have just translated it). I knew this, of course, but the passage is especially timely nowparticularly after that last experience, which is a jolt for a physical being. The fourth thing is wonderful. The first three we know: equality, peace and (a hard one) a spiritual ease in all circumstances. He added the word spiritual so people wouldnt think only of material easeits an ease in feelings, in sensations, in everything. But when you have a lot of pain its obviously not so easy! When physical pain keeps you from sleeping and eating, when you are plagued by constant physical painor rather by a whole host of physical pains!well, that bodily ease becomes difficult. Its the one thing thathas seemed difficult to me; but anyway, its being investigated I think it was sent for me to investigate.
But the last thing he mentions is a marvel the joy and laughter of the soul. And its so true, so true! Always, all the time, no matter what happens, even when this body is in dreadful pain, the soul is laughing joyously within. Always, always, always.
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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.
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0 1962-07-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was smiling, easyVERY lovely, very easy.
It has never faded, its always there (gesture behind the head), and at any moment I can immerse myself in it all over again. But what a difference when, after THAT, you come back to an awareness of what is speaking, at least as tremendous a difference as with that to die unto death. Similarly, that to die unto death contained the full Power of THAT.1 It was clear and stunningly powerful. And the same impression: easy, easy. Theres really no question of hard or easyits spontaneous, NATURAL, and so smiling. And that to die unto death was filled with such JOY! Such joy. I could almost have said, Its plain as day! Dont you see how plain it is! But thats it: we have only to die unto death, and that will be that!
(silence)
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0 1962-07-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And do you know how this body is? It immediately began wondering (I was quietly watching it all from above), What if (ifs are always idiotic but its an old bodily habit), what if the object had been sharp, would the results have been so easy to annul? (Mother laughs) Then I distinctly heard someone reply (I am putting it into words), You idiot! That wouldnt have happened in the first place! That is, the necessary protection would have been there. The protection intervenes only when necessary, not just for the fun of it. You numbskull, it said (I am translating freely), how silly can you be! It wouldnt have happened.
But what a world it isa world of experiences! And the consciousness is somewhere way up high but seeing very clearly, watching with interest.
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0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The old way of yoga failed to bring about the harmony or unity of Spirit and life: it instead dismissed the world as Maya [Illusion] or a transient Play. The result has been loss of life-power and the degeneration of India. As was said in the Gita, These peoples would perish if I did not do worksthese peoples of India have truly gone down to ruin. A few sannyasins and bairagis [renunciants] to be saintly and perfect and liberated, a few bhaktas [lovers of God] to dance in a mad ecstasy of love and sweet emotion and Ananda [Bliss], and a whole race to become lifeless, void of intelligence, sunk in deep tamas [inertia]is this the effect of true spirituality? No, we must first attain all the partial experiences possible on the mental level and flood the mind with spiritual delight and illumine it with spiritual light, but afterwards we must rise above. If we cannot rise above, to the supramental level, that is, it is hardly possible to know the worlds final secret and the problem it raises remains unsolved. There, the ignorance which creates a duality of opposition between the Spirit and Matter, between truth of spirit and truth of life, disappears. There one need no longer call the world Maya. The world is the eternal Play of God, the eternal manifestation of the Self. Then it becomes possible to fully know and fully realize Godto do what is said in the Gita, To know Me integrally. The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the supermind and the Ananda these are the spirits five levels. The higher man rises on this ascent the nearer he comes to the state of that highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to the Supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. One attains a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and infinite Ananda, not only in the timeless Parabrahman [Absolute] but in the body, in life, in the world. The integral being, the integral consciousness, the integral Ananda blossoms out and takes form in life. This is the central clue of my yoga, its fundamental principle.
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.
--
Then look at India. Except for some solitary giants, everywhere there is your simple man, that is, the average man who does not want to think and cannot think, who has not the least Shakti but only a temporary excitement. In India, you want the simple thought, the easy word. In Europe they want the deep thought, the deep word; there even an ordinary laborer or artisan thinks, wants to know, is not satisfied with surface things but wants to go behind. But there is still this difference: there is a fatal limitation in the strength and thought of Europe. When it comes into the spiritual field, its thought-power can no longer move ahead. There Europe sees everything as riddlenebulous metaphysics, yogic hallucination. They rub their eyes as in smoke and can see nothing clear. Still, some effort is being made in Europe to surmount even this limitation. We already have the spiritual sensewe owe it to our forefa thersand whoever has that sense has at his disposal such Knowledge and Shakti as with one breath might blow away all the huge power of Europe like a blade of grass. But to get that Shakti one must be a worshiper of Shakti. We are not worshipers of Shakti. We are worshipers of the easy way. But Shakti is not to be had by the easy way. Our forefa thers dived into a sea of vast thought and gained a vast Knowledge and established a mighty civilization. As they went on in their way, fatigue and weariness came upon them. The force of thought diminished and with it also the strong current of Shakti. Our civilization has become an achalayatana [prison], our religion a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light or a momentary wave of religious intoxication. And so long as this sort of thing continues, any permanent resurgence of India is improbable
In Bengal this weakness has gone to the extreme. The Bengali has a quick intelligence, emotional capacity and intuition. He is foremost in India in all these qualities. All of them are necessary but they do not suffice. If to these there were added depth of thought, calm strength, heroic courage and a capacity for and pleasure in prolonged labor, the Bengali might be a leader not only of India, but of mankind. But he does not want that, he wants to get things done easily, to get knowledge without thinking, the fruits without labor, siddhi by an easy sadhana [discipline]. His stock is the excitement of the emotional mind. But excess of emotion, empty of knowledge, is the very symptom of the malady. In the end it brings about fatigue and inertia. The country has been constantly and gradually going down. The life-power has ebbed away. What has the Bengali come to in his own country? He cannot get enough food to eat or clothes to wear, there is lamentation on all sides, his wealth, his trade and commerce, his lands, his very agriculture have begun to pass into the hands of others. We have abandoned the sadhana of Shakti and Shakti has abandoned us. We do the sadhana of Love, but where Knowledge and Shakti are not, there Love does not remain, there narrowness and littleness come, and in a little and narrow mind there is no place for Love. Where is Love in Bengal? There is more quarreling, jealousy, mutual dislike, misunderstanding and faction there than anywhere else even in India which is so much afflicted by division.
In the noble heroic age of the Aryan people4 there was not so much shouting and gesticulating, but the endeavor they undertook remained steadfast through many centuries. The Bengalis endeavor lasts only for a day or two.
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0 1962-08-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So they must be written. You can tell me about it on Tuesday. And again he repeated, No worry, no worry. Take it easy, take it easy. And it was as if he wanted to sit you down by a running river, as if you could see the water flowing, flowing, flowing, flowing so naturally along. As if you were sitting in a lovely flower-strewn meadow by a flowing stream. And he was saying, Dont worry, take it easy, take it easy.
He was putting all kinds of things around you. So there you are.
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0 1962-10-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
With a bit of reflection its easy to understand: if it were a question of stopping something and starting something ELSE, it might be done rather rapidly. But to keep a body alive (to keep it functioning) and AT THE SAME TIME have enough of a new functioning so that it stays alive, and then a transformation that makes a very difficult combination to realize. I am fully aware of it, fully aware of the immense amount of time thats needed for this to be done without catastrophe.
Above all, of course, when we come to the heart: to replace the heart with the center of Power, a formidable, dynamic power! (Mother laughs) At what precise MOMENT are you going to eliminate the circulation and throw in the Force!
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0 1962-10-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its clear, isnt it? Its easy to understand. The notion of error belongs to time and space.
The same goes for the feeling that a thing cannot both BE and NOT BE at the same time. And yet thats the way things are: something both is and is not at the same time. The notion of time, of time and space, is what brings in the notion of error.
--
Its not easy!
easy! If it were easy, wed get tired of it.
One does sometimes wonder why, why is this life so tragic? But in the first place, if it were a perpetual enchantment we wouldnt even appreciate it, because it would be completely natural thats mainly it: we wouldnt appreciate it because it would just be completely natural. And nothing says we wouldnt long for a little hullabaloo for a change! We just might.
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0 1963-01-14, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is ultimately the most powerful means of dissolving difficulties, overcoming grief and getting rid of pain. The first two [difficulties and grief] are relatively easy (relatively), the last [pain] is more difficult because of our habit of regarding the body and its sensations as extremely concrete and positive but actually it is the same thing, its just that we havent been taught and accustomed to seeing our body as something fluid, plastic, uncertain, malleable. We havent learned to permeate it with this luminous Laughter which dissolves all shadows and difficulties, all discords, all disharmony, all that grates, cries and weeps.
(silence)
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0 1963-02-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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.
***
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0 1963-03-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here we come to the great problem of the road we travel, the eternal Road Sri Aurobindo refers to in Savitri. It is easy to imagine, of course, that what was first objectified had an inclination to objectification. The first point to accept, a logical point considering the principle of evolution, is that the objectification is progressive, it is not complete for all eternity. (silence) Its very hard to express, because we cannot free ourselves from our habit of seeing it as a finite quantity unfolding indefinitely and of thinking that only with a finite quantity can there be a beginning. We always have an idea (at least in our way of speaking) of a moment (laughing) when the Lord decides to objectify Himself. And put that way, the explanation is easy: He objectifies Himself gradually, progressively, with, as a result, a progressive evolution. But thats just a manner of speaking. Because there is no beginning, no end, yet there is a progression. The sense of sequence, the sense of evolution and progress comes only with the Manifestation. And only when we speak of the earth can we explain things truthfully and rationally, because the earth had a beginningnot in its soul, but in its material reality.
A material universe probably has a beginning, too.
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0 1963-03-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are enough physical miseries to experience what people call physical painquite enough (!) Yet, materially, everything is organized to give every possible joy! For example (ever since the age of five it has been like that), whenever the body felt, Oh, if I had this. Oh, it would be nice to have that, the thing would come in no time. Fantastic! It has always been that way, only it has become more conscious. Before, it would happen without my noticing it, quite naturally. Now, of course, the body has changed, its no longer a baby, it no longer has a childs fancies. But when that kind of Rhythm comes, when something says, Oh, this is fine! mon petit, it comes in TORRENTS from all sides without my saying a word. Just like that. There was a time when the body enjoyed it, it was delighted by it, made very happy by it (even two years ago, a little more perhaps), very happy, it found that amusingit was lovely, you see. But now: To You Lord. Only this, a sort of quiet, constant joy: To You Lord, to You Lord, to You Lord. And on both accounts: for physical pain as well. In that regard, the body is making progress. Although to tell the truth, its life is made so easy! So easy that it would have to be quite hard to please not be satisfied the Lord is full of infinite grace.
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.
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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.
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0 1963-05-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Putting it differently, you must become the Supreme in order to help in His action, in the changing of the world; you must have the supreme Vibration in order to participate in that Movement, which I am now beginning to feel in the bodys cellsa Movement which is a sort of eternal Vibration, without beginning or end. It has no beginning (the earth has a beginning, so that makes it easy; with the earths beginning, we have the beginning of the earths history, but thats not the case here), it has no beginning, it is something existing from all eternity, for all eternity, and without any division of time: its only when it is projected onto a screen that it begins to assume the division of time. But you cant say a second, or an instant. Its hard to explain. No sooner do you begin to feel it than its gone: something boundless, without beginning or end, a Movement so totaltotal and constant, constant that it is perceived as total immobility.
Absolutely indescribable. Yet it is the Origin and Support of the whole terrestrial evolution.
When you speak of terrestrial things, its very easy, very easy.
These words (Mother shows the notation of her experience) come long after the experience is over. There is a sort of silence, of immobility, and its like something that settles slowly, slowly; and once it has settled, here is the residue (Mother shows her note, laughing).
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0 1963-07-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(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.
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0 1963-07-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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.
From time to timetwo, three times a day I am given a few minutes of it. Its a marvelous relaxation. But I always come out of it (I mean the BODY comes out of it) with an anxiety, in the sense that it says, Oh, Ive forgotten to live! Very odd. Only one second, but a second of anxiety: Oh, Ive forgotten to live!and the drama starts all over again.
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0 1963-07-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I was told something this morning (I think it was this morning, or in the night, I dont remember); it was said to the body, not to me. The body was told that it would go on till complete purification, and that AT THAT POINT it will have the choice between continuing its work or You see, once it has attained complete purification from the cellular point of view (not what people call physical purity, thats not it), from the point of view of the divine Influence, which means that each cell will be under the exclusive influence of the Supreme (thats the work under way now), the body was told that that work would be done, and once it was completed, the body ITSELF, entirely under the Supremes influence, would decide whether it wants to continue or be dissolved. It was very interesting, because dissolution means a scattering, but to scatter (thats easy to understand) is a way to SPREAD the consciousness over a very large area. So the cells will be given the choice either to act in that way (gesture of diffusion) or to act in agglomeration (Mother makes a fist).
(silence)
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0 1963-08-24, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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.
But I have no idea whether the false appearance wouldnt still exist for those not ready to see the true thing. At any rate, it would be an intermediary period: those whose eyes were open would be able to see (what is called open eyes in the Scriptures), they would be able to see; and they would be able to see not through effort or seeking, but the thing would impose itself on them. While those whose eyes were not open for a time, at least, it would be that way, they wouldnt seethey would still see the old appearance. The two may be simultaneous.
--
We can very well conceive (its something easy to conceive) that beings may be born in another manner, through a power of concentration, and that those beings may materialize without any of the miseries that beset us thats all very well, but its for later. We are in between, thats where the difficulty is.
"All renunciation is for a greater joy yet ungrasped. Some renounce for the joy of duty done, some for the joy of peace, some for the joy of God and some for the joy of self-torture, but renounce rather as a passage to the freedom and untroubled rapture beyond."
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0 1963-09-07, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
With Indians, its very easytheyre heaven-blessed, these people, because it takes very little for them to be oriented in the right way.2 But there are two types of difficult religion, the Christian religion (especially in the form of Protestantism), and the Jewish religion.
The Jews are also out-and-out materialists: you die, well, you die, its over. Though I havent quite understood how they reconcile that with their God, who moreover is Unthinkable and must not be named but who, seen from the standpoint of a vaster truth, seems (I am not sure), seems to be an Asura. Because its an almighty and UNIQUE God, foreign to the world the world (as far as I know) and he are two completely different things.
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0 1963-10-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, at those times, I feel such a force in me, even a physical strength, greater than I have ever felt in my life, even when I was young and strong enough, and it makes me feel that peoples physical strength is nothing! The first time it came after my illness (I wasnt on my guard), it did so for no apparent reason (possibly as a test) and there was this instrument on my table (Mother points to a penholder mounted on a steel pivot). So the Force came, and for some reason or other I wanted to push this thing down. I put my hand on it without any effort, any force (but the Force was there, it was in my arm): snapped off! (It isnt easy to break.) Snapped clean off! Without the shadow of an effort. The doctor was here, he asked me Why? I told him, Oh, I didnt do it deliberately, a force took hold of my arm and went snap! And I did it consciously; I saw, I saw the Force, saw a sort of golden bolt of lightning, very strong, that came andsnap! I didnt make the slightest effort. The doctor was upset! (He is a man with a sattvic nature.) He told me, That is stupid, it breaks your things Ill get others!
That was the first time. Afterwards, I was on my guard.
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0 1963-11-04, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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.
--
Naturally, when you have the experience, its very easy to understand, but its hard to explainby the way, I dont think we can put this in the Bulletin.
Yes, we can, its quite clear!
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0 1963-12-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
December 2nd was interestingsports day1: the day before, the 1st, the weather was wonderful, and insofar as I gave it thought I was convinced that on the 2nd it would be just as fine. But in the morning I saw it was nothing of the sort, and as the day went by, it became worse and worse. In the beginning my first movement was to say to myself, Well, I didnt see to it, I should have given it thought, but then I saw that was absurd. Then I told the Lord, Why are You doing this? Its not very nice! Those children have worked so hard, they have taken great pains. And just as I said it, the consciousness was looking at what I said, smiling, Oh, my! How silly still to be that way! And then there was yet another thing (its becoming very, very complete), something that wasnt exactly the Lord, but like an expression of the Lord, telling me (not with words, of course, but how can I explain? Sri Aurobindo describes it very well in the Yoga of Self-Perfection: its a very new thing which has to do with action, feeling, sensation and consciousness all at the same time; its all of them togethernone of those things, yet all of them), so it was there, telling me (I am putting it into words, but that distorts it entirely), So what! What if its a test, what do you have to say about it? So immediately in the consciousness here the consciousness at work here the thought awakened, Ah, it has to become a test, then. In THEIR consciousness it has to become a test. (Because at first I had made a kind of attempt to stop the rain; then I saw it didnt correspond to the Truth and that the rain had to be acceptedwhy accepted? To do nothing after having worked so hard? And to accept is easy, its nothing, its not interesting, nothing new.) So a test, all right. If they take it as a test, they will go through it victoriously and it will be very good. And all the time, I was so concentrated on them [at the sports ground] that I no longer knew what I was doing or where I was. It lasted from 4 P.M. to 8 P.M. Around 8 P.M., I received the news: they had gone on with the performance just the same, the important visitors had remained till the end, so ultimately it was a real success.
There was only one difficulty: the little children, who cannot be conscious of a test, of course, and who remained four and a half hours in the rain. I didnt want it to do any damage there were about a hundred small ones, tiny tots. I spent the night in concentration to bring into their material sensation the true reaction (because, for a short while, children love rain, they have a lot of fun in it), so I said to myself, That part of their consciousness should predominate so there is no damage. And I waited for the day after. The day after, no one was sick.
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0 1963-12-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact, in Savitri, Sri Aurobindo went through all the worlds, and it so happens that I am following that without knowing it (because I never rememberthank God, I really thank heaven!I asked the Lord to take away my mental memory and He took it away entirely, so I am not weighed down), but I follow that description in Savitri without mentally knowing the sequence of the worlds, and these last few days I was in that Muddle of Falsehood (I told you last time), it was really painful, and I was tracking it down to the most tenuous vibrations, those that go back to the origin, to the moment when Truth could turn into Falsehoodhow it all happened. And it is so tenuous, almost imperceptible, that deformation, the original Deformation, that you tend to lose heart and you think, Its still really quite easy to topple over the slightest thing and you can still topple over into Falsehood, into Deformation. And yesterday, I had in my hands a passage from Savitri that was brought to meits a marvel, but its so sad, so miserable, oh, I could have cried (I dont easily cry).
The world grew full of menacing Energies,
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0 1964-03-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the advantage of the individuality is that you can aim a beam at precise points (same gesture like a beacon) and obtain a resultnot in a miraculous way that leaves people open-mouthed and stupid, not that; but when the aspiration is sincere, when the will is sincere You know, what I do constantly is (gesture of offering): Lord, I cannot do it, do it for me. Lord, I cannot do it, do it for me. Well, thats what Sri Aurobindo said: if people around me do not have the direct Contact with the Lord (a contact I brought with my birth, of which I have grown more and more conscious, but which was the very source of this earthly existence), if they dont have that Contact, they can have a conscious contact with me; thats easy, because, of course, its something visible, tangible, with a real existence. So if one can be in that state of offering (not with words or sentences, but with a truly sincere feeling): No, I dont know how I can do it all by myself, how can I? Its such a formidable thing to do, how can I? How can I even discern exactly between the true movement and the untrue, or between the movement that leads to the Truth and No, I dont know I give it all to You, do it for me.
And that goes on twenty-four hours a day, and, I can say, as many thousand seconds as there are in a day, spontaneously, sincerely, absolutely (gesture of offering): Here, I give it to you. Oh, here comes a difficulty; oh, so-and-so has a difficulty; oh, these circumstances are bad, oh Here, here, here, I cannot sort it out with the knowledge I havedo what needs to be done; do what needs to be done, I give it to You. Its a gesture of every minute, every second.
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0 1964-07-22, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So I said that human action is based on reactions. Divine action, on the other hand, SPONTANEOUSLY stems from the vision through identity of the necessity of the dharma of each thing and each being. It is a constant perception, spontaneous, effortless, through identity, of the dharma of each being (I use the word dharma because its neither law nor truth, but both together). In order for this being to go by the shortest way to his goal, here is the curve of the most favorable circumstances; consequently the action will always be modeled on that curve. The result is that in seemingly similar circumstances, the action of the divine Wisdom will sometimes be completely different, at times even opposite. But then, how do you explain this to the ordinary consciousness? In one case, the Master loves this person, while in the other he doesnt love himits easy!
It was so clear! And such a constant, constantly repeated experience that its really very interesting. Its very clear that its impossible for the disciples to understand; even if they are told, What is done is done because of each beings dharma, for them its just words; it doesnt correspond to a living experience, they cant feel it.
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0 1964-08-26, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So then, that would be the difference between the subtle physical and the physicalimmortality in the subtle physical is even perfectly obvious: its not only easy to imagine, its a fact; but the PASSAGE? The passage, which for most people is like passing from the waking consciousness to the sleep consciousness and from the sleep consciousness to the waking consciousness. The most concrete experience I have had was like taking a step here and then taking a step therethere is still a step; there is still this-that (gesture of reversal).
But this subtle physical is very, very concrete, in the sense that you find things again in the same place and in the same way: YEARS LATER, I found again some places where I had been, with certain little inner differences, if I may say so, but the thing, for instance a house or a landscape, remains the same, with little differences in the arrangementas there are in life. Anyway it has a continuity, a sort of permanence.
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0 1964-09-16, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The first movement is indeed like this: At last, to find the place where I can concentrate, find myself, live truly without having to bother about material things. This is the first aspiration (its even on this basis that the disciplesat least in the beginningwere chosen), but it doesnt last! Things become easy, so you let yourself go. There are no moral restraints, so you do stupid things.
But it cannot even be said it was a mistake in recruitingit would be tempting to believe this, but its not true, because the recruiting was done on the basis of a rather precise and clear inner sign. Its probably the difficulty of keeping the inner attitude unalloyed. Thats exactly what Sri Aurobindo wanted and attempted; he used to say, If I can find a hundred people, it will be enough for my purpose.
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If everything is easy and peaceful, you fall asleep.
Thats also how Sri Aurobindo explained the necessity of war: in peace, people become flabby.
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0 1964-09-23, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As soon as we deal with even the vital plane, even the lower vital, the problem doesnt arise, its very easy; but here, in the cells of the body, in this life? In this life of every minute, which is so constricted, so shriveled, so microscopic. What should you do when you know that you mustnt bring into play a will to reject all that is a decay, and when, at the same time, you cant accept decay because you dont see it as a perfect expression of the Divine?
Its very subtle there is something to be found; and its something that, obviously, I havent found because it keeps coming back again and again. At times, I even say, Oh, for Peace, Peace, Peace but then I feel it is a weakness. I say, To let myself go, not thinking of anything, not trying to know anything, but then something instantly rises there, somewhere, and says, Tamas.2
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Its not even that I have the feeling of the years going bythere is nothing like that, its not that! Its the problem of living from second to second, from minute to minute. I dont at all think, Oh, the years are going by , its a long time since all that has been over. Its not that, its the easy path of passive acceptance, which evidently leads (evidently, I mean not through reasoning, but THROUGH EXPERIENCE), which leads to increased decay; or else, that intensity of aspiration for the Perfection that must manifest, for all that must be, an aspiration which keeps everything at a standstill in that expectation. Its the opposition between these two attitudes.
The problem is made worse by the fact that the goodwill of the cells (a necessarily ignorant goodwill) doesnt know if one attitude is better than the other, if it should choose between the two, if both should be accepted they dont know! And as it isnt mentalized or formulated or with words, its very difficult. Oh, as soon as the words are there all that has been said comes back, and its over. Its not that, its not that anymore. Even if strong sensations or a vital force come up, its not a problem anymore. The problem is only HERE, in this (Mother strikes her body).
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0 1964-10-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its also learning the lesson of illnessof the illusion of illness Oh, thats very, very amusing. Very amusing. The difference between the thing itself, as it is, the particular kind of disorder, whatever it is, and the old habit of feeling and receiving the thing, the ordinary habit, what people call an illness: I am ill. Thats very amusing. And ALWAYS, if you stay truly still (its difficult to be really and truly stillin the vital and mind, its very easy, but in the bodys cells, to be perfectly still WITHOUT BEING TAMASIC is a little difficult, it has to be learned), but when you are able to be truly still, there is ALWAYS a little lighta warm little light, very bright and wonderfully still, behind; as if it were saying, You only have to will. Then the bodys cells panic: Will, how? How can I? The illness is on me, I am overcome. How can I will? Its AN ILLNESS the whole drama (and that wasnt in sleep: I was completely awake, it was this morning), its an illness. Then something with a general wisdom says, Calm down, calm down, (laughing) dont remain attached to your illness! Calm down. As if you wished to be ill! Calm down. So they consentconsent, you know, like a child who has been scolded, All right, very well, Ill try. They tryimmediately, that light comes again: You only have to will. And once or twice, for one thing or another (because the Disorder is something general: you may suffer at any spot, have a disorder at any spot if you accept a certain vibration), on THIS POINT, you consent the next minute, its over. Not the next minute: a few seconds and its over. Then the cells remember: But how come? I had a pain herepop! It all comes back. And the whole drama unfolds like that, constantly.
So if they really learned the lesson
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Here is Mother's exact text, as it was published in the August issue of the Ashram's Bulletin: "Why do men cling to a religion? Religions are based on creeds which are spiritual experiences brought down to a level where they become more easy to grasp, but at the cost of their integral purity and truth. The time of religions is over. We have entered the age of universal spirituality, of spiritual experience in its initial purity."
***
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0 1964-10-30, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If the work were limited to a single body, a single mass or quantity, a single aggregate of cells, it would be very easy by comparison, but the interchange, the union, the reciprocity is automatic and spontaneous, and constant. You feel that the effect going on here [in Mothers body] naturally, necessarily and spontaneously has its consequences very far and wide; only, it makes difficulties worse, and thats why it takes a lot of time. There is a correspondence, you see: something new occurs in the body, a new pain, a new disorganization, something unexpected, and after some time, I learn that this person or that person has the very same thing!
That, too, the body knows, and it doesnt protest that goes without saying, its the way things are. But it prolongs the work considerably. Probably there will be a corresponding endurance. Because there is neither regret nor revolt nor fatigue; really, the body is ready to be very happy, all it wants is to be very happyit dare not be yet, thats the only point. Its something it dare not be: Are things are they really as good as that! It dare not. But its very happy: I have no cause for complaint, everything is fine; there are difficulties, but without difficulties there is no progress.
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We shouldnt take them seriously: they may shout, they may protest, they may grumble, they may threaten, they may play all sorts of nasty tricks on usthey last only a time, and when their time is up, itll be over, thats all. We only have to last longer than they do, thats all. And its very easy to last if we hold on tight to that which is Eternal: it doesnt even require an effort. And it allows us to look at everything with a smile.
***
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0 1964-11-21, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It isnt easy to observe, you must be very, very, very detached from the movement of thought, otherwise you dont notice it. But if you see it, you see that even those cells are there waiting for the Thing.
I dont think that much more can be expected of them, except, perhaps, to get rid little by little of wrong habits and false vibrations (which, naturally, are the cause of what we call illnesses).
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0 1964-11-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But its double: there is Inertia on one hand, and on the other vital perversion the NERVOUS perversion of the vital world, of the vital influence. There isnt just Inertia: there is a sort of perverted ill will. You can easily (relatively easily) drive it out and eliminate it entirely from conscious mental and vital life; that work, which in the past was considered as, oh, a tremendously difficult thingchanging an individuals natureis relatively easy; all in the nature that depends on the vital or the mind is relatively easy to change, very easy. I am not saying very easy for the ordinary man, but very easy in comparison with the work in Matter, in the cells of the body. Because, as I told you last time, their goodwill is undeniable and their thrust towards the Divine has become absolutely spontaneous: all that is conscious is luminous but the trouble is all that isnt yet conscious! Its the mass of all that isnt yet conscious and is, then, tossed between two influences, one as odious as the other: the influence of Inertia (gesture of dazed sluggishness), of the MASS that stops you from moving forward, and the influence of vital perversion and ill willits this influence that makes everything crooked, that distorts everything.
And it has become very subtle, very hidden, difficult to ferret out. When almost everything was like that, it was visible, it was conspicuous; but that state changed very fast: the difficulty is whats hidden underneath and isnt voluminous enough to draw attention to itself. And, oh, those habits, those habits. For instance (magnifying it to make it more easily visible), the habit of foreseeing catastrophes.
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And I am obliged to keep regular hours because the entire life of others depends on it. That was why people wanted to withdraw into solitude there is an advantage and a drawback; the advantage is that I try to make things very automatic, that is, quite outside a conscious will: they should work by themselves. On the mental level, its very easy, you can detach yourself completely and nothing matters; but for the body, its difficult, because its rhythm The whole rhythm of ordinary life is a mentalized one; even people who live in vital freedom are at odds with the whole social organizationits a mentalized life: there are clocks that strike the hour and it is agreed that things must be that way. Mentally, you can be perfectly free: you leave your body in the cogwheels and stop bothering about it; but when its this poor body itself that has to find its own rhythm, how difficult it is! How difficult. Sometimes, all of a sudden, it feels a discomfort; then I look and I see that there is something that could be an experience, but that would necessitate certain conditions of isolation, of quietness and independence, and it isnt possible. Then, very well as far as I can, I go within and do the minimum (the maximum of what can be done, which is a minimum compared to what could be done).
But of course, Sri Aurobindo always said: For the Work to be complete, it must be generalone cannot give up. An individual attempt is only a very partial attempt. But the fact that the Work is general delays the results considerablywell, we have to put up with it. Thats how it is, so thats how it is.
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0 1965-01-12, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I knew that being very well (for other reasons the story would be too long to tell), and once, I knew he was going to visit Hitler I went before he did: I took his appearance, it was very easy. Then I said to Hitler, Go and attack Russia. I dont exactly remember the words or the details, but the fact was that I told him, Go In order to have the supreme victory, go and attack Russia. That was the end of Hitler. He believed it and did ittwo days later, we got the news of the attack.1 And then, the next day, that is, when I came back from Hitler, I met that being and told him, Ive done your job! Naturally enough, he was furious!
But all the same, in that consciousness, there is with that being (the Lord of Falsehood, one of the first four Emanations), there is despite everything a very deep relationship, of course. He said to me, I know, I know I will be defeated eventually, but before my end comes I will wreak as much destruction on earth as I can.
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0 1965-02-19, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No one can know it, the mind cannot understand those things (while I had known it for so many years), because people see only outer things, the outer form, outer movements and reactions, but they dont see the inner possibility. Well, anyway, I immediately told him to look after the defense (besides, he hadnt asked me, he had started looking after it), and I told everybody, Do what he tells you to do. He organized everything. You know, its something which is like this (gesture with closed fists, unshakable), which PHYSICALLY DOES NOT BUDGE. Mentally, its nothing, its easy.
It is like a physical magnet for the true physical vibrations. It doesnt go through the mind or through intelligence or even through the vital: its physically a sort of magnet that attracts physical Truth.
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0 1965-03-03, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
109All things seem hard to man that are above his attained level and they are hard to his unaided effort; but they become at once easy and simple when God in man takes up the contract.
Its perfect. There is nothing to say.
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And thats how it is indeed: everything is difficult, everything is laborious, everything is hard going, everything is painful, because everything is done outside the Lords consciousness. But when He takes possession of His domain again (or rather when we let Him take possession of His domain again) and things are done in His consciousness, with His consciousness, everything will become not only easy but marvelous, gloriousand inexpressibly joyful.
It came as something obvious. People ask, What is it that is called Falsehood? Why is the creation made of Falsehood?It isnt an illusion in the sense of being nonexistent: its quite existent, but its not conscious of what it is! Not only unconscious of its origin but unconscious of its essence, of its truth. It isnt conscious of its truth. And thats why it lives in Falsehood.
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0 1965-04-21, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But that spontaneous, natural, harmonious lifevery harmonious, extremely beautiful and luminous and easy! A harmonious rhythm in Nature. A luminous animality, in fact.
Thats how we began, and it began that way because there was a descent of the higher human mental consciousness into the form that existed. The phenomenon may recur in the same way, with the difference that it can be more conscious and willed there may be the intervention of a conscious will. It would, or it could happen through an occult processwell, I dont know, there are all sorts of possibilities, one of which could be the conscious passage of a being who has used the old human body for his development and his yoga, and who would leave that form once it became unnecessary in order to enter a form capable of adapting to the new growth.
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0 1965-05-08, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And every minute, I have now the feeling of a choice between victory and defeat, sun and shadow, harmony and disorder, the easy solution truly, the comfortable or pleasant and the unpleasant; and the feeling that if you dont intervene with authority, theres a sort of oh, its a combination of cowardice and spinelessness: its something limplimp, you know, slack.
When I speak like this, its very simple and it seems very easy, but EVERY MINUTE you are hanging between three possibilities (generally three) for the body: the fainting or the acute suffering, the indifferent, mechanical movement, or the glorious Mastery. And I am talking about washing your eyes, rinsing your mouth, doing any of those absolutely indifferent little things (in big things it always goes well because nature is in the habit of thinking that one should bear oneself properly to rise to the occasionall that is ridiculous), but in little things, thats how it is. So the head whirls, and hup! And you can seeyou can see with extreme precision the three possibilities, and if you arent constantly attentive (gesture of a closed fist, of authority and control), the physical nature, with such repulsive spinelessness, you know, absolutely disgusting, lets itself go.
This repeats itself hundreds upon hundreds of times a day. So if this isnt called sadhana, I dont know what a sadhana is! You see, eating is a sadhana, sleeping is a sadhana, washing is a sadhana, everything is a sadhana. Whats a sadhana least of all is, for instance, receiving someone, because the body immediately keeps quite stillit calls the Lord and says, Now be here, and then everything is fine (because it keeps still). The visitor comes, the body smiles, everything is fine the Lord is there, so of course everything goes very smoothly. But when were dealing with what we call material things, the things of daily life, its hell, because of that idiot.
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Its oh, a spinelessness which is one of the things most contrary to the divine Glory. The spinelessness that accepts illness, you know. And I am saying this to my body, not to anyone elseothers, thats not my business, its their work, not mine; I mean, I am present [in them] only as the divine Consciousness, and then its very easy, a very easy work; but the work here, the sadhana in here
But sick people when I tell them, Be sincere, I know what I mean: if they REALLY want the Divine, all that must stop. Thats all.
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0 1965-05-29, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"After all India with her mentality and method has done a hundred times more in the spiritual field than Europe with her intellectual doubts and questionings. Even when a European overcomes the doubt and questioning, he does not find it as easy to go as fast and far as an Indian with the same force of personality because the stir of mind is still greater. It is only when he can get beyond that that he arrives, but for him it is not so easy.
"On the other hand however your statement is correct. It is 'natural considering the times' and the occidental mentality prevalent everywhere. It is also probably necessary that this should be faced and overcome before any supramental realisation is possible in the earth-consciousness for it is the attitude of the physical mind to spiritual things and as it is in the physical that the resistance has to be overcome before the mind can be overpassed in the way required for this yoga, the strongest possible representation of its difficulties was indispensable."
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0 1965-06-12, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The soul doesnt desire anything! Its easy to say, I will give thee all thy soul desires, the soul desires nothing. So he doesnt commit himself to much!
Hes a jokerhe made him quite a joker.
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0 1965-06-23, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There was only one place where things were still easy: it was Africanow its finished; now the Africans (laughing) are worse than anyone! You know how many friends we had there, how many things we used to receive from there its completely finished. And they are ruined. So they come here and meet with all these difficulties.
Human beings really make everything complicated!
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0 1965-07-14, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but (laughing) what can you do? Theyre silly, thats not so easy to cure!
I agree, its perfectly stupid, but Ah, lets take up Savitri.
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0 1965-07-17, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its always the same thing: the old system of solitude is relatively very easy: you lie down, cut off all connections, remain in deep contemplation, and wait for the crisis to be over. It lasts for a time, you dont know how long. But when you are like this, surrounded with people, work, responsibilities (not moral ones: material ones), with things that materially depend on you, then you must find the way to go on, but without having anymore the support of the usual equilibrium.
Its a bit hard.
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0 1965-07-31, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And above all the selection will be done with the idea of being easy to understand. I had an example yesterday when I spoke to a Dutch woman: I explained to her the difference between the old spirituality that denied Matter and tried to escape from it completely, and the new spirituality, tomorrows spirituality, which accepts Matter, dominates it and transforms it. For me, its simple, of courseshe didnt understand a thing!
So if one adopts the frame of mind of saying to people things they can understand, one distorts everything.
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0 1965-08-18, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If one has ambition, it is relatively quite easy to draw a [subtle] being to oneself, who naturally comes under very deceptive disguises, and then to believe oneself to be the incarnation of a great personality.
But when people are sincere, it cant last very long.
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0 1965-10-20, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This must no longer be, mon petit! You have gone beyond that stage. Its a darkness you really no longer belong to. And its NOT your nature: its something that has been imposed on your natureby lots and lots of things. Lots of things. X says it was brought into your life from a previous life, but those stories I see things very clearly, but it doesnt really matter. When one is in the true Light, its relatively easy to clean all that up.
You must shake that up, mon petit! You must. In your being you have been and still are somewhere in full Light. I told you it was a sort of close collaboration between the Light which is in Sri Aurobindo and your capacity of expression. One has no right to forget that.
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0 1965-11-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If, at that point,1 they hadnt stopped, it would have been easy.
Oh, absolutely! Its really sad.
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0 1965-11-23, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When things are put mentally, all those who have tried to explain things mentally have made an opposition, and so people imagine that one is the very opposite of the other [the True Thing and its distortion]; in that case it would be so easy to discern. But thats not at all how it is! I am now studying the way in which Matter, the body, can be in constant harmony with the divine Presence. And its so interesting: its not at all an opposition, its a tiny little microscopic distortion. For instance, there is this frequent experience (and generally people dont know why it is sonow I know): on some days or at certain times all the gestures you make are harmonious, all the things you touch seem to respond harmoniously to the will that touches them, everything works out (I am talking about the very small things of lifeof everyday life), each thing seems to be in its place or to find its place naturally: if you fold a paper, it folds itself as though spontaneously, as it should; if you look for something, you seem to spontaneously find the thing you need; you never knock against anything, never upset anythingeverything seems harmonious. And then, without any appreciable difference in the overall state of consciousness, at other times, its the exact opposite: if you want to fold a paper, you fold it the wrong way; if you want to touch some object, you drop iteverything seems disharmonized or off balance or bad-willed. You are yourself more or less in the same state. But now, with the present keen and fine observation, I see that in one case, there is a sort of inner silence in the cells, a PROFOUND quietude, which doesnt prevent movement, even rapid movement, but the movement seems to be founded on an eternal vibration; and in the other case, there is that inner precipitation (gesture of tremor), that inner vibration, that inner restlessness, that haste to go from one moment to the next, that constant hurry (why? Theres no knowing why), always, always hurrying and scurrying; and everything you do is wrong. And in the other case, with that inner serenity and peace, everything is done harmoniously, and MUCH FASTER in material time: there is no time lost.
And thats why its so difficult to know how one should be. Because in thought you can be in the same constant state, even in aspiration you can be in the same constant state, in the general goodwill, even in surrender to the Divine, it all can be the same thing, in the same stateits in here (Mother touches her body), and this makes the whole difference. I can very well conceive that there may be people in whom this opposition persists in the mind and the vital, but there its so obvious. But I am talking of something absolutely material. Some people say and think, How come? I have such goodwill, such a desire to do the right thing, and then nothing works, everything jarswhy? I am so good (!) and yet things dont respond. Or those who say, Oh, I have made my surrender, I have such goodwill, I have an aspiration, I want nothing but the Truth and the Good, and yet I am ill all the timewhy am I ill? And naturally, one small step more, and you begin to doubt the Justice that rules the world, and so on. Then you fall into a hole. But thats not it, thats not what I mean. Its much simpler and much more difficult at the same time, because it isnt blatant, it isnt evident, its not an opposition from which you can choose, its truly, totally and integrally leaving the entire responsibility to the Lord.
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0 1965-11-27, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its only when the impulse spontaneously becomes impossible for you, when you feel it as something painful and contrary to your deeper need, then it becomes easy; at that time, well, outwardly you cut the links, then its over.
This is one of the most convincing examples.
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0 1966-08-03, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At the same time, I am little by little learning from demonstration the true use that must be made of mental activity. Its purpose is easy to understand: it has been used to educate, awaken and so on; but its not something that after having done its duty and fulfilled its purpose will disappear. It will be used in its own manner, but in its true manner and true place. And it becomes wonderfully interesting. For instance, the idea that you are what you think, that your knowledge is your power, well, it seems to be a necessity of the transition, of the passage from one state of consciousness to another, but its not, as I said, something that will disappear when something else is reached: it will be used, but in its own place. Because when you experience union, the mind appears unnecessary: the direct contact, the direct action, do without it. But in its true place, acting in the true way, sticking to its place (a place not of necessity or even usefulness, but of refinement in action), it becomes quite interesting. When you see the Whole as a growing self-awareness, the mind enrichesit enriches the Whole. And when each thing is in its own place, it all becomes so harmonious and simple, but with such full and complete and perfect simplicity that everything is used.
And with all this, there is (it almost seems to be the key to the problem, to the understanding), there is a special concentration on the why, the how of death. Years and years ago, when Sri Aurobindo was still here, there came one day a sort of dazzling, imperious revelation: One dies only when one chooses to die. I told Sri Aurobindo, This is what I saw and KNEW. He said to me, It is true. Then I asked him, Always, in every case? He said, Always. Only, one isnt conscious, human beings arent conscious, but thats how it is. But now I am beginning to understand! Some experiences, some examples are given in the details of the bodys inner vibrations, and I see that there is a choice, a choice generally unconscious, but which, in some individuals, can be conscious. I am not talking about sentimental cases, I am talking about the body, the cells accepting disintegration. There is a will like this (Mother raises a finger upward) or a will like that (Mother lowers her finger). The origin of that will lies in the truth of the being, but it seems (and that is something marvelous), it seems that the final decision is left to the choice of the cells themselves.
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0 1966-08-06, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its too easy, so they fall asleep.
Yes, thats right, its too easy.
But I have seen several of those boys who told me, Ah, but you can see: people are becoming automatons, they do things mechanically, they lose their aspiration.
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0 1966-09-07, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the past, when I had money problems, I always had money from here or there, it was easy: I would take it, and as soon as money came, Id put it back. But now it no longer works! I owe Amrita 20,000 rupees; I owe H. 13,000 rupees; I owe the cashier 15,000 rupees. Thats how it is. It doesnt matter, I dont attach any importance to it.
We have an awesome budget; we have the budget of a small villageno, a small town. Its a budget of twenty-six lakhs of rupees2 a year, you understand. And then, all those who used to give me money (people who had businesses and so on), have been ruined by the governments wonderful actions. So they cant give me any more. They give what they can, they are very nice, they make great efforts, but
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0 1966-09-28, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
She writes this: We must stop encouraging torturers, whether of men or of animals. I am writing to beg you to teach me how to obtain the powers to lessen sufferings in others through concentration of fluid, and how to act by inwardly returning blow for blow to the aggressors, without hatred but implacably. I beg you to help me. Which inner giving, which renunciation is necessary? Who will teach me the force and justice that will enable me to act and not to always let evil triumph? It is too easy to forget, deny, minimize others suffering. I can no longer put up with it. I no longer want to shut my eyes and comfort myself till the next time. What should I undertake?
When did you get this letter?
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This has become a certitude because the aspiration has been born in all these cells, and its growing more and more intense and is surprised at the resistance. But they have observed that when something is upset in the functioning (which means that instead of being supple, spontaneous, natural, the functioning becomes a painful effort, a struggle with something that takes on the appearance of a bad will but is only a reluctance devoid of understanding), at such times the intensity of the aspiration, of the call, grows tenfold: it becomes constant. The difficulty is to keep up this state of intensity; generally it all falls back into, I cant say drowsiness, but its a sort of slackening: you take things easy. And its only when the inner disorder becomes hard to bear that the intensity grows and becomes permanent. For hourshourswithout flagging, the call, the aspiration, the will to unite with the Divine, to become the Divine, is kept up at its peakwhy? Because there was whats outwardly called a physical disorder, a suffering. Otherwise, when there isnt any suffering, there is now and then an upsurge, then it flags and falls back; then at some other time, another upsurge It never ends! It lasts for eternities. If we want things to go fast (fast relatively to the rhythm of our lives), the whiplash is necessary. I am convinced of this, because as soon as you are in your inner being, you treat this with contempt (for yourself).
But then, when that true Compassion of divine Love comes and you see all those things that look so horrible, so abnormal, so absurd, that great pain over all beings and even over things Then there was born in this physical being the aspiration to relieve, to cure, to make all that disappear. There is something in Love in its Origin that is constantly expressed by the intervention of the Grace; a force, a sweetness, something like a vibration of solace, spread everywhere, but which an enlightened consciousness can direct, concentrate on certain points. And thats just where I saw the true use one could make of thought: thought is used as a channel to carry the vibration from place to place, wherever its necessary. This force, this vibration of sweetness is there over the world in a static way, pressing to be received, but its an impersonal action, and thoughtenlightened thought, surrendered thought, the thought that is nothing more than an instrument, that no longer tries to set things in motion, that is satisfied with being moved by the higher Consciousness thought is used as an intermediary to make contact, to build a connection and allow this impersonal Force to act wherever its necessary, on precise points.
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0 1966-11-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Inwardly its easy, but outwardly There is all of a sudden, especially in the brains matter, here (gesture to the temples), that movement of descent, of the Lord taking possession, and then outwardly you feel as if youre fainting. Thats why you cant remain standing and have to lie down; but when you lie down, its almost instantaneous, everything disappears: the sense of time, of difficulty, absolutely everything there only remains a luminous immensity, peaceful and so strong!
Thats the days lesson.
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0 1966-11-30, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Laughing) Unfortunately the fact is easy enough to note! Immortal bliss lives not in human air. But she could answer him, Thats because of you, so you dont need to boast about it!
***
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0 1966-12-21, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats how it is. So then, once its objectified on paper, you can become aware of the relationship between the pressure you received and the things you wrote, which have varying qualities. When, for instance, you read me those few pages, with certain things I saw the Light behind; with others, it was like a horizontal origin or will (horizontal gesture at forehead level), and it was very pretty, very fine (you understand, I am not looking at it from the literary standpoint at all, or even the standpoint of the beauty of the form, thats not it). Its the quality of the vibration in whats written. And while you were reading to me, I felt the two origins, and I felt a sort of conflict between what came like this (gesture from above) and what came out of habit, like that (horizontal gesture to the forehead): it was especially an old habit, something that came from the past and belonged to a mental, artistic, literary region (all that likes the form, likes certain emotions, certain expressions, all that). And it all constituted a horizontal world that exerted a pressure to be expressed, mostly out of habit, but also with a sort of will to be, a will to last. The other way was a Light falling and expressing itself quite naturallyspontaneously, effortlessly, and UNCONCERNED WITH THE EXTERNAL FORM. And that was much more direct in its expression. But of course, the distinction isnt clear-cut, its not easy to say, Oh, this comes from here (gesture to a particular level), oh, that comes from there (gesture to another level). But there is a movement above and another below.
So I think the sadhana would consist in sifting it out, or rather in developing a sensitivity such that the difference would become clear, quite perceptible, so it would no longer be the mind that chose and said, This is all right, that isnt. There would be a spontaneous adherence to what is clothed in this light from above and a rejection of what isnt. The sadhana would consist in developing this sensitivity by separating yourself from the old movement, by taking the old movement outside you.
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0 1967-03-25, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What organizes the world and life is much wiser than we are: we dont see, we are extremely short-sighted. But That (vast gesture), as I told you last time, is marvellous! Marvellous. So there must also be a reason for the fact that I am so overburdened. Of course, the general reason is very clear (its easy to understand), but even from the point of view of the sadhana: that way, probably, nothing is overlooked.
Whats interesting is to follow this kind of change in the consciousness of the cells: there are still many of them with a sense of wonder that the Truth exists. Thats the form it takes: a sense of wonder. Ah, so thats what it is! A wonder. A wonder at the existence, the UNIQUE existence of the Lorda joy! Such an intense joy and a child-like wonder, you know: Oh, so its really like that! And this goes on in one part of the body after another, one group of cells after another. Truly charming. And then, when the mantra comes spontaneously, oh! There is an adoration: Its like that, like that! That is true, it is THAT which is trueall the disorder, all the ugliness, all the suffering, all the misery, all of that isnt true! Its not true, it is THAT which is true. And not with words (words trivialize it): with an extraordinary sensation, extraordinary! And then its the beginning of that sort of glorious, marvellous life. Its still at the stage of wonder; that is, something unexpected in its sublimity.
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0 1967-04-05, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As for the child, he should be told, There are marvels to be manifested, prepare yourself to receive them. Then, if they want something a little more concrete and easy to understand, they can be told, Sri Aurobindo came to announce these things; when you are able to read him, you will understand. This awakens the interest and the desire to learn.
I do see the difficulty he alludes to: most people (in what we see written or in the conferences they have here), use pompous words
--
It would be interesting to formulate or work out a new method of teaching for the children, taking them very young. Very young, its easy. We need people (oh, we would need remarkable teachers) who have, first of all, sufficient documentation on what is known to be able to answer any question; and at the same time, at least the knowledge, if not the experience (the experience would be better) of the true intuitive intellectual attitude, and (naturally, the capacity would be still preferable) but in any case the knowledge that the true way to know is mental silence: an attentive silence turned towards the truer Consciousness, and the capacity to receive what comes from there. The best would be to have that capacity; in any case, it should be explained that its the true thing, a kind of demonstration, and that it works not only with regard to what must be learned, the whole field of knowledge, but also with regard to the whole field of what must be done: the capacity to receive the exact indication of HOW to do it, and as one progresses, it turns into a very clear perception of what must be done, and the precise indication of WHEN it must be done. At the very least, as soon as the children have the capacity to reflect (it begins at seven, but around fourteen or fifteen its very clear), they should be given some first hints at the age of seven, and a complete explanation at fourteen, of how to do it and that its the sole means of being in contact with the deeper truth of things; that all the rest is a more or less clumsy mental approximation of something you can know directly.
The conclusion is that the teachers themselves should have at least a sincere beginning of discipline and experience: it is not a question of piling up books and of repeating them like that. Thats not the way to be a teacher the whole earth is like that, let it be like that outside if it makes them happy! As for us, we arent propagandists, we simply want to show what can be done and try to prove that it MUST be done.
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0 1967-04-19, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A child to whom you must never say, Come. Thats not easy in the language if you cant tell him, Come!
No one ever tells him, You must.
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0 1967-04-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
These last few days, oh! Its this transition thats being worked out in the details, and its not easy.
Its like that habit of the cells of drawing the force from below (through food and so on): when you try to transform that into a constant habit of drawing the force from above, every instant, in every small detail, theres a difficult moment. (From above is a manner of speaking, because if you think about it, it may also be from the depths: theres no sense of direction, no high or low or anything of the sort.) But its no longer leaning on the surface for support for standing, walking, sitting, for making movements.
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0 1967-05-10, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was the symbol of the road opening wide, easynot easy: its dangerous in itself, but quite easy, one travelled on it easily. It was like riding in a car (but these are images), and it went with dizzying speed, as if it was a powera power nothing could stop.
You were there.
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0 1967-05-20, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You see, an undeniable goodwill, a will to do the right thing (Mother is speaking about herself), an attitude that seemed as good as possible, and already the sense of a surrender and an effort to express not at all personal movements, but the guiding Willall that, that whole attitude (which at the time seemed quite good), seen with todays consciousness! (Mother takes her head in her hands) So its easy to think that
Sri Aurobindo surely had that consciousness, surely since he spoke about i the had it, and he saw us living like that around him what patience! What a marvel of patience.
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0 1967-05-24, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Once, Amrita told me too that for him it was something simply unthinkable. So I answered him, No! That way doesnt help. Just think that the Divine is everything (to the fullest possible extent, of course), everything we want to become in our highest, most enlightened aspiration. All that we want to become thats the Divine. He was so happy! He told me, Oh, that way it becomes easy!
But when you look at itwhen you emerge from mental activity and look at the experience you have, you wonder, How to say it? How to explain it? The nearest, most accessible, is this: into that something we aspire to become, we instinctively, spontaneously put everything we want to exist, all the most marvellous things we can imagine, all the objects of an intense (and ignorant) aspiration, all of that. And with all that, you draw near something and In fact, you dont get the contact through thought; you get the contact through something IDENTICAL in the being, which is awakened by the intensity of the aspiration. So, as soon as you have got for yourself, be it for one second, this contactthis fusion theres no more need to explain: its something that imposes itself in an absolute way, and that is outside and beyond all explanation.
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0 1967-05-26, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That is the response of the Grace. People believe that the Grace will make everything in their life easy for them. It is not true.
The Grace works for the realisation of your aspiration and everything is arranged to gain the most prompt, the quickest realisationso there is nothing to fear.
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0 1967-06-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Of course, well add a note to say that for the time being, after they have read the brochures on Why Auroville? and have adhered to that, people will have to send their photograph along with their request, and I am the one who will accept them or not. As long as the number remains limited, a few hundred, its very easy to see their photos and thus have a minimum guarantee that tricksters wont come in. Because its very easy to say, Oh, I am thoroughly convinced and want to participate, but those are just words. I cant see each and every one, but even with their photograph one can see clearly enough whether they are sincere or not.
***
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0 1967-06-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its like things being put in order, in a certain very subtle way which isnt easy to express.
There you are.
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0 1967-07-05, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But thats indeed the way it is and its true, its true, everything looks, oh, very serious, very difficult, very complicated, very while if we were less stupid, it could probably be very easy and swift! Its clearly because of our own stupidity, without a shadow of doubt.
(long silence)
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0 1967-07-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a whole world of things people know out of force of habit, automatically, which have been completely erased (because all habits are increasingly being erased), so at times its embarrassing! And it comes back, all those things come back like that, as if on a screen (but the screen of consciousness), and those that correspond to a reality come forward like an image, with the reality behind, so then its very easy: you catch hold of the reality and its over. But with many theres only the image and nothing behind! So how do you replace them?
When it comes to languages, its very interesting. Those are things that come, stay for an hour or two, then go away; they are like lessons, things to be learned. And so, one day, there came the question of languages, of the different languages. Those languages were formed progressively (probably through usage, until, as you said, one day someone took it into his head to fix it in a logical and grammatical way), but behind those languages, there are identical experiencesidentical in their essence and there are certainly sounds that correspond to those experiences; you find those sounds in all languages, the different sounds with minor differences. One day (for a long time, more than an hour), it unfolded with all the evidence to support it, for all languages. Unfortunately, I couldnt see clearly, it was at night, so I couldnt note it down and it went away. But it should be able to come back. It was really interesting (Mother tries to recall the experience.) There were even languages I had never heard: Ive heard many European languages; in India, several Indian languages, chiefly Sanskrit; and then, Japanese. And there were languages I had never heard. It was all there. And there were sounds, certain sounds that come from all the way up, sounds (how can I explain?), sounds we might call essential. And I saw how they took shape and were distorted in languages (Mother draws a sinuous descending line that branches out). Sounds like the affirmative and the negativewhat, for us, is yes and noand also the expression of certain relationships (Mother tries to remember). But the interesting point was that it came with all the words, lots of words I didnt know! And at that time I knew them (it comes from a subconscient somewhere), I knew all those words.
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0 1967-07-26, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The students point of view: they learn just to appear to know and to pass their exams and pad out their heads with all kinds of things. The teachers point of view is to have as easy a control as possible and to be able to give marks without giving themselves too much trouble, with a minimum of effort. As for me, I say: each student is an individuality, each student should come not because he wants to be able to say, I have studied and I am going to take my exams, but because he is eager to know and he comes with the will to know. And the teacher must not follow the easy method of giving a subject and seeing how each one answers, and whether the answer is good or bad, and conforms to what he has taught or not: he must find out whether the students interest and effort are sincere, and everyone according to his own nature for the teacher its infinitely more difficult, but thats education. And they protest.
As regards the teachers point of view, I certainly agree entirely
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0 1967-08-19, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We are not here to make our life easy and comfortable. We are here to find the Divine, to become the Divine, to manifest the Divine.
What happens to us is the Divines outlook, it is not our concern.
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0 1967-08-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The explanation becomes very simple and very easy when you enter the consciousness in which its the material reality that becomes an illusionits illusory, inexact: the inner reality is truer. Then, in that case, its simple. Maybe its only our mind that is astonished?
Take writing, for instance: I havent noticed in detail, but when you write over there, you seem to write much more easily. I dont know how to explain it it takes much less time. And things are noted down on paper, but is it paper? It looks like paper, but things are noted down much more directly. Its perhaps the similarity, like when, for example, you use a fountain pen or a pencil: its not exactly a fountain pen or a pencil, its something that looks like it and is (what should I say?) the prototype or principle of that object. But what I mean is that if we were still at the time of the quill or the twig that you dip into ink, I would probably see it like that! Its the ESSENCE or principle of the thing, which in the memory, is translated as a similarity.
--
So the result has been to see the immensity of the problem to be solved, of the path to be followed, and of the transformation to be worked out. When you look at it from the purely psychological standpoint, its relatively easy and swift, but when you come down to this (Mother touches her body), to the outer form and so-called matter, oh, its a whole world! Each lesson its as if you were given lessons, and its so interesting! Lessons with all the consequences and explanations. You spend one day or two days like that over a tiny little discovery. And you see that after that, after that day or those hours of work, there is a change in the body consciousness: the light is there, its changedchanged, the reactions are not the same. But (Mother gestures to express a world of toil).
And the Presence the Presence becomes more and more intimate, more and more concrete, and at such times at times (Mother makes a gesture like a swelling) its so concrete as to be as if absolute. Then (gesture of being covered again) another state of consciousness comes and everything has to begin all over again.
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0 1967-10-14, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Two for you (to Sujata), two for you (to Satprem), and one for me. Its to prompt the body to transform itself! (Mother slips a flower through her buttonhole) It tries its best, people dont leave it much time to look after itself. Its getting worse and worse. The nights are shorter; during the day, the moment when I used to be able to rest is gone. So its kept constantly, constantly busy. Not very easy.
***
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0 1967-12-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The experience was so acute! So acute. Then I said (among the people there, there was Purani, and as I said people who are on earth), I told them, On earth, there is that intensity of aspiration, but here life is so easy, so easy! Look at all your activities and all that, oh, it has no zest, because there isnt that intense need to live for the Divine. And it was so strong that for hours in the morning it was like that (gesture of intense aspiration). Life anywhereanywhere, in any part of the world (of the universe) and in any conditions, even the easiest and harmonious, is not worth living without this intensity of aspiration, of the NEED to be divine.
Its the first time.
In the past, when I went to all those regions, there were always very interesting things; and in the subtle physical, as a rule I was always with Sri Aurobindo I was with Sri Aurobindo, but he withdrew to a part of his domain and I remained with all the others: they had an easy life, you know, carefree, and all they did seemed so meaningless. Why? Why all that, why keep oneself busy, why do all those things if its not for this aspiration, if its not for this need to be and become the Divine?
But its the first time, and it lingered on: for hours this morning, I was like this (gesture of intense aspiration).
--
And its the PHYSICAL consciousness that has those experiences at night: the body remains in trance, its the physical consciousness; it was the physical consciousness, but in a subtle physical freed from all difficultiesand it was no better. You know, it was like a reply to the ambition of people here on earth who want life to be pleasant, easy, without difficulties, without conflicts and clashes and diseases and they say, Oh, how charming all would be!Its not true: if THAT isnt there, empty.
The experience was very interesting.
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0 1967-12-20, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For me it would be very easy. The difficulty is all the people, all those around me, whose life (laughing) is like this (chaotic gesture), without meaning. It looks incoherent. I cant tell someone, Ill see you at such and such time, because thats not true! I dont know at what time Ill see him. And so, as people are used to eating, sleeping, working at regular hours and all that is regulated, it causes a dreadful confusion but whats to be done?
Its not easy. When you are alone, it doesnt matter, but when you are with many, many people, its very difficult.
There is the sense of the elasticity of time, which is to say that it has no concrete reality; what gives it a concrete reality is human organization. That would leave only the sun, but for the moment its not a big disturbance because what I do doesnt need daylight; you can rest at any time and work at any time, but a life organized such as it is? I dont know.
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0 1968-02-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But when the body is ready, it will be able to let itself go like that WITHOUT BEING DISSOLVED. And thats the work of preparation. The movement, yes, is to let oneself melt entirely. But the result is the egos abolition, that is to say, an UNKNOWN state, you understand, which we may call physically unrealized, because all those who sought Nirvana did so by giving up their body, whereas our work is to make the body, the material substance, capable of melting; but then, the principle of individualization remains, and all the egos drawbacks disappear. Thats the present attempt. How to keep the form without the egos presence?thats the problem. Well, thats how it takes place, little by little, little by little. Thats why it takes time: each element is taken up again, transformed. Thats the marvel, that is it (for the ordinary consciousness, its a miracle): its keeping the form while entirely losing the ego. For the vital and the mind, its easier to understand (for most people its very difficult, but still for those who are ready, its easy to understand, and then the action can be much more rapid), but HERE, this (Mother points to her body), for it not to be dissolved by this movement of fusion? Well, thats precisely the experience, thats it. And there is a slight movement of patience, a movement of its really the deep essence of compassion: the minimum wastage for the maximum effect. That is, one goes as fast as one can, but delays arise from the need to prepare the various elements.
Thats precisely the so interesting curve at present unfolding. At times, you feel as if everything, everything is dissolving, getting disorganized; and I have observed closely: at first the physical consciousness wasnt sufficiently enlightened, and when those inner preparations took place, it would feel, Ah, this must be what heralds death; then, little by little, came the knowledge that it wasnt that at all, it was only the inner preparation to be capable, capable of identification. And then, on the contrary, the very clear vision of this plasticity so particular, this suppleness so extraordinary that if it were realized once its realized, it obviously means the abolition of the necessity of death.
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0 1968-02-14, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But its very, very instructive. I mean, its not anything new to me, but its the wholly clear, precise, evident picture that its man who creates all his difficulties. Things would be simple and easy if there werent all these ego reactions: reactions of ambition, reactions of self-esteemnot to speak of deceit: when that comes (gesture underhand). Yes, these three things: ambition, with the need to show off, to dominate; self-esteem or vanity (being hurt when you arent appreciated at your true value: then you lose your temper, you quarrel, theres grating and friction); and, last, the thirst for money, greed, the desire to possess, cupidity: you want to make the most of the occasion I want to profit, I want to profit. With these three things, everything is muddled.
So long as it all comes out in the open ingenuously and frankly, you smile, but when it turns into duplicity, when people use all kinds of tricks in the hope of deceiving, of hiding their motives while pretending to have othersall that in various combinations then, it wont do anymore.
--
Its far easier to say and believe that the world cannot be changed and must be left to its own decompositionyou just go away peacefully. How easy! How easy.
(silence)
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0 1968-04-17, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the same phenomenon that took place for the various inner states of being (but thats relatively easy), but now, its physical. And also its not mentalized, so its hard to express.
***
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0 1968-05-18, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh! What a queer idea It may be the same thing as with me [the attack of magic]. Its not always easy to prevent these things from touching you.4
Oh, its a very special quality of vibration: when you are used to noting vibrations, its unmistakable; you cant mistake one for another. When it comes from that [magic], you know it instantly. Its very special (Mother makes a piercing little gesture, like a snakes tongue or a tiny flash of lightning vibrating and striking).
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0 1968-06-15, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But Id like to know (I am beginning to be interested in the problem, I am looking at it): will this residue (Mother breaks off). But the question isnt like that, its a question of TIME. With time (Sri Aurobindo said three hundred years), with time EVERYTHING would get to change. But there is the wave of habits, and the easy solution which consists in quite simply taking this (Mother points to her own body as to an old garment) and throwing it away: Off with you, I no longer want you! Its disgusting. Because it can no longer get along fast enough, one takes it and says, Off with you! Go away, I no longer want you, go to decomposition. Its disgusting.
And I FEEL the atmosphere. There is the whole collective thought, people writing to me, I hope youll still live for a long time! (Mother laughs) And all the usual nonsense. You know, they are so full of idiotic goodwill. It makes a difficult environment.
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0 1968-06-29, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So the conclusion is easy to draw: as long as He wills it, it will be like that; when He wills it otherwise, it will be otherwise. And thats all. At the same time, of course, the lesson is given: an increasingly clear perception that the field of the indispensable isnt as large as we imagine. For me, Sri Aurobindos presence is EXTREMELY effectiveactive.
But for this body its interesting: its in the smallest little details, you know, that the body is shown the extent to which the presence has a real effect, thus making it necessary, and the extent to which it isnt necessary. Its growing increasingly precise in the smallest details.
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0 1968-07-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Finally, a letter from P.L. telling the story: I somewhat restrained myself from writing to you and telling you about my new situation, which might have been precipitated at any moment. On my return, the Vatican adopted a dual policy: threats on one hand, and on the other, promotions and offers of fine situations. I had been absent from Rome since December 9: what strange illness could last such a long time? There was talk of subjecting me to a medical examination by three physicians, demanding the names of the clinics2 visited, and so forth. I consulted His Eminence and Msgr. R. Being expelled by the application of the rule suited no one neither my family, nor the Cardinal himself. So the solution was to take up my new post, assuring them that I had fully recovered: thus the investigations stopped; I was no longer prosecuted, my case was shelved. No doubt, curiosity and suspicion havent been allayed, but my life has gone back to routine, and after some time everyone will forget. I will see the Pope next month, and I may accompany him in his journey to Colombia at the end of August I will keep you informed. There is still the difficulty of his health which may prevent the journey. All that I have just told you is quite external to myself and I hardly participate in it; Id rather write about my consciousness: it hasnt changedit has remained fastened to Mothers influence. I feel her protection; everything is easy, for she is with me; she gives me the suitable answer. Like a mantra, I repeat, Oh, Mother, with your help is anything impossible? More than that, the joy she has put in my heart remains unshakable. My thought flies away towards her, full of gratitude. Msgr. R. told His Eminence I had been at the Ashram: the Cardinal is delighted. R. has finished reading your book: in his mass he has preached Aurobindos ideas. He told me he has come into contact with Mother: he is going to write to her, and later will go and see her. He has accepted Aurobindos message as a solution for the world. I must still tell you the joy the telegram gave me: to Mother all my gratitude.
(Mother goes into a long contemplation)
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0 1968-07-17, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats just what the bodys transformation is about! Its when the physical cells become not only conscious, but RECEPTIVE to the true Consciousness-Force, that is, when they allow the working of that higher Consciousness. Thats the work of transformation. Not so easy!
The other question: How does the central Will and Light, which is nonmaterial, act on the gross matter of the cells?
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0 1968-07-20, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats easy!
2) What is the relationship between what I call the Supreme, which I seek within, and yourself?
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0 1968-09-11, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You will see that your whole conception and notion [of heaven and hell] is based on one thing, an entity you call God, and a world you call his creation, which, to your mind, are two different thingsone having made the other, the latter being subjected to the former and the expression of what the former made. Well, thats the initial error. But if you could feel deep down that there is no division between that something you call God and that something you call the creation; if you thought, Its exactly the same thing, if you could FEEL that what you call God (which is perhaps a mere word), what you call God suffers when you suffer, is ignorant when you are ignorant, and it is through this whole creation that he finds himself again little by little, step by step, unites with himself, realizes himself, expresses himself, and its not at all something he willed arbitrarily and made autocratically, but it is the growing, increasingly developing expression of a consciousness that objectifies itself to itself Then, instead of being like a little child who kneels down, folds his hands and says, God, I implore You, make me a good boy, let me not cause my mother any sorrow (thats very easy and, well, I cant say its bad!), instead of lighting a candle and kneeling before it with folded hands, light a flame in your heart and have a great aspiration for something more beautiful, truer, nobler, better than anything I know; I ask that tomorrow I begin knowing all those things and begin doing all that I cannot doand every day a little more. Then, if you objectify a little, if for some reason you have been put in presence of a lot of misery in the world, if you have unhappy friends or suffering parents or difficultiesanything then you ask that the entire consciousness may rise TOGETHER towards that perfection which must manifest, that all this ignorance which has made the world so unhappy may be changed into enlightened knowledge, that all that bad will may be illumined and transformed into benevolence. And how lovely those prayers would be!
I remember that during those classes, on certain days I knew it was the psychic that spoke, and on other days it was only the mind. And that day, I remember, the psychic presence was very strong.
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0 1968-10-23, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not easy. I am revising it.
Oh!
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0 1969-05-07, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have an impression that its more easy, that difficulties are less violent that one has a greater mastery, if you like. Thats my impression.
(Mother nods her head silence)
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0 1969-05-21, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I felt something in the brain. You know that since Sri Aurobindo gave me mental silence, it has been absolutely still; it never started up again as before, and the consciousness has been there (gesture above Mother), working from there. But then after Pavitra came here, something (gesture to the forehead) impelled me to ask (I asked whats here, within), Could I get the mathematical knowledge you had? I asked him that. And his answer was, Of course, it would be easy if you set this in motion again! But that I dont want to do. Anyway
Anyway, thats how it is, as if I were talking to someone within!
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0 1969-05-24, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its easy to see that its getting disorganized TOWARDS a higher organization, that is, a broadening, a liberation thats true but nothing, nothing at all is working in the ordinary way any longer. So the body can no longer eat, can no longer Sleep, of course, for a long time there hasnt been any ordinary sleep (I dont regret it), but everything, just everything is like this (gesture of upheaval).
(long silence)
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0 1969-05-28, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As for me, I am continuing its not easy Thats all. So I can listen to this.
(Satprem reads out)
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0 1969-06-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Very easy to answer (Mother writes):
Undeniably.
--
And above all, above all, the chatter of words For instance, it has become very hard for me to read a letter: there are always at least a hundred times too many words. And its easy to see its in the head that it goes like this (gesture of a jumble). But then, here (gesture to the forehead), it has remained mar-vel-ous-ly tranquil and calm and white and oh, thats really a Grace. It has remained like that. So all those things that come and try to entertheres no response, they are kept at a distance. And then, the Solicitude, the Care taken to make the thing as easy as we permit it to beits wonderful! Wonderful Naturally, from time to time, one is crushed under the weight of stupidity, but behind, there is nevertheless a benevolent Goodness, smiling and so TREMENDOUS that nothing matters, no worry There. So
The body has the sensation of hanging between two states: one which people call life, and the other which people call death. The body feels its hanging between the two: neither alive nor (laughing) dead, like that, neither one nor the other. Its between the two. And thats very odd. Very odd. There is an impression (not an impression, its a perception) that the slightest disorder (gesture of tipping over to the left) would be enough to fling it to the other side, and that this very slight movement this way (gesture of tipping over to the right, into life) is made impossible by something one doesnt understand. And it takes very little to
--
I dont know. I dont know what will happen the body isnt told what will happen. Its very easy to understand why, moreover: if the body knew in advance what will happen, it would surely do foolish things instead of being very attentive and simply like that, not just listening (its not a question of listening), but attentive to the Impulsion so as to do exactly what it has to dowhats expected of it, for everything, everything, down to the smallest thing: eating, sleeping, speaking, moving, everything, everything. To be like that all the time, all the time: attentive so as not to do anything but what has to be done.
And (laughing) the body finds it thoroughly funny, absurd, that one could think one is a person. It has such a strong sense of fluidity! The sense that whatever isnt fluid is false. Its really amusing.
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0 1969-10-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, because they have an easy life.
That shocks him: not to do the work with all thats here!
Thats because their life is too easy. If theyre asked to make the slightest effort, they rebel.
***
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0 1969-10-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Of course you are right, there, when you say that one should seek the Divine for his own sake. For you people, its easy to understand since you are bathing in this atmosphere here. But for the Western man, a proof is needed, he wants to know what he will gain! The easiest and most striking thing to demonstrate is healing. There. Its really quite simple. I dont know if you understand it. Christ, too, did the same thing!
***
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0 1970-01-03, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So, depending on the hour of the day (the hour of the day and the month of the year), the sun will go round. Then, at night, as soon as sunlight has vanished, well switch on spotlights which will have the same effect and the same color. Night and day the light will remain there. But no windows or lamps or things of the sortnothing. Ventilation through air conditioners (theyre set inside the walls, thats very easy).
And SILENCE. No talking inside!
--
What men used to call difficult, complicated, now the body, when its in presence of that, of that unknown pressing to be expressed, several times it says, Ah, it was easy before, when one thought one knew!
Now it knows it knows nothing.
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0 1970-01-17, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What would really please me is if they could agree with each other and present me with a project of the two together. That way, it would be easy to execute. I mean, if R. has adopted Paolos idea, why couldnt they see together how to execute it?
Yes, that would make things simpler.
--
Well let the dust settle. Because, you understand, to accept those changes I must be sure that the origin of the inspiration is of the same quality as mine. For the execution, I know very well that we need people who know the job and do the work, but for the inspiration, I must be sure that the origin of the inspiration is AT LEAST as high as mine. And I am not sure, because I saw so clearly. With Paolos ideas, I saw the mixture straight away. His ideas are all mental ideas, I can assure you because for me thats very easy to see. Well, all of them bring along the same MIXTURE as with anything thats done in the world. And so whats the use of doing that over and over and over again?
Something bothers me. Entering underground is very good, but that huge underground? (Mother pulls a face)
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0 1970-02-28, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The work in the body is going on at a quickened pace, but its not easy But very precise, very accurate. I told you that I spent a whole night with Sri Aurobindo, and he explained to me all thats going on for the body, in detail.
Its difficult.
--
Ah, its not easy.
(long silence)
--
Its a curious thing. When I am in that state, I am not asleep yet I am not awake; its neither one nor the other. Its a sort of new state I have; whether I am in my bed or sitting in my armchair makes no difference. Its a certain state I go into, in which I know things in such a clear way, and then (as I did with you) I explain them. Then when I go out of that state, pfft! finished. Its curious. Nights are very shortvery shortyet when I go to bed, its hardly nine, I think, and I get up at 4:30, which is a long time. Yet its very short. You understand, I dont sleep the way people do (but not at all), and I am not awake. Its something else. And then, things are evident, very easy to understand, I can explain them (as I explain them to you), and its a perfectly natural phenomenon there was no surprise at meeting you (it wasnt meeting, you were there), and I told you things. And then, pfft! finished. Suddenly Ill cough or have a pain here, there, and then you fall back into this ordinary imbecility.
Sometimes its like that when I am simply sitting there, in my armchair.
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0 1970-03-04, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not to compliment myself, but I think its not easy! Because as long as its vital or mental, its nothingnothing at all! But when it becomes physical its more difficult! (Mother laughs)
This aphorism remains wholly, entirely true.
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0 1970-03-14, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not easy, it calls for endurance and will, but a day will come when it will be quite natural. Its only just the open door thats all, now we have to go on.
(silence)
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0 1970-03-25, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The difficulty is the appreciation of the value of things. You understand, that requires a very wide vision. Moneys convenience was that it became mechanical. But this new system cannot become quite mechanical, so For instance, the idea is that those who will live in Auroville will have no moneythere is no circulation of money but to eat, for instance, everyone has the right to eat, naturally, but On quite a practical level, we had conceived the possibility of all types of food according to everyones tastes or needs (for example, vegetarian cooking, non-vegetarian cooking, diet cooking, etc.), and those who want to get food from there must do something in exchangework, or Its hard to organize in practice, on a quite practical level. You see, we had planned a lot of lands around the city for large-scale agriculture for the citys consumption. But to cultivate those lands, for the moment we need money, or else materials. So Now I have to face the whole problem in every detail, and its not easy!
There are some who understand.
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0 1970-05-16, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If there were a certitude, if, for instance, Sri Aurobindo said, This and this and this is like this, then it would be very easy! But whats difficult is You see, you are surrounded by people who think youre ill and treat you as such, while you know youre not ill. But everything, everything is shattered disrupted.
Now and then, rarelyrarelynow and then there is bliss all of a sudden. It lasts a few seconds. Maybe thats actually the way to tell me, This is how the end will be? But you are surrounded by a certainty that youre fast moving towards the end, so this poor body is like this (wobbly gesture). It isnt concerned with it, but it doesnt have a certitude of how it will end. So all it can do is to be tranquil, trusting, and endure.
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0 1970-05-20, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because from the beginning and constantly, theres a sort of commonsense firmly rooted in the being, which refuses to imagine things; it says, I dont want to imagine this, I dont want to imagine that. So then, the consciousness takes up things only when they are totally concreteits too easy to start spinning tales and None of that. Totally PRACTICAL, concrete.
But that practical sense, is it an obstacle?
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0 1970-06-06, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its always better to have your handwriting! But if it tires you, its quite easy for me to note it down.
Tires, oh no! Its just that it [Mothers handwriting] is no longer good. Its no longer as it should be but it doesnt tire me. So well put:
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0 1970-07-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its Power of Truth in the Subconscient. Not easy!
(Mother laughs) The flowers are quite bold!
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0 1970-10-07, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
T. can translate. In English, its easy.
In Italian, theres N.
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0 1971-01-23, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, Ill come any time, its quite easy for me.
All right, then. I dont know, all this planning and organizing, all that is gone.
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0 1971-02-24, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There was some apprehension for the 21st about going out on the balcony,1 the feeling that it would be very difficultit wasnt very difficult, it was neutral, neither easy nor difficult. The values are not the same.
Thats all.
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0 1971-03-17, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the transition isnt easy.
(Mother shakes her head, long concentration, Mother takes Satprems hands)
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0 1971-04-21, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I can call him, its quite easy.
It would be better to tell him.
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0 1971-04-28, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But no one will listen to him. You see, I cant make decisions anymore because they dont listen to me. As long as they listened to me, it was easyit was easy, there was an influence. Now, something has happened, I dont have any authority at all anymore, so what can we do?3
Well, if you tell R., he will see that its done.
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0 1971-05-08, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not easy!
Whats the matter?
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0 1971-05-15, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I think in one of the newspapers in India, thats easy.
What did you write? I am curious.
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0 1971-05-19, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not easy.
(Mother makes a gesture as if to agree and goes back within)
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0 1971-05-26, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It landed on me. Then she said with a kind of forcefulness that affected me very much, Oh, yes I know, its very easy to mistake what comes from the subconscient for an inspiration.
Oh!
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0 1971-06-05, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All circumstances have been furiously teaching the body to call all the time, all the timeto call the Divine. And so now its got into the habit of repeating its mantra, and it repeats it ALL THE TIME. Its a curious thing: if it repeats it, everything runs smoothly; if it doesnt, it cant even swallow foodeverything seems on the verge of falling apart; so it repeats its mantra, and everything goes quite well. When it thinks of nothing but the Divine, everything is fine. This morning, while I was having breakfast, thats how it was. It was so plain! If the body thinks about eating, everything goes wrong; if it repeats its mantra, it can absorb the food, it doesnt even notice it, everything becomes so easy. Very interesting. The same goes for people: when theyre here, if I think about them, if I think there are difficulties, then (grating gesture), but if I am like this (peaceful gesture, immovable in the Lord), everything goes well, quite naturally.
Its a lesson, but a relentless one.
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0 1971-06-23, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, thats easy to say!
But the American manufacturers.
Its easy, they can say anything they like.
Theyre expecting war here in about a week.
--
Unfortunately, in both cases, our readers felt that Sri Satprem had not succeeded in laying the foundations of his beliefs, ultimately rather vague, or at any rate not easy to convey. As for the style, it only very rarely injects life into those inexpressible and often suspect things. It is principally the lacunae which persuaded us that we cannot consider publication.
Signed: O.L.
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0 1971-10-06, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, you see, it is bound to go on one side or the other, that is, either my body will be renewed and become stronger (I mean my eyesight better, and so on), and then it will be easy, or else finished.
No!
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0 1971-12-18, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So alls wellits not easy! (Mother laughs) But all is well.
Yes, thats just the problem I wondered about. You say that for me, for instance, the insistence is on personal transformationwell, I saw something (I sawwell, anyway I felt something), I felt that the transformation (of the lower nature, for example) is not really possible unless a sort of radical change of position in the consciousness takes place, or a change of vision.
--
You see, the transformation of the bodily mind was indispensable because thats the only one I had left, you follow? Very few people would accept that. (Laughing) In my case, it was done without asking my opinion! The work was very easy.
Thats exactly what happened.
--
But we truly have to. What made things easy is that the psychic consciousness was completely in the forefront and ruling the life, so it just went on quietly without being concerned with the rest.
Its like sight and hearing, Ive noticed that its not a physical deterioration: its simply that I understand and hear people only when they think clearly what they say. And I see only what is what expresses the inner life, otherwise things are hazy or veiled. Its not that my eyes dont see, its something, its something elseeverything is new.
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0 1971-12-25, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
More and more I am convinced that we have a way of receiving things and reacting to them that CREATES difficulties I am more and more convinced of it. Because, for example, I have rather unpleasant physical and material experiences about food. You know that for a very long time now I have completely stopped being hungry (I eat only to be reasonable, because one must eat, otherwise), and I have some small difficulty in swallowing, or breathing (ridiculous things), but everything changes depending on whether you pay attention to them or not, depending on an attitude like this (gesture of being focused on oneself) in which you watch yourself living, or an attitude in which youre (vast gesture) in things, in movement, in life; and a third attitude in which you pay attention only to the Divine. If you succeed in being like that all the time, there are no difficultiesand yet things are the same. Thats the experience: the thing in itself is as it is, but it is our reaction to it that differs. The experience is more and more conclusive. You see, there are three categories: our attitude with respect to things, the things in themselves (those two always give you trouble), and there is a third category in which everything, but everything is in regard to the Divine, in the Consciousness of the Divineall is marvelous, all is easy! And I am speaking of material things, of the material, physical life (for psychological things, weve known it for long), I mean material things like little discomforts of the body, or reactions, feeling pain or not, circumstances going wrong, not being able to swallow your dinner the most banal things you dont pay attention to when youre young and strong and in good health (you dont pay any attention to them, and its like that for everyone), but when you live in the consciousness of your body and what happens to it and its ways of receiving things that come and so onoh, its misery! When you live in the consciousness of others, of what they want, what they need, their relationship with youits misery! But if you live in the Divine Presence and its the Divine who does everything, sees everything, is everything its Peaceits Peace, time has no duration, everything is easy and. Not that you feel joy or feel its not so its the Divine who is there. And its the ONLY solution. Thats where the world is going: the Consciousness of the Divine the Divine who does, the Divine who is, the Divine. So then, the same IDENTICAL circumstance (I am not speaking of different circumstances), the same IDENTICAL circumstance (its my experience these last few days, so concrete, you know, so concrete); day before yesterday I was sick as a dog, and yesterday circumstances were the same, my body was in the same state, all was the same and yet all was peaceful.
I am thoroughly convinced of that.
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0 1972-01-08, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It isnt easy.
It isnt easy, but its what I was telling you: both extremes. It isnt easy, but all of a sudden, for a few seconds, everything becomes wonderful, and then again. So Id rather not speak about it.
(silence)
--
So I am no longer this, but I am not yet the other. Its like this (gesture in between). Not easy.
No!
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0 1972-03-10, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As for me, the power of consciousness goes on increasing; for the time being I repeat, for the time being the physical power is reduced to almost nought. I am forced to stay here, minding nothing, and make shift with seeing people. So I need some persons to do the practical work I used to do before and can no longer do (Mother is short of breath). I cant speak with the same strength as before the physical is undergoing a transformation, you know. Sri Aurobindo himself had said and rightly sohe said (because one of us had to go, and I offered to go), No, your body is capable of enduring it, it has the strength to undergo transformation. Its not easy. I can assure you, its not easy. Yet my body is good-willed, it is really good-willed. But for the moment it is in the process of well, it is no longer quite on this side but not yet on the other. The transition isnt easy. So I am stuck here, like an old woman, incapable of doing any work.
If I can hold onif only I can hold onat one hundred things will be better. That I know. I am absolutely convinced there will be a renewal of energy. But I have to hold on. Thats all.
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0 1972-03-15, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Eating has become a problem. But at times, when the attitude is right, its so easy!
Its good what you did.
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0 1972-04-04, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I tried my best to push them out, that is to say, that they would WANT to go. But they it didnt happen, they really willed to remain. If we could have evident proof that they are spies, then it would be very easy. I would tell them to go. But for so many years they have been here. It must be proved, it cant be a feeling or an idea or something like that, there must be a concrete proof. Voil.
I would like that the Divines will should manifest very clearly, in a very positive way. Because human appreciation is worth nothing. He alone knows the Truth, and it is He who has to decide. Like that. I dont know if you understand and follow; what I say may not be clear. But Iyou see, to tell the truth, I have no respect for human appreciation and outlook, and I am absolutely convinced that only the Divine can see the truth. What I do is to tell, to show clearly His way so that we will do only what He says, what He sees. We are not capable of seeing. We will go by the Divine.
--
No! Certainly not! No, no, I dont favor deliberately adding difficulties! I know they come for. But they shouldnt be invitedon the contrary. They shouldnt. Things should be made as easy as possible. Only, we shouldnt be ruffled by difficulty, thats the point. I am not at all saying that difficulties should be accepteddont invite them at all, at all, at all; life is difficult enough as it is! But when a difficulty comes, you must take heart and face it courageously.
We must strive for Order, Harmony, Beauty and collective aspirationall the things which for the moment are not there. We must you see, being the organizers, our task is to set the example of what we want others to do. We must rise above personal reactions, be exclusively attuned to the divine Will and be the docile instruments of the divine Willwe must be impersonal, without any personal reaction.
--
I know its not easy, but we are not here to do easy things; the whole world is there for those who like an easy life. I would like people to feel that coming to Auroville does not mean coming to an easy lifeit means coming to a gigantic effort for progress. And those who dont want to keep up with it should leave. Thats how things stand. I wish It were so strong the need for progress, for the divinization of the being, so intense that those who are unable (unable or unwilling) to adjust to it would leave by themselves: Oh, this is not what I expected. As it is now, all those who want an easy life and to do what they please as they please, say, Lets go to Auroville! It should be just the opposite. People should know that coming to Auroville means an almost superhuman effort for progress.
It is the sincerity of our attitude and effort which makes a difference. People should feel that insincerity and falsehood have no place herethey just dont work, you cant fool people who have devoted their entire life to go beyond humanity.
--
We are here to prepare a superhumanity, not to fall back into desires and easy lifeno.
People must feel it; it should be so strong that the sheer force of our sincerity would drive them out thats what they have to feel. At that point, we will be what we should be. The power of the realizationof the sincerity of the realizationis such that its UNBEARLABLE to those who are insincere.
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0 1972-04-05, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The fourth and last person was Mothers new attendant. She is going to appear in the following conversation. I was particularly blind about her because she was young and affectionate but she was completely under Pranabs thumb and ruled by her passions. I had, of course, noticed that she was listening in on my conversations with Mother, thus subtly clouding the atmosphere, invisibly breaking in upon Mothers free expression; for, needless to say, Mother sensed all that went on in the atmosphere. How many times did she stop in the middle of a sentence, invisibly interrupted: I cant speak that was not just because she was short of breath. Hence, the atmosphere of our conversations was no longer what it had been for the last fifteen years, until 1970. But in addition, we were responsible for a new and sad turn of events. We knew that Mother frequently spoke about Auroville, or with one disciple or another, and we regretted the loss of those wordsto us each of her words seemed to have so much importance for the world, even if we were not yet fully able to understand all that she was saying. So with her approval, we managed to obtain a small, easy-to-operate cassette recorder. It had been agreed with Mother that her attendant would record all the important conversations in Mothers room, then pass them on to me to be added to the Agenda. At first, I noticed that the attendant was keeping the tapes, but an innate shyness kept me from saying anything lest I appear to monopolize things or seem pushing, and also I didnt know exactly whose instructions she was obeying. Then, gradually, the attendant stopped giving me the recordings altogether, even those of Mother with Sujata. At that point, the situation in Mothers room was so fragile that I didnt want to say anything, for fear of sparking an outburst that would have ultimately bounced on Mother. I was already feeling also the invisible barrier against Sujata, whose name was systematically crossed off the list of visitors under one pretext or another, along with those of the few young women who were the Ashrams positive and silentelements. And how could we possibly argue when Sujata was told, Mother cannot see you Mother is sick? Once, Sujata mentioned it to Mother, but when the same incident occurred three, four, ten times, there was nothing to be said. Without knowing why, I too was feeling my own meetings with Mother threatened and precarious. In fact, we were alone, facing an obscure league of opposition. Why the opposition? There is no answerexcept human pettiness, which does not understand and hates everything that exceeds it. Even Mothers own son was jealous of my place near her, not to mention the others, the liars pure and simple, as Mother used to call them, who were, and still are, directing the Ashram. Finally, much later, I discovered that the notorious cassette recorder, whose recordings I was no longer even receiving, was clandestinely used to record my own conversations with Motheron whose behalf?
That was the end. The atmosphere had become so rotten that, obviously, it could not last much longerMo ther was suffocating there. I later discovered in my own body and from direct experience that all bad thoughts are agonizing to the body, they create a sort of oppression as if you were short of air. Yet, even when they closed Mothers door on me, a year and a month later almost to the day, on May 19, 1973, I COULD NOT believe it was the end. I was convinced that this was the last stage, that Mother was finally going to shake off the old slavery to food: the last tie to the old physiology. But, as we now know, her bodyguard would not let her. In his speech on December 4, 1973, he declared, In the beginning [from May 20], She refused to take any food or drink, but somehow we persuaded Her to take them.2 She did fight as much as she could, and then. At times, I seemed to hear her faltering little voice up there: Where is Satprem? Where is Satprem? and then silence. Had I attempted to force the barrier, this Agenda would never have seen the light of day. In a way, the following conversation is therefore prophetic.
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0 1972-09-30, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The minute you stop being active, its very easy: everything becomes still and concentrated the Force flows. But the moment you return to some activity, it all goes away.
(Mother nods vigorously)
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0 1973-02-07, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am very keen on this! Its very truevery true. It may not be easy to understand, but its VERY PROFOUNDLY true.
All in us that veils or distorts or prevents the manifestation of the Divine is the falsehood.
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0 1973-04-25, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not easy.
Noits more than difficult. I am sorry, I thought I was suffering for everybody but I see it isnt the case.
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02.01 - A Vedic Story, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Make easy-going the path that leads to the gods, with a happy mind carry the offering.
Agni
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02.01 - Our Ideal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This drive of evolution is a constant and permanent fact of Nature and she is in travail to bring about higher and higher stages of material transformation. It may not be easy to forecast from the present status what the future mode or modes of Matter would be like, even as it was surely impossible to forecast mentalised Matter or living Matter, but that does not make the thing less inevitable.
The inevitability arises from the very fact of this evolutionary urge that a stage will come when Matter will undergo another, more radical and crucial change; it will be taken up by a higher reality than mind and suffused with a light and power belonging to that reality: a spiritual consciousness will emerge and with it spiritualised Matter, even as a mental consciousness emerged and mentalised (however inadequately) Matter, and yet anterior to that a vital consciousness emerged and vitalised Matter. There cannot be a limit to the degree of spiritualisation also; for the degree of the Spirit that Nature manifests in an earthly body will also be the measure to which the body itself is spiritualised. A perfectly dynamic spiritual consciousness will have the power to perfectly spiritualise the body and life and mind. And this grade and power of the supreme Spirit Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind.
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02.06 - The Integral Yoga and Other Yogas, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Those who seek the self by the old Yogas separate themselves from mind, life and body and realise the self apart from these things. It is perfectly easy to separate mind, vital and physical from each other without the need of supermind. It is done by the ordinary Yogas.
The difference between this and the old Yogas is not that they are incompetent and cannot do these things - they can do them perfectly well - but that they proceed from realisation of self to Nirvana or some Heaven and abandon life, while this does not abandon life. The supramental is necessary for the transformation of terrestrial life and being, not for reaching the self. One must realise self first - only afterwards can one realise the supermind.
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As for the depreciation of all the old Yogas as something quite easy, unimportant and worthless, and the consequent depreciation of Buddha and Yajnavalkya and other great spiritual figures of the past, is it not evidently absurd on the face of it?
Wonderful! The realisation of the Self which includes the liberation from ego, the consciousness of the One in all, the established and consummated transcendence out of the universal
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(3) Because a method has been preconised 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 passing on to others that are distinctive. I have not found this method (as a whole) or anything like it in its totality proposed or realised in the old Yogas. If I had I should not have wasted my time in hewing out a road and in thirty years of search and inner creation when I could have hastened home safely to my goal in an easy canter over paths already blazed out, laid down, perfectly mapped, macadamised, made secure and public. Our
Yoga is not a retreading of old walks, but a spiritual adventure.
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02.07 - The Descent into Night, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For swift and easy is the downward path,
And now towards the Night was turned his face.
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02.08 - Jules Supervielle, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The poet speaks obliquely but the language he speaks by itself is straight, clear, simple, limpid. No rhetoric is there, no exaggeration, no effort at effect; the voice is not raised above the normal speech level. That is indeed the new modern poetic style. For according to the new consciousness prose and poetry are not two different orders, the old order created poetry in heaven, the new poetry wants it upon earth; level with earth, the common human speech, the spoken tongues give the supreme intrinsic beauty of poetic cadence. The best poetry embodies the quintessence of prose-rhythm, its pure spontaneousand easy and felicitous movement. In English the hiatus between the poetic speech and prose is considerable, in French it is not so great, still the two were kept separate. In England Eliot came to demolish the barrier, in France a whole company has come up and very significant among them is this foreigner from Spain who is so obliquely simple and whose Muse has a natural yet haunting magic of divine things:
Elle lve les yeux et la brises'arrte
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02.10 - Independence and its Sanction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We naturally consider the British as our enemy and in order to combat and compel them we have been trying to bring together all the differing elements in our midst. Close up the ranks to fight a common enemy that is our grand strategy. It is an effort that has not succeeded till now and is not likely to succeed soon. We should have looked a little farther ahead: with a longer view we would have spotted the greater enemy, a vastly greater immediate danger. Against that common enemy a larger and effective unification would have been quite feasible and even easy. Indeed, if we had taken the other way round, had first united with the British against the greater common enemy, our union with ourselvesour own peoples and partieswould have been automatically accomplished.
That is how we read the situation. When it looked as though there was no way left at our disposal to compose the acute and bitter differences among the multifarious Indian collectivities and also between the Indians and the British or foreigners, precisely at that critical hour appeared the war bringing a unique opportunity, a call and a message, as it were. There is certainly clash in Nature, but always there is an effort also in her to turn that clash into concord. India had too long been the field par excellence of discord and it was time that a movement for real harmony should come. Yes, we say, the war was providential to us, a God-send, offering the chance of centuries. But blinded and perverted our human intelligence refused to take it at its worth.
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02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have said individual or personal worth should be the chief concern of the social governance, to bring it to birth, to maintain and foster it is its principal function. This means naturally freedom, but not the freedom that is demanded by the individualist as against the socialist or the collectivist. For there freedom means freedom for competition and rivalry, freedom for the egos, for selfish interests to fight and battle and survive who can. That is the motto of the competitive society in which we have been living for some time past. That system has become intolerable and hence all the seismic troubles in society today. What is needed is real freedom. For it is easy to see that under the competitive system the apparent freedom is only apparent, a make-believe. It is not freedom, that is to say, free choice and initiation that can work here, it is the pressure from rivals, the impact of adverse circumstances that determine one's will and choice. In the second place, it is not the deeper urges or capacities that are touched and awakened in this way, it is the superficial impulses and preoccupations that find a vent. Man is here only a link in a chain of reactions over which he has hardly any real control: one's decision is limited by conditions beyond one's reach, one's hands are forced, as the common phrase goes.
The problem then is this: how to arrive at the inner freedom, how to contact the inner man, the true person and personality? For we are aiming at nothing less than the Soul, the Self, the Divine in man, God's purpose in the Individual, the Individual as God's instrument. That is the beau idal, so to say, in the human personality which all schemes of social reconstruction must have constantly in view.
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02.14 - Appendix, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Here is an easy, natural, limpid flow, undisturbed in its movement and yet with a pleasant charm and filled with an underlying sweetness. But perhaps one has to listen intently to get at the sweetness and beauty of such lines. They do not strike the outer ear for they set up no eddies there; the inner hearing is their base.
She was a Phantom of delight
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Or else, this easy and natural yet deep-serious utterance carrying the burden of a mantra:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:8
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03.04 - The Body Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The human frame is a miracle of creation. It would not be far wrong to say that the whole trend of physical evolution has been to bring out this morphological marvel. It has not been a very easy task for Nature to raise a living creature from its original crawling crouching slouching horizontal position to the standing vertical position which is so normal and natural to the human body. Man has proportionately a larger cranium with a greater and heavier content of the grey substance in comparison with the (vertebral) column upon which it is set, his legs too have to carry a heavier burden. And yet how easy and graceful his erect posture! It is a balancing feat worthy of the cleverest rope-dancer. Look at a bear or even at a chimpanzee standing and moving on its hind legs; what an uncouth, ungainly gait, forced and ill at ease! He is more natural and at home in the prone horizontal position. The bird was perhaps an attempt at change of position from the horizontal to the vertical: the frame here attained an angular incline (cf. tiryak, as the bird is called in Sanskrit), but to maintain even that position it was not possible to increase or enlarge the head. It is not idly that Hamlet exclaims:
What a piece of work is a man!... how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable!... the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!1
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03.04 - Towardsa New Ideology, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
For fanaticism may be defined as duty running away with itself; but duty proper, the genuine form of it is something self-poised, its natural and inherent tendency being rather to give than to demand, it is less easily provoked to aggression and battle. Even so, it may be claimed on behalf of Right that the right hand of Right is not likely to do harm, for itis then another name for liberty, it means the freedom to live one's life unhampered without infringing on an equal facility for others to do the same. But the whole difficulty comes in precisely with regard to the frontier of each other's sphere of rights. It is easy to declare the principle, but to carry it out in life and action is a different matter. The line of demarcation between one's own rights and the rights of another is always indeterminate and indefinable. In establishing and maintaining one's rights there is always the possibility, even the certainty of "frontier incidents", of encroaching upon other's rights. Liberty, alone and by itself, is not a safe guidetherefore so much stress is being laid nowadays upon discipline and obedience in modern ideologies.
But perhaps the real truth of the matter here is that all these termsliberty or right or even dutyare mental conceptions. They are indeed ideals, that is to say, made of the stuff of ideas and do not always coincide with the deeper realities of life and hence are not able to produce the perfect and durable harmony among warring members whether in the individual or in the collective life.
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The real truth is that a group has the soul the spiritual being that is put into it. How can that be done? It is done by the individual, in and through the individual. Not a single individual perhaps, but a few, a select body, a small minority who by their conscious will and illumined endeavour form the strong nucleus that builds up automatically and inevitably the larger organisation instinct with its spirit and dharma. In fact all collective organisations are made in the same way. The form that a society takes is given to it by the ideology of one man or of a few men. All depends upon the truth and reality, the depth and fecundity of the inspiration and vision, whether it will last a day or be the eternal law of life, whether it will be a curse for mankind or work for its supreme good. Naturally, the higher the aim, the more radical the remedy envisaged, the greater the difficulty that has to be surmounted. An aggregate always tends to live and move on a lower level of consciousness than the individual's. It is easy to organise a society on forces and passions that belong to the lower nature of manalthough it can be questioned whether such a society will last very long or conduce to the good or happiness of man.
On the other hand, although difficult, it may not prove impossible to cast the nature, character and reactions of the aggregate into the mould prepared out of spiritual realities by those who have realised and lived them. Some theocratic social organisations, at least for a time, during the period of their apogee illustrate the feasibility of such a consummation. Only, in the present age, when all foundations seem to be shaking, when all principles on which we stood till now are crumbling down, when even fundamentalsthose that were considered as suchcan no more give assurance, well, in such a revolutionary age, one has perforce to be radical and revolutionary to the extreme: we have to go deep down and beyond, beyond the shifting sands of more or less surface realities to the un-shaking bed-rock, the rock of ages.
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03.07 - The Sunlit Path, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This may not always mean that all is easy and difficulty is simply not, once the psychic is there. It becomes so when the psychic is there fully in front; even otherwise when the inner being is in the background, still sensed and, on the whole, obeyed, although there are battles, hard battles to be fought and won, then even a little of this Consciousness saves from a great fear. For, then, in all circumstances, you will have found a secret joy and cheer and strength that buoy you up and carry you through.
Like the individual, nations too have their sunlit path and the path of the doldrum as well. So long as a nation keeps to the truth of its inner being, follows its natural line of development, remains faithful to its secret godhead, it will have chosen that good part which will bring it divine blessings and fulfilment. But sometimes a nation has the stupidity to deny its self, to run after an ignis fatuus, a mymrga, then grief and sorrow and frustration lie ahead. We are afraid India did take such a wrong step when she refused to see the great purpose behind the present war and tried to avoid contri buting her mite to the evolutionary Force at work. On the other hand Britain in a moment of supreme crisis, that meant literally life or death, not only to herself or to other nations, but to humanity itself, had the good fortune to be led by the right Inspiration, the whole nation rose as one man and swore allegiance to the cause of humanity and the gods. That was how she was saved and that was how she acquired a new merit and a fresh lease of life. Unlike Britain, France bowed down and accepted what should not have been accepted and cut herself adrift from her inner life and truth, the result was five years of hell. Fortunately, the hell in the end proved to be a purgatory, but what a purgatory! For there were souls who were willing to pay the price and did pay it to the full cash and nett. So France has been given the chance again to turn round and take up the thread of her life where it snapped.
Once more another crisis seems to be looming before the nations, once more the choice has to be made and acted upon. In our weakness it is natural and easy to invoke God, to feel the presence of a higher Guidance, to trust in a heavenly light; but it is in our strength that we must know whose strength it is, and in whose strength it is that we conquer.
If the present war has any meaning, as we all declare it has, then we must never lose sight of that meaning. And our true victory will come only in the process of the realisation of that meaning. That is the sunlit path we refer to here which the nations have to follow in their mutual dealings. It is the path of the evolutionary call to which we say we have responded and to which we must remain loyal and faithful in thought, in speech and in deed. If we see dark and ominous clouds gathering round us, dangers and difficulties suddenly raising their heads, then we must look about and try honestly to find out whether we have not strayed away from the sunlit path.
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03.09 - Buddhism and Hinduism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Buddhism, or for that matter, Christianity or Mohammadenism or any credal and personal religion, is easy to understand. For they are each of them a single and simple entity, whereas Hinduism is a multiple and complex organism. The difference is that between a tree, a huge mighty tree, may be, and a vast and tangled forest. Buddhism, for example, "may be likened to the great Bo tree under which, one may say, it was born; but Hinduism is a veritable Dandakaranya.
For Hinduism means all things to all men, while a personal religion is meant truly for a certain type of persons. Hinduism recognises differences and distinction even while admitting the fundamental unity of mankind; it does not impose uniformity as the other type does. Hinduism embraces all varieties of religious experience; it is not based on a single experience however overwhelming that may be.
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03.11 - Modernist Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
and a modernist critic acclaims it as a marvellous, aye, a stupendous piece of poetic art; it figures, according to him, the very body of the modern consciousness and resthesis. The modern consciousness, it is said, is marked with two characteristics: first, it is polyphonic, that is to say, it is not a simple and unilateral thing, but a composite consisting of many planes and strands, both horizontal and vertical. A modern consciousness is a section of world-consciousness extending in space as well as in time; there is, on one hand, the bringing together and intermingling of diverse and even disparate contemporary cultures, produced by free and easy and rapid communication between different parts of the world; on the other hand, there is the connection and communion with all the past civilisations brought about by modern scientific researches. A modern man, who is representative of the age, when he looks close into himself, would find in him a texture of consciousness, the warp of which is spread out from the culture of the Greenlander in the North Pole to that of the Polynesian near the South Pole as well as from the culture of the Anglo-Saxon in the far West to that of the Korean and Nipponese in the far East; and the woof consists of traditions and legends threading past the Egyptian, the Sumerian and Atlantean glyphs and runes, and forward to present-day ideologiestotalitarianism and proletarianism or others like and unlike.
A modern artist when he creates, as he cannot but create himself, will have to embrace and express something of this peculiar cosmopolitanism or universalism of today. When Ezra bursts into a Greek hypostrophe or Eliot chants out a Vedic mantra in the very middle of King's English, we have before us the natural and inevitable expression of a fact in our consciousness. Even so, if we are allowed the liberty of comparing the flippant with the serious, even so, a fact of Anglo-vernacular consciousness was given graphic expression in the well-known lines of the famous Bengali poet and dramatist, D. L. Roy, ending in
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03.12 - The Spirit of Tapasya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One seems not to know that the devil cannot be so easily checkmated or beguiled. For, indeed, it is easy for the body to take punishment, to submit to all kinds of rigours, yet feel as if it was making ample amends and atonement in that way rather than really give up its aboriginal instincts and impulses. Often one deceives oneself, succeeds in hiding, in secretly preserving one's unsaintliness behind a smoke-screen of the utmost physical tapasya.
Real Tapasya, however, is not in relation to the body and its comforts and discomforts; it is in relation to the inner being, the consciousness and its directives and movements. Tapasya, austerity, consists in reacting to the downward pull of the ordinary consciousness, turning and attuning it to the rhythm of higher levels. To oppose the force of gravitation, to move ceaselessly towards purer and luminous heights of being and consciousness, that is Tapasya, Askesis, true asceticism.
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04.06 - To Be or Not to Be, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To know the Divine Will and to be one with it is not easy, to be sure. But that is the only radical solution. That has got to be done, if one is to come out of the chaos he is in.
Once in this status of the divine consciousness, one passes beyond the three Gunas. That is to say, one bids good-bye to one's (the human sense of) freedom and option or choice. One can say no longer, I cannot do it, for it seems immoral, I have to do that, because that seems good. One goes beyond good and bad and awaits the divine command. One does what one is ordered to do from above, what is needed to fulfil the Cosmic Purpose. You do not act then, it is the Divine who acts in you.
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04.07 - Readings in Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The deepest and the most fundamental mystery of the human consciousness (and in fact of the earth consciousness) is not that there is an unregenerate aboriginal being there as its bed-rock, a being made of the very stuff of ignorance and I inconscience and inertia that is Matter: it is this that the I submerged being is not merely dead matter, but a concentrated, a solidified flame, as it were, a suppressed aspiration that burns inwardly, all the more violent because it is not articulate and in the open. The aboriginal is that which harbours in its womb the original being. That is the Inconscient Godhead, the Divinity in painMater Dolorosa the Divine Being who lost himself totally when transmuted into Matter and yet is harassed always by the oestrus of a secret flame driving it to know itself, to find itself, to be itself again. It is Rudra, the Energy coiled up in Matter and forging ahead towards a progressive evolution in light and consciousness. That is what Savitri, the universal Divine Grace become material and human, finds at the core of her being, the field and centre of concentrated struggle, a millennial aspiration petrified, a grief of ages congealed, a divinity lone and benumbed in a trance. This divinity has to awake and labour. The god has to be cruel to himself, for his divinity demands that he must surpass himself, he cannot abdicate, let Nature go her own way, the inferior path of ease and escape. The godhead must exercise its full authority, exert all its pressure upon itselftapas taptv and by this heat of incubation release the energy that leads towards the light and the high fulfilment. In the meanwhile, the task is not easy. The divine sweetness and solicitude lights upon this hardened divinity: but the inertia of the Inconscient, the 'Pani', hides still the light within its rocky cave and would not deliver it. The Divine Grace, mellow with all the tears of love and sympathy and tenderness she has gathered for the labouring godhead, has pity for the hard lot of a humanity stone-bound to the material life, yet yearning and surging towards freedom. The godhead is not consoled or appeased until that freedom is achieved and light and immortality released. The Grace is working slowly, laboriously perhaps but surely to that end: the stone will wear down and melt one day. Is that fateful day come?
That is the meaning of human life, the significance of even the very ordinary human life. It is the field of a dire debate, a fierce question, a constant struggle between the two opposing or rather polar forces, the will or aspiration to be and the will of inertia not to be the friction, to use a Vedic image, of the two batons of the holy sacrificial wood, arani out of which the flame is to leap forth. The pain and suffering men are subject to in this unhappy vale of tears physical illness and incapacity, vital frustration or mental confusionare symbols and expressions of a deeper fundamental Pain. That pain is the pain of labour, the travail for the birth and incarnation of a godhead asleep or dead. Indeed, the sufferings and ills of life are themselves powerful instruments. They inevitably lead to the Bliss, they are the fuel that kindles, quickens and increases the Fire of Ecstasy that is to blaze up on the day of victory in the full and integral spiritual consciousness. The round of ordinary life is not vain or meaningless: its petty innocent-looking moments and events are the steps of the marching Divinity. Even the commonest life is the holy sacrificial rite progressing, through the oblations of our experiences, bitter or sweet, towards the revelation and establishment of the immortal godhead in man.
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But the task is not easy. The flesh is weak: it is incapable of holding or receiving the breath of immortality. Not only so, it has a positive aversion, a bad will: it is refractory, antipa thetic to the touch of the spirit. Matter is dull and dumb, dark and obdurate: mortality loves and clings jealously and exclusively to its mortal home. The earthly being does not know, cannot appreciate the gift, the boon that is brought to him, to his very door: he has only to receive and accept in order to be saved out of all ignorance and grief, impotence and death. The Divine Mother has forgotten herself, has made herself as small and as close and native to earth as any earthly creature, like anyone of us, taken upon herself all limitations and indignities, the entire burden of an earthly life, graced with her presence this mortal atmosphere. But
Hard is it to persuade earth-nature's change;
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05.01 - Man and the Gods, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have spoken of the stability, the fixity, the rigidity even, of the god type and we contrasted it with the variability, the many-sidedness, the multiple character of the human consciousness. In another view, however, the tables are turned and the opposite appears as the truth. Man, for example., has a physical body and nothing is more definite and fixed and rigid than this material sheath. The gods have no body, but they have a form which is supple and changeful, not hard and crystallised like the human figure. Gods, we said, are cosmic forceslines (or vectors, if we wish to be scientifically precise) of universal forces; this does not mean that they have no shape or form. They too have a form and can be recognised by it even as a human being is recognisable by his body. In spite of variability the form retains its identity. The form changes, for a god has the capacity to act in different contexts at the same time; within his own universe a god is multi-dimensional. The Indian seer and artist often seeks to convey this character of the immortals by giving them a plurality of arms and heads. In modern times the inspiration behind the surrealist movement lies precisely in this attempt to express simultaneity of diverse gestures and activities, a synthetic close-up of succeeding moments and disparate objects or events. But in spite of all changes Proteus remains Proteus and can be recognised as such by the vigilant and careful eye. The human frame, we have said, is more fixed and rigid, being made of the material substance. It has not evidently the variability of the body of a god. And yet there is a deeper mystery: the human body is not or need not be so inflexible as it appears to be or as it usually is. It has considerable plastic capacities. We would say that the human body holds a marvellous juste milieu. By its solid concreteness it acts as a fortress for the inner consciousness to dwell in safe from easy attacks of the hostiles: it acts also as a firm weapon for the same inner consciousness to cut into the material world and indent and impress its pattern of truth upon an otherwise hard and refractory material made of ignorance and obscurity and falsehood. Furthermore, it is supple enough to receive and record into its grain the pattern and substance of the higher reality. The image of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Christ is symbolic of the alchemy of which the human body is capable when one knows how to treat it in occult knowledge and power. The human body can suffer a sea-change which is not within the reach of the radiant body of an immortal.
IV
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05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The usual idea of God (as the theists hold, for example) is that he is an infinite eternal impassible being, aloof from human toils and earthly turmoils, himself untouched by these and yet, in and through them, directing the world for an inscrutable purpose, unless it is for leaning towards it and stretching out the hand of Grace to those of the mortals who wish to come out of the nightmare of life, sever the coils of earthly existence. But the Divine in order to be and remain divine need not hold to his seat above and outside the creation, severely separated from his creatures. He can, on the contrary, become truly the ordinary man and labour as all others, yet maintaining his divinity and being conscious of it. After all, is not man, every human being, built in the same pattern, a composite of the earthly human element supported and infused by a secret divine element? However, God, the individual Divine, does become man, one of them and one with them. Only, his labour thereby increases manifold, hard and heavy, although for that very reason full of a bright rich multiple promise. The Divine's self-hurilanisation has for it a double purpose: (I) to show man by example how he can become what he truly is, how he can divinise himself: the Divine as man lives out the life of a sadhakawholly and completely; (2) to help concretely by his own force of consciousness the world and man in their endeavour for progress and evolution, to give the help wholly and completely from the innermost status of the self down to the most external physical body and the material field. This help again is a twofold function. The first is to make available, gather within easy reach, the high realisations, the spiritual treasures that are normally stored in a heaven somewhere else. The Divine Man brings down the divine attributes close to our earth, turns them from mere far possibilities into near probabilities, even imminent realities. They are made part and parcel, constituent elements of the earthly atmosphere, so that one has only to open one's mouth to brea the in, extend one's arms to seize and possess them: even to this opening and this gesture man is helped by the concrete touch and presence of the Divine. Further, the help and succour come in another way which is more intimate, more living and appealing to man.
A great mystery of existence, its central rub is the presence of Evil. All spiritual, generally all human endeavour has to face and answer this Sphinx. As he answers, so will be his fate. He cannot rise up even if he wishes, earth cannot progress even when there is the occasion, because of this besetting obstacle. It has many names and many forms. It is Sin or Satan in Christianity; Buddhism calls it Mara. In India it is generally known as Maya. Grief and sorrow, weakness and want, disease and death are its external and ubiquitous forms. It is a force of gravitation, as graphically named by a modern Christian mystic, that pulls man down, fixes him upon earth with its iron law of mortality, never allowing him to mount high and soar in the spiritual heavens. It has also been called the Wheel of Karma or the cycle of Ignorance. And the aim of all spiritual seekers has been to rise out of itsome-how, by force of tapasy, energy of concentrated will or divine Gracego through or by-pass and escape into the Beyond. This is the path of ascent I referred to at the outset. In this view it is taken for granted that this creation is transient and empty of happinessanityam asukham (Gita)it is anatta, empty of self or consciousness (Buddha) and it will be always so. The only way to deal with it, the way of the wise, is to discard it and pass over.
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05.03 - Bypaths of Souls Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I have put the popular case in figures of popular mentality;almost foolish and childish on the face of it, as it would appear; but if one "tries to answer, one finds it is not easy, children's questions are always so. Let us then try to be wise and face the problem squarely. The whole difficulty comes from the popular, perhaps normal human conception of the soul; it is considered almost something like the physical body (even as Virochana of old did in the Upanishadic days), namely, it has a definite form and figure, even perhaps a definite mass: each is an isolated entity shut out from everyone else by a fixed contour within which each one is housed. In fact, however, it is not so. The soul is an individual, no doubt, it has even a kind of recognisable form, but nothing of the kind by which matter or a material body is characterised. It is an essential form, form of the form, swarpa; it is a basic or typal individuality, the individual seated within the 'individual. The characteristic of material individuality is, as I have said, exclusiveness, where -as the soul individuality is characterised by a comprehensiveness which does not diminish but gives a special mode and movement to that individuality. In the growth of life-forms, we know how a single unit, a cell, divides and subdivides itself and each division grows into a whole, a complete life-form. But the process is not reversible. Developed forms, coming out of a single parent cannot be resolved back into the original unit. Organisms do not combine to form a single unitary organism, although one or more may be taken up and assimilated into another: for this is not combination, but practically the annihilation of one into another. The second law of thermodynamics seems to hold good even in the biological field. On a still higher or deeper level, in the psychological and spiritual realm, such combinations or resolutions are however possible and form a characteristic movement of the occult world.
Let us repeat here what we have often said elsewhere. The creation and development of souls is a twofold process. First, there is the process of growth from below, and secondly there is the process of manifestation or expression from above, the movements of ascent and descent, as spoken of by Sri Aurobindo. The souls start on their evolutionary journey on the material plane as infinitesimal specks of consciousness imbedded in the vast expanse of the Inconscient; but they are parts and parcels of a homogeneous mass: in fact they are not distinguishable from each other at that level. There is as it were a secret vibration of consciousness with which the material infinity all around is shot through. With evolution, that is to say, with the growth and coming forward of the consciousness, there arise sparks, glowing centres here and there, forms shape and isolate themselves in the bosom of the original formless mass; they rise and they subside, others rise, coalesce, separatesome grow, others disappear. These sparks or centres, as they develop or evolve, slowly assume definiteness,of form and function,attain an individuality and finally a personality. Looked at from below there is no counting of these sparks or rudimentary souls; they are innumerable and infinitely variable. It is something like the nebula out of which the galaxies are supposed to be formed. The line of descent, however, presents a different aspect. Looked from above, at the summit there is the infinite supreme Being and Consciousness and Bliss (Sachchidananda) and in it too there cannot be a limit to the number of Jivatmas that are its formulations, like the waves in the bosom of the sea, according to the familiar figure. This is the counterpart of the infinity at the other end, where also the rudimentary souls or potential individualities are infinite. Moving down along the line of descent at a certain stage, under a certain modality of the creative process, certain types or fundamental formations are put forward that give the ground-plan, embody the matrix of the subsequent creation or manifestation. The Four Great Personalities (Chaturvyuha), the Seven Seers, the Fourteen Manus or Human Ancestors point to the truth of a fixed number of archetypes that are the source and origin of emanations forming in the end the texture of earthly lives and existences. The number and scheme depends upon a given purpose in view and is not an eternal constant. The types and archetypes with which we, human beings, are concerned in the present cycle of evolution belong to the supramental and overmental planes of consciousness; they are the beings known familiarly as gods and presiding deities. They too have emanations, each one of them, and these emanations multiply as they come down the scale of manifestation to lower and lower levels, the mental, the vital and the physical, for example. And they enter into human embodiments, the souls evolving and ascending from the lower end; they may even take upon themselves human character and shape.
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There is also the other question asked very often whether men and women always follow different lines of growth or whether there may be intermixture of the lines. Although the soul is sexless, still it may be said that on the whole there are these two lines, masculine and feminine; and generally a soul follows the same line in its incarnations. The soul difference is not in the sex as we know it; but there is a disposition and character that mark the difference and each type, masculine or feminine, is that because of some special role to fulfil, a particular kind of work to be done in a particular way. The difference is difficult to define exactly; but one may say, in the language of the mystics, that it "is the difference between the left hand and the right hand. The mystics refer to the two sides of consciousness, that of light and that of force (chit-tapas), that is to say, knowledge and power. It is not that the two are quite separate entities, they are together and grow together; but in actuality one aspect is more in front than the other. The masculine aspect is often termed as the right hand and the feminine as the left hand of the conscious being. And in a general way man represents the knowledge aspect the conceptual dynamism and woman represents the executive dynamism. This definition however should not be taken absolutely or rigidly. So it can be said that a woman generally remains a woman in all her births and man like-wise remains a man. Here too, although there may not be a central metamorphosis, there may be a partial change: that is to say a part of a mantoo womanish, so to saymay enter a woman and live and fulfil itself or exhaust there; and the masculine part of a woman also can identify itself with its type and pattern in a man. The difference, however, between Purusha and Prakriti, philosophically, seems to be very definite and clear; but in actuality, when they take form and embodiment, it is not easy to define the principles or qualities that mark out the two. At the source when the difference starts, it is a matter of stress and temper and not any so-called division of labour as human mind ordinarily understands it.
The soul in its inner consciousness knows all its evolutionary formations, remembers those of the past and foresees those of the future, when needed, and even determines them essentially. The mind ruling one incarnation cannot recall other incarnations, for it is a product of that incarnation and is meant to guide and control it; physical memory is a function of the brain in the particular body that the soul inhabits for the time. The soul carries a deeper reminiscence which is part and parcel of the self-consciousness inherent in its nature. The physical memory too can partake of this inner reminiscence if it is purified, illumined and organised around the soul as its instrument of expression. Indeed, although the journey of the soul essentially and originally is the flight of the spirit to the Spirit, yet the final consummation is towards an increasing integration of all the external instruments from the highest to the lowest, from the subtlest to the grossest into a harmonised organised whole, reflecting and embodying the Spirit in its purity and totality. The mind, the life and the body too attain a perfectly unified individuality that is the expression of the soul's truth-consciousness and escaping disruption and dissolution partake ultimately of the inherent immortality of the spiritual being.
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05.03 - Of Desire and Atonement, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You increase your difficulty by thinking it difficult; consider it easy and it will be made easy to you.
My is real only because you-are unwilling to think it otherwise; once awake from My and you will find not only that it is no more, but that it has never been.
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05.04 - The Immortal Person, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The individualisation of the mind, its organisation as a special formation, as a vehicle of the true light, the light of the Psychic consciousness is comparatively easy for a man. Mind is the first member of the lower sphere that is taken up and dealt with by the soul; for it is the highest and the most characteristic element in man and less dense and less subject to the darkness inherent in human nature. The mental individual persists the longest after the dissolution of the body, it survives and may survive very long the disruption of the vital being. This vital being is next in the rung to be taken up, organised and individualised by and around the psychic being. The organisation of the vital being in view of a particular object or aim in ordinary life is common enough: the purpose is limited, the scope restricted. Great men of action have done it and one has to do it more or less to be successful in life. This, however, may be called organisation; it is not individualisation in the true sense, much less personalisation. A limb is individualised, personalised only when it is an instrument and formation of the soul consciousness, the psychic being. And the vital is not easily amenable to such a role. For, it is the dynamic element, the effective power of life and it has acquired a strong nature and a definite function in its earthly relations. Naturally, there is a secret drive and an occult inspiration behind over-riding or guiding all immediate and apparent forces and happenings: in and through these the shape of things to come is being built up. In the meanwhile, however, actually the vital is an executive agent of the lower consciousness: it is an anonymous force of universal nature canalised into a temporary figure that is the normal individual man. The individualisation of the vital being would mean an immortal formulation of an immortal soul as energy consciousness with a specific role for the Divine to play. It maintains its identity, its personality independent of the vicissitudes of the physical body: it continues to function as a divine being, a godhead, to work for mankind and the world. The popular legend has imaged this phenomenon in the mystic figure of an immortal Aswatthama and Vibhishana still wandering in earth's atmosphere.
Finally, it is the turn of the body to become individualised, personalised, that is to say, when it takes up the disposition and configurationof the psychic person and individual. The first stage is that of a subtle body individualised, a radiant form of etherealised elements consisting of the concentrated light particles of the divine consciousness of the Psyche. This too is an immortalisation of the personal identity which can be achieved and is achieved by the gnostic man who is to come, who will wholly psychicise and divinise his personality. The second stage is the reorganisation and individualisation of the material sheath itself. The very cells of the body are impregnated with the radiant substance of the supreme spiritual consciousness; they live the life of the spiritual individual, the personal divine embodied in the individual. When the whole process is gone through and the work clone, the individual body, physically too, shares in and attains the immortality of the soul. The body is firm enough to maintain its physical identity and yet plastic enough to change in the manner and to the degree demanded of it at any time.
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05.07 - The Observer and the Observed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It was thought for long a very easy matterat least not extraordinarily difficultto eliminate the observer and keep only to the observed. It was always known how the view of the observer that is to say, his observation changed in respect of the observed fact with his change of position. The sun rises and sets to the observer on earth: to an observer on Mars, for example, the sun would rise and set, no doubt, but earth too along with, in the same way as Mars and sun appear to us now, while to an observer on the sun, the sun would seem fixed while the planets would be seen moving round. Again, we all know the observer in a moving train sees things outside the train moving past and himself at stand-still; the same observer would see another train moving alongside in the same direction and with the same speed as stuck to it and at stand-still, but as moving with double the speed if going in a contrary direction: and so on.
The method proposed for eliminating the observer was observation, more and more observation, and experiment, testing the observation under given conditions. I observe and record a series of facts and when I have found a sufficient ,number of them I see I am able to put them all together under a general title, a law of the occurrence or pattern of the objects observed. Further it is not I alone who can do it in any peculiar way personal to me, but that, everybody else can do the same thing and arrive at the same series of facts leading to the same conclusion. I note, for example, the sun's path from day to day in the sky; soon we find that the curves described by the sun are shifted along the curve of an ellipse (that is to say, their locus is an ellipse). The ecliptic is thus found to be an ellipse which means that the earth moves round the sun in an ellipse.
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There is still something more. The matter of calculating and measuring objectively was comparatively easy when the object in view was of medium size, neither too big nor too small. But in the field of the infinite and the infinitesimal, when from the domain of mechanical forces we enter into the region of electric and radiant energy, we find our normal measuring apparatus almost breaks down. Here accurate observation cannot be made because of the very presence of the observer, because of the very fact of observation. The ultimates that are observed are trails of light particles: now when the observer directs his eye (or the beam oflight replacing the eye) upon the light particle, its direction and velocity are interfered with: the photon is such a tiny infinitesimal that a ray from the observer's eye is sufficient to deflect and modify its movement. And there is no way of determining or eliminating this element of deflection or interference. The old Science knew certainly that a thermometer dipped in the water whose temperature it is to measure itself changes the initial temperature. But that was something calculable and objective. Here the position of the observer is something like a "possession", imbedded, ingrained, involved in the observed itself.
The crux of the difficulty is this. We say the observing eye or whatever mechanism is made to function for it, disturbs the process of observation. Now to calculate that degree or measure of disturbance one has to fall back upon another observing eye, and this again has to depend upon yet another behind. Thus there is an infinite regress and no final solution. So, it has been declared, in the ultimate analysis, scientific calculation gives us only the average result, and it is only average calculations that are possible.
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In any case, at the end of all our peregrinations we seem to circle back to our original Cartesian-cum-Berkeleyean position; we discover that it is not easy to extricate the observed from the observer: the observer is so deep set in the observed, part and parcel of it that there are scientists who consider their whole scientific scheme of the world as only a mental set-up, we may replace it very soon by another scheme equally cogent, subjective all the same. The subject has entered into all objects and any definition of the object must necessarily depend upon the particular poise of the subject. That is the cosmic immanence of the Purusha spoken of in the Upanishads the one Purusha become many and installed in the heart of each and, every object. There is indeed a status of the Subject in which the subject and the object are gathered into or form one reality. The observer and the observed are the two ends, the polarisation of a single entity: and all are reals at that level. But the scientific observer is only the mental purusha and in his observation the absolute objectivisation is not possible. The Einsteinian equations that purport to rule out all local view-points can hardly be said to have transcended the co-ordinates of the subject. That is possible only to the consciousness of the cosmic Purusha.
II
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05.12 - The Soul and its Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
An easy and quick passage to the place of rest, that is what the being needs and asks for after death. This is determined by one's Karma in life and the last wish and prayer at the moment of death for the force of consciousness at this critical moment acts not only upon the character of the passage but also upon the character even of the next birth. Apart from one's own merit, one can be helped by others also who are still upon earth and who claim to be his friends and relatives and wellwishers not in the way they think they do at present, that is to say, by grieving and lamenting or even by performing rites and ceremonies, these often retard rather than accelerate the passage, but by an inner detachment and calm prayer and goodwill: oftener perhaps to forget the departed is the best way to help him. A truly conscious help can be given only by one who has the requisite occult power and spiritual realisation the Guru, for example.
III
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05.13 - Darshana and Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The procedure of European philosophy is different. There the reason or the mental light is the starting-point. That light is cast about: one collects facts, one observes things and happenings and then proceeds to find out a general trutha law, a hypothesisjustified by such observations. But as a matter of fact this is the ostensible method: it is only a make-believe. For mind and reason are not normally so neutral and impersonal, a tabula rasa. The observer already comes into the field with a definite observational angle and a settled viewpoint. The precise sciences of today have almost foundered on this question of the observer entering inextricably into his observations and vitiating them. So in philosophy too as it is practised in Europe, on a closer observation, if the observer is carefully observed, one finds not unoften a core of suppositions, major premises taken for granted hidden behind the logical apparatus. In other words, even a hardened philosopher cherishes at the back of his mind a priorijudgments and his whole philosophy is only a rationalisation of an inner prejudgment, almost a window-dressing of a perception that came to him direct and in other secret ways. That was what Kant meant when he made the famous distinction between the Pure and the Practical Reason and their categories. Only the direct perceptions, the spiritual realisations are so much imbedded behind, covered so much with the mist of mind's struggle and tension and imaginative construction that it is not always easy to disengage the pure metal from the ore.
We shall take the case of one such philosopher and try to illustrate our point. We are thinking of Whitehead. The character of European philosophical mind is well exemplified in this remarkable modern philosopher. The anxiety to put the inferences into a strict logical frame makes a naturally abstruse and abstract procedure more abstruse and abstract. The effort to present suprarational truths in terms of reason and syllogism clouds the issues more than it clarifies them. The fundamental perception, the living intuition that is behind his entire philosophy and world outlook is that of an Immanent God, a dynamic evolving Power working out the growth and redemption of mankind and the world {the apotheosis of the World, as he puts it). It is the theme which comes last in the development of his system, as the culminating conclusion of his philosophy, but it is the basic presupposition, the first principle that inspires his whole outlook, all the rest is woven and extended around this central nucleus. The other perception intimate to this basic -original perception and inseparable from it is a synthetic view in which things that are usually supposed to be contraries find their harmony and union, viz.,God and the World, Permanence and Flux, Unity and Multiplicity, the Universal and the Individual. The equal reality of the two poles of an integral truth is characteristic of many of the modern philosophical systems. In this respect Whitehead echoes a fundamental conclusion of Sri Aurobindo.
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06.16 - A Page of Occult History, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
However, the Asuras came to think better of the game and consented to use their freedom on the side of the Divine, for the fulfilment of the Divine; that is to say, they agreed to conversion. Thus they took birth as or in human beings, so that they may be in contact with the human soulPsychewhich is the only door or passage to the Divine in this material world. But the matter was not easy; the process was not straight. For, even agreeing to be converted, even basking in the sunshine of the human psyche, these incorrigible Elders could not forget or wholly give up their old habit and nature. They now wanted to work for the Divine Fulfilment in order to magnify themselves thereby; they consented to serve the Divine in order to make the Divine serve them, utilise the Divine End for their own purposes. They wished to see the new creation after their own heart's desire.
That is how things have become difficult upon earth and are delaying the ultimate consummation which, however, is sure to come about when the wheel of Time or Fate has turned full circle.
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06.23 - Here or Elsewhere, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is easy and comfortable to go within and in an inner consciousness find and maintain a union, even a close union with the Divine. It is because of such a state of peace and bliss that many, nay, most who go there do not want to come back, to normal life upon this earth. And teachers, great or small, almost invariably, have taught that in the end it is best like that, and perhaps the only thing to do under the circumstances. For this life and this earth mean the very opposite of that inner heaven and that highest good. But some are not given this comfortable solution of the difficulty. They are asked to turn back and live the life of the earth. They are not allowed to remain cosy in a narrow room and be busy always with themselves alone. Indeed, is it not narrow egoism to seek only one's own salvation? When one has saved himself, is it not his duty the logical outcome and implication of his personal freedom that he should seek to help others in their salvation? Such was in fact the attitude of the Amitabha Buddha.
A house is on fire. It has a tarred roof. One can easily understand the fury of the fire. Some inmates who were trapped have managed to come out in time, although some-what bruised and scalded. But there were others, some children, left inside. One of those who came out rushes back again through the flames and comes and goes till all are saved. He is badly burnt, he has risked his life: he did not mind and could not remain at a safe distance. He could not be contented with saving himself, which was to be sure a sufficient gain in one respect. This soul had a consciousness of his wider self.
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06.30 - Sweet Holy Tears, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It was not easy to prepare the Feast. I had to bear the full load of the cross and ascend the calvary. Jesus as he mounted to his destiny with the Cross on his back stumbled often and fell and rose again with bruised limbs to begin again the arduous journey. Even so, this being too had to go through many disillusions and deceptions, many painful and brutal experiences. It was not a smooth and straight going, but a tortuous and dangerous ascent. But at the end of the tunnel there is always the light. The calvary and the crucifixion culminated in the Resurrection: the divine Passion of Christ flowered into this supreme Recompense. Here too after all the dark and adverse vicissitudes lies the fulfilment of transformation. One must pass through the entire valley of death and rise to the topmost summit to receive and achieve the fullness of the glory. One must leave behind all the lower ranges of ignorance, the entire domain of human consciousness, come out of the imperfection man is made of; then only will he put on the divine nature as his own body and substance.
The Cross symbolises all the suffering and difficulty, the renunciation and self-denudation that the ascent to the Goal involves. The Calvary of the Christian legend means Ascension and Resurrection is Transformation in our sadhana. The Cross is also symbolic of the Transformed consciousness. It has three branches and represents the triple Divine, the Divine in his three modes of existence. The top branch, the vertical portion above the transverse line, stands for the supreme or transcendent Divine, one who is above manifestation; the middle the transverse or horizontal branch stands for the expanse of the universal consciousness, the Cosmic Divine; and the bottom portion, the vertical line below the transverse stands for the individual Divine immanent or imbedded in the manifestation. You will note that the flower we call transformation has a form similar to the Cross.
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07.01 - Realisation, Past and Future, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A realised person, if I may say so graphically and somewhat strongly, is a finished product to be kept in a glass-case for show in a museum. He is a sample showing what has been done and what could be done. But you do not have there the stuff to do more. I would prefer for my work to have someone who may have little knowledge, but who has much goodwill, a great aspiration, who feels within him this flame, this need to go on. I say, he may know little, he may have realised even less, but here is good material with which one can go far, very far. Besides, there is another point to note. As in mountain-climbing a guide is very useful, even indispensable, who can show you the proper way and make it easy for you to climb higher and higher altitudes, so in spiritual ascension, a guide, if you have the good fortune to meet one, will help you to rise much higher than you could do yourself with your own personal strength and your own personal view of a fixed goalyou are not proud of your discovery and you do not waste time or energy in useless searches and enquiries.
That is why I prefer childrenchildren in body or in soul and fear grown-ups steeped in erudition and realisation.
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07.06 - Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And with easy access reached the inner ear
As though they used a natural privileged right
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07.06 - Record of World-History, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Naturally the process is not easy and available to every-body, as an ordinary book. It requires a special aptitude and special discipline.
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07.11 - The Problem of Evil, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To be able to understand you must become. If you want to understand the why and the how of the universe you must identify yourself with the universe. And that is not easy.
In truth, the question itself is wrong. It is childish. It presupposes things that are themselves questionable. There are certain ideas about creation which have been almost universally current, more or less permanently accepted by human thought during ages; they are of an astounding simplicity. There is a world here, it is said, and up there somewhere there is a being called God; This person one day thought of creating some kind of thing, a visible form. The world was the result. Evidently we see a lot of mistakes in his work. We conclude the creator perhaps is a well-meaning benevolent person, but not all-powerful; some other thing or being there is that contradicts him. Or perhaps he is all-powerful but then has no heart and must be cruelty itselfviewing the condition of his creation which is a story of sorrow and trouble and misery. Such an idea, I say, is simplicity itself, the simplicity of a child brain. When one speaks of God the creator as a potter making a pot, one thinks of him as a human being, only in bigger proportions. Truly, it is not God who has made man in his image, it is man who has made God in his image.
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07.18 - How to get rid of Troublesome Thoughts, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a third method. It is to bring down from above a greater light which is in its nature the very opposite of the thoughts you are dealing with, opposite in a very radical and deep sense; that is to say, if the thoughts that trouble you are obscure and ignorant, especially if they happen to rise from the subconscient or the inconscient, supported by the mere instincts, then, by calling down the light from above and turning it upon the dark thoughts you can simply dissolve them or transform them, wherever possible. It is the supreme means, but perhaps not within the easy reach of all. But if you succeed in it, not only the thoughts do not come, their very cause is removed. The first method is to turn aside, the second to face and fight, the third to rise above and transform. In the third you are not only cured, but you make a progressa true progress.
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07.30 - Sincerity is Victory, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And it is not an easy thing. To be sincere in a part, to be sincere on the whole, to be sincere at moments is easy enough; everybody can have or achieve that much. It is within the capacity of any human being with normal good will, to be sincere in his psychic movements, even if these are rare. But to be sincere in every cell of your physical body is a still rarer and arduous achievement. To make the body cells so one-pointed that they too feel they cannot live but for the Divine and in and through the Divine. That is true sincerity and that is what you must have.
First you must observe that there is not a day in your life, not an hour, not even a minute when you have not got to rectify or intensify your sincerity. I do not say that you deceive the Divine. None can deceive the divine, not even the greatest of the Asuras. When you have understood that, still then you will always find moments in your everyday life when you try to deceive yourself. Almost automatically you bring forward reasons in favour of whatever you do. I do not speak of grosser things as when you have quarrelled with a person, for example, and in your anger throw the whole blame upon him. I knew a child who gave a good blow to the door, because it thought the door was at fault. It is always the other party who is in the wrong. But even when you have passed beyond this baby stage, when you are supposed to be a little more reasonable, you do the stupidest of things and produce reasons in self-justification. The real test of sincerity, the very minimum of true sincerity lies here; in your reaction to a given situation whether you can take automatically the right attitude and do exactly the thing to be done. When, for example, one speaks angrily to you, do you catch the contagion and become angry on your side also or are you able to maintain an unshakable calm and lucidity, see the other man's point or behave as one should?
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07.38 - Past Lives and the Psychic Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are people who say and perhaps believe too that they were such and such persons and even give a detailed description of their past lives. There are also the well-known sprit communications through a medium at spirit sitting. Someone comes and tells you he was Napoleon, another was Shakespeare and so on. How many Shakespeares and Napoleons and Caesars have manifested in this way, there is no counting! There are spirits who are extremely talkative and bewitch you with extraordinary stories, many that seem so true and genuine on the face, many others, of course, full of the grossest self-contradictions. The fact, however, is that usually these spirits are small beings of the vital, often remnants of a dead person, broken bits of his decomposed personality, desires that have persisted, coagulated imaginations set free that move about and seek to possess and settle upon a living person. The small spirits of the vital are often not of good disposition; they amuse themselves at the cost of the gullible human being, making a fool of him. In that world it is easy to read the mind of others: the spirit sees clearly what is there in your head even if you do not speak it out. That is how it reveals secrets known to you alone, even secrets you have totally forgotten. They can imitate other personalities. They know many other small tricks to confuse or astound you.
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08.02 - Order and Discipline, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You are sent to school, you are asked to do exercises (both mental and physical); do you think it is just to put you to trouble? No, it is because a surrounding is absolutely necessary where you can learn to form yourself. If you tried by yourself this work of individualisation, integral formation, all alone in one corner, you would be asked nothing till you have done it; but you are not likely to do it, not a single child would do it, he would not even know how to do it or where to begin. If a child is not taught how to live, he would not be able to live, he would not know how to do anything. The most elementary movements it is not able to do unless it is taught. Therefore if every one were to go through the whole experience, unaided, in the matter of forming his individuality, he would be dead long before he could begin to exist even. That is the utility of the experiences of others, accumulated through centuries, of those who have had the experience and who tell you, "If you want to go quick, and learn in a few years what needed centuries to learnwell, do this, do that, this way, that way, read, study, attend to your lessons at school, in the playground." Once you are on the way, you can find your own method if you are a genius. But in the beginning you must know from others how to stand on your legs and walk. It is not easy to go all by oneself. That is why one needs education.
II
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08.05 - Will and Desire, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are more than one method. First of all, it is to be known whether one may not altogether stop the child from expressing freely what he thinks and feels. People do this usually and constantly. They scold, they punish and the child takes the habit of hiding his desires. That does not cure. If you always tell the child, "No, you won't have it", you simply instal this idea in him: "Yes, when I am a child, I am not given anything, I must wait till I grow up; well, when I am a man I shall have all that I want". So I say it is not a cure; it is not an easy task to bring up a child. There is however the other way of which I spoke, to give him what he wants. But the difficulty is that the next moment he will ask for another thing and go on doing without end. For it is a law, the law of desire, that it is never satisfied. So you can change your method and tell the child, supposing it is intelligent enough: "You see, you wanted so much to have the thing and now that you have it you don't care, you ask for something different. You will do the same with that also." But if it is a shrewd child he would reply: "Well, the best way to Cure me of my desires is to give what I ask for."
Many hold this last idea all their life. When they are told to overcome their desires, they answer, "The best way of overcoming them is to satisfy them." But what is needed is not merely to change the object of desire, but change the impulse, the movement itself. For that purpose, a good deal of knowledge and understanding and experience are required. That you cannot expect of young children. First of all, they do not possess the capacity for reasoning and you cannot explain the matter to them, they will not understand, your reasons. It is why the parents have normally no other way except to cut them short, saying: "Stop, you bother us". That is how they get out of the difficulty.
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What one may try, in respect of a child, is to turn the direction of his desires, let him desire better things, better because more true and also more difficult to obtain. For example, when you see a child full of desires, put into him a desire of higher quality, that is to say, instead of desiring purely material objects which can give only a temporary satisfaction, one could awaken in him the desire to know, to learn, to become great and so on. That would indeed be a very good beginning. As these things are more difficult to secure, it will serve to develop, to streng then his will. Even if the difficulty is of a physical kind, if, for example, you give the child a doll to prepare, a Chinese puzzle to solve or a game of Patience, the effort helps in the development of concentration, perseverance, a certain clarity of ideas etc. You can in this way divert the child's will from wrong pursuits to right ones. True, it needs constant attendance and application on your part, but that seems to be the surest way. It is not easy, but it is the most effective.
To say "no" does not cure, but to say "yes" does not cure either. I knew some persons who allowed their children to do as they pleased. There was one child who tried to eat anything he could get hold of. Naturally he fell sick and got disgusted in the end and cured of the habit. Still the method means risk. For example, a child one day got hold of a match-box and as he was not prevented, burnt himself in playing with it, although thereafter he did not touch a match-box any more. The method may be even catastrophic. For there are children who are dare-devils most children are soand when a desire possesses them they are stopped by nothing in the world. Some are fond of walking along the edge of walls or on house tops; some have an impulse to jump into water directly they see it. Even there are some who love to take the risk of crossing a road when a car is passing. If such children are allowed to go their way, the experiment may prove fatal sometimes. There are people who do allow their children to have this liberty arid take the risk. For they say prevention is not a cure. Children who are denied anything do not usually believe that what is denied is bad, they consider that a thing is called bad simply when one wishes to deny it. So would it not be better, it is argued, to concede the liberty? The theory is that individual liberty must be respected at all costs. Past experiences should not be placed before beings that are come newly into the world; they must get their own experiences, make their own experiments free from any burden of the past. Once I remonstrated with someone that a child should be forewarned about a possible accident, I was told in answer it was none of my business. And when I persisted in saying that the child might get killed, the answer was, "What if? Each one must follow his destiny. It is neither the duty nor the right of anybody to meddle in the affairs of others. If one goes on doing stupid things One will suffer the consequences oneself and most likely stop doing them of one's own accordwhich is hundredfold better than being forced by others to stop." But naturally there are cases when one stops indeed, but not in the way expected or wished for.
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08.07 - Sleep and Pain, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are lesser means with lesser results. These too are not very easy either. One is to cut the connection between the brain and the part that suffers. The brain not receiving the vibration, the pain is no longer felt. In fact, this is what doctors do when they operate under anaesthesia. The nervous connection round the affected part is made insensitive and the pain is not felt or it is reduced to a minimum. But here you have to do it with your will and consciousness; and that requires an occult power. Some can do it automatically, but their number is very few. If you are unable to go so far, there is another way which should be within your reach. Do not concentrate or dwell upon your pain and suffering; withdraw your attention and direct it elsewhere. The more you think of your pain, the worse it becomes. If you are busy observing its signs and signals, almost awaiting its attack, you surely welcome it in a way, you indulge it and help its continuance. That is why you are advised in that condition to do some light reading or hear things read out, so that the attention may be diverted.
When you go to sleep the ideal is to enter into integral rest, that is to say, immobility of the body, peace in the vital, absolute silence in the mind and the consciousness coming out of all activity and passing into Sachchidananda. If you can do that, then when you get up, you get up with a feeling of extraordinary power, perfect joy and so on. But it is not easy to do it. Still it can be done. It is the ideal condition.
Generally, however, it is never like that; most often, practically the whole length of your sleep is wasted in all kinds of disorderly movements: you toss about in your bed, kick and jump and even talk and shout. That means you have no rest at all.
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08.08 - The Mind s Bazaar, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I propose to give you a task. You have ideas on things. You must surely have ideas on the world, life, the why of existence and the whence and the whither, wherefore we are here, our present occupation, our future realisation, etc., etc. Now try to put all these ideas in front of you and then arrange them. Will you find it easy? Surely it will amuse you and you will discover amazing things. First of all, the very work itself of exposition, that is to say, simply placing the ideas side by side in front of you, all the ideas that you have on a given subject, as if you were writing out a composition given in your class, will bring to you funny revelations. If you did not already have the habit of holding to a central idea, a central immutable truth, if that were possible, around which you arranged all the collateral ideas, organised them in a logical order, if, I say, you did not do anything like that before, you would find yourself, if not in a sad, at least in a comic situation. You can't imagine how many contradictory thoughts you are thinking in the course of an hour without the least surprise! For example, take this subject: "what is the goal towards which life is moving?" or "why do men take birth only to die?"take a subject a little general and even somewhat abstract like this and not the problem of why football today and not basket-ballthings can be easily explained away there and then try to line up all your ideas on the matter; you will see how queer the affair is.
How to distinguish between an idea that is one's own and an idea coming from elsewhere (a book or a person)?
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08.13 - Thought and Imagination, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
First of all, you must know how to get beyond the terrestrial manifestation, in order to be able to imagine a new thing in it. And (or how many millions of years has earth existed! What has been the output of new things there? Countless, for no two things upon earth are exactly the same, although they may be very similar. It is not easy with your mind to get out of the earthly atmosphere. But if you have succeeded in doing that, you have to get out of the universal life. To enter into contact with all that has been here upon earth since the beginning of its appearance till the present day and then to enter into contact with the universal of which the earth forms only a tiny particle from its beginning to its formulation todaythis is not sufficient. You have still to go beyond, beyond the universal, into the transcendent, the unmanifest. Then you can think of imagining and bringing down something new into the manifestation and upon earth. Not that one cannot do this. But it is not so easy.
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08.20 - Are Not The Ascetic Means Helpful At Times?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But naturally all depends upon the meaning you attach to the word. If it means not yielding to your desires, then it is not asceticism, it is common sense, it is good sense. By asceticism people usually understand fasting, bearing biting cold or burning heat, lying on a bed of sharp nails, that is to say, torturing the body in some way or other. That gives you only self-importance or spiritual egoism, nothing more. You acquire no true control or mastery in this way. People do it because it is so simple and easy, because it satisfies their vanity. You make a show of your ascetic virtues and under the guise hide many other things.
It is much more difficult, however, to master one's impulses quietly, deliberately, prevent them from bursting out instead of mortifying the body with ascetic feats. It is much more difficult not to be attached to things that one possesses than to possess nothing. Yet it is a simple truth that has been recognised through ages. To be without possessions or to reduce one's possessions to a minimum is easy: difficult it is not to be attached to whatever you happen to possess. It means a higher degree of moral value. Try to do this simply and you will know what it costs: when a thing comes to you, accept it and if it goes away, for some reason or other, let it go, without regret, without trying to hold it back; not to refuse it when it comes, not to regret when it leavesnaturally, I speak of material objects, things required for use in life.
Physical asceticism does not cure. For the defects are within. You are afraid of contacts from outside and you withdraw into caves and jungles and hilltops, to live all by yourself. But you need no borrowing from others; you carry a sufficient load yourself. In fact if they were not in you, you would not have even detected them in others. You catch the infection from outside, simply because you carry the germs inside. Great waves of passion, one can say with much truth, roll through men, they are not generated in them. But if there is anyone perfectly pure, with no possibility of any passion in him, then such waves may be sweeping over for centuries together, he will not be affected or touched by them. He may see them, look at them as they pass, like a storm across the sky, but he will not feel them.
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08.22 - Regarding the Body, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
With regard to their physical being, men live in a formidable ignorance. How many of you know the exact quantity of food and the kind of food the body requires? Yes, simply this, how much to take and when to take? You do not know. You are taught all kinds of things. You learn why and how this earth moves or the sun does not, why or how the triangle consists of two right angles: your faculties of imagination and discrimination are set to the task and get sharpened. But this little bit of exact knowledge you do not have the quantity of food you must take and the hour when the body needs it. It may be you are not unaware at times of this exact need. But to know properly demands a discipline, continuous labour for years perhaps. Years indeed you require when it is a matter of control over your mind, of attaining a consciousness subtle enough to enable you to come in contact with the elements of transformation and progress, to know how to regulate for your body the exact amount of physical effort, material activity, expenditure and reception of energy, how to secure the proportion between what is received and what is given out, how to utilise energy to re-establish the equilibrium that was broken in order to push forward new cells that were lagging behind and then how to build up conditions for a further step in upward progress to be possible etc., etc. The task is formidable. And yet that is the thing to be done if you want the body to be transformed. First of all, you must bring the body into complete harmony with the inner consciousness. That means a work in each cell of the body, in each small activity, in each movement of the organs. Only that and nothing more can keep you busy day and night with no other thing to look to. It is not easy to maintain the effort, the concentration, the inner vision in a continuous manner.
You have to enter into the disposition of the cells, your inner physical organisation, if the body is to answer to the force that descends. First of all, you must be conscious of your physical cells, you must know their different functions, the degree of receptivity in each, which of them are in good condition and which are not. Even the simple thing you do not know whether you are tired or not, not to speak of why you are tired. You do not know if you have a pain somewhere, and why it is there. It is exactly for this reason that you run to the doctor. For you have the illusion that the doctor would know better how to look into what is there inside your body and what is happening there. That does not seem to be quite rational, but there is the habit. Who can look into oneself so precisely, accurately, positively, as to know exactly what is out of order, why it is out of order, how it has come to be so? All that is a matter of pure observation. And then only arises the problem of doing the thing that will bring about a new order which is a much more difficult affair. And yet this is only the ABC of body-transformation.
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08.30 - Dealing with a Wrong Movement, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I have told you to seek out the place where the hidden thing lies. The black thing has many a cosy corner in your being. There are people who have it in the head, some in the heart, others down below; but wherever it is when you track it down it has the same look, the little black creature rolled up, not bigger than a pea but hard and firmly set, a microbe-size snake coiled up. If it is something in the head it becomes somewhat difficult to discover. For the head is full of wrong ideas and it is not easy to put it into order for pursuing the right track. A comparatively easier place to discover and to cure is in the heart, though here it gives the greatest pain. But here it is found more easily and cured also most radically. Down below in the vital things are very confused and obscure. All things are mixed up in a veritable chaos. The movements are also more violent, more uncontrollable and ignorant. Here are all the movements of anger, pride, ambition, passion, all attachments and sentimentalities, the hunger that you call love. And there are a hundred others. There are as many kinds in the head too. There it is the perversions of thought, all the betrayals, the betrayals of your soul. It is inconceivable how one betrays one's soul, in how many ways, how persistently, the decisions, the points of view, the favourable explanations which your brain supplies to buttress you against your perception that you have done something wrong. You have to disentangle all this, put each thing in its place, throw upon each the light of your true consciousness and judgeburn, purify or transform.
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08.31 - Personal Effort and Surrender, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is no difference in the end between the two if the goal to be attained is the Impersonal Divine, that is to say, if you want to unite and identify yourself with the Impersonal Divine, merge into it. But if your aspiration is to reach what is beyond, what Sri Aurobindo calls the supramental Reality, then there comes in a difference, a difference in the goal as well as in the way. For the way to the supramental realisation is essentially the way of surrender. It is a question of temperament perhaps. And if One has the temperament, the disposition, the path of surrender is infinitely more easy: three-fourths of your trouble and difficulty are got rid of automatically. But it may prove hard going for some.
Now as regards the result, in one case, I may say, it is linear, it ends at a point, as it were; in the other case, the path is spherical and ends in a totality. Each one individually can reach his origin and the optimum of his being; the origin and the optimum of one's being is the same as the Eternal, the Infinite, the Supreme. If you reach your origin, you reach the Supreme, but you reach along a single linedo not take the image literally, it is only a description to make the thing easy to understand. So it is, I say, a linear realisation terminating at a point and this point is one with the Supreme, your maximum possibility. By the other way, you arrive at, what I call, a spherical realisation; for it gives you the idea of something that contains all, it is not a point but a totality that excludes nothing.
The relation of the whole and its part does not hold good here; for there is no longer any division. The very quality of the approach is different. Can you say that a perfect identification with one drop of water would give you the knowledge of what the sea is? And here the perfect identification in question is not merely with the ocean but with all possible oceans. And yet the perfect identification with one drop of water does give you the knowledge of the ocean in its essence; but in the other way you know the ocean not merely in its essence but in its totality. It is however very difficult to express the reality of the truth. What can be said to put it as clearly as possible is this: in the line of personal effort, when one depends solely upon one's personal strength, all that has been individualised maintains the virtues of individuality and hence also, in a certain sense, all the limitations necessary for this individuality. In the other case, when you have surrendered your individuality, you not only enjoy the virtues of individuality but also you are not subject to its limitations. It is almost high philosophy, I am afraid. It is not clear therefore. But that is all I can say.
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08.34 - To Melt into the Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
First of all, one must wish for it, will for it, aspire for it with perseverance. Every time the ego shows itself, you must give it a blow on the nose, until it receives so much of it that it gets tired and gives up. Generally, however, one does not administer the blow but cherishes the miscreant, justifies its presence. When it shows itself one says, "After all it is right"; although in most cases, one does not even know it is the ego, one takes it for one's self. The first condition then is to consider it essential that one should have no more ego. You must understand what is meant when you say you no longer want it. It is not so easy. For while in your brain you turn and turn the idea 'I do not want ego, I do not want to be separate from the Divine', in life it has no effect; when actually you do a selfish or egoistic act, you find it quite natural; it does not even give a shock to you.
We must begin by understanding what the thing really means. There are many stages or steps in it. First of all, you must distinguish between two things (1) selfishness and (2) egoism. Selfishness is a crude form and it should not be very difficult to get rid of it, at least a good part of it. You can get over it simply by having a sense of the ridiculous. You do not see how absurd a selfish man is. He always thinks of himself, bringing everything round to himself, ruled by considerations of his small person, putting himself at the centre of the universe and trying to organise the universe, including God, around himself, as if he was the most important item of the universe. Now, if you just try to look at yourself from outside in a dispassionate way, see yourself as in a mirror, you immediately recognise how ridiculous your little person is. I remember I read in French, translated of course, a line from Tagore which amused me very much. It was about a little dog. The dog was seated in the lap of its mistress and considered itself to be the centre of the universe. Yes, the picture stuck in my mind. I knew actually a little dog who was like that. There are many of the kind, perhaps all: they want that everybody should be busy with them and they succeed in doing so.
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09.14 - Education of Girls, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I tell you, we have had quite material proofs of the correctness and truth of our position. They do not last, however. Why? Because it is extremely easy to fall back into the ordinary consciousness, but there is nothing more difficult than to hold oneself high all the time on the top rung of the ladder and look at the world from up there.
But we will not obey Nature's orders, even if these orders have behind them thousands and thousands of years of habit. Yet one thing is certain: the argument that Nature puts forward against any change in things that they have been always as they are is not true. Whether she wants it or not, things do change and a day will come when people will say, "Ah yes, things were so in those days, but now it is all different!"
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09.18 - The Mother on Herself, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Once upon a time, long long ago, when I was in Paris, I used to see Madame D. N.1 almost daily. She was full of ideas and told me: "You should not think of action, it means attachment to action. When you want to do something it indicates that you are still tied down to the things of the world." I replied: "No, nothing is more easy. You have only to imagine all that has been done before, all that will be done hereafter and all that is being done now, you will immediately perceive that your action is nothing but a breath, one second in eternity and you are no longer attached to it." I did not know the text of the Gita at that time. And I had not the complete text, the text that I am here putting somewhat in my own way: "And detached from the fruit of action, act." I did not know the Gita, but what I said was in effect what the Gita teaches. You should act not because you believe in your action. You act because you should act. That is all. It is however a condition that may prove dangerous sometimes. For instead of willing with a sovereign will to action you simply look and let things happen.
Madame Alexandra David Neele the eminent Tibetologist.
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10.03 - Life in and Through Death, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To live away from life and consequently away from death is one thing, comparatively easy; but to live in life and consequently in death is another thing, somewhat more difficult. To withdraw oneself from the field of death and retire in the immutability beyond or some form of it is what was attempted in the ancient days. But there has been side by side always a growing tendency in man to stay here in this vale of tears under the shadow of death, to live dangerously and face the Evil and conquer it here itself; for death is not a mere negation an annihilation of the reality, it is only a mask put over the reality or is its obverse. Tear off or remove the disguise, you will see the smiling radiant Godhead behind.
The gold is there, the purest gold, but it is crusted over with dross. The dross is to be eliminated and the noble metal freed. Indeed each element of the being wherever and whatever it is, each corpuscle, mental, vital or physical is ambivalentit is a polarised entity consisting of two parts or two ends, one pure, the other impure. The ancients thought that the whole creation is impure; the only pure substance is the Divine. The Sankhya posited clearly the demarcation between Purusha, the Conscious Being secreted above and behind and the entire Prakriti which is absolute unconsciousness. But as we have said, a new revelation has been slowly coming up which speaks of a different conclusion 'and a different destiny for man and the universe. Each element of the created universe has a double nature, it is both conscious and unconscious, it is both immortal and mortal. And furthermore, the two are not united or soldered together inextricably so that if one is eliminated the other gets eliminated automatically. Life and death appear to be bound together absolutely and eternally; in fact, however, it is not so. Even in life, Life can be established in its single pure reality free from the normal counterpoint of Death. Purusha is not the only conscious element in or above creation. Prakriti is not merely the unconscious being. The unconscious Prakriti is only the apparent aspect of the Higher Prakriti, the Para Prakriti, which is supremely conscious, for it is one with the Supreme Purusha.
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1.004 - Women, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
30. Whoever does that, out of hostility and wrongdoing, We will cast him into a Fire. And that would be easy for God.
31. If you avoid the worst of what you are forbidden, We will remit your sins, and admit you by a Gate of Honor.
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169. Except to the path of Hell, where they will dwell forever. And that is easy for God.
170. O people! The Messenger has come to you with the truth from your Lord, so believe—that is best for you. But if you disbelieve, to God belongs everything in the heavens and the earth. God is Omniscient and Wise.
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1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
A good deal of your letter is rather difficult to answer. You always seem to want to put the cart before the horse. Don't you see that, if I were trying to get you to do something or other, I should simply return you to the kind of answer which I thought would satisfy you, and make you happy? And this would be very easy to do because you have got no clear ideas about anything. For one thing, you keep on using terms about whose significance we are not yet in agreement. When you talk about the "Christian path," do you believe in vicarious atonement and eternal damnation or don't you? A great deal of the confusion that arises in all these questions, and grows constantly worse as fellow-students talk them over the blind leading the blind is because they have no idea of the necessity of defining their terms.
Then again, you ask me questions like "What is purity?" that can be answered in a dozen different ways; and you must understand what is meant by a "universe of discourse." If you asked me "Is this sample of cloride of gold a pure sample?" I can answer you. You must understand the value of precision in speech. I could go on rambling about purity and selflessness for years, and no one would be a penny the better.
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In this motto you have really got several ideas combined, and yet they are really, of course, one idea. Fiat, being 811, is identical with IAO, and therefore FIAT YOD might be read not only as "let there be" (or "Let me become"), the secret source of all creative energy, but as "the secret source of the energy of Jehovah." The two words together, having the value of 831, they contain the secret meanings Pyramis and Phallos, which is the same idea in different forms; thus you have three ways of expressing the creative form, in its geometrical aspect, its human aspect, and its divine aspect. I am making a point of this, because the working out of this motto should give you a very clear idea of the sort of way in which Qabalah should be used. I think it is rather useful to remember what the essence of the Qabalah is in principle; thus, in your correspondence for Malkuth, Yesod, and Hod you are simply writing down some of the ideas which pertain to the numbers 10, 9, and 8 respectively. Naturally, there is a great deal of redundancy and overloading as soon as you get to ideas important enough to be comprehensive; as is mentioned in the article on the Qabalah in Equinox Vol. I, No. 5, it is quite easy to prove 1 = 2 = 3 = 4, etc.
On the other hand, you must be careful to avoid taking the correspondences given in the books of reference without thinking out why they are so given. Thus, you find a camel in the number which refers to the Moon, but the Tarot card "the Moon" refers not to the letter Gimel which means camel, but to the letter Qoph, and the sign Pisces which means fish, while the letter itself refers to the back of the head; and you also find fish has the meaning of the letter Nun. You must not go on from this, and say that the back of your head is like a camel the connection between them is simply that they all refer to the same thing.
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4. Quite right, dear lady, about your incarnation memories acting as a "Guide to the Way Back." Of course, if you "missed an Egyptian Incarnation," you would not be so likely to be a little Martha, worried "about much serving." Don't get surfeited with knowledge, above all things; it is so very fascinating, so dreadfully easy; and the danger of becoming a pedant "Deuce take all your pedants! say I." Don't "dry-rot at ease 'till the Judgment Day."
No, I will NOT recommend a book. It should not hurt you too much to browse on condensed hay (or thistles) such as articles in Encyclopedias. Take Roget's Thesaurus or Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary (and the like) to read yourself to sleep on. But don't stultify yourself by taking up such study too seriously. You only make yourself ridiculous by trying to do at 50 what you ought to have done at 15. As you didn't tant pis! You can't possibly get the spirit; if you could, it would mean merely mental indigestion. We have all read how Cato started to learn Greek at 90: but the story stops there. We have never been told what good it did to himself or anyone else.
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P.S. I must write at length about the Higher Self or "God within us," too easy to get muddled about it, and the subject requires careful preparation.
666
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1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
These preliminary statements have been laid down in an endeavour to show the synthesis of the whole. In the use of words comes limitation, and a clouding of the idea; words literally veil or hide thoughts, detract from their clarity, and confuse them by expression. The work of the second and third Logoi (being the production of the objectivity of the essential Spirit) is more easy to grasp in broad outline than the more esoteric work of the first Logos, which is that of the animating will.
In terms of fire another angle of expression may perhaps elucidate.
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1.00 - PRELUDE AT THE THEATRE, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
'Tis easily displayed, and easy to invent.
What use, a Whole compactly to present?
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1.00 - The Constitution of the Human Being, #Theosophy, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The following words of Goethe's describe, in a beautiful manner, the starting point of one of the ways by which the constitution of man can be known: "When a person first becomes aware of the objects surrounding him, he observes them in relation to himself, and rightly so, for his whole fate depends on whether they please or displease him, attract or repel, help or harm him. This quite natural way of looking at and judging things appears to be as easy as it is necessary. Nevertheless, a person is exposed through it to a thousand errors which often cause him shame and embitter his life. A far more difficult task do those undertake whose keen desire for knowledge urges them to strive to observe the objects of nature in themselves and in their relations to each other, for they soon miss the gauge which helped them when they, as persons,
p. 10
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1.010 - Self-Control - The Alpha and Omega of Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
If we miss the practice even one day, we will miss the link of action, because it is easy to follow the course of the senses and difficult to control them and act in a reverse order. The senses have a peculiar habit if we do not allow them to act according to their whims and fancies even on a single day, the next day they become more powerful and vehement, like a servant who has not been paid his salary and will not do his work. He will murmur, grumble, and he will say all kinds of things because we have not paid his dues. He will say, "I'll go. I will do this or that." Likewise are the senses. They are like servants who have not been paid their dues because of our act of self-control, so they murmur, grumble, and threaten us and tell us, "One day we will do something to you"- and they may even do that if we are careless. They may finish us and see that we are done for ultimately, if as masters we are careless with the servants. So, even for one day we cannot miss the practice.
It is dangerous to miss practice even for one day. Why is it so? It is dangerous because the senses will revolt, and once they revolt we cannot control them. They will gain the upper hand and we will be finished, and all the good that we have done for months and years will be in dust. We are warned that carelessness is equal to death. It is better to die than be careless in this practice. It is like touching dynamite. One has to be cautious. So why is self-control necessary? It is necessary because that is the return of the mind and consciousness to its own healthy condition of higher expansiveness. It is also necessary that we should not miss the practice. If we miss it for a period in the middle, the controlled senses gain the opportunity to revolt and exert a pressure with such vehemence that our whole personality will be driven by a blast of wind in a direction which is contrary to what is expected.
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1.012 - Joseph, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
65. And when they opened their baggage, they found that their goods were returned to them. They said, “Father, what more do we want? Here are our goods, returned to us. We will provide for our family, and protect our brother, and have an additional camel-load. This is easy commerce.”
66. He said, “I will not send him with you, unless you give me a pledge before God that you will bring him back to me, unless you get trapped.” And when they gave him their pledge, he said, “God is witness to what we say.”
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1.013 - Defence Mechanisms of the Mind, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
So even in self-control there are varieties. It is not the same type of technique that we adopt uniformly and universally, as previously mentioned. Though it is true that everyone is hungry and everyone needs food, universally and uniformly, it does not follow that we all have to be given the same food. The whole world cannot be served the same kind of diet merely because everyone is equally hungry. In the same way, even though self-control is a universal necessity for the purpose of higher spiritual regeneration, the methods of practice may vary in detail according to the conditions of the individual in the stages of evolution, the circumstances in which one lives, and various other such relevant factors. The dependence of the mind on externals is also, therefore, variegated. It is not a uniform type of dependence. Therefore, each one has to investigate into the peculiar type of dependence due to which one is suffering. This requires leisurely thinking. A hurried mind cannot think so deeply on this subject, because it is not easy to detect where we are weak, and upon what things we are hanging for our dependence, for our existence.
Apart from the usual and obvious forms of dependence, such as the need for food, clothing and shelter, there are other types of dependence which are secret, subtler in their nature, and these are more important for the purposes of investigation than the grosser needs, because the grosser needs are well known to everyone. Everyone knows that we will be hungry, and will feel heat and cold, and that we need a shelter for living. But there are other things which may not be known to everybody. We have weaknesses other than the feeling of hunger, thirst, etc., and these are the harassing factors of life. We are worried not so much because of food, clothing and shelter, but due to other things which are the secret wire-pullers of the individual's existence. These other things are not minor factors. They are made to appear as if they are insignificant and secondary on account of a trick played by the mind, because if they are brought to the forefront they will not succeed in their attempts. So, a subtle devise is adopted by the mind to succeed in its attempts.
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1.019 - Mary, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
9. He said, “It will be so, your Lord says, ‘it is easy for me, and I created you before, when you were nothing.’”
10. He said, “My Lord, give me a sign.” He said, “Your sign is that you will not speak to the people for three nights straight.”
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21. He said, “Thus said your Lord, `It is easy for Me, and We will make him a sign for humanity, and a mercy from Us. It is a matter already decided.'“
22. So she carried him, and secluded herself with him in a remote place.
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97. We made it easy in your tongue, in order to deliver good news to the righteous, and to warn with it a hostile people.
98. How many a generation have We destroyed before them? Can you feel a single one of them, or hear from them the slightest whisper?
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1.01 - About the Elements, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
Everything that has been created, the macrocosm as well as the microcosm, consequently the big and the small world have been achieved by the effect of the elements. For this reason, right from the beginning of the initiation, I shall attend to these powers and underline their deep and manifold significance in particular. In the occult literature very little has been said about the powers of the elements up to now so that I made it my business to treat this field of knowledge still unknown and to lift the veil covering these rules. It is absolutely not very easy to enlighten the uninitiated so that they are not only fully informed about the existence and the activity of the elements, but will be able to work with these powers in the future practically.
The whole universe is similar to a clockwork with all its wheels in mesh and interdependent from each other. Even the idea of the Godhead as the highest comprehensible entity may be divided in aspects analogous to the elements. Details about it are found in the chapter concerning the God-idea.
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In accordance with the Indian doctrine, it has been said that the four somehow grosser tattwas have been descended from the fifth tattwa, the akasa princip le. Consequently akasa is the cause ultimate and to be regarded as the fifth power, the so-called quintessence. In one of the following chapters, I shall inform the reader about this most subtle element akasa in detail. The specific qualities of each eleme nt, beginning with the highest planes right down to the grossly material level, will be mentioned in all the following chapters. By now the reader has surely realized that it is no easy task to analyze the great mystery of creation, and word it in such a way that everybody gets the chance of penetrating the topic to form a plastic picture of it all.
The analysis of the elements will also be discussed and the great practical value of them underlined, so that every scientist, whether he be a chemist, a physician, a magnetizer, an occultist, a magician, a mystic, a quabbalist or a yogi, etc., can derive his practical benefit from it. Should I succeed in teaching the reader so far that he is able to deal with the subject in the proper way and to find the practical key to the branch of knowledge most suitable for him, I will be glad to see that the purpose of my book has been fulfiled.
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1.01 - Asana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
is Patanjali. He says, "Asana is that which is firm and pleasant." This may be taken as meaning the result of success in the practice. Again, Sankhya says, "Posture is that which is steady and easy." And again, "any posture which is steady and easy is an Asana; there is no other rule." Any posture will do.
In a sense this is true, because any posture becomes uncomfortable sooner or later. The steadiness and easiness mark a definite attainment, as will be explained later on. Hindu books, such as the "Shiva Sanhita," give countless postures; many, perhaps most of them, impossible for the average adult European. Others insist that the head, neck, and spine should be kept vertical and straight, for reasons connected with the subject of Prana, which will be dealt with in its proper place. The positions illustrated in Liber E (Equinox I and VII) form the best guide.
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1.01 - Economy, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
As this business was to be entered into without the usual capital, it may not be easy to conjecture where those means, that will still be indispensable to every such undertaking, were to be obtained. As for
Clothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility. Let him who has work to do recollect that the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and he may judge how much of any necessary or important work may be accomplished without adding to his wardrobe. Kings and queens who wear a suit but once, though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their majesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits.
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Granted that the _majority_ are able at last either to own or hire the modern house with all its improvements. While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. And _if the civilized mans pursuits are no worthier than the savages, if he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaining gross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a better dwelling than the former?_
But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will be found, that just in proportion as some have been placed in outward circumstances above the savage, others have been degraded below him. The luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another. On the one side is the palace, on the other are the almshouse and silent poor. The myriads who built the pyramids to be the tombs of the Pharaohs were fed on garlic, and it may be were not decently buried themselves. The mason who finishes the cornice of the palace returns at night perchance to a hut not so good as a wigwam. It is a mistake to suppose that, in a country where the usual evidences of civilization exist, the condition of a very large body of the inhabitants may not be as degraded as that of savages. I refer to the degraded poor, not now to the degraded rich.
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As with our colleges, so with a hundred modern improvements; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages; he is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild honey. I doubt if Flying Childers ever carried a peck of corn to mill.
One says to me, I wonder that you do not lay up money; you love to travel; you might take the cars and go to Fitchburg to-day and see the country. But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot. I say to my friend, Suppose we try who will get there first. The distance is thirty miles; the fare ninety cents. That is almost a days wages. I remember when wages were sixty cents a day for laborers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot, and get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week together. You will in the mean while have earned your fare, and arrive there some time to-morrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part of the day. And so, if the railroad reached round the world, I think that I should keep ahead of you; and as for seeing the country and getting experience of that kind, I should have to cut your acquaintance altogether.
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Undoubtedly, in this case, what is true for one is truer still for a thousand, as a large house is not proportionally more expensive than a small one, since one roof may cover, one cellar underlie, and one wall separate several apartments. But for my part, I preferred the solitary dwelling. Moreover, it will commonly be cheaper to build the whole yourself than to convince another of the advantage of the common wall; and when you have done this, the common partition, to be much cheaper, must be a thin one, and that other may prove a bad neighbor, and also not keep his side in repair. The only coperation which is commonly possible is exceedingly partial and superficial; and what little true coperation there is, is as if it were not, being a harmony inaudible to men. If a man has faith, he will coperate with equal faith everywhere; if he has not faith, he will continue to live like the rest of the world, whatever company he is joined to. To coperate, in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means _to get our living together_. I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or coperate, since one would not _operate_ at all. They would part at the first interesting crisis in their adventures. Above all, as I have implied, the man who goes alone can start to-day; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.
But all this is very selfish, I have heard some of my townsmen say. I confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises. I have made some sacrifices to a sense of duty, and among others have sacrificed this pleasure also. There are those who have used all their arts to persuade me to undertake the support of some poor family in the town; and if I had nothing to do,for the devil finds employment for the idle,I might try my hand at some such pastime as that. However, when I have thought to indulge myself in this respect, and lay their Heaven under an obligation by maintaining certain poor persons in all respects as comfortably as I maintain myself, and have even ventured so far as to make them the offer, they have one and all unhesitatingly preferred to remain poor. While my townsmen and women are devoted in so many ways to the good of their fellows, I trust that one at least may be spared to other and less humane pursuits. You must have a genius for charity as well as for any thing else. As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution. Probably I should not consciously and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do the good which society demands of me, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it. But I would not stand between any man and his genius; and to him who does this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life, I would say,
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1.01 - Foreward, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
several different meanings, but not easy to render in an English
translation and very often impossible. Thus the word for cow,
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the thing and its symbol easy, its habit possible.
Other standing words and symbols of the Veda invite a
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1.01 - How is Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds Attained?, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
It is not easy, at first, to believe that feelings like reverence and respect have anything to do
p. 13
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reverberate, as it were, but rather to renounce any further enjoyment, and work upon the past experience. The peril here is very great. Instead of working inwardly, it is very easy to fall into the opposite habit of trying to exploit the enjoyment. Let no one underestimate the fact that immense sources of error here confront the student. He must pass through a host of tempters of his soul. They would all harden his ego and imprison it within itself. He should rather open it wide to all the world. It is necessary that he should seek enjoyment, for only through enjoyment can the outer world reach him. If he blunts himself to enjoyment he is like a plant which cannot any longer draw nourishment from its environment. Yet if he stops short at the enjoyment he shuts himself up within himself. He will only be something to himself and nothing to the world. However much he may live within himself, however intensely he may cultivate his ego-the world will reject him. To the world he is dead. The student of higher knowledge considers enjoyment only as a means of ennobling himself for the world. Enjoyment is to him like a scout informing him about the world; but once instructed
p. 17
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1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
journey, the amount of space we can cover under the cycle of the sun. By a very easy extension of
metaphor we get the days cycle as a symbol for the whole of life. Thus in Housmans poem Reveille
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1.01 - Necessity for knowledge of the whole human being for a genuine education., #The Essentials of Education, #unset, #Zen
We might consider a few specific examples as an introduction to the way these currents form. In doing this, we need to con- sider one thing: when we deal with a human being in-process, a growing child, knowledge of human nature is often applied too narrowly. We take the child at a specific point in life and get to work, asking about the childs developmental forces, how they operate at that particular age, and so on, and we ask how we can properly meet these developmental forces at this particu- lar time. But knowledge of human nature as intended here isnt concerned only with these moments of experience, but with the persons whole earthly life. It is not really as easy as observing a narrowly circumscribed time span in a human life. But educators and teachers need to be able to look at the whole human life; whatever we do in the eighth or ninth year will have effects upon the forty- or fifty-year-old adult, as we will see a little later.6
As a teacher, anything I do to a child during the years of ele- mentary education will sink deeply into the physical, psychologi- cal, and spiritual nature of that individual. Whatever I do that plants a seed at the beginning of life will in some way go on liv- ing and weaving for decades beneath the surface, reappearing in remarkable ways many years later, perhaps not until the very end of life. Its possible to affect childhood in the right way only if we consider not just childhood but all of human life as seen from the perspective of a real knowledge of human nature.
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1.01 - Newtonian and Bergsonian Time, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
tomorrow's weather is generally not easy and in many places
very crude indeed.
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not easy in detail, is easy and precise in principle. On the other
hand, in meteorology, the number of particles concerned is so
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1.01 - On renunciation of the world, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
All who enter upon the good fight, which is hard and narrow, but also easy, must realize that they must leap into the fire, if they really expect the celestial fire to dwell in them. But, let everyone examine himself, and so let him eat the bread of it with its bitter herbs, and let him drink the cup of it with its
1 I.e. blindness, obtuseness.
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The Lord designedly makes easy the battles of beginners so that they should not immediately return to the world at the outset. And so rejoice in the Lord always, all servants of His, detecting in this the first sign of the Masters love for us, and a sign that He Himself has called us. But when God sees courageous souls, He has often been known to act in this way: He lets them have conflicts from the very beginning in order to crown them the sooner. But the Lord hides the difficulty4 of this contest from those in the world. For if they were to know, no one would renounce the world.
Offer to Christ the labours of your youth, and in your old age you will rejoice in the wealth of dispassion. What is gathered in youth nourishes and comforts those who are tired out in old age. In our youth let us labour ardently and let us run vigilantly, for the hour of death is unknown. We have very evil and dangerous, cunning, unscrupulous foes, who hold fire in their hands and try to burn the temple of God with the flame that is in it. These foes are strong; they never sleep; they are incorporeal and invisible. Let no one when he is young listen to his enemies, the demons, when they say to him: Do not wear out your flesh lest you make it sick and weak. For you will scarcely find anyone, especially in the present generation, who is determined to mortify his flesh, although he might deprive
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1.01 - Principles of Practical Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
interpret something regressively or progressively. It is no easy matter todecide aright in a given case. Generally we feel rather uncertain on this
point. The discovery that there are essential contents of an indubitably
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1.01 - SAMADHI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
greatest manifestation of power to be calm. It is easy to be
active. Let the reins go, and the horses will drag you down.
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seems very easy. Its method is to hold the mind as the object,
and whenever through comes, to strike it down, allowing no
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already there, because it is easy. If we think, just for
examples sake, that the mind is like a needle, and the brain
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and recombine them, it is easy to follow, because these
channels are present in everyones brain, and it is only
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only one remains, it will be easy to suppress that also, and
when that is gone, this Samadhi of concentration is called
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1.01 - Soul and God, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
You do not overcome the old teaching through doing less, but through doing more. Every step closer to my soul excites the scornful laughter of my devils, those cowardly ear-whisperers and poisonmixers. It was easy for them to laugh, since I had to do strange things.
The Red Book
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1.01 - Tara the Divine, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
appreciated. For Western nomads, it was easy to
acquire some by exchanging wool and butter at the
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When we face a statue or a drawing, it is easy to distinguish White
Tara from Green Tara. Green Tara's legs are in the Bodhisattva Posture
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1.01 - THAT ARE THOU, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
It is through this central door, and just because it is central, that we shall make our entry into the subject matter of this book. The psychology of the Perennial Philosophy has its source in metaphysics and issues logically in a characteristic way of life and system of ethics. Starting from this midpoint of doctrine, it is easy for the mind to move in either direction.
In the present section we shall confine our attention to but a single feature of this traditional psychology the most important, the most emphatically insisted upon by all exponents of the Perennial Philosophy and, we may add, the least psychological. For the doctrine that is to be illustrated in this section belongs to autology rather than psychologyto the science, not of the personal ego, but of that eternal Self in the depth of particular, individualized selves, and identical with, or at least akin to, the divine Ground. Based upon the direct experience of those who have fulfilled the necessary conditions of such knowledge, this teaching is expressed most succinctly in the Sanskrit formula, tat tvam asi (That art thou); the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman, the Absolute Principle of all existence; and the last end of every human being is to discover the fact for himself, to find out Who he really is.
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1.01 - The First Steps, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
The next step is Asana, posture. A series of exercises, physical and mental, is to be gone through every day, until certain higher states are reached. Therefore it is quite necessary that we should find a posture in which we can remain long. That posture which is the easiest for one should be the one chosen. For thinking, a certain posture may be very easy for one man, while to another it may be very difficult. We will find later on that during the study of these psychological matters a good deal of activity goes on in the body. Nerve currents will have to be displaced and given a new channel. New sorts of vibrations will begin, the whole constitution will be remodelled as it were. But the main part of the activity will lie along the spinal column, so that the one thing necessary for the posture is to hold the spinal column free, sitting erect, holding the three parts the chest, neck, and head in a straight line. Let the whole weight of the body be supported by the ribs, and then you have an easy natural postures with the spine straight. You will easily see that you cannot think very high thoughts with the chest in. This portion of the Yoga is a little similar to the Hatha-Yoga which deals entirely with the physical body, its aim being to make the physical body very strong. We have nothing to do with it here, because its practices are very difficult, and cannot be learned in a day, and, after all, do not lead to much spiritual growth. Many of these practices you will find in Delsarte and other teachers, such as placing the body in different postures, but the object in these is physical, not psychological. There is not one muscle in the body over which a man cannot establish a perfect control. The heart can be made to stop or go on at his bidding, and each part of the organism can be similarly controlled.
The result of this branch of Yoga is to make men live long; health is the chief idea, the one goal of the Hatha-Yogi. He is determined not to fall sick, and he never does. He lives long; a hundred years is nothing to him; he is quite young and fresh when he is 150, without one hair turned grey. But that is all. A banyan tree lives sometimes 5000 years, but it is a banyan tree and nothing more. So, if a man lives long, he is only a healthy animal. One or two ordinary lessons of the Hatha-Yogis are very useful. For instance, some of you will find it a good thing for headaches to drink cold water through the nose as soon as you get up in the morning; the whole day your brain will be nice and cool, and you will never catch cold. It is very easy to do; put your nose into the water, draw it up through the nostrils and make a pump action in the throat.
After one has learned to have a firm erect seat, one has to perform, according to certain schools, a practice called the purifying of the nerves. This part has been rejected by some as not belonging to Raja-Yoga, but as so great an authority as the commentator Shankarchrya advises it, I think fit that it should be mentioned, and I will quote his own directions from his commentary on the Shvetshvatara Upanishad: "The mind whose dross has been cleared away by Pranayama, becomes fixed in Brahman; therefore Pranayama is declared. First the nerves are to be purified, then comes the power to practice Pranayama. Stopping the right nostril with the thumb, through the left nostril fill in air, according to capacity; then, without any interval, throw the air out through the right nostril, closing the left one. Again inhaling through the right nostril eject through the left, according to capacity; practicing this three or five times at four hours of the day, before dawn, during midday, in the evening, and at midnight, in fifteen days or a month purity of the nerves is attained; then begins Pranayama."
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There was once a minister to a great king. He fell into disgrace. The king, as a punishment, ordered him to be shut up in the top of a very high tower. This was done, and the minister was left there to perish. He had a faithful wife, however, who came to the tower at night and called to her husb and at the top to know what she could do to help him. He told her to return to the tower the following night and bring with her a long rope, some stout twine, pack thread, silken thread, a beetle, and a little honey. Wondering much, the good wife obeyed her husband, and brought him the desired articles. The husb and directed her to attach the silken thread firmly to the beetle, then to smear its horns with a drop of honey, and to set it free on the wall of the tower, with its head pointing upwards. She obeyed all these instructions, and the beetle started on its long journey. Smelling the honey ahead it slowly crept onwards, in the hope of reaching the honey, until at last it reached the top of the tower, when the minister grasped the beetle, and got possession of the silken thread. He told his wife to tie the other end to the pack thread, and after he had drawn up the pack thread, he repeated the process with the stout twine, and lastly with the rope. Then the rest was easy. The minister descended from the tower by means of the rope, and made his escape. In this body of ours the breath motion is the "silken thread"; by laying hold of and learning to control it we grasp the pack thread of the nerve currents, and from these the stout twine of our thoughts, and lastly the rope of Prana, controlling which we reach freedom.
We do not know anything about our own bodies; we cannot know. At best we can take a dead body, and cut it in pieces, and there are some who can take a live animal and cut it in pieces in order to see what is inside the body. Still, that has nothing to do with our own bodies. We know very little about them. Why do we not? Because our attention is not discriminating enough to catch the very fine movements that are going on within. We can know of them only when the mind becomes more subtle and enters, as it were, deeper into the body. To get the subtle perception we have to begin with the grosser perceptions. We have to get hold of that which is setting the whole engine in motion. That is the Prana, the most obvious manifestation of which is the breath. Then, along with the breath, we shall slowly enter the body, which will enable us to find out about the subtle forces, the nerve currents that are moving all over the body. As soon as we perceive and learn to feel them, we shall begin to get control over them, and over the body. The mind is also set in motion: by these different nerve currents, so at last we shall reach the state of perfect control over the body and the mind, making both our servants. Knowledge is power. We have to get this power. So we must begin at the beginning, with Pranayama, restraining the Prana. This Pranayama is a long subject, and will take several lessons to illustrate it thoroughly. We shall take it part by part.
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1.01 - The Four Aids, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
24:The surest way towards this integral fulfilment is to find the Master of the secret who dwells within us, open ourselves constantly to the divine Power which is also the divine Wisdom and Love and trust to it to effect the conversion. But it is difficult for the egoistic consciousness to do this at all at the beginning. And, if done at all, it is still difficult to do it perfectly and in every strand of our nature. It is difficult at first because our egoistic habits of thought, of sensation, of feeling block up the avenues by which we can arrive at the perception that is needed. It is difficult afterwards because the faith, the surrender, the courage requisite in this path are not easy to the ego-clouded soul. The divine working is not the working which the egoistic mind desires or approves; for it uses error in order to arrive at truth, suffering in order to arrive at bliss, imperfection in order to arrive at perfection. The ego cannot see where it is being led; it revolts against the leading, loses confidence, loses courage. These failings would not matter; for the divine Guide within is not offended by our revolt, not discouraged by our want of faith or repelled by our weakness; he has the entire love of the mother and the entire patience of the teacher. But by withdrawing our assent from the guidance we lose the consciousness, though not all the actuality-not, in any case, the eventuality -- of its benefit. And we withdraw our assent because we fail to distinguish our higher Self from the lower through which he is preparing his self-revelation. As in the world, so in ourselves, we cannot see God because of his workings and, especially, because he works in us through our nature and not by a succession of arbitrary miracles. Man demands miracles that he may have faith; he wishes to be dazzled in order that he may see. And this impatience, this ignorance may turn into a great danger and disaster if, in our revolt against the divine leading, we call in another distorting Force more satisfying to our impulses and desires and ask it to guide us and give it the Divine Name.
25:But while it is difficult for man to believe in something unseen within himself, it is easy for him to believe in something which he can image as extraneous to himself. The spiritual progress of most human beings demands an extraneous support, an object of faith outside us. It needs an external image of God; or it needs a human representative, -- Incarnation, Prophet or Guru; or it demands both and receives them. For according to the need of the human soul the Divine manifests himself as deity, as human divine or in simple humanity, -- using that thick disguise, which so successfully conceals the Godhead, for a means of transmission of his guidance.
26:The Hindu discipline of spirituality provides for this need of the soul by the conceptions of the Ishta Devata, the Avatar and the Gum. By the Ishta Devata, the chosen deity, is meant, -- not some inferior Power, but a name and form of the transcendent and universal Godhead. Almost all religions either have as their base or make use of some such name and form of the Divine. Its necessity for the human soul is evident. God is the All and more than the All. But that which is more than the All, how shall man conceive? And even the All is at first too hard for him; for he himself in his active consciousness is a limited and selective formation and can open himself only to that which is in harmony with his limited nature. There are things in the All which are too hard for his comprehension or seem too terrible to his sensitive emotions and cowering sensations. Or, simply, he cannot conceive as the Divine, cannot approach or cannot recognise something that is too much out of the circle of his ignorant or partial conceptions. It is necessary for him to conceive God in his own image or at some form that is beyond himself but consonant with his highest tendencies and seizable by his feelings or his intelligence. Otherwise it would be difficult for him to come into contact and communion with the Divine.
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1.01 - The King of the Wood, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
expectant mothers an easy delivery. Again, fire seems to have played
a foremost part in her ritual. For during her annual festival, held
--
believed, like Diana, to be able to grant them an easy delivery.
Tradition ran that the nymph had been the wife or mistress of the
--
of these maidens, as the Troezenians called them; and it is easy to
show that similar customs have been practised in many lands for the
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1.022 - The Pilgrimage, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
70. Do you not know that God knows everything in the heavens and the earth? This is in a book. That is easy for God.
71. Yet they worship, besides God, things for which He sent down no warrant, and what they have no knowledge of. There is no savior for the transgressors.
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10.24 - Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Divine Mother brings solace and salvation. For the Grace it is such a small and easy thing, it is a wonder how even such a simple, natural, inconspicuous thing could be refused by anybody.
If man finds no use for the gift she has brought down for him, naturally she will take it back and return it to Him to whom it belongs, for all things belong to the Supreme Lord, even She belongs to Him, as She is one with Him. The Gita says: there is nothing else than the Brahman in the creation the doer, the doing and the deed, all are essentially He. In the sacrifice that is this moving, acting universe, the offerer, the offering and the offered, each and every element is the Brahmanbrahmrpanam brahma havi.
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1.025 - Sadhana - Intensifying a Lighted Flame, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
However, the point on hand is that a larger reality should also be qualitatively superior to the discrete particulars from which the mind is supposed to be withdrawn for the purpose of the practice of yoga. Though it is somewhat easy to bring about a quantitative increase in the concept of reality by methods such as the ones I just mentioned, it is a little more difficult to introduce a qualitative increase into the concept of reality. This is the main difficulty for everyone. However much we may concentrate on God, we will not be able to improve upon the human concept, even when there is a concept of God. So we feel unhappy even when we are meditating on God, because we have not improved the quality but have only increased the quantity, so that we may think of God as a large human individual a massive individual, as expansive as the universe itself, for example. That is quite wonderful, but still this human thought does not leave us.
Even when we think of the Creator as a transcendent father, the anthropomorphic idea still persists and stultifies the aim at introducing a higher quality of thought into the concept of God. That is why we are unhappy even in meditation, even in our highest spiritual exalted moods. Even when we are exalted, we are quantitatively exalted; qualitatively, we are very poor. We are unhappy in some way or the other, and no one can make us happy. A tremendous effort is necessary to introduce a superior quality in the concept of reality. The difficulty lies in the mind being the only instrument that we have for doing anything whatsoever, and who is it who will introduce a higher order of value or a greater quality into this concept, other than the mind itself? But how can we expect the mind to conceive of a higher quality of reality other than the one in which it has found itself at the present moment? How can we jump over our own skin? Is it possible? How can we expect the mind to think of a reality superior in quality to the one in which it is living at present, and with which it is identified wholly? An immediate answer to this question cannot be given. However, there is an answer.
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1.029 - The Spider, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
19. Have they not seen how God originates the creation, and then reproduces it? This is easy for God.
20. Say, “Roam the earth, and observe how He originated the creation.” Then God will bring about the next existence. God has power over all things.”
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1.02 - Karmayoga, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
- that is Yoga. Pranayam and Asans, concentration, worship, ceremonies, religious practice are not themselves Yoga but only a means towards Yoga. Nor is Yoga a difficult or dangerous path, it is safe and easy to all who take refuge with the Inner Guide and Teacher. All men are potentially capable of it, for there is no
Essays from the Karmayogin
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1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
constitutes the most immediately desirable good. This lack of easy agreement makes us intrinsically
prone to intrapsychic conflict, and associated affective (emotional) dysregulation. We manipulate our
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Neither the rules that underly categorization, nor the act itself, have proved easy to describe. Roger
Brown, the eminent psycholinguist, states:
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It is easy, or, at least appears easy, to understand why the pre-experimental mind might frequently have
associated the creation of everything with femininity with the source of new life through birth (most
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These walls serve their purpose so well that it is easy for us to forget our mortal vulnerability; indeed, we
generated those walls to aid that forgetting. But it is impossible to understand why we are so motivated to
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Its easy that way
plus
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1.02 - Meditating on Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
me, I will love you. Its extremely easy to love somebody whos kind to us.
Even cats do that. Animals love us if were nice to them, pet them, and give
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1.02 - Prana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
There have been cases where this process has been carried on at a distance, but in reality there is no distance in the sense of a break. Where is the distance that has a break? Is there any break between you and the sun? It is a continuous mass of matter, the sun being one part, and you another. Is there a break between one part of a river and another? Then why cannot any force travel? There is no reason against it. Cases of healing from a distance are perfectly true. The Prana can be transmitted to a very great distance; but to one genuine case, there are hundreds of frauds. This process of healing is not so easy as it is thought to be. In the most ordinary cases of such healing you will find that the healers simply take advantage of the naturally healthy state of the human body. An allopath comes and treats cholera patients, and gives them his medicines. The homoeopath comes and gives his medicines, and cures perhaps more than the allopath does, because the homoeopath does not disturb his patients, but allows nature to deal with them. The Faith-healer cures more still, because he brings the strength of his mind to bear, and rouses, through faith, the dormant Prana of the patient.
There is a mistake constantly made by Faith-healers: they think that faith directly heals a man. But faith alone does not cover all the ground. There are diseases where the worst symptoms are that the patient never thinks that he has that disease. That tremendous faith of the patient is itself one symptom of the disease, and usually indicates that he will die quickly. In such cases the principle that faith cures does not apply. If it were faith alone that cured, these patients also would be cured. It is by the Prana that real curing comes. The pure man, who has controlled the Prana, has the power of bringing it into a certain state of vibration, which can be conveyed to others, arousing in them a similar vibration. You see that in everyday actions. I am talking to you. What am I trying to do? I am, so to say, bringing my mind to a certain state of vibration, and the more I succeed in bringing it to that state, the more you will be affected by what I say. All of you know that the day I am more enthusiastic, the more you enjoy the lecture; and when I am less enthusiastic, you feel lack of interest.
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1.02 - Pranayama, Mantrayoga, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Pranayama is notably useful in quieting the emotions and appetites; and, whether by reason of the mechanical pressure which it asserts, or by the thorough combustion which it assures in the lungs, it seems to be admirable from the standpoint of health. Digestive troubles in particular are very easy to remove in this way. It purifies both the body and the lower functions of the mind,
footnote: Emphatically. Emphatically. Emphatically. It is impossible to combine Pranayama properly performed with emotional thought. It should be resorted to immediately, at all times during life, when calm is threatened.
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1.02 - SADHANA PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
body. If then, we have control of the internal, it is very easy to
have control of the external. Then again, these forces are not
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1.02 - Self-Consecration, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
7:The first necessity is to dissolve that central faith and vision in the mind which concentrate it on its development and satisfaction and interests in the old externalised order of things. It is imperative to exchange this surface orientation for the deeper faith and vision which see only the Divine and seek only after the Divine. The next need is to compel all our lower being to pay homage to this new faith and greater vision. All our nature must make an integral surrender; it must offer itself in every part and every movement to that which seems to the unregenerated sensemind so much less real than the material world and its objects. Our whole being-soul, mind, sense, heart, will, life, body must consecrate all its energies so entirely and in such a way that it shall become a fit vehicle for the Divine. This is no easy task; for everything in the world follows the fixed habit which is to it a law and resists a radical change. And no change can be more radical than the revolution attempted in the integral Yoga. Everything in us has constantly to be called back to the central faith and will and vision. Every thought and impulse has to be reminded in the language of the Upanishad that "That is the divine Brahman and not this which men here adore." Every vital fibre has to be persuaded to accept an entire renunciation of all that hitherto represented to it its own existence. Mind has to cease to be mind and become brilliant with something beyond it. Life has to change into a thing vast and calm and intense and powerful that can no longer recognise its old blind eager narrow self or petty impulse and desire. Even the body has to submit to a mutation and be no longer the clamorous animal or the impeding clod it now is, but become instead a conscious servant and radiant instrument and living form of the spirit.
8:The difficulty of the task has led naturally to the pursuit of easy and trenchant solutions; it has generated and fixed deeply' the tendency of religions and of schools of Yoga to separate the life of the world from the inner life. The powers of this world and their actual activities, it is felt, either do not belong to God at all or are for some obscure and puzzling cause, Maya or another, a dark contradiction of the divine Truth. And on their own opposite side the powers of the Truth and their ideal activities are seen to belong to quite another plane of consciousness than that, obscure, ignorant and perverse in its impulses and forces, on which the life of the earth is founded. There appears at once the antinomy of a bright and pure kingdom of God and a dark and impure kingdom of the devil; we feel the opposition of our crawling earthly birth and life to an exalted spiritual God-consciousness; we become readily convinced of the incompatibility of life's subjection to Maya with the soul's concentration in pure Brahman existence. The easiest way is to turn away from all that belongs to the one and to retreat by a naked and precipitous ascent into the other. Thus arises the attraction and, it would seem, the necessity of the principle of exclusive concentration which plays so prominent a part in the specialised schools of Yoga; for by that concentration we can arrive through an uncompromising renunciation of the world at an entire self-consecration to the One on whom we concentrate. It is no longer incumbent on us to compel all the lower activities to the difficult recognition of a new and higher spiritualised life and train them to be its agents or executive powers. It is enough to kill or quiet them and keep at most the few energies necessary, on one side, for the maintenance of the body and, on the other, for communion with the Divine.
9:The very aim and conception of an integral Yoga debars us from adopting this simple and strenuous high-pitched process. 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 impediments. For we have set out to conquer all ourselves and the world for God; we are determined to give him our becoming as well as our being and not merely to bring the pure and naked spirit as a bare offering to a remote and secret Divinity in a distant heaven or abolish all we are in a holocaust to an immobile Absolute. The Divine that we adore is not only a remote extracosmic Reality, but a half-veiled Manifestation present and near to us here in the universe. Life is the field of a divine manifestation not yet complete: here, in life, on earth, in the body, -- ihaiva, as the Upanishads insist, -- we have to unveil the Godhead; here we must make its transcendent greatness, light and sweetness real to our consciousness, here possess and, as far as may be, express it. Life then we must accept in our Yoga in order utterly to transmute it; we are forbidden to shrink from the difficulties that this acceptance may add to our struggle. Our compensation is that even if the path is more rugged, the effort more complex and bafflingly arduous, yet after a 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.
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1.02 - The 7 Habits An Overview, #The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, #Stephen Covey, #unset
It's easy to see that independence is much more mature than dependence. Independence is a major achievement in and of itself. But independence is not supreme.
Nevertheless, the current social paradigm enthrones independence. It is the avowed goal of many individuals and social movements. Most of the self-improvement material puts independence on a pedestal, as though communication, teamwork, and cooperation were lesser values.
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And what about a parent's relationship with a child? When children are little, they are very dependent, very vulnerable. It becomes so easy to neglect the PC work -- the training, the communicating, the relating, the listening. It's easy to take advantage, to manipulate, to get what you want the way you want it -- right now! You're bigger, you're smarter, and you're right! So why not just tell them what to do? If necessary, yell at them, intimidate them, insist on your way.
Or you can indulge them. You can go for the golden egg of popularity, of pleasing them, giving them their way all the time. Then they grow up without a personal commitment to being disciplined or responsible.
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1.02 - The Concept of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
scious is not always an easy task. It is not sufficient to point out
the often obviously archetypal nature of unconscious products,
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investigation would be relatively easy, but in reality the proof
52
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1.02 - The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
wrote to Sri Aurobindo that for him the yoga must be easy,
little more than a sham. To contradict such suppositions,
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1.02 - The Doctrine of the Mystics, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And this is no easy or peaceful march; it is for long seasons a fierce and relentless battle. Constantly the Aryan man has to labour and to fight and conquer; he must be a tireless toiler and traveller and a stern warrior, he must force open and storm and sack city after city, win kingdom after kingdom, overthrow and tread down ruthlessly enemy after enemy. His whole progress is a warring of Gods and Titans, Gods and Giants, Indra and the Python, Aryan and Dasyu. Aryan adversaries even he has to face in the open field; for old friends and helpers turn into enemies; the kings of Aryan states whom he would conquer and overpass join themselves to the Dasyus and are leagued against him in supreme battle to prevent his free and utter passing on.
But the Dasyu is the natural enemy. These dividers, plunderers, harmful powers, these Danavas, sons of the Mother of division, are spoken of by the Rishis under many general appellations. There are Rakshasas; there are Eaters and Devourers, Wolves and Tearers; there are hurters and haters; there are dualisers; there are confiners or censurers. But we are given also many specific names. Vritra, the Serpent, is the grand Adversary; for he obstructs with his coils of darkness all possibility of divine existence and divine action. And even when Vritra is slain by the light, fiercer enemies arise out of him. Shushna afflicts us with his impure and ineffective force, Namuchi fights man by his weaknesses, and others too assail, each with his proper evil. Then there are Vala and the Panis, miser traffickers in the sense-life, stealers and concealers of the higher Light and its illuminations which they can only darken and misuse, - an impious host who are jealous of their store and will not offer sacrifice to the Gods. These and other personalities - they are much more than personifications - of our ignorance, evil, weakness and many limitations make constant war upon man; they encircle him from near or they shoot their arrows at him from afar or even dwell in his gated house in the place of the Gods and with their shapeless stammering mouths and their insufficient breath of force mar his self-expression. They must be expelled, overpowered, slain, thrust down into their nether darkness by the aid of the mighty and helpful deities.
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All this Vedic imagery is easy to understand when once we have the key, but it must not be mistaken for mere imagery. The Gods are not simply poetical personifications of abstract ideas or of psychological and physical functions of Nature. To the Vedic seers they are living realities; the vicissitudes of the human soul represent a cosmic struggle not merely of principles and tendencies but of the cosmic Powers which support and embody them. These are the Gods and the Demons. On the world-stage and in the individual soul the same real drama with the same personages is enacted.
To what gods shall the sacrifice be offered? Who shall be invoked to manifest and protect in the human being this increasing godhead?
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For the whole bliss of Soma to be established perfectly in our nature a happy and enlightened and unmaimed condition of mind, vitality and body are necessary. This condition is given to us by the twin Ashwins; wedded to the daughter of Light, drinkers of honey, bringers of perfect satisfactions, healers of maim and malady they occupy our parts of knowledge and parts of action and prepare our mental, vital and physical being for an easy and victorious ascension.
Indra, the Divine Mind, as the shaper of mental forms has for his assistants, his artisans, the Ribhus, human powers who by the work of sacrifice and their brilliant ascension to the high dwelling-place of the Sun have attained to immortality and help mankind to repeat their achievement. They shape by the mind Indra's horses, the chariot of the Ashwins, the weapons of the Gods, all the means of the journey and the battle. But as giver of the Light of Truth and as Vritra-slayer Indra is aided by the Maruts, who are powers of will and nervous or vital Force that have attained to the light of thought and the voice of self-expression. They are behind all thought and speech as its impellers and they battle towards the Light, Truth and Bliss of the supreme Consciousness.
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1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
and I remember saying to myself how easy it is to have divine thoughts, or perhaps even visions, at that altitude, but what about in the valley below? I was not entirely wrong, although I later learned that one can act and work for the world in the silence and stillness of one's own body. (A clinging illusion makes us confuse agitation with action.) Still, what remains of our divine moments once we are removed from our solitude and brought down to the plains? This is a mirage that Western enthusiasts of Hinduism should consider, for if we merely want to escape the world, a retreat in the Alps or the Yosemite Valley, or even a small whitewashed cell, would do just as well; the Pilgrimage to the Source12 has little, if nothing, to do with the Ganges or the Brahmaputra. What was India going to bring to Sri Aurobindo, then? Did she hold some secret relevant to action in life?
Reading books on Hinduism, it would appear that it is a kind of spiritual paleontology interspersed with polysyllabic Sanskrit words,
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1.02 - The Human Soul, #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
10.: I do not know whether I have put this clearly; self-knowledge is of such consequence that I would not have you careless of it, though you may be lifted to heaven in prayer, because while on earth nothing is more needful than humility. Therefore, I repeat, not only a good way, but the best of all ways, is to endeavour to enter first by the room where humility is practised, which is far better than at once rushing on to the others. This is the right road;-if we know how easy and safe it is to walk by it, why ask for wings with which to fly? Let us rather try to learn how to advance quickly. I believe we shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavouring to know God, for, beholding His greatness we are struck by our own baseness, His purity shows our foulness, and by meditating on His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.
11.: Two advantages are gained by this practice. First, it is clear that white looks far whiter when placed near something black, and on the contrary, black never looks so dark as when seen beside something white. Secondly, our understanding and will become more noble and capable of good in every way when we turn from ourselves to God: it is very injurious never to raise our minds above the mire of our own faults. I described how murky and fetid are the streams that spring from the source of a soul in mortal sin.25' Thus (although the case is not really the same, God forbid! this is only a comparison), while we are continually absorbed in contemplating the weakness of our earthly nature, the springs of our actions will never flow free from the mire of timid, weak, and cowardly thoughts, such as: 'I wonder whether people are noticing me or not! If I follow this course, will harm come to me? Dare I begin this work? Would it not be presumptuous? Is it right for any one as faulty as myself to speak on sublime spiritual subjects?26' Will not people think too well of me, if I make myself singular? Extremes are bad, even in virtue; sinful as I am I shall only fall the lower. Perhaps I shall fail and be a source of scandal to good people; such a person as I am has no need of peculiarities.'
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1.02 - The Philosophy of Ishvara, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
In the fourth Pda of the fourth chapter of his Sutras, after stating the almost infinite power and knowledge which will come to the liberated soul after the attainment of Moksha, Vysa makes the remark, in an aphorism, that none, however, will get the power of creating, ruling, and dissolving the universe, because that belongs to God alone. In explaining the Sutra it is easy for the dualistic commentators to show how it is ever impossible for a subordinate soul, Jiva, to have the infinite power and total independence of God. The thorough dualistic commentator Madhvchrya deals with this passage in his usual summary method by quoting a verse from the Varha Purna.
In explaining this aphorism the commentator Rmnuja says, "This doubt being raised, whether among the powers of the liberated souls is included that unique power of the Supreme One, that is, of creation etc. of the universe and even the Lordship of all, or whether, without that, the glory of the liberated consists only in the direct perception of the Supreme One, we get as an argument the following: It is reasonable that the liberated get the Lordship of the universe, because the scriptures say,
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In explaining the next Sutra, Ramanuja says, "If you say it is not so, because there are direct texts in the Vedas in evidence to the contrary, these texts refer to the glory of the liberated in the spheres of the subordinate deities." This also is an easy solution of the difficulty. Although the system of Ramanuja admits the unity of the total, within that totality of existence there are, according to him, eternal differences. Therefore, for all practical purposes, this system also being dualistic, it was easy for Ramanuja to keep the distinction between the personal soul and the Personal God very clear.
We shall now try to understand what the great representative of the Advaita School has to say on the point. We shall see how the Advaita system maintains all the hopes and aspirations of the dualist intact, and at the same time propounds its own solution of the problem in consonance with the high destiny of divine humanity. Those who aspire to retain their individual mind even after liberation and to remain distinct will have ample opportunity of realising their aspirations and enjoying the blessing of the qualified Brahman. These are they who have been spoken of in the Bhgavata Purna thus: "O king, such are the, glorious qualities of the Lord that the sages whose only pleasure is in the Self, and from whom all fetters have fallen off, even they love the Omnipresent with the love that is for love's sake." These are they who are spoken of by the Snkhyas as getting merged in nature in this cycle, so that, after attaining perfection, they may come out in the next as lords of world-systems. But none of these ever becomes equal to God (Ishvara). Those who attain to that state where there is neither creation, nor created, nor creator, where there is neither knower, nor knowable, nor knowledge, where there is neither I, nor thou, nor he, where there is neither subject, nor object, nor relation, "there, who is seen by whom?" such persons have gone beyond everything to "where words cannot go nor mind", gone to that which the Shrutis declare as "Not this, not this"; but for those who cannot, or will not reach this state, there will inevitably remain the triune vision of the one undifferentiated Brahman as nature, soul, and the interpenetrating sustainer of both Ishvara. So, when Prahlda forgot himself, he found neither the universe nor its cause; all was to him one Infinite, undifferentiated by name and form; but as soon as he remembered that he was Prahlada, there was the universe before him and with it the Lord of the universe "the Repository of an infinite number of blessed qualities". So it was with the blessed Gopis. So long as they had lost sense of their own personal identity and individuality, they were all Krishnas, and when they began again to think of Him as the One to be worshipped, then they were Gopis again, and immediately Bhakti, then, can be directed towards Brahman, only in His personal aspect.
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1.02 - The Recovery, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
When Dr. Manilal arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief! He was not very happy to see the new development, but hoped that everything would be all right. He was confronted with three problems: the swelling, educating the patient to walk and the bending of the knee, all of which he dealt with in his characteristic efficient manner. The swelling according to him would subside in due course. Gentle massage and hot and cold compress continued, followed later by hot douche. We used to note its diminution week by week. But it took some months to disappear completely. The bending of the knee would also take some time in view of the adhesion of the patella to the underlying tissues, in spite of passive movements. The re-education in walking seemed to be rather a straightforward job, though it was the most awkward and difficult one, for Sri Aurobindo had to walk with crutches! All that was needed was a patient and persistent effort. For Sri Aurobindo's nature, unaccustomed to physical or mechanical contrivances, and the narrow space in the room made the venture somewhat risky. The first day he got up to use the crutches was a memorable one for us. In the presence of the Mother we made him stand up, handed him the crutches and showed him how to use them. He fumbled and remarked, "Yes, it is easy to say." Two or three different pairs were tried out, but as he could not handle them properly, the Mother proposed that he had better walk leaning on two persons one on either side; It was certainly a bright suggestion, for Sri Aurobindo walking on crutches would have reminded us of his own phrase about Hephaestus' "lame omnipotent motion", an insult to his shining majestic figure. Purani and Satyendra were selected by Dr. Manilal as his human supports, much less incongruous than the ungainly wooden instruments! That was how the re-education started. The paradox of the Divine seeking frail human aid gave food to my sense of humour. However, both men proved unequal in stature; the Mother made Champaklal replace Satyendra on the left side. Now the arrangement was just and perfect and Champaklal had his aspiration fulfilled. His was the last support Sri Aurobindo was to give up. For, as his steps gained in strength and firmness, he used a stick in the right hand, and Champaklal on the left. Finally he too was dropped. As soon as it came to be known that the Master was using a walking stick, several were presented to him and there was one even of tea-wood from Assam! Thus everyday after the noon and night meals the Mother would come to his room and present the stick, and he would walk about for half an hour in her presence.
While waiting for the Mother's arrival, he would practise various bending exercises for the knee which had been improvised by Dr. Manilal. He did them sitting on the edge of the bed. He actively obeyed whatever was demanded of him. One of the exercises was hanging of the leg which later became a common joke amongst us.
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1.02 - The Ultimate Path is Without Difficulty, #The Blue Cliff Records, #Yuanwu Keqin, #Zen
2. Not hard, not easy.
3. What's in front of your eyes? The Third Patriarch is still alive.
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1.02 - What is Psycho therapy?, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
abandoned only because its results were so unsatisfactory. It was fairly easy and practical to apply, and allowed skilled practitioners to treat a large
number of patients at the same time, and this at least seemed to offer the
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1.030 - The Romans, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
27. It is He who initiates creation, and then repeats it, something easy for Him. His is the highest attribute, in the heavens and the earth. He is the Almighty, the Wise.
28. He illustrates an example for you, from your own selves: do you make your servants full partners in the wealth We have given you? Do you revere them as you revere one another? We thus explain the revelations for a people who understand.
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1.031 - Intense Aspiration, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
There is nothing in this world which is spatially cut off by a long distance, ultimately speaking. The distance between the seeker and the sought is an apparent one it is not a real one. If the distance is real, it would be difficult for us to achieve anything. If there is a real gap between me and somebody else, that somebody else will be outside me for ever and ever. The object that we seek is not really cut off by a gap of distance spatial or even temporal. Even the time factor is not a bar to the achievement of the objective, because while space and time seem to be the principle obstructions to our achievement of anything, they are ultimately nothing if we come to the truth about them. These so-called terrific factors called 'space' and 'time', which on one side make the object appear far off in space and on the other side make it appear distant in time, are ultimately illusory vestments over the consciousness of what the truth is. The achievement of anything is a simple affair if the correct technique is known, because nothing can be simpler to understand and experience than truth. The easiest thing is truth, because it is truth after all, and what else can be as easy as truth? It will be difficult to catch untruth. But it should not be difficult to catch truth. We have said it is truth. It is real. It is a fact. It is what it is. How can we say that it is so hard to get it? To utter a truth is very easy; to tell a lie is very difficult, as we know very well, because we have to think deeply before we utter a lie. But what is the difficulty in telling the truth? It is a plain fact.
The whole-souled movement of consciousness towards the objective is not merely, or not necessarily, a spatial movement. The great teacher Acharya Sankara was never tired of removing this misconception in the minds of people the travelling to truth does not mean travelling in a vehicle towards some distant place, as if it is a village or a town. In every commentary on every Upanishad and Brahma Sutra he mentions this point that here, 'travelling' does not mean travelling in a vehicle, nor does it mean movement in space. It is nothing of the kind. It is a different thing altogether that takes place, because the object of our quest is ultimately connected with us I would say, even now. But even if we do not want to accept that, at least ultimately it is connected with us. Therefore, finally, it is a movement towards our own self.
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1.033 - The Confederates, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
19. Being stingy towards you. And when fear approaches, you see them staring at you—their eyes rolling—like someone fainting at death. Then, when panic is over, they whip you with sharp tongues. They resent you any good. These have never believed, so God has nullified their works; a matter easy for God.
20. They assumed that the confederates had not withdrawn. But were the confederates to advance, they would wish they were in the desert with the Bedouins, inquiring about your news. And if they were among you, they would have done little fighting.
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30. O wives of the Prophet! Whoever of you commits a proven indecency, the punishment for her will be doubled. And that would be easy for God.
31. But whoever of you remains obedient to God and His Messenger, and acts righteously, We will give her a double reward; and We have prepared for her a generous provision.
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1.034 - Sheba, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
18. Between them and the towns We had blessed, We placed prominent towns, and We made the travel between them easy. “Travel between them by night and day, in safety.”
19. But they said, “Our Lord, lengthen the distances of our journeys.” They wronged themselves; so We made them history, and We scattered them in every direction. In this are lessons for every steadfast and appreciative person.
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1.035 - Originator, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
11. God created you from dust, then from a small drop; then He made you pairs. No female conceives, or delivers, except with His knowledge. No living thing advances in years, or its life is shortened, except it be in a Record. That is surely easy for God.
12. The two seas are not the same. One is fresh, sweet, good to drink, while the other is salty and bitter. Yet from each you eat tender meat, and extract jewelry which you wear. And you see the ships plowing through them, so that you may seek of His bounty, so that you may give thanks.
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1.037 - Preventing the Fall in Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
We have to cure these reactions of yoga only through yoga. Drugs will not cure these illnesses. If a headache is caused by intense meditation, it cannot be cured by an aspirin tablet, because it is a result of an intense pressure that we have exerted upon the mind, the nerves and the pranas, and that pressure can be lifted up only by another type of meditation, of which we have to gain the knowledge only through the Guru who has initiated us. It is not an easy thing to understand. Sometimes there can be such disturbance of the digestive system that we will have diarrhoea for days or months, and we cannot stop it with medicine. Headache, giddiness and diarrhoea are generally supposed to be the immediate reactions of intense concentration of the mind. We will feel as if the mountains are revolving when we stand up. This is giddiness, and we cannot easily know why this is happening. Sometimes we may be under the impression that we are practising a wrong type of meditation, due to which these reactions are set up. It is not necessarily so. Our meditation may be correct, and yet the reactions can be there.
When there is a physical condition of the type of painful illness, the practice should not be diminished. Generally, when we have a little fever, we will not be able to sit for meditation; and of course when there is a headache, it is out of the question. But knowing that these are the necessary and expected consequences of practice, one should not become diffident, and the practice of meditation should not be brought down to a lower level, either in quantity or quality, merely because of these obstacles. They will be there for some days, and sometimes even for months, but they will pass away. Just as when we clean a room with a broom there is a rise of dust, and it may look as if we are worsening the condition in the room rather than cleaning it, that is not the truth, because afterwards all of the dust will vanish and the whole room will be clean. Likewise, in the beginning it may look as if there is something worse happening to us than what has occurred earlier, but it is not true. We are getting cleaned up, and a day will come when the storm will cease and we shall be happy.
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Even masters, great Mahatmas and Mandaleshwars are not exempt from this error of thought, because it is a very subtle form of difficulty which is easy to justify by specious logic, and it may look very wonderful and beautiful to the public eye, though it may be a gross mistake. This pramada is death itself. Nothing can be worse than this idiocy in the practice of yoga. A student of yoga is free from this blunder. This pramada is the worst thing that we can expect on the path. So, one should not be heedless or careless in the evaluation of one's spiritual way of living. Let there be persistent practice with caution, intelligence and understanding that we are moving in the same direction that we have chosen earlier, and we have not taken a different line of approach.
After that, something else can come, says Patanjali. This working for the world and merging oneself in social liberating activity cannot go on for a long time, because the world will give us a kick. All great saviours of mankind were thrown to the pits because they could not save mankind. A day comes when society will dislike and even hate us, though we are utmost sincere in trying to help it. We have only to read history that is sufficient. All masters in the political field and most sincere workers in the social field were finally doomed by society. They were either killed by the very same people for whom they were working, or they were condemned to a condition worse than death. This is what happened to great leaders of mankind right from Pedicles, Plato and Aristotle, and nobody has been exempted from this, right up to modern times which is the tragedy of human effort. Then we will realise what is in front of us. People generally leave this world with a sob and a cry, not with joy on their faces, because they realised this fact too late. There was very little time for them to live in this world, and all the time had been spent in wrong activity under the impression that it is right activity.
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10.37 - The Golden Bridge, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
If it is asked how does then the world itself exist? has it not come out of the Truth? is it not an expression of the Divine? well, an easy answer is: Look at the world and see what kind of expression it is. Is it a divine creation? What truth is there? In truth, it is an expression of falsehood, it is all an error. So it has been declared by the great sages of the past that this is a false creation; it is an illusion, a delusion. Why is it so? How is it so? Go beyond it, into the Truth beyond, you will know. Being in the illusion, how can you perceive that it is an illusion, or why or how is it an illusion? This is one way of looking at the problem, we may say, a very categorical or radical way. But there are other possibilities, other lines of approach.
This creation as an expression of the Divine Truth may not be altogether a falsehood. It is an inadequate expression, as it stands at present, as it has been till now; but it is a growing, a progressive expression. In other words, the instruments of expression, to start with, are not fully developed, they have to be developed; they are being developed, through the evolutionary movement of Nature, in the course of advancing time. Indeed evolution in Nature means that and a great deal of that. Take for example, speech, which is a special organ of expression for man. Now, originally speech, that is to say, the vocabulary on man's tongue consisted of vocables related only to the familiar objects around him, in the ordinary day to day movement of life. The field was narrow and limited, level to the ground. Observe the language also, the written language. The original written language started with images, pictorial diagrams: there was no alphabet but things and movements were presented, that is represented, almost actually. Thus for man a figure of man was drawn, that is to say, straight lines sticking out representing hands and legs and a dot for the head; the sun was a circle and so on. As consciousness grew and as the mind developed and reason became active, the images, the figures and the symbols gradually changed into more and more abstract signs. At first there was the pictogram, then the ideogram, and then, at the end, came the alphabet. Evidently, it appears, language could not develop so quickly as the consciousness or the mind did, for we see even in the earlier epochs of human civilisation and culture, man could and did come in contact with the Truth and Realities beyond his normal sense-bound consciousness. And the experiences the seers had on those levels were of such a kind that whenever they sought to express them, communicate them to others in the outward mind and speech, they had to take refuge in symbolism: they had to use the words of everyday life as signs and symbols pointing to other realities, other-worldly and unfamiliar. Thus, horse was to them life-force, cow the radiance of truth, the wind thought energies, the sun consciousness or Truth, night as ignorance, light as knowledge, wine (soma means both wine and moon) as delight and ecstasy, the sky as infinity or transcendence. And so on.
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Still, however, it is not easy to completely ignore or efface the influence of a concrete truth, a fact which is at the basis of human birth the truth and fact of the body, of the external material objects. For example, how to express That which does not belong to this world, has not the measures of this body? The Upanishad has perforce to speak negatively of the Supreme positive Reality. It has to say, "It is not this, it is not this, it is quite other than all this, it has no parallel here below although it is the source and origin of all this." We have found some positive words indeedsat-cit-nanda; but the other key-word is a negative in structureamtam, not death. Immortality means not mortality, and ananta too is a negative expression. We remember the famous lines: Na tatra srya bhti etc.,1 it is a supreme revelation, it is supremely evocative but it is built up of negatives. The Vedic rishis followed a different line, as I said; they did not evade or reject the materials of a physical life, they boldly grasped them and used them as signs, symbols, embodiments of other truths and realities. They accepted the sun, the moon, the stars, man and woman, even the normal activities of life but they gave these quite a different connotation. They filled them with a new depth and density, a higher specific gravity.
The instruments being inadequate, it was necessary to bypass them and take to an indirect way for expressing realities that are beyond them. Neither the language nor the mental concepts were the vessels that could hold the divine drink. And sometimes the result was not very happy.
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1.038 - Impediments in Concentration and Meditation, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
This is also an important aspect of the practice of meditation. It should not entail any kind of exhaustion of spirit or fatigue of the body or the mind. Whenever we work we are likely to get exhausted, but it is essential to remember that meditation is not a work it is not an activity which can exhaust us or tire us. Also, there is a possibility of one's getting tired of anything which is extraneous to one's own essential nature. It is not easy to get tired of one's own self, although we can get tired of others. We can get tired of anything that is not essentially a part of our own nature. But meditation is nothing but an attempt to manifest our own nature in greater and greater degrees, rather than engage ourselves in an activity for the purpose of the achievement of an ulterior motive. Meditation is not an action in the ordinary sense of the term and, therefore, it is not supposed to bring about fatigue, either of the body or of the mind. If we feel exhaustion or fatigue after meditation, it can be safely concluded that there has been some kind of mistake in the choice of the ideal of meditation or in the method that has been adopted in meditation.
Somehow or other we have considered spiritual meditation as a kind of work like factory work, or work in a shop, or some such activity which it is not, really. We have to remember that in yoga, we are moving closer to Reality which is our own essential nature, and we are not going away from Reality. The externality that is involved in activity gradually gets diminished in spiritual meditation, and the less is the element of externality present in an activity, the less also is the sense of fatigue and exhaustion. The nearer we are to our self, the happier we feel. Inasmuch as meditation, if it is really spiritual, is a tendency to one's own essential nature and not a movement externally in the world of objects, it should, instead of bringing fatigue and exhaustion, create happiness and a sense of energy in one's own self.
The incapacity of the mind to fix its attention on the ideal of meditation may be due to undue pressure exerted upon it by an unclarified understanding of the technique. It can also be due to certain desires present in the mind which have not been fulfilled, and which have not been allowed to come to the surface due to the force of discipline. While discipline is good, it cannot always succeed, because it is a power externally exerted upon something which succeeds for sometime, but cannot succeed for all times. The reason is that anything extraneous is repelled it cannot be absorbed. The mind, being the subtlest instrument available to us, can feel the pressure more than anything else. Therefore, any kind of frustration of feeling, even very minutely present, can cause a sensation of exhaustion in oneself. It is not easy to understand why we are exhausted, why it is that we are not able to sit for a continued period in meditation. There can be hundreds of excuses for our inability to sit for meditation, but they are only excuses devices employed by the mind to get out of this difficulty we have put upon it.
The mind's non-cooperation with this enterprise called yoga can specifically be said to be due to a lack of understanding as to what it is, because when there is proper understanding and deep conviction born of this understanding, it is difficult to believe that one will not cooperate. Lack of cooperation is lack of understanding. We do not appreciate the meaning of it, or the value of it, or the worth of it; the mind is of that nature. It does not know why we are practising yoga, or what the purpose of yoga is. Though intellectually, superficially, logically and academically it acquiesces in the pursuit, this has not been driven into its feelings and has not become a part of its real nature. For all these reasons, it may be difficult to gain the point of concentration, which is called the difficulty alabdha- bhumikatva.
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1.03 - A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE, #Alice in Wonderland, #Lewis Carroll, #Fiction
"Why," said the Dodo, "the best way to explain it is to do it." First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no "One, two, three and away!" but they began running when they liked and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.
However, when they had been running half an hour or so and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out, "The race is over!" and they all crowded 'round it, panting and asking, "But who has won?"
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1.03 - APPRENTICESHIP AND ENCULTURATION - ADOPTION OF A SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
unconscious procedure. As a consequence, it is easy for us to become confused about the nature of
morality, and to draw inappropriate, untimely and dangerous fixed conclusions.
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how to behave? (and how can that be represented and communicated?). It is very easy, in consequence,
to err in attri bution of value, and to worship the specific solution itself, rather than the source of that
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1.03 - BOOK THE THIRD, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
My charms an easy conquest have obtain'd
O'er other hearts, by thee alone disdain'd.
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And do you thus my easy faith beguile?
Thus do you bear me to my native isle?
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1.03 - Concerning the Archetypes, with Special Reference to the Anima Concept, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
It will not be so easy to reduce complex psychic facts to a
chemical formula. Hence the psychic factor must, ex hypothesi,
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nothing but reflections of human character. It is indeed easy to
show that the divine pair is simply an idealization of the parents
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matic oneself, it is notoriously easy to take other people for
prophets and founders of religions.
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1.03 - Hymns of Gritsamada, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
5. May the divine Doors swing open, wide to our call, easy of approach with our prostrations of surrender; may they stretch wide opening into vastnesses, the imperishable Doors purifying the glorious and heroic kind.
8 Or, made strong to bear for the riches,
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1.03 - Invocation of Tara, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
is easy to follow and easily may form the practice of
an entire life.
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1.03 - Japa Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
1. In this Iron Age, Japa Yoga is an easy way for attaining God-realisation.
2. Japa is the repetition of any Mantra or Name of the Lord with Bhava and feeling.
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1.03 - Measure of time, Moments of Kashthas, etc., #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
ga P. In all essential points the computations accord, and the scheme, extravagant as it may appear, seems to admit of easy explanation. We have, in the first place, a computation of the years of the gods in the four ages, or, p. 24
[5]: The details of these, as occurring in each Manvantara, are given in the third book, c. 1 and 2.
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1.03 - Meeting the Master - Meeting with others, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The action and the fruit of action both belong to God, not to us. There should be no insistence on the fruit of good or unselfish action. When this is done then everything becomes easy.
G: How will a man act when he has no impulse of desire?
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1.03 - PERSONALITY, SANCTITY, DIVINE INCARNATION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The will is free and we are at liberty to identify our being either exclusively with our selfness and its interests, regarded as independent of indwelling Spirit and transcendent Godhead (in which case we shall be passively damned or actively fiendish), or exclusively with the divine within us and without (in which case we shall be saints), or finally with self at one moment or in one context and with spiritual not-self at other moments and in other contexts (in which case we shall be average citizens, too theocentric to be wholly lost, and too egocentric to achieve enlightenment and a total deliverance). Since human craving can never be satisfied except by the unitive knowledge of God and since the mind-body is capable of an enormous variety of experiences, we are free to identify ourselves with an almost infinite number of possible objectswith the pleasures of gluttony, for example, or intemperance, or sensuality; with money, power or fame; with our family, regarded as a possession or actually an extension and projection of our own selfness; with our goods and chattels, our hobbies, our collections; with our artistic or scientific talents; with some favourite branch of knowledge, some fascinating special subject; with our professions, our political parties, our churches; with our pains and illnesses; with our memories of success or misfortune, our hopes, fears and schemes for the future; and finally with the eternal Reality within which and by which all the rest has its being. And we are free, of course, to identify ourselves with more than one of these things simultaneously or in succession. Hence the quite astonishingly improbable combination of traits making up a complex personality. Thus a man can be at once the craftiest of politicians and the dupe of his own verbiage, can have a passion for brandy and money, and an equal passion for the poetry of George Meredith and under-age girls and his mother, for horse-racing and detective stories and the good of his country the whole accompanied by a sneaking fear of hell-fire, a hatred of Spinoza and an unblemished record for Sunday church-going. A person born with one kind of psycho-physical constitution will be tempted to identify himself with one set of interests and passions, while a person with another kind of temperament will be tempted to make very different identifications. But these temptations (though extremely powerful, if the constitutional bias is strongly marked) do not have to be succumbed to; people can and do resist them, can and do refuse to identify themselves with what it would be all too easy and natural for them to be; can and do become better and quite other than their own selves. In this context the following brief article on How Men Behave in Crisis (published in a recent issue of Harpers Magazine) is highly significant. A young psychiatrist, who went as a medical observer on five combat missions of the Eighth Air Force in England says that in times of great stress and danger men are likely to react quite uniformly, even though under normal circumstances, they differ widely in personality. He went on one mission, during which the B-17 plane and crew were so severely damaged that survival seemed impossible. He had already studied the on the ground personalities of the crew and had found that they represented a great diversity of human types. Of their behaviour in crisis he reported:
Their reactions were remarkably alike. During the violent combat and in the acute emergencies that arose during it, they were all quietly precise on the interphone and decisive in action. The tail gunner, right waist gunner and navigator were severely wounded early in the fight, but all three kept at their duties efficiently and without cessation. The burden of emergency work fell on the pilot, engineer and ball turret gunner, and all functioned with rapidity, skilful effectiveness and no lost motion. The burden of the decisions, during, but particularly after the combat, rested essentially on the pilot and, in secondary details, on the co-pilot and bombar ther. The decisions, arrived at with care and speed, were unquestioned once they were made, and proved excellent. In the period when disaster was momentarily expected, the alternative plans of action were made clearly and with no thought other than the safety of the entire crew. All at this point were quiet, unobtrusively cheerful and ready for anything. There was at no time paralysis, panic, unclear thinking, faulty or confused judgment, or self-seeking in any one of them.
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Paradoxical as it may seem, it is, for very many persons, much easier to behave selflessly in time of crisis than it is when life is taking its normal course in undisturbed tranquillity. When the going is easy, there is nothing to make us forget our precious selfness, nothing (except our own will to mortification and the knowledge of God) to distract our minds from the distractions with which we have chosen to be identified; we are at perfect liberty to wallow in our personality to our hearts content. And how we wallow! It is for this reason that all the masters of the spiritual life insist so strongly upon the importance of little things.
God requires a faithful fulfilment of the merest trifle given us to do, rather than the most ardent aspiration to things to which we are not called.
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1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
following footnote on p. 466: It would indeed be easy to concoct a sec-
tarian or totalitarian creed or cult from the teaching of Sri Aurobindo and
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1.03 - Reading, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
I think that having learned our letters we should read the best that is in literature, and not be forever repeating our a b abs, and words of one syllable, in the fourth or fifth classes, sitting on the lowest and foremost form all our lives. Most men are satisfied if they read or hear read, and perchance have been convicted by the wisdom of one good book, the Bible, and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their faculties in what is called easy reading. There is a work in several volumes in our Circulating Library entitled Little Reading, which I thought referred to a town of that name which I had not been to. There are those who, like cormorants and ostriches, can digest all sorts of this, even after the fullest dinner of meats and vegetables, for they suffer nothing to be wasted. If others are the machines to provide this provender, they are the machines to read it. They read the nine thousandth tale about Zebulon and Sephronia, and how they loved as none had ever loved before, and neither did the course of their true love run smooth,at any rate, how it did run and stumble, and get up again and go on! how some poor unfortunate got up on to a steeple, who had better never have gone up as far as the belfry; and then, having needlessly got him up there, the happy novelist rings the bell for all the world to come together and hear, O dear! how he did get down again!
For my part, I think that they had better metamorphose all such aspiring heroes of universal noveldom into man weathercocks, as they used to put heroes among the constellations, and let them swing round there till they are rusty, and not come down at all to bother honest men with their pranks. The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down. The Skip of the
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English books will find how many with whom he can converse about it? Or suppose he comes from reading a Greek or Latin classic in the original, whose praises are familiar even to the so called illiterate; he will find nobody at all to speak to, but must keep silence about it. Indeed, there is hardly the professor in our colleges, who, if he has mastered the difficulties of the language, has proportionally mastered the difficulties of the wit and poetry of a Greek poet, and has any sympathy to impart to the alert and heroic reader; and as for the sacred Scriptures, or Bibles of mankind, who in this town can tell me even their titles? Most men do not know that any nation but the Hebrews have had a scripture. A man, any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered, and whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us of;and yet we learn to read only as far as easy Reading, the primers and class-books, and when we leave school, the Little Reading, and story books, which are for boys and beginners; and our reading, our conversation and thinking, are all on a very low level, worthy only of pygmies and manikins.
I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this our Concord soil has produced, whose names are hardly known here. Or shall I hear the name of Plato and never read his book? As if Plato were my townsman and I never saw him,my next neighbor and I never heard him speak or attended to the wisdom of his words. But how actually is it? His Dialogues, which contain what was immortal in him, lie on the next shelf, and yet
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1.03 - Some Aspects of Modern Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
I must confess that I myself did not find it at all easy to bow my head
to Freuds innovations. I was a young doctor then, busying myself with
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