TERMS STARTING WITH
egocentricity: evident at the preoperational stage, whereby a young child is unable to take the perspective of another person. Piaget’s ‘three mountains’ experiment is a test of egocentricity, as children are unable to see how the ‘mountains’ would look to a child at a different location.
egocentric ::: The general level(s) where one is identified exclusively with “me,” or with the bodily self and its impulses. See ethnocentric, worldcentric, planetcentric, and Kosmocentric.
ego ::: “Ego is only a faculty put forward by the discriminative mind to centralise round itself the experiences of the sense-mind and to serve as a sort of lynch-pin in the wheel which keeps together the movement. It is no more than an instrument, although it is true that so long as we are limited by our normal mentality, we are compelled by the nature of that mentality and the purpose of the instrument to mistake our ego-function for our very self.” The Upanishads
egoical ::: a. --> Pertaining to egoism.
egoism ::: Either a descriptive theory that maintains all conscious acts ultimately concern promoting one's self-interest, or a normative theory that maintains one should pursue one's self-interest.
egoism ::: n. --> The doctrine of certain extreme adherents or disciples of Descartes and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, which finds all the elements of knowledge in the ego and the relations which it implies or provides for.
Excessive love and thought of self; the habit of regarding one&
egoistic ::: a. --> Alt. of Egoistical
egoistical ::: a. --> Pertaining to egoism; imbued with egoism or excessive thoughts of self; self-loving.
egoistically ::: adv. --> In an egoistic manner.
egoist ::: n. --> One given overmuch to egoism or thoughts of self.
A believer in egoism.
egoity ::: n. --> Personality.
ego: (Latin for ‘I’) in psychoanalysis, the part of personality that serves to mediate between id and superego, by directing instinctual drives and urges into appropriate channels.
ego ::: [Madhav: “Ego is the point of concentration that involves us in the rounds of life.” The Book of the Divine Mother]
egomism ::: n. --> Egoism.
ego ::: n. --> The conscious and permanent subject of all psychical experiences, whether held to be directly known or the product of reflective thought; -- opposed to non-ego.
egophonic ::: a. --> Belonging to, or resembling, egophony.
egophony ::: n. --> The sound of a patient&
egosurfing "jargon" Scanning the {web}, databases, print media or research papers looking for the mention of your name. (1997-04-17)
egosurfing ::: (jargon) Scanning the World-Wide Web, databases, print media or research papers looking for the mention of your name. (1997-04-17)
ego ::: the "I” or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought. **ego, ego"s, egos, egoless, world-egos.
egotheism ::: n. --> The deification of self.
ego ::: the separative sense of individuality which makes each being conceive of itself as an independent personality. Ego implies the identification of one's existence with the outer mental, vital and physical self.
egotism ::: n. --> The practice of too frequently using the word I; hence, a speaking or writing overmuch of one&
egotistic ::: a. --> Alt. of Egotistical
egotistical ::: a. --> Addicted to, or manifesting, egotism.
egotistically ::: adv. --> With egotism.
egotist ::: n. --> One addicted to egotism; one who speaks much of himself or magnifies his own achievements or affairs.
egotized ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Egotize
egotize ::: v. i. --> To talk or write as an egotist.
egotizing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Egotize
EGO. ::: A perverse reflection of the psychic or the Jivatma.
Ego ::: A sense of self-identity and presence that believes itself to be distinct and real. This is an illusion. Although self seems to exist even at the level of the Causal, when discussing self in terms of ego we generally are referring to dualistic self: that is self in the lower three of the Four Worlds.
Egocentric and unegoistic ::: The egocentric man feels and takes things as they affect him. Does this please me or displease, give me gladness or pain, flatter my pride, vanity, ambition or hurt it, satisfy my desires or thwart them, etc. The unegoistic man does not look at things like that. He looks to see what things arc in themselves and would be if he were not there, what is their meaniog, how tlicy get into the scheme of things
Egocentriclty ::: The main idea in it is always one’s own sadhana, one’s own endeavour, one’s own development, perfec- tion, siddhi. It is inevitable for most, for without that personal endeavour there would not be sufficient will or push to bring about the first necessary changes. But none of these things — development, perfection or siddhi — can really come in any degree of completeness or unmixed finality until this egocentric attitude changes into the God-centric, until it becomes the deve- lopment, perfection, siddhi of the Divine Consciousness, its will and its instrumentarion in this body — and that can only be when these things become secondary, and bhakti for the Divine,
Ego-centric Predicament: (Lat. ego, self, Gr. kentrikon, center) The epistemological predicament of a knowing mind which, confined to the circle of its own ideas, finds it difficult, if not impossible, to escape to a knowledge of an external world (cf. R. B. Perry, Present Philosophical Tendencies, pp. 129-30). Descartes is largely responsible for having confronted modern philosophy with the ego-centric predicament. See Cogito Argument, The. -- L.W.
Egocentric ::: The thinking in the preoperational stage of cognitive development where children believe everyone sees the world fro the same perspective as he or she does.
Ego Death ::: An experience, usually entheogenically-generated, that disintegrates the usual ego associated with mundane consciousness and that challenges definitions of self. This experience can include glimpses into Causal consciousness that are usually difficult to integrate or understand as well as intense fears and feelings of self-destruction as the "self" approaches the Abyss.
Ego Defense Mechanisms ::: See Defenses
Ego ::: Ego is only a faculty put forward by the discriminative mind to centralise round itself the experiences of the sense-mind and to serve as a sort of lynchpin in the wheel which keeps together the movement. It is no more than an instrument, although it is true that so long as we are limited by our normal mentality, we are compelled by the nature of that mentality and the purpose of the instrument to mistake our ego-function for our very self.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 18, Page: 25
Ego, Empirical: (Lat. ego, self) The individual self, conceived as a series of conscious acts and contents which the mind is capable of cognizing by direct introspection. See Bundle Theory of Self. -- L.W.
Ego Ideal ::: In psychoanalytic thought, this is the ideal or desired behavior of the ego according to the superego.
Ego ::: In Psychoanalytical theory, the part of the personality which maintains a balance between our impulses (id) and our conscience (superego).
Ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising and indivi- dualising the outer consciousness and action. When the true being is discovered, the utility of tbe ego is over and this forma- tion has to disappear — the true being is felt in its place.
Egoism, Ethical: The view that each individual should seek as an end only his own welfare. This principle is sometimes advanced as a separate intuition, sometimes on the ground that an individual's own welfare is the only thing that is ultimately valuable (for him). -- C.A.B Egoism, Psychological: The doctrine that the determining, though perhaps concealed, motive of every voluntary action is a desire for one's own welfare. Often combined with Psychological Hedonism. -- C.A.B.
Egoity I-am-I-ness, ahamkara; human egoity is dual, but egoity really should mean individuality, not personality. The characteristic or swabhava of individuality is egoity or the essential root of I-am-I-ness, while the characteristic or swabhava of the personality is egoism, the faint shadow of egoity drunken with the sense of its own exclusive importance in the world. Further, both egoity and egoism are sharply distinguished from essential selfhood; paradoxically, the stronger the idea of essential selfhood in the human being, the less is there of egoity, and the least there is of egoism, for even egoity is a reflection, albeit high, of spiritual selfhood, which recognizes its oneness with the All. Thus ego is defined as I-am-I, consciousness recognizing its own mayavi existence as a separate entity, hence often called reflected consciousness. Essential selfhood is the characteristic of atman in the human constitution; egoity arises in the conjunction of atma-buddhi with manas; whereas personality or egoism is the faint reflection of the latter working in and through the lower manas, kama, and prana.
Egoity: In occult terminology, a synonym of individuality (q.v.).
Ego(Latin) ::: A word meaning "I." In theosophical writings the ego is that which says "I am I" -- indirect orreflected consciousness, consciousness reflected back upon itself as it were, and thus recognizing its ownmayavi existence as a "separate" entity. On this fact is based the one genuine "heresy" that occultismrecognizes: the heresy of separateness.The seat of the human ego is the intermediate duad -- manas-kama: part aspiring upwards, which is thereincarnating ego; and part attracted below, which is the ordinary or astral human ego. The consciousnessis immortal in the reincarnating ego, and temporary or mortal in the lower or astral human ego.Consider the hierarchy of the human being's constitution to grow from the immanent Self: this last is theseed of egoity on the seven (or perhaps better, six) planes of matter or manifestation. On each one ofthese seven planes (or six), the immanent Self or paramatman develops or evolves a sheath or garment,the upper ones spun of spirit, and the lower ones spun of "shadow" or matter. Now each such sheath orgarment is a "soul"; and between the self and such a soul -- any soul -- is the ego.Thus atman is the divine monad, giving birth to the divine ego, which latter evolves forth the monadicenvelope or divine soul; jivatman, the spiritual monad, has its child which is the spiritual ego, which inturn evolves forth the spiritual soul or individual; and the combination of these three considered as a unitis buddhi; bhutatman, the human ego -- the higher human soul, including the lower buddhi and highermanas; pranatman, the personal ego -- the lower human soul, or man. It includes manas, kama, andprana; and finally the beast ego -- the vital-astral soul: kama and prana.
Ego (Latin) The personal pronoun “I”; in philosophy and theosophy, the ego is the center of ‘I-am-ship’ or egoity in the human being. There are two such centers: the spiritual and impersonal, commonly called the individuality; and the personal, often called the soul or the personality. The former ego is unconditionally immortal, the latter ego is conditionally immortal, but in most cases mortal because of its lack of binding aspirations with its higher Over-self, the individuality.
Egological: (Ger. egologisch) In Husserl; Of or pertaining to the ego or to egology. Egological reduction phenomenological reduction as involving epoche with respect to one's own explicit and implicit positing of concrete egos other than one's own and therefore with respect to one's positing of one's own ego as one among others. See Phenomenology. -- B.C.
Ego, Pure: The self conceived as a non-empirical principle, ordinarily inaccessible to direct introspection, but inferred from introspective evidence. See Ego, empirical. The principal theories of the pure ego are: (a) the soul theory which regards the pure ego as a permanent, spiritual substance underlying the fleeting succession of conscious experience, and (b) the transcendental theory of Kant which considers the self an inscrutable subject presupposed by the unity of empirical self-consciousness. -- L.W.
Egoroi [Grigori]
Ego
Ego: The consciousness of being oneself. According to the teachings of esoteric philosophy, two Egos co-exist in man: the mortal, personal Ego which it calls personality, and the divine, impersonal Ego which it designates as individuality.
EGO—The "I" which thinks, feels and acts; the conscious individual or the thinking self as distinguished from all objects of thought and from its own states or powers; the pure principle of personal identity.
Ego, Transcendental: See Ego, Pure. -- L.W.
TERMS ANYWHERE
aegophony ::: n. --> Same as Egophony.
abhimana. :::egoism; conceit; attachment;
ABHIMĀN ::: Anyone who indulges in abhimān puts himself under the influence of the hostile forces. Abhimān has nothing to do with true love; it is, like jealousy, a part of the vital egoism.
ACTION. ::: If a man is spiritual and has gone beyond the vital and mind, he does not need to be always “doing” something. The self or spirit has the joy of its own existence. It is free to do nothing and free to do everything - but not because it is bound to action and unable to exist without it.
To be able to work with full energy is necessary, but to be able not to work is also necessary.
Action in sādhanā ::: The feeling that all one does is from the Divine, that all action is the Mother’s is a necessary step in experience but one cannot remain in it ; one has to go further. Those can remain in it who do not want to change the nature, but only to have the experience of the Truth behind it. Your action is according to universal Nature and in that again it is according to your individual nature, and all Nature is a force put out by the Divine Mother for the action of the universe. But as things are it is an action of the Ignorance and the ego; while what we want is an action of the divine Truth unveiled and undeformed by the Ignorance and the ego.
The aim of the sadhana is to become a conscious and perfect instrument instead of one that is unconscious and therefore imperfect. One can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when one is no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature but in surrender to the Mother and aware of her higher Force acting within oneself.
Action of the gimas in yogat K ego and desire arc diffe- rent things from the gunas, then there can be an action of the gitnas without ego and desire and therefore without attachnienf.
adansonia ::: n. --> A genus of great trees related to the Bombax. There are two species, A. digitata, the baobab or monkey-bread of Africa and India, and A. Gregorii, the sour gourd or cream-of-tartar tree of Australia. Both have a trunk of moderate height, but of enormous diameter, and a wide-spreading head. The fruit is oblong, and filled with pleasantly acid pulp. The wood is very soft, and the bark is used by the natives for making ropes and cloth.
"A divine Force is at work and will choose at each moment what has to be done or has not to be done, what has to be momentarily or permanently taken up, momentarily or permanently abandoned. For provided we do not substitute for that our desire or our ego, and to that end the soul must be always awake, always on guard, alive to the divine guidance, resistant to the undivine misleading from within or without us, that Force is sufficient and alone competent and she will lead us to the fulfilment along ways and by means too large, too inward, too complex for the mind to follow, much less to dictate. It is an arduous and difficult and dangerous way, but there is none other.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“A divine Force is at work and will choose at each moment what has to be done or has not to be done, what has to be momentarily or permanently taken up, momentarily or permanently abandoned. For provided we do not substitute for that our desire or our ego, and to that end the soul must be always awake, always on guard, alive to the divine guidance, resistant to the undivine misleading from within or without us, that Force is sufficient and alone competent and she will lead us to the fulfilment along ways and by means too large, too inward, too complex for the mind to follow, much less to dictate. It is an arduous and difficult and dangerous way, but there is none other.” The Synthesis of Yoga
adlegation ::: n. --> A right formerly claimed by the states of the German Empire of joining their own ministers with those of the emperor in public treaties and negotiations to the common interest of the empire.
aforegoing ::: a. --> Going before; foregoing.
aham-buddhi ::: ego-idea.
AHAMKARA. ::: Ego; ego-idea; egoism; the separative egosense; the divisional principle of ego-formation.
rājasika ahamkāra ::: dynamic egoism.
sāllvika ahamkāra ::: egoism as expressed in the sense of goodness and virtue.
tāmasika ahamkāra ::: egoism as expressed in ignorance and inertia.
aham vritti. ::: the "I"-thought; the limited feeling of "I"-ness or "I am"-ness &
". . . a limited consciousness growing out of nescience is the source of error, a personal attachment to the limitation and the error born of it the source of falsity, a wrong consciousness governed by the life-ego the source of evil. But it is evident that their relative existence is only a phenomenon thrown up by the cosmic Force in its drive towards evolutionary self-expression.” The Life Divine
“… a limited consciousness growing out of nescience is the source of error, a personal attachment to the limitation and the error born of it the source of falsity, a wrong consciousness governed by the life-ego the source of evil. But it is evident that their relative existence is only a phenomenon thrown up by the cosmic Force in its drive towards evolutionary self-expression.” The Life Divine
allegoric ::: a. --> Alt. of Allegorical
allegorical ::: a. --> Belonging to, or consisting of, allegory; of the nature of an allegory; describing by resemblances; figurative.
allegories ::: pl. --> of Allegory
allegorist ::: n. --> One who allegorizes; a writer of allegory.
allegorization ::: n. --> The act of turning into allegory, or of understanding in an allegorical sense.
allegorized ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Allegorize
allegorizer ::: n. --> One who allegorizes, or turns things into allegory; an allegorist.
allegorize ::: v. t. --> To form or turn into allegory; as, to allegorize the history of a people.
To treat as allegorical; to understand in an allegorical sense; as, when a passage in a writer may understood literally or figuratively, he who gives it a figurative sense is said to allegorize it.
To use allegory.
allegorizing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Allegorize
allegory ::: n. --> A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances. The real subject is thus kept out of view, and we are left to collect the intentions of the writer or speaker by the resemblance of the secondary to the primary subject.
Anything which represents by suggestive resemblance; an emblem.
A figure representation which has a meaning beyond notion
"All disease is a means towards some new joy of health, all evil & pain a tuning of Nature for some more intense bliss & good, all death an opening on widest immortality. Why and how this should be so, is God"s secret which only the soul purified of egoism can penetrate.” Essays Divine and Human
“All disease is a means towards some new joy of health, all evil & pain a tuning of Nature for some more intense bliss & good, all death an opening on widest immortality. Why and how this should be so, is God’s secret which only the soul purified of egoism can penetrate.” Essays Divine and Human
altruism ::: n. --> Regard for others, both natural and moral; devotion to the interests of others; brotherly kindness; -- opposed to egoism or selfishness.
altruism ::: the principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others (opposed to egoism ).
altruistic ::: a. --> Regardful of others; beneficent; unselfish; -- opposed to egoistic or selfish.
altruist ::: n. --> One imbued with altruism; -- opposed to egoist.
Amal: “This must be sat-chit-ananda - Being, Consciousness and Bliss. Here the threefold reality seems subsumed under one category doing duty for the three.
anagoge ::: n. --> An elevation of mind to things celestial.
The spiritual meaning or application; esp. the application of the types and allegories of the Old Testament to subjects of the New.
Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divines! Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe. But human nature bounded, egoistic and obscure is inapt to receive these great Presences or to support their mighty action. Only when the Four have founded their harmony and freedom of movement in the transformed mind and life and body, can those other rarer Powers manifest in the earth move- ment and the supramental action become possible.
::: "An executive cosmic force shapes us and dictates through our temperament and environment and mentality so shaped, through our individualised formulation of the cosmic energies, our actions and their results. Truly, we do not think, will or act but thought occurs in us, will occurs in us, impulse and act occur in us; our ego-sense gathers around itself, refers to itself all this flow of natural activities. It is cosmic Force, it is Nature that forms the thought, imposes the will, imparts the impulse. Our body, mind and ego are a wave of that sea of force in action and do not govern it, but by it are governed and directed.” The Synthesis of Yoga —**cosmic forces.**
“An executive cosmic force shapes us and dictates through our temperament and environment and mentality so shaped, through our individualised formulation of the cosmic energies, our actions and their results. Truly, we do not think, will or act but thought occurs in us, will occurs in us, impulse and act occur in us; our ego-sense gathers around itself, refers to itself all this flow of natural activities. It is cosmic Force, it is Nature that forms the thought, imposes the will, imparts the impulse. Our body, mind and ego are a wave of that sea of force in action and do not govern it, but by it are governed and directed.” The Synthesis of Yoga
another ::: adj. 1. Being one more or more of the same; further; additional. 2. Very similar to; of the same kind or category as. 3. Different; distinct; of a different period, place, or kind. pron. **4. A person other than oneself or the one specified. 5. One more; an additional one. another"s**.
antepredicament ::: n. --> A prerequisite to a clear understanding of the predicaments and categories, such as definitions of common terms.
antilegomena ::: n. pl. --> Certain books of the New Testament which were for a time not universally received, but which are now considered canonical. These are the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles of James and Jude, the second Epistle of Peter, the second and third Epistles of John, and the Revelation. The undisputed books are called the Homologoumena.
A person, such as a priestess, through whom a deity is held to respond when consulted. 2. The response given through such a medium, often in the form of an enigmatic statement or allegory. 3. A command or revelation from God. oracles.
Apsaras ::: Sri Aurobindo: “The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
apsaras ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
Apsaras ::: “The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
archegonial ::: a. --> Relating to the archegonium.
archegonium ::: n. --> The pistillidium or female organ in the higher cryptogamic plants, corresponding to the pistil in flowering plants.
archegony ::: n. --> Spontaneous generation; abiogenesis.
aroint ::: interj. --> Stand off, or begone. ::: v. t. --> To drive or scare off by some exclamation.
asamprajnata samadhi. ::: highest superconscious state where the mind and the ego-sense are completely annihilated
asinego ::: n. --> Alt. of Assinego
"As long as we live in the ignorant seeming, we are the ego and are subject to the modes of Nature. Enslaved to appearances, bound to the dualities, tossed between good and evil, sin and virtue, grief and joy, pain and pleasure, good fortune and ill fortune, success and failure, we follow helplessly the iron or gilt and iron round of the wheel of Maya.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
“As long as we live in the ignorant seeming, we are the ego and are subject to the modes of Nature. Enslaved to appearances, bound to the dualities, tossed between good and evil, sin and virtue, grief and joy, pain and pleasure, good fortune and ill fortune, success and failure, we follow helplessly the iron or gilt and iron round of the wheel of Maya.” The Synthesis of Yoga
assinego ::: n. --> A stupid fellow.
See Asinego.
assumption ::: n. --> The act of assuming, or taking to or upon one&
Asura and are most generally misheld and misused by those who retain them. The seekers or keepers of wealth are more often possessed rather than its possessors ; few escape entirely a certain distorting influence stamped on it by its long seizure and perversion by the Asura. For this reason most spiritual disciplines insist on a complete self-control, detachment and renunciation of all bondage to wealth and of all personal and egoistic desire for its possession. Some even put a ban on money and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness of life as the only spiritual condition. But this is an error ; it leaves the power in the hands of the hostile forces. To reconquer it for the Divine to whom it belongs 'and use it divinely for the divine life is the supramental way for the sadhaka.
ASURA. ::: Titan; a being of ignorant egoism as opposed to the Deva or god, who is a being of Light; sons of Darkness and Division.
Asuras are really the dark side of the mental, or more strictly, of the vital mind plane. This mind is the very field of the Asuras. Their main characteristic is egoistic strength and struggle, which refuse the higher law. The Asura has self-control, tapas, and intelligence, but all that for the sake of his ego.
There are no Asuras on the higher planes where the Truth prevails, except in the Vedic sense -“ the Divine in its strength “. The mental and vital Asuras are only a deviation of that power.
There are two kinds of Asuras - one kind were divine in their origin but have fallen from their divinity by self-will and opposition to the intention of the Divine; they are spoken in the Hindu scriptures as the former or earlier gods; these can be converted and their conversion is indeed necessary for the ultimate purpose of the universe. But the ordinary Asura is not of this character, is not an evolutionary but a typal being and represents a fixed principle of the creation which does not evolve or change and is not intended to do so. These Asuras, as also the other hostile beings, Rakshasas, Pishachas and others resemble the devils of the Christian tradition and oppose the divine intention and the evolutionary purpose in the human being; they don’t change the purpose in them for which they exist which is evil, but have to be destroyed like the evil. The Asura has no soul, no psychic being which has to evolve to a higher state; he has only an ego and usually a very powerful ego; he has a mind, sometimes even a highly intellectual mind; but the basis of his thinking and feeling is vital and not mental, at the service of his desire and not truth. He is a formation assumed by the life-principle for a particular kind of work and not a divine formation or soul.
Some kinds of Asuras are very religious, very fanatical about their religion, very strict about rules of ethical conduct. There are others who use spiritual ideas without believing in them to give them a perverted twist and delude the sadhaka.
"A third step is to find out that there is something in him other than his instrumental mind, life and body, not only an immortal ever-developing individual soul that supports his nature but an eternal immutable self and spirit, and to learn what are the categories of his spiritual being, until he discovers that all in him is an expression of the spirit and distinguishes the link between his lower and his higher existence; thus he sets out to remove his constitutional self-ignorance. Discovering self and spirit he discovers God; he finds out that there is a Self beyond the temporal: he comes to the vision of that Self in the cosmic consciousness as the divine Reality behind Nature and this world of beings; his mind opens to the thought or the sense of the Absolute of whom self and the individual and the cosmos are so many faces; the cosmic, the egoistic, the original ignorance begin to lose the rigidness of their hold upon him.” The Life Divine
“A third step is to find out that there is something in him other than his instrumental mind, life and body, not only an immortal ever-developing individual soul that supports his nature but an eternal immutable self and spirit, and to learn what are the categories of his spiritual being, until he discovers that all in him is an expression of the spirit and distinguishes the link between his lower and his higher existence; thus he sets out to remove his constitutional self-ignorance. Discovering self and spirit he discovers God; he finds out that there is a Self beyond the temporal: he comes to the vision of that Self in the cosmic consciousness as the divine Reality behind Nature and this world of beings; his mind opens to the thought or the sense of the Absolute of whom self and the individual and the cosmos are so many faces; the cosmic, the egoistic, the original ignorance begin to lose the rigidness of their hold upon him.” The Life Divine
ATMAN. ::: The Ātman is the Self or Spirit that remains above, pure and stainless, unaffected by the stains of life, by desire and ego and ignorance. It is realised as the true being of the individual, but also more widely as the same being in all and as the Self in the cosmos; it his also a self-existence above the individual and cosmos and it is then called the Paramatma, the supreme Divine Being.
* attachment must draw away altogether from the object of its love. The vital can be as absolute in its unquestioning self-giving as any other part or the nature ; nothing can be more generous than its movement when it forgets self for the Beloved. The vital and physical should both give themselves in the true way — the way of true love, not of ego-desire.
autophoby ::: n. --> Fear of one&
avadhut&
avaunt ::: interj. --> Begone; depart; -- a word of contempt or abhorrence, equivalent to the phrase "Get thee gone." ::: v. t. & i. --> To advance; to move forward; to elevate.
To depart; to move away.
To vaunt; to boast.
away ::: adv. --> From a place; hence.
Absent; gone; at a distance; as, the master is away from home.
Aside; off; in another direction.
From a state or condition of being; out of existence.
By ellipsis of the verb, equivalent to an imperative: Go or come away; begone; take away.
On; in continuance; without intermission or delay; as, sing
bank bill ::: --> In America (and formerly in England), a promissory note of a bank payable to the bearer on demand, and used as currency; a bank note.
In England, a note, or a bill of exchange, of a bank, payable to order, and usually at some future specified time. Such bills are negotiable, but form, in the strict sense of the term, no part of the currency.
bastard ::: n. --> A "natural" child; a child begotten and born out of wedlock; an illegitimate child; one born of an illicit union.
An inferior quality of soft brown sugar, obtained from the sirups that / already had several boilings.
A large size of mold, in which sugar is drained.
A sweet Spanish wine like muscadel in flavor.
A writing paper of a particular size. See Paper.
Lacking in genuineness; spurious; false; adulterate; --
begodded ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Begod
begod ::: v. t. --> To exalt to the dignity of a god; to deify.
begone ::: interj. --> Go away; depart; get you gone. ::: p. p. --> Surrounded; furnished; beset; environed (as in woe-begone).
begonia ::: n. --> A genus of plants, mostly of tropical America, many species of which are grown as ornamental plants. The leaves are curiously one-sided, and often exhibit brilliant colors.
begore ::: v. t. --> To besmear with gore.
begot ::: imp. --> of Beget ::: p. p. --> of Beget :::
begot ::: pt. of beget. 1. Caused to exist or occur; created. 2. Called into being, gave rise to; produced. begotten.
begotten ::: --> of Beget
p. p. of Beget.
ego ::: “Ego is only a faculty put forward by the discriminative mind to centralise round itself the experiences of the sense-mind and to serve as a sort of lynch-pin in the wheel which keeps together the movement. It is no more than an instrument, although it is true that so long as we are limited by our normal mentality, we are compelled by the nature of that mentality and the purpose of the instrument to mistake our ego-function for our very self.” The Upanishads
egoical ::: a. --> Pertaining to egoism.
egoism ::: n. --> The doctrine of certain extreme adherents or disciples of Descartes and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, which finds all the elements of knowledge in the ego and the relations which it implies or provides for.
Excessive love and thought of self; the habit of regarding one&
egoistic ::: a. --> Alt. of Egoistical
egoistical ::: a. --> Pertaining to egoism; imbued with egoism or excessive thoughts of self; self-loving.
egoistically ::: adv. --> In an egoistic manner.
egoist ::: n. --> One given overmuch to egoism or thoughts of self.
A believer in egoism.
egoity ::: n. --> Personality.
ego ::: [Madhav: “Ego is the point of concentration that involves us in the rounds of life.” The Book of the Divine Mother]
egomism ::: n. --> Egoism.
ego ::: n. --> The conscious and permanent subject of all psychical experiences, whether held to be directly known or the product of reflective thought; -- opposed to non-ego.
egophonic ::: a. --> Belonging to, or resembling, egophony.
egophony ::: n. --> The sound of a patient&
ego ::: the "I” or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought. **ego, ego"s, egos, egoless, world-egos.
egotheism ::: n. --> The deification of self.
ego ::: the separative sense of individuality which makes each being conceive of itself as an independent personality. Ego implies the identification of one's existence with the outer mental, vital and physical self.
egotism ::: n. --> The practice of too frequently using the word I; hence, a speaking or writing overmuch of one&
egotistic ::: a. --> Alt. of Egotistical
egotistical ::: a. --> Addicted to, or manifesting, egotism.
egotistically ::: adv. --> With egotism.
egotist ::: n. --> One addicted to egotism; one who speaks much of himself or magnifies his own achievements or affairs.
egotized ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Egotize
egotize ::: v. i. --> To talk or write as an egotist.
egotizing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Egotize
beings ::: things or entities that exist, esp. things or entities that cannot be assigned to any category.
Belphegor ::: Amal: “This name of a star brought in by Sri Aurobindo with powerful effect has practically no place in popular astronomy and figured rarely in past literary usage. In Syrian theology, Belphegor was a deity who symbolised the Sun. The Israelites also paid homage to him sometimes.” Sri Aurobindo—The Poet
bhava samadhi. ::: superconscious state attained by devotees through intense divine emotion in which the devotee retains his ego and enjoys communion with the Self
bill broker ::: --> One who negotiates the discount of bills.
blacktail ::: n. --> A fish; the ruff or pope.
The black-tailed deer (Cervus / Cariacus Columbianus) of California and Oregon; also, the mule deer of the Rocky Mountains. See Mule deer.
bluegown ::: n. --> One of a class of paupers or pensioners, or licensed beggars, in Scotland, to whim annually on the king&
bluefin ::: n. --> A species of whitefish (Coregonus nigripinnis) found in Lake Michigan.
branchiostegous ::: a. --> Branchiostegal.
broker ::: v. t. --> One who transacts business for another; an agent.
An agent employed to effect bargains and contracts, as a middleman or negotiator, between other persons, for a compensation commonly called brokerage. He takes no possession, as broker, of the subject matter of the negotiation. He generally contracts in the names of those who employ him, and not in his own.
A dealer in money, notes, bills of exchange, etc.
A dealer in secondhand goods.
bull trout ::: --> In England, a large salmon trout of several species, as Salmo trutta and S. Cambricus, which ascend rivers; -- called also sea trout.
Salvelinus malma of California and Oregon; -- called also Dolly Varden trout and red-spotted trout.
The huso or salmon of the Danube.
"But the Titan will have nothing of all this; it is too great and subtle for his comprehension. His instincts call for a visible, tangible mastery and a sensational domination. How shall he feel sure of his empire unless he can feel something writhing helpless under his heel, — if in agony, so much the better? What is exploitation to him, unless it diminishes the exploited? To be able to coerce, exact, slay, overtly, irresistibly, — it is this that fills him with the sense of glory and dominion. For he is the son of division and the strong flowering of the Ego. To feel the comparative limitation of others is necessary to him that he may imagine himself immeasurable; for he has not the real, self-existent sense of infinity which no outward circumstance can abrogate. Contrast, division, negation of the wills and lives of others are essential to his self-development and self-assertion. The Titan would unify by devouring, not by harmonising; he must conquer and trample what is not himself either out of existence or into subservience so that his own image may stand out stamped upon all things and dominating all his environment.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"By Force I mean not mental or vital energy but the Divine Force from above — as peace comes from above and wideness also, so does this Force (Shakti). Nothing, not even thinking or meditating can be done without some action of Force. The Force I speak of is a Force for illumination, transformation, purification, all that has to be done in the yoga, for removal of hostile forces and the wrong movements — it is also of course for external work, whether great or small in appearance does not matter — if that is part of the Divine Will. I do not mean any personal force egoistic or rajasic.” Letters on Yoga
“By Force I mean not mental or vital energy but the Divine Force from above—as peace comes from above and wideness also, so does this Force (Shakti). Nothing, not even thinking or meditating can be done without some action of Force. The Force I speak of is a Force for illumination, transformation, purification, all that has to be done in the yoga, for removal of hostile forces and the wrong movements—it is also of course for external work, whether great or small in appearance does not matter—if that is part of the Divine Will. I do not mean any personal force egoistic or rajasic.” Letters on Yoga
By negative I mean merely repressing the desires and wrong movements and egoism ; by positive I mean the bring-
categorematic ::: a. --> Capable of being employed by itself as a term; -- said of a word.
categorical ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a category.
Not hypothetical or relative; admitting no conditions or exceptions; declarative; absolute; positive; express; as, a categorical proposition, or answer.
categorically ::: adv. --> Absolutely; directly; expressly; positively; as, to affirm categorically.
categoricalness ::: n. --> The quality of being categorical, positive, or absolute.
categories ::: pl. --> of Category
categorist ::: n. --> One who inserts in a category or list; one who classifies.
categorize ::: v. t. --> To insert in a category or list; to class; to catalogue.
category ::: n. --> One of the highest classes to which the objects of knowledge or thought can be reduced, and by which they can be arranged in a system; an ultimate or undecomposable conception; a predicament.
Class; also, state, condition, or predicament; as, we are both in the same category.
CENT, There is no connection between the Christian concep- tion (of the Kingdom of Heaven) and the idea of the Supra- mental descent. The Christian conception supposes a state of things brought about by religious emotion' and d'mdral'purifica- tion but ' these things are no more"capable of changing the world, 'whatever value they may base for the individual, than mental idealism or any bther power yet called upon for the pur- pose] The Christian proposes to substitute the sattsic religious ego for the rajasic and tamasic cgo| but although this can be donc-as an individual achievement, it has never succeeded and win never succeed in • accomplishing itself in the mass. It has no higher spiritual or psjchological knowledge behind it and ignores the' foundation -of htimao character and the source of the difBculty — the duality 6f mind, ‘life and body. Unless there is a descent of a new Power of Consdousness, not subject to the dualities but still dynamic which will preside a new foundation and a lifting of the centre of consciousness above the mind, the
chaffer ::: n. --> One who chaffs.
Bargaining; merchandise.
To treat or dispute about a purchase; to bargain; to haggle or higgle; to negotiate.
To talk much and idly; to chatter. ::: v. t.
chegoe ::: n. --> Alt. of Chegre
chidabhasa. ::: the false appearance or reflection of consciousness; the ego; the
chidakash ::: &
chit jada granthi. ::: the ego-knot between the Self, which is pure consciousness, and the physical body, which is inert and insentient; also refers to bondage, individual self, subtle-body, samsara and mind
church modes ::: --> The modes or scales used in ancient church music. See Gregorian.
cisco ::: n. --> The Lake herring (Coregonus Artedi), valuable food fish of the Great Lakes of North America. The name is also applied to C. Hoyi, a related species of Lake Michigan.
COD-CENTRIC, vide Ego-ccotricity.
colegoose ::: n. --> See Coalgoose.
Complete surrender means to cut the knot of the ego in each part of the being and offer it, free and whole, to the Divine.
conceitedly ::: adv. --> In an egotistical manner.
Fancifully; whimsically.
conceive ::: 1. To form or hold an idea. 2. To begin, originate, or found (something) in a particular way (usually used in the passive). 3. To apprehend mentally; understand. 4. To be created or formed in the womb; to be engendered; begotten. conceives, conceived, self-conceived.
conditioD, without reservation so that all in you shall belong to the Divine Mother and nothing be left to the ego or given to any other power.
Conditions lor equality ::: Complete samata takes long to establish and it is dependent on three things ::: the soul’s self- giving to the Divine by an inner surrender, the descent of the spiritual calm and peace from above and the steady, long and persistent rejection of all egoistic, rajasic and other feelings that contradict samata.
cosmic consciousness ::: the consciousness of the universe, of the cosmic spirit and cosmic Nature, with all the beings and forces within it. In the cosmic consciousness the limits of the ego, personal mind and body disappear and one becomes aware of a cosmic vastness which is or is filled by a cosmic spirit and aware also of the direct play of cosmic forces.
cosmic mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes, — towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” *The Life Divine
"If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, — not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
"There is one cosmic Mind, one cosmic Life, one cosmic Body. All the attempt of man to arrive at universal sympathy, universal love and the understanding and knowledge of the inner soul of other existences is an attempt to beat thin, breach and eventually break down by the power of the enlarging mind and heart the walls of the ego and arrive nearer to a cosmic oneness.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"[The results of the opening to the cosmic Mind:] One is aware of the cosmic Mind and the mental forces that move there and how they work on one"s mind and that of others and one is able to deal with one"s own mind with a greater knowledge and effective power. There are many other results, but this is the fundamental one.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness has many levels — the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga*
cowish ::: v. t. --> Timorous; fearful; cowardly. ::: n. --> An umbelliferous plant (Peucedanum Cous) with edible tuberous roots, found in Oregon.
create ::: a. --> Created; composed; begotten. ::: v. t. --> To bring into being; to form out of nothing; to cause to exist.
To effect by the agency, and under the laws, of causation; to be the occasion of; to cause; to produce; to form or
decretal ::: a. --> Appertaining to a decree; containing a decree; as, a decretal epistle.
An authoritative order or decree; especially, a letter of the pope, determining some point or question in ecclesiastical law. The decretals form the second part of the canon law.
The collection of ecclesiastical decrees and decisions made, by order of Gregory IX., in 1234, by St. Raymond of Pennafort.
Defects of others ::: it is the petty ego in each that likes to discover and talk about the defects of others. The ego has no right to judge them, because it has not the right view or the
denomination ::: n. --> The act of naming or designating.
That by which anything is denominated or styled; an epithet; a name, designation, or title; especially, a general name indicating a class of like individuals; a category; as, the denomination of units, or of thousands, or of fourths, or of shillings, or of tons.
A class, or society of individuals, called by the same name; a sect; as, a denomination of Christians.
::: ". . . desire, wrath and greed, the three powers of the rajasic ego, and these are the threefold doors of Hell. . . .” Essays on the Gita
“… desire, wrath and greed, the three powers of the rajasic ego, and these are the threefold doors of Hell….” Essays on the Gita
dicker ::: n. --> The number or quantity of ten, particularly ten hides or skins; a dakir; as, a dicker of gloves.
A chaffering, barter, or exchange, of small wares; as, to make a dicker. ::: v. i. & t. --> To negotiate a dicker; to barter.
diplomacy ::: n. --> The art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations (particularly in securing treaties), including the methods and forms usually employed.
Dexterity or skill in securing advantages; tact.
The body of ministers or envoys resident at a court; the diplomatic body.
diplomat ::: one who is tactful and skilful in negotiating and managing delicate situations, handling people, etc. diplomatic.
Divine Love ; There is a divine love that is personal, but it is not like the ordinary personal human love dependent on any return from the person — it is personal but not egoistic ; it goes from the real being in the one to the real being in the other.
divine Reality ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Divine Reality is infinite in its being; in this infinite being, we find limited being everywhere, — that is the apparent fact from which our existence here seems to start and to which our own narrow ego and its ego-centric activities bear constant witness. But, in reality, when we come to an integral self-knowledge, we find that we are not limited, for we also are infinite.” *The Life Divine
Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jlva in the lower nature.
Efface the stamp of ego from the heart and let the love of the
EGO. ::: A perverse reflection of the psychic or the Jivatma.
Egocentric and unegoistic ::: The egocentric man feels and takes things as they affect him. Does this please me or displease, give me gladness or pain, flatter my pride, vanity, ambition or hurt it, satisfy my desires or thwart them, etc. The unegoistic man does not look at things like that. He looks to see what things arc in themselves and would be if he were not there, what is their meaniog, how tlicy get into the scheme of things
Egocentriclty ::: The main idea in it is always one’s own sadhana, one’s own endeavour, one’s own development, perfec- tion, siddhi. It is inevitable for most, for without that personal endeavour there would not be sufficient will or push to bring about the first necessary changes. But none of these things — development, perfection or siddhi — can really come in any degree of completeness or unmixed finality until this egocentric attitude changes into the God-centric, until it becomes the deve- lopment, perfection, siddhi of the Divine Consciousness, its will and its instrumentarion in this body — and that can only be when these things become secondary, and bhakti for the Divine,
"Ego is a very curious thing and in nothing more than in its way of hiding itself and pretending it is not the ego.” Letters on Yoga*
“Ego is a very curious thing and in nothing more than in its way of hiding itself and pretending it is not the ego.” Letters on Yoga
Ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising and indivi- dualising the outer consciousness and action. When the true being is discovered, the utility of tbe ego is over and this forma- tion has to disappear — the true being is felt in its place.
Ego
envoy ::: n. --> One dispatched upon an errand or mission; a messenger; esp., a person deputed by a sovereign or a government to negotiate a treaty, or transact other business, with a foreign sovereign or government; a minister accredited to a foreign government. An envoy&
". . . equality is the sign of unity with the Brahman, of becoming Brahman, of growing into an undisturbed spiritual poise of being in the Infinite. Its importance can hardly be exaggerated; for it is the sign of our having passed beyond the egoistic determinations of our nature, of our having conquered our enslaved response to the dualities, of our having transcended the shifting turmoil of the gunas, of our having entered into the calm and peace of liberation. Equality is a term of consciousness which brings into the whole of our being and nature the eternal tranquillity of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“… equality is the sign of unity with the Brahman, of becoming Brahman, of growing into an undisturbed spiritual poise of being in the Infinite. Its importance can hardly be exaggerated; for it is the sign of our having passed beyond the egoistic determinations of our nature, of our having conquered our enslaved response to the dualities, of our having transcended the shifting turmoil of the gunas, of our having entered into the calm and peace of liberation. Equality is a term of consciousness which brings into the whole of our being and nature the eternal tranquillity of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Every action of man is full of ego — the good ones as well as the bad, his humility as much as his pride, his virtues as much as his vices.
“Every man is knowingly or unknowingly the instrument of a universal Power and, apart from the inner Presence, there is no such essential difference between one action and another, one kind of instrumentation and another as would warrant the folly of an egoistic pride. The difference between knowledge and ignorance is a grace of the Spirit; the breath of divine Power blows where it lists and fills today one and tomorrow another with the word or the puissance. If the potter shapes one pot more perfectly than another, the merit lies not in the vessel but the maker. The attitude of our mind must not be ‘This is my strength’ or ‘Behold God’s power in me’, but rather ‘A Divine Power works in this mind and body and it is the same that works in all men and in the animal, in the plant and in the metal, in conscious and living things and in things apparently inconscient and inanimate.’” The Synthesis of Yoga
evil ::: “… wrong will and falsehood of the steps, . . . separative egoism inflicting by its ignorance and separate contrary will harm on oneself or harm on others, self-driven to a wrong dealing with one’s own soul, mind, life or body or a wrong dealing with the soul, mind, life, body of others, . . . is the practical sense of all human evil.” The Life Divine
EXALTATION. ::: A certain exaltation of the being comes naturally with the stronger experiences and the sense of marvel or miracle may go with it, but there should be no egoistic feel- ing in the exaltation.
father ::: n. --> One who has begotten a child, whether son or daughter; a generator; a male parent.
A male ancestor more remote than a parent; a progenitor; especially, a first ancestor; a founder of a race or family; -- in the plural, fathers, ancestors.
One who performs the offices of a parent by maintenance, affetionate care, counsel, or protection.
A respectful mode of address to an old man.
fool-born ::: a. --> Begotten by a fool.
foregoer ::: n. --> One who goes before another; a predecessor; hence, an ancestor&
foregoing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Forego
foregone ::: p. p. --> of Forego
forego ::: to abstain from, go without, deny to oneself; to let go or pass, omit to take or use; to give up, part with, relinquish, renounce, resign. foregone.
forego ::: v. t. --> To quit; to relinquish; to leave.
To relinquish the enjoyment or advantage of; to give up; to resign; to renounce; -- said of a thing already enjoyed, or of one within reach, or anticipated. ::: v. i. --> To go before; to precede; -- used especially in the
"For by an absolute self-giving all egoistic desire disappears from the heart and there is a perfect union between the Divine and the individual soul through an inner renunciation of its separate living.” Essays on the Gita
“For by an absolute self-giving all egoistic desire disappears from the heart and there is a perfect union between the Divine and the individual soul through an inner renunciation of its separate living.” Essays on the Gita
forequoted ::: a. --> Cited before; quoted in a foregoing part of the treatise or essay.
forewent 2 ::: imp. --> of Forego
forgo ::: v. i. --> To pass by; to leave. See 1st Forego.
For the ego, however insistent it may be, one has to keep one's eye on it and say no to all its suggestions so that each position it lakes up proves to be a fruitless move. Treated in
frank-marriage ::: n. --> A certain tenure in tail special; an estate of inheritance given to a man his wife (the wife being of the blood of the donor), and descendible to the heirs of their two bodies begotten.
— free, wide, without limits, pure, untroubled by the mental, vital and physical movements, empty of ego and limited perso- nality. Secondly, the Divine Power descends through this silence and freedom of the Self and begins to work in the Adhara.
fuegian ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Terra del Fuego. ::: n. --> A native of Terra del Fuego.
gallego ::: n. --> A native or inhabitant of Galicia, in Spain; a Galician.
gallegan ::: n. --> Alt. of Gallego
gilt-edged ::: a. --> Having a gilt edge; as, gilt-edged paper.
Of the best quality; -- said of negotiable paper, etc.
godhead ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe. The Gita lays stress first on his supracosmic existence. For otherwise the mind would miss its highest goal and remain turned towards the cosmic only or else attached to some partial experience of the Divine in the cosmos. It lays stress next on his universal existence in which all moves and acts. For that is the justification of the cosmic effort and that is the vast spiritual self-awareness in which the Godhead self-seen as the Time-Spirit does his universal works. Next it insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic. Finally, it insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one Godhead.” *Essays on the Gita
Godhead ::: “… the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe. The Gita lays stress first on his supracosmic existence. For otherwise the mind would miss its highest goal and remain turned towards the cosmic only or else attached to some partial experience of the Divine in the cosmos. It lays stress next on his universal existence in which all moves and acts. For that is the justification of the cosmic effort and that is the vast spiritual self-awareness in which the Godhead self-seen as the Time-Spirit does his universal works. Next it insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic. Finally, it insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one Godhead.” Essays on the Gita
goutwort ::: n. --> A coarse umbelliferous plant of Europe (Aegopodium Podagraria); -- called also bishop&
grego ::: n. --> A short jacket or cloak, made of very thick, coarse cloth, with a hood attached, worn by the Greeks and others in the Levant.
gregorian ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or originated by, some person named Gregory, especially one of the popes of that name.
greggoe ::: n. --> Alt. of Grego
griego ::: n. --> See Greggoe.
Guiding Unv of experience ::: The guiding law of spiritual experience can only come by an opening of human conscious~ ness to the Divine Consciousness ; there must be the power to receive in us the working and command and dynamic presence of the Divine Shakti and surrender ourselves to her control ; it is that surrender and that control which bring tbs guidance. But the surrender is not sure, there is so absolute certitude of the guidance so long as we are besieged by mind fonnaljons and life impulses and instigations of ego which may easily betray us into the bands of a false experience. This danger can only be countered by the opening of a now nine^tenths concealed inmost soul or psychic being that is already there but not commonly active within. That is the inner light we must Uberate ; for the light of thb inmost soul is our one sure illumioation so long as we walk still amidst the siege of the Ignorance and the Truth-
gwiniad ::: n. --> A fish (Coregonus ferus) of North Wales and Northern Europe, allied to the lake whitefish; -- called also powan, and schelly.
homocategoric ::: a. --> Belonging to the same category of individuality; -- a morphological term applied to organisms so related.
homologoumena ::: n. pl. --> Those books of the New Testament which were acknowledged as canonical by the early church; -- distinguished from antilegomena.
Human nature is shot through in all its stuff with the thread of the ego ; even when one tries to get away from it, it is in front or could be behind all the thoughts and actions like a shadow. To see that is the first step, to discern the falsity and absurdity of the ego-movements is the second, to discourage and refuse it at each step is the third ; but it goes entirely only when one sees, experiences and lives the One in everything and equally everywhere.
" . . . humility is the first necessity, for one who has ego and pride cannot realise the Highest.” *Letters on Yoga
“ . . . humility is the first necessity, for one who has ego and pride cannot realise the Highest.” Letters on Yoga
humility ::: “Of course you can [do yoga without being great]. There is no need of being great. On the contrary humility is the first necessity, for one who has ego and pride cannot realise the Highest.” Letters on Yoga
"I" because of identification with the mind and takes the world as real in the waking state; full of ego and entrapped in samsara
"I"-consciousness eliminating the limited, contracted egotistic existence
If behind your devotion and surrender you make a cover for your desires, egoistic demands and vital insistences, if you put these things in place of the true aspiration or mix them with it and try to impose them on the Divine Shakti, then it is idle to invoke the divine Grace to transform you.
"I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights, — yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam.” Letters on Yoga
“I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,—yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam.” Letters on Yoga
"If there is a self in us capable of largeness and universality, able to enter into a cosmic consciousness, that too must be within our inner being; the outer consciousness is a physical consciousness bound to its individual limits by the triple cord of mind, life and body: any external attempt at universality can only result either in an aggrandisement of the ego or an effacement of the personality by its extinction in the mass or subjugation to the mass.” The Life Divine*
“If there is a self in us capable of largeness and universality, able to enter into a cosmic consciousness, that too must be within our inner being; the outer consciousness is a physical consciousness bound to its individual limits by the triple cord of mind, life and body: any external attempt at universality can only result either in an aggrandisement of the ego or an effacement of the personality by its extinction in the mass or subjugation to the mass.” The Life Divine
If you want to be a true doer of divine works, your first aim must be to be totally free from all desire and self-regarding ego.
IGNORANCE. ::: Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life.
This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth.
Sevenfold Ignorance ::: If we look at this Ignorance in which ordinarily we live by the very circumstance of our separative existence in a material, ip a spatial and temporal universe, wc see that on its obscurer side it reduces itself, from whatever direction we look at or approach it, into the fact of a many- sided self-ignorance. We are Ignorant of the Absolute which is the source of all being and becoming ; we take partial facts of being, temporal relations of the becoming for the whole truth of existence — that is the first, the original ignorance. We are ignorant of the spaceless, timeless, immobile and immutable Self ; we take the constant mobility and mutation of the cosmic becom- ing in Time and Space for the whole truth of existence — that is the second, the cosmic ignorance. We are ignorant of our universal self, the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness, our infinite unity with all being and becoming ; we take our limited egoistic mentality, vitality, corporeality for our true self and regard everything other than that as not-sclf — that is the tViTid, \Vie egoistic ignorance. V/c aie ignorant of oat eteinai becoming in Time ; we take this Uttle life in a small span of Time, in a petty field of Space for our beginning, our middle and our end, — that is the fourth, the temporal ignorance. Even within this brief temporal becoming we are ignorant of our large and complex being, of that in us which is super-conscient, sub- conscient, intraconscient, circumcooscient to our surface becoming; we take that surface becoming with its small selection of overtly mentalised experiences for our whole existence — that is the fifth, the psychological ignorance. We are ignorant of the true constitution of our becoming ; we take the mind or life or body or any two or all three tor our true principle or the whole account of what we are, losing sight of that which constitutes them and determines by its occult presence and is meant to deter- mine sovereignly by its emergence from their operations, — that is the sixth, the constitutional ignorance. As a result of all these ignorances, we miss the true knowledge, government and enjoy- ment of our life in the world ; we are ignorant in our thought, will, sensations, actions, return wrong or imperfect responses at every point to the questionings of the world, wander in a maze of errors and desires, strivings and failures, pain and pleasure, sin and stumbling, follow a crooked road, grope blindly for a changing goal, — that is the seventh, the practical ignorance.
“Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth,—truth of being, truth of divine consciousness, truth of force and action, truth of Ananda. As a result, instead of a world of integral truth and divine harmony created in the light of the divine Gnosis, we have a world founded on the part truths of an inferior cosmic Intelligence in which all is half-truth, half-error. . . . All in the consciousness of this creation is either limited or else perverted by separation from the integral Light; even the Truth it perceives is only a half-knowledge. Therefore it is called the Ignorance.” The Mother
Ignorance (the) ::: Avidya, the Ignorance of oneness; the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life; the consciousness of the divided Many divorced from the unifying knowledge of the One Reality.
ignorance ::: the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information. Ignorance, ignorance"s, Ignorance"s, ignorance", world-ignorance, World-Ignorance.
Sri Aurobindo: "Ignorance is the absence of the divine eye of perception which gives us the sight of the supramental Truth; it is the non-perceiving principle in our consciousness as opposed to the truth-perceiving conscious vision and knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"Ignorance is the consciousness of being in the successions of Time, divided in its knowledge by dwelling in the moment, divided in its conception of self-being by dwelling in the divisions of Space and the relations of circumstance, self-prisoned in the multiple working of the unity. It is called the Ignorance because it has put behind it the knowledge of unity and by that very fact is unable to know truly or completely either itself or the world, either the transcendent or the universal reality.” The Life Divine
"Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth, — truth of being, truth of divine consciousness, truth of force and action, truth of Ananda. As a result, instead of a world of integral truth and divine harmony created in the light of the divine Gnosis, we have a world founded on the part truths of an inferior cosmic Intelligence in which all is half-truth, half-error. . . . All in the consciousness of this creation is either limited or else perverted by separation from the integral Light; even the Truth it perceives is only a half-knowledge. Therefore it is called the Ignorance.” The Mother
". . . all ignorance is a penumbra which environs an orb of knowledge . . . .”The Life Divine
"This world is not really created by a blind force of Nature: even in the Inconscient the presence of the supreme Truth is at work; there is a seeing Power behind it which acts infallibly and the steps of the Ignorance itself are guided even when they seem to stumble; for what we call the Ignorance is a cloaked Knowledge, a Knowledge at work in a body not its own but moving towards its own supreme self-discovery.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"Knowledge is no doubt the knowledge of the One, the realisation of the Being; Ignorance is a self-oblivion of Being, the experience of separateness in the multiplicity and a dwelling or circling in the ill-understood maze of becomings: . . . .” The Life Divine*
illegitimate ::: a. --> Not according to law; not regular or authorized; unlawful; improper.
Unlawfully begotten; born out of wedlock; bastard; as, an illegitimate child.
Not legitimately deduced or inferred; illogical; as, an illegitimate inference.
Not authorized by good usage; not genuine; spurious; as, an illegitimate word.
"I-maker"; ego-self; thz "I am" or ego; the sense of doership, ownership; limited ego-consciousness
individual ::: “But what do we mean by the individual? What we usually call by that name is a natural ego, a device of Nature which holds together her action in the mind and body. This ego has to be extinguished, otherwise there is no complete liberation possible; but the individual self or soul is not this ego. The individual soul is the spiritual being which is sometimes described as an eternal portion of the Divine, but can also be described as the Divine himself supporting his manifestation as the Many. This is the true spiritual individual which appears in its complete truth when we get rid of the ego and our false separative senseof individuality, realise our oneness with the transcendent and cosmic Divine and with all beings.” Letters on Yoga
indorsement ::: n. --> The act of writing on the back of a note, bill, or other written instrument.
That which is written on the back of a note, bill, or other paper, as a name, an order for, or a receipt of, payment, or the return of an officer, etc.; a writing, usually upon the back, but sometimes on the face, of a negotiable instrument, by which the property therein is assigned and transferred.
Sanction, support, or approval; as, the indorsement of
In Itself there is no harm in passing through, provided one does not stop there. But ego, sex, ambition, etc., if they get exag> gerated, can easily lead to a dangerous downfall.
INNER GUIDE. ::: The supreme Guide and Teacher is the inner Guide, the World-Teacher, jagad-guru, secret within us. He dis- closes progressively in us his own nature of freedom, bliss, love, power, immortal being. He has no method and every method.
His system is a natural organisation of the highest processes and movements of which the nature is capable. In his yoga there is nothing too small to be used and nothing too great to be attempted. This inner Guide is often veiled at first by the very intensity of our personal effort and by the ego's preoccupation with itself and its aims.
In orthodox Buddhism it does mean a disintegration, not of the soul — for that does not exist — but of a mental compound or stream of associations or samskaras which we mistake for our self. In illusionist Vedanta it means not a disintegration but a disappearance of a false and unreal individual self into the one real Self or Brahman j it is the idea and experience of indivi- duality that so disappears and ceases — we may say a false light that is extinguished {nirvana) in the true Light. In spiritual experience it is sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic consciousness ; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel for the flow of a cosmic consciousness and cosmic force and action. Or it may be the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and consciousness in which the sense of the cosmos as well as the individual disappears. Or again, it may be in a transcend- ence which is aware of and supports the cosmic action. But what do we mean by the individual ? What we usually call by that name is a natural ego, a device of nature which holds together her action in the mind and body. This ego has to be extinguished, otherwise there is no complete liberation possible ; but the individual self is not this ego. The individual soul Is a spiritual being which is sometimes described as an eternal por- tion of the Divine but can also be described as the Divine him- self supporting his manifestation as the Many. This is the true spiritual individual which appears in its complete truth when we get rid of the ego and our false separative sense of individuality, realise our oneness with the transcendent and cosmic Divine and with all beings. It is this which makes possible the Divine Life.
inquisition ::: n. --> The act of inquiring; inquiry; search; examination; inspection; investigation.
Judicial inquiry; official examination; inquest.
The finding of a jury, especially such a finding under a writ of inquiry.
A court or tribunal for the examination and punishment of heretics, fully established by Pope Gregory IX. in 1235. Its operations were chiefly confined to Spain, Portugal, and their
INSTRUMENT. ::: To be able to receive the Divine Power and let it act through you in the things of the outward life, there are three necessary conditions ::: (I) Quietude, equality — not to be disturbed by anything that happens, to keep the mind still and firm, seeing the play of forces, but itself tranquil. (2) Absolute faith — faith that what is for the best will happen, but also that if one can make oneself a true instrument, the fruit will be that which one's will guided by the Divine Light sees as the thing to be done. (3) Receptivity — the power to receive the Divine Force and to feel its presence and the presence of the Mother in it and allow it to work, guiding one’s sight and will and action.
If this power and presence can be felt and this plasticity made the habit of the consciousness in action, — but plasticity to the Divine Force alone without bringing in any foreign clement, — the eventual result is sure.
Conditions to become an instrument of the Divine ::: A receptive silence of the mind, an effacemenl of the mental ego and the reduction of the mental being to the position of a witness, a close find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity ; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasya needed too constant and intense.
INTEGRAL WAY TO THE TRUTH ::: To pass from the external to a direct and intimate inner consciousness; to widen consciousness out of the limits of the ego and the body; to heighten it by an inner will and aspiration and opening to the height till it passes in its ascent beyond Mind, to bring down a descent of the supramental Divine through self-giving and surrender with a consequent transformation of mind, life and body.
INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.
Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.
Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.
Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.
Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.
Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.
The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.
Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.
Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.
Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.
Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.
Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.
Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.
The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.
This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.
Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.
Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.
The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.
Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.
It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.
If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.
(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.
Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.
It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.
Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.
interjection ::: n. --> The act of interjecting or throwing between; also, that which is interjected.
A word or form of speech thrown in to express emotion or feeling, as O! Alas! Ha ha! Begone! etc. Compare Exclamation.
intermediate zone ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The intermediate zone means simply a confused condition or passage in which one is getting out of the personal consciousness and opening into the cosmic (cosmic Mind, cosmic vital, cosmic physical, something perhaps of the cosmic higher Mind) without having yet transcended the human mind levels. One is not in possession of or direct contact with the divine Truth on its own levels , but one can receive something from them, even from the overmind, indirectly. Only, as one is still immersed in the cosmic Ignorance, all that comes from above can be mixed, perverted, taken hold of for their purposes by lower, even by hostile Powers. ::: It is not necessary for everyone to struggle through the intermediate zone. If one has purified oneself, if there is no abnormal vanity, egoism, ambition or other strong misleading element, or if one is vigilant and on one"s guard, or if the psychic is in front, one can either pass rapidly and directly or with a minimum of trouble into the higher zones of consciousness where one is in direct contact with the Divine Truth.
In the liberated stale it is not the inner Purusha only that remains detached ; the inner Purusha is always detached, only one is not conscious of it in the ordinary state. It is the Prakrit! also that is not disturbed by the action of the Gunas or attached to it ; the mind, the vital, (he physical (whatever Prakriti) begin to get the same quietude, unperturbed peace and detachment as the Purusha, but it is quietude, not a cessation of all action. It is quietude in action itself. TTic whole being, Purusha, Prakriit, becomes detached (having no desire or attachment) even in the actions of the gunas. The outer being Is also detached ; the whole being is without desire or attachment and still action is possible, action without desire is possible, action without attach- ment is possible, action without ego is possible.
It is not necessary for everyone to struggle through the intermediate zone. If one has purified oneself, if there is no abnormal vanity, egoism, ambition or other strong misleading element, or if one is vigilant and on one’s guard, or if the psychic is in front, one can either pass rapidly and directly or with a minimum of trouble into the higher zones of consciousness where one is in direct contact with the Divine Truth.
JEALOUSY. ::: A common movement of the human egoistic lower vital with its grasping instinct.
Jhumur: “Awe inspiring fear. It is through fear that these forces rule, not through love, not through grace, not through compassion but through terror. There is a very strong tendency in man to regard these dark forces as superior beings. There has long been a vital attraction for them, devil worship, etc. because they give you power, they seem to give you power, power to the ego and Mother says that power will be one of the last things to accept the change. Man’s lust for power is not easily relinquished– he doesn’t feel like giving that up.”
Jhumur: “The light that betrays, it is not the light that comes from the sun, it is the light, the attraction, the force that man follows seeming to enter in another, greater realm but in fact is being pulled down. It comes from the ego, the lust for power, for greater knowledge—very often in certain schools of yoga and certain occult fields there is a sense of light which is not light, but the light of darkness. Darkness takes the shape of light.
jiva. ::: the individual self, ego or "I"-sense; ego-self which is subject to birth and death; individuality; the illusory person or self that is essentially non-existent, being a fabrication of the mind which obscures the true experience of the real Self; the appearance or illusion of a separate individual consciousness; limited consciousness which appears "as if" it is an embodied soul
KARMA YOGA. ::: It alms at the dedication of every human activity to the supreme Wilt. It begins by the renunciation of all egoistic aim for our works, all pursuit of action for an inter- ested aim or for the sake of a worldly result. By this renuncia- tion it so purifies the mind and the will that we become easily conscious of the great universal Energy as the true doer of all our actions and the Lord of that Energy as their ruler and director with the individual as only a mask, an excuse, an instrument or, more positively, a conscious centre^ of action and phenomenal relation. The choice and direction of the act is more and more consciously left to this supreme Will and this universal Energy. To that our works as well as the results of our works are finally abandoned. The object is the release of the soul from its bondage to appearances and to the reaction of phenomenal activities. Karmayoga is used, like the other paths, to lead to liberation from phenomenal existence and a departure into the Supreme. But here too the exclusive result is not inevitable. The end of the path may be, equally, a perception of the divine in all energies, in all happenings, in all activities, and a free and unegoislic participation of the soul in the cosmic action. So followed it will lead to the elevation of all human will and activity to the divine level, its spiritualisation and the
kind ::: 1. A class or group of individual objects, people, animals, etc., of the same nature or character, or classified together because they have traits in common; category. 2. Nature or character as determining likeness or difference between things. 3. One"s family, clan, kin, or kinsfolk. earth-kind, god-kind, self-kind.
king ::: 1. A male sovereign. 2. One that is supreme or preeminent in a particular group, category, or sphere. 3. Fig. One who or that which is preeminent in a particular category or group or field. king"s, kings, Kings, king-children, king-sages.
klamaths ::: n. pl. --> A collective name for the Indians of several tribes formerly living along the Klamath river, in California and Oregon, but now restricted to a reservation at Klamath Lake; -- called also Clamets and Hamati.
labyrinthodonta ::: n. pl. --> An extinct order of Amphibia, including the typical genus Labyrinthodon, and many other allied forms, from the Carboniferous, Permian, and Triassic formations. By recent writers they are divided into two or more orders. See Stegocephala.
lambert pine ::: --> The gigantic sugar pine of California and Oregon (Pinus Lambertiana). It has the leaves in fives, and cones a foot long. The timber is soft, and like that of the white pine of the Eastern States.
laurite ::: n. --> A rare sulphide of osmium and ruthenium found with platinum in Borneo and Oregon.
lavaret ::: n. --> A European whitefish (Coregonus laveretus), found in the mountain lakes of Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland.
lego-literary ::: a. --> Pertaining to the literature of law.
legitimacy ::: a. --> The state, or quality, of being legitimate, or in conformity with law; hence, the condition of having been lawfully begotten, or born in wedlock.
legitimate ::: a. --> Accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements; lawful; as, legitimate government; legitimate rights; the legitimate succession to the throne; a legitimate proceeding of an officer; a legitimate heir.
Lawfully begotten; born in wedlock.
Authorized; real; genuine; not false, counterfeit, or spurious; as, legitimate poems of Chaucer; legitimate inscriptions.
Conforming to known principles, or accepted rules; as,
Let your faith be pure, candid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke-obs- cured flame that cannot bum upwards to heaven.
life-self ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . our self-view is vitiated by the constant impact and intrusion of our outer life-self, our vital being, which seeks always to make the thinking mind its tool and servant: for our vital being is not concerned with self-knowledge but with self-affirmation, desire, ego.” *The Life Divine
loanmonger ::: n. --> A dealer in, or negotiator of, loans.
Madhav: “There is in this creation of God an everlasting No. ‘NO’ is negation of the fleeting pleasures of life, unsubstantial movements of life, the attraction of the senses, the hold of ego, ignorance. For that the answer is no. This is not it, this is not it, neti, neti, thou hast only neared this everlasting No.” The Book of the Divine Mother
mahonia ::: n. --> The Oregon grape, a species of barberry (Berberis Aquifolium), often cultivated for its hollylike foliage.
management ::: v. --> The act or art of managing; the manner of treating, directing, carrying on, or using, for a purpose; conduct; administration; guidance; control; as, the management of a family or of a farm; the management of state affairs.
Business dealing; negotiation; arrangement.
Judicious use of means to accomplish an end; conduct directed by art or address; skillful treatment; cunning practice; -- often in a bad sense.
manzanita ::: n. --> A name given to several species of Arctostaphylos, but mostly to A. glauca and A. pungens, shrubs of California, Oregon, etc., with reddish smooth bark, ovate or oval coriaceous evergreen leaves, and bearing clusters of red berries, which are said to be a favorite food of the grizzly bear.
marena ::: n. --> A European whitefish of the genus Coregonus.
mask ::: n. --> A cover, or partial cover, for the face, used for disguise or protection; as, a dancer&
megohm ::: n. --> One of the larger measures of electrical resistance, amounting to one million ohms.
megalo- ::: --> Combining forms signifying: (a) Great, extended, powerful; as, megascope, megacosm.
A million times, a million of; as, megameter, a million meters; megafarad, a million farads; megohm, a million ohms.
See Meg-.
misbegot ::: p. a. --> Alt. of Misbegotten
misbegotten ::: p. a. --> Unlawfully or irregularly begotten; of bad origin; pernicious.
MONEY. ::: Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force m its manifestation on earth woris an the vitaf and physical planes and Is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and true action it belongs lo the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose.
morepork ::: n. --> The Australian crested goatsucker (Aegotheles Novae-Hollandiae). Also applied to other allied birds, as Podargus Cuveiri.
Mother take its place. C^st from the mind all insistence on your personal ideas and judgment, then you will have the wisdom to understand her. Let there be no obsession of self-will, ego- drive in the action, love of persona! authority, attachment to personal preference, then the Mother's force will be able to act eJeariy in you and you ivifl get the inexhaustible energy for which you ask and your service will be perfect.
movement ::: 1. The act or an instance of moving; a change in place or position. A particular manner of moving. 2. Usually, movements, actions or activities, as of a person or a body of persons. ::: movement"s, movements, many-movemented.
Sri Aurobindo: "When we withdraw our gaze from its egoistic preoccupation with limited and fleeting interests and look upon the world with dispassionate and curious eyes that search only for the Truth, our first result is the perception of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that surpasses infinitely our ego or any ego or any collectivity of egos, in whose balance the grandiose products of aeons are but the dust of a moment and in whose incalculable sum numberless myriads count only as a petty swarm." *The Life Divine
". . . the purest, freest form of insight into existence as it is shows us nothing but movement. Two things alone exist, movement in Space, movement in Time, the former objective, the latter subjective.” The Life Divine
"The world is a cyclic movement (samsâra ) of the Divine Consciousness in Space and Time. Its law and, in a sense, its object is progression; it exists by movement and would be dissolved by cessation of movement. But the basis of this movement is not material; it is the energy of active consciousness which, by its motion and multiplication in different principles (different in appearance, the same in essence), creates oppositions of unity and multiplicity, divisions of Time and Space, relations and groupings of circumstance and Causality. All these things are real in consciousness, but only symbolic of the Being, somewhat as the imaginations of a creative Mind are true representations of itself, yet not quite real in comparison with itself, or real with a different kind of reality.” The Upanishads*
movement ::: “When we withdraw our gaze from its egoistic preoccupation with limited and fleeting interests and look upon the world with dispassionate and curious eyes that search only for the Truth, our first result is the perception of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that surpasses infinitely our ego or any ego or any collectivity of egos, in whose balance the grandiose products of aeons are but the dust of a moment and in whose incalculable sum numberless myriads count only as a petty swarm.” The Life Divine
music ::: n. --> The science and the art of tones, or musical sounds, i. e., sounds of higher or lower pitch, begotten of uniform and synchronous vibrations, as of a string at various degrees of tension; the science of harmonical tones which treats of the principles of harmony, or the properties, dependences, and relations of tones to each other; the art of combining tones in a manner to please the ear.
Melody; a rhythmical and otherwise agreeable succession of tones.
mystical ::: a. --> Remote from or beyond human comprehension; baffling human understanding; unknowable; obscure; mysterious.
Importing or implying mysticism; involving some secret meaning; allegorical; emblematical; as, a mystic dance; mystic Babylon.
negoce ::: n. --> Business; occupation.
negotiability ::: n. --> The quality of being negotiable or transferable by indorsement.
negotiable ::: a. --> Capable of being negotiated; transferable by assigment or indorsement to another person; as, a negotiable note or bill of exchange.
negotiant ::: n. --> A negotiator.
negotiated ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Negotiate
negotiate ::: v. i. --> To transact business; to carry on trade.
To treat with another respecting purchase and sale or some business affair; to bargain or trade; as, to negotiate with a man for the purchase of goods or a farm.
To hold intercourse respecting a treaty, league, or convention; to treat with, respecting peace or commerce; to conduct communications or conferences.
To intrigue; to scheme.
negotiating ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Negotiate
negotiation ::: n. --> The act or process of negotiating; a treating with another respecting sale or purchase. etc.
Hence, mercantile business; trading.
The transaction of business between nations; the mutual intercourse of governments by diplomatic agents, in making treaties, composing difference, etc.; as, the negotiations at Ghent.
negotiator ::: n. --> One who negotiates; a person who treats with others, either as principal or agent, in respect to purchase and sale, or public compacts.
negotiatory ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to negotiation.
negotiatrix ::: n. --> A woman who negotiates.
negotiosity ::: n. --> The state of being busy; multitude of business.
negotious ::: a. --> Very busy; attentive to business; active.
negotiousness ::: n. --> The state of being busily occupied; activity.
“Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes,—towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” The Life Divine
"Next it [the Gita] insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic.” Essays on the Gita
“Next it [the Gita] insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic.” Essays on the Gita
"Nirvana is extinction of the ego-limitations, but not of all possibility of manifestation, since it can be possessed even in the body.” The Upanishads
“Nirvana is extinction of the ego-limitations, but not of all possibility of manifestation, since it can be possessed even in the body.” The Upanishads
Nirvana ::: “[Nirvana means] extinction, not necessarily of all being, but of being as we know it; extinction of ego, desire and egoistic action and mentality.” The Life Divine
nirvana ::: Sri Aurobindo: "[Nirvana means] extinction, not necessarily of all being, but of being as we know it; extinction of ego, desire and egoistic action and mentality.” *The Life Divine
nirvana. ::: the state of liberation or egolessness; final emancipation; absolute experience
non-ego ::: n. --> The union of being and relation as distinguished from, and contrasted with, the ego. See Ego.
notary ::: n. --> One who records in shorthand what is said or done; as, the notary of an ecclesiastical body.
A public officer who attests or certifies deeds and other writings, or copies of them, usually under his official seal, to make them authentic, especially in foreign countries. His duties chiefly relate to instruments used in commercial transactions, such as protests of negotiable paper, ship&
obomegoid ::: a. --> Obversely omegoid.
Obstacles ::: (1) normal habit of relying on outward means for everything ; (2) ego, substituting its suggestions for the right answer ; (3) mental activity ; (4) intruder nuisances.
Of course, there is a sort of labour and effort when you try to produce or else to think on a certain subject, but that is a con- centration for making thoughts come up, come in, come down, as the case may be, and fit themselves together. The idea that you arc shaping the thoughts or fitting them together is an egoistic delusion ; they are doing it themselves, or Nature is doing it for you, only under a certain compulsion.
of Force. The Force I speak of is a Force for illumination, transformation, purification, all that has to be done in the yoga, for removal of hostile forces and the wrong movements—it is also of course for external work, whether great or small in appearance does not matter—if that is part of the Divine Will. I do not mean any personal force egoistic or rajasic.” Letters on Yoga
omegoid ::: a. --> Having the form of the Greek capital letter Omega (/).
oophore ::: n. --> An alternately produced form of certain cryptogamous plants, as ferns, mosses, and the like, which bears antheridia and archegonia, and so has sexual fructification, as contrasted with the sporophore, which is nonsexual, but produces spores in countless number. In ferns the oophore is a minute prothallus; in mosses it is the leafy plant.
oracle ::: 1. A person, such as a priestess, through whom a deity is held to respond when consulted. 2. The response given through such a medium, often in the form of an enigmatic statement or allegory. 3. A command or revelation from God. oracles.
oregon grape ::: --> An evergreen species of barberry (Berberis Aquifolium), of Oregon and California; also, its roundish, blue-black berries.
Or else the lower vital mind can try to disturb ; that brings up the ego and passions and their play.
oso-berry ::: n. --> The small, blueblack, drupelike fruit of the Nuttallia cerasiformis, a shrub of Oregon and California, belonging to the Cherry tribe of Rosaceae.
oswego tea ::: --> An American aromatic herb (Monarda didyma), with showy, bright red, labiate flowers.
"Our ego is only a face of the universal being and has no separate existence; our apparent separative individuality is only a surface movement and behind it our real individuality stretches out to unity with all things and upward to oneness with the transcendent Divine Infinity. Thus our ego, which seems to be a limitation of existence, is really a power of infinity; the boundless multiplicity of beings in the world is a result and signal evidence, not of limitation or finiteness, but of that illimitable Infinity.” The Life Divine
“Our ego is only a face of the universal being and has no separate existence; our apparent separative individuality is only a surface movement and behind it our real individuality stretches out to unity with all things and upward to oneness with the transcendent Divine Infinity. Thus our ego, which seems to be a limitation of existence, is really a power of infinity; the boundless multiplicity of beings in the world is a result and signal evidence, not of limitation or finiteness, but of that illimitable Infinity.” The Life Divine
"Our highest Self which possesses and supports this universal Power [the Divine Will] is not our ego-self, not our personal nature; it is something transcendent and universal of which these smaller things are only foam and flowing surface.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
“Our highest Self which possesses and supports this universal Power [the Divine Will] is not our ego-self, not our personal nature; it is something transcendent and universal of which these smaller things are only foam and flowing surface.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Our notion of free will is apt to be tainted with the excessive individualism of the human ego and to assume the figure of an independent will acting on its own isolated account, in a complete liberty without any determination other than its own choice and single unrelated movement. This idea ignores the fact that our natural being is a part of cosmic Nature and our spiritual being exists only by the supreme Transcendence. Our total being can rise out of subjection to fact of present Nature only by an identification with a greater Truth and a greater Nature. The will of the individual, even when completely free, could not act in an isolated independence, because the individual being and nature are included in the universal Being and Nature and dependent on the all-overruling Transcendence. There could indeed be in the ascent a dual line. On one line the being could feel and behave as an independent self-existence uniting itself with its own impersonal Reality; it could, so self-conceived, act with a great force, but either this action would be still within an enlarged frame of its past and present self-formation of power of Nature or else it would be the cosmic or supreme Force that acted in it and there would be no personal initiation of action, no sense therefore of individual free will but only of an impersonal cosmic or supreme Will or Energy at its work. On the other line the being would feel itself a spiritual instrument and so act as a power of the Supreme Being, limited in its workings only by the potencies of the Supernature, which are without bounds or any restriction except its own Truth and self-law, and by the Will in her. But in either case there would be, as the condition of a freedom from the control of a mechanical action of Nature-forces, a submission to a greater conscious Power or an acquiescent unity of the individual being with its intention and movement in his own and in the world’s existence.” The Life Divine
"Our purpose in Yoga is to exile the limited outward-looking ego and to enthrone God in its place as the ruling Inhabitant of the nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“Our purpose in Yoga is to exile the limited outward-looking ego and to enthrone God in its place as the ruling Inhabitant of the nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Our renunciation must obwously be an inward renunciation, especially and above all, a renunciation of attachment and the craving of desire in the senses and the heart, of self-will in the thought and action and of egoism in the centre of the conscious- ness.
“Our self-ignorance and our world-ignorance can only grow towards integral self-knowledge and integral world-knowledge in proportion as our limited ego and its half-blind consciousness open to a greater inner existence and consciousness and a true self-being and become aware too of the not-self outside it also as self,—on one side a Nature constituent of our own nature, on the other an Existence which is a boundless continuation of our own self-being. Our being has to break the walls of ego-consciousness which it has created, it has to extend itself beyond its body and inhabit the body of the universe.” The Life Divine
“… our self-view is vitiated by the constant impact and intrusion of our outer life-self, our vital being, which seeks always to make the thinking mind its tool and servant: for our vital being is not concerned with self-knowledge but with self-affirmation, desire, ego.” The Life Divine
overween ::: v. t. --> To think too highly or arrogantly; to regard one&
parable ::: 1. A short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, spiritual principle, or moral lesson. 2. A statement or comment that conveys a meaning indirectly by the use of comparison, analogy, or the like, esp. concerning morality or ethics.
parabolical ::: a. --> Of the nature of a parable; expressed by a parable or figure; allegorical; as, parabolical instruction.
Having the form or nature of a parabola; pertaining to, or resembling, a parabola; as, a parabolic curve.
Generated by the revolution of a parabola, or by a line that moves on a parabola as a directing curve; as, a parabolic conoid.
paramarthika jiva. ::: ego in deep sleep state; the ego which comes in front of Self and forgets everything, knowing that everything is unreal; identical with Brahman;
paraphysis ::: n. --> A minute jointed filament growing among the archegonia and antheridia of mosses, or with the spore cases, etc., of other flowerless plants.
paregoric ::: a. --> Mitigating; assuaging or soothing pain; as, paregoric elixir. ::: n. --> A medicine that mitigates pain; an anodyne; specifically, camphorated tincture of opium; -- called also paregoric elexir.
pegomancy ::: n. --> Divination by fountains.
pistillidium ::: n. --> Same as Archegonium.
plenipotentiary ::: n. --> A person invested with full power to transact any business; especially, an ambassador or envoy to a foreign court, with full power to negotiate a treaty, or to transact other business. ::: a. --> Containing or conferring full power; invested with full power; as, plenipotentiary license; plenipotentiary ministers.
pleurocarpous ::: a. --> Side-fruited; -- said of those true mosses in which the pedicels or the capsules are from lateral archegonia; -- opposed to acrocarpous.
pollan ::: n. --> A lake whitefish (Coregonus pollan), native of Ireland. In appearance it resembles a herring.
powen ::: n. --> A small British lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeoides, or C. ferus); -- called also gwyniad and lake herring.
Powers undivine in their nature present themselves as the Sup- reme Lord or as the Divine Mother and claim the being’s service and surrender. 1C these (hiags are accepted, there will be an extremely disastrous consequence. If indeed there is the assent of the sSdhaka to the Divine working alone and the submission or surrender to that guidance, then all can go smoothly. This assent and a rejection of all egoistic force or forces that appeal to the ego are the safeguard throughout the sadhana. But the ways of nature are full of snares, the disguises of the ego are innumerable, the ilfusions of the Powers of Darkness, Rakshasi Maya, are e.ttraordinariIy skilful ; the reason is an insulBdent guide and often turns traitor; vital desire is ahvays with us tempting to follow any alluring call. This is the reason why in this Yoga we insist so much on what we call samarpana — rather inade- quately rendered by the Engikh word surrender. If the heart centre is fully opened and the psychic is always in control, then there is no question ; all fe Safe. But the psychic can at any moment be veiled by a lower upsurge. It is only a few who arc exempt from these dangers and it is precisely those to whom surrender is easily possible. The guidance of one who is himself
prakriti; prakruti. ::: "nature"; causal matter; primordial substance out of which all things are created; the cause of illusive creation, the delusion; the primal nature without an "I"-sense; primordial unmanifest essence; that state in which the three gunas exist in equilibrium; when this equilibrium is disturbed, creation begins and the body, senses and mind are formed. The man who is deluded by egoism identifies the Self with the body, mind, the life-force and the senses, and ascribes to the Self all the attributes of the body and the senses. In fact, the gunas of nature perform all actions
prarabdha karma. ::: the destined acts that one has to undergo in one's present life; the part of sanchita karma which is ready to be experienced through the present body incarnation; portion of the past karma which is responsible for the present body &
pratibhasika jiva. ::: ego in the dream state which says this world is illusory
PRAYER. ::: The life of man is a life of wants and needs and therefore of desires, not only in his physical and vital, but in his mental and spiritual being. When he becomes conscious of a greater Power governing the world, he approaches it through prayer for the fulfilment of his needs, for help in his rough journey, for protection and aid in his struggle. Whatever crudi- ties there may be in the ordinary religious approach to God by prayer, and there are many, especially that attitude which ima- gines the Divine as if capable of being propitiated, bribed, flat- tered into acquiescence or indulgence by praise, entreaty and gifts and has often little te^td to the spirit in which he is approached, still this way of turning to the Divine is an essen- tial movement of our religious being and reposes on a universal truth.
The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and prayer itself supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. It is true that the universal will executes always its aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic propitiation and entreaty, it is true of the Transcendent who expresses himself in the universal order that, being omniscient, his larger knowledge must foresee the thing to be done and it does not need direction or stimulation by human thought and that the individual's desires are not and cannot be in any world-order the true determining factor. But neither is that order or the execution of the universal will altogether effected by mechanical Law, but by powers and forces of which for human life at least, human will, aspiration and faith are not among the least important. Prayer is only a particular form given to that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are very often crude and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but childish; but still it has a real power and significance. Its power and sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of man into touch with the divine Will as that of a conscious Being with whom we can enter into conscious and living relations. For our will and aspiration can act either by our own strength and endeavour, which can no doubt be made a thing great and effective whether for lower or higher purposes, -and there are plenty of disciplines which put it forward as the one force to be used, -- or it can act in dependence upon and with subordination to the divine or the universal Will. And this latter way, again, may either look upon that Will as responsive indeed to our aspiration, but almost mechanically, by a sort of law of energy, or at any rate quite impersonally, or else it may look upon it as responding consciously to the divine aspiration and faith of the human soul and consciously bringing to it the help, the guidance, the protection and fruition demanded, yogaksemam vahamyaham. ~ TSOY, SYN
Prayer helps to prepare this relation for us at first on the lower plane even while it is (here consistent with much that is mere egoism and self-delusion; but afterwards we can draw towards the spiritual truth which is behind it. It is not then the givinc of the thing asked for that matters, but the relation itself, the contact of man’s life with God, the conscious interchange.
In spiritual matters and in the seeking of spiritual gains, this conscious relation is a great power; it is a much greater power than our own entirely self-reliant struggle and effort and it brings a fuller spiritual growth and experience. Necessarily, in the end prayer either ceases in the greater thing for which it prepared us, -- in fact the form we call prayer is not itself essential so long as the faith, the will, the aspiration are there, -- or remains only for the joy of the relation. Also its objects, the artha or interest it seeks to realise, become higher and higher until we reach the highest motiveless devotion, which is that of divine love pure and simple without any other demand or longing.
Prayer for others ::: The fact of praying and the attitude it brings, especially unselfish prayer for others, itself opens you to the higher Power, even if there is no corresponding result in the person prayed for. 'Nothing can be positively said about that, for the result must necessarily depend on the persons, whe- ther they arc open or receptive or something in them can res- pond to any Force the prayer brings down.
Prayer must well up from the heart on a crest of emotion or aspiration.
Prayer {Ideal)'. Not prayer insisting on immediate fulfilment, but prayer that is itself a communion of the mind and heart with the Divine*and can have the joy and satisfaction of itself, trusting for fulfilment by the Divine in his own time.
predicament ::: n. --> A class or kind described by any definite marks; hence, condition; particular situation or state; especially, an unfortunate or trying position or condition.
See Category.
preferences, fancies, phantasies, strong insistences and to elimi- nate the mental and vital ego’s pressure which sets the conscious- ness to work in the service of its o^vn claims and desires. Other- wise these things will come io with force and claim to be intui- tions, inspirations and the rest of it or if any intuitions come, they can be twisted and spoiled by the mixture of these forces of the Ignorance.
priceite ::: n. --> A hydrous borate of lime, from Oregon.
pride ::: “Pride is only one form of ego—there are ten thousand others. Every action of man is full of ego—the good ones as well as the bad, his humility as much as his pride, his virtues as much as his vices.” Letters on Yoga
progress ::: n. --> A moving or going forward; a proceeding onward; an advance
In actual space, as the progress of a ship, carriage, etc.
In the growth of an animal or plant; increase.
In business of any kind; as, the progress of a negotiation; the progress of art.
In knowledge; in proficiency; as, the progress of a child
prolegomena ::: pl. --> of Prolegomenon
prolegomenary ::: a. --> Of the nature of a prolegomenon; preliminary; introductory; prefatory.
prolegomenon ::: n. --> A preliminary remark or observation; an introductory discourse prefixed to a book or treatise.
protocol ::: n. --> The original copy of any writing, as of a deed, treaty, dispatch, or other instrument.
The minutes, or rough draught, of an instrument or transaction.
A preliminary document upon the basis of which negotiations are carried on.
A convention not formally ratified.
An agreement of diplomatists indicating the results
proxenet ::: n. --> A negotiator; a factor.
Psychic contribution ::: The contribution of the psychic being to the sadhana is ; love and bhakti, a love not vital, demanding and egoistic but unconditioned and without claims, self-existent ; the contact or the presence of the Mother within ; the unerring guidance from within ; a quieting and purification of the mind, vital and physical consciousness by their subjection to the psychic influence and guidance ; the opening up of all this lower cons- ciousness to the higher spiritual consciousness above for its des- cent into a nature prepared to receive it with a complete recepti- vity and right attitude — for the psychic brings in everything, right thought, right perception, right feeling, right attitude.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND YOGA. ::: There are many things in the ordinary man of which he is not conscious, because the vital hides them from the mind and gratifies them without the mind realising what is the force that is moving the action — thus things that are done under the plea of altruism, philanthropy, service etc. are largely moved by ego which hides itself behind these justifications ; in yoga the secret motive has to be pulled out from behind the veil, exposed and got rid of. Secondly, some things are suppressed in the ordinary life and remain lying in the nature, suppressed but not eliminated ; they may rise up any day or they may express themselves in various nervous forms or other disorders of the mind or vital or body without it being evident what is the real cause. This has l«cn recently dis- covered by European psychologists and much emphasised, even exaggerated in a new science called psycho-analysis. Here again, tti sadhana one has to become conscious of these suppressed impulses and eliminate them ; that does not mean that they have to be raised up into action but only raised up before the con- sciousness so as to be cleared out of the being.
Purity, simple sincerity and capacity of an unegoistic, unmIxed self-offering without pretension or demand are the conditions of an entire opening of the psychic being.
QUARRELS. ::: AU quarrels proceed from egoism which pushes its own opinions and afBrms its own importance, considering that it is right and everybody else wrong and thus creates anger, sense of injury etc. TTiese things must not be indulged, but rejected at once.
Quietude, peace and silence in the heart and therefore in the vital of the being are necessary to reach the psychic, to plunge in it, for the perturbations of the vital nature, desire, emotion turned ego-wards or world-wards are the main part of the screen that bides the bdu\ iiom tlw watorc.
rajasa ahamkara. ::: egoism born of passion and activity
RAKSASA. ::: The Giant, the Ogre or Devourer of the' world ; a being of vital hunger ; the violent kinetic Ego ; the fierce giant
regorge ::: v. t. --> To vomit up; to eject from the stomach; to throw back.
To swallow again; to swallow back.
Rdjasic ego is puffed up with pride and self-esteem or stub- bornly asserts itself at every step or else wherever it can.
reentry ::: n. --> A second or new entry; as, a reentry into public life.
A resuming or retaking possession of what one has lately foregone; -- applied especially to land; the entry by a lessor upon the premises leased, on failure of the tenant to pay rent or perform the covenants in the lease.
renounce ::: 1. To give up (a title, for example), esp. by formal announcement. 2. To reject; disown; disclaim; refuse to recognize. 3. To give up or put aside voluntarily; forsake, forego, forswear. renounces, renounced, renouncing.
Right Force and wrong ::: If it works to purify or open the system, or brings with it light or peace, or prepares the change of the thought, ideas, feelings, character in the sense of turning towards a higher consciousness, then it is the right force. If it is dark or obscure or perturbs the being with rajasic or egoistic suggestions or excites the lower nature, then it is an adverse force.
roundfish ::: n. --> Any ordinary market fish, exclusive of flounders, sole, halibut, and other flatfishes.
A lake whitefish (Coregonus quadrilateralis), less compressed than the common species. It is very abundant in British America and Alaska.
sacramentary ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a sacrament or the sacraments; sacramental.
Of or pertaining to the Sacramentarians. ::: n. --> An ancient book of the Roman Catholic Church, written by Pope Gelasius, and revised, corrected, and abridged by St. Gregory,
sannyasin &
sego ::: n. --> A liliaceous plant (Calochortus Nuttallii) of Western North America, and its edible bulb; -- so called by the Ute Indians and the Mormons.
scapegoat ::: n. --> A goat upon whose head were symbolically placed the sins of the people, after which he was suffered to escape into the wilderness.
Hence, a person or thing that is made to bear blame for others.
scat ::: interj. --> Go away; begone; away; -- chiefly used in driving off a cat. ::: n. --> Alt. of Scatt
A shower of rain.
Sdtivic ego is the sense of goodness and virtue.
self-begetten ::: a. --> Begotten by one&
"Self-giving in fact means a change from ego-centricity to God-centricity; . . .” Letters on Yoga
“Self-giving in fact means a change from ego-centricity to God-centricity; …” Letters on Yoga
SELF-JUSTIFICATION. ::: Always a sign of ego and ignor- ance. ^Vhen one has a wider consciousness, one knows that each one has his o>vn way of looking at things and finds in that way his own justification so that both parties in a quarrel believe
self-knowledge ::: knowing of oneself, without help from another.
Sri Aurobindo: The possibility of a cosmic consciousness in humanity is coming slowly to be admitted in modern Psychology, like the possibility of more elastic instruments of knowledge, although still classified, even when its value and power are admitted, as a hallucination. In the psychology of the East it has always been recognised as a reality and the aim of our subjective progress. The essence of the passage over to this goal is the exceeding of the limits imposed on us by the ego-sense and at least a partaking, at most an identification with the self-knowledge which broods secret in all life and in all that seems to us inanimate. *The Life Divine
"Therefore the only final goal possible is the emergence of the infinite consciousness in the individual; it is his recovery of the truth of himself by self-knowledge and by self-realisation, the truth of the Infinite in being, the Infinite in consciousness, the Infinite in delight repossessed as his own Self and Reality of which the finite is only a mask and an instrument for various expression.” The Life Divine
"The Truth-Consciousness is everywhere present in the universe as an ordering self-knowledge by which the One manifests the harmonies of its infinite potential multiplicity.” The Life Divine
“Self-will in thought and action has, we have already seen, to be quite renounced if we would be perfect in the way of divine works; it has equally to be renounced if we are to be perfect in divine knowledge. This self-will means an egoism in the mind which attaches itself to its preferences, its habits, its past or present formations of thought and view and will because it regards them as itself or its own, weaves around them the delicate threads of I-ness’’ andmy-ness’’ and lives in them like a spider in its web. It hates to be disturbed, as a spider hates attack on its web, and feels foreign and unhappy if transplanted to fresh view-points and formations as a spider feels foreign in another web than its own. This attachment must be entirely excised from the mind.” The Synthesis of Yoga
shoo ::: interj. --> Begone; away; -- an expression used in frightening away animals, especially fowls.
Shruti: “The prelude to the destruction or dissolution of the body, the mind, the ego, where any breaking down of any formation is painful. So the hounds are agents which lead to dissolution.”
&
solipsism ::: n. --> Egotism.
Egoism.
"So long as one is not free from the ego sense, there can be no real freedom.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“So long as one is not free from the ego sense, there can be no real freedom.” The Synthesis of Yoga
". . . spiritual freedom is not the egoistic assertion of our separate mind and life but obedience to the Divine Truth in ourself and our members and in all around us.” The Human Cycle
“… spiritual freedom is not the egoistic assertion of our separate mind and life but obedience to the Divine Truth in ourself and our members and in all around us.” The Human Cycle
squintifego ::: a. --> Squinting.
Sri Aurobindo: "But what do we mean by the individual? What we usually call by that name is a natural ego, a device of Nature which holds together her action in the mind and body. This ego has to be extinguished, otherwise there is no complete liberation possible; but the individual self or soul is not this ego. The individual soul is the spiritual being which is sometimes described as an eternal portion of the Divine, but can also be described as the Divine himself supporting his manifestation as the Many. This is the true spiritual individual which appears in its complete truth when we get rid of the ego and our false separative sense of individuality, realise our oneness with the transcendent and cosmic Divine and with all beings.” *Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "Ego is only a faculty put forward by the discriminative mind to centralise round itself the experiences of the sense-mind and to serve as a sort of lynch-pin in the wheel which keeps together the movement. It is no more than an instrument, although it is true that so long as we are limited by our normal mentality, we are compelled by the nature of that mentality and the purpose of the instrument to mistake our ego-function for our very self.” The Upanishads
Sri Aurobindo: "Every man is knowingly or unknowingly the instrument of a universal Power and, apart from the inner Presence, there is no such essential difference between one action and another, one kind of instrumentation and another as would warrant the folly of an egoistic pride. The difference between knowledge and ignorance is a grace of the Spirit; the breath of divine Power blows where it lists and fills today one and tomorrow another with the word or the puissance. If the potter shapes one pot more perfectly than another, the merit lies not in the vessel but the maker. The attitude of our mind must not be ‘This is my strength" or ‘Behold God"s power in me", but rather ‘A Divine Power works in this mind and body and it is the same that works in all men and in the animal, in the plant and in the metal, in conscious and living things and in things apparently inconscient and inanimate."” The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "His [the Titan"s] instincts call for a visible, tangible mastery and a sensational domination. How shall he feel sure of his empire unless he can feel something writhing helpless under his heel, — if in agony, so much the better? What is exploitation to him, unless it diminishes the exploited? To be able to coerce, exact, slay, overtly, irresistibly, — it is this that fills him with the sense of glory and dominion. For he is the son of division and the strong flowering of the Ego. To feel the comparative limitation of others is necessary to him that he may imagine himself immeasurable; for he has not the real, self-existent sense of infinity which no outward circumstance can abrogate. Contrast, division, negation of the wills and lives of others are essential to his self-development and self-assertion. The Titan would unify by devouring, not by harmonising; he must conquer and trample what is not himself either out of existence or into subservience so that his own image may stand out stamped upon all things and dominating all his environment.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: “His [the Titan’s] instincts call for a visible, tangible mastery and a sensational domination. How shall he feel sure of his empire unless he can feel something writhing helpless under his heel,—if in agony, so much the better? What is exploitation to him, unless it diminishes the exploited? To be able to coerce, exact, slay, overtly, irresistibly,—it is this that fills him with the sense of glory and dominion. For he is the son of division and the strong flowering of the Ego. To feel the comparative limitation of others is necessary to him that he may imagine himself immeasurable; for he has not the real, self-existent sense of infinity which no outward circumstance can abrogate. Contrast, division, negation of the wills and lives of others are essential to his self-development and self-assertion. The Titan would unify by devouring, not by harmonising; he must conquer and trample what is not himself either out of existence or into subservience so that his own image may stand out stamped upon all things and dominating all his environment.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Of course you can [do yoga without being great]. There is no need of being great. On the contrary humility is the first necessity, for one who has ego and pride cannot realise the Highest.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Pride is only one form of ego — there are ten thousand others. Every action of man is full of ego — the good ones as well as the bad, his humility as much as his pride, his virtues as much as his vices.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Surrender is giving oneself to the Divine — to give everything one is or has to the Divine and regard nothing as one"s own, to obey only the Divine will and no other, to live for the Divine and not for the ego.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "To be entirely sincere means to desire the divine Truth only, to surrender yourself more and more to the Divine Mother, to reject all personal demand and desire other than this one aspiration, to offer every action in life to the Divine and do it as the work given without bringing in the ego. This is the basis of the divine life.” Bases of Yoga*
Sri Aurobindo: “To be entirely sincere means to desire the divine Truth only, to surrender yourself more and more to the Divine Mother, to reject all personal demand and desire other than this one aspiration, to offer every action in life to the Divine and do it as the work given without bringing in the ego. This is the basis of the divine life.” Bases of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . wrong will and falsehood of the steps, . . . separative egoism inflicting by its ignorance and separate contrary will harm on oneself or harm on others, self-driven to a wrong dealing with one"s own soul, mind, life or body or a wrong dealing with the soul, mind, life, body of others, . . . is the practical sense of all human evil.” *The Life Divine
stegocephala ::: n. pl. --> An extinct order of amphibians found fossil in the Mesozoic rocks; called also Stegocephali, and Labyrinthodonta.
stegosauria ::: n. pl. --> An extinct order of herbivorous dinosaurs, including the genera Stegosaurus, Omosaurus, and their allies.
stegosaurus ::: n. --> A genus of large Jurassic dinosaurs remarkable for a powerful dermal armature of plates and spines.
Supreme Lord, as the Divine Mother and claim the being’s ser- vice and surrender. If these things are accepted, there will be an extremely disastrous consequence. If indeed there is the assent of the sadhaka to the Divine working alone and the submission or surrender to that guidance, then all can go smoothly. This assent and a rejection of all egoistic forces or forces that appeal to the ego are the safeguard throughout the sadhana. But the ways of nature are full of snares, the disguises of the ego arc innumerable, the illusions of the Powers of Darkness, Rakshasl,
surrender ::: “Surrender is giving oneself to the Divine—to give everything one is or has to the Divine and regard nothing as one’s own, to obey only the Divine will and no other, to live for the Divine and not for the ego.” Letters on Yoga
SURRENDER. ::: To give oneself to the Divine, to give every* thing one is or has to the Divine and regard nothing as one’s own, to obey only the Divine wlU and no other, to live for the Divine and not for the ego.
tamarack ::: n. --> The American larch; also, the larch of Oregon and British Columbia (Larix occidentalis). See Hackmatack, and Larch.
The black pine (Pinus Murrayana) of Alaska, California, etc. It is a small tree with fine-grained wood.
Tamasic ego is the ego of weakness, self-depreciation, des- pondency, unbelief.
tautegorical ::: a. --> Expressing the same thing with different words; -- opposed to allegorical.
"That is the way things come, only one does not notice. Thoughts, ideas, happy inventions etc., etc., are always wandering about (in thought-waves or otherwise), seeking a mind that may embody them. One mind takes, looks, rejects — another takes, looks, accepts. Two different minds catch the same thought-form or thought-wave, but the mental activities being different, make different results out of them. Or it comes to one and he does nothing, then it walks off saying, ‘O this unready animal!" and goes to another who promptly welcomes it and it settles into expression with a joyous bubble of inspiration, illumination or enthusiasm of original discovery or creation and the recipient cries proudly, ‘I, I have done this". Ego, sir! ego! You are the recipient, the conditioning medium, if you like — nothing more.” Letters on Yoga
“That is the way things come, only one does not notice. Thoughts, ideas, happy inventions etc., etc., are always wandering about (in thought-waves or otherwise), seeking a mind that may embody them. One mind takes, looks, rejects—another takes, looks, accepts. Two different minds catch the same thought-form or thought-wave, but the mental activities being different, make different results out of them. Or it comes to one and he does nothing, then it walks off saying, ‘O this unready animal!’ and goes to another who promptly welcomes it and it settles into expression with a joyous bubble of inspiration, illumination or enthusiasm of original discovery or creation and the recipient cries proudly, ‘I, I have done this’. Ego, sir! ego! You are the recipient, the conditioning medium, if you like—nothing more.” Letters on Yoga
". . . the ego is the lynch-pin invented to hold together the motion of our wheel of nature. The necessity of centralisation around the ego continues until there is no longer need of any such device or contrivance because there has emerged the true self, the spiritual being, which is at once wheel and motion and that which holds all together, the centre and the circumference.” The Life Divine
“… the ego is the lynch-pin invented to hold together the motion of our wheel of nature. The necessity of centralisation around the ego continues until there is no longer need of any such device or contrivance because there has emerged the true self, the spiritual being, which is at once wheel and motion and that which holds all together, the centre and the circumference.” The Life Divine
“The cosmic consciousness has many levels—the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness is that in which the limits of ego, personal mind and body disappear and one becomes aware of a cosmic vastness which is or filled by a cosmic spirit and aware also of the direct play of cosmic forces, universal mind forces, universal life forces, universal energies of Matter, universal overmind forces. But one does not become aware of all these together; the opening of the cosmic consciousness is usually progressive. It is not that the ego, the body, the personal mind disappear, but one feels them as only a small part of oneself. One begins to feel others too as part of oneself or varied repetitions of oneself, the same self modified by Nature in other bodies. Or, at the least, as living in the larger universal self which is henceforth one"s own greater reality. All things in fact begin to change their nature and appearance; one"s whole experience of the world is radically different from that of those who are shut up in their personal selves. One begins to know things by a different kind of experience, more direct, not depending on the external mind and the senses. It is not that the possibility of error disappears, for that cannot be so long as mind of any kind is one"s instrument for transcribing knowledge, but there is a new, vast and deep way of experiencing, seeing, knowing, contacting things; and the confines of knowledge can be rolled back to an almost unmeasurable degree. The thing one has to be on guard against in the cosmic consciousness is the play of a magnified ego, the vaster attacks of the hostile forces — for they too are part of the cosmic consciousness — and the attempt of the cosmic Illusion (Ignorance, Avidya) to prevent the growth of the soul into the cosmic Truth. These are things that one has to learn from experience; mental teaching or explanation is quite insufficient. To enter safely into the cosmic consciousness and to pass safely through it, it is necessary to have a strong central unegoistic sincerity and to have the psychic being, with its divination of truth and unfaltering orientation towards the Divine, already in front in ::: —the nature.” Letters on Yoga*
“The cosmic consciousness is that in which the limits of ego, personal mind and body disappear and one becomes aware of a cosmic vastness which is or filled by a cosmic spirit and aware also of the direct play of cosmic forces, universal mind forces, universal life forces, universal energies of Matter, universal overmind forces. But one does not become aware of all these together; the opening of the cosmic consciousness is usually progressive. It is not that the ego, the body, the personal mind disappear, but one feels them as only a small part of oneself. One begins to feel others too as part of oneself or varied repetitions of oneself, the same self modified by Nature in other bodies. Or, at the least, as living in the larger universal self which is henceforth one’s own greater reality. All things in fact begin to change their nature and appearance; one’s whole experience of the world is radically different from that of those who are shut up in their personal selves. One begins to know things by a different kind of experience, more direct, not depending on the external mind and the senses. It is not that the possibility of error disappears, for that cannot be so long as mind of any kind is one’s instrument for transcribing knowledge, but there is a new, vast and deep way of experiencing, seeing, knowing, contacting things; and the confines of knowledge can be rolled back to an almost unmeasurable degree. The thing one has to be on guard against in the cosmic consciousness is the play of a magnified ego, the vaster attacks of the hostile forces—for they too are part of the cosmic consciousness—and the attempt of the cosmic Illusion (Ignorance, Avidya) to prevent the growth of the soul into the cosmic Truth. These are things that one has to learn from experience; mental teaching or explanation is quite insufficient. To enter safely into the cosmic consciousness and to pass safely through it, it is necessary to have a strong central unegoistic sincerity and to have the psychic being, with its divination of truth and unfaltering orientation towards the Divine, already in front in—the nature.” Letters on Yoga
"The culmination of the soul"s constant touch with the Supreme is that self-giving which we call surrender to the divine Will and immergence of the separated ego in the One who is all.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The culmination of the soul’s constant touch with the Supreme is that self-giving which we call surrender to the divine Will and immergence of the separated ego in the One who is all.” The Synthesis of Yoga
The direct opening of the psychic centre is easy only when the ego-centricity is greatly diminished and also if there is a strong bhakti for the Mother. A spiritual humility and a sense of submission and dependence is necessary.
“The Divine Reality is infinite in its being; in this infinite being, we find limited being everywhere,—that is the apparent fact from which our existence here seems to start and to which our own narrow ego and its ego-centric activities bear constant witness. But, in reality, when we come to an integral self-knowledge, we find that we are not limited, for we also are infinite.” The Life Divine
::: "The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and prayer itself supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. It is true that the universal will executes always its aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic propitiation and entreaty, it is true of the Transcendent who expresses himself in the universal order that being omniscient his larger knowledge must foresee the thing to be done and it does not need direction or stimulation by human thought and that the individual"s desires are not and cannot be in any world-order the true determining factor. But neither is that order or the execution of the universal will altogether effected by mechanical Law, but by powers and forces of which for human life at least human will, aspiration and faith are not among the least important.
“The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and prayer itself supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. It is true that the universal will executes always its aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic propitiation and entreaty, it is true of the Transcendent who expresses himself in the universal order that being omniscient his larger knowledge must foresee the thing to be done and it does not need direction or stimulation by human thought and that the individual’s desires are not and cannot be in any world-order the true determining factor. But neither is that order or the execution of the universal will altogether effected by mechanical Law, but by powers and forces of which for human life at least human will, aspiration and faith are not among the least important. The Synthesis of Yoga
"The end of the path may be, equally, a perception of the Divine in all energies, in all happenings, in all activities, and a free and unegoistic participation of the soul in the cosmic action. So followed it will lead to the elevation of all human will and activity to the divine level, its spiritualisation and the justification of the cosmic labour towards freedom, power and perfection in the human being.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The end of the path may be, equally, a perception of the Divine in all energies, in all happenings, in all activities, and a free and unegoistic participation of the soul in the cosmic action. So followed it will lead to the elevation of all human will and activity to the divine level, its spiritualisation and the justification of the cosmic labour towards freedom, power and perfection in the human being.” The Synthesis of Yoga
The feeling (not merely the idea or tbe aspiration) that all the life and the work are the Mother’s and a strong joy of the vital nature in this consecration and surrender. A consequent calm content and disappearance of egoistic attachment to the work and its personal results, but at the same time a peat joy in the work and in the use of the capacities for the divine purpose. , .
The fotm of the ego has to be dissolved, it has not to be replaced by a bigger ego or another kind of ego. It has to be replaced by the true being which feels itself, though individual, yet one with all and one with the Divine.
— the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender. Let your faith be pure, cancfid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by arabidoo, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for petty satisfaction of the lower nature is a low and smokc-obscurcd flame that cannot bum upwards to heaven. Regard your life as given you only for the divine work and to help in the dirine manifestation.
"The individual ego is a pragmatic and effective fiction, a translation of the secret self into the terms of surface consciousness, or a subjective substitute for the true self in our surface experience. . . .”The Life Divine
“The individual ego is a pragmatic and effective fiction, a translation of the secret self into the terms of surface consciousness, or a subjective substitute for the true self in our surface experience….”The Life Divine
"The ‘I" or the little ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising and individualising the outer consciousness and action. When the true being is discovered, the utility of the ego is over and this formation has to disappear — the true being is felt in its place.” Letters on Yoga
“The ‘I’ or the little ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising and individualising the outer consciousness and action. When the true being is discovered, the utility of the ego is over and this formation has to disappear—the true being is felt in its place.” Letters on Yoga
The merging of the little ego ia union with the Divine, puri- fication, surrender, the substitution of the Divine guidance for one’s own ignorant self-guidance based on one's personal Ideas and personal feelings is the aim of Karmajoga, the surrender of one's own will to the Divine Will.
"The message of the Gita is the gospel of the Divinity in man who by force of an increasing union unfolds himself out of the veil of the lower Nature, reveals to the human soul his cosmic spirit, reveals his absolute transcendences, reveals himself in man and in all beings. The potential outcome here of this union, this divine Yoga, man growing towards the Godhead, the Godhead manifest in the human soul and to the inner human vision, is our liberation from limited ego and our elevation to the higher nature of a divine humanity.” Essays on the Gita ::: *Divinity"s.
“The message of the Gita is the gospel of the Divinity in man who by force of an increasing union unfolds himself out of the veil of the lower Nature, reveals to the human soul his cosmic spirit, reveals his absolute transcendences, reveals himself in man and in all beings. The potential outcome here of this union, this divine Yoga, man growing towards the Godhead, the Godhead manifest in the human soul and to the inner human vision, is our liberation from limited ego and our elevation to the higher nature of a divine humanity.” Essays on the Gita
The more intense the experiences that come, the higher the forces that descend, the greater become the possibilities of deviation and error. For the very intensity and the very height of the force excites and aggrandises the movements of the lower nature and raises up in it all opposing elements in their full force, but often in the dbguisc of truth, wearing a mask of plausible justification. There is needed a great patience, calm, sobriety, balance, an impersonal dciachmcnx and sincerity free from all taint of ego or personal human desire. There must be no attachment to any idea of one’s owm, to any experience, to any kind of imagination, mental building or vital demand ::: the light of discrimination must alx^i'ays play to detect those
themselves to be on the right. It is only when one looks from above in a consciousness clear of ego that one sees all sides of a thing and also their real truth.
::: "The perfect cosmic vision & cosmic sentiment is the cure of all error & suffering; but most men succeed only in enlarging the range of their ego.” Essays Divine and Human
“The perfect cosmic vision & cosmic sentiment is the cure of all error & suffering; but most men succeed only in enlarging the range of their ego.” Essays Divine and Human
The possibility of a cosmic consciousness in humanity is coming slowly to be admitted in modern Psychology, like the possibility of more elastic instruments of knowledge, although still classified, even when its value and power are admitted, as a hallucination. In the psychology of the East it has always been recognised as a reality and the aim of our subjective progress. The essence of the passage over to this goal is the exceeding of the limits imposed on us by the ego-sense and at least a partaking, at most an identification with the self-knowledge which broods secret in all life and in all that seems to us inanimate. The Life Divine
The process of yoga is a tumiog of the human soul from the egoistic state of consciousness absorbed in outer appearances and attractions of things to a higher state .in which the Trans- cendent and Universal can pour itself into the individual mould and transform it.
“There is one cosmic Mind, one cosmic Life, one cosmic Body. All the attempt of man to arrive at universal sympathy, universal love and the understanding and knowledge of the inner soul of other existences is an attempt to beat thin, breach and eventually break down by the power of the enlarging mind and heart the walls of the ego and arrive nearer to a cosmic oneness.” The Synthesis of Yoga
The spiritual element is the need of the being for contact, merging, union wth its own highest and uhole sell and source of being and consciousness and bliss, the Ditinc. These two are two sides of the same thing. The mind, vital, physical can be the supports and recipients of this lose, but they can be fully that only when they become remoulded in harmony with the psychic and spiritual elements of the being and no longer bring in the lower insistences of the ego.
The strong vital, when the will is there, can do it much more easily — its one central dtfliculty Is the pride of the ego and the attraction of its powers.
"The surface mental individuality is, in consequence, always ego-centric; even its altruism is an enlargement of its ego: the ego is the lynch-pin invented to hold together the motion of our wheel of nature. The necessity of centralisation around the ego continues until there is no longer need of any such device or contrivance because there has emerged the true self, the spiritual being, which is at once wheel and motion and that which holds all together, the centre and the circumference.” *The Life Divine
“The surface mental individuality is, in consequence, always ego-centric; even its altruism is an enlargement of its ego: the ego is the lynch-pin invented to hold together the motion of our wheel of nature. The necessity of centralisation around the ego continues until there is no longer need of any such device or contrivance because there has emerged the true self, the spiritual being, which is at once wheel and motion and that which holds all together, the centre and the circumference.” The Life Divine
"The surface mental individuality is, in consequence, always ego-centric; even its altruism is an enlargement of its ego: . . . . ” The Life Divine*
“The surface mental individuality is, in consequence, always ego-centric; even its altruism is an enlargement of its ego: …” The Life Divine
". . . the Titan, who lives in his own inordinately magnified shadow, mistakes ego for the self and spirit and tries to impose his fragmentary personality as the one dominant existence upon all his surroundings.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“… the Titan, who lives in his own inordinately magnified shadow, mistakes ego for the self and spirit and tries to impose his fragmentary personality as the one dominant existence upon all his surroundings.” The Synthesis of Yoga
::: ". . . the true individual is not the ego, but the divine individuality which is through our evolution preparing to emerge in us. . . .” The Human Cycle
“… the true individual is not the ego, but the divine individuality which is through our evolution preparing to emerge in us….” The Human Cycle
The wall is indeed the wall of the ego which is based on the insistent identification of oneself with the outer personality and its movements. It is that identification which is the key-stone of the limitation and bondage from which the outer being su/Tcrs, prevenUng expansion, self-knowledge, spiritual freedom. But still the wall must not be prematurely broken down, because that may lead to a disruption or confusion or invasion of either part by the movements of the two separated worlds before they are ready to harmonise. A certain separation is necessary for some time after one has become aware of these two parts of the being as existing together. The force of the Yoga must be given time to make the necessary adjustments and openings, and to take the being inward and then from this inward poise to work on the outer nature.
"The will of self-giving forces away by its power the veil between God and man; it annuls every error and annihilates every obstacle. Those who aspire in their human strength by effort of knowledge or effort of virtue or effort of laborious self-discipline, grow with much anxious difficulty towards the Eternal; but when the soul gives up its ego and its works to the Divine, God himself comes to us and takes up our burden.” Essays on the Gita
“The will of self-giving forces away by its power the veil between God and man; it annuls every error and annihilates every obstacle. Those who aspire in their human strength by effort of knowledge or effort of virtue or effort of laborious self-discipline, grow with much anxious difficulty towards the Eternal; but when the soul gives up its ego and its works to the Divine, God himself comes to us and takes up our burden.” Essays on the Gita
This descent, this working is not without Us possibility of cala- mitous fall and danger. If the human mind or the vital desire seizes hold on the descending force and tries to use it according to its own limited and erring ideas or flawed and egoistic impulses,
This is indeed one of the three forces — power, wealth, sex — that have the strongest attraction for the human ego and the
This preliminary is of supreme importance ; without it the course of the rest of the Rajayoga is likely to be troubled, marred and full of unexpected mental, moral and physical perils. This moral purification is divided in the established system under two heads, five yamas and five niyamas. The first are rules of moral self- control in conduct such as truth-speaking, abstinence from injury or killing, from theft, etc., but in reality these must be regarded as merely certain main indications of the general need of moral self-control and purity, Ywna Is, more largely, any self-discipline by which the rajasic egoism and its passions and desires in the human being are conquered and quieted into perfect cessation.
Tho object is to create a moral calm, a void of the passions, and so prepare for the death of egoism in the rajasic human being.
Thunderer ::: An epithet for Jupiter or the Deity. Jupiter (Latin: Iuppiter; /ˈjʊpɪtɛr/; genitive case: Iovis; /ˈjɔːvɪs/) or Jove is the king of the gods and the god of sky and thunder in myth. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as sacrifice.
TIic sirong vifaJ, when the will is iJicre, can do it much more easily — its one central dlflicuUy is the pride of the ego and the attraction of its powers.
Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and work- ing out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego It is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument.
"Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and working out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and a condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and working out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and a condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument.” The Synthesis of Yoga
tion, not necessarily of all being, but of being as we know it ; extinction of ego, desire and egoistic action and mentality.
tions; but here there comes in the Overmind law of each Force working out its own possibilities. The natural possibilities of a world in which an original Inconscience and a division of consciousness are the main principles, would be the emergence of Forces of Darkness impelled to maintain the Ignorance by which they live, an ignorant struggle to know originative of falsehood and error, an ignorant struggle to live engendering wrong and evil, an egoistic struggle to enjoy, parent of fragmentary joys and pains and sufferings; these are therefore the inevitable first-imprinted characters, though not the sole possibilities of our evolutionary existence. Still, because the Non-Existence is a concealed Existence, the Inconscience a concealed Consciousness, the insensibility a masked and dormant Ananda, these secret realities must emerge; the hidden Overmind and Supermind too must in the end fulfil themselves in this apparently opposite organisation from a dark Infinite. …
Titan ::: : “His [the Titan’s] instincts call for a visible, tangible mastery and a sensational domination. How shall he feel sure of his empire unless he can feel something writhing helpless under his heel,—if in agony, so much the better? What is exploitation to him, unless it diminishes the exploited? To be able to coerce, exact, slay, overtly, irresistibly,—it is this that fills him with the sense of glory and dominion. For he is the son of division and the strong flowering of the Ego. To feel the comparative limitation of others is necessary to him that he may imagine himself immeasurable; for he has not the real, self-existent sense of infinity which no outward circumstance can abrogate. Contrast, division, negation of the wills and lives of others are essential to his self-development and self-assertion. The Titan would unify by devouring, not by harmonising; he must conquer and trample what is not himself either out of existence or into subservience so that his own image may stand out stamped upon all things and dominating all his environment.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
" To become ourselves by exceeding ourselves, — so we may turn the inspired phrases of a half-blind seer who knew not the self of which he spoke, — is the difficult and dangerous necessity, the cross surmounted by an invisible crown which is imposed on us, the riddle of the true nature of his being proposed to man by the dark Sphinx of the Inconscience below and from within and above by the luminous veiled Sphinx of the infinite Consciousness and eternal Wisdom confronting him as an inscrutable divine Maya. To exceed ego and be our true self, to be aware of our real being, to possess it, to possess a real delight of being, is therefore the ultimate meaning of our life here; it is the concealed sense of our individual and terrestrial existence.” The Life Divine*
“ To become ourselves by exceeding ourselves,—so we may turn the inspired phrases of a half-blind seer who knew not the self of which he spoke,—is the difficult and dangerous necessity, the cross surmounted by an invisible crown which is imposed on us, the riddle of the true nature of his being proposed to man by the dark Sphinx of the Inconscience below and from within and above by the luminous veiled Sphinx of the infinite Consciousness and eternal Wisdom confronting him as an inscrutable divine Maya. To exceed ego and be our true self, to be aware of our real being, to possess it, to possess a real delight of being, is therefore the ultimate meaning of our life here; it is the concealed sense of our individual and terrestrial existence.” The Life Divine
“To become ourselves by exceeding ourselves,—so we may turn the inspired phrases of a half-blind seer who knew not the self of which he spoke,—is the difficult and dangerous necessity, the cross surmounted by an invisible crown which is imposed on us, the riddle of the true nature of his being proposed to man by the dark Sphinx of the Inconscience below and from within and above by the luminous veiled Sphinx of the infinite Consciousness and eternal Wisdom confronting him as an inscrutable divine Maya. To exceed ego and be our true self, to be aware of our real being, to possess it, to possess a real delight of being, is therefore the ultimate meaning of our life here; it is the concealed sense of our individual and terrestrial existence.” The Life Divine
To be free from all egoistic motive, careful of truth in speech and action, void of self-will and self-assertion, watchful in all things, is the condition for being a fearless servant-
"To have the true intuition one must get rid of the mind"s self-will, and the vital"s also, their preferences, fancies, fantasies, strong insistences and eliminate the mental and vital ego"s pressure which sets the consciousness to work in the service of its own claims and desires.” Letters on Yoga*
“To have the true intuition one must get rid of the mind’s self-will, and the vital’s also, their preferences, fancies, fantasies, strong insistences and eliminate the mental and vital ego’s pressure which sets the consciousness to work in the service of its own claims and desires.” Letters on Yoga
to surrender yourself more and more to the Divine Mother, to reject all personal demand and desire other than this one aspira- tion, to offer every action in life to the Divine and do it as the work given without bringing in the ego. This is the basis of the divine life.
transferable ::: a. --> Capable of being transferred or conveyed from one place or person to another.
Negotiable, as a note, bill of exchange, or other evidence of property, that may be conveyed from one person to another by indorsement or other writing; capable of being transferred with no loss of value; as, the stocks of most public companies are transferable; some tickets are not transferable.
treat ::: v. t. --> To handle; to manage; to use; to bear one&
treaty ::: n. --> The act of treating for the adjustment of differences, as for forming an agreement; negotiation.
An agreement so made; specifically, an agreement, league, or contract between two or more nations or sovereigns, formally signed by commissioners properly authorized, and solemnly ratified by the several sovereigns, or the supreme power of each state; an agreement between two or more independent states; as, a treaty of peace; a treaty of alliance.
triune Infinite ::: Sri Aurobindo: "We do not seek to excise from our being all consciousness of the universe, but to realise God, Truth and Self in the universe as well as transcendent of it. We shall seek therefore not only the Ineffable, but also His manifestation as infinite being, consciousness and bliss embracing the universe and at play in it. For that triune infinity is His supreme manifestation and that we shall aspire to know, to share in and to become; and since we seek to realise this Trinity not only in itself but in its cosmic play, we shall aspire also to knowledge of and participation in the universal divine Truth, Knowledge, Will, Love which are His secondary manifestation, His divine becoming. With this too we shall aspire to identify ourselves, towards this too we shall strive to rise and, when the period of effort is passed, allow it by our renunciation of all egoism to draw us up into itself in our being and to descend into us and embrace us in all our becoming.” The Synthesis of Yoga
truce ::: n. --> A suspension of arms by agreement of the commanders of opposing forces; a temporary cessation of hostilities, for negotiation or other purpose; an armistice.
Hence, intermission of action, pain, or contest; temporary cessation; short quiet.
truth, by renuflcjation of all forms of egozstJc seeXaac, by absten- tion from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, glad, clear state of mind and heart is established.
tschego ::: n. --> A West African anthropoid ape allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee, and by some considered only a variety of the chimpanzee. It is noted for building large, umbrella-shaped nests in trees. Called also tscheigo, tschiego, nschego, nscheigo.
tullibee ::: n. --> A whitefish (Coregonus tullibee) found in the Great Lakes of North America; -- called also mongrel whitefish.
ultimatum ::: n. --> A final proposition, concession, or condition; especially, the final propositions, conditions, or terms, offered by either of the parties in a diplomatic negotiation; the most favorable terms a negotiator can offer, the rejection of which usually puts an end to the hesitation.
unbegot ::: a. --> Alt. of Unbegotten
unbegotten ::: a. --> Not begot; not yet generated; also, having never been generated; self-existent; eternal.
unbred ::: a. --> Not begotten; unborn.
Not taught or trained; -- with to.
Not well-bred; ill-bred.
unget ::: v. t. --> To cause to be unbegotten or unborn, or as if unbegotten or unborn.
ungotten ::: a. --> Not gotten; not acquired.
Not begotten.
unigeniture ::: n. --> The state of being the only begotten.
Until you are capable of this complete dynamic identification, you have to regard yourself as a soul and body created for her service, one who does all for her sake. Even if the idea of the separate worker Is strong in you and you feel that it is you who do the act, yet it must be done for her. All stress of egoistic choice, all hankeriog after personal profit, all stipulation of self- regarding desire must be extirpated from the nature. There must be no demand for fruit and no seeking for reward ; the only fruit for you is the pleasure of the Divine Mother and the ful- filment of her work, your only reward a constant progression in divine consciousness and calm and strength and bliss. The joy of service and the joy of inner groxvth through works is the suffi- cient recompense of the sefless worker.
vendace ::: n. --> A European lake whitefish (Coregonus Willughbii, or C. Vandesius) native of certain lakes in Scotland and England. It is regarded as a delicate food fish. Called also vendis.
\Vhile this transformation is being done it is more than ever necessary to keep yourself free from all taint of the perversions of the ego. Let no demand or insistence creep in to stain the purity of the self-giving and the sacrifice. There must be no attachment to the work or the result, no laying doNvn of condi- tions, no claim to possess the Power that should possess you, no pride of the instrument, no vani^’ or arrogance. Nothing in the mind or in the vital or physical parts should be suffered to distort to its own use or seize for its own personal and separate satisfaction the greatness of the forces that are acting through you. Let your faith, your sincerity, your purity of aspiration be absolute and pervasive of all the planes and layers of the being ; then every disturbing element and distorting influence will pro- gressively fall away from your nature.
vide Wall of the ego.
Vital Bhakti is egoistic, usually full of claims and demands on the Divine and revolting when they are not satisfied.
waive ::: v. t. --> A waif; a castaway.
A woman put out of the protection of the law. See Waive, v. t., 3 (b), and the Note.
To relinquish; to give up claim to; not to insist on or claim; to refuse; to forego.
To throw away; to cast off; to reject; to desert.
To throw away; to relinquish voluntarily, as a right which one may enforce if he chooses.
Wall of the ego ::: A lime must come for every seeker of
wapatoo ::: n. --> The edible tuber of a species of arrowhead (Sagittaria variabilis); -- so called by the Indians of Oregon.
wegotism ::: n. --> Excessive use of the pronoun we; -- called also weism.
“We do not seek to excise from our being all consciousness of the universe, but to realise God, Truth and Self in the universe as well as transcendent of it. We shall seek therefore not only the Ineffable, but also His manifestation as infinite being, consciousness and bliss embracing the universe and at play in it. For that triune infinity is His supreme manifestation and that we shall aspire to know, to share in and to become; and since we seek to realise this Trinity not only in itself but in its cosmic play, we shall aspire also to knowledge of and participation in the universal divine Truth, Knowledge, Will, Love which are His secondary manifestation, His divine becoming. With this too we shall aspire to identify ourselves, towards this too we shall strive to rise and, when the period of effort is passed, allow it by our renunciation of all egoism to draw us up into itself in our being and to descend into us and embrace us in all our becoming.” The Synthesis of Yoga
WEEPING. ::: Weeping brings in the forces that should be kept outside ; for weeping is a giving way of the inner control and an expression of vital reaction and ego. Tt is only the psychic weeping that does not open the door to these forces ; but that weeping is without affliction, tears of Bhakti, spiritual emotion, or Ananda.
weism ::: n. --> Same as Wegotism.
wel-begone ::: a. --> Surrounded with happiness or prosperity.
"What becomes desire in the ego is Will in the Spirit.” The Life Divine
“What becomes desire in the ego is Will in the Spirit.” The Life Divine
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
". . . what is this strongly separative self-experience that we call ego? It is nothing fundamentally real in itself but only a practical constitution of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us. We perceive a formation of mental, physical, vital experience which distinguishes itself from the rest of being, and that is what we think of as ourselves in nature — this individualisation of being in becoming. We then proceed to conceive of ourselves as something which has thus individualised itself and only exists so long as it is individualised, — a temporary or at least a temporal becoming; or else we conceive of ourselves as someone who supports or causes the individualisation, an immortal being perhaps but limited by its individuality. This perception and this conception constitute our ego-sense.” The Life Divine
“… what is this strongly separative self-experience that we call ego? It is nothing fundamentally real in itself but only a practical constitution of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us. We perceive a formation of mental, physical, vital experience which distinguishes itself from the rest of being, and that is what we think of as ourselves in nature—this individualisation of being in becoming. We then proceed to conceive of ourselves as something which has thus individualised itself and only exists so long as it is individualised,—a temporary or at least a temporal becoming; or else we conceive of ourselves as someone who supports or causes the individualisation, an immortal being perhaps but limited by its individuality. This perception and this conception constitute our ego-sense.” The Life Divine
When the human ego realises that its will is a tool, its wisdom ignorance and childishness, its power an infant’s groping, its virtue a pretentious impurity, and learns to trust itself to that which transcends it, that is its salvation. The apparent freedom and self-assertion of our personal being to which we arc so profoundly attached, conceal a most pitiable subjection to a thousand suggestions, impulsions, forces which we have made extraneous to our little person. Our ego, boasting of freedom, is at every moment the slave, toy and puppet of countless beings, powers, forces, influences in uniwrsal Nature. The self-abnega- tion of the ego in the Divine is its self-fulfilment ; its surrender to that which transcends it is its liberation from bonds and limits and its perfect freedom.
When there is an attack from the human instruments of adverse forces, one should try to overcome it not in a spirit of personal hatred or anger or wounded egoism, but with a calm spirit of strength and equality and a call to the Divine Force to act.
whitefish ::: n. --> Any one of several species of Coregonus, a genus of excellent food fishes allied to the salmons. They inhabit the lakes of the colder parts of North America, Asia, and Europe. The largest and most important American species (C. clupeiformis) is abundant in the Great Lakes, and in other lakes farther north. Called also lake whitefish, and Oswego bass.
The menhaden.
The beluga, or white whale.
will, free ::: Sri Aurobindo: Our notion of free will is apt to be tainted with the excessive individualism of the human ego and to assume the figure of an independent will acting on its own isolated account, in a complete liberty without any determination other than its own choice and single unrelated movement. This idea ignores the fact that our natural being is a part of cosmic Nature and our spiritual being exists only by the supreme Transcendence. Our total being can rise out of subjection to fact of present Nature only by an identification with a greater Truth and a greater Nature. The will of the individual, even when completely free, could not act in an isolated independence, because the individual being and nature are included in the universal Being and Nature and dependent on the all-overruling Transcendence. There could indeed be in the ascent a dual line. On one line the being could feel and behave as an independent self-existence uniting itself with its own impersonal Reality; it could, so self-conceived, act with a great force, but either this action would be still within an enlarged frame of its past and present self-formation of power of Nature or else it would be the cosmic or supreme Force that acted in it and there would be no personal initiation of action, no sense therefore of individual free will but only of an impersonal cosmic or supreme Will or Energy at its work. On the other line the being would feel itself a spiritual instrument and so act as a power of the Supreme Being, limited in its workings only by the potencies of the Supernature, which are without bounds or any restriction except its own Truth and self-law, and by the Will in her. But in either case there would be, as the condition of a freedom from the control of a mechanical action of Nature-forces, a submission to a greater conscious Power or an acquiescent unity of the individual being with its intention and movement in his own and in the world"s existence.” *The Life Divine
will, self ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Self-will in thought and action has, we have already seen, to be quite renounced if we would be perfect in the way of divine works; it has equally to be renounced if we are to be perfect in divine knowledge. This self-will means an egoism in the mind which attaches itself to its preferences, its habits, its past or present formations of thought and view and will because it regards them as itself or its own, weaves around them the delicate threads of I-ness'' andmy-ness"" and lives in them like a spider in its web. It hates to be disturbed, as a spider hates attack on its web, and feels foreign and unhappy if transplanted to fresh view-points and formations as a spider feels foreign in another web than its own. This attachment must be entirely excised from the mind.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
Without the liberation of the psychic and the realization of the true Self the ego cannot go, both arc necessary.
with the ego or being a big Yogi or becoming a superman than with meeting the Divine or getting the Divine consciousness which enables one to live in or with the Divine, then a flood of pscudos or mixtures come in, one is led into the mazes of the intermediate zone or spins in the grooves of one’s own forma- tions.
woe-begone ::: a. --> Beset or overwhelmed with woe; immersed in grief or sorrow; woeful.
work ::: “I do not mean by work action done in the ego and the ignorance, for the satisfaction of the ego and in the drive of rajasic desire. There can be no Karmayoga without the will to get rid of ego, rajas and desire, which are the seals of ignorance.
work ::: Sri Aurobindo: "I do not mean by work action done in the ego and the ignorance, for the satisfaction of the ego and in the drive of rajasic desire. There can be no Karmayoga without the will to get rid of ego, rajas and desire, which are the seals of ignorance.
world ::: 1. Everything that exists; the universe; the macrocosm. 2. The earth with its inhabitants. 3. Any sphere, realm, or domain, with all pertaining to it. 4. Any period, state, or sphere of existence. world"s, worlds, wonder-world, wonder-worlds, world-adventure, world-adventure"s, world-being"s, World-Bliss, world-cloak, world-conjecture"s, world-creating, world-creators, world-delight, World-Delight, world-destiny, world-destroying, world-disillusion"s, world-dream, world-drowse, world-egos, world-energies, world-energy, World-Energy, world-force, world-experience, world-fact, world-failure"s, world-fate, World-Force, world-forces, World-free, World-Geometer"s, world-heart, world-idea, world-ignorance, World-Ignorance, World-maker"s, world-indifference, world-interpreting, world-kindergarten, world-knowledge, world-law, world-laws, world-libido"s, world-making"s, World-Matter"s, World-naked, world-need, world-ocean"s, world-outline, world-pain, world-passion, World-personality, world-pile, world-plan, world-power, World-Power, World-Power"s, World-Puissance, world-rapture, world-redeemer"s, world-rhyme, world-rhythms, world-scene, world-scheme, world-sea, World-Self, world-shape, world-shapes, world-space, world-stuff, world-symbol, World-symbols, World-task, world-time, World-Time‘s, world-tree, world-ways, world-whim, dream-world, heaven-world, mid-world.
world-ignorance ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Our self-ignorance and our world-ignorance can only grow towards integral self-knowledge and integral world-knowledge in proportion as our limited ego and its half-blind consciousness open to a greater inner existence and consciousness and a true self-being and become aware too of the not-self outside it also as self, — on one side a Nature constituent of our own nature, on the other an Existence which is a boundless continuation of our own self-being. Our being has to break the walls of ego-consciousness which it has created, it has to extend itself beyond its body and inhabit the body of the universe.” The Life Divine
yj4M^. RuJe of moral self-coatroJ. Any self-discipline by which the rajash egoism and its passions and desires are con- quered and quieted into perfect cessation.
KEYS (10k)
98 Sri Aurobindo
46 Sri Ramakrishna
26 Sri Ramana Maharshi
14 Sri Ramana Maharshi
14 Saint Gregory of Nyssa
9 Gregory the Great
8 Gregory of Nazianzen
5 Sri Gawn Tu Fahr
5 Pope St. Gregory the Great
5 The Mother
4 Swami Vijnanananda
4 Saint Gregory the Great
3 Swami Turiyananda
3 Swami Ramakrishnananda
3 Saint Gregory of Nazianzen
3 Aleister Crowley
2 Zen Fi
2 SWAMI PREMANANDA
2 Swami Adbhutananda
2 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Saint Thomas Aquinas
2 Robert Adams
2 Ramesh Balsekar
2 Pope Gregory the Great
2 Jalaluddin Rumi
2 Gregory Nazianzen
2 Carl Jung
2 Buddhist Texts
1 Yoga Vasistha
1 Werner Jaeger
1 Wei Wu Wei
1 Thomas Keating
1 The Mother
1 T. Golas
1 SWAMI TRIGUNATITANANDA
1 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
1 Swami Saradananda
1 SWAMI RAMA
1 Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
1 Sri Sarada Devi
1 Sigmund Freud
1 Sathya Sai Baba
1 Sanyutta Nikaya
1 Saint Seraphim of Sarov
1 Saint John Chrysostom
1 Saint Gregory Palamas
1 Saint Gregory of Nyssac.
1 Saint Gregory of Nazianzus
1 Saint Gregory I
1 Saint Anastasius of Antioch
1 R Buckminster Fuller
1 Ramakrishna
1 Pope St. Gregory I
1 Pope Saint Gregory the Great
1 Philo of Alexandria
1 Peter Ouspensky
1 Patanjali
1 Mohyddin-ibn-Arabi
1 Mikado Shuyaku
1 Mawlay Al Arabi Al Darqawi
1 MATA AMRITANANDAMAYI
1 MATA AMRITANADAMAYI
1 Kamand Kojouri
1 John Scotus Eriugena
1 John O'Donohue
1 Gujarati Hymn [Gujarati an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat. "Death" refers to death of ego.]
1 Gregory of Nazianzus
1 Gregory Nazianzus
1 Gregory Bateson
1 Frederick Lenz
1 Eusebius of Caesarea
1 Eckhart Tolle
1 Danielle Pierre
1 Claudio Naranjo
1 Book of Golden Precepts
1 Arthur Koestler
1 Anonymous
1 Annamalai Swami
1 Alan Cohen See: https://bit.ly/3dnj715
1 Swami Vivekananda
1 Saint Thomas Aquinas
1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 Jetsun Milarepa
1 Jalaluddin Rumi
1 Ibn Arabi
1 1 John 2:28-29
1 ?
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
135 Gregory Maguire
86 Gregory David Roberts
83 Philippa Gregory
53 Anonymous
51 Conor McGregor
41 Gregory Benford
24 Laura Gallego Garc a
24 Daryl Gregory
23 Dick Gregory
21 Ewan McGregor
18 Gregory Bateson
14 Gregory Corso
13 Eckhart Tolle
12 Diego Maradona
9 Chris Voss
8 Sof a Segovia
8 Rajneesh
8 Alija Izetbegovi
7 Jon McGregor
7 Gregory Peck
1:When ego ends, Grace fills all space. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
2:Unabidance in the ego, is abidance in the Self. ~ Ramesh Balsekar, #KEYS
3:Silence is the cross on which we must crucify our ego. ~ Saint Seraphim of Sarov, [T5], #KEYS
4:It is the illusion of free will that creates the illusion of the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
5:The ego is a veil between humans and God.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi,#KEYS
6:The super-ego is that part of the personality which is soluble in alcohol
~ Arthur Koestler,#KEYS
7:The saint is a man who disciplines his ego. The sage is a man who rids himself of his ego." ~ Wei Wu Wei, #KEYS
8:Most sensitiveness is the result or sign of ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, (CWSA 31:211), #KEYS
9:If the ego rises, all else will also rise; if it subsides, all else will also subside. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
10:Repeat the holy Name, meditate upon it, keep good company, and subdue the ego by all means. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
11:Those who seek power feed their ego—the ego, which causes all the suffering in the world. ~ Swami Turiyananda, #KEYS
12:Anger, ego, jealousy are the biggest diseases. Keep yourself aloof from these three diseases." ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #KEYS
13:Our ego, if made pure by realizing God, can do no harm to anyone. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
14:What we call ourself is only the ego - our true self is the Divine.
~ The Mother, [T4],#KEYS
15:The light must be dim in order to enable the ego to rise up. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
16:Identification with the Supreme is only the other name for the destruction of the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 130, #KEYS
17:Knowledge is power and mastery. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Ego and the Dualities, #KEYS
18:For the idea of ego-hood to be destroyed, constant practice is required. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
19:When you see yourself as a witness, separate from ego, then no person or situation can shake you." ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #KEYS
20:It is a thin ego that Avatars possess. Through this ego God is always visible. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
21:It is a thin ego that Avatars possess. Through this ego, God is always visible. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
22:A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage point from which to view the world. ~ Aleister Crowley, #KEYS
23:The cause of misery is not in life without; it is within you as the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
24:Ego is the principal knot. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of the Mental Being, #KEYS
25:In the divine consciousness there is no ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
26:All that is necessary, is to realize the falsehood of the ego and by inference, the falseness of all its demands. ~ Ramesh Balsekar, #KEYS
27:Take no notice of the ego and its activities, but see only the light behind. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
28:There should be no big I, not even a small one. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
29:The sea is not aware of its wave. Similarly the Self is not aware of its ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
30:When the struggle is at last over and samadhi attained, then indeed the ego vanishes. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
31:Ego is the reason of the difficulty in everybody. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
32:Why go on pruning the ego? That is just what it wants — to be the center of attraction. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Conscious Immortality, #KEYS
33:Ego is like that caterpillar which leaves its hold only after catching another. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
34:That which rises and sets is the ego; that which remains changeless is the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
35:The inner silence is self-surrender. And that is living without the sense of ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
36:If the ego rises, all else will also rise; if it subsides, all else will also subside. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
37:The Jiva is a spirit and self, superior to Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
38:The ultimate sacrifice is to curb your desires and surrender the ego." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
39:Comparison with others brings in a wrong standard of values. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
40:Pride is only one form of ego—there are ten thousand others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
41:If the ego is present, all else will also exist. If it is absent, all else will also vanish. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
42:The mind and the vital are much more full of ego than the body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
43:The Absolute Consciousness projects light, manifests as the ego and grows up as the universe. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
44:Is it not a wonder of wonders? The quest "Who am I?" is the axe with which to cut off the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
45:Seeking the ego, ego disappears. What is left over is the Self. This method is the direct one. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
46:An integral knowledge is the aim of the conscious evolution. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Memory, Ego and Self-Experience, #KEYS
47:After the attainment of samadhi, some retain the ego as the ego of the servant, or the ego of the worshiper. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
48:It is on the blindness of ignorance that is founded the working which affirms the ego. ~ Sanyutta Nikaya, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
49:Ego is 'I-thought'. In its subtle form it remains a thought, whereas in its gross aspect it embraces the mind, the senses and the body. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
50:Soul, mind or ego are mere words. There are no entities of the kind. Consciousness is the only truth. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
51:this ego-centrism is our rock of safety against the cosmic and the infinite, our defense.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 241,#KEYS
52:All that we internally are is not ego, but consciousness, soul or spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, #KEYS
53:Conversion of the aim of life from the ego to the Divine: instead of seeking ones own satisfaction, to have the service of the Divine as the aim of life.
~ ?,#KEYS
54:Self-surrender is the same as Self-knowledge. The ego submits only when it recognizes the Higher Power. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
55:All grief is born of the shrinking of the ego from the contacts of existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, Conclusion and Summary, #KEYS
56:Concern yourself with that which kills your ego and brings life to your heart. ~ Mawlay Al Arabi Al Darqawi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
57:Even if one tries hard to suppress the idea of "I" and "Mine", in the field of action the unique ego shows itself. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
58:The idea of the ego makes the soul seem distinct from the Supreme Self. Really, there is no division between them. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
59:The mind is a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts arise because there is the thinker. The thinker is the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
60:The cosmic mind being not limited by the ego, has nothing separate from itself and is therefore only aware. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
61:Selfishness is to live for oneself and not for something greater than the self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
62:To know we have to go within ourselves and see with an inner knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Memory, Ego and Self-Experience, #KEYS
63:Be what you are. All that is needful is to lose the ego, That what is, is always there. Even now you are That. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
64:Our ego is only a face of the universal being and has no separate existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine and the Undivine, #KEYS
65:The ego of the servant, the ego of the worshiper, and the ego of wisdom, vidya -- these are all names of the ripe ego. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
66:Trace the source of the ego. Then the ego is lost and Bliss remains. It is eternal. You are That, here and now. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
67:Nobody will come to help you if you put yourself forward as a leader. ... Kill the ego first if you want to succeed. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
68:An analysis of the ego convinces us that its ultimate substance is God. When egotism vanishes, divinity manifests itself. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
69:Come, release yourself from this ego, live in harmony with everyone, be friendly with everyone." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
70:Ego-centrism is our rock of safety against the cosmic and the infinite, our defence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Double Soul in Man, #KEYS
71:Ego is the most formidable of the knots which keep us tied to the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Boundaries of the Ignorance, #KEYS
72:Nobody can become more than human if he refuses to make a sacrifice of his ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Nature of the Vital, #KEYS
73:See that the world and your ego are derived from the same Supreme Being. God, Man, and nature are faces of the One Reality. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
74:To believe that you can end decades of tyranny of the ego by reading lots of books is like believing that you can satisfy your appetite by reading lots of menus. ~ Zen Fi , #KEYS
75:Trace the source of the ego. Then the ego is lost and Bliss remains over. It is eternal. You are That, here and now. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
76:What does stillness mean? It means 'Destroy yourself'; because every name and form is the cause of trouble. 'I-I' is the Self. 'I am this' is the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
77:By constantly keeping one's attention on the Source, the ego is dissolved in that Source like a salt-doll in the sea. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
78:Non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #KEYS
79:Self-justification is always a sign of ego and ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV: Problems in Human Relations
Self-Justification#KEYS
80:So long as one is not free from the ego sense, there can be no real freedom. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Liberation of the Spirit, #KEYS
81:Prakriti does not act for itself or by its own motion, but with the Self as lord. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
82:Trying to trace it [the ego, "I"] and find its source, we see it has no separate existence but merges in the real 'I'. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
83:It is difficult to attain samadhi. The ego of ours is so persistent! For this reason alone, one has to be born again and again. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
84:So long as desire and ego remain, there can be no surrender to the Divine, no fulfilment in the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire, #KEYS
85:When the 'I' is kept up as the 'I' only, it is the Self. When it flies off at a tangent and says, 'I am this or that. I am such and such', it is the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
86:Man ordinarily offers his sacrifice openly or under a disguise to his own ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Fullness of Spiritual Action, #KEYS
87:The unregenerate vital is not grateful for a benefit, it resents being under an obligation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
88:When naked of ego and mind it hears the Voice
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind, [T5],#KEYS
89:That which is good and pure in you is God. That which is evil in you is your ego. The more you think of Him, the more He will increase and you will decrease. ~ Swami Turiyananda, #KEYS
90:Look for the ego, and it vanishes. If you enquire, ignorance will be found to be non-existent. It is the mind which feels misery and darkness. See the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
91:The Truth-Consciousness that can only manifest when ego and desire are overcome. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: The Universal or Cosmic Forces #KEYS
92:What is the process of the cleansing of the mirror of the heart? It is an unending battle with one's ego, whose purpose is to distort reality. ~ Ibn Arabi, #KEYS
93:Error is the constant denial by the All of the ego's false sufficiency in a limited knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, Knowledge and Ignorance, #KEYS
94:The birth of the ego is called the birth of the person. There is no other kind of birth. Whatever is born, is bound to die. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
95:The cosmic mind being not limited by the ego, has nothing separate from itself and is therefore only aware. This is what the Bible means by "I am that I AM". ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
96:The ego is the lynch-pin invented to hold together the motion of our wheel of nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Boundaries of the Ignorance, #KEYS
97:Hanuman was blessed with the vision of God, both Sakara (form) and Nirakara (formless). But he retained the ego of a servant of God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
98:In samadhi, usually a little ego remains. All outward consciousness disappears, but the Lord keeps a little ego to let me enjoy Him. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
99:To live in the wideness of the Intuition is not possible with the limitation of the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Higher Planes of Mind, #KEYS
100:Good and evil are relative terms. There must be a subject to know the good and evil. That subject is the ego. Trace the source of the ego. It ends in the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
101:In samadhi, usually, a little ego remains. All outward consciousness disappears, but the Lord keeps a little ego to let me enjoy Him. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
102:If you understand that this 'ego' never at any time had any existence outside your imagination, you will not be concerned about ways and means of getting rid of it. ~ Annamalai Swami, #KEYS
103:Just as when a piece of rope is burned it retains its form but cannot bind, so is the ego when burnt by the fire of Supreme Knowledge. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
104:The outer change is necessary but as a part of the inner change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #KEYS
105:It is rather a wider than a higher consciousness that is necessary for the liberation from the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
106:Life to us means only the way she affects our ego and the way our ego replies to her touches. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Gist of the Karmayoga, #KEYS
107:The centre of mental thinking is the ego, the person of the individual thinker. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Thought and Knowledge, #KEYS
108:If we have not equality, it is a sign that we are still pursued by the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Equality and the Annihilation of Ego, #KEYS
109:In man it is the ego idea which chiefly supports the falsehood of a separative existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Liberation of the Spirit, #KEYS
110:Liberation is attained only by one who has forgotten the self. Even when losing all ego, God may or may not come to take the place of ego. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
111:Purification and consecration are two great necessities of sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #KEYS
112:The shadow has to disappear and by its disappearance reveal the spirit's unclouded substance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
113:With the teacher who has become one with the Universal Soul, an ego of knowledge is kept, a slight trace to mark their separate existence. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
114:You cannot get rid of the ego until you have realized God. If you find a person free from ego, then know for certain that he has seen God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
115:You go to God and your personality becomes one with God, this is samadhi. Then you retrace your steps, back to your ego where you started. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
116:By continual peeling of the onion, we find nothing is left, so on analyzing the ego we found that there is not any real entity that is ego. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
117:The idea of an individual ego is just like enclosing a portion of the water of the Ganges and calling the enclosed portion one's own Ganges. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
118:Wherever desire and ego harbour, passion and disturbance harbour with them and share their life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Three Modes of Nature, #KEYS
119:God has the nature of a small child. God won't even look at those who do tapas with ego, but He will shower His grace on the innocent hearted ones who don't do anything. ~ MATA AMRITANADAMAYI, #KEYS
120:Eliminate the falsity of the being which figures as the ego; then our true being can manifest in us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, #KEYS
121:If you have to have it, it's ego. If you have to not have it, it's ego. Hold life lightly and it will deliver what you need and release what you don't." ~ Alan Cohen See: https://bit.ly/3dnj715, #KEYS
122:The individual is only an instrument in the hands of a Universal Energy though his ego takes the credit of all he does. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Opening, #KEYS
123:Action without desire is possible, action without attachment is possible, action without ego is possible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Sankhya-Yoga System, #KEYS
124:Intensity is not a guarantee of entire truth and correctness in an experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #KEYS
125:The ego sense must be replaced by a oneness with the transcendental Divine and with universal being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Liberation of the Spirit, #KEYS
126:As long as the slightest trace of ego remains, one lives within the jurisdiction of the Ādyāśakti. One is under Her sway. One cannot go beyond Her. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
127:Perversion comes by a conversion into lower forms—by transmission through the ego and the gunas. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Action of the Divine Shakti, #KEYS
128:Ego is a very curious thing and in nothing more than in its way of hiding itself and pretending it is not the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
129:The most ego-centric can change and do change by the psychic principle becoming established in the external nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #KEYS
130:Our vital being is not concerned with self-knowledge but with self-affirmation, desire, ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, #KEYS
131:The consciousness of collective humanity is only a larger comprehensive edition or a sum of individual egos. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
132:But the most important thing for purification of the heart is an absolute sincerity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #KEYS
133:The truth is always the One at work on itself, at play with itself, infinite in unity, infinite in multiplicity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
134:The liberation from an externalised ego sense is the first step towards the soul's freedom and mastery. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of the Mental Being, #KEYS
135:The One Spirit who has mirrored some of His modes of being in the world and in the soul, is multiple in the Jiva. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
136:Before the effulgent glory of God, the little glory of the ego will completely vanish, as stars vanish when the sun rises. You must therefore practice the Presence of God inside you. ~ Swami Ramakrishnananda, #KEYS
137:Men want to help each other with a motive behind or a feeling which proceeds from the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga, #KEYS
138:The poor ego has to serve three harsh masters, and it has to do its best to reconcile the claims and demands of all three...The three tyrants are the external world, the superego, and the id. ~ Sigmund Freud, #KEYS
139:Get rid of the ego, observe all your actions as if they were another's, and you will avoid ninety-nine percent of the troubles that await you. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, 1.7, #KEYS
140:The ego-sense is not indispensable to the world-play in which it is so active and so falsifies the truth of things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
141:The oneness which is brought about by the happy loss of the will of desire and the ego, is the essence of Mukti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Liberation of the Spirit, #KEYS
142:The bondage does not consist in the physical act of becoming, but in the persistence of the ignorant sense of the separate ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, Conclusion and Summary, #KEYS
143:The ego doesn't exist. You think it exists and that's why you think you have to do all these techniques to get rid of it. If you just realized all of a sudden that it doesn't exist, you'd be free. ~ Robert Adams, #KEYS
144:The ego is in fact driven by the mechanism of Nature of which it is a part and the ego-will is not and cannot be a free will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Divine Shakti, #KEYS
145:The idea of helping others is a delusion of the ego. It is only when the Mother commissions and gives the force that one can help and even then only within limits. ~ Sri Aurobindo, LOY4, #KEYS
146:Our nature acts on a basis of confusion and restless compulsion to action, the Divine acts freely out of a fathomless calm. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
147:Renunciation of ego, acceptance of God in life is the Yoga I teach,—no other renunciation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest, To Motilal Roy, #KEYS
148:Peeling off the layers of ego, emotions, and embedded thought patterns is not so easy. On account of maya, one is not conscious of the real Self. A seeker must start the search in earnest and begin digging. ~ SWAMI RAMA, #KEYS
149:Occult powers can only be for the spiritual man an instrumentation of the Divine Power that uses him. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #KEYS
150:Divine Mother, My giant enemy ego is sitting directly in my path and will not let me pass. In what manner should I fight him?
Ignore him and go through.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
151:So long as our mind is in this world, so long as our mind is in this body, so long as we identify ourselves with our ego, we cannot be expected to know our own Self. We cannot realize our own Self. ~ SWAMI TRIGUNATITANANDA, #KEYS
152:It is only when one looks from above in a consciousness clear of ego that one sees all sides of a thing and also their real truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Problems in Human Relations, #KEYS
153:The ego is the false, self-born out of fear and defensiveness." ~ John O'Donohue, (1956 -2008) an Irish poet, author, priest, and Hegelian philosopher. as an author is best known for popularizing Celtic spirituality, Wikipedia., #KEYS
154:The more you prune a plant, the more it grows. So too the more you seek to annihilate the ego, the more it will increase. You should seek the root of the ego and destroy it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
155:We cannot affirm our being rightly without sacrifice or without self-giving to something larger than our ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #KEYS
156:You have no choice. You must leave your ego on the doorstep before you enter love." ~ Kamand Kojouri, "The Eternal Dance: Love Poetry and Prose,", (2018). She was born in Tehran, raised in Dubai and Toronto, and resides in Wales., #KEYS
157:It is on account of the ego that one is not able to see God. In front of the door of God's mansion lies the stump of ego. One cannot enter the mansion without jumping over the stump. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
158:Ego is an intangible link between the body and pure consciousness. It is not real. So long as one does not look closely at it, it continues to give trouble. But when one looks for it, it is found not to exist. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
159:Know me as the true essence of jnana that shines uninterruptedly in your Heart.
Destroy the objectifying awareness of the ego-mind that arrogantly cavorts as 'I'. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Padamalai,#KEYS
160:We have to throw away the props of our weakness, the motives of the ego, the lures of our lower nature before we can deserve the divine union. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Motives of Devotion, #KEYS
161:When a devotee thinks of 'me' and 'mine,' and separates himself from God, that kind of dualism is harmful to a person's spiritual growth. Such an aspirant remains deluded. A devotee must completely renounce the ego. ~ Swami Turiyananda, #KEYS
162:How vain and unreal, when I reflect, becomes this ego which I call mine! Yet a little time and behold! it is dispersed to all the winds and dissolution has effaced it. ~ Mikado Shuyaku, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
163:When we get back to our true being, the ego falls away from us; its place is taken by our supreme and integral self, the true individuality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Soul and Its Liberation, #KEYS
164:The enjoyment of the infinite delight of existence free from ego, founded on oneness of all in the Lord, is what is meant by the enjoyment of Immortality ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, Conclusion and Summary, #KEYS
165:Experience shows that, in proportion as we deliver ourselves from the limiting mental and vital ego, we command a wider life, a larger existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
166:The idea of helping others is a subtle form of the ego. It is only the Divine Force that can help. One can be its instrument, but you should first learn to be a fit and egoless instrument. ~ Sri Aurobindo, LOY4, #KEYS
167:In the deep sleep state we lay down our ego, our thoughts and our desires. If we could only do all this while we are conscious, we would realise the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Conscious Immortality, Ch. 13, #KEYS
168:The soul, since it is part of the human body, is not the whole human being: my soul is not me [anima autem cum sit pars corporis hominis, non est totus homo, et anima mea non est ego]. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, Super I Cor. Cap 15 lec. 2 n. 924, #KEYS
169:The self of the finite individual must pour itself into the boundless finite and that cosmic spirit too must be exceeded in the transcendent Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
170:There Ego was lord upon his peacock seat
And Falsehood sat by him, his mate and queen:
The world turned to them as Heaven to Truth and God. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Descent into Night,#KEYS
171:We are the Self. All we have to do is to remember that. We keep on forgetting it and thus think we are this body, or this ego. If the will and desire to remember Self are strong enough, they will eventually overcome vasanas. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
172:We should always be on our guard against the interference of the ego, shouldn't we, Mother?
Certainly this is correct. Ambition is always a source of disturbance and confusion.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
173:The pressure of understanding and will in the mind and the Godward emotional urge in the heart are the two first agents of Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #KEYS
174:The individual ego is a pragmatic and effective fiction, a translation of the secret self into the terms of surface consciousness ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #KEYS
175:Sleeping, eating, working, meditating. Believing yourself to be an ego means you think you are doing all these things. Then you start to think you should be doing other things to be in a better position. Trapped in a lifelong poisonous loop. ~ Zen Fi , #KEYS
176:Don't seek love externally, it's fleeting. Go beyond the ego and awaken the love that already exists within; it will encompass everyone and everything in your life; it will permeate our very being." ~ Danielle Pierre, author, wellness coach and artist., #KEYS
177:Sadhana should be done in private—the more secluded, the better. It should not be done before others, as that can stimulate one's ego. The Master used to say: 'Sadhana is to be done mentally, in some corner, or some secluded place.' ~ Swami Adbhutananda, #KEYS
178:The Great Work is the uniting of opposites. It may mean the uniting of the soul with God, of the microcosm with the macrocosm, of the female with the male, of the ego with the non-ego. ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears, #KEYS
179:A greater Personality sometimes
Possesses us which yet we know is ours:
Or we adore the Master of our souls.
Then the small bodily ego thins and falls; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge,#KEYS
180:Mystic, ineffable is the spirit's truth,
Unspoken, caught only by the spirit's eye.
When naked of ego and mind it hears the Voice; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind,#KEYS
181:Real rebirth is dying from the ego into the spirit. Whenever identification with the body exists, a body is always available, whether this or any other one, till the body-sense disappears by merging into the source - the spirit, or Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
182:The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
183:We have in all functionings of the mentality four elements, the object of mental consciousness, the act of mental consciousness, the occasion and the subject.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Memory, Ego and Self-Experience, 532,#KEYS
184:Altruism taken as a rule of life does not deliver us; it is a potent instrument for self-enlargement and for correction of the narrower ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #KEYS
185:Love is a priceless thing, only to be won at the cost of death. Those who live to die, these attain; for they have shed all thoughts of self." ~ Gujarati Hymn [Gujarati an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat. "Death" refers to death of ego.], #KEYS
186:We are not conscious. If we are not conscious we cannot have unity, cannot have individuality, cannot have an Ego or 'I'. All these things are invented by man to keep the illusion of consciousness. Man can be conscious, but at present he is not. ~ Peter Ouspensky, #KEYS
187:Ego sum ostium. Per me si quis introierit, salvabitur: et ingredietur, et egredietur, et pascua inveniet."
(I am the dooR By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved: and he shall go in, and go out, and shall find pastures.) ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 10:9,#KEYS
188:Whatever you've been doing, you're using your mind to do it. And your mind will always fool you. It will make you believe you're getting somewhere. You're becoming something great. But it's really the ego. It is the ego that is controlling the mind. ~ Robert Adams, #KEYS
189:So long as there is not an unreserved self-giving in both the internal and external, there will always be veilings, dark periods and difficulties. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #KEYS
190:Awaken the psychic in you, let the inner being come out and replace the ego, then the latent power also will become effective. You can then do the work and the service to which you aspire.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Himself And The Ashram,#KEYS
191:He is in me, round me, facing everywhere.
Self-walled in ego to exclude His right,
I stand upon its boundaries and stare
Into the frontiers of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Omnipresence,#KEYS
192:One must renounce the ' I ' that makes one feel, ' I am so and so', ' I am a learned man, and so on. But the ' ego of Knowledge' does not injure one. Sankaracharya retained the ' ego of Knowledge' in order to teach mankind. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
193:This Yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being, #KEYS
194:Loving yourself is not a matter of building your ego. Egotism is proving you are worthwhile after you have sunk into hating yourself. Loving yourself will dissolve your ego: you will feel no need to prove you are superior." ~ T. Golas, "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment.", #KEYS
195:The new attitude will be consolidated only when the individual can gradually begin to disregard his ego. As long as our thinking is exclusively self-centered the world will remain fragmented. At best the "Thou" will become visible to the "I"; but never the whole. ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
196:Surrender is giving oneself to the Divine - to give everything one is or has to the Divine and regard nothing as one's own, to obey only the Divine will and no other, to live for the Divine and not for the ego.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
197:The Lord is making you His own. He will not allow even the slightest ego to remain within you. The sufferings and difficulties you are undergoing are intended to make you realize that you have no independent will of you own. It is all given over to the Lord. ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
198:To be ourselves liberated from ego and realise our true selves is the first necessity; all else can be achieved as a luminous result, a necessary consequence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #KEYS
199:Be courageous and do not think so much of yourself. It is because you make your little ego the centre of your preoccupation that you are sad and unsatisfied. To forget oneself is the great remedy for all ills.
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
200:His kindness an investment for return,
His altruism is ego's other face:
He serves the world that him the world may serve. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
201:Witnessing is the ego watching whatever is going on [especially in the mind and body] without judgment…. Don't value or judge what you're observing. Just see it completely impersonally." ~ Lee Lozowick, (1943-2010) American spiritual teacher, author, poet, and singer, Wikipedia, #KEYS
202:Stillness means 'Destroy yourself'; every name & form is the cause of trouble. 'I-I' is the Self. 'I am this' is the ego. When the 'I' is kept up as the 'I' only, it is the Self. When it flies off at a tangent & says 'I am this or that. I am such and such', it is the ego. ~ Ramana, #KEYS
203:The ego says 'I will,' the self says 'thou shalt.' In that sense everybody should be aware of the warrior in his own self, accept his superior insight as a 'thou shalt' & never as 'I will.' If the latter is true you are in danger of an inflation ~ Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminars, 568, #KEYS
204:The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. ~ Carl Jung, CW 9ii, par. 14., #KEYS
205:His spirit by spiritual ego sink,
Or his soul dream shut in sainthood's brilliant cell
Where only a bright shadow of God can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
206:What is the ego? A mere soap-bubble. One blow will break it and reveal its hollowness. We must get rid of the ego and reach the stage where we can say sincerely 'Not I, Not I, but Thou.' When you have been able to put down the ego, love of God will come of itself ~ Swami Ramakrishnananda, #KEYS
207:A summons to faith, courage and energy in the face of death isn't a call to heroics for the ego. It is an invitation to attend, to be absorbed in value, depth and beauty not our own. ~ Rowan Williams https://newstatesman.com/politics/religion/2020/08/covid-and-confronting-our-own-mortality, #KEYS
208:A chaos of little sensibilities
Gathered round a small ego's pin-point head;
In it a sentient creature found its poise,
It moved and lived a breathing, thinking whole. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Parable of the Search for the Soul,#KEYS
209:But it is in itself a secondary aim[transcending the ego]; to find, know and possess the Divine existence, consciousness and nature and to live in it for the Divine is our true aim and the one perfection to which we must aspire.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
210:Clarity of knowledge and inner self-vision, subjugation of the ego, love, scrupulousness in selfless and dedicated works, are the four wheels of the chariot of Yoga. One who has them will progress safely on the path.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Himself And The Ashram,#KEYS
211:In this vital ego there is frequently a mixture of the charlatan and mountebank, the poser and actor; it is constantly taking up a role and playing it to itself and to others as its public. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, #KEYS
212:The charm of Maya is so irresistible, it is only when God is gracious to us that we can lift the veil and get a little glimpse of Him. All Maya is localized in ego. Take away the ego and the whole structure of Maya will fall. Then you will realize a state of perfect calmness ~ Swami Ramakrishnananda, #KEYS
213:Apr 20 Do not publicize ur spiritual life by beating drums. Practice ur disciplines secretly so that people may not know about them. There are various types of people in this world. Some may destroy ur spiritual mood thro criticism, & some may inflate ur ego by praising ur efforts.~ Swami Brahmananda, #KEYS
214:There is no difference between a man of the world and a solitary if both have conquered the illusion of the ego; but if the heart isa slave to the desires of the senses, the external signs of self-control serve no useful object. ~ Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
215:Yoga cannot be done in a hurry - it needs many many years. If you are 'pressed for time' it means that you have no intention of doing Yoga - Is it so?
It is not the soul, but the ego and its pride that feel 'defeat and humiliation'.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, [T2],#KEYS
216:Psychic love can have a warmth and a flame as intense and more intense than the vital, only it is a pure fire, not dependent on the satisfaction of ego-desire or on the eating up of the fuel it embraces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life, #KEYS
217:An animal in the instinctive herd
Pushed by life impulses, forced by common needs,
Each in his own kind saw his ego's glass;
All served the aim and action of the pack. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.04#KEYS
218:Know thyself and thou shalt know the Non-ego and the Lord of all. Meditate deeply, thou shalt find there is nothing thou canst call "I". The innermost result of all analysis is the eternal divine. When egoism vanishes, divinity manifests itself. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
219:The higher you go up the ladder, the more painful the fall. The lower you go down the ladder, the less painful the fall. If you are not on the ladder, you can not fall.
Likewise, big ego, big fall, big suffering. Less ego, less fall, less suffering. No ego, no fall, no suffering. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche,#KEYS
220:Illusion lost her aggrandising lens;
As from her failing hand the measures fell,
Atomic looked the things that loomed so large.
The little ego's ring could join no more; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Spirit's Freedom and Greatness#KEYS
221:This maya, that is to say, the ego, is like a cloud. The sun cannot be seen on account of a thin patch of cloud; when that disappears one sees the sun. If by the grace of the guru one's ego vanishes, then one sees God. The jiva is nothing but the embodiment of Satchidananda ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
222:Give up the ego that makes u feel, "I am the doer; I am teaching people." Give up the "wicked ego".' One doesn't have to renounce the ego that makes one feel, 'I am the servant of God; I am His devotee. 'One doesn't develop the 'divine ego' as long as one retains the 'wicked ego ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
223:However much you may try, without God's grace nothing can be attained; He cannot be realized without grace. But Divine grace descends not so easily. You shall have to banish your ego completely from the heart. If you have the egoistic feeling: I am the doer, you can never see Go ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
224:To want to be a superman is a mistake, it only swells the ego. One can aspire for the Divine to bring about the supramental transformation, but that also should not be done till the being has become psychic and spiritualised by the descent of the Mother's peace, force, light and purity.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
225:An essential movement of the Yoga is to draw back from the outward ego sense by which we are identified with the action of mind, life and body and live inwardly in the soul. The liberation from an externalised ego sense is the first step towards the soul's freedom and mastery.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 633 [T7],#KEYS
226:The man in whom all desires disappear like rivers into a motionless sea, attains to peace, not he whom they move to longing. That man whose walk is free from longing, for he has thrown all desires from him, who calls nothing his and has no sense of ego, is moving towards peace. ~ Bhagavad Gita II. 70-71, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
227:This is where we are at right now, as a whole. No one is left out of the loop. We are experiencing a reality based on a thin veneer of lies and illusions. A world where greed is our God and wisdom is sin, where division is key and unity is fantasy, where the ego-driven cleverness of the mind is praised, rather than the intelligence of the heart. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
228:It is only by aspiration and prayer that ego can be overcome; a constant and sincere aspiration is always answered by the Divine. Feb 3rd
Ignorance is a human general illness and nobody can escape it until one is united with the Divine. Feb 9th
Let the aspiration and love for the Divine conquer in you all desires and difficulties. Feb 14
~ The Mother#KEYS
229:Sigmund Freud in his 1927 essay Humour (Der Humor) puts forth the following theory of the gallows humor: 'The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure.'
~ Wikipedia,#KEYS
230:If you are truly surrendered to the Divine, in the right manner and totally, then at every moment you will be what you ought to be, you will do what you ought to do, you will know what you ought to know. But for that you should have transcended all the limitations of the ego.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Elements of Yoga, Surrender to the Divine Will, Surrender,#KEYS
231:Our purpose in Yoga is to exile the limited outward-looking ego and enthrone God in its place as the ruling Inhabitant of the nature. And this means, first, to disinherit desire and no longer accept the enjoyment of desire as the ruling human motive. The ...
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita,#KEYS
232:This cannot be done without an uncompromising abolition of the ego-sense at its very basis and source. In the path of Knowledge one attempts this abolition, negatively by a denial of the reality of the ego, positively by a constant fixing of the thought upon the idea of the One and the Infinite in itself or the One and Infinite everywhere.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
233:In the 20th century he became an important element within the mystical system of Thelema, founded by Aleister Crowley, where he is the Dweller in the Abyss,[1][2] believed to be the last great obstacle between the adept and enlightenment. Thelemites believe that if he is met with proper preparation, then his function is to destroy the ego, which allows the adept to move beyond the Abyss of occult cosmology. ~ Wikipedia, #KEYS
234:The thought of the ego occupies only the man of unsound understanding, the sage recognises that it has no foundation; he examines the world rationally and concludes that all formations of existence are vain and hasten towards dissolution; alone the Law remains eternal. When man by his efforts has acquired this knowledge he contemplates the truth. ~ Fo-sho-hing-tsan-kiag, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
235:conditions of the psychic opening :::
The realisation of the psychic being, its awakening and the bringing of it in front depend mainly on the extent to which one can develop a personal relation with the Divine, a relation of Bhakti, love, reliance, self-giving, rejection of the insistences of the separating and self-asserting mental, vital and physical ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
236:All human beings are full of ego. If you want to change, you must be very quiet and always aspire for a higher consciousness to come down into you in which there is not the ego. When it comes down, the real change will come. But you must be quiet within, not worried and restless - you must open confidently to the Mother's Force and let it work in you.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, Ego and Its forms,#KEYS
237:Our human consciousness has windows that open on the Infinite but generally men keep these windows carefully shut. They have to be opened wide and allow the Infinite freely to enter into us and transform us.
Two conditions are necessary for opening the windows:
1) ardent aspiration;
2) progressive dissolution of the ego.
The Divine help is assured to those who set to work sincerely. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
238:You are here now, I mean on earth, because you once chose to be - you don't remember it, but I know; that's why you are here. Well, you must stand up to the task. You must make an effort, you must conquer pettiness and limitations, and above all tell the ego: your time is over. We want a race without ego, with the divine consciousness in place of the ego. That's what we want: the divine consciousness, which will enable the race to develop and the superman to be born.
~ The Mother, Agenda Vol 13, Satprem,#KEYS
239:7. Don't entertain such thoughts of imperfection, lack of qualities, etc. You are already perfect. Get rid of the ideas of imperfection and need for development. There is nothing to realize or annihilate. You are the Self. The ego does not exist. Pursue the enquiry and see if there is anything to be realised or annihilated. See if there is any mind to be controlled. Even the effort is being made by the mind which does not exist. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Surpassing Love and Grace An Offering from His Devotees, #KEYS
240:the first period of endurance :::
Ordinarily we have to begin with a period of endurance; for we must learn to confront, to suffer and to assimilate all contacts. Each fiber must be taught not to wince away from that which pains and repels and not to run eagerly towards that which pleases and attracts, but rather to accept, to face, to bear and to conquer. ... This is the stoical period of the preparation of equality, its most elementary and yet its heroic age.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Equality and the Annihilation Of Ego,#KEYS
241:...to quiet the mind and get the spiritual experience it is necessary first to purify and prepare the nature. This sometimes takes many years. Work done with the right attitude is the easiest means for that - i.e. work done without desire or ego, rejecting all movements of desire, demand or ego when the come, done as an offering to the Divine Mother, with the remembrance of her and prayer to her to manifest her force and take up the action so that there too and not only in inner silence you can feel her presence and working.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
242:At best we have only the poor relative freedom which by us is ignorantly called free-will. But that is at bottom illusory, since it is the modes of Nature that express themselves through our personal will; it is force of Nature, grasping us, ungrasped by us that determines what we shall will and how we shall will it. Nature, not an independent ego, chooses what object we shall seek, whether by reasoned will or unreflecting impulse, at any moment of our existence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [95-96],#KEYS
243:Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.
Because the ego is no entity
it will automatically vanish
and Reality will shine forth by itself.
This is the direct method.
Whereas all other methods are done,
only retaining the ego.
In those paths there arise so many doubts
and the eternal question remains to be tackled finally.
But in this method
the final question is the only one
and it is raised from the very beginning.
No sadhanas are necessary
for engaging in this quest. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 146#KEYS
244:If you want to be a true doer of divine works, your first aim must be to be totally free from all desire and self-regarding ego. All your life must be an offering and a sacrifice to the Supreme; your only object in action shall be to serve, to receive, to fulfil, to become a manifesting instrument of the Divine Shakti in her works. You must grow in the divine consciousness till there is no difference between your will and hers, no motive except her impulsion in you, no action that is not her conscious action in you and through you.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
245:Lojong Slogan 1. First, train in the preliminaries; The four reminders. or alternatively called the Four Thoughts
1. Maintain an awareness of the preciousness of human life.
2. Be aware of the reality that life ends; death comes for everyone; Impermanence.
3. Recall that whatever you do, whether virtuous or not, has a result; Karma.
4. Contemplate that as long as you are too focused on self-importance and too caught up in thinking about how you are good or bad, you will experience suffering. Obsessing about getting what you want and avoiding what you dont want does not result in happiness; Ego.
~ Wikipedia,#KEYS
246:the philosophic second period of indifference :::
There is next a period of high-seated impartiality and indifference in which the soul becomes free from exultation and depression and escapes from the snare of eagerness of joy as from the dark net of the pangs of grief and suffering. All things and persons and forces, all thoughts and feelings and sensations and actions, one's own no less than those of others, are regarded from above by a spirit that remains intact and immutable and is not disturbed by these things.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Equality and the Annihilation of Ego,#KEYS
247:It is the same thing for the ego, the self. In order to pass on to a higher plane, one must first exist; and to exist one must become a conscious, separate individual, and to become a conscious separate individual, the ego is indispensable, otherwise one remains mingled with all that lies around us. But once the individuality is formed, if one wants to rise to a higher level and live a spiritual life, if one wants even to become simply a higher type of man, the limitations of the ego are the worst obstacles, and the ego must be surpassed in order to enter the true consciousness. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956, 367, #KEYS
248:compensation for sacrificed discipline of the lesser for greater :::
...a passage from a lesser satisfaction to a greater Ananda. There is only one thing painful in the beginning to a raw or turbid part of the surface nature; it is the indispensable discipline demanded, the denial necessary for the merging of the incomplete ego. But for that there can be a speedy and enormous compensation in the discovery of a real greater or ultimate completeness in others, in all things, in the cosmic oneness, in the freedom of the transcendent Self and Spirit, in the rapture of the touch of the Divine.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
249:His most obvious obstacle, one of which he has not in the least got rid of up to now, is a strongly Rajasic vital ego for which his mind finds justifications and covers. There is nothing more congenial to the vital ego than to put on the cloak of Yoga and imagine itself free, divinised, spiritualised, siddha, and all the rest of it, or advancing towards that end, when it is really doing nothing of the kind, but [is] just its old self in new forms. If one does not look at oneself with a constant sincerity and an eye of severe self-criticism, it is impossible to get out of this circle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings, #KEYS
250:abolishing the ego :::
In the path of Knowledge one attempts this abolition, negatively by a denial of the reality of the ego, positively by a constant fixing of the thought upon the idea of the One and the Infinite in itself or the One and Infinite everywhere. This, if persistently done, changes in the end the mental outlook on oneself and the whole world and there is a kind of mental realisation; but afterwards by degrees or perhaps rapidly and imperatively and almost at the beginning the mental realisation deepens into spiritual experience - a realisation in the very substance of our being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, 363,#KEYS
251: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.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 64,#KEYS
252:At the end of the day, there should be an accounting and fresh resolution made. Though every day be a catalog of failure, there should be no sense of sin or guilt. Magic is the raising of the whole individual in perfect balance to the power of Infinity, and such feelings are symptomatic of imbalance.
If any unnecessary or imbalanced scraps of ego become identified with the genius by mistake, then disaster awaits. The life force flows directly into these complexes and bloats them into grotesque monsters variously known as the demon Choronzon. Some magicians attempting to go too fast with this invocation have failed to banish this demon, and have gone spectacularly insane as a result.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, Liber LUX, Augeoides [50-51],#KEYS
253:The surest way towards this integral fulfilment is to find the Master of the secret who dwells within us, open ourselves constantly to the divine Power which is also the divine Wisdom and Love and trust to it to effect the conversion. But it is difficult for the egoistic consciousness to do this at all at the beginning. And, if done at all, it is still difficult to do it perfectly and in every strand of our nature. It is difficult at first because our egoistic habits of thought, of sensation, of feeling block up the avenues by which we can arrive at the perception that is needed. It is difficult afterwards because the faith, the surrender, the courage requisite in this path are not easy to the ego-clouded soul.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [63] [T7],#KEYS
254:Q: I always had the impression that Lucifer and Satan was one and the same, you know, that Lucifer fell and became Satan. Would you clarify that for me?
A: There is a difference between Lucifer and Satan. The word satan comes from the word Shatan in Hebrew which means 'adversary'. Lucifer is Latin for "the bearer of light," and is the cosmic force that carries the fire. That fire is Kundalini, but when that fire becomes trapped in the ego, that fire is polarized negatively and becomes Satan, the adversary or the opposite of God. As long as that fire is trapped in desire, in ego, it is Satan, it is the devil. It is not outside of us. It is our mind. But when that force is liberated, it is the bearer of light. It is the greatest angel in the hierarchy of our own Consciousness. So it is our best friend.~ Samael Aun Weor,#KEYS
255:I have read your account of your sadhana. There is nothing to say, I think, - for it is all right - except that the most important thing for you is to develop the psychic fire in the heart and the aspiration for the psychic being to come forward as the leader of the sadhana. When the psychic does so, it will show you the 'undetected ego-knots' of which you speak and loosen them or burn them in the psychic fire. This psychic development and the psychic change of mind, vital and physical consciousness is of the utmost importance because it makes safe and easy the descent of the higher consciousness and the spiritual transformation without which the supramental must always remain far distant. Powers etc. have their place, but a very minor one so long as this is not done.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
256:There is no part of one's beliefs about oneself which cannot be modified by sufficiently powerful psychological techniques. There is nothing about oneself which cannot be taken away or changed. The proper stimuli can, if correctly applied, turn communists into fascists, saints into devils, the meek into heroes, and vice-versa. There is no sovereign sanctuary within ourseles which represents our real nature. There is nobody at home in the internal fortress. Everything we cherish as our ego, everything we believe in, is just what we have cobbled together out of the accident of our birth and subsequent experiences. With drugs, brainwashing, and other techniques of extreme persuasion, we can quite readily make a man a devotee of a different ideology, the patriot of a different country, or the follower of a different religion. ~ Peter J Carroll, #KEYS
257:Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact and identification of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sayujya-mukti, by which it can become free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the salokya-mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the Divine, sadharmya-mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, #KEYS
258:what is meant by the psychic :::
What is meant in the terminology of the yoga by the psychic is the soul element in the nature, the pure psyche or divine nucleus which stands behind mind, life and body (it is not the ego) but of which we are only dimly aware. It is a portion of the Divine and permanent from life to life, taking the experience of life through its outer instruments. As this experience grows it manifests a developing psychic personality which insisting always on the good, true and beautiful, finally becomes ready and strong enough to turn the nature towards the Divine. It can then come entirely forward, breaking through the mental, vital and physical screen, govern the instincts and transform the nature. Nature no longer imposes itself on the soul, but the soul, the Purusha, imposes its dictates on the nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
259:The student is told to set apart moments in his daily life in which to withdraw into himself, quietly and alone. He is not to occupy himself at such moments with the affairs of his own ego. This would result in the contrary of what is intended. He should rather let his experiences and the messages from the outer world re-echo within his own completely silent self. At such silent moments every flower, every animal, every action will unveil to him secrets undreamt of. And thus he will prepare himself to receive quite new impressions of the outer world through quite different eyes. The desire to enjoy impression after impression merely blunts the faculty of cognition; the latter, however, is nurtured and cultivated if the enjoyment once experienced is allowed to reveal its message. Thus the student must accustom himself not merely to let the enjoyment. ~ Rudolf Steiner, #KEYS
260:Bhagavan: There are only two ways to conquer destiny or to be independent of it. One is to inquire whose this destiny is and discover that only the ego is bound by it and not the Self and that the ego is non-existent. The other way is to kill the ego by completely surrendering to the Lord, realizing one's helplessness and saying all the time: "Not I, but Thou, oh Lord," giving up all sense of "I" and "mine" and leaving it to the Lord to do what He likes with you. Surrender can never be regarded as complete so long as the devotee wants this or that from the Lord. True surrender is the love of God for the sake of love and nothing else, not even for the sake of salvation. In other words, complete effacement of the ego is necessary to conquer destiny, whether you achieve this effacement through Self-inquiry or through bhakti-marga. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day by Day, 28-6-46, #KEYS
261:The transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life must be its central purpose. The means towards this supreme end is a self-giving of all our nature to the Divine. Everything must be given to the Divine within us, to the universal All and to the transcendent Supreme. An absolute concentration of our will, our heart and our thought on that one and manifold Divine, an unreserved self-consecration of our whole being to the Divine alone - this is the decisive movement, the turning of the ego to That which is infinitely greater than itself, its self-giving and indispensable surrender
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, 89,#KEYS
262:The Yoga that we seek must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and a waste of time; for then our sole practical aim must be to find out one path out of the thousand that lead to God, one shortest possible of shortcuts, and not to linger exploring different paths that end in the same goal. But if our aim be a transformation of our integral being into the terms of God-existence, it is then that a synthesis becomes necessary.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Synthesis of the Systems, 45,#KEYS
263:What then are the lines of Karmayoga laid down by the Gita? Its key principle, its spiritual method, can be summed up as the union of two largest and highest states or powers of consciousness, equality and oneness. The kernel of its method is an unreserved acceptance of the Divine in our life as in our inner self and spirit. An inner renunciation of personal desire leads to equality, accomplishes our total surrender to the Divine, supports a delivery from dividing ego which brings us oneness. The kernal of its method is an unreserved acceptance of the Divine in our life as in our inner self and spirit. An inner renunciation of personal desire leads to equality, accomplishes our total surrender to the Divine, supports a delivery from dividing ego which brings us oneness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [95],#KEYS
264:It is true that the root of all this evil is the ego-sense and that the seat of the conscious ego-sense is the mind itself; but in reality the conscious mind only reflects an ego already created in the subconscious mind in things, the dumb soul in the stone and the plant which is present in all body and life and only finally delivered into voicefulness and wakefulness but not originally created by the conscious mind. And in this upward procession it is the life-energy which has become the obstinate knot of the ego, it is the desire-mind which refuses to relax the knot even when the intellect and the heart have discovered the cause of their ills and would be glad enough to remove it; for the Prana in them is the Animal who revolts and who obscures and deceives their knowledge and coerces their will by his refusal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Heart and the Mind, #KEYS
265:Talk 183.
A gentleman from Bombay said: "I asked Mother in Sri Aurobindo Ashram the following question: 'I keep my mind blank without thoughts arising so that God might show Himself in His true Being. But I do not perceive anything.
"The reply was to this effect: 'The attitude is right. The Power will come down from above. It is a direct experience'."
So he asked what further he should do.
M.: Be what you are. There is nothing to come down or become manifest. All that is needful is to lose the ego, That what is, is always there. Even now you are That. You are not apart from it. The blank is seen by you. You are there to see the blank. What do you wait for? The thought "I have not seen," the expectation to see and the desire of getting something, are all the working of the ego. You have fallen into the snares of the ego. The ego says all these and not you. Be yourself and nothing more! ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,#KEYS
266:55: A similar rejection is a necessary self-restraint and a spiritual discipline for the immature seeker, since such powers may be a great, even a deadly peril; for their supernormality may easily feed in him an abnormal exaggeration of the ego. Power in itself may be dreaded as a temptation by the aspirant to perfection, because power can abase as well as elevate; nothing is more liable to misuse. But when new capacities come as an inevitable result of the growth into a greater consciousness and a greater life and that growth is part of the very aim of the spiritual being within us, this bar does not operate; for a growth of the being into supernature and its life in supernature cannot take place or cannot be complete without bringing with it a greater power of consciousness and a greater power of life and the spontaneous development of an instrumentation of knowledge and force normal to that supernature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.08, #KEYS
267:the best we can conceive as the thing to be done :::
The work itself is at first determined by the best light we can command in our ignorance. It is that which we conceive as the thing that should be done. And whether it be shaped by our sense of duty, by our feeling for our fellow-creatures, by our idea of what is for the good of others or the good of the world or by the direction of one whom we accept as a human Master, wiser than ourselves and for us the representative of that Lord of all works in whom we believe but whom we do not yet know, the principle is the same. The essential of the sacrifice of works must be there and the essential is the surrender of all desire for the fruit of our works, the renunciation of all attachment to the result for which yet we labour. For so long as we work with attachment to the result, the sacrifice is offered not to the Divine, but to our ego...
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Equality and the Annihilation of Ego,#KEYS
268:Therefore, we can attain the overmental consciousness in many different ways: through religious passion, through poetic, intellectual, artistic, or heroic zeal, or through anything that helps man to exceed himself. - Sri Aurobindo assigned a special place to art, which he considered one of the major means of spiritual progress. Unfortunately, artists and creators too often have a considerable ego standing in the way, which is their main difficulty. The religious man, who has worked to dissolve his ego, finds it easier, but he rarely attains universality through his own individual efforts, leaping instead beyond the individual without bothering to develop all the intermediate rungs of the personal consciousness, and when he reaches the top he no longer has a ladder to come down, or he does not want to come down, or there is no individual self left to express what he sees, or else his old individual self tries its best to express his new consciousness, provided he feels the need to express anything at all.
~ Satprem,#KEYS
269:reading :::
50 Philosophy Classics: List of Books Covered:
1. Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition (1958)
2. Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics (4th century BC)
3. AJ Ayer - Language, Truth and Logic (1936)
4. Julian Baggini - The Ego Trick (2011)
5. Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra and Simulation (1981)
6. Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex (1952)
7. Jeremy Bentham - Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
8. Henri Bergson - Creative Evolution (1911)
9. David Bohm - Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)
10. Noam Chomsky - Understanding Power (2002)
11. Cicero - On Duties (44 BC)
12. Confucius - Analects (5th century BC)
13. Rene Descartes - Meditations (1641)
14. Ralph Waldo Emerson - Fate (1860)
15. Epicurus - Letters (3rd century BC)
16. Michel Foucault - The Order of Things (1966)
17. Harry Frankfurt - On Bullshit (2005)
18. Sam Harris - Free Will (2012)
19. GWF Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit (1803)
20. Martin Heidegger - Being and Time (1927)
21. Heraclitus - Fragments#KEYS
270:The best way to overcome it [the fear of death]-so at least it seems to me-is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done. ~ Bertrand Russell, #KEYS
271:a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness: - it will mean the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
272:For the contact of the human and individual consciousness with the divine is the very essence of Yoga. Yoga is the union of that which has become separated in the play of the universe with its own true self, origin and universality. The contact may take place at any point of the complex and intricately organised consciousness which we call our personality. It may be effected in the physical through the body; in the vital through the action of those functionings which determine the state and the experiences of our nervous being; through the mentality, whether by means of the emotional heart, the active will or the understanding mind, or more largely by a general conversion of the mental consciousness in all its activities. It may equally be accomplished through a direct awakening to the universal or transcendent Truth and Bliss by the conversion of the central ego in the mind. And according to the point of contact that we choose will be the type of the Yoga that we practise. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, #KEYS
273:fruits of the release :::
For even before complete purification, if the strings of the egoistic heart and mind are already sufficiently frayed and loosened, the Jiva can by a sudden snapping of the main cords escape, ascending like a bird freed into the spaces or widening like a liberated flood into the One and Infinite. There is first a sudden sense of a cosmic consciousness, a casting of oneself into the universal; from that universality one can aspire more easily to the Transcendent. There is a pushing back and rending or a rushing down of the walls that imprisoned our conscious being; there is a loss of all sense of individuality and personality, of all placement in ego, a person definite and definable, but only consciousness, only existence, only peace or bliss; one becomes immortatlity, becomes eternity, becomes infinity. All that is left of the personal soul is a hymn of peace and freedom and bliss vibrating somewhere in the Eternal.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, 363,#KEYS
274:There is only one thing painful in the beginning to a raw or turbid part of the surface nature; it is the indispensable discipline demanded, the denial necessary for the merging of the incomplete ego. But for that there can be a speedy and enormous compensation in the discovery of a real greater or ultimate completeness in others, in all things, in the cosmic oneness, in the freedom of the transcendent Self and Spirit, in the rapture of the touch of the Divine. Our sacrifice is not a giving without any return or any fruitful acceptance from the other side; it is an interchange between the embodied soul and conscious Nature in us and the eternal Spirit. For even though no return is demanded, yet there is the knowledge deep within us that a marvellous return is inevitable. The soul knows that it does not give itself to God in vain; claiming nothing, it yet receives the infinite riches of the divine Power and Presence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [109],#KEYS
275:the supreme third period of greater divine equality :::
If we can pass through these two stages of the inner change without being arrested or fixed in either, we are admitted to a greater divine equality which is capable of a spiritual ardour and tranquil passion of delight, a rapturous, all-understanding and all-possessing equality of the perfected soul, an intense and even wideness and fullness of its being embracing all things. This is the supreme period and the passage to it is through the joy of a total self-giving to the Divine and to the universal Mother. For strength is then crowned by a happy mastery, peace deepens into bliss, the possession of the divine calm is uplifted and made the ground for the possession of the divine movement. But if this greater perfection is to arrive, the soul's impartial high-seatedness looking down from above on the flux of forms and personalities and movements and forces must be modified and change into a new sense of strong and calm submission and a powerful and intense surrender. ...
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Equality and the Annihilation of Ego,#KEYS
276:Only by our coming into constant touch with the divine Consciousness and its absolute Truth can some form of the conscious Divine, the dynamic Absolute, take up our earth-existence and transform its strife, stumbling, sufferings and falsities into an image of the supreme Light, Power and Ananda.
The culmination of the soul's constant touch with the Supreme is that self-giving which we call surrender to the divine Will and immergence of the separated ego in the One who is all. A vast universality of soul and an intense unity with all is the base and fixed condition of the supramental consciousness and spiritual life. In that universality and unity alone can we find the supreme law of the divine manifestation in the life of the embodied spirit; in that alone can we discover the supreme motion and right play of our individual nature. In that alone can all these lower discords resolve themselves into a victorious harmony of the true relations between manifested beings who are portions of the one Godhead and children of one universal Mother. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, 205,#KEYS
277:the hard shell of the ego :::
This sense of one's own person becomes a kind of cage, a prison which shuts you in, prevents you from being true, from knowing truly, acting truly, understanding truly. It is as though someone had put you in a very hard shell and you were compelled to stay there.
This is the first sensation you have. Afterwards you begin to tap against the shell in order to break it. Sometimes it resists very long. But still, when you begin to feel this, that what you believed in to be yourself, the person doing thigns and for whom they are done, the person who exists and makes you what you are, yes, when you pass from this to the consciousness that this is a prison preventing you from being truly yourself, then you have made great progress, and there is hope. You feel yourself stifled, crushed, absolutely shut up in a prison without air, without light, without an opening, and then you begin pushing from the inside, pushing, pushing, pushing so that it may break.
And the day it breaks, the day it opens, suddenly, you enter the psychic consciousness. And then you understand. And then, truly, if you have a sense of humour, you laugh; you realise your stupidity. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
278:the first necessity :::
An entire self-consecration, a complete equality, an unsparing effacement of the ego, a transforming deliverance of the nature from its ignorant modes of action are the steps by which the surrender of all the being and nature to the Divine Will can be prepared and achieved, -- a self-giving true, total and without reserve. The first necessity is an entire spirit of self-consecration in our works; it must become first the constant will, then the ingrained need in all the being, finally its automatic but living and conscious habit, the self-existent turn to do all action as a sacrifice to the Supreme and to the veiled Power present in us and in all beings and in all the workings of the universe. Life is the altar of this sacrifice, works are our offerings; a transcendent and universal Power and Presence as yet rather felt or glimpsed than known or seen by us is the Deity to whom they are offered. This sacrifice, this self-consecration has two sides to it; there is the work itself and there is the spirit in which it is done, the spirit of worship to the Master of Works in all that we see, think and experience.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Equality and the Annihilation of Ego,#KEYS
279:SHYAM: "What is the distinction between the gross body and the subtle body?"
MASTER: "The body consisting of the five gross elements is called the gross body. The subtle body is made up of the mind, the ego, the discriminating faculty, and the mind-stuff. There is also a causal body, by means of which one enjoys the Bliss of God and holds communion with Him. The Tantra calls it the Bhagavati Tanu, the Divine Body. Beyond all these is the Mahakarana, the Great Cause. That cannot be expressed by words.
"What is the use of merely listening to words? Do something! What will you achieve by merely repeating the word 'siddhi'? Will that intoxicate you? You will not be intoxicated even if you make a paste of siddhi and rub it all over your body. You must eat some of it. How can a man recognize yarns of different counts, such as number forty and number forty-one, unless he is in the trade? Those who trade in yarn do not find it at all difficult to describe a thread of a particular count. Therefore I say, practise a little spiritual discipline; then you will know all these — the gross, the subtle, the causal, and the Great Cause. While praying to God, ask only for love for His Lotus Feet." ~ Sri Ramakrishna,#KEYS
280:An integral method and an integral result. First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures. Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sayujyamukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the salokyalmukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sadharmyamukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, p.47-8,#KEYS
281:the three results of effective practice: devotion, the central liberating knowledge and purification of ego; :::
...it leads straight and inevitably towards the highest devotion possible;.. There is bound up a growing sense of the Divine in all things, a deepening communion with the Divine in all our through, will and action and at every moment of our lives, a more and more moved conscecration to the Divine of the totality of our being....
...next, the practice of this Yoga demands a constant inward remembrance of the one central liberating knowledge, ... In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. ...
Lastly, the practice of this Yoga of sacrifice compels us to renounce all the inner supports of egoism, casting them out of our mind and will and actions, and to eliminate its seed, its presence, its influence out of our nature. All must be done for the Divine; all must be directed towards the Divine.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Sacrifice, The Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [T1],#KEYS
282:Endure and you will triumph. Victory goes to the most enduring. And with the Grace and divine love nothing is impossible. My force and love are with you. At the end of the struggle there is Victory And so we find once more that the Ego-idea must be ruthlessly rooted out before Understanding can be attained The emptiness that you described in your letter yesterday was not a bad thing - it is this emptiness inward and outward that often in Yoga becomes the first step towards a new consciousness. Man's nature is like a cup of dirty water - the water has to be thrown out, the cup left clean and empty for the divine liquor to be poured into it. The difficulty is that the human physical consciousness feels it difficult to bear this emptiness - it is accustomed to be occupied by all sorts of little mental and vital movements which keep it interested and amused or even if in trouble and sorrow still active. The cessation of these things is hard to bear for it. It begins to feel dull and restless and eager for the old interests and movements. But by this restlessness it disturbs the quietude and brings back the things that had been thrown out. It is this that is creating the difficulty and the obstruction for the moment. If you can accept emptiness as a passage to the true consciousness and true movements, then it will be easier to get rid of the obstacle.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
283:the fourth aid, time, kala :::
The sadhaka who has all these aids is sure of his goal. Even a fall will be for him only a means of rising and death a passage towards fulfilment. For once on this path, birth and death become only processes in the development of his being and the stages of his journey.
Time is the remaining aid needed for the effectivity of the process. Time presents itself to human effort as an enemy or a friend, as a resistance, a medium or an instrument. But always it is really the instrument of the soul.
Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and working out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and a condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument.
The ideal attitude of the sadhaka towards Time is to have an endless patience as if he had all eternity for his fulfilment and yet to develop the energy that shall realise now and with an ever-increasing mastery and pressure of rapidity till it reaches the miraculous instantaneousness of the supreme divine Transformation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids,#KEYS
284:9. Atonement with the Father/Abyss:Atonement consists in no more than the abandonment of that self-generated double monster-the dragon thought to be God (superego) and the dragon thought to be Sin (repressed id). But this requires an abandonment of the attachment to ego itself, and that is what is difficult. One must have a faith that the father is merciful, and then a reliance on that mercy. Therewith, the center of belief is transferred outside of the bedeviling god's tight scaly ring, and the dreadful ogres dissolve. It is in this ordeal that the hero may derive hope and assurance from the helpful female figure, by whose magic (pollen charms or power of intercession) he is protected through all the frightening experiences of the father's ego-shattering initiation. For if it is impossible to trust the terrifying father-face, then one's faith must be centered elsewhere (Spider Woman, Blessed Mother); and with that reliance for support, one endures the crisis-only to find, in the end, that the father and mother reflect each other, and are in essence the same. The problem of the hero going to meet the father is to open his soul beyond terror to such a degree that he will be ripe to understand how the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are completely validated in the majesty of Being. The hero transcends life with its peculiar blind spot and for a moment rises to a glimpse of the source. He beholds the face of the father, understands-and the two are atoned. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
285:There must be accepted and progressively accomplished a surrender of our capacities of working into the hands of a greater Power behind us and our sense of being the doer and worker must disappear. All must be given for a more direct use into the hands of the divine Will which is hidden by these frontal appearances; for by that permitting Will alone is our action possible. A hidden Power is the true Lord and overruling Observer of our acts and only he knows through all the ignorance and perversion and deformation brought in by the ego their entire sense and ultimate purpose. There must be effected a complete transformation of our limited and distorted egoistic life and works into the large and direct outpouring of a greater divine Life, Will and Energy that now secretly supports us. This greater Will and Energy must be made conscious in us and master; no longer must it remain, as now, only a superconscious, upholding and permitting Force. There must be achieved an undistorted transmission through us of the all-wise purpose and process of a now hidden omniscient Power and omnipotent Knowledge which will turn into its pure, unobstructed, happily consenting and participating channel all our transmuted nature. This total consecration and surrender and this resultant entire transformation and free transmission make up the whole fundamental means and the ultimate aim of an integral Karmayoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [92],#KEYS
286:But what has fixed the modes of Nature? Or who has originated and governs the movements of Force? There is a Consciousness - or a Conscient - behind that is the lord, witness, knower, enjoyer, upholder and source of sanction for her works; this consciousness is Soul or Purusha. Prakriti shapes the action in us; Purusha in her or behind her witnesses, assents, bears and upholds it. Prakriti forms the thought in our minds; Purusha in her or behind her knows the thought and the truth in it. Prakriti determines the result of the action; Purusha in her or behind her enjoys or suffers the consequence. Prakriti forms mind and body, labours over them, develops them; Purusha upholds the formation and evolution and sanctions each step of her works. Prakriti applies the Will-force which works in things and men; Purusha sets that Will-force to work by his vision of that which should be done. This Purusha is not the surface ego, but a silent Self, a source of Power, an originator and receiver of Knowledge behind the ego. Our mental "I" is only a false reflection of this Self, this Power, this Knowledge. This Purusha or supporting Consciousness is therefore the cause, recipient and support of all Nature's works, but he is not himself the doer. Prakriti, NatureForce, in front and Shakti, Conscious-Force, Soul-Force behind her, - for these two are the inner and outer faces of the universal Mother, - account for all that is done in the universe. The universal Mother, Prakriti-Shakti, is the one and only worker. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 214, #KEYS
287:This ego or "I" is not a lasting truth, much less our essential part; it is only a formation of Nature, a mental form of thought centralisation in the perceiving and discriminating mind, a vital form of the centralisation of feeling and sensation in our parts of life, a form of physical conscious reception centralising substance and function of substance in our bodies. All that we internally are is not ego, but consciousness, soul or spirit. All that we externally and superficiallyare and do is not ego but Nature. An executive cosmic force shapes us and dictates through our temperament and environment and mentality so shaped, through our individualised formulation of the cosmic energies, our actions and their results. Truly, we do not think, will or act but thought occurs in us, will occurs in us, impulse and act occur in us; our ego-sense gathers around itself, refers to itself all this flow of natural activities. It is cosmic Force, it is Nature that forms the thought, imposes the will, imparts the impulse. our body, mind and ego are a wave of that sea of force in action and do not govern it, but by it are governed and directed. The Sadhaka in his progress towards truth and self-knowledge must come to a point where the soul opens its eyes of vision and recognises this truth of ego and this truth of works. He gives up the idea of a mental, vital, physical, "I" that acts or governs action; he recognises that Prakriti, Force of cosmic nature following her fixed modes, is the one and only worker in him and in all things and creatures.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 214,#KEYS
288:These are the conditions of our effort and they point to an ideal which can be expressed in these or in equivalent formulae. To live in God and not in the ego; to move, vastly founded, not in the little egoistic consciousness, but in the consciousness of the All-Soul and the Transcendent. To be perfectly equal in all happenings and to all beings, and to see and feel them as one with oneself and one with the Divine; to feel all in oneself and all in God; to feel God in all, oneself in all. To act in God and not in the ego. And here, first, not to choose action by reference to personal needs and standards, but in obedience to the dictates of the living highest Truth above us. Next, as soon as we are sufficiently founded in the spiritual consciousness, not to act any longer by our separate will or movement, but more and more to allow action to happen and develop under the impulsion and guidance of a divine Will that surpasses us. And last, the supreme result, to be exalted into an identity in knowledge, force, consciousness, act, joy of existence with the Divine Shakti; to feel a dynamic movement not dominated by mortal desire and vital instinct and impulse and illusive mental free-will, but luminously conceived and evolved in an immortal self-delight and an infinite self-knowledge. For this is the action that comes by a conscious subjection and merging of the natural man into the divine Self and eternal Spirit; it is the Spirit that for ever transcends and guides this world-Nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [101],#KEYS
289:What is that work and result, if not a self-involution of Consciousness in form and a self-evolution out of form so as to actualise some mighty possibility in the universe which it has created? And what is its will in Man if not a will to unending Life, to unbounded Knowledge, to unfettered Power? Science itself begins to dream of the physical conquest of death, expresses an insatiable thirst for knowledge, is working out something like a terrestrial omnipotence for humanity. Space and Time are contracting to the vanishing-point in its works, and it strives in a hundred ways to make man the master of circumstance and so lighten the fetters of causality. The idea of limit, of the impossible begins to grow a little shadowy and it appears instead that whatever man constantly wills, he must in the end be able to do; for the consciousness in the race eventually finds the means. It is not in the individual that this omnipotence expresses itself, but the collective Will of mankind that works out with the individual as a means. And yet when we look more deeply, it is not any conscious Will of the collectivity, but a superconscious Might that uses the individual as a centre and means, the collectivity as a condition and field. What is this but the God in man, the infinite Identity, the multitudinous Unity, the Omniscient, the Omnipotent, who having made man in His own image, with the ego as a centre of working, with the race, the collective Narayana, the visvamanava as the mould and circumscription, seeks to express in them some image of the unity, omniscience, omnipotence which are the self-conception of the Divine?
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
290:The Lord has veiled himself and his absolute wisdom and eternal consciousness in ignorant Nature-Force and suffers her to drive the individual being, with its complicity, as the ego; this lower action of Nature continues to prevail, often even in spite of man's half-lit imperfect efforts at a nobler motive and a purer self-knowledge. Our human effort at perfection fails, or progresses very incompletely, owing to the force of Nature's past actions in us, her past formations, her long-rooted associations; it turns towards a true and high-climbing success only when a greater Knowledge and Power than our own breaks through the lid of our ignorance and guides or takes up our personal will. For our human will is a misled and wandering ray that has parted from the supreme Puissance. The period of slow emergence out of this lower working into a higher light and purer force is the valley of the shadow of death for the striver after perfection; it is a dreadful passage full of trials, sufferings, sorrows, obscurations, stumblings, errors, pitfalls. To abridge and alleviate this ordeal or to penetrate it with the divine delight faith is necessary, an increasing surrender of the mind to the knowledge that imposes itself from within and, above all, a true aspiration and a right and unfaltering and sincere practice. "Practise unfalteringly," says the Gita, "with a heart free from despondency," the Yoga; for even though in the earlier stage of the path we drink deep of the bitter poison of internal discord and suffering, the last taste of this cup is the sweetness of the nectar of immortality and the honey-wine of an eternal Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 219, #KEYS
291:The sign of the immersion of the embodied soul in Prakriti is the limitation of consciousness to the ego. The vivid stamp of this limited consciousness can be seen in a constant inequality of the mind and heart and a confused conflict and disharmony in their varied reactions to the touches of experience. The human reactions sway perpetually between the dualities created by the soul's subjection to Nature and by its often intense but narrow struggle for mastery and enjoyment, a struggle for the most part ineffective. The soul circles in an unending round of Nature's alluring and distressing opposites, success and failure, good fortune and ill fortune, good and evil, sin and virtue, joy and grief, pain and pleasure. It is only when, awaking from its immersion in Prakriti, it perceives its oneness with the One and its oneness with all existences that it can become free from these things and found its right relation to this executive world-Nature. Then it becomes indifferent to her inferior modes, equal-minded to her dualities, capable of mastery and freedom; it is seated above her as the high-throned knower and witness filled with the calm intense unalloyed delight of his own eternal existence. The embodied spirit continues to express its powers in action, but it is no longer involved in ignorance, no longer bound by its works; its actions have no longer a consequence within it, but only a consequence outside in Prakriti. The whole movement of Nature becomes to its experience a rising and falling of waves on the surface that make no difference to its own unfathomable peace, its wide delight, its vast universal equality or its boundless God-existence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
292:In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature.
In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the adhara and, when it is opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana possible. But so long as the lower nature is active the personal effort of the Sadhaka remains necessary.
The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender, -
an aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing - the mind's will, the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature;
rejection of the movements of the lower nature - rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind, - rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being, - rejection of the physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine;
surrender of oneself and all one is and has and every plane of the consciousness and every movement to the Divine and the Shakti.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
293:Sweet Mother, how can we cut the knot of the ego?
How to cut it? Take a sword and strike it (laughter), when one becomes conscious of it. For usually one is not; we think it quite normal, what happens to us; and in fact it is very normal but we think it quite good also.So to begin with one must have a great clear-sightedness to become aware that one is enclosed in all these knots which hold one in bondage. And then, when one is aware that there's something altogether tightly closed in there - so tightly that one has tried in vain to move it - then one imagines one's will to be a very sharp sword-blade, and with all one's force one strikes a blow on this knot (imaginary, of course, one doesn't take up a sword in fact), and this produces a result. Of course you can do this work from the psychological point of view, discovering all the elements constituting this knot, the whole set of resistances, habits, preferences, of all that holds you narrowly closed in. So when you grow aware of this, you can concentrate and call the divine Force and the Grace and strike a good blow on this formation, these things so closely held, like that, that nothing can separate them. And at that moment you must resolve that you will no longer listen to these things, that you will listen only to the divine Consciousness and will do no other work except the divine work without worrying about personal results, free from all attachment, free from all preference, free from all wish for success, power, satisfaction, vanity, all this.... All this must disappear and you must see only the divine Will incarnated in your will and making you act. Then, in this way, you are cured.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
294:Sweet Mother, how can we cut the knot of the ego?
How to cut it? Take a sword and strike it (laughter), when one becomes conscious of it. For usually one is not; we think it quite normal, what happens to us; and in fact it is very normal but we think it quite good also.So to begin with one must have a great clear-sightedness to become aware that one is enclosed in all these knots which hold one in bondage. And then, when one is aware that there's something altogether tightly closed in there - so tightly that one has tried in vain to move it - then one imagines one's will to be a very sharp sword-blade, and with all one's force one strikes a blow on this knot (imaginary, of course, one doesn't take up a sword in fact), and this produces a result. Of course you can do this work from the psychological point of view, discovering all the elements constituting this knot, the whole set of resistances, habits, preferences, of all that holds you narrowly closed in. So when you grow aware of this, you can concentrate and call the divine Force and the Grace and strike a good blow on this formation, these things so closely held, like that, that nothing can separate them. And at that moment you must resolve that you will no longer listen to these things, that you will listen only to the divine Consciousness and will do no other work except the divine work without worrying about personal results, free from all attachment, free from all preference, free from all wish for success, power, satisfaction, vanity, all this.... All this must disappear and you must see only the divine Will incarnated in your will and making you act. Then, in this way, you are cured.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
295:the second aid, the need for effort and aspiration, utsaha :::
The development of the experience in its rapidity, its amplitude, the intensity and power of its results, depends primarily, in the beginning of the path and long after, on the aspiration and personal effort of the sadhaka. The process of Yoga is a turning of the human soul from the egoistic state of consciousness absorbed in the outward appearances and attractions of things to a higher state in which the Transcendent and Universal can pour itself into the individiual mould and transform it. The first determining element in the siddhi is, therefore, the intensity of the turning, the force which directs the soul inward. The power of aspiration of the heart, the force of the will, the concentration of the mind, the perseverance and determination of the applied energy are the measure of that intensity. The ideal sadhaka should be able to say in the Biblical phrase, 'My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up.' It is this zeal for the Lord, -utsaha, the zeal of the whole nature for its divine results, vyakulata, the heart's eagerness for the attainment of the Divine, - that devours the ego and breaks up the petty limitations ...
So long as the contact with the Divine is not in some considerable degree established, so long as there is not some measure of sustained identity, sayujya, the element of personal effort must normally predominate. But in proportion as this contact establishes itself, the sadhaka must become conscious that a force other than his own, a force transcending his egoistic endeavour and capacity, is at work in him and to this Power he learns progressively to submit himself and delivers up to it the charge of his Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids,#KEYS
296:But this is only one side of the force that works for perfection. The process of the integral Yoga has three stages, not indeed sharply distinguished or separate, but in a certain measure successive. There must be, first, the effort towards at least an initial and enabling self-transcendence and contact with the Divine; next, the reception of that which transcends, that with which we have gained communion, into ourselves for the transformation of our whole conscious being; last, the utilisation of our transformed humanity as a divine centre in the world. So long as the contact with the Divine is not in some considerable degree established, so long as there is not some measure of sustained identity, sayujya, the element of personal effort must normally predominate. But in proportion as this contact establishes itself, the sadhaka must become conscious that a force other than his own, a force transcending his egoistic endeavour and capacity, is at work in him and to this Power he learns progressively to submit himself and delivers up to it the charge of his Yoga. In the end his own will and force become one with the higher Power; he merges them in the divineWill and its transcendent and universal Force. He finds it thenceforward presiding over the necessary transformation of his mental, vital and physical being with an impartial wisdom and provident effectivity of which the eager and interested ego is not capable. It is when this identification and this self-merging are complete that the divine centre in the world is ready. Purified, liberated, plastic, illumined, it can begin to serve as a means for the direct action of a supreme Power in the larger Yoga of humanity or superhumanity, of the earth's spiritual progression or its transformation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T2],#KEYS
297:True love has no need of reciprocation; there can be no reciprocation because there is only one Love, the Love, which has no other aim than to love. It is in the world of division that one feels the need of reciprocation - because one lives in the illusion of the multiplicity of Love; but in fact there is only One Love and it is always this sole love which, so to say, responds to itself. 19 April 1967
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Indeed, there is only one Love, universal and eternal, as there is only one Consciousness, universal and eternal.
All the apparent differences are colorations given by individualisation and personification. But these alterations are purely superficial. And the "nature" of Love, as of Consciousness, is unalterable. 20 April 1967
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When one has found divine Love, it is the Divine that one loves in all beings. There is no longer any division. 1 May 1967
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Once one has found divine Love, all other loves, which are nothing but disguises, can lose their deformities and become pure - then it is the Divine that one loves in everyone and everything. 6 May 1967
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True love, that which fulfils and illumines, is not the love one receives but the love one gives.
And the supreme Love is a love without any definite object - the love which loves because it cannot do other than to love. 15 May 1968
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There is only one love - the Divine's Love; and without that Love there would be no creation. All exists because of that Love and it is when we try to find our own love which does not exist that we do not feel the Love, the only Love, the Divine's Love which permeates all existence. 5 March 1970
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When the psychic loves it loves with the Divine Love.
When you love, you love with the Divine's love diminished and distorted by your ego, but in its essence still the Divine's love.
It is for the facility of the language that you say the love of this one or that one, but it is all the same one Love manifested ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
298:Disciple: If the Asuras represent the dark side of God on the vital plane - does this dark side exist on every plane? If so, are there beings on the mental plane which correspond to the dark side?
Sri Aurobindo: The Asura is really the dark side of God on the mental plane. Mind is the very field of the Asura. His characteristic is egoistic strength, which refuses the Higher Law. The Asura has got Self-control, Tapas, intelligence, only, all that is for his ego.
On the vital plane the corresponding forces we call the Rakshashas which represent violent passions and impulses. There are other beings on the vital plane which we call pramatta and piśacha and these; manifest, more or less, on the physico-vital plane.
Distiple: What is the corresponding being on the higher plane?
Sri Aurobindo: On the higher plane there are no Asuras - there the Truth prevails. There are "Asuras" there in the Vedic sense,- "beings with divine powers". The mental Asura is only a deviation of that power.
The work of the Asura has all the characteristics of mind in it. It is mind refusing to submit to the Higher Law; it is the mind in revolt. It works on the basis of ego and ignorance.
Disciple: What are the forces that correspond to the dark side of God on the physical plane?
Sri Aurobindo: They are what may be called the "elemental beings", or rather, obscure elemental forces - they are more "forces" than "beings". It is these that the Theosophists call the "Elementals". They are not individualised beings like the Asura and the Rakshasas, they are ignorant forces working oh the subtle physical plane.
Disciple: What is the word for them in Sanskrit;?
Sri Aurobindo: What are called bhūtas seem most nearly to correspond to them.
Disciple: The term "Elemental" means that these work through the elements.
Sri Aurobindo: There are two kinds of "elementals": one mischievous and the other innocent. What the Europeans call the gnomes come under this category. ~ A B Purani, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, 15-06-1926,#KEYS
299:This inner Guide is often veiled at first by the very intensity of our personal effort and by the ego's preoccupation with itself and its aims. As we gain in clarity and the turmoil of egoistic effort gives place to a calmer self-knowledge, we recognise the source of the growing light within us. We recognise it retrospectively as we realise how all our obscure and conflicting movements have been determined towards an end that we only now begin to perceive, how even before our entrance into the path of the Yoga the evolution of our life has been designedly led towards its turning point. For now we begin to understand the sense of our struggles and efforts, successes and failures. At last we are able to seize the meaning of our ordeals and sufferings and can appreciate the help that was given us by all that hurt and resisted and the utility of our very falls and stumblings. We recognise this divine leading afterwards, not retrospectively but immediately, in the moulding of our thoughts by a transcendent Seer, of our will and actions by an all-embracing Power, of our emotional life by an all-attracting and all-assimilating Bliss and Love. We recognise it too in a more personal relation that from the first touched us or at the last seizes us; we feel the eternal presence of a supreme Master, Friend, Lover, Teacher. We recognise it in the essence of our being as that develops into likeness and oneness with a greater and wider existence; for we perceive that this miraculous development is not the result of our own efforts; an eternal Perfection is moulding us into its own image. One who is the Lord or Ishwara of the Yogic philosophies, the Guide in the conscious being ( caitya guru or antaryamin ), the Absolute of the thinker, the Unknowable of the Agnostic, the universal Force of the materialist, the supreme Soul and the supreme Shakti, the One who is differently named and imaged by the religions, is the Master of our Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 62 [T1],#KEYS
300:Why are some people intelligent and others not? Why can some people do certain things while others can't?"
It is as though you asked why everybody was not the same! Then it would mean that there would only be one single thing, one single thing indefinitely repeated which would constitute the whole universe.... I don't know, but it seems to me that it wouldn't be worth the trouble having a universe for that, it would be enough to have just one thing!
But the moment one admits the principle of multiplicity and that no two things are alike in the universe, how can you ask why they are not the same! It is just because they are not, because no two things are alike.
Behind that there is something else which one is not conscious of, but which is very simple and very childish. It is this: "Since there is an infinite diversity, since some people are of one kind and others of a lesser kind, well" - here of course one doesn't say this to oneself but it is there, hidden in the depths of the being, in the depths of the ego - "why am I not of the best kind?" There we are. In fact it amounts to complaining that perhaps one is not of the best kind! If you look attentively at questions like this: "Why do some have much and others little?" "Why are some wise and not others? Why are some intelligent and not others?" etc., behind that there is "Why don't I have all that can be had and why am I not all that one can be?..." Naturally, one doesn't say this to oneself, because one would feel ridiculous, but it is there.
There then. Now has anyone anything to add to what we have just said?... Have you all understood quite well? Everything I have said? Nobody wants to say...
(A teacher) Our daily routine seems a little "impossible" to us.
Well, wait a century or two and it will become possible! (Laughter)
You are told that today's impossibility is the possibility of tomorrow - but these are very great tomorrows! ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers, Volume-8, page no. 387-388,#KEYS
301:It must also be kept in mind that the supramental change is difficult, distant, an ultimate stage; it must be regarded as the end of a far-off vista; it cannot be and must not be turned into a first aim, a constantly envisaged goal or an immediate objective. For it can only come into the view of possibility after much arduous self-conquest and self-exceeding, at the end of many long and trying stages of a difficult self-evolution of the nature. One must first acquire an inner Yogic consciousness and replace by it our ordinary view of things, natural movements, motives of life; one must revolutionise the whole present build of our being. Next, we have to go still deeper, discover our veiled psychic entity and in its light and under its government psychicise our inner and outer parts, turn mind-nature, life-nature, body-nature and all our mental, vital, physical action and states and movements into a conscious instrumentation of the soul. Afterwards or concurrently we have to spiritualise the being in its entirety by a descent of a divine Light, Force, Purity, Knowledge, freedom and wideness. It is necessary to break down the limits of the personal mind, life and physicality, dissolve the ego, enter into the cosmic consciousness, realise the self, acquire a spiritualised and universalised mind and heart, life-force, physical consciousness. Then only the passage into the supramental consciousness begins to become possible, and even then there is a difficult ascent to make each stage of which is a separate arduous achievement. Yoga is a rapid and concentrated conscious evolution of the being, but however rapid, even though it may effect in a single life what in an instrumental Nature might take centuries and millenniums or many hundreds of lives, still all evolution must move by stages; even the greatest rapidity and concentration of the movement cannot swallow up all the stages or reverse natural process and bring the end near to the beginning.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supermind and the Yoga of Works, 281,#KEYS
302:The way of integral knowledge supposes that we are intended to arrive at an integral self-fulfilment and the only thing that is to be eliminated is our own unconsciousness, the Ignorance and the results of the Ignorance. Eliminate the falsity of the being which figures as the ego; then our true being can manifest in us. Eliminate the falsity of the life which figures as mere vital craving and the mechanical round of our corporeal existence; our true life in the power of the Godhead and the joy of the Infinite will appear. Eliminate the falsity of the senses with their subjection to material shows and to dual sensations; there is a greater sense in us that can open through these to the Divine in things and divinely reply to it. Eliminate the falsity of the heart with its turbid passions and desires and its dual emotions; a deeper heart in us can open with its divine love for all creatures and its infinite passion and yearning for the responses of the Infinite. Eliminate the falsity of the thought with its imperfect mental constructions, its arrogant assertions and denials, its limited and exclusive concentrations; a greater faculty of knowledge is behind that can open to the true Truth of God and the soul and Nature and the universe. An integral self-fulfilment, - an absolute, a culmination for the experiences of the heart, for its instinct of love, joy, devotion and worship; an absolute, a culmination for the senses, for their pursuit of divine beauty and good and delight in the forms of things; an absolute, a culmination for the life, for its pursuit of works, of divine power, mastery and perfection; an absolute, a culmination beyond its own limits for the thought, for its hunger after truth and light and divine wisdom and knowledge. Not something quite other than themselves from which they are all cast away is the end of these things in our nature, but something supreme in which they at once transcend themselves and find their own absolutes and infinitudes, their harmonies beyond measure.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge,#KEYS
303:It is not very easy for the customary mind of man, always attached to its past and present associations, to conceive of an existence still human, yet radically changed in what are now our fixed circumstances.We are in respect to our possible higher evolution much in the position of the original Ape of the Darwinian theory. It would have been impossible for that Ape leading his instinctive arboreal life in primeval forests to conceive that there would be one day an animal on the earth who would use a new faculty called reason upon the materials of his inner and outer existence, who would dominate by that power his instincts and habits, change the circumstances of his physical life, build for himself houses of stone, manipulate Nature's forces, sail the seas, ride the air, develop codes of conduct, evolve conscious methods for his mental and spiritual development. And if such a conception had been possible for the Ape-mind, it would still have been difficult for him to imagine that by any progress of Nature or long effort of Will and tendency he himself could develop into that animal. Man, because he has acquired reason and still more because he has indulged his power of imagination and intuition, is able to conceive an existence higher than his own and even to envisage his personal elevation beyond his present state into that existence. His idea of the supreme state is an absolute of all that is positive to his own concepts and desirable to his own instinctive aspiration,-Knowledge without its negative shadow of error, Bliss without its negation in experience of suffering, Power without its constant denial by incapacity, purity and plenitude of being without the opposing sense of defect and limitation. It is so that he conceives his gods; it is so that he constructs his heavens. But it is not so that his reason conceives of a possible earth and a possible humanity. His dream of God and Heaven is really a dream of his own perfection; but he finds the same difficulty in accepting its practical realisation here for his ultimate aim as would the ancestral Ape if called upon to believe in himself as the future Man. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Ego and the Dualities, #KEYS
304:For centuries and centuries humanity has waited for this time. It is come. But it is difficult.
I don't simply tell you we are here upon earth to rest and enjoy ourselves, now is not the time for that. We are here..... to prepare the way for the new creation.
The body has some difficulty, so I can't be active, alas. It is not because I am old, I am not old, I am younger than most of you. If I am here inactive, it is because the body has given itself definitely to prepare the transformation. But the consciousness is clear and we are here to work - rest and enjoyment will come afterwards. Let us do our work here.
So I have called you to tell you that. Take what you can, do what you can, my help will be with you. All sincere effort will be helped to the maximum.
It is the hour to be the heroic. Heroism is not what it is said to be; it is to become wholly unified - and the Divine help will always be with those who have resolved to be heroic in full sincerity.
There!
You are here at this moment that is to say upon earth, because you chose it at one time - you do not remember it any more, but I know it - that is why you are here. Well, you must rise to the height of the task. You must strive, you must conquer all weakness and limitations; above all you must tell your ego: "Your hour is gone." We want a race that has no ego, that has in place of the ego the Divine Consciousness. It is that which we want: the Divine Consciousness which will allow the race to develop itself and the Supramental being to take birth.
If you believe that I am here because I am bound - it is not true. I am not bound, I am here because my body has been given for the first attempt at transformation. Sri Aurobindo told me so. Well, I am doing it. I do not wish anyone to do it for me because.... Because it is not very pleasant, but I do it willingly because of the result; everybody will be able to benefit from it. I ask only one thing: do not listen to the ego.
If there is in your hearts a sincere Yes, you will satisfy me completely. I do not need words, I need the sincere adhesion of your hearts. That's all. ~ The Mother, (This talk was given by the Mother on April 2,1972,#KEYS
305:The most disconcerting discovery is to find that every part of us -- intellect, will, sense-mind, nervous or desire self, the heart, the body-has each, as it were, its own complex individuality and natural formation independent of the rest; it neither agrees with itself nor with the others nor with the representative ego which is the shadow cast by some central and centralising self on our superficial ignorance. We find that we are composed not of one but many personalities and each has its own demands and differing nature. Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order. Moreover, we find that inwardly too, no less than outwardly, we are not alone in the world; the sharp separateness of our ego was no more than a strong imposition and delusion; we do not exist in ourselves, we do not really live apart in an inner privacy or solitude. Our mind is a receiving, developing and modifying machine into which there is being constantly passed from moment to moment a ceaseless foreign flux, a streaming mass of disparate materials from above, from below, from outside. Much more than half our thoughts and feelings are not our own in the sense that they take form out of ourselves; of hardly anything can it be said that it is truly original to our nature. A large part comes to us from others or from the environment, whether as raw material or as manufactured imports; but still more largely they come from universal Nature here or from other worlds and planes and their beings and powers and influences; for we are overtopped and environed by other planes of consciousness, mind planes, life planes, subtle matter planes, from which our life and action here are fed, or fed on, pressed, dominated, made use offer the manifestation of their forms and forces. The difficulty of our separate salvation is immensely increased by this complexity and manifold openness and subjection to tile in-streaming energies of the universe. Of all this we have to take account, to deal with it, to know what is the secret stuff of our nature and its constituent and resultant motions and to create in it all a divine centre and a true harmony and luminous order. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 1.02, #KEYS
306:The guiding law of spiritual experience can only come by an opening of human consciousness to the Divine Consciousness; there must be the power to receive in us the working and command and dynamic presence of the Divine Shakti and surrender ourselves to her control; it is that surrender and that control which bring the guidance. But the surrender is not sure, there is no absolute certitude of the guidance so long as we are besieged by mind formations and life impulses and instigations of ego which may easily betray us into the hands of a false experience. This danger can only be countered by the opening of a now nine-tenths concealed inmost soul or psychic being that is already there but not commonly active within us. That is the inner light we must liberate; for the light of this inmost soul is our one sure illumination so long as we walk still amidst the siege of the Ignorance and the Truth-consciousness has not taken up the entire control of our Godward endeavour. The working of the Divine Force in us under the conditions of the transition and the light of the psychic being turning us always towards a conscious and seeing obedience to that higher impulsion and away from the demands and instigations of the Forces of the Ignorance, these between them create an ever progressive inner law of our action which continues till the spiritual and supramental can be established in our nature. In the transition there may well be a period in which we take up all life and action and offer them to the Divine for purification, change and deliverance of the truth within them, another period in which we draw back and build a spiritual wall around us admitting through its gates only such activities as consent to undergo the law of the spiritual transformation, a third in which a free and all-embracing action, but with new forms fit for the utter truth of the Spirit, can again be made possible. These things, however, will be decided by no mental rule but in the light of the soul within us and by the ordaining force and progressive guidance of the Divine Power that secretly or overtly first impels, then begins clearly to control and order and finally takes up the whole burden of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 138, #KEYS
307:higher mind or late vision logic ::: Even more rare, found stably in less than 1% of the population and even more emergent is the turquoise altitude.
Cognition at Turquoise is called late vision-logic or cross-paradigmatic and features the ability to connect meta-systems or paradigms, with other meta-systems. This is the realm of coordinating principles. Which are unified systems of systems of abstraction to other principles. ... Aurobindo indian sage and philosopher offers a more first-person account of turquoise which he called higher-mind, a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamism capable of formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming of all of which a spontaneous inherient knowledge.
Self-sense at turquoise is called Construct-aware and is the first stage of Cook-Greuter's extension of Loveigers work on ego-development. The Construct-aware stage sees individuals for the first time as exploring more and more complex thought-structures with awareness of the automatic nature of human map making and absurdities which unbridaled complexity and logical argumentation can lead. Individuals at this stage begin to see their ego as a central point of reference and therefore a limit to growth. They also struggle to balance unique self-expressions and their concurrent sense of importance, the imperical and intuitive knowledge that there is no fundamental subject-object separation and the budding awareness of self-identity as temporary which leads to a decreased ego-desire to create a stable self-identity. Turquoise individuals are keenly aware of the interplay between awareness, thought, action and effects. They seek personal and spiritual transformation and hold a complex matrix of self-identifications, the adequecy of which they increasingly call into question. Much of this already points to Turquoise values which embrace holistic and intuitive thinking and alignment to universal order in a conscious fashion.
Faith at Turquoise is called Universalising and can generate faith compositions in which conceptions of Ultimate Reality start to include all beings. Individuals at Turquoise faith dedicate themselves to transformation of present reality in the direction of transcendent actuality. Both of these are preludes to the coming of Third Tier. ~ Essential Integral, L4.1-54, Higher Mind,#KEYS
308:complexity of the human constitution :::
There is another direction in which the ordinary practice of Yoga arrives at a helpful but narrowing simplification which is denied to the Sadhaka of the integral aim. The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being, the stimulating but also embarrassing multiplicity of our personality, the rich endless confusion of Nature. To the ordinary man who lives upon his own waking surface, ignorant of the self's depths and vastnesses behind the veil, his psychological existence is fairly simple. A small but clamorous company of desires, some imperative intellectual and aesthetic cravings, some tastes, a few ruling or prominent ideas amid a great current of unconnected or ill-connected and mostly trivial thoughts, a number of more or less imperative vital needs, alternations of physical health and disease, a scattered and inconsequent succession of joys and griefs, frequent minor disturbances and vicissitudes and rarer strong searchings and upheavals of mind or body, and through it all Nature, partly with the aid of his thought and will, partly without or in spite of it, arranging these things in some rough practical fashion, some tolerable disorderly order, -- this is the material of his existence. The average human being even now is in his inward existence as crude and undeveloped as was the bygone primitive man in his outward life. But as soon as we go deep within ourselves, -- and Yoga means a plunge into all the multiple profundities of' the soul, -- we find ourselves subjectively, as man in his growth has found himself objectively, surrounded by a whole complex world which we have to know and to conquer.
The most disconcerting discovery is to find that every part of us -- intellect, will, sense-mind, nervous or desire self, the heart, the body-has each, as it were, its own complex individuality and natural formation independent of the rest; it neither agrees with itself nor with the others nor with the representative ego which is the shadow cast by some central and centralising self on our superficial ignorance. We find that we are composed not of one but many personalities and each has its own demands and differing nature. Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 74-75,#KEYS
309:But even before that highest approach to identity is achieved, something of the supreme Will can manifest in us as an imperative impulsion, a God-driven action; we then act by a spontaneous self-determining Force but a fuller knowledge of meaning and aim arises only afterwards. Or the impulse to action may come as an inspiration or intuition, but rather in the heart and body than in the mind; here an effective sight enters in but the complete and exact knowledge is still deferred and comes, if at all, lateR But the divine Will may descend too as a luminous single command or a total perception or a continuous current of perception of what is to be done into the will or into the thought or as a direction from above spontaneously fulfilled by the lower members. When the Yoga is imperfect, only some actions can be done in this way, or else a general action may so proceed but only during periods of exaltation and illumination. When the Yoga is perfect, all action becomes of this character. We may indeed distinguish three stages of a growing progress by which, first, the personal will is occasionally or frequently enlightened or moved by a supreme Will or conscious Force beyond it, then constantly replaced and, last, identified and merged in that divine Power-action. The first is the stage when we are still governed by the intellect, heart and senses; these have to seek or wait for the divine inspiration and guidance and do not always find or receive it. The second is the stage when human intelligence is more and more replaced by a high illumined or intuitive spiritualised mind, the external human heart by the inner psychic heart, the senses by a purified and selfless vital force. The third is the stage when we rise even above spiritualised mind to the supramental levels. In all three stages the fundamental character of the liberated action is the same, a spontaneous working of Prakriti no longer through or for the ego but at the will and for the enjoyment of the supreme Purusha. At a higher level this becomes the Truth of the absolute and universal Supreme expressed through the individual soul and worked out consciously through the nature, - no longer through a half-perception and a diminished or distorted effectuation by the stumbling, ignorant and all-deforming energy of lower nature in us but by the all-wise transcendent and universal Mother. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 218, #KEYS
310:Satya Sattva - "Sri Yukteswar's intuition was penetrating; heedless of remarks, he often replied to one's unexpressed thoughts. The words a person uses, and the actual thoughts behind them, may be poles apart. 'By calmness,' my guru said, 'try to feel the thoughts behind the confusion of men's verbiage.' [...]
Many teachers talked of miracles but could manifest nothing. Sri Yukteswar seldom mentioned the subtle laws but secretly operated them at will. 'A man of realization doesn't perform any miracle until he receives an inward sanction', master explained. 'God does not wish the secrets of His creation revealed promiscuously. Also, every individual in the world has an inalienable right to his free will. A saint will not encroach on that independence.'
The silence habitual to Sri Yukteswar was caused by his deep perceptions of the Infinite. [...] Because of my guru's unspectacular guise, only a few of his contemporaries recognized him as a superman. The adage: 'He is a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom,' could never be applied to my profound and quiet master. Though born a mortal like all others, Sri Yukteswar achieved identity with the Ruler of time and space. Master found no insuperable obstacles to the mergence of human and Divine. No such barrier exists, I came to understand. [...]
Though my guru's undissembling speech prevented a large following during his years on Earth, nevertheless, through an ever-growing number of sincere students of his teachings, his spirit lives on in the world today. [...]
The disclosures of the Divine insight are often painful to worldly ears. Master was not popular with superficial students. The wise, always few in number, deeply revered him. I daresay Sri Yukteswar would have been the most sought-after guru in India had his speech not been so candid and so censorious. [...]
He added, 'You will go to foreign lands, where blunt assaults on the ego are not appreciated. A teacher could not spread India's message in the West without an ample fund of accommodative patience and forbearance.' [...]
I am immeasurably grateful for the humbling blows he dealt my vanity. I sometimes felt that, metaphorically, he was discovering and uprooting every diseased tooth in my jaw. The hard core of egotism is difficult to dislodge except rudely. With its departure, the Divine finds at last un unobstructed channel. In vain It seeks to percolate through flinty hearts of selfishness. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi,#KEYS
311:requirements for the psychic :::
At a certain stage in the Yoga when the mind is sufficiently quieted and no longer supports itself at every step on the sufficiency of its mental certitudes, when the vital has been steadied and subdued and is no longer constantly insistent on its own rash will, demand and desire, when the physical has been sufficiently altered not to bury altogether the inner flame under the mass of its outwardness, obscurity or inertia, an inmost being hidden within and felt only in its rare influences is able to come forward and illumine the rest and take up the lead of the sadhana. Its character is a one-pointed orientation towards the Divine or the Highest, one-pointed and yet plastic in action and movement; it does not create a rigidity of direction like the one-pointed intellect or a bigotry of the regnant idea or impulse like the one-pointed vital force; it is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the Truth, automatically distinguishes the right step from the false, extricates the divine or Godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine. Its action is like a searchlight showing up all that has to be changed in the nature; it has in it a flame of will insistent on perfection, on an alchemic transmutation of all the inner and outer existence. It sees the divine essence everywhere but rejects the mere mask and the disguising figure. It insists on Truth, on will and strength and mastery, on Joy and Love and Beauty, but on a Truth of abiding Knowledge that surpasses the mere practical momentary truth of the Ignorance, on an inward joy and not on mere vital pleasure, -- for it prefers rather a purifying suffering and sorrow to degrading satisfactions, -- on love winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feet sunk in the mire, on beauty restored to its priesthood of interpretation of the Eternal, on strength and will and mastery as instruments not of the ego but of the Spirit. Its will is for the divinisation of life, the expression through it of a higher Truth, its dedication to the Divine and the Eternal.
But the most intimate character of the psychic is its pressure towards the Divine through a sacred love, joy and oneness. It is the divine Love that it seeks most, it is the love of the Divine that is its spur, its goal, its star of Truth shining over the luminous cave of the nascent or the still obscure cradle of the new-born godhead within us.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,#KEYS
312:Integral knowledge will then mean the cancelling of the sevenfold Ignorance by the discovery of what it misses and ignores, a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness:- it will mean the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality. But this is not an intellectual knowledge which can be learned and completed in our present mould of consciousness; it must be an experience, a becoming, a change of consciousness, a change of being. This brings in the evolutionary character of the Becoming and the fact that our mental ignorance is only a stage in our evolution. The integral knowledge, then, can only come by an evolution of our being and our nature, and that would seem to signify a slow process in Time such as has accompanied the other evolutionary transformations. But as against that inference there is the fact that the evolution has now become conscious and its method and steps need not be altogether of the same character as when it was subconscious in its process. The integral knowledge, since it must result from a change of consciousness, can be gained by a process in which our will and endeavour have a part, in which they can discover and apply their own steps and method: its growth in us can proceed by a conscious self-transformation. It is necessary then to see what is likely to be the principle of this new process of evolution and what are the movements of the integral knowledge that must necessarily emerge in it,-or, in other words, what is the nature of the consciousness that must be the base of the life divine and how that life may be expected to be formed or to form itself, to materialise or, as one might say, to realise.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Reality and the Integral Knowledge, 681,#KEYS
313:One can learn how to identify oneself. One must learn. It is indispensable if one wants to get out of one's ego. For so long as one is shut up in one's ego, one can't make any progress.
How can it be done?
There are many ways. I'll tell you one.
When I was in Paris, I used to go to many places where there were gatherings of all kinds, people making all sorts of researches, spiritual (so-called spiritual), occult researches, etc. And once I was invited to meet a young lady (I believe she was Swedish) who had found a method of knowledge, exactly a method for learning. And so she explained it to us. We were three or four (her French was not very good but she was quite sure about what she was saying!); she said: "It's like this, you take an object or make a sign on a blackboard or take a drawing - that is not important - take whatever is most convenient for you. Suppose, for instance, that I draw for you... (she had a blackboard) I draw a design." She drew a kind of half-geometric design. "Now, you sit in front of the design and concentrate all your attention upon it - upon that design which is there. You concentrate, concentrate without letting anything else enter your consciousness - except that. Your eyes are fixed on the drawing and don't move at all. You are as it were hypnotised by the drawing. You look (and so she sat there, looking), you look, look, look.... I don't know, it takes more or less time, but still for one who is used to it, it goes pretty fast. You look, look, look, you become that drawing you are looking at. Nothing else exists in the world any longer except the drawing, and then, suddenly, you pass to the other side; and when you pass to the other side you enter a new consciousness, and you know."
We had a good laugh, for it was amusing. But it is quite true, it is an excellent method to practise. Naturally, instead of taking a drawing or any object, you may take, for instance, an idea, a few words. You have a problem preoccupying you, you don't know the solution of the problem; well, you objectify your problem in your mind, put it in the most precise, exact, succinct terms possible, and then concentrate, make an effort; you concentrate only on the words, and if possible on the idea they represent, that is, upon your problem - you concentrate, concentrate, concentrate until nothing else exists but that. And it is true that, all of a sudden, you have the feeling of something opening, and one is on the other side. The other side of what?... It means that you have opened a door of your consciousness, and instantaneously you have the solution of your problem. It is an excellent method of learning "how" to identify oneself.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 217 [T1],#KEYS
314:It is then by a transformation of life in its very principle, not by an external manipulation of its phenomena, that the integral Yoga proposes to change it from a troubled and ignorant into a luminous and harmonious movement of Nature. There are three conditions which are indispensable for the achievement of this central inner revolution and new formation; none of them is altogether sufficient in itself, but by their united threefold power the uplifting can be done, the conversion made and completely made. For, first, life as it is is a movement of desire and it has built in us as its centre a desire-soul which refers to itself all the motions of life and puts in them its own troubled hue and pain of an ignorant, half-lit, baffled endeavour: for a divine living, desire must be abolished and replaced by a purer and firmer motive-power, the tormented soul of desire dissolved and in its stead there must emerge the calm, strength, happiness of a true vital being now concealed within us. Next, life as it is is driven or led partly by the impulse of the life-force, partly by a mind which is mostly a servant and abettor of the ignorant life-impulse, but in part also its uneasy and not too luminous or competent guide and mentor; for a divine life the mind and the life-impulse must cease to be anything but instruments and the inmost psychic being must take their place as the leader on the path and the indicator of a divine guidance. Last, life as it is is turned towards the satisfaction of the separative ego; ego must disappear and be replaced by the true spiritual person, the central being, and life itself must be turned towards the fulfilment of the Divine in terrestrial existence; it must feel a Divine Force awaking within it and become an obedient instrumentation of its purpose.
There is nothing that is not ancient and familiar in the first of these three transforming inner movements; for it has always been one of the principal objects of spiritual discipline. It has been best formulated in the already expressed doctrine of the Gita by which a complete renouncement of desire for the fruits as the motive of action, a complete annulment of desire itself, the complete achievement of a perfect equality are put forward as the normal status of a spiritual being. A perfect spiritual equality is the one true and infallible sign of the cessation of desire, - to be equal-souled to all things, unmoved by joy and sorrow, the pleasant and the unpleasant, success or failure, to look with an equal eye on high and low, friend and enemy, the virtuous and the sinner, to see in all beings the manifold manifestation of the One and in all things the multitudinous play or the slow masked evolution of the embodied Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 176,#KEYS
315:root of the falsification and withdrawl of divine love :::
At every moment they are moved to take egoistic advantage of the psychic and spiritual influences and can be detected using the power, joy or light these bring into us for a lower life-motive. Afterwards too, even when the seeker has opened to the Divine Love transcendental, universal or immanent, yet if he tries to pour it into life, he meets the power of obscuration and perversion of these lower Nature-forces. Always they draw away towards pitfalls, pour into that higher intensity their diminishing elements, seek to capture the descending Power for themselves and their interests and degrade it into an aggrandised mental, vital or physical instrumentation for desire and ego. Instead of a Divine Love creator of a new heaven and a new earth of Truth and Light, they would hold it here prisoner as a tremendous sanction and glorifying force of sublimation to gild the mud of the old earth and colour with its rose and sapphire the old turbid unreal skies of sentimentalising vital imagination and mental idealised chimera. If that falsification is permitted, the higher Light and Power and Bliss withdraw, there is a fall back to a lower status; or else the realisation remains tied to an insecure half-way and mixture or is covered and even submerged by an inferior exaltation that is not the true Ananda. It is for this reason that Divine Love which is at the heart of all creation and the most powerful of all redeeming and creative forces has yet been the least frontally present in earthly life, the least successfully redemptive, the least creative. Human nature has been unable to bear it in its purity for the very reason that it is the most powerful, pure, rare and intense of all the divine energies; what little could be seized has been corrupted at once into a vital pietistic ardour, a defenceless religious or ethical sentimentalism, a sensuous or even sensual erotic mysticism of the roseate coloured mind or passionately turbid life-impulse and with these simulations compensated its inability to house the Mystic Flame that could rebuild the world with its tongues of sacrifice. It is only the inmost psychic being unveiled and emerging in its full power that can lead the pilgrim sacrifice unscathed through these ambushes and pitfalls; at each moment it catches, exposes, repels the mind's and the life's falsehoods, seizes hold on the truth of the Divine Love and Ananda and separates it from the excitement of the mind's ardours and the blind enthusiasms of the misleading life-force. But all things that are true at their core in mind and life and the physical being it extricates and takes with it in the journey till they stand on the heights, new in spirit and sublime in figure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 166,#KEYS
316:The Absolute is in itself indefinable by reason, ineffable to the speech; it has to be approached through experience. It can be approached through an absolute negation of existence, as if it were itself a supreme Non-Existence, a mysterious infinite Nihil. It can be approached through an absolute affirmation of all the fundamentals of our own existence, through an absolute of Light and Knowledge, through an absolute of Love or Beauty, through an absolute of Force, through an absolute of peace or silence. It can be approached through an inexpressible absolute of being or of consciousness, or of power of being, or of delight of being, or through a supreme experience in which these things become inexpressibly one; for we can enter into such an ineffable state and, plunged into it as if into a luminous abyss of existence, we can reach a superconscience which may be described as the gate of the Absolute. It is supposed that it is only through a negation of individual and cosmos that we can enter into the Absolute. But in fact the individual need only deny his own small separate ego-existence; he can approach the Absolute through a sublimation of his spiritual individuality taking up the cosmos into himself and transcending it; or he may negate himself altogether, but even so it is still the individual who by self-exceeding enters into the Absolute. He may enter also by a sublimation of his being into a supreme existence or super-existence, by a sublimation of his consciousness into a supreme consciousness or superconscience, by a sublimation of his and all delight of being into a super-delight or supreme ecstasy. He can make the approach through an ascension in which he enters into cosmic consciousness, assumes it into himself and raises himself and it into a state of being in which oneness and multiplicity are in perfect harmony and unison in a supreme status of manifestation where all are in each and each in all and all in the one without any determining individuation - for the dynamic identity and mutuality have become complete; on the path of affirmation it is this status of the manifestation that is nearest to the Absolute. This paradox of an Absolute which can be realised through an absolute negation and through an absolute affirmation, in many ways, can only be accounted for to the reason if it is a supreme Existence which is so far above our notion and experience of existence that it can correspond to our negation of it, to our notion and experience of nonexistence; but also, since all that exists is That, whatever its degree of manifestation, it is itself the supreme of all things and can be approached through supreme affirmations as through supreme negations. The Absolute is the ineffable x overtopping and underlying and immanent and essential in all that we can call existence or non-existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.06 - Reality and the Cosmic Illusion, #KEYS
317:on purifying ego and desire :::
The elimination of all egoistic activity and of its foundation, the egoistic consciousness, is clearly the key to the consummation we desire. And since in the path of works action is the knot we have first to loosen, we must endeavour to loosen it where it is centrally tied, in desire and in ego; for otherwise we shall cut only stray strands and not the heart of our bondage.These are the two knots of our subjection to this ignorant and divided Nature, desire and ego-sense. And of these two desire has its native home in the emotions and sensations and instincts and from there affects thought and volition; ego-sense lives indeed in these movements, but it casts its deep roots also in the thinking mind and its will and it is there that it becomes fully self conscious. These are the twin obscure powers of the obsessing world-wide Ignorance that we have to enlighten and eliminate.
In the field of action desire takes many forms, but the most powerful of all is the vital selfs craving or seeking after the fruit of our works. The fruit we covet may be a reward of internal pleasure; it may be the accomplishment of some preferred idea or some cherished will or the satisfaction of the egoistic emotions, or else the pride of success of our highest hopes and ambitions. Or it may be an external reward, a recompense entirely material, -wealth, position, honour, victory, good fortune or any other fulfilment of vital or physical desire. But all alike are lures by which egoism holds us. Always these satisfactions delude us with the sense of mastery and the idea of freedom, while really we are harnessed and guided or ridden and whipped by some gross or subtle, some noble or ignoble, figure of the blind Desire that drives the world. Therefore the first rule of action laid down by the Gita is to do the work that should be done without any desire for the fruit, niskama karma. ...
The test it lays down is an absolute equality of the mind and the heart to all results, to all reactions, to all happenings. If good fortune and ill fortune, if respect and insult, if reputation and obloquy, if victory and defeat, if pleasant event and sorrowful event leave us not only unshaken but untouched, free in the emotions, free in the nervous reactions, free in the mental view, not responding with the least disturbance or vibration in any spot of the nature, then we have the absolute liberation to which the Gita points us, but not otherwise. The tiniest reaction is a proof that the discipline is imperfect and that some part of us accepts ignorance and bondage as its law and clings still to the old nature. Our self-conquest is only partially accomplished; it is still imperfect or unreal in some stretch or part or smallest spot of the ground of our nature. And that little pebble of imperfection may throw down the whole achievement of the Yoga
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [102],#KEYS
318:reading :::
50 Psychology Classics: List of Books Covered:
Alfred Adler - Understanding Human Nature (1927)
Gordon Allport - The Nature of Prejudice (1954)
Albert Bandura - Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)
Gavin Becker - The Gift of Fear (1997)
Eric Berne - Games People Play (1964)
Isabel Briggs Myers - Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type (1980)
Louann Brizendine - The Female Brain (2006)
David D Burns - Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (1980)
Susan Cain - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking (2012)
Robert Cialdini - Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984)
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Creativity (1997)
Carol Dweck - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006)
Albert Ellis & Robert Harper - (1961) A Guide To Rational Living(1961)
Milton Erickson - My Voice Will Go With You (1982) by Sidney Rosen
Eric Erikson - Young Man Luther (1958)
Hans Eysenck - Dimensions of Personality (1947)
Viktor Frankl - The Will to Meaning (1969)
Anna Freud - The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936)
Sigmund Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams (1901)
Howard Gardner - Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983)
Daniel Gilbert - Stumbling on Happiness (2006)
Malcolm Gladwell - Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005)
Daniel Goleman - Emotional Intelligence at Work (1998)
John M Gottman - The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work (1999)
Temple Grandin - The Autistic Brain: Helping Different Kinds of Minds Succeed (2013)
Harry Harlow - The Nature of Love (1958)
Thomas A Harris - I'm OK - You're OK (1967)
Eric Hoffer - The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951)
Karen Horney - Our Inner Conflicts (1945)
William James - Principles of Psychology (1890)
Carl Jung - The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1953)
Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)
Alfred Kinsey - Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953)
RD Laing - The Divided Self (1959)
Abraham Maslow - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (1970)
Stanley Milgram - Obedience To Authority (1974)
Walter Mischel - The Marshmallow Test (2014)
Leonard Mlodinow - Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (2012)
IP Pavlov - Conditioned Reflexes (1927)
Fritz Perls - Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (1951)
Jean Piaget - The Language and Thought of the Child (1966)
Steven Pinker - The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002)
VS Ramachandran - Phantoms in the Brain (1998)
Carl Rogers - On Becoming a Person (1961)
Oliver Sacks - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1970)
Barry Schwartz - The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less (2004)
Martin Seligman - Authentic Happiness (2002)
BF Skinner - Beyond Freedom & Dignity (1953)
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton & Sheila Heen - Difficult Conversations (2000)
William Styron - Darkness Visible (1990)
~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Psychology Classics,#KEYS
319:Something happened to you before you were born, and this is what it was:
STAGE ONE: THE CHIKHAI
The events of the 49-day Bardo period are divided into three major stages, the Chikhai, the Chonyid, and the Sidpa (in that order). Immediately following physical death, the soul enters the Chikhai, which is simply the state of the immaculate and luminous Dharmakaya, the ultimate Consciousness, the BrahmanAtman. This ultimate state is given, as a gift, to all individuals: they are plunged straight into ultimate reality and exist as the ultimate Dharmakaya. "At this moment," says the Bardo Thotrol, "the first glimpsing of the Bardo of the Clear Light of Reality, which is the Infallible Mind of the Dharmakaya, is experienced by all sentient beings.''110 Or, to put it a different way, the Thotrol tells us that "Thine own consciousness, shining, void, and inseparable from the Great Body of Radiance, hath no birth, nor death, and is the Immutable Light-Buddha Amitabha. Knowing this is sufficient. Recognizing the voidness of thine own intellect to be Buddhahood ... is to keep thyself in the Divine Mind."110 In short, immediately following physical death, the soul is absorbed in and as the ultimate-causal body (if we may treat them together).
Interspersed with this brief summary of the Bardo Thotrol, I will add my commentaries on involution and on the nature of the Atman project in involution. And we begin by noting that at the start of the Bardo experience, the soul is elevated to the utter heights of Being, to the ultimate state of Oneness-that is, he starts his Bardo career at the top. But, at the top is usually not where he remains, and the Thotrol tells us why. In Evans-Wentz's words, "In the realm of the Clear Light [the highest Chikhai stage] the mentality of a person . . . momentarily enjoys a condition of balance, of perfect equilibrium, and of [ultimate] oneness. Owing to unfamiliarity with such a state, which is an ecstatic state of non-ego, of [causal] consciousness, the . . . average human being lacks the power to function in it; karmic propensities becloud the consciousness-principle with thoughts of personality, of individualized being, of dualism, and, losing equilibrium, the consciousness-principle falls away from the Clear Light."
The soul falls away from the ultimate Oneness because "karmic propensities cloud consciousness"-"karmic propensities'' means seeking, grasping, desiring; means, in fact, Eros. And as this Erosseeking develops, the state of perfect Oneness starts to "break down" (illusorily). Or, from a different angle, because the individual cannot stand the intensity of pure Oneness ("owing to unfamiliarity with such a state"), he contracts away from it, tries to ''dilute it," tries to extricate himself from Perfect Intensity in Atman. Contracting in the face of infinity, he turns instead to forms of seeking, desire, karma, and grasping, trying to "search out" a state of equilibrium. Contraction and Eros-these karmic propensities couple and conspire to drive the soul away from pure consciousness and downwards into multiplicity, into less intense and less real states of being. ~ Ken Wilber, The Atman Project,#KEYS
320:Evil
Hasten towards the good, leave behind all evil thoughts, for to do good without enthusiasm is to have a mind which delights in evil.
If one does an evil action, he should not persist in it, he should not delight in it. For full of suffering is the accumulation of evil.
If one does a good action, he should persist in it and take delight in it. Full of happiness is the accumulation of good.
As long as his evil action has not yet ripened, an evildoer may experience contentment. But when it ripens, the wrong-doer knows unhappiness.
As long as his good action has not yet ripened, one who does good may experience unhappiness. But when it ripens, the good man knows happiness.
Do not treat evil lightly, saying, "That will not touch me." A jar is filled drop by drop; even so the fool fills himself little by little with wickedness.
Do not treat good lightly, saying, "That will not touch me." A jar is filled drop by drop; even so the sage fills himself little by little with goodness.
The merchant who is carrying many precious goods and who has but few companions, avoids dangerous roads; and a man who loves his life is wary of poison. Even so should one act regarding evil.
A hand that has no wound can carry poison with impunity; act likewise, for evil cannot touch the righteous man.
If you offend one who is pure, innocent and defenceless, the insult will fall back on you, as if you threw dust against the wind.
Some are reborn here on earth, evil-doers go to the worlds of Niraya,1 the just go to the heavenly worlds, but those who have freed themselves from all desire attain Nirvana.
Neither in the skies, nor in the depths of the ocean, nor in the rocky caves, nowhere upon earth does there exist a place where a man can find refuge from his evil actions.
Neither in the skies, nor in the depths of the ocean, nor in the rocky caves, nowhere upon earth does there exist a place where a man can hide from death.
People have the habit of dealing lightly with thoughts that come. And the atmosphere is full of thoughts of all kinds which do not in fact belong to anybody in particular, which move perpetually from one person to another, very freely, much too freely, because there are very few people who can keep their thoughts under control.
When you take up the Buddhist discipline to learn how to control your thoughts, you make very interesting discoveries. You try to observe your thoughts. Instead of letting them pass freely, sometimes even letting them enter your head and establish themselves in a quite inopportune way, you look at them, observe them and you realise with stupefaction that in the space of a few seconds there passes through the head a series of absolutely improbable thoughts that are altogether harmful.
...?
Conversion of the aim of life from the ego to the Divine: instead of seeking one's own satisfaction, to have the service of the Divine as the aim of life.
*
What you must know is exactly the thing you want to do in life. The time needed to learn it does not matter at all. For those who wish to live according to Truth, there is always something to learn and some progress to make. 2 October 1969 ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
321:What do you mean by these words: 'When you are in difficulty, widen yourself'?
I am speaking, of course, of difficulties on the path of yoga, incomprehension, limitations, things like obstacles, which prevent you from advancing. And when I say "widen yourself", I mean widen your consciousness.
Difficulties always arise from the ego, that is, from your more or less egoistic personal reaction to circumstances, events and people around you, to the conditions of your life. They also come from that feeling of being closed up in a sort of shell, which prevents your consciousness from uniting with higher and vaster realities.
One may very well think that one wants to be vast, wants to be universal, that all is the expression of the Divine, that one must have no egoism - one may think all sorts of things - but that is not necessarily a cure, for very often one knows what one ought to do, and yet one doesn't do it, for one reason or another.
But if, when you have to face anguish, suffering, revolt, pain or a feeling of helplessness - whatever it may be, all the things that come to you on the path and which precisely are your difficulties-if physically, that is to say, in your body- consciousness, you can have the feeling of widening yourself, one could say of unfolding yourself - you feel as it were all folded up, one fold on another like a piece of cloth which is folded and refolded and folded again - so if you have this feeling that what is holding and strangling you and making you suffer or paralysing your movement, is like a too closely, too tightly folded piece of cloth or like a parcel that is too well-tied, too well-packed, and that slowly, gradually, you undo all the folds and stretch yourself out exactly as one unfolds a piece of cloth or a sheet of paper and spreads it out flat, and you lie flat and make yourself very wide, as wide as possible, spreading yourself out as far as you can, opening yourself and stretching out in an attitude of complete passivity with what I could call "the face to the light": not curling back upon your difficulty, doubling up on it, shutting it in, so to say, into yourself, but, on the contrary, unfurling yourself as much as you can, as perfectly as you can, putting the difficulty before the Light - the Light which comes from above - if you do that in all the domains, and even if mentally you don't succeed in doing it - for it is sometimes difficult - if you can imagine yourself doing this physically, almost materially, well, when you have finished unfolding yourself and stretching yourself out, you will find that more than three-quarters of the difficulty is gone. And then just a little work of receptivity to the Light and the last quarter will disappear.
This is much easier than struggling against a difficulty with one's thought, for if you begin to discuss with yourself, you will find that there are arguments for and against which are so convincing that it is quite impossible to get out of it without a higher light. Here, you do not struggle against the difficulty, you do not try to convince yourself; ah! you simply stretch out in the Light as though you lay stretched on the sands in the sun. And you let the Light do its work. That's all. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers, Volume-8, page no.286-288),#KEYS
322:But still the greater and wider the moving idea-force behind the consecration, the better for the seeker; his attainment is likely to be fuller and more ample. If we are to attempt an integral Yoga, it will be as well to start with an idea of the Divine that is itself integral. There should be an aspiration in the heart wide enough for a realisation without any narrow limits. Not only should we avoid a sectarian religious outlook, but also all onesided philosophical conceptions which try to shut up the Ineffable in a restricting mental formula. The dynamic conception or impelling sense with which our Yoga can best set out would be naturally the idea, the sense of a conscious all-embracing but all-exceeding Infinite. Our uplook must be to a free, all-powerful, perfect and blissful One and Oneness in which all beings move and live and through which all can meet and become one. This Eternal will be at once personal and impersonal in his self-revelation and touch upon the soul. He is personal because he is the conscious Divine, the infinite Person who casts some broken reflection of himself in the myriad divine and undivine personalities of the universe. He is impersonal because he appears to us as an infinite Existence, Consciousness and Ananda and because he is the fount, base and constituent of all existences and all energies, -the very material of our being and mind and life and body, our spirit and our matter. The thought, concentrating on him, must not merely understand in an intellectual form that he exists, or conceive of him as an abstraction, a logical necessity; it must become a seeing thought able to meet him here as the Inhabitant in all, realise him in ourselves, watch and take hold on the movement of his forces. He is the one Existence: he is the original and universal Delight that constitutes all things and exceeds them: he is the one infinite Consciousness that composes all consciousnesses and informs all their movements; he is the one illimitable Being who sustains all action and experience; his will guides the evolution of things towards their yet unrealised but inevitable aim and plenitude. To him the heart can consecrate itself, approach him as the supreme Beloved, beat and move in him as in a universal sweetness of Love and a living sea of Delight. For his is the secret Joy that supports the soul in all its experiences and maintains even the errant ego in its ordeals and struggles till all sorrow and suffering shall cease. His is the Love and the Bliss of the infinite divine Lover who is drawing all things by their own path towards his happy oneness. On him the Will can unalterably fix as the invisible Power that guides and fulfils it and as the source of its strength. In the impersonality this actuating Power is a self-illumined Force that contains all results and calmly works until it accomplishes, in the personality an all wise and omnipotent Master of the Yoga whom nothing can prevent from leading it to its goal. This is the faith with which the seeker has to begin his seeking and endeavour; for in all his effort here, but most of all in his effort towards the Unseen, mental man must perforce proceed by faith. When the realisation comes, the faith divinely fulfilled and completed will be transformed into an eternal flame of knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration [83],#KEYS
323:[desire and its divine form:]
Into all our endeavour upward the lower element of desire will at first naturally enter. For what the enlightened will sees as the thing to be done and pursues as the crown to be conquered, what the heart embraces as the one thing delightful, that in us which feels itself limited and opposed and, because it is limited, craves and struggles, will seek with the troubled passion of an egoistic desire. This craving life-force or desire-soul in us has to be accepted at first, but only in order that it may be transformed. Even from the very beginning it has to be taught to renounce all other desires and concentrate itself on the passion for the Divine. This capital point gained, it has to be aught to desire, not for its own separate sake, but for God in the world and for the Divine in ourselves; it has to fix itself upon no personal spiritual gain, though of all possible spiritual gains we are sure, but on the great work to be done in us and others, on the high coming manifestation which is to be the glorious fulfilment of the Divine in the world, on the Truth that has to be sought and lived and enthroned for eveR But last, most difficult for it, more difficult than to seek with the right object, it has to be taught to seek in the right manner; for it must learn to desire, not in its own egoistic way, but in the way of the Divine. It must insist no longer, as the strong separative will always insists, on its own manner of fulfilment, its own dream of possession, its own idea of the right and the desirable; it must yearn to fulfil a larger and greater Will and consent to wait upon a less interested and ignorant guidance. Thus trained, Desire, that great unquiet harasser and troubler of man and cause of every kind of stumbling, will become fit to be transformed into its divine counterpart. For desire and passion too have their divine forms; there is a pure ecstasy of the soul's seeking beyond all craving and grief, there is a Will of Ananda that sits glorified in the possession of the supreme beatitudes.
When once the object of concentration has possessed and is possessed by the three master instruments, the thought, the heart and the will,-a consummation fully possible only when the desire-soul in us has submitted to the Divine Law,-the perfection of mind and life and body can be effectively fulfilled in our transmuted nature. This will be done, not for the personal satisfaction of the ego, but that the whole may constitute a fit temple for the Divine Presence, a faultless instrument for the divine work. For that work can be truly performed only when the instrument, consecrated and perfected, has grown fit for a selfless action,-and that will be when personal desire and egoism are abolished, but not the liberated individual. Even when the little ego has been abolished, the true spiritual Person can still remain and God's will and work and delight in him and the spiritual use of his perfection and fulfilment. Our works will then be divine and done divinely; our mind and life and will, devoted to the Divine, will be used to help fulfil in others and in the world that which has been first realised in ourselves,- all that we can manifest of the embodied Unity, Love, Freedom, Strength, Power, Splendour, immortal Joy which is the goal of the Spirit's terrestrial adventure.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration [83] [T1],#KEYS
324:
"The beings who were always appearing and speaking to Jeanne d'Arc would, if seen by an Indian, have quite a different appearance; for when one sees, one projects the forms of one's mind.... You have the vision of one in India whom you call the Divine Mother; the Catholics say it is the Virgin Mary, and the Japanese call it Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy; and others would give other names. It is the same force, the same power, but the images made of it are different in different faiths." Questions and Answers 1929 - 1931 (21 April 1929)
And then? You are not very talkative today! Is that all?
You say that "each person has his own world of dreamimagery peculiar to himself." Ibid.
Each individual has his own way of expressing, thinking, speaking, feeling, understanding. It is the combination of all these ways of being that makes the individual. That is why everyone can understand only according to his own nature. As long as you are shut up in your own nature, you can know only what is in your consciousness. All depends upon the height of the nature of your consciousness. Your world is limited to what you have in your consciousness. If you have a very small consciousness, you will understand only a few things. When your consciousness is very vast, universal, only then will you understand the world. If the consciousness is limited to your little ego, all the rest will escape you.... There are people whose brain and consciousness are smaller than a walnut. You know that a walnut resembles the brain; well these people look at things and don't understand them. They can understand nothing else except what is in direct contact with their senses. For them only what they taste, what they see, hear, touch has a reality, and all the rest simply does not exist, and they accuse us of speaking fancifully! "What I cannot touch does not exist", they say. But the only answer to give them is: "It does not exist for you, but there's no reason why it shouldn't exist for others." You must not insist with these people, and you must not forget that the smaller they are the greater is the audacity in their assertions.
One's cocksureness is in proportion to one's unconsciousness; the more unconscious one is, the more is one sure of oneself. The most foolish are always the most vain. Your stupidity is in proportion to your vanity. The more one knows... In fact, there is a time when one is quite convinced that one knows nothing at all. There's not a moment in the world which does not bring something new, for the world is perpetually growing. If one is conscious of that, one has always something new to learn. But one can become conscious of it only gradually. One's conviction that one knows is in direct proportion to one's ignorance and stupidity.
Mother, have the scientists, then, a very small consciousness?
Why? All scientists are not like that. If you meet a true scientist who has worked hard, he will tell you: "We know nothing. What we know today is nothing beside what we shall know tomorrow. This year's discoveries will be left behind next year." A real scientist knows very well that there are many more things he doesn't know than those he knows. And this is true of all branches of human activity. I have never met a scientist worthy of the name who was proud. I have never met a man of some worth who has told me: "I know everything." Those I have seen have always confessed: "In short, I know nothing." After having spoken of all that he has done, all that he has achieved, he tells you very quietly: "After all, I know nothing." ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, [T8],#KEYS
325:The Teachings of Some Modern Indian Yogis
Ramana Maharshi
According to Brunton's description of the sadhana he (Brunton) practised under the Maharshi's instructions,1 it is the Overself one has to seek within, but he describes the Overself in a way that is at once the Psychic Being, the Atman and the Ishwara. So it is a little difficult to know what is the exact reading.
*
The methods described in the account [of Ramana Maharshi's technique of self-realisation] are the well-established methods of Jnanayoga - (1) one-pointed concentration followed by thought-suspension, (2) the method of distinguishing or finding out the true self by separating it from mind, life, body (this I have seen described by him [Brunton] more at length in another book) and coming to the pure I behind; this also can disappear into the Impersonal Self. The usual result is a merging in the Atman or Brahman - which is what one would suppose is meant by the Overself, for it is that which is the real Overself. This Brahman or Atman is everywhere, all is in it, it is in all, but it is in all not as an individual being in each but is the same in all - as the Ether is in all. When the merging into the Overself is complete, there is no ego, no distinguishable I, or any formed separative person or personality. All is ekakara - an indivisible and undistinguishable Oneness either free from all formations or carrying all formations in it without being affected - for one can realise it in either way. There is a realisation in which all beings are moving in the one Self and this Self is there stable in all beings; there is another more complete and thoroughgoing in which not only is it so but all are vividly realised as the Self, the Brahman, the Divine. In the former, it is possible to dismiss all beings as creations of Maya, leaving the one Self alone as true - in the other it is easier to regard them as real manifestations of the Self, not as illusions. But one can also regard all beings as souls, independent realities in an eternal Nature dependent upon the One Divine. These are the characteristic realisations of the Overself familiar to the Vedanta. But on the other hand you say that this Overself is realised by the Maharshi as lodged in the heart-centre, and it is described by Brunton as something concealed which when it manifests appears as the real Thinker, source of all action, but now guiding thought and action in the Truth. Now the first description applies to the Purusha in the heart, described by the Gita as the Ishwara situated in the heart and by the Upanishads as the Purusha Antaratma; the second could apply also to the mental Purusha, manomayah. pran.asarı̄ra neta of the Upanishads, the mental Being or Purusha who leads the life and the body. So your question is one which on the data I cannot easily answer. His Overself may be a combination of all these experiences, without any distinction being made or thought necessary between the various aspects. There are a thousand ways of approaching and realising the Divine and each way has its own experiences which have their own truth and stand really on a basis, one in essence but complex in aspects, common to all, but not expressed in the same way by all. There is not much use in discussing these variations; the important thing is to follow one's own way well and thoroughly. In this Yoga, one can realise the psychic being as a portion of the Divine seated in the heart with the Divine supporting it there - this psychic being takes charge of the sadhana and turns the ......
1 The correspondent sent to Sri Aurobindo two paragraphs from Paul Brunton's book A Message from Arunachala (London: Rider & Co., n.d. [1936], pp. 205 - 7). - Ed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
326:In the process of this change there must be by the very necessity of the effort two stages of its working. First, there will be the personal endeavour of the human being, as soon as he becomes aware by his soul, mind, heart of this divine possibility and turns towards it as the true object of life, to prepare himself for it and to get rid of all in him that belongs to a lower working, of all that stands in the way of his opening to the spiritual truth and its power, so as to possess by this liberation his spiritual being and turn all his natural movements into free means of its self-expression. It is by this turn that the self-conscious Yoga aware of its aim begins: there is a new awakening and an upward change of the life motive. So long as there is only an intellectual, ethical and other self-training for the now normal purposes of life which does not travel beyond the ordinary circle of working of mind, life and body, we are still only in the obscure and yet unillumined preparatory Yoga of Nature; we are still in pursuit of only an ordinary human perfection. A spiritual desire of the Divine and of the divine perfection, of a unity with him in all our being and a spiritual perfection in all our nature, is the effective sign of this change, the precursory power of a great integral conversion of our being and living. By personal effort a precursory change, a preliminary conversion can be effected; it amounts to a greater or less spiritualising of our mental motives, our character and temperament, and a mastery, stilling or changed action of the vital and physical life. This converted subjectivity can be made the base of some communion or unity of the soul in mind with the Divine and some partial reflection of the divine nature in the mentality of the human being. That is as far as man can go by his unaided or indirectly aided effort, because that is an effort of mind and mind cannot climb beyond itself permanently: at most it arises to a spiritualised and idealised mentality. If it shoots up beyond that border, it loses hold of itself, loses hold of life, and arrives either at a trance of absorption or a passivity. A greater perfection can only be arrived at by a higher power entering in and taking up the whole action of the being. The second stage of this Yoga will therefore be a persistent giving up of all the action of the nature into the hands of this greater Power, a substitution of its influence, possession and working for the personal effort, until the Divine to whom we aspire becomes the direct master of the Yoga and effects the entire spiritual and ideal conversion of the being. Two rules there are that will diminish the difficulty and obviate the danger. One must reject all that comes from the ego, from vital desire, from the mere mind and its presumptuous reasoning incompetence, all that ministers to these agents of the Ignorance. One must learn to hear and follow the voice of the inmost soul, the direction of the Guru, the command of the Master, the working of the Divine Mother. Whoever clings to the desires and weaknesses of the flesh, the cravings and passions of the vital in its turbulent ignorance, the dictates of his personal mind unsilenced and unillumined by a greater knowledge, cannot find the true inner law and is heaping obstacles in the way of the divine fulfilment. Whoever is able to detect and renounce those obscuring agencies and to discern and follow the true Guide within and without will discover the spiritual law and reach the goal of the Yoga. A radical and total change of consciousness is not only the whole meaning but, in an increasing force and by progressive stages, the whole method of the integral Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Integral Perfection [618],#KEYS
327:The perfect supramental action will not follow any single principle or limited rule.It is not likely to satisfy the standard either of the individual egoist or of any organised group-mind. It will conform to the demand neither of the positive practical man of the world nor of the formal moralist nor of the patriot nor of the sentimental philanthropist nor of the idealising philosopher. It will proceed by a spontaneous outflowing from the summits in the totality of an illumined and uplifted being, will and knowledge and not by the selected, calculated and standardised action which is all that the intellectual reason or ethical will can achieve. Its sole aim will be the expression of the divine in us and the keeping together of the world and its progress towards the Manifestation that is to be. This even will not be so much an aim and purpose as a spontaneous law of the being and an intuitive determination of the action by the Light of the divine Truth and its automatic influence. It will proceed like the action of Nature from a total will and knowledge behind her, but a will and knowledge enlightened in a conscious supreme Nature and no longer obscure in this ignorant Prakriti. It will be an action not bound by the dualities but full and large in the spirit's impartial joy of existence. The happy and inspired movement of a divine Power and Wisdom guiding and impelling us will replace the perplexities and stumblings of the suffering and ignorant ego.
If by some miracle of divine intervention all mankind at once could be raised to this level, we should have something on earth like the Golden Age of the traditions, Satya Yuga, the Age of Truth or true existence. For the sign of the Satya Yuga is that the Law is spontaneous and conscious in each creature and does its own works in a perfect harmony and freedom. Unity and universality, not separative division, would be the foundation of the consciousness of the race; love would be absolute; equality would be consistent with hierarchy and perfect in difference; absolute justice would be secured by the spontaneous action of the being in harmony with the truth of things and the truth of himself and others and therefore sure of true and right result; right reason, no longer mental but supramental, would be satisfied not by the observation of artificial standards but by the free automatic perception of right relations and their inevitable execution in the act. The quarrel between the individual and society or disastrous struggle between one community and another could not exist: the cosmic consciousness imbedded in embodied beings would assure a harmonious diversity in oneness.
In the actual state of humanity, it is the individual who must climb to this height as a pioneer and precursor. His isolation will necessarily give a determination and a form to his outward activities that must be quite other than those of a consciously divine collective action. The inner state, the root of his acts, will be the same; but the acts themselves may well be very different from what they would be on an earth liberated from ignorance. Nevertheless his consciousness and the divine mechanism of his conduct, if such a word can be used of so free a thing, would be such as has been described, free from that subjection to vital impurity and desire and wrong impulse which we call sin, unbound by that rule of prescribed moral formulas which we call virtue, spontaneously sure and pure and perfect in a greater consciousness than the mind's, governed in all its steps by the light and truth of the Spirit. But if a collectivity or group could be formed of those who had reached the supramental perfection, there indeed some divine creation could take shape; a new earth could descend that would be a new heaven, a world of supramental light could be created here amidst the receding darkness of this terrestrial ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, 206,#KEYS
328:AUGOEIDES:
The magicians most important invocation is that of his Genius, Daemon, True Will, or Augoeides. This operation is traditionally known as attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. It is sometimes known as the Magnum Opus or Great Work.
The Augoeides may be defined as the most perfect vehicle of Kia on the plane of duality. As the avatar of Kia on earth, the Augoeides represents the true will, the raison detre of the magician, his purpose in existing. The discovery of ones true will or real nature may be difficult and fraught with danger, since a false identification leads to obsession and madness. The operation of obtaining the knowledge and conversation is usually a lengthy one. The magician is attempting a progressive metamorphosis, a complete overhaul of his entire existence. Yet he has to seek the blueprint for his reborn self as he goes along. Life is less the meaningless accident it seems. Kia has incarnated in these particular conditions of duality for some purpose. The inertia of previous existences propels Kia into new forms of manifestation. Each incarnation represents a task, or a puzzle to be solved, on the way to some greater form of completion.
The key to this puzzle is in the phenomena of the plane of duality in which we find ourselves. We are, as it were, trapped in a labyrinth or maze. The only thing to do is move about and keep a close watch on the way the walls turn. In a completely chaotic universe such as this one, there are no accidents. Everything is signifcant. Move a single grain of sand on a distant shore and the entire future history of the world will eventually be changed. A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally.
To do this is to enter the magical world view in its totality. He takes complete responsibility for his present incarnation and must consider every experience, thing, or piece of information which assails him from any source, as a reflection of the way he is conducting his existence. The idea that things happen to one that may or may not be related to the way one acts is an illusion created by our shallow awareness.
Keeping a close eye on the walls of the labyrinth, the conditions of his existence, the magician may then begin his invocation. The genius is not something added to oneself. Rather it is a stripping away of excess to reveal the god within.
Directly on awakening, preferably at dawn, the initiate goes to the place of invocation. Figuring to himself as he goes that being born anew each day brings with it the chance of greater rebirth, first he banishes the temple of his mind by ritual or by some magical trance. Then he unveils some token or symbol or sigil which represents to him the Holy Guardian Angel. This symbol he will likely have to change during the great work as the inspiration begins to move him. Next he invokes an image of the Angel into his minds eye. It may be considered as a luminous duplicate of ones own form standing in front of or behind one, or simply as a ball of brilliant light above ones head. Then he formulates his aspirations in what manner he will, humbling himself in prayer or exalting himself in loud proclamation as his need be. The best form of this invocation is spoken spontaneously from the heart, and if halting at first, will prove itself in time. He is aiming to establish a set of ideas and images which correspond to the nature of his genius, and at the same time receive inspiration from that source. As the magician begins to manifest more of his true will, the Augoeides will reveal images, names, and spiritual principles by which it can be drawn into greater manifestation. Having communicated with the invoked form, the magician should draw it into himself and go forth to live in the way he hath willed.
The ritual may be concluded with an aspiration to the wisdom of silence by a brief concentration on the sigil of the Augoeides, but never by banishing. Periodically more elaborate forms of ritual, using more powerful forms of gnosis, may be employed. At the end of the day, there should be an accounting and fresh resolution made. Though every day be a catalog of failure, there should be no sense of sin or guilt. Magic is the raising of the whole individual in perfect balance to the power of Infinity, and such feelings are symptomatic of imbalance. If any unnecessary or imbalanced scraps of ego become identified with the genius by mistake, then disaster awaits. The life force flows directly into these complexes and bloats them into grotesque monsters variously known as the demon Choronzon. Some magicians attempting to go too fast with this invocation have failed to banish this demon, and have gone spectacularly insane as a result.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,#KEYS
329:It is natural from the point of view of the Yoga to divide into two categories the activities of the human mind in its pursuit of knowledge. There is the supreme supra-intellectual knowledge which concentrates itself on the discovery of the One and Infinite in its transcendence or tries to penetrate by intuition, contemplation, direct inner contact into the ultimate truths behind the appearances of Nature; there is the lower science which diffuses itself in an outward knowledge of phenomena, the disguises of the One and Infinite as it appears to us in or through the more exterior forms of the world-manifestation around us. These two, an upper and a lower hemisphere, in the form of them constructed or conceived by men within the mind's ignorant limits, have even there separated themselves, as they developed, with some sharpness.... Philosophy, sometimes spiritual or at least intuitive, sometimes abstract and intellectual, sometimes intellectualising spiritual experience or supporting with a logical apparatus the discoveries of the spirit, has claimed always to take the fixation of ultimate Truth as its province. But even when it did not separate itself on rarefied metaphysical heights from the knowledge that belongs to the practical world and the pursuit of ephemeral objects, intellectual Philosophy by its habit of abstraction has seldom been a power for life. It has been sometimes powerful for high speculation, pursuing mental Truth for its own sake without any ulterior utility or object, sometimes for a subtle gymnastic of the mind in a mistily bright cloud-land of words and ideas, but it has walked or acrobatised far from the more tangible realities of existence. Ancient Philosophy in Europe was more dynamic, but only for the few; in India in its more spiritualised forms, it strongly influenced but without transforming the life of the race.... Religion did not attempt, like Philosophy, to live alone on the heights; its aim was rather to take hold of man's parts of life even more than his parts of mind and draw them Godwards; it professed to build a bridge between spiritual Truth and the vital and material human existence; it strove to subordinate and reconcile the lower to the higher, make life serviceable to God, Earth obedient to Heaven. It has to be admitted that too often this necessary effort had the opposite result of making Heaven a sanction for Earth's desires; for, continually, the religious idea has been turned into an excuse for the worship and service of the human ego. Religion, leaving constantly its little shining core of spiritual experience, has lost itself in the obscure mass of its ever extending ambiguous compromises with life: in attempting to satisfy the thinking mind, it more often succeeded in oppressing or fettering it with a mass of theological dogmas; while seeking to net the human heart, it fell itself into pits of pietistic emotionalism and sensationalism; in the act of annexing the vital nature of man to dominate it, it grew itself vitiated and fell a prey to all the fanaticism, homicidal fury, savage or harsh turn for oppression, pullulating falsehood, obstinate attachment to ignorance to which that vital nature is prone; its desire to draw the physical in man towards God betrayed it into chaining itself to ecclesiastic mechanism, hollow ceremony and lifeless ritual. The corruption of the best produced the worst by that strange chemistry of the power of life which generates evil out of good even as it can also generate good out of evil. At the same time in a vain effort at self-defence against this downward gravitation, Religion was driven to cut existence into two by a division of knowledge, works, art, life itself into two opposite categories, the spiritual and the worldly, religious and mundane, sacred and profane; but this defensive distinction itself became conventional and artificial and aggravated rather than healed the disease.... On their side Science and Art and the knowledge of Life, although at first they served or lived in the shadow of Religion, ended by emancipating themselves, became estranged or hostile, or have even recoiled with indifference, contempt or scepticism from what seem to them the cold, barren and distant or unsubstantial and illusory heights of unreality to which metaphysical Philosophy and Religion aspire. For a time the divorce has been as complete as the one-sided intolerance of the human mind could make it and threatened even to end in a complete extinction of all attempt at a higher or a more spiritual knowledge. Yet even in the earthward life a higher knowledge is indeed the one thing that is throughout needful, and without it the lower sciences and pursuits, however fruitful, however rich, free, miraculous in the abundance of their results, become easily a sacrifice offered without due order and to false gods; corrupting, hardening in the end the heart of man, limiting his mind's horizons, they confine in a stony material imprisonment or lead to a final baffling incertitude and disillusionment. A sterile agnosticism awaits us above the brilliant phosphorescence of a half-knowledge that is still the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, #KEYS
330:[the sevenfold ignorance and the integral knowledge:]
We are ignorant of the Absolute which is the source of all being and becoming; we take partial facts of being, temporal relations of the becoming for the whole truth of existence,-that is the first, the original ignorance. We are ignorant of the spaceless, timeless, immobile and immutable Self; we take the constant mobility and mutation of the cosmic becoming in Time and Space for the whole truth of existence, -that is the second, the cosmic ignorance. We are ignorant of our universal self, the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness, our infinite unity with all being and becoming; we take our limited egoistic mentality, vitality, corporeality for our true self and regard everything other than that as not-self,-that is the third, the egoistic ignorance. We are ignorant of our eternal becoming in Time; we take this little life in a small span of Time, in a petty field of Space, for our beginning, our middle and our end,-that is the fourth, the temporal ignorance. Even within this brief temporal becoming we are ignorant of our large and complex being, of that in us which is superconscient, subconscient, intraconscient, circumconscient to our surface becoming; we take that surface becoming with its small selection of overtly mentalised experiences for our whole existence,-that is the fifth, the psychological ignorance. We are ignorant of the true constitution of our becoming; we take the mind or life or body or any two of these or all three for our true principle or the whole account of what we are, losing sight of that which constitutes them and determines by its occult presence and is meant to determine sovereignly by its emergence their operations,-that is the sixth, the constitutional ignorance. As a result of all these ignorances, we miss the true knowledge, government and enjoyment of our life in the world; we are ignorant in our thought, will, sensations, actions, return wrong or imperfect responses at every point to the questionings of the world, wander in a maze of errors and desires, strivings and failures, pain and pleasure, sin and stumbling, follow a crooked road, grope blindly for a changing goal,-that is the seventh, the practical ignorance.
Our conception of the Ignorance will necessarily determine our conception of the Knowledge and determine, therefore, since our life is the Ignorance at once denying and seeking after the Knowledge, the goal of human effort and the aim of the cosmic endeavour. Integral knowledge will then mean the cancelling of the sevenfold Ignorance by the discovery of what it misses and ignores, a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness:- it will mean [1] the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; [2] the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; [3] the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; [4] the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; [5] the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; [6] the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; [7] the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality.
But this is not an intellectual knowledge which can be learned and completed in our present mould of consciousness; it must be an experience, a becoming, a change of consciousness, a change of being. This brings in the evolutionary character of the Becoming and the fact that our mental ignorance is only a stage in our evolution. The integral knowledge, then, can only come by an evolution of our being and our nature, and that would seem to signify a slow process in Time such as has accompanied the other evolutionary transformations. But as against that inference there is the fact that the evolution has now become conscious and its method and steps need not be altogether of the same character as when it was subconscious in its process. The integral knowledge, since it must result from a change of consciousness, can be gained by a process in which our will and endeavour have a part, in which they can discover and apply their own steps and method: its growth in us can proceed by a conscious self-transformation. It is necessary then to see what is likely to be the principle of this new process of evolution and what are the movements of the integral knowledge that must necessarily emerge in it,-or, in other words, what is the nature of the consciousness that must be the base of the life divine and how that life may be expected to be formed or to form itself, to materialise or, as one might say, to realise.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 680-683 [T1],#KEYS
331:What are these operations? They are not mere psychological self-analysis and self-observation. Such analysis, such observation are, like the process of right thought, of immense value and practically indispensable. They may even, if rightly pursued, lead to a right thought of considerable power and effectivity. Like intellectual discrimination by the process of meditative thought they will have an effect of purification; they will lead to self-knowledge of a certain kind and to the setting right of the disorders of the soul and the heart and even of the disorders of the understanding. Self-knowledge of all kinds is on the straight path to the knowledge of the real Self. The Upanishad tells us that the Self-existent has so set the doors of the soul that they turn outwards and most men look outward into the appearances of things; only the rare soul that is ripe for a calm thought and steady wisdom turns its eye inward, sees the Self and attains to immortality. To this turning of the eye inward psychological self-observation and analysis is a great and effective introduction.We can look into the inward of ourselves more easily than we can look into the inward of things external to us because there, in things outside us, we are in the first place embarrassed by the form and secondly we have no natural previous experience of that in them which is other than their physical substance. A purified or tranquillised mind may reflect or a powerful concentration may discover God in the world, the Self in Nature even before it is realised in ourselves, but this is rare and difficult. (2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the process of the Self in its becoming and follow the process by which it draws back into self-being. Therefore the ancient counsel, know thyself, will always stand as the first word that directs us towards the knowledge. Still, psychological self-knowledge is only the experience of the modes of the Self, it is not the realisation of the Self in its pure being.
The status of knowledge, then, which Yoga envisages is not merely an intellectual conception or clear discrimination of the truth, nor is it an enlightened psychological experience of the modes of our being. It is a "realisation", in the full sense of the word; it is the making real to ourselves and in ourselves of the Self, the transcendent and universal Divine, and it is the subsequent impossibility of viewing the modes of being except in the light of that Self and in their true aspect as its flux of becoming under the psychical and physical conditions of our world-existence. This realisation consists of three successive movements, internal vision, complete internal experience and identity.
This internal vision, dr.s.t.i, the power so highly valued by the ancient sages, the power which made a man a Rishi or Kavi and no longer a mere thinker, is a sort of light in the soul by which things unseen become as evident and real to it-to the soul and not merely to the intellect-as do things seen to the physical eye. In the physical world there are always two forms of knowledge, the direct and the indirect, pratyaks.a, of that which is present to the eyes, and paroks.a, of that which is remote from and beyond our vision. When the object is beyond our vision, we are necessarily obliged to arrive at an idea of it by inference, imagination, analogy, by hearing the descriptions of others who have seen it or by studying pictorial or other representations of it if these are available. By putting together all these aids we can indeed arrive at a more or less adequate idea or suggestive image of the object, but we do not realise the thing itself; it is not yet to us the grasped reality, but only our conceptual representation of a reality. But once we have seen it with the eyes,-for no other sense is adequate,-we possess, we realise; it is there secure in our satisfied being, part of ourselves in knowledge. Precisely the same rule holds good of psychical things and of he Self. We may hear clear and luminous teachings about the Self from philosophers or teachers or from ancient writings; we may by thought, inference, imagination, analogy or by any other available means attempt to form a mental figure or conception of it; we may hold firmly that conception in our mind and fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration;3 but we have not yet realised it, we have not seen God. It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman, and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity.
(2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the 2 In one respect, however, it is easier, because in external things we are not so much hampered by the sense of the limited ego as in ourselves; one obstacle to the realisation of God is therefore removed.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge,#KEYS
332:[an Integral conception of the Divine :::
But on that which as yet we know not how shall we concentrate? And yet we cannot know the Divine unless we have achieved this concentration of our being upon him. A concentration which culminates in a living realisation and the constant sense of the presence of the One in ourselves and in all of which we are aware, is what we mean in Yoga by knowledge and the effort after knowledge. It is not enough to devote ourselves by the reading of Scriptures or by the stress of philosophical reasoning to an intellectual understanding of the Divine; for at the end of our long mental labour we might know all that has been said of the Eternal, possess all that can be thought about the Infinite and yet we might not know him at all. This intellectual preparation can indeed be the first stage in a powerful Yoga, but it is not indispensable : it is not a step which all need or can be called upon to take. Yoga would be impossible, except for a very few, if the intellectual figure of knowledge arrived at by the speculative or meditative Reason were its indispensable condition or a binding preliminary. All that the Light from above asks of us that it may begin its work is a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind. This support can be reached through an insistent idea of the Divine in the thought, a corresponding will in the dynamic parts, an aspiration, a faith, a need in the heart. Any one of these may lead or predominate, if all cannot move in unison or in an equal rhythm. The idea may be and must in the beginning be inadequate; the aspiration may be narrow and imperfect, the faith poorly illumined or even, as not surely founded on the rock of knowledge, fluctuating, uncertain, easily diminished; often even it may be extinguished and need to be lit again with difficulty like a torch in a windy pass. But if once there is a resolute self-consecration from deep within, if there is an awakening to the soul's call, these inadequate things can be a sufficient instrument for the divine purpose. Therefore the wise have always been unwilling to limit man's avenues towards God; they would not shut against his entry even the narrowest portal, the lowest and darkest postern, the humblest wicket-gate. Any name, any form, any symbol, any offering has been held to be sufficient if there is the consecration along with it; for the Divine knows himself in the heart of the seeker and accepts the sacrifice.
But still the greater and wider the moving idea-force behind the consecration, the better for the seeker; his attainment is likely to be fuller and more ample. If we are to attempt an integral Yoga, it will be as well to start with an idea of the Divine that is itself integral. There should be an aspiration in the heart wide enough for a realisation without any narrow limits. Not only should we avoid a sectarian religious outlook, but also all onesided philosophical conceptions which try to shut up the Ineffable in a restricting mental formula. The dynamic conception or impelling sense with which our Yoga can best set out would be naturally the idea, the sense of a conscious all-embracing but all-exceeding Infinite. Our uplook must be to a free, all-powerful, perfect and blissful One and Oneness in which all beings move and live and through which all can meet and become one. This Eternal will be at once personal and impersonal in his self-revelation and touch upon the soul. He is personal because he is the conscious Divine, the infinite Person who casts some broken reflection of himself in the myriad divine and undivine personalities of the universe. He is impersonal because he appears to us as an infinite Existence, Consciousness and Ananda and because he is the fount, base and constituent of all existences and all energies, -the very material of our being and mind and life and body, our spirit and our matter. The thought, concentrating on him, must not merely understand in an intellectual form that he exists, or conceive of him as an abstraction, a logical necessity; it must become a seeing thought able to meet him here as the Inhabitant in all, realise him in ourselves, watch and take hold on the movement of his forces. He is the one Existence: he is the original and universal Delight that constitutes all things and exceeds them: he is the one infinite Consciousness that composes all consciousnesses and informs all their movements; he is the one illimitable Being who sustains all action and experience; his will guides the evolution of things towards their yet unrealised but inevitable aim and plenitude. To him the heart can consecrate itself, approach him as the supreme Beloved, beat and move in him as in a universal sweetness of Love and a living sea of Delight. For his is the secret Joy that supports the soul in all its experiences and maintains even the errant ego in its ordeals and struggles till all sorrow and suffering shall cease. His is the Love and the Bliss of the infinite divine Lover who is drawing all things by their own path towards his happy oneness. On him the Will can unalterably fix as the invisible Power that guides and fulfils it and as the source of its strength. In the impersonality this actuating Power is a self-illumined Force that contains all results and calmly works until it accomplishes, in the personality an all wise and omnipotent Master of the Yoga whom nothing can prevent from leading it to its goal. This is the faith with which the seeker has to begin his seeking and endeavour; for in all his effort here, but most of all in his effort towards the Unseen, mental man must perforce proceed by faith. When the realisation comes, the faith divinely fulfilled and completed will be transformed into an eternal flame of knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 82-83 [T1],#KEYS
333:This, in short, is the demand made on us, that we should turn our whole life into a conscious sacrifice. Every moment and every movement of our being is to be resolved into a continuous and a devoted self-giving to the Eternal. All our actions, not less the smallest and most ordinary and trifling than the greatest and most uncommon and noble, must be performed as consecrated acts. Our individualised nature must live in the single consciousness of an inner and outer movement dedicated to Something that is beyond us and greater than our ego. No matter what the gift or to whom it is presented by us, there must be a consciousness in the act that we are presenting it to the one divine Being in all beings. Our commonest or most grossly material actions must assume this sublimated character; when we eat, we should be conscious that we are giving our food to that Presence in us; it must be a sacred offering in a temple and the sense of a mere physical need or self-gratification must pass away from us. In any great labour, in any high discipline, in any difficult or noble enterprise, whether undertaken for ourselves, for others or for the race, it will no longer be possible to stop short at the idea of the race, of ourselves or of others. The thing we are doing must be consciously offered as a sacrifice of works, not to these, but either through them or directly to the One Godhead; the Divine Inhabitant who was hidden by these figures must be no longer hidden but ever present to our soul, our mind, our sense. The workings and results of our acts must be put in the hands of that One in the feeling that that Presence is the Infinite and Most High by whom alone our labour and our aspiration are possible. For in his being all takes place; for him all labour and aspiration are taken from us by Nature and offered on his altar. Even in those things in which Nature is herself very plainly the worker and we only the witnesses of her working and its containers and supporters, there should be the same constant memory and insistent consciousness of a work and of its divine Master. Our very inspiration and respiration, our very heart-beats can and must be made conscious in us as the living rhythm of the universal sacrifice.
It is clear that a conception of this kind and its effective practice must carry in them three results that are of a central importance for our spiritual ideal. It is evident, to begin with, that, even if such a discipline is begun without devotion, it leads straight and inevitably towards the highest devotion possible; for it must deepen naturally into the completest adoration imaginable, the most profound God-love. There is bound up with it a growing sense of the Divine in all things, a deepening communion with the Divine in all our thought, will and action and at every moment of our lives, a more and more moved consecration to the Divine of the totality of our being. Now these implications of the Yoga of works are also of the very essence of an integral and absolute Bhakti. The seeker who puts them into living practice makes in himself continually a constant, active and effective representation of the very spirit of self-devotion, and it is inevitable that out of it there should emerge the most engrossing worship of the Highest to whom is given this service. An absorbing love for the Divine Presence to whom he feels an always more intimate closeness, grows upon the consecrated worker. And with it is born or in it is contained a universal love too for all these beings, living forms and creatures that are habitations of the Divine - not the brief restless grasping emotions of division, but the settled selfless love that is the deeper vibration of oneness. In all the seeker begins to meet the one Object of his adoration and service. The way of works turns by this road of sacrifice to meet the path of Devotion; it can be itself a devotion as complete, as absorbing, as integral as any the desire of the heart can ask for or the passion of the mind can imagine.
Next, the practice of this Yoga demands a constant inward remembrance of the one central liberating knowledge, and a constant active externalising of it in works comes in too to intensify the remembrance. In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. A memory, a self-dynamising meditation of this kind, must and does in its end turn into a profound and uninterrupted vision and a vivid and all-embracing consciousness of that which we so powerfully remember or on which we so constantly meditate. For it compels a constant reference at each moment to the Origin of all being and will and action and there is at once an embracing and exceeding of all particular forms and appearances in That which is their cause and upholder. This way cannot go to its end without a seeing vivid and vital, as concrete in its way as physical sight, of the works of the universal Spirit everywhere. On its summits it rises into a constant living and thinking and willing and acting in the presence of the Supramental, the Transcendent. Whatever we see and hear, whatever we touch and sense, all of which we are conscious, has to be known and felt by us as That which we worship and serve; all has to be turned into an image of the Divinity, perceived as a dwelling-place of his Godhead, enveloped with the eternal Omnipresence. In its close, if not long before it, this way of works turns by communion with the Divine Presence, Will and Force into a way of Knowledge more complete and integral than any the mere creature intelligence can construct or the search of the intellect can discover.
Lastly, the practice of this Yoga of sacrifice compels us to renounce all the inner supports of egoism, casting them out of our mind and will and actions, and to eliminate its seed, its presence, its influence out of our nature. All must be done for the Divine; all must be directed towards the Divine. Nothing must be attempted for ourselves as a separate existence; nothing done for others, whether neighbours, friends, family, country or mankind or other creatures merely because they are connected with our personal life and thought and sentiment or because the ego takes a preferential interest in their welfare. In this way of doing and seeing all works and all life become only a daily dynamic worship and service of the Divine in the unbounded temple of his own vast cosmic existence. Life becomes more and more the sacrifice of the eternal in the individual constantly self-offered to the eternal Transcendence. It is offered in the wide sacrificial ground of the field of the eternal cosmic Spirit; and the Force too that offers it is the eternal Force, the omnipresent Mother. Therefore is this way a way of union and communion by acts and by the spirit and knowledge in the act as complete and integral as any our Godward will can hope for or our soul's strength execute.
It has all the power of a way of works integral and absolute, but because of its law of sacrifice and self-giving to the Divine Self and Master, it is accompanied on its one side by the whole power of the path of Love and on the other by the whole power of the path of Knowledge. At its end all these three divine Powers work together, fused, united, completed, perfected by each other.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [111-114],#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Every need got an ego to feed. ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 2:Ego is a ghost who is terrified of dying ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 3:Where id was, there ego shall be. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 4:The Ego is a veil between humans and God. ~ rumi, @wisdomtrove 5:Wear your ego like a loose-fitting garment. ~ buddha, @wisdomtrove 6:When the ego dies, the soul awakes. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 7:The ego is not master in its own house. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 8:This rascal ego must be obliterated. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 9:The ego is our sense of being an individual ‘I’. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 10:A man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 11:All troubles come to an end when the ego dies ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 12:The moment you drop the search, you drop the ego also. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 13:A bad day for the ego is a good day for the soul. ~ michael-beckwith, @wisdomtrove 14:Humility is born of the spirit, humiliation of the ego. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 15:Fear of death only comes through the brittleness of the ego. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 16:In everything we do, the serpent ego is rising up. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 17:Jesus Christ went to the cross to magnify his ego. ~ robert-h-schuller, @wisdomtrove 18:When your ego is no more, only then will you know who you are. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 19:Darkness is an absence of light. Ego is an absence of awareness. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 20:Others may try to feed our ego, but it is up to us to constrain it. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 21:The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 22:The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 23:The male ego with few exceptions is elephantine to start with. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 24:The ego is the false self-born out of fear and defensiveness. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 25:Without the ego, there would be no enlightenment or awakening. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 26:The ego is a tool. You don't separate it. It's a tool for the spirit. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 27:U can feed ur ego or u can feed ur family. U can’t feed them both. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 28:You're best when you're not in charge. The ego locks the muse. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 29:Ego is simply an idea of who you are that you carry around with you. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove 30:Meditation is humility - the absence of thought, doubt, and ego. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 31:The ego is just a useful fiction. Use it, but don’t be deceived by it. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 32:One of the ego's favorite paths of resistance is to fill you with doubt. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 33:When they get their ego involved, people do things they shouldn't do. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 34:Love starts when we push aside our ego and make room for someone else. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 35:The Ego ages... the Soul evolves... and to the Awareness, nothing happened! ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 36:The ego tells you to fill space. Your spirit tells you to let space fill you. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 37:Anger is the ego's way of cloaking fear to make what is frail seem formidable. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 38:If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 39:The ego seeks fame and fortune. Humility doesn't seek at all - it accepts. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 40:Goals must never be from your ego, but problems that cry for a solution. ~ robert-h-schuller, @wisdomtrove 41:I am neither the mind, nor the intellect, nor the ego, nor the mind-stuff ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 42:The hallucination of being a separate ego will not stand up to biological tests. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 43:To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace brings only disturbance. ~ anthony-de-mello, @wisdomtrove 44:When we practice dying, we are learning to identify less with Ego and more with Soul ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 45:Ego is impurity. Be selfless. Consecrate and dedicate your life to perfection. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 46:Isn't the origin of conflict ego? If there is no ego there is no becoming. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 47:Life sustains itself. Let go of the ego and life takes care of itself through you. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 48:The Ego is an exquisite instrument. Enjoy it, use it& 49:Have a healthy respect and love for yourself, but don't be taken out by your ego. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 50:Love liberates. It doesn't just hold - that's ego. Love liberates. It doesn't bind. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 51:To think you know what is best for another person is an industrial-strength ego trip. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 52:The ultimate freedom from the nonexistent ego is to see that it is actually irrelevant. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 53:Be aware – deep down you are really attached to your negative emotions. They are your ego. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 54:If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 55:Its better to lose your ego to the One you Love than to lose the One you Love to your Ego ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 56:One always treads with a joyful step when one has dropped the burden called the ego. ~ anthony-de-mello, @wisdomtrove 57:Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 58:I find that the sensation of myself as an ego inside a bag of skin is really a hallucination. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 59:One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 60:The separate self is seen as an obstacle to our awakening and is often referred to as the ego. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 61:Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 62:The ego is a character in the dream of life around which the life-dreamer weaves a cracking tale. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 63:When you see the divinity in others, you are Divine. When you see ego in others, you are egoistic. ~ amit-ray, @wisdomtrove 64:Accidents are just from where you're looking; to the ego, it looks like it's miracles and accidents. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 65:Love is happy when it is able to give something. The ego is happy when it is able to take something. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 66:In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 67:There are people who have renounced all possessions who have a bigger ego than some millionaires. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 68:In advanced meditation you become light. You transcend self, ego, time, space, and dimensionality. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 69:We've gotten lost in our Ego and have forgotten that our Soul's only motive is to merge with the Beloved. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 70:The world is a demon. It is a kingdom of which the puny ego is king. Put it away and stand firm. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 71:You can be in a crowd full of friends and be miserable because you're alienated. The ego alienates. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 72:The ego represents what we call reason and sanity, in contrast to the id which contains the passions. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 73:Healing comes only from that which leads the patient beyond himself and beyond his entanglements with ego. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 74:This ego - the less there is of it, the nearer I am to that which I really am: the universal body. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 75:We live in a calculative world and have a calculative mind, and in such a world, ego dominates. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 76:Only the ego resists egos. The spirit may notice egos, but sees beyond them and does not engage with them. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 77:Sex is a means of escaping our little self or ego. It is many peoples' only experience of meditation. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 78:To give up the world is to forget the ego, to know it not at all - living in the body, but not of it. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 79:You can move beyond the ego's perspective and see reality from the perspective of a higher consciousness. ~ steve-pavlina, @wisdomtrove 80:If we want to waken, we don’t need to eradicate the ego. We simply need to be conscious of the deep self as well. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 81:The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 82:The ego loves to emphasise the otherness of others so it can feel stronger in its fictitious sense of self. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 83:Midlife is the time to let go of an overdominant ego and to contemplate the deeper significance of human existence. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 84:The biggest ego trip is getting rid of your ego, and of course the joke of it all is that your ego does not exist. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 85:The ego relies on the familiar. It is reluctant to experience the unknown, which is the very essence of life. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 86:Bless people when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing by helping to stamp out the false ego. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 87:You want to be free as the ego, but you need to be free FROM the ego. To be free from it is to understand its unreality. ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 88:These are planes of consciousness, and I think human beings exist on two planes of consciousness, the soul and the ego. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 89:To the ego mind, surrender means giving up. To the spiritual mind, surrender means giving in and receiving. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 90:Happiness is within everyone, but we are not able to experience it because of our ego's likes and dislikes. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 91:Through surrender the aspirant's ego is effaced, and . . . grace . . . pours down upon him like a torrential rain. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove 92:& 93:Misery nourishes your ego — that’s why you see so many miserable people in the world. The basic, central point is the ego. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 94:Pure love makes you feel as light as a flower. You won't feel any heaviness or burden. Ego creates the burden. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 95:The objective of spiritual advancement is not so much & 96:As you dissolve into love, your ego fades. You’re not thinking about loving; you’re just being love, radiating like the sun. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 97:Is there a meditation that is not the ego trying to become? Is meditation conscious if every effort implies time? ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 98:Meditation is the pathway to enlightenment. Move the ego aside and be still, open, clear, bright and fully conscious. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 99:Questing is not an ego trip; it is an adventure to bring into fulfillment your gift to the world, which is yourself. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 100:When we accept the loss of a form we identified with as part of who we were, then ego dies and essence shines through. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 101:Failure comes from ego, greed, envy, fear, imitation. I have success not because I am smart, but because I am rational. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 102:So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 103:The ego needs problems, conflict, and “enemies” to strengthen the sense of separateness on which its identity depends. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 104:At the moment when there's nothing more to lose, the Ego breaks open - and then we see who we are behind who we thought we were. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 105:How to get rid of ego as dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 106:Never underestimate the ruthlessness of the ego to keep you in a state of suffering in which you voluntarily participate. ~ lyania-vanzant, @wisdomtrove 107:The ego of man and woman is the soul. If the soul is independent, how then can it be isolated from the infinite whole? ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 108:Guilt's just your ego's way of tricking you into thinking that you're making moral progress. Don't fall for it, my dear. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 109:It is easy to see that the ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 110:But the jiva [living being] is endowed with ego and his knowledge is limited, whereas Ishwar is without ego and is omniscient. ~ adi-shankara, @wisdomtrove 111:Doing brings ego. Ego is the shadow of action. And there is only one thing that is not-doing, and that is awareness, watchfulness. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 112:Look at the optimism of Nature. Nothing can stop it. Only the ego makes humans pessimistic, and this causes suffering. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 113:The Cross sanctifies the ego trip. For the Cross protected our Lord's perfect self-esteem from turning into sinful pride. ~ robert-h-schuller, @wisdomtrove 114:Upon discovering truth, the natural love one has for oneself expands until it encompasses the whole world. This Love removes the ego. ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 115:Leadership is not a popularity contest; it's about leaving your ego at the door. The name of the game is to lead without a title ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 116:Ego synthesized is selfhood, the sense of self-importance, that you really matter ... nothing could be further from the truth. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 117:Life cannot be against you, for you are Life itself. Life can only seem to go against the ego's projections, which are rarely the truth. ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 118:Until we give up the world manufactured by the ego, never can we enter the kingdom of heaven. None ever did, none ever will. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 119:I'm a Bhakti, meaning I practice devotional yoga and the heart and love, so I say to people, start with your ego and go down to your heart. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 120:It is your soul's journey to enroll the ego in the quest for the ultimate victory - the evolution of your own individual consciousness. ~ debbie-ford, @wisdomtrove 121:The ego exists because we go on pedalling desire, because we go on striving to get something, because we go on jumping ahead of ourselves. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 122:Attention to my ego (when I seek power and control over others or seek approval from others) consumes the greatest amount of energy. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 123:Behind everyone's learned behaviors and odd eccentricities lurks a soul, ready to make contact if only coaxed out through a crack in the ego. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 124:Utterly destroy the ego. Control the many waves of distraction which it raises in the mind. Discern the Reality and realize "I am That." ~ adi-shankara, @wisdomtrove 125:Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient's ego freedom to decide one way or another. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 126:The ego is like the root of a banyan tree, you think you have removed it all then one fine morning you see a sprout flourishing again. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 127:The ego is an island in the ocean of Hell. You want to get rid of the Hell but you don’t want to get rid of that island. Then there is trouble. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 128:As a piece of rope, when burnt, retains its form, but cannot serve to bind, so is the ego which is burnt by the fire of supreme Knowledge. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 129:Leave your ego at the door every morning, and just do some truly great work. Few things will make you feel better than a job brilliantly done. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 130:When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego ... things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 131:You are pure Consciousness, the witness of all experiences. Your real nature is joy. Cease this very moment to identify yourself with the ego. ~ adi-shankara, @wisdomtrove 132:Ego says, "Once everything falls into place, I'll feel peace". Spirit says, "Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place". ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 133:Marriage is not a simple love affair, it's an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 134:Suffering is essential for the elimination of the ego, just as it was necessary for you to scrub and scrub in order to wash the stain from my coat. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 135:When you realize that the ego is making you miserable you don't identify with it. You identify with your soul's humility and the ego dissolves. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 136:Grace is openness. By remaining open, you let go of your ego and narrow-minded views, and allow divine grace to express itself through you. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 137:The bully on the block who beats up somebody doesn't become more powerful. All they do is walk around inside their own mind with an inflated ego. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 138:If you have to have it, it's ego. If you have to not have it, it's ego. Hold life lightly and it will deliver what you need and release what you don't. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 139:The "ego" like its correlative "non-ego", is the product of the body, mind etc. The only proof of the existence of the real Self is realisation. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 140:As the confining prison walls of the ego are broken down, you will become more and more persistent and wholehearted in your pursuit of & 141:Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. Old age does that for you too. It spiritualizes people naturally. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 142:When each expects the other to live in his or her world, to always be there to join in his or her chosen activities, an ego battle inevitably develops. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove 143:A disciple asked, "Who is a Master?" The Master replied, "Anyone to whom it is given to let go of the ego. Such a person's life is then a masterpiece. ~ anthony-de-mello, @wisdomtrove 144:Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything. ~ rainer-maria-rilke, @wisdomtrove 145:Nature gives constantly to us. We as indendepent egos think we're important. Selfless giving has to do with overcoming the ego. The ego makes us unhappy. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 146:Resistance is an inner contraction, a hardening of the shell of the ego. you are closed. Yielding means inner acceptance of what is. You are open to life. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 147:Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 148:But the disappearance of the effort to let go is precisely the disappearance of the separate thinker, of the ego trying to watch the mind without interfering. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 149:Vilifying the ego as a spiritual enemy doesn’t help us awaken. It merely encourages us to wage an internal civil war against ourselves, which we can only lose. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 150:Nonreaction to the ego of others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also dissolving the collective human ego. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 151:The battle of yoga is with the body and with the ego. You must conquer your ego, or small self, so that you can let your soul, your big Self, be victorious. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove 152:The Art of Being: A state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 153:The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it here it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 154:Forgiveness is essential to healing, because it requires you to surrender your ego's need to have life fall into place around your personal version of justice. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 155:We become forgetful of the ego when we think of the body as dedicated to the service of others - the body with which most complacently we identify the ego. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 156:Modern man believes he is fruitful and productive when his ego is aggressively affirmed, when he is visibly active, and when his action produces obvious results. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 157:Only the ego can fear, experience hate, lust and jealousy. Humility experiences none of these things - it merges into the transcendental awareness of perfection. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 158:Every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. His ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 159:When your internal reference point is the ego, when you seek power and control over other people or seek approval from others, you spend energy in a wasteful way. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 160:A Course in Miracles tells us that although & 161:Forgiveness is essential to healing, because it requires you to surrender your ego's need to have life fall into place around your personal version of justice. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 162:Make it a habit to feel the inner body as often as you can. Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 163:Authentic spirituality accepts both the beautiful and the seemingly ugly parts within us. It is not about rejecting or annihilating the ego but recognising and healing it. ~ aimee-davies, @wisdomtrove 164:This one life has no form and is empty by nature. If you become attached by any form, you should reject it. If you see an ego, a soul, a birth, or a death, reject them all. ~ bodhidharma, @wisdomtrove 165:A big ego isn't necessarily a bad thing. A big ego means that you have some confidence in your abilities, really, and that you're prepared to take the risk of trying them out. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 166:Freedom means the power to act by soul guidance, not by the compulsions of desires and habits. Obeying the ego leads to bondage; obeying the soul brings liberation. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 167:It seems to me that the ego is the hero not the villain of the spiritual adventure. The ego is the surface self through which the deep I can experience the adventure of living. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 168:It seems to me that the ego is the hero, not the villain of the spiritual adventure. The ego is the surface self through which the deep I can experience the adventure of living. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 169:The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 170:Not all thinking and all emotion are of the ego. They turn into ego only when you identify with them and they take you over completely, that is to say, when they become ‘I.’ ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 171:Love in its purest form is a sharing of joy. It asks nothing in return, it expects nothing. Love is a spiritual phenomenon; lust is physical. Ego is psychological; love is spiritual. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 172:Only a life lived in a certain spirit is worth living. It is a remarkable fact that a life lived entirely from the ego is dull not only for the person himself but for all concerned. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 173:The martial arts are ultimately self-knowledge. A punch or a kick is not to knock the hell out of the guy in front, but to knock the hell out of your ego, your fear, or your hang-ups. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 174:The foundation of the Buddha's teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion. ~ dalai-lama, @wisdomtrove 175:Haec ego non multis (scribo), sed tibi: satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus. I am writing this not to many, but to you: certainly we are a great enough audience for each other. ~ epicurus, @wisdomtrove 176:The existence of the writer is an argument against the existence of the soul, for the soul has obviously taken flight from the real ego, but not improved itself, only become a writer. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 177:The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 178:When we interact with others the ego manifests. We have to show that we're superior or that we know more, are more spiritual, evolved - or that we're the worst, everyone is better. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 179:A man should always revolt against himself, for the ego, like a crooked mirror, narrows down and distorts. It is the worst of all the tyrants, it dominates you absolutely. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 180:It is on account of the ego that one is not able to see God. In front of the door of God's mansion lies the stump of ego. One cannot enter the mansion without jumping over the stump. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 181:Hard work is painful when life is devoid of purpose. But when you live for something greater than yourself and the gratification of your own ego, then hard work becomes a labor of love. ~ steve-pavlina, @wisdomtrove 182:Neurosis is the result of a conflict between the ego and its id, whereas psychosis is the analogous outcome of a similar disturbance in the relation between the ego and the external world. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 183:The way of love is as true as the way of knowledge. All paths ultimately lead to the same Truth. But as long as God keeps the feeling of ego in us, it is easier to follow the path of love. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 184:One possessing Vairagya does not understand by Atman the individual ego but the All-pervading Lord, residing as the Self and Internal Ruler in all. He is perceivable by all as the sum total. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 185:It is ignorance that causes us to identify ourselves with the body, the ego, the senses, or anything that is not the Atman. He is a wise man who overcomes this ignorance by devotion to the Atman. ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 186:The ego is the separate self through which the universal self can experience the adventure of living. The ego is a character in the dream of life around which the life-dreamer weaves a cracking tale. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 187:In any influence, will, a self, the ego, the I AM is the greater force to be dealt with, but as numbers do influence, a knowledge of same certainly gives an individual a foresight into relationships. ~ edgar-cayce, @wisdomtrove 188:A transference neurosis corresponds to a conflict between ego and id, a narcissistic neurosis corresponds to that between between ego and super-ego, and a psychosis to that between ego and outer world. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 189:If you want to feel connected to your own purpose, know this for certain: Your purpose will only be found in service to others, and in being connected to the something far greater than your mind/body/ego. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove 190:To be free from bondage the wise person must practise discrimination between One-Self and the ego-self. By that alone you will become full of joy, recognising Self as Pure Being, Consciousness and Bliss. ~ adi-shankara, @wisdomtrove 191:The new life created by the final integration is self-aware yet without ego, capable of inhabiting a body yet not attached to it, and guided by wisdom rather than emotion. Whole and virtuous, it can never die. ~ lao-tzu, @wisdomtrove 192:What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 193:We human beings are born in ego, live in ego, are brought up in ego and will die in ego. We need a certain degree 0f vision when we live in this world for achieving and attaining our goals in life. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 194:But the repressed merges into the id as well, and is merely a part of it. The repressed is only cut off sharply from the ego by the resistances of repression; it can communicate with the ego through the id. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 195:Above all, during the interval, change from ego orientation to task orientation. Think: I know this seems like a personal insult, but it is not. It is a challenge to be overcome that calls on skills I have. ~ martin-seligman, @wisdomtrove 196:Man only remains hypnotised with the false idea of an ego. When this ghost is off from us, all dreams vanish, and then it is found that the one Self only exists from the highest Being to a blade of grass. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 197:The ego is frightened by death, because ego is part of the incarnation and ends with it. That is why we learn to identify with our soul, as the soul continues after death. For the soul, death is just another moment. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 198:One's life is an act with no actor, and thus it has always been recognized that the insane man that has lost his mind is a parody of the sage who has transcended his ego. If one is paranoid, the other is metanoid. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 199:Through allowing, you become what you are; vast, spacious. You become whole. You are not a fragment anymore, which is how the ego perceives itself. Your true nature emerges, which is one with the nature of God. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 200:When war is not just it is subsequently justified; so it becomes many things. In reality, an unjust war is merely piracy. It consists of piracy, ego and, more than anything, money. War is our century's prostitution. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 201:Action painting has to do with self-creation or self-definition or self-transcendence; but this dissociates it from self-expression, which assumes the acceptance of the ego as it is, with its wound and its magic. ~ hannah-arendt, @wisdomtrove 202:Check your ego at the door and check your gut instead. Every right decision I have ever made has come from my gut. Every wrong decision I've made was the result of me not listening to the greater voice of myself. ~ oprah-winfrey, @wisdomtrove 203:Ego is no more than complete identification with form—physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms. This results in a total unawareness of my connectedness with the whole, my intrinsic oneness with the Source. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 204:Jesus is a personal symbol of the Holy Spirit. Having been totally healed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus became one with him. Every thought, action, and deed of Jesus was guided by the Holy Spirit instead of ego. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 205:All great leaders find a sense of balance through their levels of reception. For instance, those who support a leader may soften him, those who ignore him may challenge him, and those who oppose him may stroke his ego. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 206:When you paint, you forget everything except your object. When you are too much engrossed in it, you are lost in it. And when you are lost in it, your ego diminishes. And when the ego diminishes, love infinite appears. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 207:What is it in you that brings you to a spiritual teacher in the first place? It's not the spirit in you, since that is already enlightened, and has no need to seek. No, it is the ego in you that brings you to a teacher. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 208:When I see an object there is no will; when its sensations are carried to the brain, there comes the reaction, which says "Do this", or "Do not do this", and this state of the ego-substance is what is called will ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 209:When one is without ego, one becomes immediately free of all personal judgements, and perceives life and the world with divine eyes and mind. Nothing is offensive to them and they remain in perfect serenity and peace always. ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 210:Don't judge others. Always be open to them. Avoid the cult mentality, you know, the super-slick, "I'm superior because I meditate, because I'm on the pathway to enlightenment," the subtle ego nonsense, terrible trap. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 211:There is no doubt that the resistance of the conscious and unconscious ego operates under the sway of the pleasure principle: it seeks to avoid the unpleasure which would be produced by the liberation of the repressed. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 212:The entire life of the personal ego is continually in the grip of wanting, i. e., an attempt to seek fulfilment of desires through things that change and vanish. But there can be no real fulfilment through the transient things ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 213:To feel that you are the Buddha of all times and places and that in some way the salvation of anyone, including yourself, depends upon you, I think there's a lot of ego involved in such a view, not much self-transcendence. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 214:If you believe your religion is the Truth, you are using it in the service of the ego. Used in such a way, religion becomes ideology and creates an illusory sense of superiority as well as division and conflict between people. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 215:The poor ego has a still harder time of it; it has to serve three harsh masters, and it has to do its best to reconcile the claims and demands of all three... The three tyrants are the external world, the superego, and the id. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 216:All of us, including myself, have come from this place called God, and it is that God within each and every one of us that directs our lives, unless we leave it and take on something called the ego, which is really hard to let go of. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove 217:Even the enlightened person is never more than his own limited ego before the One who dwells within him, whose form has no knowable boundaries, who encompasses him on all sides, fathomless as the abysms of the earth and vast as the sky. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 218:The Ego is not who you really are. The ego is your self-image; it is your social mask; it is the role you are playing. Your social mask thrives on approval. It wants control, and it is sustained by power, because it lives in fear. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 219:That's just your ego, trying to make sure it stays in charge. This is what ego does. It keeps you feeling separate, keeps you with a sense of duality, tries to convince you that you're flawed and broken and alone instead of whole. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 220:God, or a source of divinity, put together a map for our lives. That map includes opportunities-not outcomes-but opportunities. And those opportunities are contracts [or] agreements-not that our ego or personality made, but our soul did. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 221:The soul loves to meditate, for in contact with the Spirit lies its greatest joy. If, then you experience mental resistance during meditation, remember that reluctance to meditate comes from the ego; it doesn't belong to the soul. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 222:The pleasure of satisfying a savage instinct, undomesticated by the ego, is uncomparably much more intense than the one of satisfying a tamed instinct. The reason is becoming the enemy that prevents us from a lot of possibilities of pleasure. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 223:God, or a source of divinity, put together a map for our lives. That map includes opportunities-not outcomes-but opportunities. And those opportunities are contracts [or] agreements-not that our ego or personality made, but our soul did. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 224:“A man asked Gautama Buddha, "I want happiness." Buddha said, "First remove "I," that's Ego, then remove "want," that's Desire. See now you are left with only "Happiness.” ~ buddha, @wisdomtrove 225:Suffering is a wonderful teacher. Suffering is most people’s only spiritual teacher. Suffering deepens you, it gradually erodes the mind made sense of self, the ego. And for some people the point arrives where they realize “I have suffered enough.” ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 226:The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of the ego. The ego can never be in alignment with the present moment, which is to say, aligned with life, since its very nature compels it to ignore, resist, or devalue the Now. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 227:There is, inside all our heads, the ego’s rabid attack dog. It is purely vicious toward others and toward ourselves as well. Learning to control that dog, and ultimately to end its life, is the process and purpose of enlightened relationships. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 228:Put bluntly, the ego is not an obstruction to Spirit, but a radiant manifestation of Spirit. All Forms are not other than Emptiness, including the form of the ego. It is not necessary to get rid of the ego, but simply to live with it a certain exuberance. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 229:Suffering drives you deeper. The paradox is that suffering is caused by identification with form and erodes identification with form. A lot of it is caused by the ego, although eventually suffering destroys the ego—but not until you suffer consciously. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 230:You do not awaken spiritually until the compulsive and unconscious naming ceases, or at least you become aware of it and thus are able to observe it as it happens. It is through this constant naming that the ego remains in place as the unobserved mind. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 231:The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete acceptance of your partner as he or she is, without needing to judge or change them in any way. That immediately takes you beyond ego. All mind games and all addictive clinging are then over. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 232:The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego-consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness extends. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 233:My biggest past mistakes have been when I made decisions out of ego rather than spirit. When I acted too quickly. When I wasn't contemplative or reflective or prayerful enough, and I ended up making what I would only later see to be unwise decisions. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 234:Say - i am the Atman in which my lower ego has become merged for ever. Be perfect in this idea; and then as long as the body endures, speak unto others this message of fearlessness: "Thou art That", "Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached!" ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 235:And the trouble with me is that my ego just can't accept a loss. I suppose that if I were more perfectly adjusted, I would toss off defeat, but my name is on this ball club. Thirty-six men publicly reflect me and reflect on me, and it's a matter of my pride. ~ vince-lombardi, @wisdomtrove 236:Spirituality automatically leads to humility. When a flower develops into a fruit, the petals drop off on its own. When one becomes spiritual, the ego vanishes gradually on its own. A tree laden with fruits always bends low. Humility is a sign of greatness. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 237:Financial scarcity is what you attract when you focus on me, me, me — my needs, my problems, my wants. Financial abundance is what you attract when you focus on we, we, we — our needs, our challenges, our potential. The ego is too small a container for wealth. ~ steve-pavlina, @wisdomtrove 238:It's okay. Let your ego push you to be the initiator. But tell your ego that the best way to get something shipped is to let other people take the credit. The real win for you (and your ego) is seeing something get shipped, not in getting the credit when it does. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 239:The ego wants more and more (possessions, reputation, approval, attaining goals, even food) to gain a sense of completeness. But these are all short lived. They don't fill the empty space. So I'm always left wanting. Completeness is never attainable this way. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 240:You are the Self, the infinite Being, the pure, unchanging Consciousness, which pervades everything. Your nature is bliss and your glory is without stain. Because you identify yourself with the ego, you are tied to birth and death. Your bondage has no other cause. ~ adi-shankara, @wisdomtrove 241:Most of us are convinced that we are our egos, which is who we think we are. The ego is part of our incarnation. It dies with the body, which is why we are so afraid of death. Death scares the hell out of who you think you are, especially if you think you are this body. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 242:The ego mind both professes its desire for love and does everything possible to repel it, or if it gets here anyway, to sabotage it. That is why dealing with issues like control, anger, and neediness is the most important work in preparing ourselves for love. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 243:The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 244:Whenever a few people are gathered with a spiritual impulse to connect, to resonate through the heart, to make a shift from their own ego to their essence, and then to connect to do whatever work in the world they are called to do, that's an evolutionary circle. ~ barbara-marx-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 245:The offering up or cleaning up ego stuff is called purification. Purification is the act of letting go. This is done out of discriminative awareness. That is, you understand that you are an entity passing through a life in which the entire drama is an offering for your awakening. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 246:Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 247:When it happens that a person has to give up a sexual object, there quite often ensues an alteration of his ego which can only be described as a setting up of the object inside the ego, as it occurs in melancholia; the exact nature of this substitution is as yet unknown to us. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 248:There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. The ego loves to make wrong in order to be right. Ego takes everything personally. Emotion arises, defensiveness, perhaps even aggression. Are you defending the truth? No, the truth, in any case, needs no defense. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 249:Bless people when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing by helping to stamp out the false ego. Hold fast to the real Self. Think only pure thoughts, and you will accomplish more than a regiment of mere preachers. Out of purity and silence comes the word of power. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 250:Enlightenment cannot be attained if it is sought as a future goal. Give up the search. The entry point is now, not in the future. The ego can only be transcended in the now. In the depth of you, your essence is already complete. You are already it. You just need to realise it. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 251:Genuine mental health would involve a balanced interplay of both modes of experience, a way of life in which one's identification with the ego is playful and tentative rather than absolute and mandatory, while the concern with material possessions is pragmatic rather than obsessive. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 252:For men, it's absolutely essential to stop believing that they're superior to women because that very belief engenders ego, which sets them off-balance. Therefore, they don't realize that they're being manipulated by the second attention of woman because their ego won't permit them. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 253:If you ever allow yourself to see it will be the death of you. And that is why love is so terrifying, for to love is to see and to see is to die. But it is the most delightful exhilarating experience in the whole world. For in the death of the ego is freedom, peace, serenity, joy. ~ anthony-de-mello, @wisdomtrove 254:I loved to make people laugh in high school, and then I found I loved being on stage in front of people. I'm sure that's some kind of ego trip or a way to overcome shyness. I was very kind of shy and reserved, so there's a way to be on stage and be performing and balance your life out. ~ steve-martin, @wisdomtrove 255:You must learn to get in touch with the innermost essence of your being. This true essence is beyond the ego. It is fearless; it is free; it is immune to criticism; it does not fear any challenge. It is beneath no one, superior to no one, and full of magic, mystery, and enchantment. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 256:Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You would not be reading this now. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 257:To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it - who are you? ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 258:Whatever behaviour the ego manifests, the hidden motivating force is always the same: the need to stand out, be special, be in control; the need for power, for attention, for more. And, of course, the need to feel a sense of separation, that is to say, the need for opposition, enemies. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 259:And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 260:A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 261:I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As selfishly as my lungs breathe air. I breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel of my body, for my survival. I've given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way I can want you to love me. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 262:What is an example that will prove that you aren't lovable? Rejection? If someone rejects you- and he could only do that because you don't match his beliefs about how he wants the world to be-it has nothing to do with you. Only an inflated ego could say that it had anything to do with you. ~ byron-katie, @wisdomtrove 263:The moment you die consciously, in meditation, God is born - because you disappear as an ego. Then what is left? A stillness, a tremendously potential stillness, a silence that is pregnant - pregnant with the whole. When you disappear, boundaries disappear. You melt and merge with everybody else. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 264:The separate self is seen as an obstacle to our awakening and is often referred to as the ego. In my experience we don’t need to eradicate the separate self to awaken to oneness. When I’m deep awake ‘Tim’ doesn’t disappear in a puff of spiritual enlightenment. On the contrary, Tim comes to life. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 265:What is it we are questing for? It is the fulfillment of that which is potential in each of us. Questing for it is not an ego trip; it is an adventure to bring into fulfillment your gift to the world, which is yourself. There’s nothing you can do that’s more important than being fulfilled. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 266:The jnani& 267:As I've gone into soul and soul-land, and I connect with my soul and my ego, and my life is colored by my soul - people can identify from their ego, which is who they thought they are. The soul, which is who they really are, if they choose that transfer to the soul, then you live in an ocean of love. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 268:Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. Just as the word ‚Äúwater‚Äù is a noise that symbolizes a certain liquid without being it, so too the idea of ego symbolizes the role you play, who you are, but it is not the same as your living organism. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 269:In the land of "I know," there is always competitiveness, jealousy, pretence, pride and arrogance. It is an aggressive realm - the realm of the ego. I say refuse citizenship. In the land of "I dont know," the inhabitants move without conflict and are naturally quiet, happy and peaceful. The wise stay here. ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 270:The pleasure principle long persists, however, as the method of working employed by the sexual instincts, which are so hard to & 271:The ego promotes turmoil because it wants to substantiate your separateness from everyone, including God. It will push you in the direction of judgment and comparison, and cause you to insist on being right and best. You know your highest self by listening to the voice that only wants you to be at peace. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove 272:Have the courage to speak your mind and tell the truth from a position of love rather than anger or fear, being open to accept the views of others without feeling threatened or defeated, relinquishing the ego's need to be in control by demonstrating the willingness to do whatever it takes to establish peace. ~ lyania-vanzant, @wisdomtrove 273:For what we don't realize today is just what the typical self of every previous stage failed likewise to comprehend: this is not the highest and greatest mode of consciousness which can be attained - there lie ahead the realms of the superconscious and the pitiful ego, by comparison, is as a speck of nothingness. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 274:Don't take the ego too seriously. When you detect egoic behaviour in yourself, smile. At times you may even laugh. How could humanity have been taken in by this for so long? Above all, know that the ego isn't personal. It isn't who you are. If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 275:The ego is first and foremost a bodily ego; it is not merely a surface entity, but is itself the projection of a surface. If we wish to find an anatomical analogy for it we can best identify it with the & 276:Ego is the movement of the mind toward objects of perception in the form of grasping, and away from objects in the form of aversion. This fundamentally is all the ego is. This movement of grasping and aversion gives rise to a sense of a separate & 277:The ego is not a thing but a subtle effort, and you cannot use effort to get rid of effort - you end up with two efforts instead of one. The ego itself is a perfect manifestation of the Divine, and it is best handled by resting in Freedom, not by trying to get rid of it, which simply increases the effort of the ego itself ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 278:The mind in its foolishness thinks that it is working in this body. Why should I be bound by one system of nerves, and put the Ego only in one body, if the mind is omnipresent? There is no reason why I should.[Source] The root of that degeneration is egotism - to think that one is just as great as any other, indeed! ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 279:Yet again, the more you strive for some kind of perfection or mastery‚Äîin morals, in art or in spirituality‚Äîthe more you see that you are playing a rarified and lofty form of the old ego-game, and that your attainment of any height is apparent to yourself and to others only by contrast with someone else's depth or failure. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 280:Egoless work is full of beauty, for it is not prompted by a desire for self-gratification. So long as the knots that constitute the ego are not unravelled, even though you intend to act impersonally, you will get hurt, and this will produce a change in the expression of your eyes and face, and be apparent in your whole manner. ~ anandamayi-ma, @wisdomtrove 281:In fact, at this point in history, the most radical, pervasive, and earth-shaking transformation would occur simply if everybody truly evolved to a mature, rational, and responsible ego, capable of freely participating in the open exchange of mutual self-esteem. There is the & 282:In the spiritual life the easiest way to conquer ego is to offer gratitude to God for five minutes daily. If you cannot offer gratitude for five minutes, then utter it for one minute. Offer your gratitude to God. Then you will feel that inside you a sweet, fragrant and beautiful flower is growing. That is the flower of humility. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 283:T he path of knowledge leads to Truth, as does the path that combines knowledge and love [bhakti]. The path of love too leads to this goal. The way of love is as true as the way of knowledge. All paths ultimately lead to the same Truth. But as long as God keeps the feeling of ego in us, it is easier to follow the path of love. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 284:Grant that I have enough suffering that my heart really opens to the great compassion of this world, that I be given enough so that I don't wall myself off from the world, that it breaks down the heart and the separation and the ego and the fear, and it lets me touch the nectar, the milk of kindness itself, of something greater. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 285:If you are well off and can afford to spend ten or twenty-five dollars a day to hire some patient soul to listen to your troubles you can be readjusted to the crazy scheme of things and spare yourself the humiliation of becoming a Christian Scientist. You can have your ego trimmed or removed, as you wish, just like a wart or bunion. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 286:Your identity, self-esteem, and awareness of your ego lay the groundwork for your life. How you conduct yourself with others, and whether you have the strength to make your way without needing to ask for another's permission, depends on how well you succeed at the many challenges that awaken your need to take charge of who you are. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 287:Nobody likes to let go of the ego- it is so precious to everyone. However, once you have attained a state of egolessness, the world won't disappear, as you may think it will. The world will continue, but a change takes place within you. Something is uncovered. You start seeing everything with the wonder and innocence of a child. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 288:When each thought absorbs your attention completely, it means you identify with the voice in your head. Thought then becomes invested with a sense of self. This is the ego, a mind- made "me." That mentally constructed self feels incomplete and precarious. That’s why fearing and wanting are its predominant emotions and motivating forces ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 289:Even after the Truth has been realised, there remains that strong, obstinate impression that one is still an ego - the agent and experiencer. This has to be carefully removed by living in a state of constant identification with the supreme non-dual Self. Full Awakening is the eventual ceasing of all the mental impressions of being an ego. ~ adi-shankara, @wisdomtrove 290:Your identity, self-esteem, and awareness of your ego lay the groundwork for your life. How you conduct yourself with others, and whether you have the strength to make your way without needing to ask for another's permission, depends on how well you succeed at the many challenges that awaken your need to take charge of who you are. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 291:For some spiritual traditions the ego is not the ‘I’, but rather our human personality. When we identify with the person we appear to be we are unconscious of the deep self. The ego is our ‘lower self’, which connives to prevent us realizing that it isn’t who we really are. When we act or think in ways we don’t like… that’s the ego playing up. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 292:The way to freedom is through service to others. The way to happiness is through meditation and being in tune with God... break the barriers of your ego, shed selfishness, free yourself from the consciousness of the body, forget yourself, do away with this prison house of incarnations, melt your heart in all, be one with creation. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 293:To live in the light of a new day and an unimaginable and unpredictable future, you must become fully present to a deeper truth - not a truth from you head but a truth from your heart; not a truth from your ego but a truth from the highest source. You have to be willing to be deeply honest with yourself about the shape your life is in each day. ~ debbie-ford, @wisdomtrove 294:We search for happiness everywhere, but we are like Tolstoy's fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, under him the whole time. Your treasure& 295:If the ego is in the slightest way separated from its source, it yearns to find it again. This search comes from the remembrance of unity and plenitude. As every experience emanates from the non-experience which is our real being, the me also bears the scent of its source. This remembering is awakened through those moments of desirelessness and in deep sleep. ~ jean-klein, @wisdomtrove 296:M aya is nothing but the egotism of the embodied soul. This egotism has covered everything like a veil. All troubles come to an end when the ego dies. & 297:In this world, man has two significant possessions: intelligence and emotion. These two possessions govern our day-to-day life. But very often we see that emotion (ego) gets the upper hand in our life. We know that even if someone is extremely intelligent, when his emotion comes to the fore it will devour him. He is compelled to do what his emotion asks him to do. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 298:The cure to combat the three Ss- stress, strain, and speed- can be found in three Ws- the work of devoted practice, the wisdom that comes of understanding the self and the world, and worship because ultimately surrendering to what we cannot control allows the ego to relax and lose the anxiety of its own infinitesimally small self in the infinitude of the divine. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove 299:The functional importance of the ego is manifested in the fact that normally control over the approaches to motility devolves upon it. Thus in its relation to the id it is like a man on horse back, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength while the ego uses borrowed forces. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 300:The challenge of abating one with a genuine ego problem is to not try to put him down. Any and all antagonization, in his mind, is merely compensated for by his own descriptions: his feelings of persecution by the envious and his ideals of worth. Arguably, the genuine ego is more of a circumstantial defense mechanism rather than a steady arrogance in need of starvation. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 301:The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They repeat, they re-arrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, but with a singular change-that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, nonce, struck out. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 302:Liberation does not concern the person, for liberation is freedom from the person. Basically the disciple and teacher are identical. Both are the timeless axis of all action and preception. The only difference is that one & 303:Did Buddha teach that the many was real and the ego unreal, while orthodox Hinduism regards the One as the real, and the many as unreal?" the Swami was asked. "Yes", answered the Swami. "And what Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and I have added to this is, that the Many and the One are the same Reality, perceived by the same mind at different times and in different attitudes. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 304:When you really have something to offer to the world, then you can become truly humble. A tree when it has no fruit to offer, remains erect. But when the tree is laden with fruit, it bends down. If you are all pride and ego, then nobody will be able to get anything worthwhile from you. When you have genuine humility, it is a sign that you have something to offer to mankind. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 305:Being here really is just the invitation to rest as Being. There is nothing you have to do. It is not an invitation to become. You will not be scrutinized, your actions compared with those of others. Thats just unicorn food. Let your river flow as it pleases. Simply observe and recognise that all is unfolding spontaneously when that inner journalist- the ego, is exposed as a myth. ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 306:Having an & 307:Before you offer criticism, consider your reasons. If your motive is simply to hurt someone, vent your frustrations or to boost your ego, I suggest you stop yourself and think long and hard about why you feel the need to do that. On the other had, using criticism to help someone improve, to see a change affected, or to contribute to a discussion, are all good reasons for doing it. ~ leo-babauta, @wisdomtrove 308:Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face. The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 309:In liberation, you stand alone. You stand alone because you need no supports of any kind. You need no supports because you have realized that the very notion of a separate you no longer exists, that there is nothing to support, that the whole ego experience was a flimsy illusion. So you stand alone but are never, never lonely because everywhere you look, all you see is That, and you are That. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 310:In this way the ego detaches itself from the external world. It is more correct to say: Originally the ego includes everything, later it detaches from itself the external world. The ego-feeling we are aware of now is thus only a shrunken vestige of a far more extensive feeling - a feeling which embraced the universe and expressed an inseparable connection of the ego with the external world. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 311:Of course, if we are identified with just the separate self we can become ‘egotistical’, in the sense of the word ‘ego’ that implies we are selfish, self-obsessed and narcissistic. I’m not saying that’s a good thing. I simply want to suggest that our individuality is something to celebrate not denigrate. And that as we awaken to deep love the separate self becomes a vehicle to express that love. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 312:The goal of mysticism is communion with God. In this experience, the mystic no longer exists as a separate individual, but becomes one with the Oneness. This vision can only arise when the mystic realises that the ego-self is only an illusionary veil that masks the true divine Self: and that this Self is God, the being of all beings. God is not something & 313:Even after attaining samadhi, some retain the "servant ego," or the "devotee ego." The bhakta keeps this "I-consciousness." He says, "0 God, Thou art the Master and I am Thy servant; Thou art the Lord and I am Thy devotee," He feels that way even after the realization of God. His "I" -is not completely effaced. Again, by constantly practicing this kind of consciousness," one ultimately attains God... ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 314:So, the path of the co-creator is to be awakened spiritually within, which then turns into your own deeper life purpose, which then makes you want to reach out and touch others in a way that expresses self and really evolves our communities and our world. Certainly, we can't do that unless we activate ourselves first. That's why, for me, emergence is the shift from ego to essence. That is so important. ~ barbara-marx-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 315:The hallucination of separateness prevents one from seeing that to cherish the ego is to cherish misery. We do not realize that our so-called love and concern for the individual is simply the other face of our own fear of death or rejection. In his exaggerated valuation of separate identity, the personal ego is sawing off the branch on which he is sitting, and then getting more and more anxious about the coming crash! ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 316:To get past your ego and its defenses you need to get quiet, be brave, and listen to your inner voices... .When you embrace the messages of each aspect of your shadow, you begin to take back the power you’ve given to others and form a bond of trust with your authentic self. The voices of your unembraced qualities, when allowed into your consciousness, will bring you back into balance and harmony with your natural rhythms. ~ debbie-ford, @wisdomtrove 317:The ego is our sense of being an individual ‘I’. In my experience, when I wake up to oneness the sense of being an individual ‘I’ doesn’t vaporize away like a meaningless illusion. On the contrary, I see how important the ‘I’ truly is. The ‘I’ is arising within the primal field of unconscious being, as a separate centre of conscious being. If this were not the case I wouldn’t be conscious at all… let alone spiritually awakened. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 318:The ego is as you think of yourself. You in relation to all the commitments of your life, as you understand them. The self is the whole range of possibilities that you've never even thought of. And you're stuck with you're past when you're stuck with the ego. Because if all you know about yourself is what you found out about yourself, well, that already happened. The self is a whole field of potentialities to come through. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 319:I also teach you to love yourself first. It has nothing to do with ego. In fact, love is such a light that the darkness of the ego cannot exist in it at all. If you love others, if your love is focused on others, you will live in darkness. Turn your light toward yourself first, become a light unto yourself first. Let the light dispel your inner darkness, your inner weakness. Let love make you a tremendous power, a spiritual force. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 320:The trouble is that the whole & 321:We have not faith, we have not patience to see this. We trust the man in the street; but there is one being in the universe we never trust and that is God. We trust Him when He works just our way. But the time will come when, getting blow after blow, the self - sufficient mind will die. In everything we do, the serpent ego is rising up. We are glad that there are so many thorns on the path. They strike the hood of the cobra. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 322:Ego is neither positive nor negative. Those are simply concepts that create more boundaries. Ego is just ego, and the disaster of it all is that you, as a spiritual seeker, have been conditioned to think of the ego as bad, as an enemy, as something to be destroyed. This simply strengthens the ego. In fact, such conclusions arise from the ego itself. Pay no attention to them. Don't go to war with yourself; simply inquire into who you are. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 323:When you live through the ego, you always reduce the present moment to a means to an end. You live for the future, and when you achieve your goals, they don't satisfy you, at least not for long. When you give more attention to the doing than to the future result that you want to achieve through it, you break the old egoic conditioning. Your doing then becomes not only a great deal more effective, but infinitely more fulfilling and joyful. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 324:... Every ego so far from being a unity is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. It appears to be a necessity as imperative as eating and breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of his ego as though is was a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon. Even the best of us shares this delusion. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 325:How do you meditate? You meditate with an inner cry. There should be an inner cry here, in the heart. The outer cry is ego-centred; it wants name and fame. ... While you are feeling this inner cry, you try to make the mind absolutely calm and quiet. If a thought enters your mind, you try to reject it. Consider this thought as a fly. When a fly comes to land on your arm, you don't allow the fly to remain; you just wave your hand and it goes away. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 326:The underlying emotion that governs all the activity of the ego is fear. The fear of being nobody, the fear of nonexistence, the fear of death. All its activities are ultimately designed to eliminate this fear, but the most the ego can ever do is to cover it up temporarily with an intimate relationship, a new possession, or winning at this or that. Illusion will never satisfy you. Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 327:Many spiritual traditions condemn the fragmented, wounded human self and see it as the ego we need to overcome. But I don’t see Tim as a spiritual burden, because I’ve come to love him despite his flaws. He can be difficult to live with, but I’ve become patient with that. I don’t want to wage war with the ego that I’ve struggled to develop as I’ve become a distinct individual. I want to honour the ego as a hero on a journey of awakening to deep love. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 328:The way to liberation lies through this realization of the Self, by God-communion and by remaining in this God-aware state of the soul while performing dutiful actions. Any individual can reach this supreme actionless state by the renunciation of all fruits of actions: performing all dutiful acts without harbouring in his heart any likes and dislikes, possessing no material desires, and feeling God, not the ego, as the Doer of all actions. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 329:Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could spare them from all suffering? No, it wouldn't. They would not evolve as human beings and would remain shallow, identified with the external form of things. Suffering drives you deeper. The paradox is that suffering is caused by identification with form and erodes identification with form. A lot of it is caused by the ego, although eventually suffering destroys the ego- - but not until you suffer consciously. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 330:One might compare the relation of the ego to the id with that between a rider and his horse. The horse provides the locomotor energy, and the rider has the prerogative of determining the goal and of guiding the movements of his powerful mount towards it. But all too often in the relations between the ego and the id we find a picture of the less ideal situation in which the rider is obliged to guide his horse in the direction in which it itself wants to go. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 331:Do what you have to do. In the meantime, accept what is. Since mind and resistance are synonymous, acceptance immediately frees you from mind dominance and thus reconnects you with Being. As a result, the usual ego motivations for “doing” – fear, greed, control, defending or feeding the false sense of self – will cease to operate. An intelligence much greater than the mind is now in charge, and so a different quality of consciousness will flow into your doing. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 332:How long do you remember that it is the Lord who is making you work? But then, by repeatedly analysing like that, you will come to a state when the ego will vanish and in its place the Lord will come in. Then you will be able to say with justice "Thou, Lord, art guarding all my actions from within." But, my friend, if the ego occupies all the space within your heart, where forsooth will there be room enough for the Lord to come in? The Lord is verily absent! ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 333:When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 334:Great art grabs you, against your will, and then suspends your will. You are ushered into a quiet clearing, free of desire, free of grasping, free of ego, free of the self-contraction. And through that opening or clearing in your own awareness may come flashing higher truths, subtler revelations, profound connections. For a moment you might even touch eternity; who can say otherwise, when time itself is supendend in the clearing that great art creates in your awareness? ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 335:Realisation of love can never come so long as there is the least desire in the heart, or what Shri Ramakrishna used to say, attachment for K√¢ma-K√¢nchana (sense-pleasure and wealth). In the perfect realisation of love, even the consciousness of one's own body does not exist. Also, the supreme Jnana is to realise the oneness everywhere, to see one's own self as the Self in everything. That too cannot come so long as there is the least consciousness of the ego (Aham). ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 336:After all, what is your personal identity? It is what you really are, your real self. None of us is what he thinks he is, or what other people think he is, still less what his passport says he is And it is fortunate for most of us that we are mistaken. We do not generally know what is good for us. That is because, in St. Bernard's language, our true personality has been concealed under the & 337:After all, what is your personal identity? It is what you really are, your real self. None of us is what he thinks he is, or what other people think he is, still less what his passport says he is. And it is fortunate for most of us that we are mistaken. We do not generally know what is good for us. That is because, in St. Bernard's language, our true personality has been concealed under the & 338:Instead of "I love you," it would be better to say "I am love-I am the embodiment of Pure Love." Remove the I and you, and you will find that there is only Love. It is as if Love is imprisoned between the I and you. Remove the I and you, for they are unreal; they are self-imposed walls that don't exist. The gulf between I and you is the ego. When the ego is removed the distance disappears and the I and you also disappear. They merge to become one - and that is Love. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 339:Towards the outside, at any rate, the ego seems to maintain clear and sharp lines of demarcation. There is only one state - admittedly an unusual state, but not one that can be stigmatized as pathological - in which it does not do this. At the height of being in love the boundary between ego and object threatens to melt away. Against all the evidence of his senses, a man who is in love declares that "I" and "you" are one, and is prepared to behave as if it were a fact. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 340:Pure love removes all negative feelings. Destroying all selfishness, it expects nothing but gives anything. Pure love is a constant giving up- giving up of everything that belongs to you. What really belongs to you? Only the ego. Love consumes in its flames all preconceived ideas, prejudices and judgments, all those things which stem from the ego. Pure love is nothing but the emptying of the mind of all its fears and the tearing off of all masks. It exposes the Self as it is. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 341:There is the mind itself. It is like a smooth lake which when struck, say by a stone, vibrates. The vibrations gather together and react on the stone, and all through the lake they will spread and be felt. The mind is like the lake; it is constantly being set in vibrations, which leave an impression on the mind; and the idea of the Ego, or personal self, the "I", is the result of these impressions. This "I" therefore is only the very rapid transmission of force and is in itself no reality. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 342:As Hubert Benoit said, it is not the identification with the ego that is the problem, but the exclusive nature of the identification. When our self-identity expands beyond the ego, into the deeper psychic, then even into the Unborn and One Taste, the ego is simply taken up and subsumed in a grander identity. But the ego itself remains as the functional self in the gross realm, and it might even appropriately be intensified and made more powerful, simply because it is now plugged into the entire Kosmos. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 343:In diabetes mellitus the case is as follows: the ego-organization, as it submerges in the astral and etheric realm, is so weakened that it can no longer effectively accomplish its action upon the sugar-substance. The sugar then undergoes the processes in the astral and etheric realms which should take place in the ego-organization... . From all this we see that a real healing process for diabetes mellitus can only be initiated if we are in a position to strengthen the ego-organization of the patient. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 344:The true self is certain and clear about things. The everyday self gets influenced by countless outside influences, leading to confusion. 2. The true self is stable. The everyday self shifts constantly. 3. The true self is driven by a deep sense of truth. The everyday self is driven by the ego, the unending demands of "I, me, mine." 4. The true self is at peace. The everyday self is easily agitated and disturbed. 5. The true self is love. The everyday self, lacking love, seeks it from outside sources. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 345:As long as the ego runs your life, most of your thoughts, emotions, and actions arise from desire and fear. In relationships, you then either want or fear something from the other person. What you want from them may be pleasure or material gain, recognition, praise or attention, or a strengthening of your sense of self through comparison and through establishing that you are, have, or know more than they. What you fear is that the opposite may be the case, and they may diminish your sense of self in some way. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 346:There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. But the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 347:It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence& 348:The thought of both East and West (philosophies) can indeed be integrated into a higher truth. They show us that the West is correct in maintaining that life is about progress about evolving toward something higher. Yet the East is also correct in emphasizing that we must let go of control with the ego. We can't progress by using logic alone. We have to attain a fuller consciousness, an inner connection with God, because only then can our evolution toward something better be guided by a higher part of ourselves. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove 349:The Shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge, and it therefore, as a rule, meets with considerable resistance. Indeed, self-knowledge as a psychotherapuetic measure frequently requires much painstaking work extending over a long period of time. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 350:If you look closely, you will find that by far the greater part of any unhappiness in you is created not by situations, but by what your mind is saying about them. It's created by the self- talk in your head. Such dysfunctional thinking strengthens the ego, but it weakens you. How to end it? Meet situations and people without judgment. Give your fullest attention to the present moment without mentally labeling it. This is the arising of Presence, a new state of consciousness that frees your mind from its old conditioning. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 351:The very desire to seek spiritual enlightenment is in fact nothing but the grasping tendency of the ego itself, and thus the very search for enlightenment prevents it. The & 352:Many spiritual traditions teach that to awaken to the deep self we need to suppress our human nature. We need to eradicate our passions. Fear, anger, and desire are particularly deplorable. Lust is really bad. Our attachments are a problem too. All these human weaknesses arise because we’re identified with the evil ego. It seems to me that such teachings actually makes it harder to awaken, because we believe there are things about our nature that we must overcome, when actually all we need to do is notice our deeper identity as well. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 353:Pathology has made us acquainted with a great number of states in which the boundary lines between the ego and the external world become uncertain or in which they are actually drawn incorrectly. There are cases in which parts of a person's own body, even portions of his own mental life - his perceptions, thoughts and feelings -, appear alien to him and as not belonging to his ego; there are other cases in which he ascribes to the external world things that clearly originate in his own ego and that ought to be acknowledged by it. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 354:I must hold in balance the sense of the futility of effort and the sense of the necessity to struggle; the conviction of the inevitability of failure and still the determination to & 355:Transcending the ego thus actually means to transcend but include the ego in a deeper and higher embrace, first in the soul or deeper psychic, then with the Witness or primordial Self, then with each previous stage taken up, enfolded, included, and embraced in the radiance of One Taste. And that means we do not "get rid" of the small ego, but rahter, we inhabit it fully, live it with verve, use it as the necessary vehicle through which higher truths are communicated. Soul and Spirit include body, emotions, and mind; they do not erase them. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 356:When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadbi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya. Whatever -is within the domain of maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison house of name and form arid rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive deep in search of the Self and realize It through samadhi, You will find the world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 357:& 358:There was another thing I heartily disbelieved in - work. Work, it seemed to me even at the threshold of life, is an activity reserved for the dullard. It is the very opposite of creation, which is play‚ ¶ The part of me which was given up to work, which enabled my wife and child to live in the manner which they unthinkingly demanded, this part of me which kept the wheel turning - a completely fatuous, ego-centric notion! - was the least part of me. I gave nothing to the world in fulfilling the function of breadwinner; the world exacted its tribute of me, that was all. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 359:In love at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the other the impersonal. At one you have the positive assertion ‚ Here I am; at the other the equally strong denial ‚I am not. Without this ego what is love? And again, with only this ego how can love be possible? Bondage and liberation are not antagonistic in love. For love is most free and at the same time most bound. If God were absolutely free there would be no creation. The infinite being has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude. And in him who is love the finite and the infinite are made one. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 360:Situations seem to happen to people, but in reality, they unfold from deeper karmic causes. The universe unfolds to itself, bringing to bear any cause that needs to be included. Don’t take this process personally. The working out of cause and effect is eternal. You are part of this rising and falling that never ends, and only by riding the wave can you ensure that the waves don’t drown you. The ego takes everything personally, leaving no room for higher guidance or purpose. If you can, realize that a cosmic plan is unfolding and appreciate the incredibly woven tapestry for what it is, a design of unparalleled marvel. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 361:Another aspect of the emotional pain that is an intrinsic part of the egoic mind is a deep- seated sense of lack or incompleteness, of not being whole... If it is unconscious, it will only be felt directly as an intense craving, wanting and needing. People will often enter into a compulsive pursuit of ego- gratification and things to identify with in order to fill this hole they feel within. So they strive after money, success, power, recognition, or a special relationship, basically so they can feel better about themselves, feel more complete. But even when they attain all these things, they soon find that the hole is still there, that is is bottomless. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 362:A person functioning exclusively in the Cartesian mode may be free from manifest symptoms but cannot be considered mentally healthy. Such individuals typically lead ego-centred, competitive, goal-oriented lives. Overpreoccupied with their past and their future, they tend to have a limited awarenessof the present and thus a limited ability to derive satisfaction from ordinary activities in everyday life. They concentrate on manipulating the external world and measure their living standard by the quantity of material possessions, while they become ever more alienated from their inner world and unable to appreciate the process of life. For people whose existence is dominated by this mode of experience no level of wealth, power, or fame will bring genuine satisfaction ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 363:Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in meeting halls. We haven't even got a word for the quality I mean& *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:ego depletion. ~ Edward Slingerland, #NFDB
2:Stupid male ego. ~ Tera Lynn Childs, #NFDB
3:A little ego goes nowhere. ~ Jim Davis, #NFDB
4:Ego makes you lonely. ~ Pavan Choudary, #NFDB
5:ego creates blind spots. ~ Eric Schmidt, #NFDB
6:Ego is recessive in wisdom. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
7:Making love with his ego. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
8:Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo ~ Catullus, #NFDB
9:I can't live off the ego. ~ Steven Tyler, #NFDB
10:Show me success without ego! ~ Ivana Trump, #NFDB
11:Every need got an ego to feed. ~ Bob Marley, #NFDB
12:We've got ego's like hairdos. ~ Ani DiFranco, #NFDB
13:It wasn't ego; it was just a fact ~ K L Kreig, #NFDB
14:The ego taunts truth with sarcasm. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
15:It is the ego that gets depressed. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
16:Jedes du ist ein Alter Ego ~ Hans Georg Gadamer, #NFDB
17:My ego had always been an issue. ~ Sally Rooney, #NFDB
18:When in doubt, flatter the ego. ~ Jessica Clare, #NFDB
19:Where id is, there shall ego be ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
20:As the ego swells; the soul shrivels ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
21:Ego, after all, was the root of evil. ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
22:Ego and pride is a two headed twist. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
23:Ego is a ghost who is terrified of dying ~ Mooji, #NFDB
24:I own and operate a ferocious ego. ~ Bill Moyers, #NFDB
25:Awareness and ego cannot coexist. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
26:God is the collective ego of the world ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
27:We all live in a world of mistaken ego. ~ Praveer, #NFDB
28:Where id was, there ego shall be. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
29:You don't want to vilify your ego. ~ Jeff Bridges, #NFDB
30:Ego is stolen. Confidence is earned ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
31:Jesus Christ had an ego as big as god. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
32:Seriousness is a disease of the ego ~ Stuart Wilde, #NFDB
33:The ego hates losing – even to God. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
34:The ego knows itself by comparison. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
35:The surname for my alter ego is Strong. ~ Zoe Sugg, #NFDB
36:Put your ego aside and play as a team. ~ Sonny Bono, #NFDB
37:The source of the ego is God. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
38:When all else fails, go for the ego. ~ Val McDermid, #NFDB
39:When the ego dies, the soul awakes. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
40:Confidence is essential, but ego is not. ~ Sam Mendes, #NFDB
41:Do things the ego does not like to do. ~ Stuart Wilde, #NFDB
42:Ego & Hype have no place in business. ~ Keshia Chante, #NFDB
43:I had to let my ego go a long time ago. ~ Sally Field, #NFDB
44:Let go of your ego’s need to be right. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
45:My ego only needs a good rhythm section ~ Miles Davis, #NFDB
46:The ego is a fascinating monster. ~ Alanis Morissette, #NFDB
47:To the ego, love is poison. ~ Eric Micha el Leventhal, #NFDB
48:Don't be a hero. Don't have an ego. ~ Paul Tudor Jones, #NFDB
49:Enthusiasm and the ego cannot coexist. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
50:Giving involves leaving the ego behind. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
51:Ego is the ultimate killer on a team ~ Patrick Lencioni, #NFDB
52:Range is of the ego, form is of the soul. ~ Alan Finger, #NFDB
53:The ego is not master in its own house. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
54:The smaller the mind, the greater the ego. ~ Tom Clancy, #NFDB
55:Drugs, alcohol and ego. They are a bad mix. ~ Don Dokken, #NFDB
56:I love playing ego and insecurity combined. ~ Jim Carrey, #NFDB
57:Never underestimate the ego of a politician. ~ Dan Brown, #NFDB
58:The unconscious creates, the ego edits. ~ Stanley Kunitz, #NFDB
59:This rascal ego must be obliterated. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
60:Actually, the best traders have no ego. ~ Jack D Schwager, #NFDB
61:Do I need this? Or is it really about ego? ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
62:Ego is my career. Rap music is all ego. ~ Earl Sweatshirt, #NFDB
63:The ego does not want to be wrong, ever. ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
64:The Ego is a veil between man and God. ~ Sienna McQuillen, #NFDB
65:Your ego is everything man about yourself ~ Jeremy Aldana, #NFDB
66:Creative people are 50% ego and 50% insecurity. ~ Lee Clow, #NFDB
67:Egg is ego, and bird is the liberated Self. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
68:Ego-centeredness is not individuality at all. ~ David Bohm, #NFDB
69:I don't really have an ego. I'm not that bothered. ~ Bjork, #NFDB
70:I have an ego the size of a small planet. ~ Linus Torvalds, #NFDB
71:I like the moment when I break a man's ego ~ Bobby Fischer, #NFDB
72:Suicide - " jumps off his ego onto his IQ ~ David Grossman, #NFDB
73:What is life to Spirit, is death to the ego. ~ Vivian Amis, #NFDB
74:I didn't want to be big Mr. Ego walking around. ~ Eric Idle, #NFDB
75:I like the moment when I break a man's ego. ~ Bobby Fischer, #NFDB
76:I think it's the ego in us that screws us up. ~ Alicia Keys, #NFDB
77:Just a little detachment from the ego is needed. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
78:Precisa de mais amaciante para o ego? ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
79:The ego's blocking the light from coming. ~ Sandra Cisneros, #NFDB
80:act without being concerned for your own ego. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
81:Data has no ego and makes an excellent co-pilot. ~ Jay Samit, #NFDB
82:Fighting your ego is a melodrama of the ego. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
83:It is others’ opinion about you that creates the ego. ~ Osho, #NFDB
84:Nations have their ego, just like individuals. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
85:The Ego’s job is to kill everything but itself ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
86:The idea of a separate center is the root of the ego. ~ Osho, #NFDB
87:Wear your ego like a loose fitting garment. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
88:Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego. ~ Norman Mailer, #NFDB
89:After all, the male ego was a horrible thing. ~ Robert Dunbar, #NFDB
90:A man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
91:My opponent is my teacher, my ego is my enemy. ~ Renzo Gracie, #NFDB
92:When the ego is chattering, the screen goes red. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
93:If we're not at peace, we are in an ego state. ~ Doreen Virtue, #NFDB
94:My ego needs a few moments of silence to grieve. ~ Jewel E Ann, #NFDB
95:The ego is a veil between humans and God.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi,#NFDB
96:The equation for ego is: One over Knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
97:You know what ego stands for: Edging Out God! ~ S Truett Cathy, #NFDB
98:All troubles come to an end when the ego dies ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
99:Do the work that feeds your soul, not your ego. ~ Jessica Walsh, #NFDB
100:The ego is not porous. It has no space for anybody else. ~ Osho, #NFDB
101:To be "great" is an ego goal; to be real is existential. ~ Osho, #NFDB
102:A man`s ego is just as fragile as a woman`s heart ~ Lana Del Rey, #NFDB
103:Donald Trump just needs the ego fed all the time. ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
104:Don't let your ego get in the way of your success. ~ Tony Horton, #NFDB
105:hen threatened by fear and desire, let ego go. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
106:`I-I' is the Self. `I am this' is the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
107:My performances have finally caught up with my ego. ~ Ato Boldon, #NFDB
108:Oh, I'm just Ego's assistant. It's not anything big. ~ Brad Bird, #NFDB
109:You are God. You are not the ego. You are God! ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
110:Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
111:Ego is the immediate dictate of human consciousness. ~ Max Planck, #NFDB
112:Ego loves identity. Drag mocks identity. Ego hates drag. ~ RuPaul, #NFDB
113:Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
114:Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
115:Enlightenment is your ego's greatest disappointment. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
116:Faster. Stronger. Smarter. More humble. Less ego. ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
117:Leave your ego, play the music, love the people. ~ Luther Allison, #NFDB
118:shed your troublesome ego while you’re still alive ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
119:Some people feed your ego, but starve your soul. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
120:The ego can exist only with goals, ambitions, desires. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
121:The ego wants to want more than it wants to have. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
122:when the ego disappears, so does power over language. ~ W H Auden, #NFDB
123:You have to leave room for the other person's ego. ~ Debbie Harry, #NFDB
124:You may lose your ego but you will win the fight! ~ Mark A Cooper, #NFDB
125:Zayıf ego her zaman kolay bir çıkış arar ~ Clarissa Pinkola Est s, #NFDB
126:Doing comedy alone onstage is the ego's last stand. ~ Steve Martin, #NFDB
127:I'm one of seven kids. That'll keep your ego in check. ~ Amy Adams, #NFDB
128:Most people are ego-sensitive, not life-sensitive. ~ Jaggi Vasudev, #NFDB
129:So crucify the ego, before its far too late ~ Maynard James Keenan, #NFDB
130:The shadow of the lost object falls across the ego ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
131:You can't have ego and gratitude at the same time. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
132:People confuse ego, lust, insecurity with true love. ~ Simon Cowell, #NFDB
133:Result with mini habits: very little ego depletion. ~ Stephen Guise, #NFDB
134:Such an ego simply forbade certain lines of thought. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
135:A bad day for the ego is a good day for the soul. ~ Michael Beckwith, #NFDB
136:I long to escape the prison of my ego and lose myself in You. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
137:«Lo que amenaza al ego es liberador para el corazón». ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
138:man and ape are separated more by ego than anatomy ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB
139:"The agonized ego is a ring of defense around nothing." ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
140:the ego likes to emphasize the 'otherness' of others ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
141:What is there when the ego is gone? Eternity, love. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
142:Your ego is the sum of all your negative characteristics ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
143:Clearly I am a person who suffers from a lack of ego. ~ Michael Moore, #NFDB
144:Ego gets you inches but it doesn't get you impact. ~ Cameron Sinclair, #NFDB
145:-Expansion to your ego, friend.
-At your expense. ~ Brian W Aldiss,#NFDB
146:It would be an endless battle if it were all up to ego ~ Agnes Martin, #NFDB
147:Listen, pal, I come and go as I please, so check your ego. ~ J D Robb, #NFDB
148:My alter ego does not look in too great a mood today. ~ Simon de Pury, #NFDB
149:The ego is as little absolutely permanent as are bodies. ~ Ernst Mach, #NFDB
150:I'm very accessible. I don't get into this ego thing. ~ Scott Hamilton, #NFDB
151:In everything we do, the serpent ego is rising up. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
152:Nothing ages as poorly as a beautiful woman's ego. ~ Paulina Porizkova, #NFDB
153:The experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
154:Usually, autobiography is such an indulgence of the ego. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
155:A bad day for your ego is a great day for your soul. ~ Jillian Michaels, #NFDB
156:. . . and my ego gladly avoids leaning out the window. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
157:a true leader never puts his ego ahead of his assets. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
158:Darkness is an absence of light. Ego is an absence of awareness. ~ Osho, #NFDB
159:Ego Check. Damn it. How many would he need in one day? ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
160:Excellence is the product of high aspirations and low ego. ~ Adam Grant, #NFDB
161:Fear of death only comes through the brittleness of the ego. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
162:If the ego is inflated it must be gradually deflated. ~ Alexander Lowen, #NFDB
163:Meditation is not growth of the ego, it is death of the ego. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
164:Negativity is not intelligent. It is always of the ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
165:The ego is our self-love turned into self-hatred. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
166:Took the G out yo waffle, all you got left is your ego. ~ Donald Glover, #NFDB
167:You can either be a Host to God, or a Hostage to your ego! ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
168:Ego is about who’s right. Truth is about what’s right. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
169:I tucked that comment away for later ego-polishing purposes. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
170:the ego is just a thought — and thoughts can be changed. ~ Gary R Renard, #NFDB
171:"Negativity is not intelligent. It is always of the ego." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
172:Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
173:What else is there for me to conquer? Hopefully my ego. ~ Madonna Ciccone, #NFDB
174:When your ego is no more, only then will you know who you are. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
175:Who is a friend?" his answer was, "A second self (alter ego). ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
176:You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
177:Do not surrender to a situation that nurtures the ego. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
178:Ego cannot be annihilated, but it can be tamed. ~ Michael Bernard Beckwith, #NFDB
179:Ego implies complete unawareness of the dimension of space ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
180:Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
181:My desire is to let go of my ego and let in His direction. ~ Janine Turner, #NFDB
182:The extent of your difficulties gives you the measures of ego ~ The Mother, #NFDB
183:The main task of the spirit is to free man from his ego. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
184:What do you love even more than you love your own ego? ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
185:Excessively sweet praise can rot your ego over time. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen, #NFDB
186:Others may try to feed our ego, but it is up to us to constrain it. ~ Aesop, #NFDB
187:Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser. ~ Donald J Trump, #NFDB
188:"[The ego] is part of the personality but not the whole of it." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
189:the longing need to be noticed that is often miscalled ego. ~ Thomas Harris, #NFDB
190:Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
191:Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. ~ William Zinsser, #NFDB
192:Doffing the ego's safe glory, he finds his naked reality. ~ Dag Hammarskjold, #NFDB
193:Ego expands to fill the space not filled with knowledge. ~ Jeffrey Armstrong, #NFDB
194:Ego mundi civis esse cupio, communis omnium, vel peregrinus magis. ~ Erasmus, #NFDB
195:I have no self-centeredness or ego about being a movie star. ~ Shahrukh Khan, #NFDB
196:My ego is controlled enough that I don't have to be the focus. ~ Herbie Mann, #NFDB
197:Pain and happiness are simply conditions of the ego. Forget the ego. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
198:The belief in ego is the great cause of conflict and suffering. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
199:The Ego is a veil between humans and God’.” “In prayer all are equal. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
200:The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
201:The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow. ~ D T Suzuki, #NFDB
202:The male ego with few exceptions is elephantine to start with. ~ Bette Davis, #NFDB
203:When you are in-spirit (inspired) you have no need for the ego. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
204:When you lose your ego, you win. It really is that simple. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
205:Careful with that ego, you could knock somebody over." Atticus ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
206:Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli! ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
207:I don't believe in awards. It's very good for the ego, I suppose. ~ Eva Green, #NFDB
208:The conscious ego cannot tell the unconscious what to do? ~ Milton H Erickson, #NFDB
209:The illusion of selfhood, ego, a separate identity is false. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
210:...the most common cause of death among alpha males was ego. ~ Nelson DeMille, #NFDB
211:The need is not to amputate the ego ... but to transcend it. ~ Norman Cousins, #NFDB
212:The personality and the ego scream, while the soul whispers. ~ Elmore Leonard, #NFDB
213:We do not possess an 'ego.' We are possessed by the idea of one. ~ Wei Wu Wei, #NFDB
214:What is needed is the constant unmasking of ego's strategy. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
215:Your own ego is the only trap that I think you can fall into. ~ Robert Altman, #NFDB
216:You’ve got a big ego, Fuentes.”
“That’s not all I’ve got. ~ Simone Elkeles,#NFDB
217:Do not surrender to a situation that nurtures the ego. The ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
218:Ego is the great enemy. Ego will hold you back every single time. ~ Nikki Sixx, #NFDB
219:That which is threatening to the ego is liberating to the heart. ~ Ajahn Amaro, #NFDB
220:The ego is like a kid in the basement: It's best to keep him busy. ~ Tim Allen, #NFDB
221:The ego is the false self-born out of fear and defensiveness. ~ John O Donohue, #NFDB
222:The most poisonous source in any kitchen is a chef's ego. ~ Marco Pierre White, #NFDB
223:To enter your true self,
check your ego at the door. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen,#NFDB
224:Who would I marry? I know, my ego. We'd make the perfect couple. ~ Max Beesley, #NFDB
225:You are a beautiful soul hidden by the trench coat of the ego. ~ Michael Dolan, #NFDB
226:Ego leads to envy and it rots the bones of people big and small. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
227:I bet it gets pretty lonely with only your ego for company. ~ Alexandra Bracken, #NFDB
228:I have a huge ego and a huge inferiority complex at the same time. ~ Barry Gibb, #NFDB
229:leadership takes continuous, counterintuitive, ego-minimizing work. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
230:Such sorrow— The cry of true compassion Sinks into my hard ego. ~ Taitetsu Unno, #NFDB
231:The extent of your difficulties gives you the measure of your ego. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
232:The heart that loves the wicked ego creates the hated enemy. ~ Masanobu Fukuoka, #NFDB
233:The secret to success is to subjugate your ego and serve others. ~ Stuart Wilde, #NFDB
234:to become a high performer, ego takes a backseat to service. ~ Brendon Burchard, #NFDB
235:U can feed ur ego or u can feed ur family. U can’t feed them both. ~ Zig Ziglar, #NFDB
236:We have to change from 'ego-architecture' to 'eco-architecture.' ~ Jaime Lerner, #NFDB
237:You're best when you're not in charge. The ego locks the muse. ~ Robin Williams, #NFDB
238:Ego non baptiso te in nomine...but make out the rest yourself. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
239:False humility is thinly veiled ego disguised as self confidence. ~ Dov Davidoff, #NFDB
240:From childish fear springs the desire to externalise the ego. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
241:Los hombres tienen el ego más frágil que una cáscara de huevo. ~ Sylvain Reynard, #NFDB
242:Love liberates. It doesn't just hold, that's ego. Love liberates. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
243:mind” is the processing unit with which the ego is identified. ~ David R Hawkins, #NFDB
244:Most sensitiveness is the result or sign of ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, (CWSA 31:211), #NFDB
245:Mr. Latino with the big ego got bested by a ditzy, blond bimbo. ~ Simone Elkeles, #NFDB
246:People say my ego is grand. I think it's in proportion to me. ~ Wilt Chamberlain, #NFDB
247:suspend your ego and seek an attitude of gratitude and generosity ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
248:"That which is threatening to the ego is liberating to the heart." ~ Ajahn Amaro, #NFDB
249:The ego is a tool. You don't separate it. It's a tool for the spirit. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
250:An ego should be like a warm breeze, never seen, just mildly sensed. ~ David Luiz, #NFDB
251:Ego is simply an idea of who you are that you carry around with you. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
252:I’ll just follow your bread crumb trail of ego and entitlement, ~ Nicole Williams, #NFDB
253:It's important not to be afraid ego-wise to share your information. ~ Phil Ramone, #NFDB
254:"Love those your ego opposes. (You don't have to agree with them.)" ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
255:Meditation is humility - the absence of thought, doubt, and ego. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
256:Remember, that which appeals to the ego cannot help your spiritual growth. ~ Osho, #NFDB
257:That which lies beyond the ego is consciousness - the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
258:The Ego produces Resistance and attacks the awakening artist. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
259:There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right ! ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
260:When it comes to doing my job, I keep my ego in my handbag. ~ Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, #NFDB
261:Your ego-depletion seems problematically difficult to assuage. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
262:A man's ego is a fragile thing; as fragile as a woman's heart ~ Eric Jerome Dickey, #NFDB
263:Doffing the ego's
safe glory, he finds
his naked reality. ~ Dag Hammarskj ld,#NFDB
264:It is a living death if one is obsessed by pride, ego and anger. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
265:The ego is like too many dark clouds around the sun - the sun gets lost ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
266:The light must be dim in order to enable the ego to rise up. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
267:The only person Ill marry is myself. Believe me, my ego is that big. ~ Max Beesley, #NFDB
268:The path to a higher power than ego is saying yes to the predicament ~ David Richo, #NFDB
269:"There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
270:All bitterness in life always comes from the ego refusing to abdicate. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
271:Chess and me, it's hard to take them apart. It's like my alter ego. ~ Bobby Fischer, #NFDB
272:One of the ego's favorite paths of resistance is to fill you with doubt. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
273:Our real beliefs are generally not to be found at the level of ego. ~ Peter Rollins, #NFDB
274:The Ego is a veil between humans and God’.”
“In prayer all are equal. ~ Rumi,#NFDB
275:The ego needs recognition. The spirit does not need to thank itself. ~ Stuart Wilde, #NFDB
276:You have an evil twin who is always with you. He is called your ego. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
277:But, against all odds, my gigantic ego continues to attempt greatness. ~ Allie Brosh, #NFDB
278:I'm very competitive, and my ego couldn't handle that lack of success ~ Gavin DeGraw, #NFDB
279:It's a constant man-ego-check going on in the streets, in this world. ~ Tupac Shakur, #NFDB
280:Once the ego is born into this world, it has to shoulder morality. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
281:The ego romanticizes the past to avoid the true romance of the present. ~ Alan Cohen, #NFDB
282:The ego seeks to divide and separate. Spirit seeks to unify and heal. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
283:We don't need anymore empowered people who are all about the ego. ~ Elizabeth Lesser, #NFDB
284:When ego is lost, limit is lost. You become infinite, kind, beautiful. ~ Yogi Bhajan, #NFDB
285:Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, #NFDB
286:Giving up your ego is the shortest way to unification with nature. ~ Masanobu Fukuoka, #NFDB
287:I wouldn't give Satan a snowball's chance in Hell against a woman's ego. ~ Bill Hicks, #NFDB
288:Love and ego can never exist together, just as the Sun and shadow cannot. ~ Banani Ray, #NFDB
289:Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way. ~ Chris Lowe, #NFDB
290:The Ego ages... the Soul evolves... and to the Awareness, nothing happened! ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
291:The music should be first, not the ego or the personality or the style. ~ Dewey Redman, #NFDB
292:The true opponent in a debate on emptiness is your own ego. ~ Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, #NFDB
293:The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
294:When they get their ego involved, people do things they shouldn't do. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
295:When you're older and wiser a lot of the ego has gone out of the window. ~ Billy Ocean, #NFDB
296:When you’re sick and dying, the ego is and should be the first thing to go. ~ J R Rain, #NFDB
297:Your arrogance just sucked all the oxygen out of the room to inflate your ego. ~ Tijan, #NFDB
298:Your ego is gushing all over me and getting my favorite shoes dirty. ~ Nicole Williams, #NFDB
299:He has no enthusiasm whatever for his subject. Ego, yes. Enthusiasm, no. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
300:I'm aware that, from the outside, this looks like I've got quite an ego. ~ Kevin Spacey, #NFDB
301:Love starts when we push aside our ego and make room for someone else. ~ Rudolf Steiner, #NFDB
302:Our ego occupies so much space, there is little room for anything else. ~ Nilesh Rathod, #NFDB
303:Silence is the cross on which we must crucify our ego. ~ Saint Seraphim of Sarov, [T5], #NFDB
304:the truth gets buried deep beneath ego, greed, status, and stupidity. ~ Anthony William, #NFDB
305:A MAN’S ALTER EGO is nothing more than his favorite image of himself. ~ Frank W Abagnale, #NFDB
306:A man's alter ego is nothing more than his favorite image of himself. ~ Frank W Abagnale, #NFDB
307:Don’t train your ego. Train your muscles to perform the exercises correctly. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
308:Haec ego non multis, sed tibi: satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus. ~ Epicurus, #NFDB
309:More the knowledge lesser the Ego, lesser the knowledge, more the Ego. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
310:"The ego knows only its own contents, not the unconscious and its contents." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
311:The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
312:The thinker is the ego, which if sought will automatically vanish. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
313:Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
314:Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
315:You have to try to reply to criticism with your intellect, not your ego. ~ Mike Brearley, #NFDB
316:And that's when I realised that a mans' ego was like fruit; easily bruised. ~ Lauren Kate, #NFDB
317:Ego, being love's kryptonite; two souls must be on the same page of humility. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
318:It was pathetic, the raving accusations of an ego blind to its own lies. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
319:The ego always looks toward the next moment for some kind of fulfillment. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
320:The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
321:What the heart recognizes
as liberation,
the ego sees
as theft. ~ Ivan M Granger,#NFDB
322:What we call ourself is only the ego - our true self is the Divine.
~ The Mother, [T4],#NFDB
323:Any time there is a lot of money or ego involved, people tend to behave badly. ~ Brad Grey, #NFDB
324:Fabio kept asking me out, but I knew we'd never get his ego through the door. ~ Lorna Luft, #NFDB
325:Forget the dancer, the center of the ego; become the dance. That is meditation. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
326:Help me, I can’t breathe, your ego is pushing all the air out of the room. ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
327:If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that’s just more ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
328:It is far more common for people to allow ego to stand in the way of learning. ~ Ray Dalio, #NFDB
329:Love is a process in which ego is lost and infinity is experienced. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi, #NFDB
330:Nothing is more fragile than the ego of a healthy young white male in America. ~ T A Pratt, #NFDB
331:The ego is kind of a big, unwieldy thing. It's not so easily tamed or subdued. ~ Alan Ball, #NFDB
332:The ultimate aim of the ego is not to see something, but to be something. ~ Muhammad Iqbal, #NFDB
333:And that's when I realised that a mans' ego was like fruit; easily bruised... ~ Lauren Kate, #NFDB
334:Anger is the ego’s way of cloaking fear to make what is frail seem formidable. ~ Alan Cohen, #NFDB
335:Courage is the key to creativity and to any relinquishing of ego structure. ~ Timothy Leary, #NFDB
336:Ego is an especially sinister foe because it often comes disguised as justice. ~ Todd Henry, #NFDB
337:I am the leading strings of the ego and the prompter of its concepts. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
338:If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego. ~ David Brin, #NFDB
339:I just noticed a lack of ego in the room and thought ‘hey, where’s Braden? ~ Samantha Young, #NFDB
340:Nobody sees anybody truly, but all through the flaws of their own ego. ~ Tennessee Williams, #NFDB
341:Sexual self-restraint was only a preliminary stage in the ego's evolution. ~ Muhammad Iqbal, #NFDB
342:The contract like '91 Dan Marino. I swear this guy Michael Rapino's boostin my ego. ~ Drake, #NFDB
343:The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
344:The Ego is an exquisite instrument. Enjoy it, use it--just don't get lost in it. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
345:The ego seeks fame and fortune. Humility doesn't seek at all - it accepts. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
346:The ego seeks to divide and separate. Spirit seeks to unify and heal. ~ Gabrielle Bernstein, #NFDB
347:The personal ego must be suppressed and replaced with the 'universal ego.' ~ Walter Russell, #NFDB
348:The world class purposely ignores the small thinking, ego-based personality ~ Steve Siebold, #NFDB
349:Women are driven by fear or love while men are driven by their dick or ego. ~ Stu Schreiber, #NFDB
350:A selfie has nothing to do with ego. It is a constant search for perfection. ~ Chloe Thurlow, #NFDB
351:Constant prayer interrupts our ego trips and disrupts our toxic trajectories. ~ Jen Hatmaker, #NFDB
352:Goals must never be from your ego, but problems that cry for a solution. ~ Robert H Schuller, #NFDB
353:I think some people, when they get a certain ego, they lose sense of whatever. ~ Julie Delpy, #NFDB
354:Knowledge is power and mastery. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Ego and the Dualities, #NFDB
355:Let's face it; God has a big ego problem. Why do we always have to worship him? ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
356:Luckily, due to my own ego, probably, I'm always quicker to blame other people. ~ Seth Rogen, #NFDB
357:My ego is really good. I don't need to watch myself on TV, like some others. ~ Randy Jackson, #NFDB
358:The attainment of enlightenment from ego's point of view is extreme death. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
359:The ego's greatest enemy is the present moment, which is to say, life itself ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
360:Your worst enemy is hiding within yourself, and that enemy is your nafs or false ego. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
361:Complaining is one of the ego's favorite strategies for strengthening itself. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
362:Complaining is one of the ego’s favorite strategies for strengthening itself. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
363:Ego loves this notion, the idea that something is “fair” or not. Psychologists ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
364:Ego vos mergam, nec merger a vobis. I sink you, that I will not be sunk by you. ~ Stacia Kane, #NFDB
365:I am neither the mind, nor the intellect, nor the ego, nor the mind-stuff ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
366:I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
367:I keep on repeating, I'll say it for the last time-I'm not on some ego trip. ~ Robert Maxwell, #NFDB
368:The ego is terrified of the truth. And the truth is that the ego doesn't exist. ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
369:The hallucination of being a separate ego will not stand up to biological tests. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
370:There is deception. People who think they are enlightened and it's just ego. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
371:To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace brings only disturbance. ~ Anthony de Mello, #NFDB
372:When ego is lost, limit is lost. You become infinite, kind, beautiful. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi, #NFDB
373:A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
374:I don’t have enough yet,” by which the ego really means, “I am not enough yet. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
375:If someone corrects you, and you feel offended, then YOU have an EGO problem ~ Nouman Ali Khan, #NFDB
376:If you vanquish ego-clinging today, tonight you will be enlightened. ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, #NFDB
377:La misión de encontrar y destruir a nuestro propio ego nos acerca a la grandeza. ~ Yehuda Berg, #NFDB
378:The cause of misery is not in life without; it is within you as the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
379:The super-ego is that part of the personality which is soluble in alcohol
~ Arthur Koestler,#NFDB
380:To be able to do this job in the first place you've got to have a bit of an ego. ~ Gary Oldman, #NFDB
381:Wielding your words cavalierly can inadvertently lop off someone’s ego. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen, #NFDB
382:Women are wired to do more and different things because of their lack of ego ~ Nicolle Wallace, #NFDB
383:Anyone who says he knows God's intention is showing a lot of very human ego. ~ Michael Crichton, #NFDB
384:Ego is impurity. Be selfless. Consecrate and dedicate your life to perfection. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
385:Even though we want huge individual egos, our collective ego is unbelievable. ~ Mike Krzyzewski, #NFDB
386:If someone corrects you, and you feel offended, then you have an ego problem. ~ Nouman Ali Khan, #NFDB
387:Isn't the origin of conflict ego? If there is no ego there is no becoming. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
388:It has been proven that the universe is computationally equivalent to my ego. ~ Stephen Wolfram, #NFDB
389:Life sustains itself. Let go of the ego and life takes care of itself through you. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
390:The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of the ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
391:The ego constantly competes with the spirit for control over your inner voice. ~ Darren Johnson, #NFDB
392:there was nothing to deflate a man’s ego like a bit of frill around the collar. ~ Susan Dennard, #NFDB
393:The simplicity of meditation means just experiencing the ape instinct of ego. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
394:When we practice dying, we are learning to identify less with Ego and more with Soul ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
395:Beating drums while doing a kindness to someone is a very ugly show of ego! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
396:Because there is no ego, God can flow through you; great creativity becomes possible. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
397:Do not abandon trust when your ego thinks things should be different than they are. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
398:Ego is a social fiction for which one person at a time gets all the blame. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
399:I think it's pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego. ~ Lou Reed, #NFDB
400:Search the source of the ego and the Self is revealed. That alone remains. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
401:There must be a subject to know the good and evil. Thatsubject is the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
402:A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage point from which to view the world. ~ Aleister Crowley, #NFDB
403:Attachment is the root cause of all misery. Possessiveness is nourishment for the ego. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
404:Gently set all ego aside and be a channel for my thinking to come into the world. ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
405:Knowledge and ego are directly related. the less knowledge, the greater the ego ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
406:Liam’s own ego had killed him. He wanted to live forever, and he died young trying. ~ Lee Strauss, #NFDB
407:Love is a spiritual phenomenon; lust is physical. Ego is psychological; love is spiritual. ~ Osho, #NFDB
408:—Me abruma su amabilidad.
—Sí, lo sé. Sólo superada por el tamaño de mi... ego. ~ Linda Howard,#NFDB
409:Once ego and pride are on the line, you can’t change your mind without looking bad. ~ Jason Fried, #NFDB
410:She’d caught my ego midair and held it still so I could see it twitching in her palm. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
411:The ego is what drives a self-serving individual who hates to admit they are wrong. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
412:The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
413:Thus a decision taken to please the ego turns out to be dear in the long run. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
414:With the disappearance of God the Ego moves forward to become the sole divinity. ~ Dorothee Solle, #NFDB
415:A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage point from which to view the world. ~ Aleister Crowley, #NFDB
416:Have a healthy respect and love for yourself, but don't be taken out by your ego. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
417:How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
418:I'd learned the quickest way to a Spaniard's heart is by feeding their football ego ~ Karina Halle, #NFDB
419:It does no good to pray for guidance and help if we’re living an ego-centered life. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
420:Love liberates. It doesn't just hold - that's ego. Love liberates. It doesn't bind. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
421:Take no notice of the ego and its activities, but see only the light behind. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
422:The false ego is associated with objects; this ego itself is its own object. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
423:Nobody who's really using his ego, his real ego, has any time for any goddam hobbies ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
424:(Part of the power of the ego flows from its command of one’s rational faculties.) ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
425:Saepe tepent alii iuvenes: ego semper amavi,/ Et si, quid faciam, nunc quoque, quaeris, amo. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
426:Take no notice of the ego and its activities, but see only the light behind. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
427:"The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality." ~ Chögyam Trungpa, #NFDB
428:The sea is not aware of its wave. Similarly the Self is not aware of its ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
429:Well, if it comes down to it, you can just crush the bad guys with your enormous ego. ~ Jus Accardo, #NFDB
430:El ego es como un virus informático que ataca al centro del sistema operativo. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
431:I buy the odd book. There's a great book out at the moment called Ego Is the Enemy. ~ Natalie Dormer, #NFDB
432:if the man could hear anyone speak with that ego pressing against his eardrums. ~ Charlie N Holmberg, #NFDB
433:My ego has been trampled on more times than an old cigarette butt in the gutter ~ Virginie Despentes, #NFDB
434:Take no notice of the ego and its activities but see only the light behind it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
435:The primary reason we pay attention to dreams is that they do not arise from the ego. ~ James Hollis, #NFDB
436:The ultimate freedom from the nonexistent ego is to see that it is actually irrelevant. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
437:The Universe knows what it's doing. So don't develop a big ego, and don't be afraid. ~ Benjamin Hoff, #NFDB
438:To do something really big, let go of your ego, and get ready to be part of a team. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
439:"To the extent that the #ego consciously embraces death, it constellates life in depth." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
440:Until you transcend the ego, you can do nothing but add to the insanity of the world. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
441:When a guy has his ego hurt, he's liable to jump into a fight he doesn't need to have. ~ Roger Ailes, #NFDB
442:Whenever the world throws rose petals at you, which thrill and seduce the ego, beware. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
443:Ego is like that caterpillar which leaves its hold only after catching another. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
444:Ego must wear itself out like an old shoe, journeying from suffering to liberation. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
445:Even if you win in ego it is a loss. Even if you lose in love it is a victory. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
446:If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
447:If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
448:I love performing. There is an ego in me that loves to be in front of people. ~ James Monroe Iglehart, #NFDB
449:Love is the language of the soul when it is not colored by emotion, ego, or attachment. ~ Alan Finger, #NFDB
450:The ego needs all the help it can get. We can all benefit from getting over ourselves. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
451:The ego urges you to accomplish, while the soul merely asks you to enjoy the process. ~ Doreen Virtue, #NFDB
452:When you accept everything for what it is without labels you are outside of your ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
453:Why get killed when you can run ... your ego will heal much faster than a broken jaw. ~ Richard Pryor, #NFDB
454:Ego is the principal knot. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of the Mental Being, #NFDB
455:In the divine consciousness there is no ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
456:Its better to lose your ego to the One you Love than to lose the One you Love to your Ego ~ John Keats, #NFDB
457:lo que atrae al ego no ayuda a tu crecimiento espiritual. Con estas técnicas tan simples puedes ~ Osho, #NFDB
458:Sum omnia quae fuerunt suntque eruntque ego. “I am all that has been, is and will be. ~ Graeme Simsion, #NFDB
459:That which rises and sets is the ego; that which remains changeless is the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
460:The big realization when we go beyond the ego is simply seeing that we've always been ok. ~ Loch Kelly, #NFDB
461:Tunc amo, tunc odi frustra, quod amare necesse est;
tunc ego, sed tecum, mortuus esse uelim. ~ Ovid,#NFDB
462:When in a relationship, never let your ego write a check that only a single man can cash. ~ Amari Soul, #NFDB
463:Because suffering was a part of life, and without it you grew prideful and full of ego. ~ Shannon Mayer, #NFDB
464:I'm a straight shooter, and most of the time my ego doesn't interrupt my relationships. ~ Gabriel Macht, #NFDB
465:I think everyone is a little egocentric, but when I help someone I lose 0.01% of my ego. ~ Adriana Lima, #NFDB
466:I - Want - Peace, I is ego, Want is desire; Remove ego and desire and you have peace. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
467:"Most people confuse 'self-knowledge' with knowledge of their conscious ego personalities." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
468:One always treads with a joyful step when one has dropped the burden called the ego. ~ Anthony de Mello, #NFDB
469:Pride can be friend, ego can be foe...depending on which one we choose, or not, to conquer. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
470:The inner silence is self-surrender. And that is living without the sense of ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
471:the natural condition of the human ego: that it is empty, painful, busy and fragile. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
472:The Saint is a man who disciplines his ego. The Sage is a man who rids himself of his ego. ~ Wei Wu Wei, #NFDB
473:The true measure of a man is the degree to which he has managed to subjugate his ego. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
474:When you look in the mirror and cringe as a result of how people think of you, it is ego. ~ Laura Bates, #NFDB
475:You're not very good for my ego".
"I think I'm perfect for your ego." I smile sweetly. ~ Kasie West,#NFDB
476:As if your ego needs any more stroking. If it took form right now it’d be a giant hard on. ~ Amy Andrews, #NFDB
477:Ego takes everything personally. Emotion arises, defensiveness, perhaps even aggression. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
478:Even I got turned down by girls, and when it happened, I dusted off my ego and moved on. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
479:It is on the blindness of ignorance that is founded the working which affirms the ego. ~ Sanyutta Nikaya, #NFDB
480:It was beyond embarrassing or humiliating or even mortifying. It was ego-slaying! ~ Wendelin Van Draanen, #NFDB
481:I wish I could escape into some alter-ego, just so I could feel more comfortable onstage. ~ Lana Del Rey, #NFDB
482:Joy is all there is. The rest is a preoccupation of the ego, unworthy of your holy mind. ~ Doreen Virtue, #NFDB
483:My ego doesn't need soothing. I don't want him soothing anything of mine, including you. ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
484:So many of us have separated ourselves from our source and have lived on ego consciousness. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
485:To walk around with an ego is a bad thing. To have confidence in yourself is a great thing. ~ Fred Durst, #NFDB
486:"We understand the ego as the complex factor to which all con- scious contents are related." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
487:Before we can be grafted into Him, we must be stripped of our self-sufficiency and ego. ~ Hannah Anderson, #NFDB
488:Ego got you thinkin' you're workin' somebody to your advantage; you're just playin' yourself. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
489:El ego es lo que impulsa a los individuos egoístas que odian admitir que están equivocados. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
490:I couldn’t wait to see Phaelan. I’d know instantly if she’d dropped anchor on his ego. * ~ Lisa Shearin, #NFDB
491:If we try to change our ego with the help of our ego, we only have a better-disguised ego! ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
492:If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
493:I swear to you, by my own stunning good looks and towering ego, that I am not lying to you. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
494:Remember, frustration is out of expectation, and ego is always expecting. The ego is a beggar. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
495:The ego doesn't know that the source of all energy is within you, so it seeks it outside. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
496:The ego says, I shouldn't have to suffer, and that thought makes you suffer so much more. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
497:There should be no big I, not even a small one. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
498:With competition there is always ego and hubris... competition gets in the way of work. ~ Patrick Dempsey, #NFDB
499:Always keep your ego in check and not be afraid to listen. Listening is a great art form. ~ Clint Eastwood, #NFDB
500:I find that the sensation of myself as an ego inside a bag of skin is really a hallucination. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
501:If you’re not still learning, you’re already dying." Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy, pg 104 ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
502:I'm supposed to quote myself? Seriously? I know I'm a clever wench, but modesty muffles my ego. ~ K Z Snow, #NFDB
503:One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
504:Overconfidence comes from fear and doubt, and you boast an ego when you're feeling less than. ~ Nikki Sixx, #NFDB
505:The warrior guided by the spirit serves humanity, the warrior without, serves the ego ~ Soke Behzad Ahmadi, #NFDB
506:You always have to measure your desires and goals against your ego and your humility. ~ Sebastian Copeland, #NFDB
507:Cuanto más duro se siente obligado a ser un hombre, más debilitado queda su ego. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
508:Ego bir trampettir ve trampet orada olduğunu herkese söylemek için gürültü yapmalıdır! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
509:Ego is a drum and the drum has to make a noise to tell everyone that that it is there! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
510:Ego is the reason of the difficulty in everybody. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
511:Even if your Ego Doesn't Grasp it, this is the Truth: Everything is on Time Under Heaven's Net ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
512:God, give me a good humiliation every day. It's good for the soul and it's good for the ego. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
513:if we begin to lessen ego-dominated thinking, sooner or later the world will get the message ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
514:I think that ego-driven leaders will be a thing of the past because the masses are tired. ~ Louis Farrakhan, #NFDB
515:Man is busy desiring to find something which only he can do so that his ego acquires importance. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
516:Something about providing her with food and warmth soothed whatever masculine ego I possessed ~ Celia Aaron, #NFDB
517:Strength your Soul against the stalk of the Ego, make it worth of the name of Diamond Soul. ~ H P Blavatsky, #NFDB
518:"The ego doesn't know that the source of all energy is within you, so it seeks it outside." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
519:The ego is always looking to find something. The Spirit can see what's already there. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
520:All ego gone, living as That alone is penance good for growth, sings Ramana, the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
521:Attachment is the shadow of the ego. Attachments are immediately created wherever you see 'I am'. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
522:Busted. I'm a monster. Jev is my deceptively harmless-and shockingly handsome-alter ego. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
523:Ego=1/Knowledge
" More the knowledge lesser the ego, lesser the knowledge more the ego. ~ Albert Einstein,#NFDB
524:Even trivial events demonstrate strong devotion to the Universe and small concern for ego. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
525:I find that the sensation of myself as an ego inside a bag of skin is really a hallucination. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
526:If the ego rises, all else will also rise; if it subsides, all else will also subside. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
527:Is the human condition not defined by an endless struggle to control the ego's subterfuges? ~ Romeo Dallaire, #NFDB
528:Is the human condition not defined by an endless struggle to control the ego's subterfuges? ~ Rom o Dallaire, #NFDB
529:It is possible to transcend the usual limitations of the body, ego, space, and linear time. ~ Stanislav Grof, #NFDB
530:Meditation... dissolves the mind. It erases itself. Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
531:One advertisement proclaims, A flat stomach is beautiful! For me, a flat ego is beautiful. ~ Eknath Easwaran, #NFDB
532:our ego is not God. In fact, it is often wrong, because it is fallen, foolish, and faithless. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
533:Resolution is struggle. Resolution is ego. Resolution is saying, "I cannot live spontaneously. ". ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
534:Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
535:The real war is not without, but within: between ego-based fear and spirit-based love. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
536:To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
537:Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, your worst enemy already lives inside you: your ego. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
538:Ego is the complete identification with form. Physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
539:Fear is only my ego's deluded perception that it is possible to experience a lack of love in my life. ~ Bijan, #NFDB
540:Here is what I have learned: the conscious ego has one agenda and your body another. ~ Patricia Soledad Llosa, #NFDB
541:I love being under submission to my husband ... I believe in keeping the male ego intact. ~ Tammy Faye Bakker, #NFDB
542:In the Yoga of Love we see that matter and spirit are one. It's only the ego that separates. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
543:job titles are like honeypots to the ego: alluring and addictive, but ultimately unhealthy. ~ Frederic Laloux, #NFDB
544:The problem with social media is that it's great for your ego, but terrible for your sanity. ~ Andrena Sawyer, #NFDB
545:There is only one of the two that can reside in our hearts, GOD or ego. If GOD is in ego is out. ~ A R Rahman, #NFDB
546:Vos quod milia multa basiorum
Legistis, male me marem putatis?
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo. ~ Catullus,#NFDB
547:When you see the divinity in others, you are Divine. When you see ego in others, you are egoistic. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
548:Women in politics are more honest and forthright. We are not in it for the ego gratification. ~ Hanan Ashrawi, #NFDB
549:Anger, ego, jealousy are the biggest diseases,Keep yourself aloof from these three diseases. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
550:Ego is like a street urchin, born of fear and wanting and left to its own devices.... ~ Kathleen Dowling Singh, #NFDB
551:Our ignorance, and it is based on the egos we have. It is the unwillingness to go beyond ego. ~ Edgar Mitchell, #NFDB
552:So long as the ego is there, one cannot love.Love alone can love, Love alone can conquer the ego. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
553:The books are the books, and a lot of the stuff is some version of your id or your ego. ~ Brian Michael Bendis, #NFDB
554:"The #shadow is the hidden part of the #ego." ~ Murray Stein, Ph.D., Jungian analyst, Speaking of Jung, Ep. 53, #NFDB
555:"To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
556:Whatever the ego seeks and gets attached to are substitutes for the Being that it cannot feel. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
557:Accidents are just from where you're looking; to the ego, it looks like it's miracles and accidents. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
558:Ego sum Attila, flagellum Dei"
(Ben de Attila, Tanrı'nın kırbacı/I am Attila, the scourge of God) ~ John Man,#NFDB
559:Every problem had a solution; every dispute had a compromise; every ego had a way to be stroked. ~ Neil Strauss, #NFDB
560:I don't have an ego that makes me believe the world revolves around me. I am not self-absorbed. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
561:Jealousy is an evil which grows in the womb of ego and is nourished by selfishness and attachment. ~ Swami Rama, #NFDB
562:Love is happy when it is able to give something. The ego is happy when it is able to take something. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
563:So long as the cloud of ego hides the moon of jnana, the lily of the Self will not bloom. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
564:So long as the ego is there, one cannot love. Love alone can love, Love alone can conquer the ego. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
565:The clash is epic and internal, between the ego and the Self, and the stakes are our lives. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
566:"The ego is, by definition, subordinate to the self and is related to it like a part to the whole." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
567:Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
568:Ego was hurt, not love. Love is divine; it is everywhere, ever present and abundant and free. ~ Brendon Burchard, #NFDB
569:Guilt’s just your ego’s way of tricking you into thinking that you’re making moral progress. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
570:How we hate this solemn Ego that accompanies the learned, like a double, wherever he goes. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
571:I don't have that much of an ego where it's like "How dare you, you can't do something without me." ~ Billy West, #NFDB
572:One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
573:The goal of individuation is wholeness, as much as we can accomplish, not the triumph of the ego. ~ James Hollis, #NFDB
574:The illuminated life can happen now, in the moments left. Die to your ego, and become a True Human Being. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
575:The Socialmedialite was so much braver than Annie Catrel. I sorta had a girl-crush on my alter ego. ~ L H Cosway, #NFDB
576:True freedom means freeing oneself from the dictates of the ego and its accompanying emotions. ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
577:Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
578:In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
579:I've got no ego; I just like to have thousands of people write to me and tell me how wonderful I am. ~ Jim Beaver, #NFDB
580:Once there is realization of self challenge, ego versus soul, competition with others becomes futile. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
581:Para lograr algo grande de verdad, despójese de su ego, y prepárese a formar parte de un equipo. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
582:"Something in us wishes to remain a child, to be unconscious or, at most, conscious only of the ego." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
583:The ego is a false perception of self. It's an idea, a transitory identity that we've picked up. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
584:The mind turned inwards is the Self; turned outwards, it becomes the ego and all the world. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
585:The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody's ego, that's it, game over. ~ Gordon Ramsay, #NFDB
586:When our name is on a project, our ego pushes us over the hump and drives us to do even better work. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
587:Ego is nothing more than the beliefs, ideas, and images we have about ourselves—and so it is actually ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
588:"Experience shows that [the ego] rests on two seemingly different bases: the somatic and the psychic." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
589:If the ego is present, all else will also exist. If it is absent, all else will also vanish. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
590:Mirrors did not lie. They could boost an ego, but they could just as easily be cruel and punishing. ~ Belle Aurora, #NFDB
591:Only a self-obsessed ego can be wounded. Action itself can't be wounded. Spirit can't be wounded. ~ Steve Chandler, #NFDB
592:The ego could be defined simply in this way: a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
593:The logic of the ego is that if you try to do the difficult, only then are you proving the ego’s existence. ~ Osho, #NFDB
594:This is God's universe, buddy, not yours, and he has the final say about what's ego and what isn't. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
595:When we practice dying, we are learning to identify less with Ego and more with Soul. —RAM DASS ~ Elizabeth Lesser, #NFDB
596:When you let go of your ego and the ego’s desires, you allow something better to guide you: the Divine ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
597:Yüksek ego kendini evrenin kralı gibi görmeni sağlar, hâlbuki gerçekte hiçbir şeyin kralısın! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
598:A little humiliation and ego deflation, now and then, is good for apprentices. Mine sighed miserably. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
599:At the end of the day if you want to entertain people, you've got to take your ego out of the equation. ~ Paul Feig, #NFDB
600:I am willing to salaam anyone. One thing you won't find in me and that is ego. - Dhirubhai Ambani ~ Hamish McDonald, #NFDB
601:In advanced meditation you become light. You transcend self, ego, time, space, and dimensionality. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
602:In other words, the content of the ego may change; the mind structure that keeps it alive does not. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
603:Is your ego small enough, and your backbone strong enough, to raise others up high on your shoulders? ~ Bear Grylls, #NFDB
604:Living in this world, under the dominance of the ego mind, is difficult. That's the struggle. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
605:Nothing burns in hell but ego" says Tauler. Does anything live but Buddha Nature, Christ Spirit? ~ Frederick Franck, #NFDB
606:O ego vai-se arrepiando num pontinho e deixando espaço para que as coisas possam existir à sua volta. ~ Afonso Cruz, #NFDB
607:Our practice rather than being about killing the ego is about simply discovering our true nature. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
608:Sitting with the poor and less fortunate people removes the ego and pride from your heart. ~ Ibn Qayyim Al Jawziyya, #NFDB
609:The Absolute Consciousness projects light, manifests as the ego and grows up as the universe. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
610:The Self wishes to create, to evolve. The Ego likes things just the way they are. —Steven Pressfield ~ David Kadavy, #NFDB
611:And the ego’s greatest enemy of all is, of course, the present moment, which is to say, life itself. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
612:Attention equals importance equals value equals ego. Or, more realistically, Attention equals success. ~ Cris Mazza, #NFDB
613:Being efficient is the easy part. Suppressing one's ego completely for hours at a time is really hard. ~ Colin Clark, #NFDB
614:...but with my clamoring ego solidly in place, I considered the title, 'Memories of a Failed Nobody'. ~ Huston Smith, #NFDB
615:Ego problems are endemic in every walk of life, but in the movie business egomaniacs are megalomaniacs. ~ Lynda Obst, #NFDB
616:finding their alter ego in each other — rebellious and isolated, strong and erotic and gifted. ~ Linda Wagner Martin, #NFDB
617:I know what Twitter is; I don't use it. I don't use Facebook, so luckily, it does zero to my ego. ~ Richard Armitage, #NFDB
618:In this situation, the perception of reality is unitary, without ego and with a lack of any duality. ~ David Wilcock, #NFDB
619:Is it not a wonder of wonders? The quest “Who am I?” is the axe with which to cut off the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
620:I've never met anyone who sleeps with so many pillows. Maybe he needs them to cradle his massive ego. ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
621:Look, his ego is inflated; B he is without integrity. But the righteous one will live by his faith. C, f ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
622:Seeking the ego, ego disappears. What is left over is the Self. This method is the direct one. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
623:"The ego could be defined simply in this way: a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
624:The ego thrives on drama. It keeps our old resentments and grievances alive through compulsive thought. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
625:The Jiva is a spirit and self, superior to Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #NFDB
626:The traits in career politicians the public detests most are produced when ego triumphs over principle. ~ Tom Coburn, #NFDB
627:The whole business is built on ego,vanity,self-satisfaction , and its total crap to pretend its not ~ George Michael, #NFDB
628:The world is a demon. It is a kingdom of which the puny ego is king. Put it away and stand firm. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
629:We can’t keep learning if we think we already know everything.” Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy, pg 99 ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
630:We've gotten lost in our Ego and have forgotten that our Soul's only motive is to merge with the Beloved. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
631:When our pride usurps Truth, we walk on the shifting sands of relativism, an ego driven reality. ~ Alisa Hope Wagner, #NFDB
632:You can be in a crowd full of friends and be miserable because you're alienated. The ego alienates. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
633:As the ego does not represent the whole psyche, so the Western mind cannot speak for the whole world. ~ James Hillman, #NFDB
634:Complexity serves nothing but our ego. Be able to say what you do in a way that people can understand. ~ Chris Brogan, #NFDB
635:For the ego to survive, it must make time - past and future - more important than the present moment. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
636:I basically look at PR as something you do if there's an object in mind. But my ego doesn't need it. ~ Nolan Bushnell, #NFDB
637:My cat mocks me frequently. It's the universe's way of keeping me from getting too big of an ego. ~ Michelle M Pillow, #NFDB
638:People say "I want peace." If you remove I (ego), and your want (desire), you are left with peace. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
639:The ego is the separate self through which the universal self can experience the adventure of living. ~ Timothy Freke, #NFDB
640:The ego represents what we call reason and sanity, in contrast to the id which contains the passions. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
641:The most important thing is to be proud of the work that you put into something, and put the ego aside. ~ Alicia Keys, #NFDB
642:The sinner's ego is crude that of the saint refined, distilled. Careful! It may be more poisonous! ~ Frederick Franck, #NFDB
643:". . . Which opens to that primeval cosmic night . . . far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
644:A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
645:A touch less ego and dash more humility will improve the quality of anything you turn your hand to. ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru, #NFDB
646:Comparison with others brings in a wrong standard of values. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
647:Don’t let ego get in the way of a good decision.” “You just trashed every general in our nation’s history. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
648:Ego is constantly attempting to acquire and apply the teachings of spirituality for its own benefit. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
649:In the world of matter nothing succeeds like the ego, in the world of consciousness nothing fails like the ego. ~ Osho, #NFDB
650:Mental face palm. Suddenly I wasn't sure there was enough room on the campus for both me and his ego. ~ Gemma Halliday, #NFDB
651:Negative states of mind, such as anger, resentment, fear, envy, and jealousy, are products of the ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
652:Pride is only one form of ego—there are ten thousand others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
653:The best didactic for the elimination of the Ego it is found in the everyday life intensively lived. ~ Samael Aun Weor, #NFDB
654:The male ego is a curious thing. It’s about the size of a small continent but it’s extremely brittle. ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB
655:This ego - the less there is of it, the nearer I am to that which I really am: the universal body. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
656:we first develop the Ego, then encounter the Soul, and finally give birth to a unique sense of Self. ~ Carol S Pearson, #NFDB
657:We live in a calculative world and have a calculative mind, and in such a world, ego dominates. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi, #NFDB
658:Angelo skittered off with his tail between his legs. Marcus would have to watch that. Angelo had a big ego ~ Lee Savino, #NFDB
659:Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self. ~ W H Auden, #NFDB
660:Everybody in the world has an ego. The only difference between us is we have a reason to have an ego. ~ Charles Barkley, #NFDB
661:Fine, then, stay here and keep our seats warm while your ass expands to the size of your ego. (Todd) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
662:Human love is mostly selfishness; all the time it thinks only of the little 'i'. That 'i' is the ego. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
663:I guess it has to be healthy, you have to be honest with yourself and I think that's when ego is okay. ~ Sophia Amoruso, #NFDB
664:I have an ego like anybody else, but I don't need to be stoked by going before the public all the time. ~ Johnny Carson, #NFDB
665:Meditation doesn’t lead to enlightenment because in meditation the ego is trying to destroy the ego. ~ Donald O Donovan, #NFDB
666:Of course, you didn't want our help. Now I have to go beat up some soldier just to keep my ego intact. ~ Maria V Snyder, #NFDB
667:Only the ego resists egos. The spirit may notice egos, but sees beyond them and does not engage with them. ~ Alan Cohen, #NFDB
668:Sleep just gives the ego a little time out. It has to stay strong in order to be something that it isn't. ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
669:Some days you feel like you've had the greatest ego massage, then the next day you've been trampled on. ~ Judy Woodruff, #NFDB
670:The affluent world is even more deeply identified with form, more lost in content, more trapped in ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
671:To be free from bondage the wise person must practise discrimination between One-Self and the ego-self. ~ Adi Shankara, #NFDB
672:Today, conducting is a question of ego: a lot of people believe they are actually playing the music. ~ Daniel Barenboim, #NFDB
673:Today, take a break from your ego and don't take yourself too seriously. Enjoy your Spirit and laugh! ~ Sonia Choquette, #NFDB
674:Tunnel vision is caused by an optic fungus that multiplies when the brain is less energetic than the ego. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
675:Whoever does not detach himself from the ego never attains the Absolute and never deciphers life. ~ Constantin Brancusi, #NFDB
676:Bree is no imaginary playmate, no overactive pituitary, no alter ego, moving in. Hers is the face I wear ~ Ellen Hopkins, #NFDB
677:Ego can’t sleep. It micro-manages. It disempowers. It reduces our capability. It excels in control. ~ Robert K Greenleaf, #NFDB
678:"Ego is constantly attempting to acquire and apply the teachings of spirituality for its own benefit." ~ Chögyam Trungpa, #NFDB
679:In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
680:Lots of medical, scientific, technological advances come through little bits of craziness, a lot of ego.” “Or ~ J D Robb, #NFDB
681:Many could forgo heavy meals, a full wardrobe, a fine house, etcetera. It is the ego they cannot forgo. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
682:[President Truman] was free of the greatest vice in a leader, his ego never came between him and his job. ~ Dean Acheson, #NFDB
683:The ego-drama is nothing compared with the theo-drama. The fun begins when we let God write our stories. ~ Robert Barron, #NFDB
684:The ego is willing but the machine cannot go on. It's the last thing a man will admit, that his mind ages. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
685:The shadow is not the whole . . . it represents unknown or little-known attributes of the ego. P. 174 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
686:As a general rule . . . the need for hero symbols arises when the ego needs strengthening . . . p. 114 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
687:Pride and ego makes a mockery of an apology. Humility wins forgiveness without question...so break 'yo'self'! ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
688:The mind and the vital are much more full of ego than the body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
689:To give up the world is to forget the ego, to know it not at all - living in the body, but not of it. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
690:I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language. ~ W H Auden, #NFDB
691:if due to ego you think:i shall not fight;
this resolve of yours is vain. your own nature will compel you. ~ Anonymous,#NFDB
692:It's very clearly stated in the film: You make your own choices, and what you're always fighting is ego. ~ Taylor Hackford, #NFDB
693:Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts. ~ Clare Boothe Luce, #NFDB
694:Self-realization: No ego, no desires, no weight problems, no tax forms, no death to die, no life to live. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
695:Songs can be Trojan horses, taking charged ideas and sneaking past the ego's defenses and into the open mind. ~ John Mayer, #NFDB
696:"The dream opens up to that primeval cosmic night that was the soul, long before there was the conscious ego." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
697:Whenever ego suffers from fear of death & your practice turns to seeing impermanence, ego settles down. ~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche, #NFDB
698:You are either in this world or the other worlds, and it all depends on how much you are in your own ego. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
699:Your ego interferes, your sense of self. When you let go of the mind, the Frisbee will take its own path. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
700:Your ego is just an idea implanted in your mind. It is poisonous. Your ego keeps driving you madder and madder. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
701:A healthy strong ego, with plenty of self-esteem, does not feel itself threatened by every innocent remark. ~ Maxwell Maltz, #NFDB
702:"Despite the unlimited extent of its bases, the ego is never moreand never less than consciousness as a whole." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
703:Give the act to me.
Purged of hope and ego,
Fix your attention on the soul.
Act and do for me. ~ Steven Pressfield,#NFDB
704:If you have a big ego put it to wide and wise use so that it benefits and enriches everyone not just you ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru, #NFDB
705:Jealousy is only hurt ego. Revenge is meaningless. Life is abstract. There is no point other than pleasure. ~ Chloe Thurlow, #NFDB
706:People romanticize, I think, this notion of life. But life at all costs is not life, it's ego-extension. ~ Emily Susan Rapp, #NFDB
707:The first step in wisdom, as well as in morality, is to open the windows of the ego as wide as possible. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
708:The reference to himself in the third person is indicative of the state of de Valera’s ego at this period. ~ Tim Pat Coogan, #NFDB
709:You can easily recognize that something is coming from Ego because when you get it, it doesn't satisfy you. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
710:You can never really know what a guru is as long as you are imprisoned by your own thoughts and circular ego. ~ Krishna Das, #NFDB
711:anything that crosses swords with our entitled ego is a powerful source of transformation and inner evolution. ~ David Richo, #NFDB
712:As was often the case with the ego’s script, the plot added up to “damned if you do and damned if you don’t. ~ Gary R Renard, #NFDB
713:But once the ego is born into this world, it has to shoulder morality. You would do well to remember that. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
714:I teach that we must go beyond pure ego-consciousness and move to a new manifestation of energy karma force. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
715:Its beautiful when we express our emotions with words, and art. Rather than allowing our ego to destroy it. ~ Zachary Koukol, #NFDB
716:I want to be respected as an actor. There's my ego. But I don't have a great need to be liked by an audience. ~ Eddie Marsan, #NFDB
717:Kill the cow of your ego as quickly as you can, so that your inner spirit can come to life and attain true awareness. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
718:The ego does not, cannot live in the present, because the present is real and the ego is false - they never meet. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
719:The only part of a man more sensitive than the aforementioned testicles was the male ego—like a Georgia peach. ~ Jewel E Ann, #NFDB
720:There is another kind of wisdom, the wisdom of following - the wisdom of not taking the lead with your ego. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
721:When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I'll have no ego to injure. ~ Aaron McGruder, #NFDB
722:Woman is soulless and possesses neither ego nor individuality, personality nor freedom, character nor will. ~ Otto Weininger, #NFDB
723:All that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it, since awareness and ego are incompatible ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
724:"As long as the ego runs your life, most of your thoughts, emotions, and actions arise from desire and fear." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
725:Because we exist, the ego appears to exist too. If we look on the Self as the ego, then we are the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
726:Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment. It is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
727:I am an ant in the battlefield of the gods. There's no room for pride or ego, and barely enough room for survival. ~ Susan Ee, #NFDB
728:It takes a lot more than washboard abs and a giant . . .” Crap. Something else.... Ego. To get my attention ~ Nicole Williams, #NFDB
729:I've never once in my life known a person who was successful who didn't have a big ego. Ego's not a bad thing. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
730:Once writing becomes an act of listening instead of an act of speech, a great deal of the ego goes out of it. ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
731:Self-surrender is the same as Self-knowledge. The ego submits only when it recognizes the Higher Power. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
732:Struggle or stress is a sign that the ego has returned, as are negative reactions when we encounter obstacles ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
733:The best came from my martial arts teacher, who also taught Elvis. He said, Your ego will get you killed. ~ William Sanderson, #NFDB
734:The bump of ego on his skull had swollen large, so he saw the whole world in terms of what it could give him. ~ Frederik Pohl, #NFDB
735:The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
736:What has interposed between Bliss and non-bliss? It is the ego. Seek its source and find you are Bliss. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
737:" . . . which opens up to that primeval cosmic night that was the soul, long before there was the conscious ego." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
738:A neurosis is truly removed only when it has removed the false attitude of the ego. We do not cure it—it cures us. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
739:Even labeling the tea party and left and right its dangerous, because it's - it's another ego separation tool. ~ Doreen Virtue, #NFDB
740:High ego makes you think that you are the king of the universe while you are in fact the king of nothing! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
741:Listening to your ego brings your vibration down; listening to your higher self brings your vibration up. ~ Caroline A Shearer, #NFDB
742:The ego relies on the familiar. It is reluctant to experience the unknown, which is they very essence of life. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
743:The guiding hints or impulses come, not from the ego, but from the totality of the psyche: the Self. P. 167 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
744:The whole school would think I wanted to date him, his ego would inflate and probably explode, killing us all. ~ Felicia Tatum, #NFDB
745:To leave a man's ego bigger, retweet him. To leave his faculty of reasoning better, challenge his tweet. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
746:We are not just a skin-encapsulated ego, a soul encased in flesh. We are each other and we are the world. ~ Charles Eisenstein, #NFDB
747:Whenever ego suffers from fear of death & your practice turns to seeing impermanence, ego settles down. ~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche, #NFDB
748:A neurosis is truly removed only when it has removed the false attitude of the ego. We do not cure it—it cures us. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
749:An integral knowledge is the aim of the conscious evolution. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Memory, Ego and Self-Experience, #NFDB
750:Brunette is who I am obviously, it's my core. Blonde Kim is this alter ego; she has a vibe to her that I love. ~ Kim Kardashian, #NFDB
751:Ce sont donc les gens dotés d’un ego surdimensionné et qui se sentent vulnérables qui sont les plus dangereux ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
752:Ego is more than just off-putting and obnoxious. Instead, it’s the sworn enemy of our ability to learn and grow. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
753:Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego. ~ John Cheever, #NFDB
754:If you cannot put the ego on the side you cannot succeed in love, period. Therefore love must defeat it. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi, #NFDB
755:Midlife is the time to let go of an overdominant ego and to contemplate the deeper significance of human existence. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
756:The biggest ego trip is getting rid of your ego, and of course the joke of it all is that your ego does not exist. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
757:The ego is only a bit of consciousness swimming upon the ocean of dark things. We are an enigma unto ourselves. ~ Brian Herbert, #NFDB
758:"The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
759:The objective of spiritual advancement is not so much 'works' but the quality of life free from ego-consciousness. ~ Meher Baba, #NFDB
760:"The person next to me meditates better than I do. They're purer." - This is the ego feeling sorry for itself. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
761:There's a world of difference between a strong ego, which is essential, and a large ego-which can be destructive. ~ Lee Iacocca, #NFDB
762:This is an ego-free bathroom."
"Then what the fuck are you doing here?" I ask her with a tilt of my head. ~ Krista Ritchie,#NFDB
763:When movement becomes ecstatic, then this is dance. When the movement is so total there is no ego, then it is dance. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
764:When naked of ego and mind it hears the Voice
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind, [T5],#NFDB
765:All ego really is, is our opinions, which we take to be solid, real, and the absolute truth about how things are. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
766:Am I an ego on legs? No I am not. Do I want to be seen out there all the time saying everything? No, I don't. ~ Catherine Ashton, #NFDB
767:Bless people when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing by helping to stamp out the false ego. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
768:It is important to see that the main point of any spiritual practice is to step out of the bureaucracy of ego. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
769:Practice radical humility when it comes to your own accomplishments, and give credit everywhere except to your ego. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
770:She has a high opinion of herself,” Andrea said. “Oh yes. When she gets into a car, her ego has to ride shotgun. ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
771:The ego-belittling truth the Internet makes visible is that none of us is as unique as we’d like to believe. ~ Peter H Diamandis, #NFDB
772:The mind is a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts arise because there is the thinker. The thinker is the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
773:The stench of the trail of Ego in our History. It is ego - ego, the fountain cry, origin, sole source of war. ~ George Meredith, #NFDB
774:The voice I had accepted as Divine Guidance was actually the voice of my ego leading me right into destruction. ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
775:This is a sport where you get your ego checked on a regular basis, whether it's in the cage or it's at practice. ~ Carlos Condit, #NFDB
776:We must fill our minds with a truth loud enough to drown our the incessant defeatist voice of the negative ego. ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
777:When ego trumps fidelity, the end result is inevitably betrayal—betrayal of country, of kith or kin, or of self. ~ Brian Andrews, #NFDB
778:Your ego is a scary beast. It should have its own name. We could call it something frightening like Darth Yummy. ~ Nichole Chase, #NFDB
779:You want to be free as the ego, but you need to be free FROM the ego. To be free from it is to understand its unreality. ~ Mooji, #NFDB
780:Hey, you created me! I didn't create some loser alter-ego to make myself feel better. Take some responsibility! ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
781:I had this alter ego where I would go to the theater with mom. I wasn't embarrassed by it; it was separate for me. ~ Jai Courtney, #NFDB
782:"Midlife is the time to let go of an overdominant ego and to contemplate the deeper significance of human existence." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
783:Only the truly enlightened know the world as it truly is; the rest construct a reality that comforts the ego. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
784:The cosmic mind being not limited by the ego, has nothing separate from itself and is therefore only aware. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
785:To the ego mind, surrender means giving up. To the spiritual mind, surrender means giving in and receiving. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
786:"All ego really is, is our opinions, which we take to be solid, real, and the absolute truth about how things are." ~ Pema Chödrön, #NFDB
787:Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor illis.
(In this place I am a barbarian, because men do not understand me.) ~ Ovid,#NFDB
788:Do you ever lose the ego?” Westford asks me.
“Yeah.” When his daughter kisses me, my ego flies out the window. ~ Simone Elkeles,#NFDB
789:Happiness is within everyone, but we are not able to experience it because of our ego's likes and dislikes. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi, #NFDB
790:Her ego and id had fully lost the battle with her superego, and this was the only way they could be expressed. ~ Tom Butler Bowdon, #NFDB
791:I feel like with music there's so much ego rooted in expressing your thoughts and your experiences with it. ~ Maynard James Keenan, #NFDB
792:"In so far as this comprises the empirical personality, the ego is the subject of all personal acts of consciousness." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
793:The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
794:The ego's phenomenal existence is transcended when you dive into the source from where the `I'-thought rises ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
795:These are planes of consciousness, and I think human beings exist on two planes of consciousness, the soul and the ego. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
796:The world of sight is still limitless. It is the artist who limits vision to the cramped dimensions of his own ego. ~ Marya Mannes, #NFDB
797:this ego-centrism is our rock of safety against the cosmic and the infinite, our defense.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 241,#NFDB
798:Through surrender the aspirant's ego is effaced, and . . . grace . . . pours down upon him like a torrential rain. ~ B K S Iyengar, #NFDB
799:You bruised my ego, you see, and there’s just not enough money in the world to soothe my ego when it gets bruised ~ Jennifer Estep, #NFDB
800:All that we internally are is not ego, but consciousness, soul or spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, #NFDB
801:....as the process of individuation unfolds, the ego's former drive toward perfection simultaneously disintegrates. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
802:Attempting to destroy something out of hate or ego often ensures that it will be preserved and disseminated forever. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
803:Consider intentions carefully. Karma gives a damn about ego, awards allegiance to none, and its justice is truly blind. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
804:I don't do anything to try to change people's perceptions of me. I tend to think that's sort of an ego driven thing. ~ Steve Carell, #NFDB
805:In the East, all the religions preach egolessness. So in the East, everybody is against the ego from the very beginning. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
806:Remove the Ego and Avidya (Ignorance) is gone. Look for it, the ego vanishes and the real Self alone remains. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
807:Sometimes in a marriage, it is easier to just buy peace and pay the price of swallowing your ego and keeping quiet. ~ Preeti Shenoy, #NFDB
808:Suppression of the feminine principal has enabled The Ego to gain absolute supremacy in the collective human psyche ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
809:The ego prevents us from helping ourselves by presenting a false notion of what it really means to help ourselves. ~ Gelek Rimpoche, #NFDB
810:Whenever you employ your ego to identify yourself as the doer of an action, that action becomes a karma for you. ~ Robert E Svoboda, #NFDB
811:You know, it's a wonder I managed to squeeze into the room what with your giant-assed ego taking up all the space. ~ Samantha Young, #NFDB
812:Be what you are. All that is needful is to lose the ego, That what is, is always there. Even now you are That. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
813:Canadians are the people who learned to live without the bold accents of the natural ego-trippers of other lands. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
814:El ego se disipa y desaparece cuando lo entregamos a las manos de Dios. Son heridas, no maldad, lo que tenemos ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
815:I almost always urge people to write in the first person. Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. ~ William Zinsser, #NFDB
816:I complimented him on his can-do ability to be in charge, because that kind of thing worked wonders on a man’s ego. ~ Robert J Crane, #NFDB
817:If I paid too much attention to naysayers or let encouragers bloat my ego, I’d lose focus on what mattered: the company. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
818:If we want to awaken, we don't need to eradicate the ego, we simply need to be conscious of the deeper self as well. ~ Timothy Freke, #NFDB
819:Stranahan told her not to mistake arrogance for pride. "A guy like Chaz can revive his ego with the palm of his hand. ~ Carl Hiaasen, #NFDB
820:The ego hurts you like this: you become obsessed with the one person who does not love you. blind to the rest who do. ~ Warsan Shire, #NFDB
821:The Self is the pure Reality in whose light the ego shines. Stilling all thoughts, pure Consciousness remains. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
822:Whenever the cloud of ego threatens to engulf me, I remind myself of my roots. It helps keeping my feet on the ground. ~ Faraaz Kazi, #NFDB
823:I felt a comedy ego beginning to grow, which gave me the courage to begin tentatively looking into myself for material. ~ Joan Rivers, #NFDB
824:If you could press a button and your ego investment was less, the toothache would be less. Or less tragic at least. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
825:I try to find myself in things but never quite make it and end up losing myself in them. That is the fate of the ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
826:Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do. ~ Walter Bagehot, #NFDB
827:Misery nourishes your ego - that's why you see so many miserable people in the world. The basic, central point is the ego. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
828:Only the truly enlightened know the world as it truly is; the rest construct a reality that comforts the ego. The ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
829:Only when there is undiluted compassion for everyone, even our worst enemies, is ego truly conquered. Realization ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
830:Pure love makes you feel as light as a flower. You won't feel any heaviness or burden. Ego creates the burden. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi, #NFDB
831:The ego is exploitation; love is service. And the service that flows from love, freely and spontaneously, is non-violence. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
832:The ego is the barrier: the more you are, the less divine can be; the less you are, the more available you are for the divine. ~ Osho, #NFDB
833:The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
834:Trace the source of the ego. Then the ego is lost and Bliss remains. It is eternal. You are That, here and now. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
835:When one pays attention to the unconscious, the unconscious is likely to show some kindness to the ego that does so. ~ Edward Edinger, #NFDB
836:You could say that failure always arrives uninvited, but through our ego, far too many of us allow it to stick around. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
837:All grief is born of the shrinking of the ego from the contacts of existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, Conclusion and Summary, #NFDB
838:Everybody’s life really consists of small things. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
839:How sweet it is to let God purge our souls of ego and bitterness, and to have a little taste of heaven here on earth. ~ Marilyn Nelson, #NFDB
840:Is there a meditation that is not the ego trying to become? Is meditation conscious if every effort implies time? ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
841:It takes pride and a tiger’s drive to build up the confidence, the ego, the power to defeat an opponent in the ring. It ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
842:I wondered how he and his ego could occupy the same point in space and time without creating a black hole of arrogance. ~ Steve McHugh, #NFDB
843:Meditation is the pathway to enlightenment. Move the ego aside and be still, open, clear, bright and fully conscious. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
844:Painful or undesirable situations will always arise; true suffering comes from our ego's desire to resist life as it is. ~ Abdi Assadi, #NFDB
845:The ego is possible only in conflict, struggle. If you have nothing to fight about, you will create some way or other to fight. ~ Osho, #NFDB
846:The ego seeks intimacy through control and guilt. The Holy Spirit seeks intimacy through acceptance and release. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
847:Those who have subdued their ego understand that it doesn’t degrade you when others treat you poorly; it degrades them. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
848:As you dissolve into love, your ego fades. You’re not thinking about loving; you’re just being love, radiating like the sun. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
849:Don’t worry, hero. If the vamp shows up, I’m here to protect you.”
“Great, I can hide behind your massive ego. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
850:"Ego is the unobserved mind that runs your life when you are not present as the witnessing consciousness, the watcher." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
851:Give up all bad qualities in you, banish the ego and develop the spirit of surrender. You will then experience Bliss. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
852:His kisses really did have the power to change lives. Not that I'd admit that. His ego was ginormous as it was. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout, #NFDB
853:If anyone steps on your ego, instantly, he becomes your enemy. But a Guru is a friend who constantly tramples your ego. ~ Jaggi Vasudev, #NFDB
854:In deep meditation, when the thought disappears, ego vanishes the supreme arises. Nothing has changed except the references. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
855:So far for humans it has been the case that ego develops and then humans are stuck with it for the rest of their lives. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
856:The primordial fire of reality is going to burn through the hull of our little ego spaceship, and scatter us like stars. ~ Reginald Ray, #NFDB
857:The tension in the world is the tension between the ego and the feminine, not between the masculine and the feminine. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
858:By constantly keep one's attention on the Source, the ego is dissolved in that Source like a salt-doll in the sea. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
859:Ego trips by coteries of self-exalting people are treated in the media as idealism, rather than the petty tyranny it is. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
860:Failure comes from ego, greed, envy, fear, imitation. I have success not because I am smart, but because I am rational. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
861:he was just being himself, and I was happy that at least the ice was broken, even though part of my ego was broken as well. ~ Ken Segall, #NFDB
862:I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. ~ William Zinsser, #NFDB
863:I festered with this duality of love and ego, where ego scorns the very love its seeking and then despairs in its absence. ~ Meghna Pant, #NFDB
864:Individualization, ego formation, and heroism belong to the very life of the male group and are in fact its expressions. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
865:In this horror of solitude, this need to lose his ego in exterior flesh, which man calls grandly the need for love. ~ Charles Baudelaire, #NFDB
866:Nothing hurts a man’s ego like hearing a pretty girl talk about all the cute guys she likes. Guys who are not him, that is ~ Johan Twiss, #NFDB
867:See all women as mothers, serve them as your mother. When you see the entire world as the mother, the ego falls away. ~ Neem Karoli Baba, #NFDB
868:So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
869:"Something in us pulls us toward ourselves,quite apart from how the ego or the tribe would wish to arrange things." ~ James Hollis #Jung, #NFDB
870:The star player must slay his ego and learn teamwork and communication skills before he can achieve the ultimate in sport ~ Walt Frazier, #NFDB
871:An unchecked ego is what the Buddhists call “a hungry ghost”—forever famished, eternally howling with need and greed. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
872:If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
873:Nietzsche is at the base of you all. Within you God is dead, only the ego is alive. And remember, they cannot both exist together. ~ Osho, #NFDB
874:PAIN is a result of what’s called ego clinging, of wanting things to work out on our own terms, of wanting “me-victorious. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
875:Questing... is not an ego trip; it is an adventure to bring into fulfillment your gift to the world, which is yourself. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
876:Selfishness is to live for oneself and not for something greater than the self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
877:The center common to conscious action through the will and to conscious knowledge through cognition is, however, the ego. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
878:The ego tries to claim everything for itself, even subverting the soul’s longing for Truth into another illusion. ~ Llewellyn Vaughan Lee, #NFDB
879:Wallowing in guilt is feeding the ego and is an indulgence. Therefore, there has to be the willingness to surrender it. ~ David R Hawkins, #NFDB
880:How to get rid of ego as dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
881:If an architect's ego is very small, he is done for it; if it is vast then he might make some very important contributions. ~ Paolo Soleri, #NFDB
882:I was stubborn and refused to chase, I threw my ego away and chased; it does not matter. Some people are just not meant to be. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
883:Lana was good for my ego. She was good for everything. Too bad I was straight. And then there was the whole 'cousin' thing ~ Jen Frederick, #NFDB
884:Never underestimate the ruthlessness of the ego to keep you in a state of suffering in which you voluntarily participate. ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
885:The ego of man and woman is the soul. If the soul is independent, how then can it be isolated from the infinite whole? ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
886:To know we have to go within ourselves and see with an inner knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Memory, Ego and Self-Experience, #NFDB
887:Trace the source of the ego. Then the ego is lost and Bliss remains over. It is eternal. You are That, here and now. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
888:When you abide in the I you're abiding in the ego. The I is really the ego, the small I. It turns into the Self eventually. ~ Robert Adams, #NFDB
889:Without ego I don't know how identity works, I don't know... I need to sit down and re-read some philosophy or something. ~ Sophia Amoruso, #NFDB
890:Yeah, life was good. Especially when you powered-down your ego . . . and had the right woman in your bed for the right reasons. ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
891:You cannot teach an ego to be anything but egotistic, even though egos have the subtlest ways of pretending to be reformed. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
892:"All that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it, since awareness and ego are incompatible." ~ Eckhart Tolle #awareness, #NFDB
893:At the moment when there's nothing more to lose, the Ego breaks open - and then we see who we are behind who we thought we were. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
894:By constantly keeping one's attention on the Source, the ego is dissolved in that Source like a salt-doll in the sea. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
895:If the mind remains in the Heart, the ego which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the Self alone will shine. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
896:I guess to be an entrepreneur you have to have a large ego, enormous pride and an ability to inspire others to follow your lead. ~ Ray Kroc, #NFDB
897:I measure what's going on, and I adapt to it. I try to get my ego out of the way. The market is smarter than I am so I bend. ~ Martin Zweig, #NFDB
898:It is Nature that causes all movement. Deluded by the ego, the fool harbors the perception that says "I did it". ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, #NFDB
899:Meditation is not a means of forgetting the ego; it is a method of using the ego to observe and tame its own manifestations. ~ Mark Epstein, #NFDB
900:Our ego is only a face of the universal being and has no separate existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine and the Undivine, #NFDB
901:Social networks do best when they tap into one of the seven deadly sins. Facebook is ego. Zynga is sloth. LinkedIn is greed. ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
902:the cinema has structures of fascination strong enough to allow temporary loss of ego while simultaneously reinforcing the ego. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
903:The Ego is partly free. partly determined, and reaches fuller freedom by approaching the Individual who is most free: God. ~ Muhammad Iqbal, #NFDB
904:When we accomplish one thing, our ego wants to bask in the glory, though our soul is ready to move on to the next. ~ S Kelley Harrell M Div, #NFDB
905:A leader gathered his thoughts before he spoke; he did not rush to the podium to be adored. Ego, after all, was the root of evil. ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
906:Don't judge a man by the size of his ego or his heart, but on the epicness of his beard and the beautiful woman on his arm ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
907:Guilt's just your ego's way of tricking you into thinking that you're making moral progress. Don't fall for it, my dear. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
908:It is easy to see that the ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
909:So love, like wisdom, dissolves you and then resolves you. It breaks down your ego and puts you back together again properly. When ~ The RZA, #NFDB
910:"There are three ways in which the ego will treat the present moment: as a means to an end, as an obstacle, or as an enemy." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
911:To be successful, you really have to put your ego in the background and try to be diplomatic to achieve what you want to achieve. ~ Ken Adam, #NFDB
912:Trying to trace it [the ego, "I"] and find its source, we see it has no separate existence but merges in the real ‘I’. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
913:Why are you still single?” “Maybe I’m no one’s idea of Mr. Right.” “I’m not even going to stroke your ego by responding to that. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
914:Yoga is a study of life, study of your body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, and ego. Study of your inner faculties! ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
915:But the jiva [living being] is endowed with ego and his knowledge is limited, whereas Ishwar is without ego and is omniscient. ~ Adi Shankara, #NFDB
916:Cosmologists have plenty of ego. How could you not when your job is to deduce what brought the universe into existence? ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
917:How can you be of service to something other than your own ego and bank account, in a business that's inherently narcissistic? ~ Billy Porter, #NFDB
918:Human populations that do not have contact with the psychedelic tremendum are neurotic because they are male ego dominated. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
919:I don't know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth toward the breaking point. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
920:I think sometimes your worst enemy is inside your head. All your insecurities, your ego, your fears, your expectations. ~ Luis Gerardo Mendez, #NFDB
921:It's in the act of having to do things that you don't want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego. ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
922:It’s in the act of having to do things that you don’t want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
923:Life is beautiful. Be thankful for everything. Destroy your ego. Free hugs. Sing your hearts out in the street. Rock ‘n roll. ~ Ariana Grande, #NFDB
924:Look at the optimism of Nature. Nothing can stop it. Only the ego makes humans pessimistic, and this causes suffering. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi, #NFDB
925:Master your vicious ego and judgmental mind then with clear purpose, silent and alone you can start on your journey toward Spirit. The ~ Rumi, #NFDB
926:must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. The ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
927:There are much better ways to handle the delicate male ego.
With a two-by-four?
Only as a last resort and never in public. ~ Lora Leigh,#NFDB
928:The second noble truth says that this resistance is the...mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
929:Upon discovering truth, the natural love one has for oneself expands until it encompasses the whole world. This Love removes the ego. ~ Mooji, #NFDB
930:All I can be is who I am right now; I can experience that and work with it. That's all I can do. The rest is the dream of the ego. ~ Joko Beck, #NFDB
931:All you need to know and observe in yourself is this: Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
932:All you need to know and observe in yourself is this: Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
933:Drive, ego and cocksureness are all essential elements in terms of getting exactly what you want but losing everything you've got. ~ Dane Cook, #NFDB
934:Ego-centrism is our rock of safety against the cosmic and the infinite, our defence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Double Soul in Man, #NFDB
935:Ego says: 'Once everything falls into place, I will find Peace.' Spirit says: 'Once I find Peace, everything will fall into place. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
936:Family life can be very smooth and simple. It’s only when you make small things into an ego issue, there are endless problems. ~ Rashmi Bansal, #NFDB
937:Sex was always a selfish act for me until her. All I cared about was my own release, and giving orgasms was to nurture my own ego. ~ Ker Dukey, #NFDB
938:The ego has been a fatality both for the human self and for God. 1
[1 - This was once revealed to me in a dream.] ~ Nikolai A Berdyaev,#NFDB
939:The enemy hates the ego, which the seeker wants to kill; thus, like the anvil to the goldsmith, he is actually a friend. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
940:While having one’s assertions challenged might be bad for an unintelligent man’s ego; it sure is good for his intellect. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
941:Why is balance important? From a life lesson standpoint, it's about learning to enjoy yourself without getting the ego involved. ~ Tara Stiles, #NFDB
942:Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity. ~ Marina Abramovic, #NFDB
943:But the implication when you defend yourself is that you don’t care about her hurt, you care only about defending your own ego. ~ Steven Stosny, #NFDB
944:Ego is the most formidable of the knots which keep us tied to the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Boundaries of the Ignorance, #NFDB
945:Ego synthesized is selfhood, the sense of self-importance, that you really matter ... nothing could be further from the truth. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
946:Humans are beautifully imperfect and complex. We're horny, ass-saving, ego-driven drug fiends, among other, more noble things. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
947:Humans are beautifully imperfect and complex. We’re horny, ass-saving, ego-driven drug fiends, among other, more noble things. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
948:La política era algo que se había centrado en el ego, como una nube que parece sólida pero en realidad no es otra cosa que vapor. ~ Yehuda Berg, #NFDB
949:Leadership is not a popularity contest; it's about leaving your ego at the door. The name of the game is to lead without a title ~ Robin Sharma, #NFDB
950:Nobody can become more than human if he refuses to make a sacrifice of his ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Nature of the Vital, #NFDB
951:shishthata - humility - etiquette is the basis of culture, combination of disrespect for elders and false-ego leads to rudeness of behaviour. ~, #NFDB
952:The ego is like a clever monkey, which can co-opt anything, even the most spiritual practices, so as to expand itself. (155) ~ Jean Yves Leloup, #NFDB
953:The ego wants to want more than it wants to have. And so the shallow satisfaction of having is always replaced by more wanting. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
954:There is nothing more potentially hostile than the indigenous ego interpreting the laws of his conqueror upon his own people ~ Domingo Martinez, #NFDB
955:Usually our feelings of being exploited and other complaints of that nature are merely the squealing of ego and nothing more. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
956:"When the ego is at war, know that it is no more than an illusion that is fighting to survive. That illusion thinks it is you." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
957:You see a lot of so-called architecture that part of the ego trip overpowers the functionality and the budget and all that stuff. ~ Frank Gehry, #NFDB
958:inner sanctuary to which the beleaguered ego repairs in time of crisis is also a world that opens onto transpersonal energies. ~ Donald Kalsched, #NFDB
959:It does hurt my ego that you sit there all itty-bitty and cute as hell, and you must be more dangerous than I will ever be. ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
960:It’s time for companies to stop asking their employees to breathlessly chase ever-higher, ever-more-artificial targets set by ego. ~ Jason Fried, #NFDB
961:Las necesidades del ego son infinitas. Se siente vulnerable y amenazado y por lo tanto vive en un estado de miedo y de carencia. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
962:Life cannot be against you, for you are Life itself. Life can only seem to go against the ego's projections, which are rarely the truth. ~ Mooji, #NFDB
963:Sink into morbid, cynical reflection on how much romantic heartbreak is to do with ego and miffed pride rather than actual loss ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
964:The way the normal human ego tries to fill its emptiness and deal with its discomfort is by comparing itself to other people. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
965:Until we give up the world manufactured by the ego, never can we enter the kingdom of heaven. None ever did, none ever will. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
966:Your brain is not your friend when you need to apologize. Your brain and your ego and your intellect all remind you of the "facts. ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
967:Apologizing doesn't mean that you are wrong and the other is right. It only means that you value the relationship more than your ego! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
968:Become detached from your ego, become detached from your possessions. Become simply detached from every possible source of attachment. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
969:Being disciplined with an ego that makes you to feel like you can never be disciplined by any other person is "indiscipline". ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
970:Demanding negative mother destroys feminine ego in a woman & anima in a man... it leaves no room for individual feeling. ~ M Woodman #jungian, #NFDB
971:His dinner included three hamburgers and two orders of fries. I had no idea where those calories went. To his ego, maybe? ~ Jennifer L Armentrout, #NFDB
972:I have as big of an ego as it gets, but I have, stunningly, a lot of humility considering some of the accomplishments I've had. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk, #NFDB
973:I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 - for albums, anyway. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
974:No matter what the practice or teaching, ego loves to wait in ambush to appropriate spirituality for its own survival and gain. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
975:Our real nature is not our imaginary, limited ego. Our true nature is vast, all-comprehensive, and intangible as empty space. ~ Anagarika Govinda, #NFDB
976:The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it. ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
977:The birth of the ego is called the birth of the person. There is no other kind of birth. Whatever is born, is bound to die. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
978:The ego is like a tired old dog. We can never kill it, so put it out on the back porch, let it rest there, and step around it. ~ Carlos Castaneda, #NFDB
979:The secret to a happiness is a small ego. And a big wallet. Good wine helps, too. But that's not really a secret, is it? ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
980:The weak are dominated by their ego, the wise dominate their ego, and the intelligent are in a constant struggle against their ego. ~ Hamza Yusuf, #NFDB
981:We could all be mediums, and all have absolute knowledge, if the bright light of our ego consciousness would not dim it. ~ Marie Louise von Franz, #NFDB
982:We could all be mediums, and all have absolute knowledge, if the bright light of our ego consciousness would not dim it. ~ Marie-Louise von Franz, #NFDB
983:You have to learn how to turn the tables on the ego. The only way to forgive what is within is to forgive what seems to be without. ~ Gary Renard, #NFDB
984:As long as you identify with that which dies, there is always a fear of death-What our ego fears is the cessation of its own existence. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
985:Buddhism helps us to overcome our endless ego grasping mind to open up to something so much more spacious and genuinely meaningful. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
986:In the egocentric prism the helpless victim is walled in by the very light which he refracts. The ego dies in its own glass cage... ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
987:I truly believe in the law of attraction and that we live in a multi-dimensional existence beyond the confines of ego-based thinking. ~ Lisa Bloom, #NFDB
988:So long as one is not free from the ego sense, there can be no real freedom. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Liberation of the Spirit, #NFDB
989:The ego-self constantly pushes reality away. It constructs a future out of empty expectations and a past out of regretful memories. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
990:"This consists of everything we do not know, which, therefore, is not related to the ego as the centre of the field of consciousness." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
991:A lot of times people are too ego caught up where they made the decision and "We're going to stick with it" and then I had to suffer. ~ Terry Crews, #NFDB
992:Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
993:Comedians... they're different from actors. There's more ego there. They create the whole thing, I guess, so they're more precious. ~ Sharon Horgan, #NFDB
994:Love can make a great celebration out of your life - but only love, not lust, not ego, not possessiveness, not jealousy, not dependence. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
995:Part of ego is displaying the ego. I've got ego, and I think I'm really good. But maybe I fall down in trying to sell it to people. ~ Edward Ruscha, #NFDB
996:Prakriti does not act for itself or by its own motion, but with the Self as lord. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #NFDB
997:The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it. * ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
998:Asking for other's guidance helps you see what you may not be able to see. It's always important to check your ego and ask for help. ~ Ken Blanchard, #NFDB
999:Basically, I think you need two things to get by in this world: a sense of humor and the ability to laugh when your ego is destroyed. ~ Arlo Guthrie, #NFDB
1000:But I think Barry Sonnenfeld let his ego go out of control. He told me in a meeting that he had to do something to make it his film. ~ Robert Conrad, #NFDB
1001:Creativity does not depend on inherited talent or on environment or upbringing; it is the function of the ego of every human being. ~ Silvano Arieti, #NFDB
1002:Ecstasy carries you completely outside your ego boundaries. In ecstasy you know yourself as cosmic ego, unbounded in time and space. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1003:Feeding that ego by consistently printing and televising stories about the murders was assuring that there would be more murders. ~ Robert K Ressler, #NFDB
1004:I think my biggest problem was, as a celebrity on a TV show, you get an inflated ego and you think you're the center of the universe. ~ Kirk Cameron, #NFDB
1005:It is only the artificial ego that suffers. The man who has transcended his false “me” no longer identifies himself with his suffering. ~ Wei Wu Wei, #NFDB
1006:It is only the ego that steps from moment to moment, as a man who walks from puddle to puddle. It is only the ego who drowns in time. ~ Jane Roberts, #NFDB
1007:Knowing that the gods exist makes one less likely to mistake oneself for a god. In this way myths help tell the ego what it is not. ~ Edward Edinger, #NFDB
1008:@PravinVejan Yes, identifying with the physical form, which is the ego/mind/body is our fall from Grace. The Self is the one Reality. ~ @CathyGinter, #NFDB
1009:So long as desire and ego remain, there can be no surrender to the Divine, no fulfilment in the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire, #NFDB
1010:The ego changes all the time, it has every kind of illusion, but the Self is as it is, there is nothing we can alter in it. ~ Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, #NFDB
1011:The ego holds us to this world. The ego is the feeling that you are. But you are not, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1012:The ego must be able to listen attentively and to give itself, without any further design or purpose, to that inner urge toward growth. ~ C. G. Jung, #NFDB
1013:"The more projections are thrust in between the subject and the environment, the harder it is for the ego to see through its illusions." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1014:the old ego will always prefer an economy of merit and sacrifice to any economy of grace and unearned love, where we have no control. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1015:The only reason why we are always thinking of our own ego is that we have to live with it more continuously than with anyone else's. ~ Cesare Pavese, #NFDB
1016:The people who could most benefit from the self-reflective ego-dissolving qualities of cannabis are the ones that want it to be illegal. ~ Joe Rogan, #NFDB
1017:There was something in him, lighter than ego but darker than insecurity, that needed constant buffing, polishing, waxing. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
1018:As a writer, you have a huge ego. You think that every line means something to everybody the same way it means to you. And that's not true. ~ Pusha T, #NFDB
1019:Did any of you ever think that along about thet ime the notion of a soul gave out, Freud popped up with the ego to take its place? ~ Mary Ann Shaffer, #NFDB
1020:Humanity is reaching the end of the evolutionary stage of ego. The closer we get to the end, the more dysfunctional humanity becomes. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1021:I am a better cook than I am an actor. If I have any ego, it's about cooking. I'm one of the best cooks... and I cook in any language. ~ Raymond Burr, #NFDB
1022:In order to pray I have to be paying more attention to God than to what people are saying to me; to God than to my clamoring ego. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
1023:It is your soul's journey to enroll the ego in the quest for the ultimate victory - the evolution of your own individual consciousness. ~ Debbie Ford, #NFDB
1024:Look at your life in contrast with the magnitude of creation, space and time. Your life becomes insignificant. Ego disappears. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
1025:Man ordinarily offers his sacrifice openly or under a disguise to his own ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Fullness of Spiritual Action, #NFDB
1026:The ego is just waiting to identify with anything. Whether it's your misery or being a great meditator, it seeks some identification. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1027:The unregenerate vital is not grateful for a benefit, it resents being under an obligation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
1028:This, perhaps is true self-confidence: the ability to look at the world without the need to find signs that stroke one's ego. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
1029:What else is there for me to conquer? Hopefully my ego. How will I know when I've succeeded? When I stop caring what anyone thinks. ~ Madonna Ciccone, #NFDB
1030:When one is without ego, one becomes immediately free of all personal judgements, and perceives life and the world with divine eyes and mind. ~ Mooji, #NFDB
1031:Choose the positive because it's all good: be honest; be open; stop and think; see the red flags; let go of ego; now make a healthy choice. ~ Gary Eby, #NFDB
1032:Ego is something that you come to know - something that you befriend by not acting out or by repressing all the feelings that you feel. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
1033:I baptize you not in the name of the father, but in the name of the devil. (Ego baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli.) ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1034:I'm a Bhakti, meaning I practice devotional yoga and the heart and love, so I say to people, start with your ego and go down to your heart. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
1035:I’m bi, but I usually don’t go for boys. Too much ego, if you know what I mean, but I can appreciate the lovely wherever I see it. ~ Rebecca Roanhorse, #NFDB
1036:It was Mags' turn to snort. "But most on it is there ain't 'nough space for him an' his ego t' be in th' same room at th' same time. ~ Mercedes Lackey, #NFDB
1037:Literature is humanity's broad-minded alter-ego, with room in its heart for monsters, even for you. It's humanity without the judgement. ~ Glen Duncan, #NFDB
1038:Nobody sets out to make a bad film, but so many of those compromises are made and often they're made because of vanity, pride and ego. ~ Rick McCallum, #NFDB
1039:One difference between spiritual and ego law is that spiritual law is very playful and creative, while ego law is fixed and routine. ~ Sonia Choquette, #NFDB
1040:She grinned. “You don’t have to go to the gym, do you? Carrying around that ego is enough of a workout.”
“It keeps me in shape. ~ Susan Mallery,#NFDB
1041:When the ego is not, you are for the first time encountering your being. That being is void. Then you can surrender; then you have surrendered. ~ Osho, #NFDB
1042:You really don't recognize my name?"
He asks in disbelief. "Or me? Come on."
Ah. an ego is emerging, it seems.
"No, I'm sorry. ~ Carian Cole,#NFDB
1043:Salvation is not sin perfectly avoided, as the ego would prefer; but in fact, salvation is sin turned on its head and used in our favor. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1044:That's the ego talking. But it's not the real you. You are a good and wonderful person. You are kind. You have a compassionate nature. ~ Gelek Rimpoche, #NFDB
1045:There will be people who will teach for the sake of greed or for the sake of ego. So watch their lives. Do they look and act like Jesus? ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1046:This, perhaps, is true self-confidence: the ability to look at the world without the need to find signs that stroke one’s ego.* ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
1047:Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient's ego freedom to decide one way or another. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
1048:Behind everyone's learned behaviors and odd eccentricities lurks a soul, ready to make contact if only coaxed out through a crack in the ego. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
1049:Error is the constant denial by the All of the ego’s false sufficiency in a limited knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, Knowledge and Ignorance, #NFDB
1050:For men, it's necessary to push aside that marvelous ego that tells you that you are all knowing and capable, and see that you are not. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1051:he had an ego so large that only by contemplating the mathematical definition of infinity could anything so limitless be imagined. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
1052:If you see there is no meaning to anything that you are doing, your ego collapses; so you are trying to find all kinds of fake meanings. ~ Jaggi Vasudev, #NFDB
1053:In order to get below the ego, you have to crack the ice; then the next thing to be encountered in the individual psyche is the shadow. ~ Edward Edinger, #NFDB
1054:I shall be perfectly content to spend time with Mr Darcy and enjoy his manner of flattering my ego, for I must confess he does it very well. ~ P O Dixon, #NFDB
1055:It's a strange business, speaking for yourself, because it doesn't at all come with seeing yourself as an ego or a person or a subject. ~ Gilles Deleuze, #NFDB
1056:Los psicóticos, mecidos en la cuna venenosa de su propio ego, quieren hacer el favor a todos los que les rodean de llevárselos con ellos. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1057:Love should never be viewed as a competition. Love requires compromise and sacrifice. There's no place for ego in a marriage.~pg. 357 ~ Susan Anne Mason, #NFDB
1058:Most of the so-called bad things that happen in people’s lives are due to unconsciousness. They are self-created, or rather ego-created. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1059:Perhaps the most powerful Tollean insight into the ego was that it is obsessed with the past and the future, at the expense of the present. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
1060:The ego does everything in its power to establish and retain a permanent territorial hold over all external states that give it joy. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
1061:"The ego doesn't know that mind and mental positions have nothing to do with who you are because the ego is the unobserved mind itself." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1062:The ego is like the root of a banyan tree, you think you have removed it all then one fine morning you see a sprout flourishing again. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
1063:The ego is the lynch-pin invented to hold together the motion of our wheel of nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Boundaries of the Ignorance, #NFDB
1064:The ego's form of happiness can't exist without unhappiness. The ego will be happy when something good happens but unhappy when it ends. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1065:The first product of self-knowledge is humility," Flannery O'Connor once said. This is how we fight the ego, by really knowing ourselves. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1066:the greatest illusion of the abstract ego is that it can do anything to bring about radical improvement either in itself or in the world. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1067:The stuff that gets me the most is the claim that I am in love with my own righteousness, my own virtue. I have long worried about my ego. ~ James Comey, #NFDB
1068:To the ego, loving and wanting are the same, whereas true love has no wanting in it, no desire to possess or for your partner to change. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1069:We are always boosting or trying to prop up the ego by fulfilling some desire or other, and always craving affirmation from the outside. ~ Pankaj Mishra, #NFDB
1070:You cannot possess all and everything. Whatsoever you possess will not give you contentment. The mind, the ego, will always feel unfulfilled. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1071:Above all, know that ego isn't personal. It isn't who you are. If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1072:After years of doing it, you learn the difference between your ego and your opinion. When you're married you have to cut through that. ~ Dan Castellaneta, #NFDB
1073:Desire is storm, greed is whirlpool, pride is precipice, attachment is avalanche, ego is volcano. Discard desire and you are liberated. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
1074:If you died on the side of a mountain, it was in the middle of a selfish, meaningless act. A feat of strength and ego, wrapped in bravado. ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
1075:It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large ego must be in want of a woman to cut him down to size ~ Melissa Nathan, #NFDB
1076:It’s ego – the false self – that exalts the guru and declares the teaching sacred, but nothing is exalted or sacred, only true or not true. ~ Jed McKenna, #NFDB
1077:I've been writing books without ego for a very long time. I feel like it will get what it deserves. Or won't get what it doesn't deserve. ~ Hilary Liftin, #NFDB
1078:Remember that we can become twinned with an enemy and come to resemble him. Our hatred may become an alter ego, a part of our identity. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1079:Self-understanding is the prelude to transformation, to moving beyond the ego and all that makes up what is called "false personality. ~ Don Richard Riso, #NFDB
1080:Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser - having a healthy ego, or high opinion of yourself, is a real positive in life! ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
1081:The superego, Freud wrote, is the “mischief maker which prevents the ego’s coming to a friendly understanding with the instincts.” It ~ Tom Butler Bowdon, #NFDB
1082:This, perhaps, is true self-confidence: the ability to look at the world without the need to find signs that stroke one’s ego.fn3 ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
1083:To live in the wideness of the Intuition is not possible with the limitation of the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Higher Planes of Mind, #NFDB
1084:Trying to convince someone is fundamentally our ego's activity. Even if we prove to be right, our ego seeks a new argument to tangle with. ~ Haemin Sunim, #NFDB
1085:be “self-control fatigue,” or as he coined it, ego depletion. These studies led Baumeister to argue that self-control is a limited resource. ~ Emma Sepp l, #NFDB
1086:I suppose whipping you into place didn’t do anything for my chances seen as you obviously have an ego as swollen as a horse’s rigid dick. ~ Suzanne Wright, #NFDB
1087:Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else. Reactions from those parts of you will reinforce your children's most primitive fears. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
1088:The ego is an island in the ocean of Hell. You want to get rid of the Hell but you don't want to get rid of that island. Then there is trouble. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1089:Violence is a primitive but still very widespread way in which the ego attempts to assert itself, to prove itself right and another wrong. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1090:Demons were all about ego, which meant that most demons had some kind of title. I think it made them feel better about their tiny…pitchforks. ~ E J Stevens, #NFDB
1091:Die! Die to the ego, die to your past, and you will be resurrected. That resurrection will make you go beyond death, beyond time, beyond misery. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1092:Does all that exist of itself, or is it only an emanation of myself, a logical development of my ego which alone has existed for ever? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1093:Forgiveness happens naturally when you see that it has no purpose other than to strengthen a false sense of self, to keep the ego in place. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1094:He wondered if he could ever make his ego light enough to relax in not having to settle the meaning of things. What would that feel like? ~ Edward St Aubyn, #NFDB
1095:I didn't start writing in order to express myself. If anything the opposite was true. I was just as interested in negating the I and the ego. ~ Rob Chapman, #NFDB
1096:I'm a professional Jonathan Coulton. It's partially ego, to be completely honest: It feels great to have people adoring you in that way. ~ Jonathan Coulton, #NFDB
1097:I mean, it's so normal for everybody to have a huge ego, it's great. It's great. Otherwise, everybody would act like Bono, you know, really big. ~ Kim Deal, #NFDB
1098:My ego is dented,” he muttered. “He came to you because his mate made him.” Kaia poked him in the chest. “You can have matching dented egos. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
1099:Park your ego and listen to your readers. They can be your best friend or your worst enemy. But chances are you'll learn something from them. ~ Eliza Green, #NFDB
1100:That is the ego which rises and sinks periodically. But you exist always. That which lies beyond the ego is consciousness - the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
1101:The older you get, the more you realize that it isn't about the material things, or pride or ego. It’s about our hearts and who they beat for. ~ J Sterling, #NFDB
1102:"Trying to convince someone is fundamentally our ego's activity. Even if we prove to be right, our ego seeks a new argument to tangle with." ~ Haemin Sunim, #NFDB
1103:Was there a point at which your ego was crushed so completely that it died, and you no longer had to lug around the burden of yourself? ~ Kristen Roupenian, #NFDB
1104:What is Kanye West's message? Like most rap, "I am the greatest person ever and you're not." I used to call it affirmative action for the ego. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
1105:As a piece of rope, when burnt, retains its form, but cannot serve to bind, so is the ego which is burnt by the fire of supreme Knowledge. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
1106:Girls . . . share in the . . . hero myths . . because they . . must also develop a reliable ego-identity and acquire an education. P. 129 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
1107:I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1108:I’d never really done Christmas. The years I’d spent with Akil didn’t count. The only religion he got behind was the worship of his own ego. ~ Pippa DaCosta, #NFDB
1109:I don’t understand. How can hunting be a pleasure?” “When it feeds the ego and not the stomach. A true hunter finds no pleasure in killing. ~ Alexie Aaron, #NFDB
1110:I guess it's a kind of a goal for any actor to be the lead of a movie. Not for ego reasons, but because it is creatively the biggest challenge. ~ Seth Rogen, #NFDB
1111:It is very easy to get ridiculously confused about the tenses of time travel, but most things can be resolved by a sufficiently large ego. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1112:I used to get some ego thing out of saying I wasn't a star, just an actress. Forget it. I'm a star. I wanted it. I worked for it. I got it. ~ Valerie Harper, #NFDB
1113:One of my biggest Achilles’ heels has been my ego. And if I, Kanye West, the very person, can remove my ego, I think there’s hope for everyone. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
1114:People fear mortality because it is the death of the ego. It is wiser to murder the ego every day. If you can let that go, we are free. ~ Robert Chazz Chute, #NFDB
1115:The outer change is necessary but as a part of the inner change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #NFDB
1116:The second noble truth says that resistance is the fundamental operating mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1117:When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego ... things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
1118:A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego. ~ Muhammad Iqbal, #NFDB
1119:Every time truth comes we hate it, because it's coming against our ego. Are you going to let the ego come between you and this person you love? ~ Lauryn Hill, #NFDB
1120:I think most actors . . . We are insecure, in general. I think to be an actor, you need to have an ego, but then, our ego is our worst enemy. ~ Penelope Cruz, #NFDB
1121:It is rather a wider than a higher consciousness that is necessary for the liberation from the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
1122:It’s not his job to mind her, or is it? Perhaps that’s a job he’s given himself, placing himself in a position of importance for his own ego. ~ Cecelia Ahern, #NFDB
1123:Leave your ego at the door every morning, and just do some truly great work. Few things will make you feel better than a job brilliantly done. ~ Robin Sharma, #NFDB
1124:Life to us means only the way she affects our ego and the way our ego replies to her touches. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Gist of the Karmayoga, #NFDB
1125:My idea of enlightenment is when ego and Tao are fused, and Tao is perceived as ego. Then everything happens with complete appropriateness. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1126:One side of his lips quirked up in a sexy smirk. “Got a cure for
that frustration you got going on,” he said.
“Got a cure for your ego? ~ Jamie Farrell,#NFDB
1127:The Ego is a transparent mental image: You, the physical person as a whole, look right through it. You do not see it. But you see with it. ~ Thomas Metzinger, #NFDB
1128:The pleasurable qualities associated with the previous ego phase, once that system is outgrown, become painful for the ego of the next phase. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
1129:The point is, the Four Stages are not for ego-development or attainment; they are a skilful means for recognizing the way we cling to things. ~ Ajahn Sumedho, #NFDB
1130:We fight wars over dirt and oil and ego when we should fight wars against men who force women to live that kind of life with their children. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
1131:We will learn that though we think big, we must act and live small in order to accomplish what we seek.” Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy, pg 22 ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1132:"You are not the ego, so when you become aware of the ego in you, it does not mean you know who you are - it means you know who you are not." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1133:You've got to check your ego at the door, and change your goal from having the right answer to learning everything you can. Understand? ~ Shilpi Somaya Gowda, #NFDB
1134:And nobody wanted to tangle with my wolf from what I’d heard. She had a nasty temper and represented my alter ego with a proud wag of her tail. ~ Dannika Dark, #NFDB
1135:… and then showed Owen the reservation. Four people.
“But we’re only two,” Owen said.
“Yeah, but my ego needs more space than that. ~ Aleksandr Voinov,#NFDB
1136:Anytime there is a struggle between doing what is actually right and doing what seems right, then your ego is interfering with your decision. ~ Darren Johnson, #NFDB
1137:Cuando alguien te hace daño, deberías decir lo mismo. “Bueno, tú no me hiciste daño, tu ego lo hizo, así que no estoy enfadado contigo”. ~ Swami Satchidananda, #NFDB
1138:Ego says, "Once everything falls into place, I'll feel peace". Spirit says, "Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place". ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
1139:Luc will turn into a human iceberg and rarely raise his voice, but prepare to defrost your ego with a hairdryer if you screw up in front of him. ~ Lucy Parker, #NFDB
1140:Marriage is not a simple love affair, it's an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1141:Marriage is not a simple love affair, it’s an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1142:Maybe I'm ego-tripping, but I don't find myself a particularly horrible person, so I don't think I need to hold back anything I think or feel. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
1143:The centre of mental thinking is the ego, the person of the individual thinker. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Thought and Knowledge, #NFDB
1144:The ego is a false sense based on mental concepts. It is identification with the body and the mind-primarily identification with thought form. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1145:The first utterance of Dasein is not the cogito, with which an ego is consequently posited, but rather “sum”—and in the sense of “I-am-in-a-world. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1146:The idea of an individual ego is just like enclosing a portion of the water of the Ganges and calling the enclosed portion one's own Ganges. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
1147:The way the normal human ego tries to fill its emptiness and deal with its discomfort is by comparing itself to other people. All the time. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1148:We must go beyond the constant clamor of ego, beyond the tools of logic and reason, to the still, calm place within us: the realm of the soul. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1149:We will learn that though we think big, we must act and live small in order to accomplish what we seek.” Ryan Holliday, Ego is the Enemy, pg 22 ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1150:You can always tell when someone deserves the praise and recognition they receive, because it humbles them rather than inflating their ego. ~ Ashly Lorenzana, #NFDB
1151:Your ego is a wonderful servant, but it’s a terrible master—because the only thing your ego ever wants is reward, reward, and more reward. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
1152:As your thinking changes from a position dictated by your ego to one that transcends it, you’ll see an illuminated world that is truly inviting. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
1153:But what was it all about? Ego, that’s all. There was no love there. Just a lot of drinking and a lot of ego. Both of them will kill you. They ~ Charles Brandt, #NFDB
1154:Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism. It ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
1155:Happy is the civilization which can breed men accustomed from infancy to regard certain at least of the ego's natural activities as unthinkable. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
1156:If we have not equality, it is a sign that we are still pursued by the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Equality and the Annihilation of Ego, #NFDB
1157:I'm not an ensemble actor, because it's always a lot of ego when you're all together in the scene. It's kind of intellectual fighting for something. ~ Udo Kier, #NFDB
1158:In man it is the ego idea which chiefly supports the falsehood of a separative existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Liberation of the Spirit, #NFDB
1159:I wear some of my stuff, but usually the less in-your-face designs. I get a little self conscious, there is a fine line between pride and ego. ~ Shepard Fairey, #NFDB
1160:Purification and consecration are two great necessities of sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #NFDB
1161:THE MISCONCEPTION: In all you do, you strive for success. THE TRUTH: You often create conditions for failure ahead of time to protect your ego. ~ David McRaney, #NFDB
1162:The shadow has to disappear and by its disappearance reveal the spirit’s unclouded substance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #NFDB
1163:#ToTheGirls2016 Value yourself, your voice, your body, your opinions, your dreams, your pride, your ego. You have a RIGHT to take up space. ~ Abigail Tarttelin, #NFDB
1164:We do not need to get rid of the ego—this unchanging, solid, and unhealthy sense of self—because it never existed in the first place. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, #NFDB
1165:When there is stress, it is usually a sign that the ego has returned, and you are cutting yourself off from the creative power of the universe. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1166:Without any kind of real ego on my part, I just thought, I'm going to approach the people I admire and see if they want to do something together. ~ Marc Jacobs, #NFDB
1167:a materialization of our conscience, of the severe super-ego within us, in which the punitive agency of our childhood finds residual expression. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
1168:Conversion of the aim of life from the ego to the Divine: instead of seeking ones own satisfaction, to have the service of the Divine as the aim of life.
~ ?,#NFDB
1169:Ego stops you from getting things done and getting people to work with you. That's why I firmly believe that ego and success are not compatible. ~ Harvey Mackay, #NFDB
1170:Embrace your ego. You have one anyway if you’re a writer, because writing means you feel that the world should care about what’s in your head. ~ Johnny B Truant, #NFDB
1171:Hanging around people you’re smarter than is good for your ego. Hanging around people who are smarter than you is good for your intellect. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
1172:Humility is the first rule of martial arts. Either you learn humility quickly, or you leave because your ego can't handle losing repeatedly. ~ Georges St Pierre, #NFDB
1173:poder basado en el ego sólo durará tanto como esas cosas duren. Tan pronto como el título, el trabajo y el dinero se vayan, así se irá el poder. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1174:Suffering is essential for the elimination of the ego, just as it was necessary for you to scrub and scrub in order to wash the stain from my coat. ~ Meher Baba, #NFDB
1175:Sure. My ego's had enough time to recover a modicum of dignity. Let's make sure we crush it again before I mistake myself for a god. -Acheron ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1176:The best, very best scammers will always ask for your advice. This is their favorite technique. It makes them vulnerable. It flatters your ego. ~ James Altucher, #NFDB
1177:When you realize that the ego is making you miserable you don't identify with it. You identify with your soul's humility and the ego dissolves. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1178:You can't throw your ego away, but you can use its innate desire to experience that which is beyond itself to give you the impetus to meditate. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1179:Bazı küçük kum taneleri o kadar egoyla doludurlar ki kendilerini dev bir kaya gibi görürler! Fakat sonra rüzgâr eser, büyük ego havada uçar! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1180:Ego says, “Once everything falls into place, I'll feel peace.”
Spirit says, “Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place. ~ Marianne Williamson,#NFDB
1181:Heroes are Ordinary People whose social action is Extra-Ordinary/ who ACT when others are passive, who give up EGO-centrism for SOCIO-centrism. ~ Philip Zimbardo, #NFDB
1182:I get pretty terrified, to be honest, when I'm on tour. You really have to muster a lot of ego to go our there, which I find rather draining. ~ Michael Hutchence, #NFDB
1183:I have a big ego, but I don't buy into it. I can't live off the ego. It's an honor that I get to be that guy onstage. It's not something I earned. ~ Steven Tyler, #NFDB
1184:The evolutionary point of the ego is to provide a ground of relative stability on which the archetypal elements can become conscious of themselves. ~ David Tacey, #NFDB
1185:The ladies who love it are flattering your ego by lying to your face. You’re an Instagram trend, my friend. A fad. The mullet of our generation. ~ Daisy Prescott, #NFDB
1186:The pursuit of beauty is much more dangerous nonsense than the pursuit of truth or goodness, because it affords a stronger temptation to the ego. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
1187:To give your children the total acceptance they deserve will expose you to the diamond of the spiritual tradition: the chance to lose your ego. ~ Shefali Tsabary, #NFDB
1188:What we mean is that people may go on, keep on, and rush on, without souls. They have their ego and their will, that is enough to keep them going. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
1189:All unhappiness is due to the ego. With it comes all your trouble. If you would deny the ego and scorch it by ignoring it you would be free. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
1190:An ability to compromise is important. That means stepping back and getting the ego out of the way in order to accomplish what you want to get done. ~ Jim Clyburn, #NFDB
1191:Any conqueror in human history has always been ultimately someone who exists purely for the expansion of their own ego, through amounting more. ~ Scott Derrickson, #NFDB
1192:Eros is an ego-overwhelming, boundary dissolving, breakthrough creating force scripted into human life that is pretty intrinsically psychedelic. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1193:Grace is openness. By remaining open, you let go of your ego and narrow-minded views, and allow divine grace to express itself through you. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi, #NFDB
1194:I get that you have a huge ego and probably don’t want to admit you’re a disgusting, shallow bastard, but don’t hide behind a doctor’s note. ~ Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, #NFDB
1195:My ego is dented,” he muttered.
“He came to you because his mate made him.” Kaia poked him in the chest. “You can have matching dented egos. ~ Nalini Singh,#NFDB
1196:So long as the ego exists desires also undoubtedly remain; but those desires will not injure you: The Master will be your protector. ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, #NFDB
1197:the bog was already bigger than a king’s ego and at night darker and more dangerous than a badger’s arsehole—ye just really didn’t want to be pokin ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
1198:The bully on the block who beats up somebody doesn't become more powerful. All they do is walk around inside their own mind with an inflated ego. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1199:The Ego is the “container” for our life. The Ego creates a boundary between us and everything else and mediates our relationship with the world. ~ Carol S Pearson, #NFDB
1200:The ego we see most commonly goes by a more casual definition: an unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self-centered ambition. That’s ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1201:The power of being a student is not just that it is an extended period of instruction, it also places the ego and ambition in someone else’s hands. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1202:Tunnel vision is caused by an optic fungus that multiplies when the brain is less energetic than the ego. It is complicated by exposure to politics. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1203:When our internal reference point is the ego or self-image, we feel cut off from our source, and the uncertainty of events creates fear and doubt. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1204:Your ego is a wonderful servant, but it’s a terrible master—because the only thing your ego ever wants is reward, reward, and more reward. And ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
1205:Bear the pain of longing silently, my heart
for this is the cure.
The ultimate sacrifice is to curb your desires
and surrender the ego. ~ Rumi,#NFDB
1206:If your guidance is your ego, don't rely on luck for help. you sleep during the day and the nights are short. By the time you wake up your life may be over. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1207:In reality the ego is like the clown in the circus, who is always putting in his oar to make the audience think that whatever happens is his doing. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
1208:Instead of fighting the ego, I align with the evolutionary impulse and I ask myself: What does the evolutionary impulse wants to say or do through me? ~ Marc Gafni, #NFDB
1209:It's very important in a leadership role not to place your ego at the foreground and not to judge everything in relationship to how your ego is fed. ~ Ruth Simmons, #NFDB
1210:Once ego and pride are on the line, you can’t change your mind without looking bad. The desire to save face trumps the desire to make the right call. ~ Jason Fried, #NFDB
1211:Our job, as souls on this mortal journey, is to shift the seat of our identity from the lower realm to the upper, from the ego to the Self. Art ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
1212:Piety is a discipline of the will through respect. It admits the right to exist of things larger than the ego, of things different from the ego. ~ Richard M Weaver, #NFDB
1213:Pleasure brings pain, but inner silence brings nothing negative; it is in itself of great value and is a far better way to be than to be in ego states. ~ Belsebuub, #NFDB
1214:Some little pieces of sand are so full of ego that they see themselves as a giant rock! But then the wind blows, the big ego flies in the air! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1215:So what do I get when I beat everyone?” I said.
“When?” Corey shook his head. “Do you need a wide-load sign for transporting that ego? ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1216:The problem is, your ego sometimes tells you that you can do many things. But sometimes it's best to stay focused and be honest with yourself. ~ Sylvester Stallone, #NFDB
1217:They would let Connor hypothetically kill them. God. If he could hear this right now, I think his ego would literally engulf the planetary system. ~ Krista Ritchie, #NFDB
1218:Wherever desire and ego harbour, passion and disturbance harbour with them and share their life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Three Modes of Nature, #NFDB
1219:I mentally picked myself up off the floor, dusted the dirt from my poor, emotionally battered ego, and began talking myself to a better place. ~ Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, #NFDB
1220:The "ego" like its correlative "non-ego", is the product of the body, mind etc. The only proof of the existence of the real Self is realisation. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1221:The most significant dimension of freedom is the freedom from one's own ego - in other words, from the feeling that I am the center of everything ~ Wojciech Kurtyka, #NFDB
1222:The poor woman. She couldn’t help what she was. It took a special sort of insanity to run for public office. A fragile megalomania; a delusional ego. ~ Sam J Miller, #NFDB
1223:When you are in anger, in passion, violent, aggressive, you feel a crystallized ego within you. Whenever you are in love, in compassion, it is not there. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1224:A few mistakes don't worry me; what worries me is when you make the mistakes and then forget your role on the team and start to worry about your ego. ~ Digger Phelps, #NFDB
1225:Eliminate the falsity of the being which figures as the ego; then our true being can manifest in us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, #NFDB
1226:I didn't want to change my personality onstage, but I still had to build some kind of ego to be able to go up there. If not, there's no point. ~ Charlotte Gainsbourg, #NFDB
1227:I have a big ego, and I'm a confident person, but when it comes down to being a jerk, that doesn't work for me, I tried it... for about ten years. ~ Harry Connick Jr, #NFDB
1228:It was as though she had some alter ego who told her she did not belong here. But she had never known anywhere else, and where else could there be? ~ Penelope Lively, #NFDB
1229:Taste - as in personal preference, discernment - is subjective. It's emphemeral, shaped by trends and fads. It's one part mouth and nose, two parts ego. ~ Mary Roach, #NFDB
1230:The feeling that we call “I” is itself the product of thought. Having an ego is what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you are thinking. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
1231:The human mind has a primitive ego defense mechanism that negates all realities that produce too much stress for the brain to handle. It’s called Denial. ~ Dan Brown, #NFDB
1232:The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1233:this president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values. His leadership is transactional, ego driven, and about personal loyalty. ~ James Comey, #NFDB
1234:To cure psychological malnutrition and reap big benefits in return, it is helpful to understand three concepts: the ego, ego food, and ego poison. ~ David J Schwartz, #NFDB
1235:Everyone’s faith comes from the perceptions of the mind. O Arjuna, the ego-personality is the living embodiment of faith. Your faith is your identity. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1236:I broke the first rule, the unwritten one, meant not just for warriors but all of us: I took love and used it as a balm to soothe my ego. ~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, #NFDB
1237:Your ego is an avid interpreter. It is so quick to interpret events as 'bad' or 'good,' 'wrong' or 'right.' It never fails to see 'the little picture. ~ Robert Holden, #NFDB
1238:Ego and superego were dispatched with a single swift, killing blow and in swaggered my new ruler—that primitive little hedonistic bastard, the id. ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB
1239:Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!" deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1240:How odd, to suddenly glimpse a facet of me I didn't know existed. I guess it really isn't all that unusual to surprise oneself with an ugly bit of ego. ~ Ellen Hopkins, #NFDB
1241:Our small little ego will not save us from the predictable sufferings of aging and death. It has no strategies, no power. It offers no refuge. ~ Kathleen Dowling Singh, #NFDB
1242:Pay attention to the work you want to do and everything'll work out fine. If you're in it for the ego, you might be successful but at a limited level. ~ Clint Eastwood, #NFDB
1243:"The ego, as a specific content of consciousness, is not a simple or elementary factor but a complex one which, as such, cannot be described exhaustively." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1244:The individual is only an instrument in the hands of a Universal Energy though his ego takes the credit of all he does. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Opening, #NFDB
1245:"The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1246:Tym fragmentem opowiadania, który był dla Benny’ego najtrudniejszy do zrozumienia, był fakt, że człowiek pożegnał się z życiem i został wysłany na eksport. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1247:Action without desire is possible, action without attachment is possible, action without ego is possible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Sankhya-Yoga System, #NFDB
1248:Donald Trump's ego is like a comet the size of Jupiter just traveling through the solar system, and we all have to be affected by its gravitational pull. ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
1249:Either way, the vulnerable human ego is protected. Protected from the corrupting influence of praise. Protected from the corrosive effects of shame. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
1250:I definitely have a sexual ego thing. But if I'm suggestive, it's in a nice way. Luckily, no one's ever been hurt...a few girls have passed out, that's all. ~ Andy Gibb, #NFDB
1251:In fact, some people who rate very high marks on the ego-based indexes of success are the ones I find most difficult to be around—and totally uninspiring ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
1252:I tried to laugh early on about ego and pride... I do something great and then I do something really dumb and then I laugh. You'll always be that kid. ~ Matthew Ashford, #NFDB
1253:Our journey toward living without ego is to learn how to let go, relax, take a chance, wait and see, and never sum ourselves up. ~ Pema Chodron, Welcoming the Unwelcome, #NFDB
1254:Today self-consciousness no longer means anything but reflection on the ego as embarrassment, as realization of impotence: knowing that one is nothing. ~ Theodor Adorno, #NFDB
1255:When each expects the other to live in his or her world, to always be there to join in his or her chosen activities, an ego battle inevitably develops. ~ James Redfield, #NFDB
1256:Your ego depends on mirrors. And every relationship functions as a mirror, every person you meet functions as a mirror, and this ego goes on controlling you. And ~ Osho, #NFDB
1257:A disciple asked, "Who is a Master?" The Master replied, "Anyone to whom it is given to let go of the ego. Such a person's life is then a masterpiece. ~ Anthony de Mello, #NFDB
1258:Just as the ‘Holy Spirit was God’s answer to the separation, the special relationship was then the ego’s answer to the creation of the Holy Spirit. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
1259:Love should never be viewed as a competition. Love requires compromise and sacrifice. There's no place for ego in a marriage.~ Susan Anne Masonpg. 357 ~ Susan Anne Mason, #NFDB
1260:Money is ego, and people won't give it up. Just want to protect themselves, hold onto it like a blanket. They don't realize it makes them slaves. It's sick. ~ Emma Cline, #NFDB
1261:My poems getting published in Russia doesn't make me feel in any fashion, to tell you the truth. I'm not trying to be coy, but it doesn't tickle my ego. ~ Joseph Brodsky, #NFDB
1262:Perversion comes by a conversion into lower forms—by transmission through the ego and the gunas. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Action of the Divine Shakti, #NFDB
1263:Samsara is the world appearance, the cycle of rebirth, the physically manifest universes and states of mind that you perceive through the medium of ego. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1264:Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. Old age does that for you too. It spiritualizes people naturally. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
1265:Synchronicity, it is like a collaboration with fate. All of that becomes the norm when the EGO (edge God out) is no longer the driving force in your life. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
1266:To fly too high and fall, to go too deep and get stuck, these are alike symptoms of an overvaluation of the ego that ends in disaster, death, or madness. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
1267:Yeah, I’m a classy guy.” Ranger scooped up a handful of popcorn. “A little girl’s life is at stake. That doesn’t leave much room for ego and turf wars. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
1268:A medida que uno crece, va formándose una imagen mental de sí mismo basada en su condicionamiento personal y cultural. A este yo fantasma lo llamamos ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1269:As the ego cogito, subjectivity is the consciousness that represents something, relates this representation back to itself, and so gathers with itself. ~ Martin Heidegger, #NFDB
1270:Don't be a hero. Don't have an ego. Always question yourself and your ability. Don't ever feel that you are very good. The second you do, you are dead. ~ Paul Tudor Jones, #NFDB
1271:Ego needs honors in order to be validated. Confidence, on the other hand, is able to wait and focus on the task at hand regardless of external recognition. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1272:Every time someone asks me who I want to work with, my answer is always the same: whoever wants to work with me that won't want to get their ego stroked. ~ Cakes da killa, #NFDB
1273:Evolve your understanding of success from the outer realm of control, materialism, and ego, to the inner realm of surrender, spirituality, and compassion. ~ Bryant McGill, #NFDB
1274:Furthermore, any teaching that puts the spotlight of attention on the workings of the ego will necessarily provoke egoic reaction, resistance, and attack. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1275:If one took a role with the intention of, "I'll show them what I can do!," then it's not going to be good because the ego is going to just block everything. ~ Ezra Miller, #NFDB
1276:Intensity is not a guarantee of entire truth and correctness in an experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #NFDB
1277:Loneliness is a feeling that is created by our ego. The ego feels separate from the rest of creation. The answer to overcoming those feelings is ecstasy. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1278:Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
1279:Nature gives constantly to us. We as indendepent egos think we're important. Selfless giving has to do with overcoming the ego. The ego makes us unhappy. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1280:Our first computers were born not out of greed or ego, but in the revolutionary spirit of helping common people rise above the most powerful institutions. ~ Steve Wozniak, #NFDB
1281:Pride is important to a man, but it isn’t everything. When it comes to the right woman, a man needs to be willing to swallow his ego every now and then. ~ Debbie Macomber, #NFDB
1282:Pride is unstable because other people are absentmindedly or intentionally treating the proud man’s ego with less reverence than he thinks it deserves. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1283:Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1284:The ego is never satisfied. No matter how much stuff we buy, no matter how many arguments we win or delicious meals we consume, the ego never feels complete. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
1285:The ego sense must be replaced by a oneness with the transcendental Divine and with universal being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Liberation of the Spirit, #NFDB
1286:The return from the duality of the ego to the nonduality of the spirit is so difficult and unlikely that only by Divine Grace is it even possible. Thus, ~ David R Hawkins, #NFDB
1287:This is good for my ego after, like, two years of seeing Italian guys in pink sweaters and orange pants and, like, pulling it off. You know what I’m saying? ~ Tom Rachman, #NFDB
1288:We don't die so much as we return to the void. We dissolve. We lose our ego. We change from being just one thing to becoming everything. Most of us, at least. ~ R F Kuang, #NFDB
1289:When the ego dominates in organizations, even spiritual organizations, there is usually a big drama or upheaval of some kind, and self-destruction begins. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1290:When you're playing someone who has a strong ego about themselves, you can't play them when you have the opposite opinion of the one they have of themselves. ~ Laura Dern, #NFDB
1291:Your unconscious wants to express the pain you feel about your own lost innocence. But your ego wants to keep it repressed. To the compromise is anxiety. ~ Alison Bechdel, #NFDB
1292:A realized being would not be making any fresh karma because karma is very much connected to the ego but would still be receiving the results of past karma. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
1293:As long as the "I" is there, love cannot be. All that we call love is only desire, longing, passion and attachment; as long as ego is there, all these bind one. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1294:But the disappearance of the effort to let go is precisely the disappearance of the separate thinker, of the ego trying to watch the mind without interfering. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
1295:Ego audio Domine. Animus humilis igitur sub potenti manu Dei est. Mundus sum ego, et absque delicto immaculatus. Verbum vester in me caro et ferrum erit. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
1296:Eventually the individual ego’s drive to “make things happen” falls away, replaced with a relaxed, trusting openness to answers as they spontaneously arise. ~ Tosha Silver, #NFDB
1297:Here is just emptiness. There is no getting my ego out of the way, and all that stuff. There is just the seeing, shining in great brilliance and clarity. ~ Douglas Harding, #NFDB
1298:If my ego was out of whack and I believed I could carry anything off, that would be a stupid risk. But so far there's been no reason not to try anything. ~ Kathleen Turner, #NFDB
1299:I have a giant ego and terrible self-esteem, so I need to hit the re-set button fairly regularly - to get into presence, and humility, and being right-sized. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
1300:It is only when we have staked our ego that our mistakes of judgment become threatening. That is when we build defensive walls and deploy cognitive filters. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
1301:I was transformed the day
My ego shattered,
And all the superficial, material
Things that mattered
To me before,
Suddenly ceased
To matter. ~ Suzy Kassem,#NFDB
1302:Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1303:Memories are often pruned and shaped with an ego-enhancing bias that blurs the edges of past events, softens culpability, and distorts what really happened. ~ Carol Tavris, #NFDB
1304:The ego searches for shortcomings and weaknesses. Love watches for any sign of strength. It sees how far each one has come and not how far he has to go. ~ Gerald Jampolsky, #NFDB
1305:"The relation of a psychic content to the ego forms the criterion of its consciousness, for no content can be conscious unless it is represented to a subject." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1306:Ego is a very curious thing and in nothing more than in its way of hiding itself and pretending it is not the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
1307:Ego says, ‘Once everything falls into place, I'll feel peace.’ Spirit says, ‘Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.’” – MARIANNE WILLIAMSON ~ Ziad Masri, #NFDB
1308:Evolve your understanding of success from the outer realm of control, materialism, and ego, to the inner realm of surrender, spirituality, and compassion. ~ Bryant H McGill, #NFDB
1309:It's always the same old problem: how to find ourselves in the great yammering of ego and tragedy and discomfort and obsession with everyone else's destinies. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
1310:Nonreaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1311:Quite a while ago, I made a conscious choice to place my teaching first, so it was very ego-invested. That decision wasn't a good thing in some ways. ~ Shirley Geok lin Lim, #NFDB
1312:Racing is a very selfish, self-centred, self-glorifying thing. My wife's life for 14 years was centered around me. It was all about me. It was all for my ego. ~ Greg LeMond, #NFDB
1313:Spirituality is the intersection of three paths: letting go of ego, an unconditional yes to the conditions of human existence, and an immeasurable compassion. ~ David Richo, #NFDB
1314:The battle of yoga is with the body and with the ego. You must conquer your ego, or small self, so that you can let your soul, your big Self, be victorious. ~ B K S Iyengar, #NFDB
1315:You don't choose because if you choose you might make the wrong choice, based upon ego or illusion. Instead, you let eternity make all the choices for you. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1316:I feel like now I have an amazing wife, a super smart child and the opportunity to create in two major fields. Before I had those outlets, my ego was all I had. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
1317:I'll do my best to always put God and neighbor ahead of ego, but I want to find myself, and if finding myself means losing my ego self, I'll go there. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor, #NFDB
1318:Instead of your ego directing you and making countless mistakes, allow yourself to be guided by the invisible principles of the universe within your action. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1319:I think most human beings are dualistic thinkers. It gets them through the day. It gives them a sense of superiority and security - that's what the ego wants. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1320:Non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1321:Spirituality is not decorating the ego with philosophies, dogmas and rituals. But finding out the eternal center of love in the heart, which no storm can disturb. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
1322:The most ego-centric can change and do change by the psychic principle becoming established in the external nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms, #NFDB
1323:Western man is held in thrall by the "ten thousand things"; he sees only particulars, he is ego-bound and thing-bound, and unaware of the deep root of all being. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1324:What does this patch-sewing mean you ask? Eating and drinking. The heavy cloak of the body is always getting torn. You patch it with food and other ego-satisfactions. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1325:What is the real origin of my own anger? Is it the ego defending its territory, or is it something that has its source in the desire for the well-being of all? ~ Jean Leloup, #NFDB
1326:You cannot fight against the ego and win, just as you cannot fight against darkness. The light of consciousness is all that is necessary. You are that light. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1327:Aquamen is unique in the sense that he does it without ego. He doesn't always have to be right. He's made a lot of mistakes, and he really takes those to heart. ~ Geoff Johns, #NFDB
1328:Ego-generated emotions are derived from the mind's identification with external factors which are, of course, all unstable and liable to change at any moment. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1329:In religion, the ego manifests as the devil. And of course, no one realizes how smart the ego is because it created the devil so you could blame someone else. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1330:Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience upon which primordial shamanism is based is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1331:"Nonreaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1332:On the new Earth, as the awakened consciousness comes in, I would say the ego would develop in children and quickly become outgrown when they reach adulthood. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1333:Our vital being is not concerned with self-knowledge but with self-affirmation, desire, ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, #NFDB
1334:Simon felt his cock thicken because, to be honest, stroking his ego was the best way to get him on board with even the most ludicrous plan ever conceived. “How ~ Dannika Dark, #NFDB
1335:The Art of Being: A state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
1336:The consciousness of collective humanity is only a larger comprehensive edition or a sum of individual egos. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #NFDB
1337:The more unconscious the whole of a man’s personality is and the more germinal his ego, the more his experience of the whole will be projected upon the group. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
1338:The number of elected officials who were willing to put the good of the country ahead of their own ego, and the success of their political party, was minuscule. ~ Vince Flynn, #NFDB
1339:When desiring ceases, the other world opens. The other world is hidden in this world. But because your eyes are full of desire, full of the ego, you cannot see it. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1340:When we age we shed many skins: ego, arrognace, dominance, self-opionated, unreliable, pessimism, rudeness, selfish, uncaring ... Wow, it's good to be old! ~ Stephen Richards, #NFDB
1341:Apologizing doesn’t always mean that you’re wrong and the other person is right. It just means that you value your relationship more than your ego. —Anonymous ~ Timber Hawkeye, #NFDB
1342:A willingness to drop your ego and let yourself look foolish. You almost have to enjoy looking vulnerable. You'd be surprised how many people don't want to do that. ~ Tina Fey, #NFDB
1343:Ego is just a feeling of having a wall between you and others. There is no wall. You belong to me and I belong to you. You are accepted the way you are. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
1344:ego pulveris hausti
ostendens cumulum, quot haberet corpora pulvis,
tot mihi natales contingere vana rogavi;
excidit, ut peterem iuvenes quoque protinus annos. ~ Ovid,#NFDB
1345:Forgiveness is essential to healing, because it requires you to surrender your ego's need to have life fall into place around your personal version of justice. ~ Caroline Myss, #NFDB
1346:I can come up sometimes with ideas for scenes that I'm not in, to make it better or add something. It's not about me, or my ego, that I wanna show this or that. ~ Noomi Rapace, #NFDB
1347:If you believe you're good already, you don't need to do extra stuff to impress us. Your best work comes when you're absorbed; because then your ego is away. ~ Keith Johnstone, #NFDB
1348:If you're going to make a comedy and if your sole interest is in making people laugh and feel good and entertaining them, then you check your ego at the door. ~ Dwayne Johnson, #NFDB
1349:It's weird but it's amazing, and it's great to know people are thinking about you. It's a huge ego boost and anyone that says they don't love that is lying. ~ Jonathan Coulton, #NFDB
1350:Putin's an egomaniac, so there are two ways he can process his ego mania. He can say, "Oh, I stood up to the U.S.," or, "Hey, I'm essential to the world order." ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
1351:Thus, it seems as if the initial encounter with the Self casts a dark shadow ahead of time . . . to catch the helplessly struggling ego in his snare. P. 170 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
1352:We become forgetful of the ego when we think of the body as dedicated to the service of others - the body with which most complacently we identify the ego. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1353:You don’t trust anyone. Except yourself, and that’s not trust, that’s ego.”
“Not ego. Awareness of my abilities. And the limitless nature of them. ~ Karen Marie Moning,#NFDB
1354:A Course in Miracles tells us that although 'we think that without the ego, all would be chaos, the opposite is true. Without the ego, all would be love.' ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
1355:But the most important thing for purification of the heart is an absolute sincerity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification, #NFDB
1356:Friends can become enemies, and enemies can become friends. Ego and pride can turn what is good into bad, and kind words can turn what is bad into something good. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
1357:I'm always gonna be all over my CD the most, of course. My talent is my talent. I ain't really tripping off no ego; I just like to make good music with good people. ~ Meek Mill, #NFDB
1358:I never have an alter ego in the movies. That's a fiction that the press has made up over the years, and it's fun to write that. It gives them something to write. ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
1359:Lo que el ego no sabe, por supuesto, es que sólo abandonando la resistencia, haciéndote «vulnerable», puedes descubrir tu verdadera y esencial invulnerabilidad. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1360:The light is not quantifiable. You experience it in meditation when thought stops. When you go beyond the limitations of the ego, the light is waiting for you. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1361:The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too. ~ Billy Corgan, #NFDB
1362:With the abolition of otium and of the ego no aloof thinking is left. ... Without otium philosophical thought is impossible, cannot be conceived or understood. ~ Max Horkheimer, #NFDB
1363:But the star thing I can live with. The music I can't live without. And that's how it lays out for me, you know. I got as big an ego and enjoy the attention. ~ Bruce Springsteen, #NFDB
1364:Greg crossed to me, his gaze moving in a slow, cherishing path over my features. “If you knew how I saw you, how I think of you, your ego would become unmanageable. ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
1365:"It is simply impossible to estimate how large or how small [the ego's] share is; how free or how dependent it is on the qualities of this "extra-conscious" psyche." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1366:...love must feel the ego of the beloved person as important as one's own ego, and must realize the other's feelings and wishes as though they were one's own. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1367:Modern man believes he is fruitful and productive when his ego is aggressively affirmed, when he is visibly active, and when his action produces obvious results. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1368:The greatest thing that prepared me for editing Vanity Fair was having four kids because you just learn to subjugate your ego with the greater interest in mind. ~ Graydon Carter, #NFDB
1369:The minute I ever start thinking about what a character would do is the minute I bring my ego into play. It's the minute I'm putting a judgment on something. ~ Heather Matarazzo, #NFDB
1370:There's a bunch of people who sit around and make excuses for themselves and get upset with artists, but you already know what this is - it's an ego-driven business. ~ Rico Love, #NFDB
1371:... The result, in this world view, is that real freedom comes not from the decisions of an ego-self’s “will” but from action without any Self
whatsoever ~ Francisco J Varela,#NFDB
1372:To effect a union of opposites, the contents of the unconscious must be joined with the ego so as to create a third position. ~ Jeffrey Raff, Jung and the Alchemical Imagination, #NFDB
1373:When the ego is in the driver’s seat, we judge. When our spirit, our authentic self, is in control, we practice listening (without judging), compassion, and love. ~ Sheila Burke, #NFDB
1374:While Sigmund famously focused on the unconscious (the id), Anna made the ego seem more important, particularly in respect of therapy and psychoanalysis. Her ~ Tom Butler Bowdon, #NFDB
1375:An angel is a nonphysical being who has no ego - so we know angels are not human. An angel is a pure essence of the Creator's desire to connect with human beings. ~ Doreen Virtue, #NFDB
1376:Get rid of the ego, observe all your actions as if they were another's, and you will avoid ninety-nine percent of the troubles that await you. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, 1.7, #NFDB
1377:His kindness an investment for return,
His altruism is ego’s other face:
He serves the world that him the world may serve. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Triple Soul-Forces,#NFDB
1378:Honesty is about the scars. Its about the blemishes. But its more than just bragging about failure, which could be a form of ego. Its about truly helping people. ~ James Altucher, #NFDB
1379:Only the ego can fear, experience hate, lust and jealousy. Humility experiences none of these things - it merges into the transcendental awareness of perfection. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1380:Science is the special province of the ego. And magic and art are the special province of something else. I could name it, but I won't. It prefers to be unnamed ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1381:There are so many things to take into account - your ambition, your ego, the press, the consumers. You can never be sure that you'll be on top of the pile again. ~ Giorgio Armani, #NFDB
1382:The truth is always the One at work on itself, at play with itself, infinite in unity, infinite in multiplicity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #NFDB
1383:Every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. His ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
1384:I wore glasses, no music, and I won - I think it was - fifth place. I got a whipping the same day. My mother whipped me for something. Destroyed my ego completely. ~ Elvis Presley, #NFDB
1385:The idea of helping others is a delusion of the ego. It is only when the Mother commissions and gives her force that one can help and even then only within limits. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
1386:The illusion, as ego suggests, is that it's about time - mechanical mind; it is not. It is, however, all about conscious space - something [the] soul has always known. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
1387:The liberation from an externalised ego sense is the first step towards the soul’s freedom and mastery. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of the Mental Being, #NFDB
1388:The One Spirit who has mirrored some of His modes of being in the world and in the soul, is multiple in the Jiva. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #NFDB
1389:From now on, change will be the constant. The individuals best prepared to succeed are those who can learn, modify, and grow, regardless of age, experience, or ego. ~ Danny Goodman, #NFDB
1390:I think I have a better sense of my weaknesses - being self-important, selfish and having a big ego probably triggers all the other stuff. I can see myself more clearly. ~ K D Lang, #NFDB
1391:It is a great blow to the ego, Sssergeant, to dissscover that you are, after all, not unique.” He looked up, his tongue flickering. “I am, however, mossstly recovered. ~ Tanya Huff, #NFDB
1392:Meditation is like the moon: it transforms the energy of lust into love, anger into compassion, greed into sharing, aggressiveness into receptivity, ego into humbleness. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1393:Men want to help each other with a motive behind or a feeling which proceeds from the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga, #NFDB
1394:That “I” is the problem. Throw it off. That “I” is to be pushed out like shit. All your insides are constipated with ego. Take an enema. Break your image. Get the shit out. ~ Sri M, #NFDB
1395:The ego liked to trick you into thinking you were the center of the universe, but in truth you were nothing but a dust mote in a never-ending shaft of dimming light. ~ Jeremy Bates, #NFDB
1396:The language of the Soul is right-brain, metaphorical, narrative, and paradoxical, very unlike the left-brain, logical, discursive, dualistic language of the Ego. ~ Carol S Pearson, #NFDB
1397:The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, who has overcome his egocentricity. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1398:We all feel a separateness; we wish that a drop of water would soften our ego; the world needs a common conscience: agreement... we must concentrate outside ourselves. ~ Mark Tobey, #NFDB
1399:When a child reaches school age, the phase of building up the ego and of adapting to the outer world begins. This . . . brings a number of painful shocks. P. 168 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
1400:Any attempt at liberation, no matter how great it might be, if it does not take into consideration the necessity of dissolving the ego, it is condemned to failure. ~ Samael Aun Weor, #NFDB
1401:Beneath the surface of our daily life, in the personal history of many of us, there runs a continuous controversy between an Ego that affirms and an Ego that denies. ~ Beatrice Webb, #NFDB
1402:In America they like my spicy TV alter ego, probably because there were a lot of Italians and Hispanics in the country, but the real L.A. life is a hard-working one. ~ Bruno Tonioli, #NFDB
1403:Man can be that which he wishes to be; form and substance, they are but shadows. The mind, the ego, the essence of the god-dream -- that is real, that is immortal. ~ Robert E Howard, #NFDB
1404:Only the truly enlightened know the world as it truly is; the rest construct a reality that comforts the ego. The enlightened are therefore always at peace while ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
1405:So, letting go of the old is not easy. It requires being able to tolerate the aroused level of anxiety that besets any of us when ego consciousness is not in control. ~ James Hollis, #NFDB
1406:The ego-sense is not indispensable to the world-play in which it is so active and so falsifies the truth of things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #NFDB
1407:Usually, new producers and writers want to put their stamp on a show. They don't want to continue what's working. They want to reinvent the wheel. It's an ego thing. ~ Anthony Geary, #NFDB
1408:You can only succeed when people are communicating, not just from the top down, but in complete interchange. Communication comes from fighting off my ego and listening. ~ Bill Walsh, #NFDB
1409:At the level of ego-psychology', wrote Mowrer in his survey on 'Motivation' in the Annual Review for 1952, 'there may be said to be only one master motive: anxiety. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
1410:For me, it's the slow release of my ego and certain belief systems that I identify with that give me comfort and an identity, and it's scary to let go of that. ~ Richard Brancatisano, #NFDB
1411:If your unconscious attitude seems exaggerated, it usually means that the unconscious is compensating for an equally off-balance, exaggerated position in the ego. ~ Robert A. Johnson, #NFDB
1412:I think at all social networks, be it Facebook or Twitter or whatever it is, there's an ecosystem that exist there. But there's also an ego system that exists there. ~ Ashton Kutcher, #NFDB
1413:Ocuparnos de nuestros hijos es nuestra responsabilidad, pero poseerlos es una ilusión creada por el ego que sólo causará dolor y sufrimiento para ellos y para nosotros. ~ Yehuda Berg, #NFDB
1414:Persistence is the devious alter-ego of perseverance. Perseverance provides us the stamina to realize our visions, whereas persistence drives us into self-destruction. ~ Joan Marques, #NFDB
1415:SECRETS ARE POWER. WHEN YOU DIVULGE A SECRET, YOU BARTER THE POTENTIAL power of your hidden knowledge for the fleeting ego boost that comes with its revelation. ~ Anton Szandor LaVey, #NFDB
1416:Spirituality dawns when individuality vanishes. When our ego becomes aware of something that is higher than it - the individual Spirit, or Soul; then spirituality dawns. ~ Rama Swami, #NFDB
1417:Stripping away my ego and accepting my truth even if it's not who I want to see. Makes me want to be better when it's exposed. It's very vulnerable and exhilarating. ~ Aleks Paunovic, #NFDB
1418:The ego mind is like a plant growing in a very small pot. While the pot may be
attractive and ornate, its size doesn’t allow the plant to express its full potential. ~ Darren Main,#NFDB
1419:The oneness which is brought about by the happy loss of the will of desire and the ego, is the essence of Mukti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Liberation of the Spirit, #NFDB
1420:There's magic in recognizing a kindred spirit, and an even greater power in letting yourself love them. When it scares you, let it - that's your ego letting go. ~ Jacqueline Koyanagi, #NFDB
1421:Unhappiness is an ego-created mental-emotional disease that has reached epidemic proportions. It is the inner equivalent of the environmental pollution of our planet. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1422:We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1423:A lot of my work has to do with not allowing my characters to have an ego in a way that the stomach doesn't have an ego when it's wanting to throw up. It just does it ~ Matthew Barney, #NFDB
1424:Ego says: I want someone to fill me up. Spirit says: I'll have someone to help me wake up, to challenge my blind spots and be a companion and playmate on the journey. ~ Charlotte Kasl, #NFDB
1425:ego swimming up behind them, to peer at him suspiciously, something eel-like, larval, transparently boned. He had its full attention. “If things had gone differently, ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
1426:If I ever tried to take credit for what God deserves the credit, He would be displeased with me, and I'm more interested in pleasing Him than pleasing ego or vanity. ~ Louis Farrakhan, #NFDB
1427:If your “love” has an opposite, then it is not love but a strong ego-need for a more complete and deeper sense of self, a need that the other person temporarily meets. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1428:I had to take ownership of everything that went wrong. Despite the tremendous blow to my reputation and to my ego, it was the right thing to do—the only thing to do. I ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
1429:I think what's really happening is that a dialogue opens up between the ego and these larger, more integrated parts of the psyche that are normally hidden from view. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1430:Laughter is the very essence of religion. Seriousness is never religious, cannot be religious. Seriousness is of the ego, part of the very disease. Laughter is egolessness. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1431:Maturity comes with experience. One lesson of maturity is that we should not take our thoughts too seriously, and must learn to curb our ego and see the bigger picture. ~ Haemin Sunim, #NFDB
1432:That which offends you only weakens you. Being offended creates the same destructive energy that offended you in the first place- so transcend your ego and stay in peace. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
1433:The best thing that I learned from the best directors that I worked with is that the best answer wins. They are ego-less when it comes to doing the most important thing. ~ Don Cheadle, #NFDB
1434:. . . the ego feels hampered . . . projects the obstruction onto something external . . . accuses God . . . economics . . . boss . . . marriage partner . . . p. 169 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
1435:The ego is not harmonious with happiness and spiritual development. In the process of spiritual transformation we refine it. In the fire of love we melt the ego down. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1436:The truth is it's fun to be up there and know that you're in your underwear. Even though I know I'm exploiting my sexuality in a certain way, it's fun! It boosts my ego. ~ Fiona Apple, #NFDB
1437:The two Virtues of Equanimity and Compassion become more available to the person whose ego-shell has been smashed-either by great suffering or by great love-or by both. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1438:What is the real origin of my own anger? Is it the ego defending its territory, or is it something that has its source in the desire for the well-being of all? (73) ~ Jean Yves Leloup, #NFDB
1439:Yes, whatever happened, happened; but what happens now is up to you. You can respond from ego, ensuring pain, or you can respond from spirit, ensuring a miracle. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
1440:A religion, even if it calls itself a religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it. ~ Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921), #NFDB
1441:How vain and unreal, when I reflect, becomes this ego which I call mine! Yet a little time and behold! it is dispersed to all the winds and dissolution has effaced it. ~ Mikado Shuyaku, #NFDB
1442:I have no ego. There is no way you can have a big ego and survive in this [show]business. You can't learn if you think no one else has anything to say that's of value. ~ Jennifer Lopez, #NFDB
1443:Step by step, let whatever happens happen. Real change will come when it is brought about, not by your ego, but by reality. Awareness releases reality to change you. ~ Anthony de Mello, #NFDB
1444:The bondage does not consist in the physical act of becoming, but in the persistence of the ignorant sense of the separate ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, Conclusion and Summary, #NFDB
1445:The ego fiercely protects its view of the world, and we’ve all experienced how wispy and fleeting any experience can be when it doesn’t fit our ingrained belief system. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1446:The ego is in fact driven by the mechanism of Nature of which it is a part and the ego-will is not and cannot be a free will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Divine Shakti, #NFDB
1447:Unless you have a huge ego, I think it requires a tremendous amount of bravery to keep putting yourself out there, knowing that you will get rejected most of the time. ~ Kit Williamson, #NFDB
1448:We mistakenly assume that bodily survival has a higher precedence than ego survival. This is simply not generally true. Ego will happily destroy body for its own sake. ~ Karl Marlantes, #NFDB
1449:With any level of success you get some non-musical things that come along - money, ego - and it's easy to lose your perspective and get off doing what you did to get there. ~ Joe Walsh, #NFDB
1450:You served too long under Lord Vader, Captain. I Have no qualms about accepting a useful idea merely because it wasn't my own. My position and ego are not at stake here. ~ Timothy Zahn, #NFDB
1451:An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego. ~ Alec Guinness, #NFDB
1452:Ego is “I”; it is your singular point of view. In innocence this point of view is pure, like a clear lens. But without innocence the ego’s focus is extremely distorting. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1453:he make like Woody in Toy Story and take to heart what he learned in exile? Could he temper his ego, play well with others, defeat his enemies, and emerge a true hero? ~ Brent Schlender, #NFDB
1454:How far it develops depends on whether or not the ego is willing to listen to the messages of the Self. Such a person also becomes a more complete human being. P. 163 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
1455:I’ll see you next Friday at five in the practice rooms. Oh, and unless you need it to feel comfortable, you can leave your ego in your room; you won’t be needing it. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
1456:In fact, the more each person can remove his or her ego from the discussion and focus on the subject matter, the more fruitful the conversation will be for all involved. ~ Matthew Kelly, #NFDB
1457:IN THE COURSE of Western development, the essentially positive process of emancipating the ego and consciousness from the tyranny of the unconscious has become negative. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
1458:When the sun sets, beautiful though it may be, billions of stars appear. The ego is but one sun. When that sun sets, there are endless suns, endless horizons beyond it. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1459:Es el ego quien nos engaña para que pensemos que tenemos razones para hacer lo que sea necesario con tal de imponernos sobre aquellos que percibimos como nuestros enemigos. ~ Yehuda Berg, #NFDB
1460:His spirit by spiritual ego sink,
Or his soul dream shut in sainthood’s brilliant cell
Where only a bright shadow of God can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Triple Soul-Forces,#NFDB
1461:I'm not in front of the camera, they are. I encourage them; I build up as much of their confidence and ego as possible. They've got to take control; I can't act it out. ~ Taylor Hackford, #NFDB
1462:Joseph wore uncertainty poorly; it seemed to somehow misshape him. I heard in it everything he hid from the world, his own sense of worthlessness, the fear behind his ego. ~ Megan Chance, #NFDB
1463:Man, that did his ego good. Matter of fact, she hit him with anything like that again, he was going to feel like he could bench-press a city bus. With a jet plane on its roof. ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
1464:Or else, given that there is world that side of the window and world this side, perhaps the "I," the ego, is simply the window through which the world looks at the world. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
1465:Pulled out of the mud of your own ego, so that you have stopped thinking that you are somebody, at last you are delivered from yourself and are seeking God for Himself alone. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1466:"Since it is the point of reference for the field of consciousness, the ego is the subject of all successful attempts at adaptation so far as these are achieved by the will." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1467:The Ego Rip
Step 1: Make a list of all your short comings.
Step 2: Grasp list firmly in both hands.
Step 3: Rip list to shreds.
Step 4: Consider yourself perfect. ~ Jim Davis,#NFDB
1468:This one life has no form and is empty by nature. If you become attached by any form, you should reject it. If you see an ego, a soul, a birth, or a death, reject them all. ~ Bodhidharma, #NFDB
1469:A big ego isn't necessarily a bad thing. A big ego means that you have some confidence in your abilities, really, and that you're prepared to take the risk of trying them out. ~ Brian Eno, #NFDB
1470:being entranced by the ego prevents us from feeling pain; in fact, it prevents us from feeling anything—ecstasy, grief, compassion, anger, shame, love—from feeling alive. ~ Gabrielle Roth, #NFDB
1471:Perhaps middle-age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells; the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of the ego. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, #NFDB
1472:"The personality as a total phenomenon does not coincide with the ego, that is, with the conscious personality, but forms an entity that has to be distinguished from the ego." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1473:Though the anima figure also has transpersonal characteristics, she is closer to the ego, and contact with her is not only possible, but is the source of all fruitfulness. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
1474:When somebody's ego is in service of really brilliant, innovative work, it's hard to, cause I'm such an asshole, it's hard to criticize their failures as a human sometimes. ~ Claire Danes, #NFDB
1475:When you are not meditating, eliminate hate, doubt, fear, anxiety, negative thoughts and emotions that limit your consciousness, that bind you to a sense of self, of ego. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1476:As a child, a person builds up an egoic sense - the child has a name, has an "I," has a mind. But then, to awaken, a person needs to completely transcend that sense of ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1477:A true leader is not revered for the height of her ego or the grandeur of her ambition, but for the boundlessness of her generosity and the prescience of her vision. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen, #NFDB
1478:A true leader is not revered for the height of his ego or the grandeur of his ambition, but for the boundlessness of his generosity and the prescience of his vision. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen, #NFDB
1479:Freedom means the power to act by soul guidance, not by the compulsions of desires and habits. Obeying the ego leads to bondage; obeying the soul brings liberation. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
1480:It even seems as if the ego has not been produced by nature to follow its own arbitrary impulses to an unlimited extent, but to help to make real the totality-the whole psyche. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1481:Men tend to lie when it comes to sexual conquests. You should hear some of the ego-driven lies my friends have told me: 'Swear to God, man - the hooker gave the money back.' ~ Adam Ferrara, #NFDB
1482:That's something that I think as a songwriter you have to ask yourself - why you're doing it. The world certainly doesn't need more songs. Are you doing it just for your ego? ~ Jeff Tweedy, #NFDB
1483:The nationalism that had been instilled in them for so many generations had produced a citizenry whose ego was so fragile that they refused to acknowledge the rest of the world. ~ Suki Kim, #NFDB
1484:These godlike figures . . . representative of the whole psyche, the larger and more comprehensive identity that supplies the strength that the personal ego lacks. P. 101 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
1485:To awaken within the dream is our purpose now. When we are awake within the dream, the ego-created earth-drama comes to an end and a more benign and wonderous dream arises. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1486:when you allow the behavior of others to control your sense of engagement, you are abdicating control of your own work. There’s a high cost to protecting your ego in this way. ~ Todd Henry, #NFDB
1487:... a man doesn't like to have his ego popped, especially when he prides himself on his sagacity, and then to be proved wrong by a man who claims he doesn't know anything. ~ E A Bucchianeri, #NFDB
1488:Artists are most themselves when they are out of their minds, transcending the ego skirmishes of conceptual thought, and intuitively relinquishing control to the greater Creator ~ Alex Grey, #NFDB
1489:A true leader is not revered for the height of her ego or the grandeur of her ambition, but for the boundlessness of her generosity and her vision for a better world. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen, #NFDB
1490:A true leader is not revered for the height of his ego or the grandeur of his ambition, but for the boundlessness of his generosity and his vision for a better world. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen, #NFDB
1491:How to find joy? Let your ambition disappear; ambition is the barrier. Ambition means an ego trip: "I want to be this, I want to be that - more money, more power, more prestige." ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1492:I have found that the more I get my ego out of a picture and the more I think about how can I serve other people instead of always thinking about me, the more miracles show up. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
1493:In television or a movie I bring my own ego and consequently can mess up. In the theatre I learnt very quickly to shut up and listen. Now I am able to get out of my own way. ~ Matthew Perry, #NFDB
1494:Not all thinking and all emotion are of the ego. They turn into ego only when you identify with them and they take you over completely, that is to say, when they become "I". ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1495:One might say that the ability to evaluate one’s own ability is the most important skill of all. Without it, improvement is impossible.” Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy, pg 21 ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1496:Our nature acts on a basis of confusion and restless compulsion to action, the Divine acts freely out of a fathomless calm. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #NFDB
1497:Renunciation of ego, acceptance of God in life is the Yoga I teach,—no other renunciation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest, To Motilal Roy, #NFDB
1498:We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1499:What makes me vulnerable? Well, my ego, probably. I kind of like to try to let go of it. Or feeling out of my depth. In various aspects of my life, whether it's musical or personal. ~ Gotye, #NFDB
1500:A real encounter with the living God changes everything. First, it magnifies the Lord, and then it puts me and my ego and my sin and my burdens all in their rightful place. ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
691 Integral Yoga
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34 Philosophy
33 Poetry
21 Christianity
10 Science
9 Theosophy
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6 Integral Theory
5 Mythology
5 Fiction
4 Mysticism
4 Education
3 Sufism
2 Islam
2 Buddhism
1 Thelema
1 Taoism
490 Sri Aurobindo
362 The Mother
172 Satprem
122 Nolini Kanta Gupta
49 Sri Ramakrishna
49 Carl Jung
21 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
21 Aleister Crowley
20 Swami Krishnananda
18 Aldous Huxley
17 A B Purani
13 Friedrich Nietzsche
10 Swami Vivekananda
10 Paul Richard
9 Sri Ramana Maharshi
9 Rudolf Steiner
5 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
5 Peter J Carroll
5 Joseph Campbell
5 H P Lovecraft
5 George Van Vrekhem
5 Alice Bailey
4 Walt Whitman
4 Patanjali
4 Kabir
4 Franz Bardon
3 Vyasa
3 Thubten Chodron
3 Ken Wilber
3 Jordan Peterson
2 Muhammad
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Jean Gebser
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Bulleh Shah
2 Bokar Rinpoche
100 The Synthesis Of Yoga
69 Record of Yoga
48 The Life Divine
48 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
47 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
36 Letters On Yoga IV
35 Letters On Yoga II
32 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
31 Prayers And Meditations
31 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
27 Essays On The Gita
24 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
23 Agenda Vol 01
22 Questions And Answers 1956
22 Letters On Yoga III
22 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
20 The Study and Practice of Yoga
19 Questions And Answers 1954
19 Agenda Vol 10
18 The Perennial Philosophy
18 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
17 Mysterium Coniunctionis
17 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
16 Savitri
16 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
16 Letters On Yoga I
15 The Human Cycle
14 Essays Divine And Human
13 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
13 Questions And Answers 1955
13 Questions And Answers 1953
13 Isha Upanishad
13 Agenda Vol 13
12 Words Of The Mother II
12 The Practice of Psycho therapy
12 Talks
12 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
12 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
12 Agenda Vol 02
11 Some Answers From The Mother
11 Magick Without Tears
11 Liber ABA
11 Agenda Vol 12
10 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
10 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
10 Aion
10 Agenda Vol 11
10 Agenda Vol 09
10 Agenda Vol 07
10 Agenda Vol 06
10 Agenda Vol 05
10 Agenda Vol 03
9 Agenda Vol 04
8 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
8 Agenda Vol 08
7 The Future of Man
7 On the Way to Supermanhood
7 Hymn of the Universe
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Raja-Yoga
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
5 Words Of The Mother III
5 Words Of Long Ago
5 Twilight of the Idols
5 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
5 Preparing for the Miraculous
5 Lovecraft - Poems
5 Liber Null
5 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
5 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
5 Amrita Gita
5 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
4 Whitman - Poems
4 The Phenomenon of Man
4 Theosophy
4 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
4 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
4 On Education
3 Vishnu Purana
3 The Integral Yoga
3 Songs of Kabir
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Maps of Meaning
3 Let Me Explain
3 Initiation Into Hermetics
3 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
2 The Secret Of The Veda
2 The Red Book Liber Novus
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 Tara - The Feminine Divine
2 Quran
2 Letters On Poetry And Art
2 Kena and Other Upanishads
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
2 Collected Poems
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The knowledge that is obtained without the heart's instrumentation or co-operation is liable to be what the Gita describes as Asuric. First of all, from the point of view of knowledge itself, it would be, as I have already said, egocentric, a product and agent of one's limited and isolated self, easily put at the service of desire and passion. This knowledge, whether rationalistic or occult, is, as it were, hard and dry in its constitution, and oftener than not, negative and destructivewi thering and blasting in its career like the desert simoom.
There are modes of knowledge that are occultand to that extent mystic and can be mastered by practices in which the heart has no share. But they have not the saving grace that comes by the touch of the Divine. They are not truly mystic the truly mystic belongs to the ultimate realities, the deepest and the highest,they, on the other hand, are transverse and tangential movements belonging to an intermediate region where light and obscurity are mixed up and even for the greater part the light is swallowed up in the obscurity or utilised by it.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The central secret of the transfigured consciousness lies, as we have already indicated, in the mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, fundamental, universal Law that upholds and explains the cosmic movement, conformity to which brings to the thrice-bound human being release and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or processes: (i) The offering or self giving of the lower reality to the higher, and, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the descent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the higher means the lower sublimated and integrated into the higher; and the descent of the higher into the lower means the incarnation of the former and the fulfilment of the latter. The Gita elaborates the same idea when it says that by Sacrifice men increase the gods and the gods increase men and by so increasing each other they attain the supreme Good. Nothing is, nothing is done, for its own sake, for an egocentric satisfaction; all, even movements relating to food and to sex should be dedicated to the Cosmic BeingVisva Purusha and that alone received which comes from Him.
VII. The Cosmic and the Transcendental
--
The secularisation of man's vital functions in modem ages has not been a success. It has made him more egocentric and blatantly hedonistic. From an occult point of view he has in this way subjected himself to the influences of dark and undesirable world-forces, has made an opening, to use an Indian symbolism, for Kali (the Spirit of the Iron Age) to enter into him. The sex-force is an extremely potent agent, but it is extremely fluid and elusive and uncontrollable. It was for this reason that the ancients always sought to give it a proper mould, a right continent, a fixed and definite channel; the moderns, on the other hand, allow it to run free and play with it recklessly. The result has been, in the life of those born under such circumstances, a growing lack of poise and balance and a corresponding incidence of neuras thenia, hysteria and all abnormal pathological conditions.
Chhandyogya, II, III.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The whole symbolic world is represented in the temple garden — the Trinity of the Nature Mother (Kali), the Absolute (Siva), and Love (Radhakanta), the Arch spanning heaven and earth. The terrific Goddess of the Tantra, the soul-enthralling Flute-Player of the Bhagavata, and the Self-absorbed Absolute of the Vedas live together, creating the greatest synthesis of religions. All aspects of Reality are represented there. But of this divine household, Kali is the pivot, the sovereign Mistress. She is Prakriti, the Procreatrix, Nature, the Destroyer, the Creator. Nay, She is something greater and deeper still for those who have eyes to see. She is the Universal Mother, "my Mother" as Ramakrishna would say, the All-powerful, who reveals Herself to Her children under different aspects and Divine Incarnations, the Visible God, who leads the elect to the Invisible Reality; and if it so pleases Her, She takes away the last trace of ego from created beings and merges it in the consciousness of the Absolute, the undifferentiated God. Through Her grace "the finite ego loses itself in the illimitable ego — Atman — Brahman". (Romain Holland, Prophets of the New India, p. 11.)
Rani Rasmani spent a fortune for the construction of the temple garden and another fortune for its dedication ceremony, which took place on May 31, 1855.
--
The path of the Vedantic discipline is the path of negation, "neti", in which, by stern determination, all that is unreal is both negated and renounced. It is the path of jnana, knowledge, the direct method of realizing the Absolute. After the negation of everything relative, including the discriminating ego itself, the aspirant merges in the One without a Second, in the bliss of nirvikalpa samadhi, where subject and object are alike dissolved. The soul goes beyond the realm of thought. The domain of duality is transcended. Maya is left behind with all its changes and modifications. The Real Man towers above the delusions of creation, preservation, and destruction. An avalanche of indescribable Bliss sweeps away all relative ideas of pain and pleasure, good and evil. There shines in the heart the glory of the Eternal Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Knower, knowledge, and known are dissolved in the Ocean of one eternal Consciousness; love, lover, and beloved merge in the unbounded Sea of supreme Felicity; birth, growth, and death vanish in infinite Existence. All doubts and misgivings are quelled for ever; the oscillations of the mind are stopped; the momentum of past actions is exhausted. Breaking down the ridge-pole of the tabernacle in which the soul has made its abode for untold ages, stilling the body, calming the mind, drowning the ego, the sweet joy of Brahman wells up in that superconscious state. Space disappears into nothingness, time is swallowed in eternity, and causation becomes a dream of the past. Only Existence is. Ah! Who can describe what the soul then feels in its communion with the Self?
Even when man descends from this dizzy height, he is devoid of ideas of "I" and "mine"; he looks on the body as a mere shadow, an outer sheath encasing the soul. He does not dwell on the past, takes no thought for the future, and looks with indifference on the present. He surveys everything in the world with an eye of equality; he is no longer touched by the infinite variety of phenomena; he no longer reacts to pleasure and pain. He remains unmoved whether he — that is to say, his body — is worshipped by the good or tormented by the wicked; for he realizes that it is the one Brahman that manifests Itself through everything. The impact of such an experience devastates the body and mind. Consciousness becomes blasted, as it were, with an excess of Light. In the Vedanta books it is said that after the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi the body drops off like a dry leaf. Only those who are born with a special mission for the world can return
--
In the burning flame before him Sri Ramakrishna performed the rituals of destroying his attachment to relatives, friends, body, mind, sense-organs, ego, and the world. The leaping flame swallowed it all, making the initiate free and pure. The sacred thread and the tuft of hair were consigned to the fire, completing his severance from caste, sex, and society. Last of all he burnt in that fire, with all that is holy as his witness, his desire for enjoyment here and hereafter. He uttered the sacred mantras giving assurance of safety and fearlessness to all beings, who were only manifestations of his own Self. The rites completed, the disciple received from the guru the loin-cloth and ochre robe, the emblems of his new life.
The teacher and the disciple repaired to the meditation room near by. Totapuri began to impart to Sri Ramakrishna the great truths of Vedanta.
"Brahman", he said, "is the only Reality, ever pure, ever illumined, ever free, beyond the limits of time, space, and causation. Though apparently divided by names and forms through the inscrutable power of maya, that enchantress who makes the impossible possible, Brahman is really One and undivided. When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadhi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya. Whatever is within the domain of maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison-house of name and form and rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive deep in search of the Self and realize It through samadhi. You will find the world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute." Quoting the Upanishad, Totapuri said: "That knowledge is shallow by which one sees or hears or knows another
. What is shallow is worthless and can never give real felicity. But the Knowledge by which one does not see another or hear another or know another, which is beyond duality, is great, and through such Knowledge one attains the Infinite Bliss. How can the mind and senses grasp That which shines in the heart of all as the Eternal Subject?"
--
In the nirvikalpa samadhi Sri Ramakrishna had realized that Brahman alone is real and the world illusory. By keeping his mind six months on the plane of the non-dual Brahman, he had attained to the state of the vijnani, the knower of Truth in a special and very rich sense, who sees Brahman not only in himself and in the transcendental Absolute, but in everything of the world. In this state of vijnana, sometimes, bereft of body-consciousness, he would regard himself as one with Brahman; sometimes, conscious of the dual world, he would regard himself as God's devotee, servant, or child. In order to enable the Master to work for the welfare of humanity, the Divine Mother had kept in him a trace of ego, which he described — according to his mood — as the " ego of Knowledge", the " ego of Devotion", the " ego of a child", or the " ego of a servant". In any case this ego of the Master, consumed by the fire of the Knowledge of Brahman, was an appearance only, like a burnt string. He often referred to this ego as the "ripe ego" in contrast with the ego of the bound soul, which he described as the "unripe" or "green" ego. The ego of the bound soul identifies itself with the body, relatives, possessions, and the world; but the "ripe ego", illumined by Divine Knowledge, knows the body, relatives, possessions, and the world to be unreal and establishes a relationship of love with God alone. Through this "ripe ego" Sri Ramakrishna dealt with the world and his wife. One day, while stroking his feet, Sarada Devi asked the Master, "What do you think of me?" Quick came the answer: "The Mother who is worshipped in the temple is the mother who has given birth to my body and is now living in the nahabat, and it is She again who is stroking my feet at this moment. Indeed, I always look on you as the personification of the Blissful Mother Kali."
Sarada Devi, in the company of her husband, had rare spiritual experiences. She said: "I have no words to describe my wonderful exaltation of spirit as I watched him in his different moods. Under the influence of divine emotion he would sometimes talk on abstruse subjects, sometimes laugh, sometimes weep, and sometimes become perfectly motionless in samadhi. This would continue throughout the night. There was such an extraordinary divine presence in him that now and then I would shake with fear and wonder how the night would pass. Months went by in this way. Then one day he discovered that I had to keep awake the whole night lest, during my sleep, he should go into samadhi — for it might happen at any moment —, and so he asked me to sleep in the nahabat."
--
One day Girish felt depressed because he was unable to submit to any routine of spiritual discipline. In an exalted mood the Master said to him: "All right, give me your power of attorney. Henceforth I assume responsibility for you. You need not do anything." Girish heaved a sigh of relief. He felt happy to think that Sri Ramakrishna had assumed his spiritual responsibilities. But poor Girish could not then realize that He also, on his part, had to give up his freedom and make of himself a puppet in Sri Ramakrishna's hands. The Master began to discipline him according to this new attitude. One day Girish said about a trifling matter, "Yes, I shall do this." "No, no!" the Master corrected him. "You must not speak in that egotistic manner. You should say, 'God willing, I shall do it.'" Girish understood. Thenceforth he tried to give up all idea of personal responsibility and surrender himself to the Divine Will. His mind began to dwell constantly on Sri Ramakrishna. This unconscious meditation in time chastened his turbulent spirit.
The householder devotees generally visited Sri Ramakrishna on Sunday afternoons and other holidays. Thus a brotherhood was gradually formed, and the Master encouraged their fraternal feeling. Now and then he would accept an invitation to a devotee's home, where other devotees would also be invited. Kirtan would be arranged and they would spend hours in dance and devotional music. The Master would go into trances or open his heart in religious discourses and in the narration of his own spiritual experiences. Many people who could not go to Dakshineswar participated in these meetings and felt blessed. Such an occasion would be concluded with a sumptuous feast.
--
The Europeanized Kristodas Pal did not approve of the Master's emphasis on renunciation and said; "Sir, this cant of renunciation has almost ruined the country. It is for this reason that the Indians are a subject nation today. Doing good to others, bringing education to the door of the ignorant, and above all, improving the material conditions of the country — these should be our duty now. The cry of religion and renunciation would, on the contrary, only weaken us. You should advise the young men of Bengal to resort only to such acts as will uplift the country." Sri Ramakrishna gave him a searching look and found no divine light within, "You man of poor understanding!" Sri Ramakrishna said sharply. "You dare to slight in these terms renunciation and piety, which our scriptures describe as the greatest of all virtues! After reading two pages of English you think you have come to know the world! You appear to think you are omniscient. Well, have you seen those tiny crabs that are born in the Ganges just when the rains set in? In this big universe you are even less significant than one of those small creatures. How dare you talk of helping the world? The Lord will look to that. You haven't the power in you to do it." After a pause the Master continued: "Can you explain to me how you can work for others? I know what you mean by helping them. To feed a number of persons, to treat them when they are sick, to construct a road or dig a well — isn't that all? These, are good deeds, no doubt, but how trifling in comparison with the vastness of the universe! How far can a man advance in this line? How many people can you save from famine? Malaria has ruined a whole province; what could you do to stop its onslaught? God alone looks after the world. Let a man first realize Him. Let a man get the authority from God and be endowed with His power; then, and then alone, may he think of doing good to others. A man should first be purged of all egotism. Then alone will the Blissful Mother ask him to work for the world." Sri Ramakrishna mistrusted philanthropy that presumed to pose as charity. He warned people against it. He saw in most acts of philanthropy nothing but egotism, vanity, a desire for glory, a barren excitement to kill the boredom of life, or an attempt to soothe a guilty conscience. True charity, he taught, is the result of love of God — service to man in a spirit of worship.
--- MONASTIC DISCIPLES
--
During his second visit, about a month later, suddenly, at the touch of the Master, Narendra felt overwhelmed and saw the walls of the room and everything around him whirling and vanishing. "What are you doing to me?" he cried in terror. "I have my father and mother at home." He saw his own ego and the whole universe almost swallowed in a nameless void. With a laugh the Master easily restored him. Narendra thought he might have been hypnotized, but he could not understand how a monomaniac could cast a spell over the mind of a strong person like himself. He returned home more confused than ever, resolved to be henceforth on his guard before this strange man.
But during his third visit Narendra fared no better. This time, at the Master's touch, he lost consciousness entirely. While he was still in that state, Sri Ramakrishna questioned him concerning his spiritual antecedents and whereabouts, his mission in this world, and the duration of his mortal life. The answers confirmed what the Master himself had known and inferred. Among other things, he came to know that Narendra was a sage who had already attained perfection, and that the day he learnt his real nature he would give up his body in yoga, by an act of will.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
ego: the Sun is THAT.
Both eclipses are darkness; both are exceeding rare;
--
The theory of the formation of the ego is that of the Hindus,
whose Ahamkara is itself a function of the mind, whose ego it
creates. This ego is entirely divine.
Zoroaster describes God as having the head of the Hawk, and
--
The word "turbulence" is applied to the ego to suggest the
French "tourbillion", whirlwind, the false ego or dust-devil.
True life, the life, which has no consciousness of "I", is said to
be choked by this false ego, or rather by the thoughts which its
explosions produce. In paragraph 4 this is expanded to a
--
Path; they are modifications of the ego, and therefore
those things which bar it from the absolute.
--
Dhyana gets rid of the ego.
Samadhi gets rid of the Soul Impersonal.
--
no ego, and speak only in the third person, regard
these as ignorant, on account of their assumption of
--
Lingam to the Yoni, and the ego to the Absolute.
This idea, "I must give up", I owe, is naturally completed by I pay, and the
--
The ego is but "the ghost of a non- ego", the imaginary focus at which the
non- ego becomes sensible.
--
I, the ego in Chokmah.
Hi!, Binah, the feminine principle fertilised. (He by Yod.)
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 Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in man above this lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, un egoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine love. He comes as the divine personality which shall fill the consciousness of the human being and replace the limited egoistic personality, so that it shall be liberated out of ego into infinity and universality, out of birth into immortality."[7]
It is clear that Sri Aurobindo interpreted the traditional idea of the Vibhuti and the Avatar in terms of the evolutionary possibilities of man. But more directly he has worked out the idea of the 'gnostic individual' in his masterpiece The Life Divine. He says: "A supramental gnostic individual will be a spiritual Person, but not a personality in the sense of a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character; he cannot be that since he is a conscious expression of the universal and the transcendent." Describing the gnostic individual he says: "We feel ourselves in the presence of a light of consciousness, a potency, a sea of energy, can distinguish and describe its free waves of action and quality, but not fix itself; and yet there is an impression of personality, the presence of a powerful being, a strong, high or beautiful recognisable Someone, a Person, not a limited creature of Nature but a Self or Soul, a Purusha."[8]
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is the triumph of egoism. You may show this to them and add
that it is I who gave the order to make all possible use of the old
--
The disease: a narrow and egoistic ambition in the mind expressing itself as a strong vanity in the vital, thus distorting your
ideas of things and your reactions.
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Do such psychological conceptions correspond to anything real and possible? All Yoga asserts them as its ultimate experience and supreme aim. They form the governing principles of our highest possible state of consciousness, our widest possible range of existence. There is, we say, a harmony of supreme faculties, corresponding roughly to the psychological faculties of revelation, inspiration and intuition, yet acting not in the intuitive reason or the divine mind, but on a still higher plane, which see Truth directly face to face, or rather live in the truth of things both universal and transcendent and are its formulation and luminous activity. And these faculties are the light of a conscious existence superseding the egoistic and itself both cosmic and transcendent, the nature of which is Bliss. These are obviously divine and, as man is at present apparently constituted, superhuman states of consciousness and activity. A trinity of transcendent existence, self-awareness and self-delight7 is, indeed, the metaphysical description of the supreme Atman, the self-formulation, to our awakened knowledge, of the Unknowable whether conceived as a pure Impersonality or as a cosmic Personality manifesting the universe. But in Yoga they are regarded also in their psychological aspects as states of subjective existence to which our waking consciousness is now alien, but which dwell in us in a superconscious plane and to which, therefore, we may always ascend.
For, as is indicated by the name, causal body (karan.a), as opposed to the two others which are instruments (karan.a), this crowning manifestation is also the source and effective power of all that in the actual evolution has preceded it. Our mental activities are, indeed, a derivation, selection and, so long as they are divided from the truth that is secretly their source, a deformation of the divine knowledge. Our sensations and emotions have the same relation to the Bliss, our vital forces and actions to the aspect of Will or Force assumed by the divine consciousness, our physical being to the pure essence of that Bliss and
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
it the desire to be admired by people - ego? Or is it
something else? If You know, You will let me know. I
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In each of these forms Nature acts both individually and collectively; for the Eternal affirms Himself equally in the single form and in the group-existence, whether family, clan and nation or groupings dependent on less physical principles or the supreme group of all, our collective humanity. Man also may seek his own individual good from any or all of these spheres of activity, or identify himself in them with the collectivity and live for it, or, rising to a truer perception of this complex universe, harmonise the individual realisation with the collective aim. For as it is the right relation of the soul with the Supreme, while it is in the universe, neither to assert egoistically its separate being nor to blot itself out in the Indefinable, but to realise its unity with the Divine and the world and unite them in the individual, so the right relation of the individual with the collectivity is neither to pursue egoistically his own material or mental progress or spiritual salvation without regard to his fellows, nor for the sake of the community to suppress or maim his proper development, but to sum up in himself all its best and completest possibilities and pour them out by thought, action and all other means on his surroundings so that the whole race may approach nearer to the attainment of its supreme personalities.
It follows that the object of the material life must be to fulfil, above all things, the vital aim of Nature. The whole aim of the material man is to live, to pass from birth to death with as much comfort or enjoyment as may be on the way, but anyhow to live.
--
But if it is often difficult for the mental life to accommodate itself to the dully resistant material activity, how much more difficult must it seem for the spiritual existence to live on in a world that appears full not of the Truth but of every lie and illusion, not of Love and Beauty but of an encompassing discord and ugliness, not of the Law of Truth but of victorious selfishness and sin? Therefore the spiritual life tends easily in the saint and Sannyasin to withdraw from the material existence and reject it either wholly and physically or in the spirit. It sees this world as the kingdom of evil or of ignorance and the eternal and divine either in a far-off heaven or beyond where there is no world and no life. It separates itself inwardly, if not also physically, from the world's impurities; it asserts the spiritual reality in a spotless isolation. This withdrawal renders an invaluable service to the material life itself by forcing it to regard and even to bow down to something that is the direct negation of its own petty ideals, sordid cares and egoistic self-content.
But the work in the world of so supreme a power as spiritual force cannot be thus limited. The spiritual life also can return upon the material and use it as a means of its own greater fullness. Refusing to be blinded by the dualities, the appearances, it can seek in all appearances whatsoever the vision of the same Lord, the same eternal Truth, Beauty, Love, Delight. The
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Bliss by the conversion of the central ego in the mind. And according to the point of contact that we choose will be the type of the Yoga that we practise.
For if, leaving aside the complexities of their particular processes, we fix our regard on the central principle of the chief schools of Yoga still prevalent in India, we find that they arrange themselves in an ascending order which starts from the lowest rung of the ladder, the body, and ascends to the direct contact between the individual soul and the transcendent and universal
--
Hathayoga aims at the conquest of the life and the body whose combination in the food sheath and the vital vehicle constitutes, as we have seen, the gross body and whose equilibrium is the foundation of all Nature's workings in the human being. The equilibrium established by Nature is sufficient for the normal egoistic life; it is insufficient for the purpose of the Hathayogin.
For it is calculated on the amount of vital or dynamic force necessary to drive the physical engine during the normal span of human life and to perform more or less adequately the various workings demanded of it by the individual life inhabiting this frame and the world-environment by which it is conditioned.
--
the powers of disorder. The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is a careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine
Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, glad, clear state of mind and heart is established.
--
The Path of Works aims at the dedication of every human activity to the supreme Will. It begins by the renunciation of all egoistic aim for our works, all pursuit of action for an interested aim or for the sake of a worldly result. By this renunciation it so
The Conditions of the Synthesis
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I fully agree with you that egoism, vanity and jealousy must
disappear; they are indeed ugly, mean and ignorant things that
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Nature, that which we know and are and must remain so long as the faith in us is not changed, acts through limitation and division, is of the nature of Ignorance and culminates in the life of the ego; but the higher Nature, that to which we aspire, acts by unification and transcendence of limitation, is of the nature of Knowledge and culminates in the life divine. The passage from the lower to the higher is the aim of Yoga; and this passage
The Synthesis of the Systems
--
Yoga that we seek must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and a waste of time; for then our sole practical aim must be to find out one path out of the thousand that lead to God, one shortest possible of short cuts, and not to linger exploring different paths that end in the same goal. But if our aim be a transformation of our integral being into the terms of God-existence, it is then that a synthesis becomes necessary.
The method we have to pursue, then, is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform our entire being into His. Thus in a sense
--
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.
--
Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the Divine, sadharmya-mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the
Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. An integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
ignorant, as egoistic as before.
This Series is organised broadly by subject into thirteen parts - the form in which
--
If you say I am there for you alone, obviously it is egoistic and
false; but if you think I am there for all my children, that I carry
--
This is a very ugly love, quite egoistic.
The Ashram is not a place for being in love with anyone. If you
--
you make your little ego the centre of your preoccupation that
you are sad and unsatisfied. To forget oneself is the great remedy
--
give yourself entirely and without egoism while washing dishes
or serving a meal brings you much nearer the Divine than
--
my ego which unceasingly says that I cannot accomplish
what the Divine wants of me.
Yes, and as soon as the ego surrenders and abdicates, this fear
disappears giving place to the calm assurance that nothing is
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How can one eliminate the will of the ego?
This amounts to asking how one can eliminate the ego. It is only
by yoga that one can do it. There have been, throughout the spiritual history of humanity, many methods of yoga - which Sri
--
But before eliminating the will of the ego, which takes a very
long time, one can begin by surrendering the will of the ego to the
Divine Will at every opportunity and finally in a constant way.
--
Naturally, this is not the opinion of the ego, which thinks
it knows better than anyone else what it needs, and claims for
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
it is the ego. With the disappearance of the ego, the desires
disappear.
--
The two are equally true and they ought to be felt simultaneously. But human egoism always has the tendency to take rather
than to give. This is where that impression comes from.
--
all egoism and become a conscious instrument of the Divine
Will. The soul itself, being a portion of the Divine, is above
--
the ego has been dissolved.
12 August 1960
--
desire or egoism, one finds Him very soon, for always He comes
to meet you in order to help you.
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Not that this sovereign power will have anything to do with aggression or over-bearingness. It will not be a power that feels itself only by creating an eternal opponentErbfeindby coming in constant clash with a rival that seeks to gain victory by subjugating. It will not be Nietzschean "will to power," which is, at best, a supreme Asuric power. It will rather be a Divine Power, for the strength it will exert and the victory it will achieve will not come from the egoit is the ego which requires an object outside and against to feel and affirm itself but it will come from a higher personal self which is one with the cosmic soul and therefore with other personal souls. The Asura, in spite of, or rather, because of his aggressive vehemence betrays a lack of the sovereign power that is calm and at ease and self-sufficient. The Devic power does not assert hut simply accomplishes; the forces of the world act not as its opponent but as its instrument. Thus the New Man shall affirm his individual sovereignty and do so to perfection by expressing through it his unity with the cosmic powers, with the infinite godhead. And by being Swarat, Self-Master, he will become Samrat, world-master.
This mastery will be effected not merely in will, but in mind and heart also. For the New Man will know not by the intellect which is egocentric and therefore limited, not by ratiocination which is an indirect and doubtful process, but by direct vision, an inner communion, a soul revelation. The new knowledge will be vast and profound and creative, based as it will be upon the reality of things and not upon their shadows. Truth will shine through every experience and every utterance"a truth shall have its seat on our speech and mind and hearing", so have the Vedas said. The mind and intellect will not be active and constructive agents but the luminous channel of a self-luminous knowledge. And the heart too which is now the field of passion and egoism will be cleared of its noise and obscurity; a serener sky will shed its pure warmth and translucent glow. The knot will be rent asunderbhidyate hridaya granthih and the vast and mighty streams of another ocean will flow through. We will love not merely those to whom we are akin but God's creatures, one and all; we will love not with the yearning and hunger of a mortal but with the wide and intense Rasa that lies in the divine identity of souls.
And the new society will be based not upon competition, nor even upon co-operation. It will not be an open conflict, neither will it be a convenient compromise of rival individual interests. It will be the organic expression of the collective soul of humanity, working and achieving through each and every individual soul its most wide-winging freedom, manifesting the godhead that is, proper to each and every one. It will be an organisation, most delicate and subtle and supple, the members of which will have no need to live upon one another but in and through one another. It will be, if you like, a henotheistic hierarchy in which everyone will be the greatest, since everyone is all and all everyone simultaneously.
The New Humanity will be something in the mould that we give to the gods. It will supply the link that we see missing between gods and men; it will be the race of embodied gods. Man will attain that thing which has been his first desire and earliest dream, for which he coveted the gods Immortality, amritatwam. The mortalities that cut and divide, limit and bind man make him the sorrowful being he is. These are due to his ignorance and weakness and egoism. These are due to his soul itself. It is the soul that requires change, a new birth, as Christ demanded. Ours is a little soul that has severed itself from the larger and mightier self that it is. And therefore does it die every moment and even while living is afraid to live and so lives poorly and miserably. But the age is now upon us when the god-like soul anointed with its immortal royalties is ready to emerge and claim our salutation.
The breath and the surge of the new creation cannot be mistaken. The question that confronts us today is no longer whether the New Man, the Super-humanity, will come or if at all, when; but the question we have to answer is who among us are ready to be its receptacle, its instrument and embodiment.
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The first contact that one has with this static supra-reality is through the higher ranges of the mind: a direct and closer communion is established through a plane which is just above the mind the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it. The Overmind dissolves or transcends the ego-consciousness which limits the being to its individualised formation bounded by an outward and narrow frame or sheath of mind, life and body; it reveals the universal Self and Spirit, the cosmic godhead and its myriad forces throwing up myriad forms; the world-existence there appears as a play of ever-shifting veils upon the face of one ineffable reality, as a mysterious cycle of perpetual creation and destructionit is the overwhelming vision given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita. At the same time, the initial and most intense experience which this cosmic consciousness brings is the extreme relativity, contingency and transitoriness of the whole flux, and a necessity seems logically and psychologically imperative to escape into the abiding substratum, the ineffable Absoluteness.
This has been the highest consummation, the supreme goal which the purest spiritual experience and the deepest aspiration of the human consciousness generally sought to attain. But in this view, the world or creation or Nature came in the end to be looked upon as fundamentally a product of Ignorance: ignorance and suffering and incapacity and death were declared to be the very hallmark of things terrestrial. The Light that dwells above and beyond can be made to shed for a while some kind of lustre upon the mortal darkness but never altogether to remove or change itto live in the full light, to be in and of the Light means to pass beyond. Not that there have not been other strands and types of spiritual experiences and aspirations, but the one we are considering has always struck the major chord and dominated and drowned all the rest.
--
In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its, spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually exclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot of separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres of the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and Overmind meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each distinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all together forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely composite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into Supermind one sees something moreOneness gathering into itself all diversity, not destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness that is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness, the initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in when the supramental light enters the penumbra of the mental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement of light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving, absolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness of Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential and unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression of each one assured truth entering into and upholding every other and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no trial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests on all others and on that which harmonises them all and does not act as a Power diverging from and even competing with other Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play of divergent possibilities the simple, direct, united and absolute certainties of the supramental consciousness retire, as it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out through the interaction first of separately individualised and then of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind there is a conscious underlying Unity but yet each Power, Truth, Aspect of that Unity is encouraged to work out its possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are used by it for its own enhancement until in the denser and darker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of blind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation or manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being into a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends' towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the Spirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakeningsMatter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit.
The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescienceof Involutionhas been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic Time-Space the splendours of the timeless Reality. The material body came into existence bringing with it inevitably, as it seemed, mortality; it appeared even to be fashioned out of mortality, in order that in this very frame and field of mortality, Immortality, the eternal Spirit Consciousness which is the secret truth and reality in Time itself as well as behind it, might be established and that the Divine might be possessed, or rather, possess itself not in one unvarying mode of the static consciousness, as it does even now behind the cosmic play, but in the play itself and in the multiple mode of the terrestrial existence.
01.02 - The Object of the Integral Yoga, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
... the object of the Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine's sake alone, to be turned in our nature into nature of the Divine and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine. Its object is not to be a great Yogi or a superman (although that may come) or to grab at the Divine for the sake of the ego's power, pride or pleasure.
It is not for salvation though liberation comes by it and all else may come; but these must not be our objects. The Divine alone is our object.
To come to this Yoga merely with the idea of being a superman would be an act of vital egoism which would defeat its own object. Those who put this object in the front of their preoccupations invariably come to grief, spiritually and otherwise. The aim of this Yoga is, first, to enter into the divine consciousness by merging into it the separative ego (incidentally, in doing so one finds one's true individual self which is not the limited, vain and selfish human ego but a portion of the Divine) and, secondly, to bring down the supramental consciousness on earth to transform mind, life and body. All else can be only a result of these two aims, not the primary object of the Yoga.
The only creation for which there is any place here is the supramental, the bringing of the divine Truth down on the earth, not only into the mind and vital but into the body and into
Matter. Our object is not to remove all "limitations" on the expansion of the ego or to give a free field and make unlimited room for the fulfilment of the ideas of the human mind or the desires of the ego-centred life-force. None of us are here to "do as we like", or to create a world in which we shall at last be able to do as we like; we are here to do what the Divine wills and to create a world in which the Divine Will can manifest its truth no longer deformed by human ignorance or perverted and mistranslated by vital desire. The work which the sadhak of the supramental Yoga has to do is not his own work for which he can lay down his own conditions, but the work of the Divine which he has to do according to the conditions laid down by the Divine. Our Yoga is not for our own sake but for the sake of the Divine. It is not our own personal manifestation that we are to seek, the manifestation of the individual ego freed from all bounds and from all bonds, but the manifestation of the Divine. Of that manifestation our own spiritual liberation, perfection, fullness is to be a result and a part, but not in any egoistic sense or for any ego-centred or self-seeking purpose.
This liberation, perfection, fullness too must not be pursued for our own sake, but for the sake of the Divine.
--
You must go inside yourself and enter into a complete dedication to the spiritual life. All clinging to mental preferences must fall away from you, all insistence on vital aims and interests and attachments must be put away, all egoistic clinging to family, friends, country must disappear if you want to succeed in Yoga. Whatever has to come as outgoing energy or action, must proceed from the Truth once discovered and not from the lower mental or vital motives, from the Divine Will and not from personal choice or the preferences of the ego.
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It might be said, however, that the guarantee or sanction of Reason does not lie in the extent of its application, nor can its subjective nature (or ego-centric predication, as philosophers would term it) vitiate the validity of its conclusions. There is, in fact, an inherent unity and harmony between Reason and Reality. If we know a little of Reality, we know the whole; if we know the subjective, we know also the objective. As in the part, so in the whole; as it is within, so it is without. If you say that I will die, you need not wait for my actual death to have the proof of your statement. The generalising power inherent in Reason is the guarantee of the certitude to which it leads. Reason is valid, as it does not betray us. If it were such as anti-intellectuals make it out to be, we would be making nothing but false steps, would always remain entangled in contradictions. The very success of Reason is proof of its being a reliable and perfect instrument for the knowledge of Truth and Reality. It is beside the mark to prove otherwise, simply by analysing the nature of Reason and showing the fundamental deficiencies of that nature. It is rather to the credit of Reason that being as it is, it is none the less a successful and trustworthy agent.
Now the question is, does Reason never fail? Is it such a perfect instrument as intellectualists think it to be? There is ground for serious misgivings. Reason says, for example, that the earth revolves round the sun: and reason, it is argued, is right, for we see that all the facts are conformableto it, even facts that were hitherto unknown and are now coming into our ken. But the difficulty is that Reason did not say that always in the past and may not say that always in the future. The old astronomers could explain the universe by holding quite a contrary theory and could fit into it all their astronomical data. A future scientist may come and explain the matter in quite a different way from either. It is only a choice of workable theories that Reason seems to offer; we do not know the fact itself, apart perhaps from exactly the amount that immediate sense-perception gives to each of us. Or again, if we take an example of another cat egory, we may ask, does God exist? A candid Rationalist would say that he does not know although he has his own opinion about the matter. Evidently, Reason cannot solve all the problems that it meets; it can judge only truths that are of a certain type.
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The island ego joined its continent.
Overpassed was this world of rigid limiting forms:
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This then is the mantra of the new ageLife with Intuition as its guide and not Reason and mechanical efficiency, not Man but Superman. The right mantra has been found, the principle itself is irreproachable. But the interpretation, the application, does not seem to have been always happy. For, Nietzsche's conception of the Superman is full of obvious lacunae. If we have so long been adoring the intellectual man, Nietzsche asks us, on the other hand, to deify the vital man. According to him the superman is he who has (1) the supreme sense of the ego, (2) the sovereign will to power and (3) who lives dangerously. All this means an Asura, that is to say, one who has, it may be, dominion over his animal and vital impulsions in order, of course, that he may best gratify them but who has not purified them. Purification does not necessarily mean, annihilation but it does mean sublimation and transformation. So if you have to transcend man, you have to transcend egoism also. For a conscious egoism is the very characteristic of man and by increasing your sense of egoism you do not supersede man but simply aggrandise your humanity, fashion it on a larger, a titanic scale. And then the will to power is not the only will that requires fulfilment, there is also the will to knowledge and the will to love. In man these three fundamental constitutive elements coexist, although they do it, more often than not, at the expense of each other and in a state of continual disharmony. The superman, if he is to be the man "who has surmounted himself", must embody a poise of being in which all the three find a fusion and harmonya perfect synthesis. Again, to live dangerously may be heroic, but it is not divine. To live dangerously means to have eternal opponents, that is to say, to live ever on the same level with the forces you want to dominate. To have the sense that one has to fight and control means that one is not as yet the sovereign lord, for one has to strive and strain and attain. The supreme lord is he who is perfectly equanimous with himself and with the world. He has not to batter things into a shape in order to create. He creates means, he manifests. He wills and he achieves"God said 'let there be light' and there was light."
As a matter of fact, the superman is not, as Nietzsche thinks him to be, the highest embodiment of the biological force of Nature, not even as modified and refined by the aesthetic and aristocratic virtues of which the higher reaches of humanity seem capable. For that is after all humanity only accentuated in certain other fundamentally human modes of existence. It does not carry far enough the process of surmounting. In reality it is not a surmounting but a new channelling. Instead of the ethical and intellectual man, we get the vital and aesthetic man. It may be a change but not a transfiguration.
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Then the small bodily ego thins and falls;
No more insisting on its separate self,
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In an age when Reason was considered as the highest light given to man, Tagore pointed to the Vision of the mystics as always the still greater light; when man was elated with undreamt-of worldly success, puffed up with incomparable material possessions and powers, Tagore's voice rang clear and emphatic in tune with the cry of the ancients: "What shall I do with all this mass of things, if I am not made immortal by that?" When men, in their individual as well as collective egoism, were scrambling for earthly gains and hoards, he held before them vaster and cleaner horizons, higher and deeper ways of being and living, maintained the sacred sense of human solidarity, the living consciousness of the Divine, one and indivisible. When the Gospel of Power had all but hypnotised men's minds, and Superman or God-man came to be equated with the Titan, Tagore saw through the falsehood and placed in front and above all the old-world eternal verities of love and self-giving, harmony and mutuality, sweetness and light. When pessimism, cynicism, agnosticism struck the major chord of human temperament, and grief and frustration and death and decay were taken as a matter of course to be the inevitable order of earthlylifebhasmantam idam shariramhe continued to sing the song of the Rishis that Ananda and Immortality are the breath of things, the birth right of human beings. When Modernism declared with a certitude never tobe contested that Matter is Brahman, Tagore said with the voice of one who knows that Spirit is Brahman.
Tagore is in direct line with those bards who have sung of the Spirit, who always soared high above the falsehoods and uglinesses of a merely mundane life and lived in the undecaying delights and beauties of a diviner consciousness. Spiritual reality was the central theme of his poetic creation: only and naturally he viewed it in a special way and endowed it with a special grace. We know of another God-intoxicated man, the Jewish philosopher Spinoza, who saw things sub specie aeternitatis, under the figure or mode of eternity. Well, Tagore can be said to see things, in their essential spiritual reality, under the figure or mode of beauty. Keats indeed spoke of truth being beauty and beauty truth. But there is a great difference in the outlook and inner experience. A worshipper of beauty, unless he rises to the Upanishadic norm, is prone to become sensuous and pagan. Keats was that, Kalidasa was that, even Shelley was not far different. The spiritual vein in all these poets remains secondary. In the old Indian master, it is part of his intellectual equipment, no doubt, but nothing much more than that. In the other two it comes in as strange flashes from an unknown country, as a sort of irruption or on the peak of the poetic afflatus or enthousiasmos.
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The little ego's ring could join no more;
In the enormous spaces of the self
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Against this tyranny of the group, this absolute rule of the collective will, the human mind rose in revolt and the result was Individualism. For whatever may be the truth and necessity of the Collective, the Individual is no less true and necessary. The individual has his own law and urge of being and his own secret godhead. The collective godhead derides the individual godhead at its peril. The first movement of the reaction, however, was a run to the other extremity; a stern collectivism gave birth to an intransigent individualism. The individual is sacred and inviolable, cost what it may. It does not matter what sort of individuality one seeks, it is enough if the thing is there. So the doctrine of individualism has come to set a premium on egoism and on forces that are disruptive of all social bonds. Each and every individual has the inherent right, which is also a duty, to follow his own impetus and impulse. Society is nothing but the battle ground for competing individualities the strongest survive and the weakest go to the wall. Association and co-operation are instruments that the individual may use and utilise for his own growth and development but in the main they act as deterrents rather than as aids to the expression and expansion of his characteristic being. In reality, however, if we probe sufficiently deep into the matter we find that there is no such thing as corporate life and activity; what appears as such is only a camouflage for rigorous competition; at the best, there maybe only an offensive and defensive alliancehumanity fights against nature, and within humanity itself group fights against group and in the last analysis, within the group, the individual fights against the individual. This is the ultimate Law-the Dharma of creation.
Now, what such an uncompromising individualism fails to recognise is that individuality and ego are not the same thing, that the individual may have his individuality intact and entire and yet sacrifice his ego, that the soul of man is a much greater thing than his vital being. It is simply ignoring the fact and denying the truth to say that man is only a fighting animal and not a loving god, that the self within the individual realises itself only through competition and not co-operation. It is an error to conceive of society as a mere parallelogram of forces, to suppose that it has risen simply out of the struggle of individual interests and continues to remain by that struggle. Struggle is only one aspect of the thing, a particular form at a particular stage, a temporary manifestation due to a particular system and a particular habit and training. It would be nearer the truth to say that society came into being with the demand of the individual soul to unite with the individual soul, with the stress of an Over-soul to express itself in a multitude of forms, diverse yet linked together and organised in perfect harmony. Only, the stress for union manifested itself first on the material plane as struggle: but this is meant to be corrected and transcended and is being continually corrected and transcended by a secret harmony, a real commonality and brotherhood and unity. The individual is not so self-centred as the individualists make him to be, his individuality has a much vaster orbit and fulfils itself only by fulfilling others. The scientists have begun to discover other instincts in man than those of struggle and competition; they now place at the origin of social grouping an instinct which they name the herd-instinct: but this is only a formulation in lower terms, a translation on the vital plane of a higher truth and reality the fundamental oneness and accord of individuals and their spiritual impulsion to unite.
However, individualism has given us a truth and a formula which collectivism ignored. Self-determination is a thing which has come to stay. Each and every individual is free, absolutely free and shall freely follow his own line of growth and development and fulfilment. No extraneous power shall choose and fix what is good or evil for him, nor coerce and exploit him for its own benefit. But that does not necessarily mean that collectivism has no truth in it; collectivism also, as much as individualism, has a lesson for us and we should see whether we can harmonise the two. Collectivism signifies that the individual should not look to himself alone, should not be shut up in his freedom but expand himself and envelop others in a wider freedom, see other creatures in himself and himself in other creatures, as the Gita says. Collectivism demands that the individual need not and should not exhaust himself entirely in securing and enjoying his personal freedom, but that he can and should work for the salvation of others; the truth it upholds is this that the individual is from a certain point of view only a part of the group and by ignoring the latter it ignores itself in the end.
--
Communism takes man not as ego or the vital creature; it turns him upside downurdhomulo' vaksakhah and establishes him upon his soul, his inner godhead. Thus established the individual soul finds and fulfils the divine law that by increasing itself it increases others and by increasing others it increases itself and thus by increasing one another they attain the supreme good. Unless man goes beyond himself and reaches this self, this godhead above, he will not find any real poise, will always swing between individualism and collectivism, he will remain always boundbound either in his freedom or in his bondage.
A commune is a group of individuals having a common self and a common life-intuition. A common self presupposes the realisation by each individual of his deepest being the self which is at once distinct from and instinct with other selves; a common life-intuition presupposes the awakening of each individual to his inmost creative urge, which, pure and true and vast as it is, fulfils itself in and through other creative urges.
--
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.
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This spiritual march or progress can also be described as a growing into the likeness of the Lord. His true self, his own image is implanted within us; he is there in the profoundest depth of our being as Jesus, our beloved and our soul rests in him in utmost bliss. We are aware neither of Jesus nor of his spouse, our soul, because of the obsession of the flesh, the turmoil raised by the senses, the blindness of pride and egoism. All that constitutes the first or old Adam, the image of Nought, the body of death which means at bottom the "false misruled love in to thyself." This self-love is the mother of sin, is sin itself. What it has to be replaced by is charity that is the true meaning of Christian charity, forgetfulness of self. "What is sin but a wanting and a forbearing of God." And the whole task, the discipline consists in "the shaping of Christ in you, the casting of sin through Christ." Who then is Christ, what is he? This knowledge you get as you advance from your sense-bound perception towards the inner and inmost seeing. As your outer nature gets purified, you approach gradually your soul, the scales fall off from your eyes too and you have the knowledge and "ghostly vision." Here too there are three degrees; first, you start with faith the senses can do nothing better than have faith; next, you rise to imagination which gives a sort of indirect touch or inkling of the truth; finally, you have the "understanding", the direct vision. "If he first trow it, he shall afterwards through grace feel it, and finally understand it."
It is never possible for man, weak and bound as he is, to reject the thraldom of his flesh, he can never purify himself wholly by his own unaided strength. God in his infinite mercy sent his own son, an emanation created out of his substancehis embodied loveas a human being to suffer along with men and take upon himself the burden of their sins. God the Son lived upon earth as man and died as man. Sin therefore has no longer its final or definitive hold upon mankind. Man has been made potentially free, pure and worthy of salvation. This is the mystery of Christ, of God the Son. But there is a further mystery. Christ not only lived for all men for all time, whether they know him, recognise him or not; but he still lives, he still chooses his beloved and his beloved chooses him, there is a conscious acceptance on either side. This is the function of the Holy Ghost, the redeeming power of Love active in him who accepts it and who is accepted by it, the dynamic Christ-Consciousness in the true Christian.
Indeed, the kernel of the mystic discipline and its whole bearingconsists in one and only one principle: to love Jhesu. All roads lead to Rome: all preparations, all trials lead to one realisation, love of God, God as a living person close to us, our friend and lover and master. The Christian mystic speaks almost in the terms of the Gita: Rise above your senses, give up your ego-hood, be meek and humble, it is Jesus within you, who embraces your soul: it is he who does everything for you and in you, give yourself up wholly into his hands. He will deliver you.
The characteristic then of the path is a one-pointed concentration. Great stress is laid upon "oneliness", "onedness":that is to say, a perfect and complete withdrawal from the outside and the world; an unmixed solitude is required for the true experience and realisation to come. "A full forsaking in will of the soul for the love of Him, and a living of the heart to Him. This asks He, for this gave He." The rigorous exclusion, the uncompromising asceticism, the voluntary self-torture, the cruel dark night and the arid desert are necessary conditions that lead to the "onlyness of soul", what another prophet (Isaiah, XXIV, 16) describes as "My privity to me". In that secreted solitude, the "onlistead"the graphic language of the author calls itis found "that dignity and that ghostly fairness which a soul had by kind and shall have by grace." The utter beauty of the soul and its absolute love for her deity within her (which has the fair name of Jhesu), the exclusive concentration of the whole of the being upon one point, the divine core, the manifest Grace of God, justifies the annihilation of the world and life's manifold existence. Indeed, the image of the Beloved is always within, from the beginning to the end. It is that that keeps one up in the terrible struggle with one's nature and the world. The image depends upon the consciousness which we have at the moment, that is to say, upon the stage or the degree we have ascended to. At the outset, when we can only look through the senses, when the flesh is our master, we give the image a crude form and character; but even that helps. Gradually, as we rise, with the clearing of our nature, the image too slowly regains its original and true shape. Finally, in the inmost soul we find Jesus as he truly is: "an unchangeable being, a sovereign might, a sovereign soothfastness, sovereign goodness, a blessed life and endless bliss." Does not the Gita too say: "As one approaches Me, so do I appear to him."Ye yath mm prapadyante.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We say, then, that man is distinguished from the animal by his having consciousness as it has, but added to it the consciousness of self. Man acts and feels and knows as much as the animal does; but also he knows that he acts, he knows that he feels, he knows that he knowsand this is a thing the animal cannot do. It is the awakening of the sense of self in every mode of being that characterises man, and it is owing to this consciousness of an ego behind, of a permanent unit of reference, which has modified even the functions of knowing and feeling and acting, has refashioned them in a mould which is not quite that of the animal, in spite of a general similarity.
So the humanity of man consists in his consciousness of the self or ego. Is there no other higher mode of consciousness? Or is self-consciousness the acme, the utmost limit to which consciousness can raise itself? If it is so, then we are bound to conclude that humanity will remain eternally human in its fundamental nature; the only progress, if progress at all we choose to call it, will consist perhaps in accentuating this consciousness of the self and in expressing it through a greater variety of stresses, through a richer combination of its colour and light and shade and rhythm. But also, this may not be sothere may be the possibility of a further step, a transcending of the consciousness of the self. It seems unnatural and improbable that having risen from un-consciousness to self-consciousness through a series of continuous marches, Nature should suddenly stop and consider what she had achieved to be her final end. Has Nature become bankrupt of her creative genius, exhausted of her upward drive? Has she to remain content with only a clever manipulation, a mere shuffling and re-arranging of the materials already produced?
As a matter of fact it is not so. The glimpses of a higher form of consciousness we can see even now present in self-consciousness. We have spoken of the different stages of evolution as if they were separate and distinct and incommensurate entities. They may be described as such for the purpose of a logical understanding, but in reality they form a single progressive continuum in which one level gradually fuses into another. And as the higher level takes up the law of the lower and evolves out of it a characteristic function, even so the law of the higher level with its characteristic function is already involved and envisaged in the law of the lower level and its characteristic function. It cannot be asserted positively that because man's special virtue is self-consciousness, animals cannot have that quality on any account. We do see, if we care to observe closely and dispassionately, that animals of the higher order, as they approach the level of humanity, show more and more evident signs of something which is very much akin to, if not identical with the human characteristic of self-consciousness.
--
The inflatus of something vast and transcendent, something which escapes all our familiar schemes of cognisance and yet is insistent with a translucent reality of its own, we do feel sometimes within us invading and enveloping our individuality, lifting up our sense of self and transmuting our personality into a reality which can hardly be called merely human. All this life of ego-bound rationality then melts away and opens out the passage for a life of vision and power. Thus it is the poet has felt when he says, "there is this incalculable element in human life influencing us from the mystery which envelops our being, and when reason is satisfied, there is something deeper than Reason which makes us still uncertain of truth. Above the human reason there is a transcendental sphere to which the spirit of men sometimes rises, and the will may be forged there at a lordly smithy and made the unbreakable pivot."(A.E.)
This passage from the self-conscient to the super-conscient does not imply merely a shifting of the focus of consciousness. The transmutation of consciousness involves a purer illumination, a surer power and a wider compass; it involves also a fundamental change in the very mode of being and living. It gives quite a different life-intuition and a different life-power. The change in the motif brings about a new form altogether, a re-casting and re-shaping and re-energising of the external materials as well. As the lift from mere consciousness to self-consciousness meant all the difference between an animal and a man, so the lift again from self-consciousness to super-consciousness will mean the difference of a whole world between man and the divine creature that is to be.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The ego would do well to become a little more modest.
13 August 1961
--
For that to be possible, all egoistic motives and all egoistic
reactions must disappear.
--
is tainted with egoism. It is this egoism that she must conquer,
and as soon as she does she will no longer suffer.
--
desire and ignorance and egoism."
Thoughts and Aphorisms, in SABCL, Vol. 17, p. 100.
--
tainted by egoism. But as one tends quite naturally to become
like what one loves, the bhakta, if he is sincere, begins to become
--
this sensitivity is the sign of a strong ego, how can one
eliminate the ego?
Why do you say that sensitivity is the sign of a strong ego? It
does not seem to be evident at all. Moreover, there are many
--
- the best - are the result of refinement. The ego generally
governs the development of the individual, but the most developed individualities are not necessarily those in whom the ego is
strongest - on the contrary. As the individuality perfects itself,
the power of the ego diminishes, and indeed it is by perfecting
himself that the individual arrives at that state of divinisation
which liberates him from the ego.
2 September 1964
--
Isn't this a kind of isolation, a form of egoism?"
To this rather silly kind of question, Sri Aurobindo always used
--
"The greatest egoist is the Supreme Lord because He never
bothers about anything but Himself!"
--
All this comes from your ego which is very much occupied with
itself and far prefers to blame and criticise itself than to think of
--
human and egoistic lines. I have never promised to do anything
of the kind. Human nature is made up of imperfections, even
--
prancings of self-approbatory egoism.... What is aimed at by us
is a spiritual truth as the basis of life, the first words of which
--
of ego. So long as that basis is not established, a sadhak is only
an ignorant and imperfect human being struggling with the evils
--
matter? Am I free of all desire and all ego?"
And since the answer to all these questions will be the same,
--
Ashram people are far more egoistic than people from
outside, more arrogant, lacking any sympathy, incapable
--
the powers that are profiteers of egoistic force and their servants
On September 1, Pakistan invaded India's border at Jammu-Kashmir.
01.10 - Nicholas Berdyaev: God Made Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nicholas Berdyaev is an ardent worker, as a Russian is naturally expected to be, in the cause of the spiritual rehabilitation of mankind. He is a Christian, a neo-Christian: some of his conclusions are old-world truths and bear repetition and insistence; others are of a more limited, conditional and even doubtful nature. His conception of the value of human person, the dignity and the high reality he gives to it, can never be too welcome in a world where the individual seems to have gone the way of vanished empires and kings and princes. But even more important and interesting is the view he underlines that the true person is a spiritual being, that is to say, it is quite other than the empirical ego that man normally is"not this that one worships" as the Upanishads too declare. Further, in his spiritual being man, the individual, is not simply a portion or a fraction; he is, on the contrary, an integer, a complete whole, a creative focus; the true individual is a microcosm yet holding in it and imaging the macrocosm. Only perhaps greater stress is laid upon the aspect of creativity or activism. An Eastern sage, a Vedantin, would look for the true spiritual reality behind the flux of forces: Prakriti or Energy is only the executive will of the Purusha, the Conscious Being. The personality in Nature is a formulation and emanation of the transcendent impersonality.
There is another aspect of personality as viewed by Berdyaev which involves a bias of the more orthodox Christian faith: the Christ is inseparable from the Cross. So he says: "There is no such thing as personality if there is no capacity for suffering. Suffering is inherent in God too, if he is a personality, and not merely an abstract idea. God shares in the sufferings of men. He yearns for responsive love. There are divine as well as human passions and therefore divine or creative personality must always suffer to the end of time. A condition of anguish and distress is inherent in it." The view is logically enforced upon the Christian, it is said, if he is to accept incarnation, God becoming flesh. Flesh cannot but be weak. This very weakness, so human, is and must be specially characteristic of God also, if he is one with man and his lover and saviour.
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Roerich is one of the prophets and seers who have ever been acclaiming and preparing the Golden Age, the dream that humanity has been dreaming continuously since its very childhood, that is to say, when there will be peace and harmony on earth, when racial, cultural or ideological egoism will no longer divide man and mana thing that seems today a chimera and a hallucinationwhen there will be one culture, one civilisation, one spiritual life welding all humanity into a single unit of life luminous and beautiful. Roerich believes that such a consummation can arrive only or chiefly through the growth of the sense of beauty, of the aesthetic temperament, of creative labour leading to a wider and higher consciousness. Beauty, Harmony, Light, Knowledge, Culture, Love, Delight are cardinal terms in his vision of the deeper and higher life of the future.
The stress of the inner urge to the heights and depths of spiritual values and realities found special and significant expression in his paintings. It is a difficult problem, a problem which artists and poets are tackling today with all their skill and talent. Man's consciousness is no longer satisfied with the customary and the ordinary actions and reactions of life (or thought), with the old-world and time-worn modes and manners. It is no more turned to the apparent and the obvious, to the surface forms and movements of things. It yearns to look behind and beyond, for the secret mechanism, the hidden agency that really drives things. Poets and artists are the vanguards of the age to come, prophets and pioneers preparing the way for the Lord.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When I want to be closer to You, I see that I must overcome my ego. But when I think of overcoming my ego,
I see that I must be closer to You. How can I solve this
--
Tapasya have abolished their ego.
It is beyond all personal effort.
--
What is the most effective way to overcome the ego?
The simplest and most effective way is to offer it to the Divine;
--
And when the ego is abolished, only the Supreme Lord
exists.
--
Cannot the ego consent to its own abolition?
The ego was created for the work of individualisation; when the
work is achieved, it is not unusual for the ego to accept its own
dissolution .
--
All pleasure is a perversion, by egoistic limitation, of the Ananda
which is the purpose of the universal manifestation.
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
has any ego can do it correctly.
Blessings.
0.13 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
own egoism"1 and in one of your letters, you have said
that one must not rely on one's ego but on the psychic.
Mother, will you explain this to me?
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Each one has his ego and all the egos are at odds with one
another. It is only when one gets rid of the ego that one becomes
a free being.
--
to overcome his ego in a total and unconditional self-giving to
the Divine. Then the Divine will make you do what you have to
--
At this perilous hour when egoisms are at odds and asserting
themselves, the only safety lies in taking refuge in Thee!
--
their small personal egoism and turn exclusively to the Divine
for help and light. The wisdom of men is ignorant. Only the
--
(2) progressive abolition of the ego.
The divine help is assured to those who set to work sincerely.
--
The ego was necessary to form the individual being. Its destruction is therefore difficult. There is a much better, though more
difficult solution: to transform it and make it an instrument of
--
proceeds, for each ego has its own character and needs a particular method. The only qualities indispensable for all are absolute
perseverance and sincerity. The least tendency to deceive oneself
--
The best thing we can do to express our gratitude is to overcome all egoism in ourselves and make a constant effort towards this transformation. Human egoism refuses to abdicate
on the grounds that others are not transformed. But that is
--
If men knew that this transformation, the abolition of egoism, is the only way to gain constant peace and delight, they
would consent to make the necessary effort. This, then, is the
--
Everyone should repeatedly be told: abolish your ego and
peace will reign in you.
--
When humanity was first created, the ego was the unifying
element. It was around the ego that the different states of being
were grouped; but now that the birth of superhumanity is being
prepared, the ego has to disappear and give way to the psychic
being, which has slowly been formed by divine intervention in
--
with it and allow it to replace the ego, which will be compelled
either to get converted or disappear.
--
Human consciousness is so corrupted that men prefer the miseries of the ego and its ignorance to the luminous joy that comes
from a sincere surrender to the Divine. So great is their blindness
--
subject to the miseries of their ego than make the effort needed
to get rid of them.
--
to make the Divine a slave of their ego, if such a thing were
possible, in order to avoid giving themselves to the Divine.
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is very clear. So it is not I who can make Her stay. And I certainly cannot ask Her to stay for egotistical reasons. Moreover, all these Aspects, all these Personalities manifest constantly but they never manifest for personal reason. Not one of them has ever thought of helping my bodybesides, I dont ask them to because that is not their purpose. But it is more than obvious that if the people around me were receptive, She could permanently manifest since they could receive Herand this would help my body enormously because all these vibrations would run through it. But She never gets even a chance to manifestnot a single one. She only meets people who dont even feel Her when Shes there! They dont even notice Her, theyre not even aware of her presence. So how can She manifest in these conditions? Im not going to ask Her, Please come and change my body. We dont have that kind of relationship! Furthermore, the body itself wouldnt agree. It never thinks of itself, it never pays attention to itself, and besides, it is only through the work that it can be transformed.
Yes, certainly had there been any receptivity when She came down and had She been able to manifest with the power with which She came But I can tell you one thing: even before Her coming, when, with Sri Aurobindo, I had begun going down (for the Yoga) from the mental plane to the vital plane, when we brought our yoga down from the mental plane into the vital plane, in less than a month (I was forty years old at the time I didnt seem very old, I looked less than forty, but I was forty anyway), after no more than a month of this yoga, I looked exactly like an 18 year old! And someone who knew me and had stayed with me in Japan5 came here, and when he saw me, he could scarcely believe his eyes! He said, But my god, is it you? I said, Of course!
0 1955-10-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Generally, when these movements are made in the right way, they are followed by a perfect identification, a dissolution of the ego, bringing about a sublime felicity.
***
0 1956-05-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But if they want to pull the new life into themselves, they will close the door with their egoism. Thats all.
Mother is referring to the darshan of April 24, 1956. Four times a year, for 'darshan,' visitors increasingly poured into the Ashram to pass one by one before Mother (and formerly, Sri Aurobindo) to receive her look.
0 1956-09-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But perhaps you have felt this way because you had left your work in the Ashram for an entirely personal, that is, necessarily egoistical reason, and egoism always isolates one from the great current of universal forces. That is why, too, you no longer clearly perceive my love and my help which nevertheless are always with you.
You asked me what I see and whether your difficulties will not reappear upon your return to the Ashram. It may well be. If you return as you still are at present, it may be that after a very short period it will all begin again. That is why I am going to propose something to you but to accept it you will have to be heroic and very determined in your consecration to my work.
0 1956-10-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So far, your whole life has revolved around yourself; all you have done, even the apparently most disinterested or least egoistic act, has been done with a view to your own personal growth or illumination. It is time to live for something other than yourself, something other than your own individuality.
Open a new chapter in your existence. Live, no longer for your own realization or the realization of your ideal, however exalted it may be, but to serve an eternal work that transcends your individuality on all sides.
0 1957-12-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This physical consciousness records all it sees, all your reactions, your thoughts, all the factswithout preference, without prejudice, without personal will. Nothing escapes it. Its work is almost mechanical. Therefore I know what to tell or to ask you according to the integral truth of your being and its present possibilities. Ordinarily, in the normal man, the physical consciousness does not see things as they are, for three reasons: because of ignorance, because of preference, and because of an egoistic will. You color what you see, eliminate what displeases you. In short, you see only what you desire to see.
Now, I recently had a very striking experience: a discrepancy occurred between my physical consciousness and the consciousness of the world. In some instances decisions made in the Light and the Truth produced unexpected results, upheavals in the consciousness of others that were neither foreseen nor desired, and I did not understand. No matter how hard I tried, I could not understand and I emphasize this word understand. At last, I had to leave my highest consciousness and pull myself down into the physical consciousness to find out what was happening. And there, in my head, I saw what appeared to be a little cell bursting, and suddenly I understood: the recording had been defective. The physical consciousness had neglected to register certain of your lower reactions. It could not have been through preference or through personal will (these things were eliminated from my consciousness long, long ago). But I saw that this most material consciousness was already completely permeated with the transforming supramental truth, and it could no longer follow the rhythm of normal life. It was much more attuned to the true consciousness than to the world! I couldnt possibly blame it for lagging behind; on the contrary, it was in front, too far ahead! There was a discrepancy between the rhythm of the transformation of my being and the worlds own rhythm. The supramental action on the world is slow, it does not act directlyit acts by infiltration, by traversing the successive layers, and the results are slow to come about. So I had to pull myself violently down in order to wait for the others.
0 1958-04-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I was waiting for things to be well established in me before writing you again. An important change has occurred: it seems that something in me has clickedwhat Sri Aurobindo calls the central will, perhapsand I am living literally in the obsession of divine realization. This is what I want, nothing else, it is the only goal in life, and at last I have understood (not with the head) that the outer realization in the world will be the consequence of the inner realization. So thousands of times a day, I repeat, Mother, I want to be your instrument, ever more conscious, I want to express your truth, your light. I want to be what you want, as you want, when you want. There is in me now a kind of need for perfection, a will to abolish this ego, a real understanding that to become your instrument means at the same time to find the perfect plenitude of ones personality. So I am living in an almost constant state of aspiration, I feel your force constantly, or nearly so, and if I am distracted a few minutes, I experience a void, an uneasiness that calls me back to you.
And at the same time, I saw that it is you who is doing everything, you who aspires in me, you who wants the progress, and that all I myself am in this affair is a screen, a resisting obstacle. O Mother, break this screen that I may be wholly transparent before you, that your transforming force may purify all the secret recesses in my being, that nothing may remain but you and you alone. O Mother, may all my being be a living expression of your light, your truth.
Mother, from the depths of my being, I offer you a sole prayer: may I become your more and more perfect instrument, a sword of light in your hands. Oh, to get out of this ego that belittles everything, diminishes everything, to emerge from it! All is falsehood in it.
And I, who understood nothing of love, am beginning to suspect who Satprem is. Mother, your grace is infinite, it has accompanied me everywhere in my life.
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is likely that the greatest resistance will be in the most conscious beings due to a lack of mental receptivity, due to the mind itself which wants things to continue (as Sri Aurobindo has written) according to its own mode of ignorance. So-called inert matter is much more easily responsive, much moreit does not resist. And I am convinced that among plants, for example, or among animals, the response will be much quicker than among men. It will be more difficult to act upon a very organized mind; beings who live in an entirely crystallized, organized mental consciousness are as hard as stone! It resists. According to my experience, what is unconscious will certainly follow more easily. It was a delight to see the water from the tap, the mouthwash in the bottle, the glass, the spongeit all had such an air of joy and consent! There is much less ego, you see, it is not a conscious ego.
The ego becomes more and more conscious and resistant as the being develops. Very primitive, very simple beings, little children will respond first, because they dont have an organized ego. But these big people! People who have worked on themselves, who have mastered themselves, who are organized, who have an ego made of steel, it will be difficult for them.
Unless they go beyond all this and have enough spiritual knowledge to be able to make the ego surrender in which case the realization will naturally be much greaterit will be more difficult to accomplish, but the result will be far more complete.
When you had this experience of February 3, 1958 [the supramental ship], the vision of your usual consciousness, which is nevertheless a Truth Consciousness, no longer seemed true to you at all. Did you see things you had never before seen, or did you see things in another way?
0 1958-08-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Evidently the gods of the Puranas are a good deal worse than human beings, as we saw in that film the other day1 (and that story was absolutely true). The gods of the Overmind are infinitely more egocentric the only thing that counts for them is their power, the extent of their power. Man has in addition a psychic being, so consequently he has true love and compassionwherein lies his superiority over the gods. It was very, very clearly expressed in this film, and its very true.
The gods are faultless, for they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint; it is their godly way. But if one looks at it from a higher point of view, if one has a higher vision, a vision of the whole, they have fewer qualities than man. In this film, it was proved that through their capacity for love and self-giving, men can have as much power as the gods, and even morewhen they are not egoists, when they can overcome their egoism.
Certainly man is nearer the Supreme than the gods. Provided he fulfills the necessary conditions, he can be nearerhe isnt so automatically, but he can be, he has the power, the potentiality to be.
0 1958-10-01, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was so strong, so strong that it was really inexpressible. The negative experience of no longer being an individual, or in other words, the dissolution of the ego, took place a long time ago and still takes place quite often: the ego completely vanishes. But this was a positive experience of being not just the universe in its totality, but something elseineffable, yet concrete, absolutely concrete! Unutterable1and yet utterly concrete: the divine Person beyond the Impersonal.
The experience lasted for only a few minutes. And I knew, then, that all our words all our words are empty. But circumstances were such that I had to speak
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Before, I always had the negative experience of the disappearance of the ego, of the oneness of Creation, where everything implying separation disappearedan experience that, personally, I would call negative. Last Wednesday, while I was speaking (and thats why at the end I could no longer find my words), I seemed suddenly to have left this negative phenomenon and entered into the positive experience: the experience of BEING the Supreme Lord, the experience that nothing exists but the Supreme Lordall is the Supreme Lord, there is nothing else. And at that moment, the feeling of this infinite power that has no limit, that nothing can limit, was so overwhelming that all the functions of the body, of this mental machine that summons up words, all this was I could no longer speak French. Perhaps the words could have come to me in Englishprobably, because it was easier for Sri Aurobindo to express himself in English, and thats how it must have happened: it was the part embodied in Sri Aurobindo (the part of the Supreme that was embodied in Sri Aurobindo for its manifestation) that had the experience. This is what joined back with the Origin and caused the experience I was well aware of it. And that is probably why its transcription through English words would have been easier than through French words (for at these moments, such activities are purely mechanical, rather like automatic machines). And naturally the experience left something behind. It left the sense of a power that can no longer be qualified,5 really. And it was there yesterday evening.
The difficultyits not even a difficulty, its just a kind of precaution that is taken (automatically, in fact) in order to For example, the volume of Force that was to be expressed in the voice was too great for the speech organ. So I had to be a little attentive that is, there had to be a kind of filtering in the outermost expression, otherwise the voice would have cracked. But this isnt done through the will and reason, its automatic. Yet I feel that the capacity of Matter to contain and express is increasing with phenomenal speed. But its progressive, it cant be done instantly. There have often been people whose outer form broke because the Force was too strong; well, I clearly see that it is being dosed out. After all, this is exclusively the concern of the Supreme Lord, I dont bother about itits not my concern and I dont bother about itHe makes the necessary adjustments. Thus it comes progressively, little by little, so that no fundamental disequilibrium occurs. It gives the impression that ones head is swelling so tremendously it will burst! But then if there is a moment of stillness, it adapts; gradually, it adapts.
0 1958-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And ifit can happenif the second attempt also miscarries, if the conditions make the experience the soul is seeking still more difficult for example, if one is in a body with an inadequate will or some distortion in the thought, or an egoism too too hardened, and it ends in suicide, it is dreadful. I have seen this many times, it creates a dreadful karma that can be repeated for lifetimes on end before the soul can conquer it and manage to do what it wants. And each time, the conditions become more difficult, each time it requires a still greater effort. And people who know this say, You cannot get out! In fact, it is this kind of desire to escape which pushes you into more foolish things3 that result in a still greater accumulation of difficulty. There are momentsmoments and circumstanceswhen no one is there to help you, and then things become so horrible, the circumstances become so abominable.
But if the soul has had but ONE call, but ONE contact with the Grace, then in your next life you are put in the conditions, once, whereby EVERYTHING can be swept away at one stroke. And at this present moment on earth, you cannot imagine the number of people I have met that is, the number of soulswho had reached out towards this possibility with such an intensity and they have all found themselves on my path.
--
Oh, the most terrible of all is when one does not have the strength, the courage, something indomitable! How many times do they come to tell me, I want to die, I want to flee, I want to die.I say, But die, then, die to yourself! No one is asking you to let your ego survive! Die to yourself since you want to die! Have that courage, the true courage, to die to your egoism.
But because it is karma, one must, one must DO something oneself. Karma is the construction of the ego; the ego MUST DO something, everything cannot be done for it. This is it, THIS is the thing: karma is the result of the egos actions, and only when the ego abdicates is the karma dissolved. One can help it along, one can assist it, give it strength, bestow courage upon it, but the ego must then make use of it.
(silence)
So this is what I saw for you: that the crystallization of this karma occurred during a life in India in which you were put in the presence of the possibility of liberation and I dont know the details; I dont know the material facts at all. So far, I know nothing, I have only had a vision. I saw you there, as I told you, taller than you are now, in an Indian body, north Indian, for it was not dark but fair. But there was a HARDNESS in the being, the hardness born of a kind of despair mixed with rebellion, incomprehension and an ego that resists. That is all I know. The image was of you backed up against a bronze door: BACKED UP against it. I didnt see what had caused it. As I told you, something interrupted me, so I was unable to follow it.
The other indication is what I told you the other day. When you thought of leaving to join Swami, I immediately saw a stream of light: Ah, the road is opening up! So I said, It is good. And while you were away in Ceylon, I followed you from day to day. You called much more than the second time, when you were in the Himalayas; and with the physical hardships you were undergoing, I was very, very close to you I constantly felt what was happening.
--
And then, more and more, I felt that if what I saw, as I saw it, could be realized I saw two things: a journeynot at all a pilgrimage as it is commonly understooda journey towards solitude in arduous conditions, and a sojourn in a very severe solitude, facing the mountains, in arduous physical conditions. The contact with this majesty of Nature has a great influence upon the ego at certain moments: it has the power to dissolve it. But all this complication, all these organized pilgrimages, all that it brings in the whole petty side of human life which spoils everything
Yes, that whole journey was odious
0 1959-01-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother, by way of expressing to you my gratitude, I want to work now to open myself totally to your Light and become truly an egoless instrument, your conscious instrument. Mother, you are the sole Reality.
With love and gratitude, I am your child.
0 1959-01-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Your last letter gave us great pleasure, knowing that you have finally recovered physically. But we deeply hope that you will not again take up the countless activities that formerly consumed all your timeso many people come to you egoistically, for prestige, to be able to say that they are on familiar terms with you. You know this, of course
As for myself, a step has definitely been taken, and I am no longer swept away by this painful torrent. Depressions and attacks still come, but no longer with the same violence as before. X told me that 2/3 of the work has been done and that everything would be purged in twelve days or so, then the thing will be enclosed in a jar and buried somewhere or thrown into the sea, and he will explain it all to me. I will write and tell you about it.
0 1959-01-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Your letter, Sweet Mother, has filled me with strength and resolution. I want to be victorious and I want to serve you. I see very well that gradually I can be taught many useful things by X. The essential thing is first of all to lose this ego which falsifies everything. Finally, through your grace, I believe that I have passed a decisive turning point and that there is a beginning of real consecration and I feel your Love, your Presence. Things are opening a little.
Sweet Mother, I love you and I want to serve you truly.
0 1959-05-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This morning, the problem and its solution appeared to me very clearly; but since, for quite obvious reasons, I am both the judge and the accused in this matter, I cannot make a decision; not that my judgment would necessarily be egoistic, but it would have no authority.
Only someone who loves you and has the knowledge can find the true solution to the problem. X1 fulfills these conditions excellently. Go to him and simply be what you are, without blackening nor embellishing, with the sincerity and simplicity of a child. He knows your soul and its aspiration; speak to him of your physical life and of your need for space, solitude, untamed nature, the simple and free life. He will understand and, in his wisdom, will see the best thing to do.
0 1960-01-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Of all forms of ego, you might think that the physical ego is the most difficult to conquer (or rather, the body ego, because the work was already done long ago on the physical ego). It might be thought that the form of the body is a point of concentration, and that without this concentration or hardness, physical life would not be possible. But thats not true. The body is really a wonderful instrument; its capable of widening and of becoming vast in such a way that everything, everything the slightest gesture, the least little taskis done in a wonderful harmony and with a remarkable plasticity. Then all of a sudden, for something quite stupid, a draft, a mere nothing, it forgetsit shrinks back into itself, it gets afraid of disappearing, afraid of not being. And everything has to be started again from scratch. So in the yoga of matter you start realizing how much endurance is needed. I calculated it would take 200 years to say ten crore of my japa. Well, Im ready to struggle 200 years if necessary, but the work will be done.
Sri Aurobindo had made it clear to me when I was still in France that this yoga in matter is the most difficult of all. For the other yogas, the paths have been well laid, you know where to tread, how to proceed, what to do in such-and-such a case. But for the yoga of matter, nothing has ever been done, never, so at each moment everything has to be invented.
0 1960-05-16, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If there is one fundamental necessity, it is humility. To be humble. Not humble as it is normally understood, such as merely saying, I am so small, Im nothing at allno, something else Because the pitfalls are innumerable, and the further you progress in yoga, the more subtle they become, and the more the ego masks itself behind marvelous and saintly appearances. So when somebody says, I no longer want to rely on anything but Him. I want to close my eyes and rest in Him alone, this comfortable Him, which is exactly what you want him to be, is the egoor a formidable Asura, or a Titan (depending on each ones capacity). Theyre all over the earth, the earth is their domain. So the first thing to do is to pocket your egonot preserve it, but get rid of it as soon as possible!
You can be sure that the God youve created is a God of the ego whenever something within you insists, This is what I feel, this is what I think, this is what I see; its my way, my very ownits my way of being, my way of understanding, my relationship with the Divine, etc.
And then they say, I want to close my eyes and see nothing but Him I want nothing more of the outer world. And they forget theres Love! That is the great Secret, that which is behind the Existent and the Non-Existent, the Personal and the ImpersonalLove. Not a love between two things, two beings A love containing everything.
--
And what is wonderful is that at each moment the Grace, the Joy, the Light, the Love never cease pouring down in the very midst of all thisdespite the ego, despite the shame, despite the unworthiness. To be humble
***
0 1960-05-24 - supramental flood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It happened last night. For approximately three hours, the physical ego disintegrated for the first time in such a total way.
Nothing remained but the Force, nothing remained but Sat-Chit-Ananda,1 and not only in the consciousness but in the physical sensation the divine Satchidananda spreading in a constant flood throughout the universe.
--
And all this was absolutely egoless, without any personal reaction, nothing; there was nothing but the consciousness of the Supreme Action. It was the only thing existing.
And of course, the whole ordinary and higher mind (as well as the physical mind, it goes without saying, for that must be abolished before going into trance), everything here in the head, above the head, around the headabsolutely immobile.
0 1960-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I also use my mantra to go into trance. After relaxing on the bed and making as total a self-offering as possible of everything, from top to bottom, and after removing as fully as possible all resistance of the ego, I start repeating the mantra.1 After repeating it two or three times, I am in trance (at the beginning it took longer). And from this trance I pass into sleep; the trance lasts as long as necessary and, quite naturally, spontaneously, I pass into sleep. And when I come back, I remember everything. The sleep was like a continuation of the trance. And essentially, the only reason for sleep is to allow the body to assimilate the results of the trance, then to allow these results to be accepted throughout and to let the body do its natural nights work of eliminating toxins. My periods of sleep practically dont exist sometimes they are as short as half an hour or 15 minutes. But in the beginning, I had long periods of sleep, one or even two hours in succession. And when I woke up, I did not feel this residue of heaviness which comes from sleep the effects of the trance continued.
It is even good for people whove never been in trance to repeat a mantra (or a word, a prayer) before going to sleep. But the words must have a life of their ownby this I dont mean an intellectual meaning, nothing of the kind, but rather a vibration. And this has an extraordinary effect on the body, it starts vibrating, vibrating, vibrating and so calm, you let yourself go, like falling off to sleep. And the body vibrates more and more, more and more, more and more, and you drift off.
0 1960-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I dont know. I suppose its the ego.
What do you mean, the ego?
The ego, the knot, I dont know. I dont know what movement to make.
(silence)
0 1960-08-27, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
We should not allow all this to upset us. There is but one thing to doremain in a state of constant peace, constant equanimity, for things are not they are not very pleasant. Oh, if you only knew all the letters they write me if you knew, first of all, the tremendous pile of stupidities that need never be written at all; then, added to that, such a display of ignorance, egoism, bad will, total incomprehension and unequalled ingratitude, and all this so candid, my child! They heap all this on me daily, you know, and it comes from the most unexpected quarters.
If this were to affect me (Mother laughs), I would long ago have been who knows where. I dont care at all, not at all, really not at allit doesnt bother me, it makes me smile.
0 1960-10-02a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Before going to bed, sometimes I say to myself, I will do what is necessary to spend my night in these great currents of force(because there is a way to do it). And then I think, Oh, what an egotist you are, my girl! So sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesntwhen theres something important to do, it doesnt happen. But all I have to do is concentrate in a certain way before going to sleep to spend my whole night in these very far from here, very far I cant say very far from the earth, for surely its in an intermediate zone between the forces from above and the earths atmosphere. Thats what it mainly is, in any case. Its a great universal current as well, but mainly its what descends and comes onto the earth, and it is permeating the earths atmosphere all the time, all the time, and it comes with this wide, overall visionit makes for wonderful nights I no longer bother about people at allat least not as such, but in a more impersonal way.
(silence)
I have been pestered my whole life by something similar to the sense of duty without its stupidity. Sri Aurobindo had told me that it was a censor, that I had with me a considerable one! It was constantly, constantly telling me, No, its not like that, its like this Oh, no! Its wrong to do that; be careful, dont be egotistical; be carefuldo this, do that. He was right, but I sent it away long agoor rather, Sri Aurobindo sent it away. But there remains the habit of not doing what I like. Rather, of doing what MUST be done, and whether its pleasant or not makes no difference.
This, too, Sri Aurobindo had explained to me. I used to tell him, Yes, you always speak of lifes delight, life for the sake of its delight. But as soon as I had the notion, as soon as I was put in the presence of the Supreme, it was: For Youexclusively what You want. You are the sole, the unique and exclusive reason for being. And that has remained, and this movement is so strong that even when you see, now I have ecstasy and ananda in abundanceeverything comes, everything. But even then, even when that is there, something in me always turns towards the Supreme and says, Does this TRULY serve You? Is it what You expect of me, what You want from me?
0 1961-01-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You have this experience when for some reason or other, depending on the case, you come into contact with the universal consciousness not in its limitless essence but on any level of Matter. There is an atomic consciousness, a purely material consciousness and an even more generally prevailing psychological consciousness. When, through interiorization or a sort of withdrawal from the ego you enter into contact with that zone of consciousness we can call psychological terrestrial or human collective (there is a difference: human collective is restricted, while terrestrial includes many animal and even plant vibrations; but in the present case, since the moral notion of guilt, sin and evil belongs exclusively to human consciousness, let us simply say human collective psychological consciousness); when you contact that through identification, you naturally feel or see or know yourself capable of any human movement whatsoever. To some extent, this constitutes a Truth-Consciousness, or at such times the egoistical sense of what does or doesnt belong to you, of what you can or cannot do, disappears; you realize that the fundamental construction of human consciousness makes any human being capable of doing anything. And since you are in a truth-consciousness, you are aware at the same time that to feel judgmental or disgusted or revolted would be an absurdity, for EVERYTHING is potentially there inside you. And should you happen to be penetrated by certain currents of force (which we usually cant follow: we see them come and go but we are generally unaware of their origin and direction), if any one of these currents penetrates you, it can make you do anything.
If one always remained in this state of consciousness, keeping alive the flame of Agni, the flame of purification and progress, then after some time, not only could one prevent these movements from taking an active form in oneself and becoming expressed physically, but one could act upon the very nature of the movement and transform it. Needless to say, however, that unless one has attained a very high degree of realization it is virtually impossible to keep this state of consciousness for long. Almost immediately one falls back into the egoistic consciousness of the separate self, and all the difficulties return: disgust, the revolt against certain things and the horror they create in us, and so on.
It is probableeven certain that until one is completely transformed these movements of disgust and revolt are necessary to make one do WITHIN ONESELF what is needed to slam the door on them. For after all, the point is to not let them manifest.
0 1961-01-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But actually, there are really two quite different forms of self-deception. One can be very shocked by certain things, not for personal reasons but precisely because of ones goodwill and ardor to serve the Divine, when one sees people misconducting themselves, being egoistical, unfaithful, treacherous. There comes a stage when one has mastered these things and doesnt permit them to manifest IN ONESELF; but to the extent that one is in contact with ordinary consciousness, ordinary viewpoints, ordinary life and thought, their possibility is still there, latent, because they are the inverse of the qualities one is striving for. And this opposition always exists until one has risen above and no longer has either the quality or the defect. As long as one has virtue, one always has its latent opposite. The opposition disappears only when one is beyond virtue and sin.
But until then, there is this kind of indignation stemming from the fact that one is not entirely above: its a period when one totally disapproves of certain things and would be incapable of doing them. And up to this point, there is nothing to say, unless one gives an external, violent expression to his indignation. If anger interferes, it indicates an entire contradiction between the feeling one wants to have and this reaction towards others. Because anger is a deformation of vital power originating from an obscure and thoroughly unregenerate vital,1 a vital still subject to all the ordinary actions and reactions. When an ignorant, egoistic individual will exploits this vital power and encounters opposition from other individual wills around it, then under the pressure of opposition this power changes into anger and tries to obtain through violence what could not be achieved by the pressure of the Force alone.
Anger, moreover, like all forms of violence, is always a sign of weakness, impotence and incapacity. Here the deception comes from the approval one gives it or the flattering adjective one covers it with; for rage can be no more than blind, ignorant and asuricopposed to the light.
--
There is another case where peoplewithout knowing it or because they WANT to ignore italways pursue their personal interests, their preferences, their attachments, their concepts; people who are not entirely consecrated to the Divine and make use of moral and yogic ideas to conceal their personal motives. These people doubly deceive themselves: not only do they deceive themselves through their outer activities, their relations with others, but they also deceive themselves about their personal motives; instead of serving the Divine they are serving their own egoism. And this happens constantly, constantly! One serves his own personality, his egoism, while pretending to serve the Divine. This is no longer even self-deception: its sheer hypocrisy.
This mental habit of always cloaking everything with a favorable appearance, of giving all movements a favorable explanation, is at times so flagrant that it can fool nobody but oneself (although it may occasionally be subtle enough to create an illusion). It is a sort of habitual self-exoneration, the habit of giving a favorable mental excuse, a favorable mental explanation for all one does, all one says, all one feels. For example, someone with no self-control who strikes another in great indignation and is ready to call it divine wrath! Righteous2 is perfect, because righteous immediately introduces this element of puritanical moralitywonderful!
0 1961-01-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, Mother, this is a problem. Often when you tell me things of such importance I feel I benefit from them quite egoisticallycould they be shown to Pavitra now and then? Do you want them to be kept absolutely confidential, or may I show them to Pavitra occasionally?
It depends. You can tell Sujata whatever you like.
0 1961-01-Undated, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding the ego and the ancient religious initiations which taught: 'You are That' or 'You are the All.')
A moment comes when self-observation is no longer possible.
--
Its not correct to say that you know you have no more ego. The only correct thing would be to affirm that you are ON THE WAY to having no more ego.1
This fragment possibly dates from 1958.
0 1961-02-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now, according to Theon, Jehovah was the chief of the Asuras,6 the supreme Asura, the egoistic God who wanted to dominate everything and keep everything under his control. And of course this act made him furious, for it enabled mankind to become gods through the power of an evolution of consciousness. And thats why he banished them from Paradise.
Although told in a childish manner, theres a great deal of truth in this story, a great deal.
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.
0 1961-02-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All this [the world, the Ashram] is held in my consciousness with a kind of essential compassion applying equally to all things, all difficulties, all obstacles. I receive letters by the dozens, as you know, and each person comes to me with his own little misery or problem, inner or outer (a tiny pimple becomes a mountain). When people come to me, my inner consciousness always responds in the same way, with a kind of equality and compassion for all. But when people are talking to me or I am reading a letter and my body grows conscious of what it calls the to-do they make over their miseries, it has a kind of feeling (I mean there is a feeling in the cells): Why do they take things like that! They are making things much more difficult. The body understands. It understands that their way of taking the least little difficulty in such a blind, egotistical and self-centered manner, increases its difficulties furiously!
Its a rather amusing sensation, a combination of sensation and feeling, that the ordinary human attitude towards things multiplies and magnifies the difficulties to FANTASTIC proportions; while if they simply had the true attitudea NORMAL attitude, quite simple, uncomplicatedahh, all life would be much easier. For the body feels the vibrations (those very vibrations which concentrate to form a body), it feels their nature and sees that its normal reaction, a peaceful and confident reaction, makes things so much easier! But as soon as this agitation of anxiety, fear, discontent comes in, the reaction of a will that doesnt want any of it oh, right away it becomes like water boiling: pff! pff! pff! like a machine. While if the difficulty is accepted with confidence and simplicity, its reduced to its minimum, and I mean purely materially, in the material vibration itself.
0 1961-07-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
68The sense of sin was necessary in order that man might become disgusted with his own imperfections. It was Gods corrective for egoism. But mans egoism meets Gods device by being very dully alive to its own sins and very keenly alive to the sins of others.
(Mother laughs) Marvelous!
0 1961-07-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This eye [hemorrhage], for instance, resulted from such a disorder, a very dark force that someone allowed to enter, not deliberately, not knowingly, but through weakness and ignorance, always mingled, of course, with desire and ego and all the rest. (Without desire and ego, such things would find no access but desire and ego are very widespread.) At any rate, that was plainly the cause and I sensed it immediately. Sometimes when it comes, it creeps up like this (Mother brings her hand to her throat), a black shadow strangling you. Yet inwardly nothing is affected at all, to such an extent that if I didnt pay attention to the purely external reaction, I wouldnt know anything had happened (its the great Play); but externally the indication is immediate: half an hour later I had this eye hemorrhage. I was struggling against a wholly undesirable intrusion, and I knew italthough from an outer point of view, the cause was insignificant. Its not always the events we consider serious or important that produce the most harmful effectsfar from it. Sometimes its an altogether INSIGNIFICANT intrusion of falsehood, for some quite insignificant reasonwhat is commonly labeled a stupidity. This stems from the fact that the adverse forces are always lying in wait, ready to rush in at the least sign of weakness.
The incomprehension generated by doubt (the kind of doubt that always results from an egoistic movement) is very dangerous. Very dangerous. Its not even necessary to be in a psychic consciousness even for an enlightened vital consciousness, it produces no effect; but HERE, in this material swarm.
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.
0 1961-08-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact, this is what legitimizes the ego; because if we had never formed an ego, we would have lived all mixed up (laughing), now this person, now another! Oh, it was so comical, seeing this the other day! At first it was a bit bewildering, but when I looked closely, it became utterly amusing: two little people with no physical resemblance, yet of a similar typesmall and in short, a similarity. Its like the four men I used to see in Japan: there was an Englishman, a Frenchman, a Japanese and one more, each from a different country; well, at night they were all the same, as if viewed one through the other, all intermingledvery amusing!
But individualization is a slow and difficult process. Thats why you have an ego, otherwise you would never become individualized, but always be (Mother laughs) a kind of public place!
In the end, individualization and the consequent necessity for the egoexists for the return to Divine Consciousness to be conscious and willed, with full, conscious participation.
Speaking of individualization, theres a question Ive been wondering about: when one speaks of the central being, this central being is not something here in physical life, is it? Its above.
--
Because when one loses his ego and finds this central being, Sri Aurobindo says that an individuality remainsit isnt a dissolutionone retains a personality.
Yes, a personality remains.
--
Shiva, on the other hand, refused. No, he said, I will come only when you have finished your work. I will not come into the world as it is now, but I am ready to help. He was standing in my room that day, so tall (laughing) that his head touched the ceiling! He was bathed in his own special light, a play of red and gold magnificent! Just as he is when he manifests his supreme consciousnessa formidable being! So I stood up and (I too must have become quite tall, because my head was resting on his shoulder, just slightly below his head) then he told me, No, Im not tying myself to a body, but I will give you ANYTHING you want. The only thing I said (it was all done wordlessly, of course) was: I want to be rid of the physical ego.
Well, mon petit (laughing), it happened! It was extraordinary! After a while, I went to find Sri Aurobindo and said, See what has happened! I have a funny sensation (Mother laughs) of the cells no longer being clustered together! Theyre going to scatter! He looked at me, smiled and said, Not yet. And the effect vanished.
--
Again, the dissolution of the physical ego.
***
0 1961-10-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I was holding one of these flowers [Integral Generosity1] in my hand when I saw Z, and I explained to him what I meant by integral generosity. The effect of the ego, I told him, is to shrivel the being. Its the cause of aging, it dries you up the being shrivels under it like a withering flower. And as I was speaking to him, the experience came; all I remember now is the idea, but the idea is nothing the experience itself was there.
I know that at a certain moment I was making the distinction between the two states, between the person the individual, personal beingturning towards the Lord, imploring Him to reveal His Will, and then this experience of becomingby extending oneself, by opening, by enlarging, by merging into the creationof BECOMING the Will of the Lord, the Supremes Will. No longer any need to implore Him, to know His Will and receive it like something foreign to youyou become that Will.
0 1961-12-16, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So to calm the body I took a pencil and wrote: My being thirsts. (to tell the truth, I wanted to write this body thirsts) for perfection, not this human perfection(I should tell you that all the things I am translating are simultaneously accompanied by a set of external circumstances OBVIOUSLY arranged in detail to illustrate the translation: a whole set of quite unpleasant circumstances, besides, serving simultaneously as backdrop and illustration. Thats what brought on the anguish). This body thirsts for perfection, not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego (it was so clear to me that everything human beings conceive of as perfection is simply the ego wanting to magnify itself for its own greater glory) not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego and bars the way to the divine Perfection, but that one perfection (these repeated perfections are deliberate: its like a litany) but that one perfection which has the POWER to manifest upon earth the eternal Truth.
It was this need, this need. All the bodys cells began to vibrate with a more and more intense vibrationit was much more than a need; it was a necessity, a necessity to vibrate in unison with Truth. The cells seemed to be sensing the vibration of Truth, and so the entire body was in a state of total tensionnot tension in the ordinary sense, but it was like trying to find a note that rings true. Thats what it was: to make the cells vibration ring true to the Vibration of Truth.
--
We thirst for perfection, not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego and bars the way to the divine Perfection, but that ONE perfection which has the power to manifest upon Earth the eternal Truth.1
The English version is stronger than the French. Thats because it first came in English and then I made a patch-up job in French!
0 1962-01-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
68The sense of sin was necessary in order that man might become disgusted with his own imperfections. It was Gods corrective for egoism. But mans egoism meets Gods device by being very dully alive to its own sins and very keenly alive to the sins of others.
69Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection. The sense of virtue helps us to cherish our sins in secret.
0 1962-01-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
of ego reaction.
***
0 1962-01-12 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I mentioned the principal psychological requirement in my answer to that American: a state of perfect equality. This is an ABSOLUTE condition. Over the years since that experience I have observed that no supramental vibration whatsoever can be transmitted without this perfect equality. The slightest contradiction of that equalityin other words, the least movement of ego, of egoistic preference and everything is blocked, transmission stops. This is already quite a large stumbling block.
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.
--
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.
0 1962-02-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Generally speaking, the antidivine is easily understood, but in the minute details of daily life, how do you choose between this and that? What is the truth behind the thing you choose and the one you dont choose? And you know, my standpoint is totally beyond any question of egoistic, individual will that isnt the problem here. Its not that.
As soon as you try to say it, it evaporates.
0 1962-03-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am not saying this to discourage you, but to tell you that one must really and truly be patient. The only possible way to do it is in a sort of passivity: not to WANT the resultWANTING the result brings in an ego movement which spoils it all.
I have been telling you for a long time that we are VERY close for a long time.
0 1962-07-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"The regret of the person who bumped me," Mother specified. "This person's state of consciousness entered the body along with the blow. And this kind of regret for having given a blow was an ego movement. All these vibrations accompanied the blow and that's what the body had to annul in order to annul the result."
***
0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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.
The peculiarity of this yoga is that until there is siddhi above the foundation does not become perfect. Those who have been following my course had kept many of the old samskaras; some of them have dropped away, but others still remain. There was the samskara of Sannyasa, even the wish to create an Aravinda Math [Sri Aurobindo monastery]. Now the intellect has recognized that Sannyasa is not what is wanted, but the stamp of the old idea has not yet been effaced from the prana [breath, life energy]. And so there was next this talk of remaining in the midst of the world, as a man of worldly activities and yet a man of renunciation. The necessity of renouncing desire has been understood, but the harmony of renunciation of desire with enjoyment of Ananda has not been rightly seized by the mind. And they took up my Yoga because it was very natural to the Bengali temperament, not so much from the side of Knowledge as from the side of Bhakti and Karma [Works]. A little knowledge has come in, but the greater part has escaped; the mist of sentimentalism has not been dissipated, the groove of the sattwic bhava [religious fervor] has not been broken. There is still the ego. I am not in haste, I allow each to develop according to his nature. I do not want to fashion all in the same mould. That which is fundamental will indeed be one in all, but it will express itself in many forms. Everybody grows, forms from within. I do not want to build from outside. The basis is there, the rest will come.
What I am aiming at is not a society like the present rooted in division. What I have in view is a Samgha [community] founded in the spirit and in the image of its oneness. It is with this idea that the name Deva Samgha has been given the commune of those who want the divine life is the Deva Samgha. Such a Samgha will have to be established in one place at first and then spread all over the country. But if any shadow of egoism falls over this endeavor, then the Samgha will change into a sect. The idea may very naturally creep in that such and such a body is the one true Samgha of the future, the one and only centre, that all else must be its circumference, and that those outside its limits are not of the fold or even if they are, have gone astray, because they think differently.
You may say, what need is there of a Samgha? Let me be free and live in every vessel; let all become one without form and let whatever must be happen in the midst of that vast formlessness. There is a truth there, but only one side of the truth. Our business is not with the formless Spirit alone; we have also to direct the movement of life. And there can be no effective movement of life without form. It is the Formless that has taken form and that assumption of name and form is not a caprice of Maya. Form is there because it is indispensable. We do not want to rule out any activity of the world as beyond our province. Politics, industry, society, poetry, literature, art will all remain, but we must give them a new soul and a new form.
--
You say that what is needed is maddening enthusiasm, to fill the country with emotional excitement. In the time of the Swadeshi [fight for independence, boycott of English goods] we did all that in the field of politics, but what we did is all now in the dust. Will there be a more favorable result in the spiritual field? I do not say there has been no result. There has been. Any movement will produce some result, but for the most part in terms of an increase of possibility. This is not the right method, however, to steadily actualize the thing. Therefore I no longer wish to make emotional excitement or any intoxication of the mind the base. I wish to make a large and strong equanimity the foundation of the yoga. I want established on that equality a full, firm and undisturbed Shakti in the system and in all its movements. I want the wide display of the light of Knowledge in the ocean of Shakti. And I want in that luminous vastness the tranquil ecstasy of infinite Love, Delight and Oneness. I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God. I have no faith in the customary trade of the guru. I do not wish to be a guru. If anybody wakes and manifests from within his slumbering godhead and gets the divine lifebe it at my touch or at anothersthis is what I want. It is such men that will raise the country.
You must not think from all this lecture that I despair of the future of Bengal. I too hope, as they say, that this time a great light will manifest itself in Bengal. Still I have tried to show the other side of the shield, where the fault is, the error, the deficiency. If these remain, the light will not be a great light and it will not be permanent.
0 1962-07-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the Shakti. He said, you know (I am still translating it), that the shakti drawn up from below (this is what happens in the individual process) is already what could be called a veiled shakti (it has power, but it is veiled). While the Shakti drawn down from above is a PURE Shakti; and if it can be brought down carefully and slowly enough so that it isnt (how shall I put it?) polluted or, in any case, obscured as it enters matter, then the result is immediately much better. As he has explained, if you start out with this feeling of a great power in yourself (because its always a great power no matter where it awakens), theres inevitably a danger of the ego meddling in. But if it comes pure and you are very careful to keep it pure, not to rush the movement but let it purify as it descends, then half the work is done.
Its a problem. When you contact the Supraconscient and the Shakti emerges at the crown of the head, its something rising from below, isnt it? Is it then another movement, an ascending movement?
--
So, when youre told become conscious of your psychic being, its for the being formed by external Nature to contact the divine Presence through the psychic being. Then the psychic takes charge of the whole being; in fact, it is the inner Guide. Well, when I was a little child, this person (which wasnt a person, but an expression of a certain consciousness and will) was actually the psychic presence; there was something else behind, but thats a rather special case. And what happened to me happens to everyone whose psychic being has deliberately incarnated: the psychic being guides your life, and if you let it act freely, it arranges ALL circumstancesits truly wonderful! I have seennot only for myself but for so many people who also had conscious psychic beings that everything is arranged with a view to not at all your personal egoistic satisfaction, but your ultimate progress and realization. And all circumstances of life, even those you call disastrous, are there to lead you where you have to go as swiftly as possible.
Yours is more than a psychic being. As I have told you, your psychic being is accompanied by something which has come for a special purpose, with a particular intellectual powera luminous, conscious powerwhich has come from regions higher than the mind, regions Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind, to do a special work. It is here (gesture enveloping the chest and head) and, along with the psychic, its trying to organize everything. This, in your psychic, is what you are feeling. It must have great power. Dont you feel a kind of luminous force?
0 1962-11-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In order to be discernible, the cube was enveloped in something that looked like a kind of tulle, a tulle made of a pale gray substance, which expressed the individual nonexistence, the perfect humility that completely abolishes the ego: because of that there wasnt the least possibility of egoif you ask me why, I cant say, but thats how it was. And I was seeing that tulle all the time something extremely delicate, scarcely perceptible, yet maintaining the cubes form. It was perfect humility (in the divine sense) and total absence of egothere wasnt even the memory or idea of it, nothing whatever: the abolition of the ego. And it served to receive that immobile immensity which manifested through an action of the Power. And then, the action of the Power. I was conscious (I was consciouswhere was I? I dont know; the cube represented my physical being: I had been TOLD it was my physical being), and I was watching it without being situated I myself had no precise place but could see and understand the whole thing. And I could discern all the action being done through the cube: this action for that thing, this for that, this for that the whole earth (gesture expressing forces radiating outward, each for a special purpose), things from the past and things FAR into the future.
And it was so imperative!
0 1962-12-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Spiritually, you have that experience as soon as you come into contact with the Divine within; mentally, you have the experience as soon as the mind is purified; vitally, you have it as soon as you get out of the ego. But its the consciousness of the BODYthe consciousness of the cellswhich had the experience at that moment. Everything else had had it long before and was constantly aware of it, but the body. It had been told about it and believed in it, but it didnt have the experience in such a concrete, total and absolute manner that it cant be forgotten for a single second.
At that moment, the physical being and the individual, personal body had the experience once and for all.
0 1963-03-30, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a sort of review going on of all the elements of the body consciousness, with a sample of the circumstances of their various manifestations or expressions. All this is passed before me as if to show me all the points in the bodys cells that were contrary to or unprepared for the reception of the divine Forces. All that comes up in the form of lived memoriesthings I had more than forgotten (I could have sworn they no longer existed), but which come back. Un-be-liev-able. And its not an egos or a persons memory, but the memory of a force in motion in the general vibrations. So I see fantastic things!
But its erased immediately; as soon as I wake up, my first movement (gesture of offering) is to present it all to the Lord: the cause, the effect, the image, the sensationeverything. When its all seen, I tell Him, Now its Yours. And then I forgetfortunately, thank God!
0 1963-07-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yet it has a spontaneous tendency to find itself incapable; and it receives the same answer all the time: Thats still the ego. That happens so often, it says to the Lord, Look how incapable I am of doing what You want, and pat comes the answer, direct, in a flash: Dont bother about that, its not your business! Naturally, I put it into words to express myself, but it isnt words, its only sensationsnot even sensations: vibrations.
Voil.
0 1963-08-17, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what I wrote to you the other day [We are still all that we no longer want to be, while He is all that we want to become]. What we call we in our egoistic stupidity, a stupidity of the ego, is precisely all that we no longer want to be; and it would be such a joy to throw all that away, get rid of it in order to be ready to become what we want to be.
Thats a very living experience.
0 1963-08-24, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That idea of renunciation can occur only in an egocentric consciousness. Naturally, people (those whom I call quite unevolved) are attached to thingswhen they have something, they dont want to let go of it! That seems so childish to me! For them, if they are obliged to give it up, it hurts! Because they identify with the things they hold on to. But thats childish. The real process behind is the amount of resistance in the things that developed on a certain basis of knowledgea knowledge at a given time, no longer a knowledge at another timea partial knowledge, not fleeting but impermanent. There is a whole collection of things built on that knowledge, and they resist the Force that says, No! Its not true, (laughing) your basis is no longer true, away with it! But then, Oh, it hurts!thats what people feel as renunciation.
The difficult thing is perhaps not so much to renounce as to accept [Mother smiles] when you see life as it is now. But then if you accept, how can you live in the midst of all that while having that untroubled rapture the untroubled rapture not up there but here?1
0 1963-11-04, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This can be seen for everything. Take, for example, an external field of action, in the outer world and with outer things (naturally, to say it is outer is simply to put yourself in a false position), but, for example, if in the highest consciousness, the Truth-Consciousness, you tell someone, Go (I am giving one example among millions), Go and see so-and-so, tell him this to obtain that. If the person is receptive, inwardly immobile and surrendered, he goes, sees the other person, tells him, and the thing happenswithout the SLIGHTEST complication, just like that. If the person has an active mental consciousness, doesnt have total faith and has all the mixture of ego and ignorance, he sees the difficulties, sees the problems to be resolved, sees all the complicationsnaturally, they all occur! So according to the proportion (everything is a question of proportion, always), according to the proportion, it creates complications, it takes time, the thing is delayed, or, a little worse, it is distorted, it doesnt occur exactly as it should, it is changed, diminished, distorted, or, finally, it doesnt occur at allthere are many, many degrees, but it all belongs to the domain of complications (mental complications) and desire. Whereas the other way is immediate. Examples of those cases (of all cases) are innumerable, so also are the examples of the immediate case. Then people tell you, Oh, youve worked a miracle! No miracle was worked: it should always be that way. Its because the intermediary did not add himself to the action.
I dont know if thats clear, but anyway
0 1963-12-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But thats the egos last days, the last stage. When its gone, you are no longer anything! (Mother laughs) In other words, you dont have that feeling of being something bad or goodits all gone. You have such a feeling of ONE existence, and all the rest all the rest is something that has become twisted like that, twisted in the consciousness. Thats becoming so concrete.
(silence)
--
The egoistic illusion.
Mother often said that every individual belongs to a particular type and that through a single individual she could reach thousands of individuals of the same type.
0 1963-12-14, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother smiles) You know, there are, broadly speaking, two cat egories of people: those who by nature receive, are receptive; who receive and like to receive and to feel they are receiving; and those who like to give and like the feeling of giving. So those who like to receive have the experience of receiving, while those who like to give (laughing) have the experience of giving. But basically, its all the same thing: its the Force circulating. The Force circulates, and you get the feeling (how can I explain it?) it depends on the position of the consciousness with regard to the individual ego.
When I noticed Ws difficulties, I put a lot of force on him, a lot, a great concentration to get him out of that tight corner, because I felt a kind of wavering in him, I felt he wasnt so steady on the path any more. Thats what worried me. So I put a very great concentration of force on him to set him on the right road again. And, as I said, the Force circulates; it circulates: it isnt something which goes out like that, like a little beam which you send out, which reaches its goal and stays there thats not it. Its a thing (round gesture) that spreads out with waves of concentration. And Ive noticed this for everybody (I did my first study on myself), but the ego must be completely (gesture of palms upward, immobile) must become nonexistent, must stop interfering, at any rate, in order to feel that great, universal Pulsation.
It is simply the art of putting yourself in the right place in order to be in the path of the Force.
--
Thats just what I knew of Ws nature: the ego in him is that he likes to be a guru thats when one is quite egoistic, but as one grows less so, there still remains that aspect of the nature that makes one more inclined to give than to receive. And as I had made a very strong concentration, quite naturally he felt the force going out of him.
I didnt tell him anything, I simply said it was a very good experience: an experience that was given to you or that you were given (all that impersonal, as impersonal as possible). I am very glad when people do not tell me, You did this, you did that because immediately I feel that sort of little limitation which is so childishintellectuals would call it idolatry! (Mother laughs) I dont like that.
--
What I told you last time is still going on and intensifying. But sometimes, at a given moment, a movement comes to me, some reaction, for instance, and something complains (all this is in the BODYs consciousness), the body says, Oh, I havent got beyond that, what a wretched shame! So immediately, there is an answer, and an answer which Its odd, it doesnt come from one place, it comes from everywhere; and the bodys protest also doesnt come from one place: it isnt ONE thing or ONE body that protests, its a way of being; a terrestrial way of being which is expressed by: Oh, I am still like that! And the immediate answer: But dont you see, dont you see the usefulness of it? Then I am shown a whole tangled web of movements, vibrations, reactions, actions, all of it; and on one small spot there is a need for a small force: there is a small, slightly inert thing which serves as a support for something else and then everything becomes clear, everything falls into place! You see so clearly it is egoism; egoism which wants personal, individual perfection: instead of wanting overall progress, it wants personal progress, it still makes breaks where there are none, separations where they do not exist. And you see how a movement going through [Mother] should be accepted when that is its place and when it is the right time for it to be useful, so that the WHOLE may follow its roadits very, very interesting.
That way, you can gauge precisely how much is left of the old habit of personal reaction, especially in the emotive part of the universal being: its the emotive part that still remains the most personal, even more so than the purely physical, material part. As soon as the emotive part comes into play, it personalizes, because it ENJOYS individual reactions; it is the part that LOVES to feel it loves, that LOVES to feel its own emotions, and because of it there remains a faint personal coloration. And when there occurs a somewhat darker or backward movement, the body is indignant and doesnt understand that its part of the whole, that the whole must go forward together and you cant separate a piece of it to perfect itit cant be done! Its impossible. Its not that it shouldnt be doneit CANNOT be done. Everything goes together.
0 1963-12-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is equally ignorant and one thousand miles away from my teaching to find it in your relations with human beings or in the nobility of the human character or an idea that we are here to establish mental and moral and social Truth and justice on human and egoistic lines. I have never promised to do anything of the kind. Human nature is made up of imperfections, even its righteousness and virtue are pretensions, imperfections and prancings of a self-approbatory egoism. What is aimed at by us is a spiritual truth as the basis of life, the first words of which are surrender and union with the Divine and the transcendence of ego. So long as that basis is not established, a sadhak is only an ignorant and imperfect human being struggling with the evils of the lower nature.
I want to offer it to an American admiral who is here and who needs to know this.
0 1963-12-21, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And yet, of all movements, the one that gives perhaps the most joyan unalloyed joy, untainted by that egoismis spontaneous gratitude.
It is something very special. It isnt love, it isnt self-offering. Its a very FULL joy. Very full.
--
It is certainly, of all the movements within the reach of human consciousness, the one that draws you the most out of your ego.
And when it can be a gratitude without motive, that vibration (basically, the vibration of what exists towards the Cause of existence) then a great many barriers vanish instantly.
0 1964-01-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Since World War II, I have been keeping Kali2 quiet, but she is restless! Times are critical, anything may happen. If people will only give up their ego!
(B.) I shall suggest a simpler wayto turn to you.
0 1964-02-13, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The result is that I have piles of letters with frightful insults: Liar, hypocrite. (Mother laughs) It isnt the first time, she has those fits now and then. But after this letter, I received a sort of inner comm and to make one last attempt, and I wrote to her that it was HER SOUL that had asked me to act as I did. Because when I entrusted this work to Sujata instead of her, I had a moment of hesitation, then I went within to find out, and her soul exerted a very strong pressure for me to act in that way. I had always seen, at every minute, that her aspiration was constantly tainted with that vanityshe always puts on an act for others and for herself. I was waiting patiently for that vanity to go, but her soul wasnt as patien thers is a very beautiful soul (thats the strange thing, you see, her soul is a very beautiful one), but at times she rejects it violently. So I wrote to tell her that now I had something serious to say to her, that it was her soul that had asked me to act in that way in order to break and conquer her egos vanity. She says, I dont want my ego, I dont want my ego but she identifies herself with it to such a degree that when she has those fits, she is the ego; when the fit is over, she clearly sees the difference. And at the end of my letter, I said, Now, it is up to you to choose between Truth and falsehoodit was a hurricane!
I am waiting till its over.
0 1964-03-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont know if I can make myself understood, but it is something I have felt very, very clearly, and which one cannot feel as long as the physical ego is there, because the physical ego has the sense of its own importance, and that disappears entirely with the physical ego. When it disappears, one has a clear perception that the intervention or manifestation of the true Vibration doesnt depend on egos or individualities (human or national individualities, or even individualities of Nature: animals, plants and so on), it depends on a certain play of the cells and Matter in which there are aggregates particularly favorable for the transformation to occurnot transformation: the substitution, to be precise, the substitution of the Vibration of Truth for the vibration of Falsehood. And the phenomenon may be very independent of groupings and individualities (it may happen in one part here, another part there, one thing here, another thing there); and it always corresponds to a certain quality of vibration that causes a sort of swellinga receptive swelling and then, the thing can occur.
Unfortunately, as I said at the beginning, all words belong to the world of appearances.
0 1964-07-15, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
to be grateful, never to forget this wonderful Grace of the Supreme who leads each one to his divine goal by the shortest ways, in spite of himself, his ignorance and misunderstanding, in spite of the ego, its protests and its revolts.
June 26, 1964
0 1964-07-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
People who are quite shut up in their bag of skin, in their vital and mental ego, give you the feeling of something totally artificial, hardhard, dry and artificial. And exact. Thats troublesome, you feel like taking a hammer and bashing themit happens!
We publish below the letter in full.
0 1964-08-08, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So these are poor words. The experience translates itself into words at a given moment: first, there is the intensity of the experience, then spontaneouslyspontaneouslyit takes the form of words, so I note them down. But the words are thin and flat, theyre poor. But its like when you are about to come into contact with your psychic being and you feel the egos obstruction; there comes a point when you push and push to get through, its so acute that you feel as if everything is going to burst. And in fact something does burst.
Its the same thing for the earth, the same experience.
0 1964-09-26, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is a terribly dark labor and without clearly visible effects. There are people who proclaim they perform miracles with my name or my forcebringing dying people back to life, wonderful things, anyway. To me, it immediately smacks of the ego a mile off; and the ego means vital entities taking advantage of it. I dont like that.
Its a labor of every minute, without a break, night and day.
0 1964-10-24a, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now the conditions are totally different, but I see the mass of aspirations, of approaches, and I always compare with my attitude towards Sri Aurobindo at that time, when it was he who, to me, represented the Intermediary; well, I understand I understand that the absolutely pure thing, that is, free of all mixture with the ego consciousness (its the ego consciousness), free of all mixture with the ego consciousness, is its still rare.
And its this mixture with the ego consciousness (I am speaking here not from the personal, but from the general standpoint) that, when the words were written, was swept away by something as powerful as a hurricane, without the violence of a hurricanescattered, dissolved, swept away! All those things that were pressing, against which I constantly had to strive in order to move onswept away! And they didnt come back completely.
That state didnt remain (that state was a state of Victory). But things havent come back as they were, and they will never come back as they were. Something has really been clarified. And it isnt a personal, individual question: its something general.
0 1964-11-21, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its good, its a very good sign, it means you are becoming free from your ego.
But if at least, in this nullity, there were experiences
--
(Looking at Satprem out of the corner of her eyes) Its very goodits very good, its a sure sign that one has emerged from ones ego.
Yes, but in that nonexistence, only things without any interest remain: the body, the mechanisms.
0 1964-12-02, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is another thing I remember very clearly, which struck me. It was after his election (but long before his trip to India was decided upon): he had come to India and he came to Pondicherry to meet me (not to meet me: he had come to Pondicherry, then he came and met me). Once in Pondicherry, he came and I saw him there, in the room where I receive people. We had a long conversation, a very long and interesting conversation, and suddenly (it was towards the end, it was time for him to go), when he rose, he was preoccupied by something. He told me, When you speak to your children about me, what will you tell them? You understand, the ego showing itself. So I looked at him (Mother smiles) and said, I will only tell them that we have been in communion in our love for the Supreme. Then he relaxed and left. It struck me. These things are very objective.
But these are the little turns of the nature. Otherwise, his dream is to be the potentate of human spiritual unity.
0 1965-02-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But there is something interesting here. I have noticed this: if you try EVERY SECOND to discern the impulse of your action, how difficult it is! To discern whether it comes from the ego, whether it comes from darkness, whether it comes from the Light. And when you want to express as purely as possible what exclusively comes from the Supreme, you have to work at it every second and it is there was a time (not so long ago) when I used to consider it was materially practically impossiblenot in the main lines or in the great movements that come from the higher parts of the being, but in all that is purely material, absolutely material. And all of a sudden, at the beginning of this year, with this Salute to the advent of the Truth5 there came a sort of very sharp inner sense, very sharp, very precise, and so QUIET, So quiet, which gave the power to clearly see the origin of a material impulse or a material reaction, EVEN IN VERY SMALL THINGS. It was very interesting. So I studied carefully, and it has become almost automatic.
Previously it took an inner discomfort, a feeling of some friction to make me aware that it wasnt the true thing; but now it isnt like that: it is seen BEFOREHAND in the space of half a second.
0 1965-03-20, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, problems of illness, problems of possession (vital and mental possession), problems of egos that refuse to yield (and this results in circumstances which, humanly, are described in the ordinary way: such and such a thing has happened to so-and-so but thats not how it comes into the consciousness), well, if you look at things in a sufficiently general way, those problems REMAIN problems. There is indeed something, but a something that is still elusive (elusive in its essence): it has to do with feeling, with sensation, with perception, also with aspirationit has to do with all that, and it is what we habitually call divine Love (that is, essential Love, that which is expressed by Love and seems to be beyond the Manifestation and Nonmanifestation, which, naturally, becomes Love in the Manifestation). And That would be the ALL-POWERFUL expression. In other words, That is what would have the power to transform into divine consciousness and substance all the chaos we now call world.
There was the experience of That [the experience of the great pulsations], but it was an experience (how can I put it?) of a drop that would be an infinite, or of a second that would be an eternity. While the experience is there, there is absolute certitude; but outwardly, everything starts up again as it was one minute beforeThat (gesture of pulsation for a second), puff! everything is changed; then everything starts up again, with perhaps a slight change thats perceptible only to a consciousness (perceptible to the consciousness, but not concretely perceptible), and with, generally, violent reactions in the Disorder: something that revolts.
0 1965-04-17, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In that case, one would have to switch to a new body. But a switching (from the occult point of view, thats a known thing), a switching not to a body to be born, but to an already formed body. It would take place through a sort of identification of the psychic personality of the body to be changed with the other, receiving body but that, the fusions of psychic personalities, its possible, (laughing) I know the procedure! But it requires the abolition of the egoyes, the abolition of the ego is certainly necessary; but if the abolition of the ego is sufficient in the supramentalized individuality (can I use the word individuality? I dont know its neither personality nor individuality), in the supramentalized being, if the abolition of the ego is done, completed, that being has the power to completely neutralize the presence of the ego in the other being. And then, through that neutralization, the shrinking that always comes from a reincarnation would be canceled thats the dreadful thing, you see, that time lost in the shrinking into a new being! While through that conscious passagewilled and consciousfrom one body to the other, the being whose ego no longer exists has an almost total power to abolish the other ego.
All that occult mechanism needs to be developed, but for the consciousness its almost rational.
0 1965-04-21, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Switching to a new body. The method may be used again, IF IT IS FELT TO BE NECESSARY. It wasnt the central idea, it was perfectly incidentalit may happen. And all I said was that the consciousness of these cells having lost the sense of ego (I think they have lost it, though this body was formed without the sense of egoat any rate, if it was necessary at a given time, it no longer is), having lost the sense of ego, it finds no difficulty in manifesting in another body. And this is a perfectly practical and material experience, I mean I have had multiple experiences of this consciousness using that body, this body, that other body for certain things; of course it was momentary, not in a permanent way, but at will and anyway lasting long enough to make me experience it concretely.
But this is a personal affair, it has nothing to do with the public or collectivity, while the other point is interesting: I have a feeling it is Natures collaboration, pushing humanity in that direction in order to prepare a matter more receptive to the ideal that wants to manifest.
0 1965-08-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No real peace can be till the heart of man deserves peace; the law of Vishnu cannot prevail till the debt to Rudra is paid. To turn aside then and preach to a still unevolved mankind the law of love and oneness? Teachers of the law of love and oneness there must be, for by that way must come the ultimate salvation. But not till the Time-Spirit in man is ready, can the inner and ultimate prevail over the outer and immediate reality. Christ and Buddha have come and gone, but it is Rudra who still holds the world in the hollow of his hand. And meanwhile the fierce forward labour of mankind tormented and oppressed by the powers that are profiteers of egoistic force and their servants cries for the sword of the Hero of the struggle and the word of its prophet.
(Essays on the Gita, XIII.372)
0 1965-10-13, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is one way of grating. There are other ways of grating, but they are very usual: ones ego scraping against anothersit always produces grating.
The result: very busy nights, and not pleasantly busy.
0 1965-10-20, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the egoistic distortion of aspiration.
That is to say, a petty self engrossment that wants satisfactions. I am telling you bluntly because its no use making sentences.
--
And He is here, and He is in fact the very essence of true Love, and without this Vibration, one doesnt know what to love is, one cannot know. And unless one rejects all ones personal egoistic limitations, one cannot love Him.
***
0 1965-11-23, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Pulling down is always an egoistic movement. Its a distortion of aspiration. True aspiration involves a givinga self-givingwhile pulling down is wanting for oneself. Even if you have in your thought a vaster aspiration the earth, the universeit makes no difference, those are mental activities.
(long silence)
0 1965-12-04, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Basically, in order to feel at home in the world as it is today, one must belong to the cat egory I spoke of the other day, of those who have established a harmony with all the human faculties, who are satisfied, and also who are egocentric enough not even to notice that things arent that way for others. Then its fine; otherwise Sri Aurobindo very much belonged (in his outward being) to the cat egory of those who want things to change, who push for progress, who want to move on, who want to reject the past very much so. He had to make a great effort to be satisfied with things and people; it was his compassion that made him accept people around him as they were. Otherwise he used to suffer a lot.
And thats what wears out and tires and disorganizes.
0 1965-12-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All these feelings (what can we call them?) have a vibratory mode, with something very essential at their core and kinds of layers covering it; so the most central vibration is identical, and its as it inflates to express itself that it gets distorted. For love its perfectly obvious; in the vast majority of cases it becomes outwardly something with a wholly different nature from the inner vibration, because its something turning in on itself, shriveling up and trying to pull to itself in an egoistic movement of possession. You WANT to be loved. You say, I love this person, but at the same time there is what you want, and the lived feeling is, I want to be loved. And so thats almost as great a distortion as the distortion of hatred, which consists in wanting to destroy what you love in order not to be tied down. Because you cannot obtain what you want from the object of your love, you want to destroy it in order to be freed; and in the other case, you shrivel up almost in an inner fury because you cannot obtain, you cannot gobble up what you love. (Laughing) In actual fact, from the standpoint of the deeper truth, there isnt much difference!
Its only when the central vibration remains pure and is expressed in its original purity, which is a spreading out (what can I call it? Its something radiating out, a vibration spreading out in a glory, a vibration blossoming out, yes, a radiant blossoming out), then it remains true. And materially its expressed by self-giving, self-forgetfulness, the generosity of the soul. And thats the only true movement. But what people are used to calling love is as removed from the central vibration of true Love as hatred; only, the one turns in on itself, shrivels up and hardens, while the other strikes thats what makes the whole difference.
0 1966-01-08, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The only creation for which there is any place here is the supramental, the bringing of the divine Truth down on the earth, not only into the mind and vital but into the body and into Matter. Our object is not to remove all limitations on the expansion of the ego or to give a free field and make unlimited room for the fulfillment of the ideas of the human mind or the desires of the ego-centred life-force. None of us are here to do as we like, or to create a world in which we shall at last be able to do as we like; we are here to do what the Divine wills and to create a world in which the Divine Will can manifest its truth no longer deformed by human ignorance or perverted and mistranslated by vital desire. The work which the sadhak of the supramental yoga has to do is not his own work for which he can lay down his own conditions, but the work of the Divine which he has to do according to the conditions laid down by the Divine. Our yoga is not for our own sake but for the sake of the Divine. It is not our personal manifestation that we are to seek, the manifestation of the individual ego freed from all bounds and from all bonds, but the manifestation of the Divine. Of that manifestation our own spiritual liberation, perfection, fullness is to be a result and a part, but not in any egoistic sense or for any ego-centred or self-seeking purpose. This liberation, perfection, fullness too must not be pursued for our own sake, but for the sake of the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo
0 1966-01-31, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The question is more of a subtle order: its to know whether the thing is really there, in the inner or higher worlds, and I have to do it, or whether its a decision of my writers ego that wants to write.
The thing is there (how can I explain?).
0 1966-04-30, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ultimately, this taste for Nothingness is the most harmonious way to put an end to the ego. Its the ego coming to an end. Its, yes, the most harmonious way, the higher way to put an end to the ego. Its the ego coming to an end.
It is tired of being. Instead of feeling killed and crushed (Mother makes a gesture of self-abandon), phew! A phew of relief: Enough, enough of this battle to exist. We could say: Falsehood, tired of being, gives up.
--
Its the divine way to annul the ego.
The ego is no longer necessary, it has finished its job, the consciousness is ready; then (same gesture) phew! I am tired of being, I no longer want to be.
***
0 1966-05-14, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The other day, for example, the day before yesterday (not last night, but the night before), I was with Sri Aurobindo, and Sri Aurobindo had taken on the appearance of the photograph of him in which he is young, with long hair: that full-face photograph in which he has a fair complexion and very dark hair. He was like tha the WAS like that, it wasnt a picture: he WAS like that. And we were looking at certain things, talking about certain things (we dont talk much, but anyway), looking at some thingswhen I suddenly see his face all tormented like this (gesture as if the face had shrunk). He usually always has a very calm and very smiling, quiet face; but all of a sudden, it was quite tormented, and then he abruptly sat back on that sort of seat, a sort of couch. So I looked at him, and he told me, Oh, how they are distorting things. Look at this fellow, how they are distorting things. Almost immediately afterwards, it was time and I woke up, I got up. And I said to myself, I thought one wasnt tormented in that state! Then I heard today that A., who was here and left to be a political activist there [in Bengal], is speaking in Sri Aurobindos name, mon petit! And he issues political declarations. Thats what I had seen. It wasnt that Sri Aurobindo was annoyed: the image of his face was the image of what the others were doing!1 (Mother laughs) How can I explain it? Its very strange, you know. It was the image of what those people did with his teaching, it wasnt the expression of his own feeling. You know, what goes on here, what we describe, is so blunt, devoid of fineness, crude, like a rough-hewn statue: its rough, crude, exaggerated; and its distorted by the sense of separation given by the ego. While there, I dont know how to explain, there, all is one, there is one single thing taking on all sorts of forms like that (Mother turns her two hands together, one wrapped inside the other) in order to express something, but not with one center that feels and another center that sees and another center that understands; its not like that, its (same gesture), its all ONE substance with inexpressible suppleness, which adapts itself to all the movements of all that happens, which expresses all that happens, without separation. So then, it leaves me in a state that goes on for hours in the morning, in which I am in this world [here], yet without being in it. Because I dont feel things the way the world feels them. Its a very strange phenomenon.
Yesterday, I remained like that the whole morning, in a very strange state, and the state seemed to want me to remember, to have the memory, and it left me only when I said (I said, I dont know, I didnt say it to anyone, I just said) that I would tell you about it today. Then I was allowed to resume contact with everyday life.
0 1966-08-13, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know that scores of people have come for Auroville. Instead of working, they spend their time talking and chatting! And they send me letters. Their whole mental ego is bubbling with excitement, all of them. Have you seen them?
No. I am afraid they may summon me!
0 1966-08-17, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Pure means pure of ego, pure of all desire, all preference, all idea: all that must be goneone must be supple, like that, and let oneself be driven along.
And he gave me the experience at the same time.
0 1966-08-31, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The why is very simple: its always separation the individual separating himself, always. So, according to everyones nature, there is more or less egoism, but there is separation. Now I see the false movement: its when the consciousness falls back into an old habit. And as its an old habitvery old habityou dont feel it as a fall: its a tiny little movement like this (Mother twists something between her thumb and index finger).
I knowthis morning, it was very clear.
0 1966-09-14, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One very clearly feelsits visible, anyway that the opposite opinion has as much value and its simply a question of attitude, thats all. And naturally, the egos preferences get always mixed up in it: you prefer things to be that way, so your opinion is that they are that way.
But as long as you dont have the higher light, in order to act you need to use opinions.
--
Yes, but what would be the right way to go about it when you arent in the light, without getting your opinion or ego mixed up in it?
I think its to consider all the aspects of the problem, to lay them before your consciousness in as disinterested a way as possible, and to see which is the best (if thats possible), or, if the consequences are unfortunate, which is the least bad.
0 1966-11-15, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats how it feels. All the rest is either a bother or deeply ridiculous. Oh, often its so ridiculous! At any rate, so flimsy, so dry, like a bad performance. And what becomes quite comical, truly amusing and comical is (Mother puffs up her cheeks) when the ego swells up! Oh, then! The egos that assert themselves, that come and tell you, I want this, I dont want that, I have decided that Oh, mon petit, thats the big fun! And they dont in the least see that they are puppets.
***
0 1966-11-19, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother sits down and resumes) It can only be realized in a world devoid of egoism. Which means that when the whole action of individualization is over and there is no more need for the element of egoism, then it will be possible for that to be fully manifested.
We could call it the sweetness of Love, but the word sweet is a little wishy-washy. Its much better than sweet. Its something without difficulties: no difficulties happen, it doesnt know difficulties, it ignores them entirely there are no difficulties, they dont exist. So, when it manifests, there are no difficulties. Then, naturally, it cant stay here because because there are still difficulties!
0 1967-01-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday, I was asked the question; I was asked whether abuse, the feeling of being abused, and what in English is called self-respect (which is somewhat akin to self-esteem), have a place in the sadhana. Naturally, they dont, that goes without saying! But I saw the movement, it was extremely clear: I saw that without ego, when the ego isnt there, there CANNOT be that sort of ruffling in the being. I went back far into the past, to the time when I could still feel it (years ago), but now its not even something unfamiliarits something which is impossible. The whole being, and strangely even the physical constitution, doesnt understand what it means. Its the same thing when materially there is a knock (Mother shows a scratch on her elbow), like this for instance: its no longer felt the way an injury is felt. Its no longer felt that way. More often than not, theres nothing at all, it goes absolutely unnoticed on the whole; but when there is something, its only an impressiona very sweet, very intimate impressionof a help trying to make itself felt, of a lesson to be learned. But not the way its done mentally where there is always a stiffening; its not that: its immediately a kind of offering in the being, which gives itself in order to learn. I am speaking of all the cells. Its very interesting. Of course, if we mentalize it, we have to say its the sense or awareness of the divine Presence in all things, and that the mode the mode of contactcomes from the state in which we are.
This is the bodys experience.
And the only perception when there is some clash or other in individuals, some shock or other, is always a clear vision of the ego the ego manifesting itself. They say, Its the others fault. I wouldnt say, Oh, so-and-so was angry or Oh, so-and-so No, its his ego; not even his ego: THE ego, the ego principle the ego principle intervening again. Thats very interesting, because for me the ego has become a sort of impersonal entity, while for everyone, its the acute sense of his personality! Instead of that, its a sort of way of being (which we may call terrestrial, or human), a sort of way of being in greater or lesser quantity here or there or there, and which gives each one the illusion of his personality. Its very interesting.
Yes, but the trouble is, others dont learn their lesson, so So they intrude upon you.
0 1967-01-21, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It would be probably what on the material level must take the place of the physical ego; that is to say, the rigidity of the form seems to have to give way to this new way of being. Of course, the first contact is always very surprising. But the body is getting used to it little by little. Whats a little difficult is the moment of transition from one way to the other. Its done very progressively, yet at the moment of transition there are a few seconds that are the least we can say is unexpected.
In that way, all habits are undone. Its the same with all the functionings: blood circulation, digestion, breathingall the functions. And at the moment of transition, its not that one abruptly takes the place of the other, but there is a state of fluidity between the two which is difficult. Its only because of that great Faith, a perfectly still, luminous, constant, immutable faith in the real existence of the supreme Lordin the SOLE real existence of the Supreme that everything goes on apparently as it is.
0 1967-05-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You understand, I dont want to say anything that encourages the vanity of the ego, if there is any. But your contact with the Light is unusual; for you it has become something quite natural. But the truth is, its exceptional. So you see people who dont have this realization at all but who enjoy the contact with the Light, precisely because for them its something marvellous and new And so you are deprived (its Sri Aurobindo speaking to me), deprived of the pleasures they have. But you should know that its because you have been given a much higher realization. Only, with aspiration, with opening, with self-giving, can you contact something really new. And then you will have the shock of the new.
This is his answer.
0 1967-07-05, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For instance, that relationship of simplicity (like that of a child) in which you very simply ask for the thing you feel the need for, but without mental complications; without explanations, without justifications, without all that useless farragosimply, Oh, I would like You have, for instance, quite a special feeling towards someone or something and you would like that someone or something to be perfectly harmonious, happy (which physically is expressed by good health or favourable circumstances), and so, spontaneously, simply, you say, Oh! (you pray), Oh, may it be like that! And it happens. Then the thought (the general human thought): This has happened, therefore its the expression of the Truth. And it becomes a principle: This is true, this is the way things should be. But up above, in that Consciousness that global Consciousness in that total Harmony, those things in themselves, in their material expression (good health, favourable circumstances) are of no more than minor importance, so to say, of almost nonexistent importance: things may be this way or that or this (they may be a hundred different ways), without its making any difference to the Harmony; but this particular way is chosen because of the simple, pure, candid beauty of the aspiration that is lovely, that is powerful in its simplicity. And, you know, without mental complication, without hypocrisy of any sort, without pretence of any sort: very simply, but from a luminous, pure, loving heart, without any egoism, just like that. So thats a lovely light which has its place; and because of it, things may be this way or that (good health, favourable circumstances), it doesnt matter, its unimportant. Human beings attach importance only to the external form, to what has manifested; they say, Oh, this is true, since it isand its a passing breath of air. But the cause of it, its origin has a place in that total, universal Harmony: a disinterested goodwill, love devoid of egoism, trust that doesnt argue or reason, simplicityingenious simplicity for which evil doesnt exist.4 If we could catch hold of that and keep it That trust for which evil doesnt existnot trust in what takes place here: trust up above, in that all-powerful principle of Harmony.
(long silence, then Mother repeats this prayer:)
0 1967-08-02, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the sense of being nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing when you are in front of call that what you will, it doesnt matter (one may start from the idea of consciousness and go up to the Supreme Lord, it doesnt matter). But its the concrete feeling that as long as you want to remain shut in your little person, you are nothing, while if you abdicate that little person, you become everything. Thats what they dont understand. Pride is simply You have a contact with inner eternity, inner omnipotence, but you are shut in your little ego, so the ego imagines itself to be That, and then it asserts itselfsits down and refuses to budge: a colossal I. Its precisely the supreme Truth (laughing) in its deformation.
I tried to make him understand that yesterday, but not like that, I put it very nicely!
0 1967-09-16, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In egoistic and limited human consciousnesses, it finds expression in this or that person, or it finds expression in the Pope who, naturally, would like to.3 Thats his whole raison dtre, otherwise he would just be one little man among many others. In other words, there is the whole motivation of human egoism that is there. Thats what distorts everything. But there is a something (which they talk about without knowing what they talk about), a something ready to manifest. And at the same time I seem to be told, Dont worry, be in peace, you dont need to do anything: it WILL BE, and as usual you will spontaneously say what you need to say, without knowing it. There.
But what I wanted to say is that if she comes materially, you shouldnt try to fight or convince her or change her, you should be a manifestation: you know, the shining Light, WITHOUT INTENTION. Then the work will be done in order. To be the shining Lightwithout intention. Simply the shining Light. Then you quite spontaneously say what you have to say, but without intention, without mental intention. You do what you have to do, say what you have to say the Lord is there.
--
These people (laughing), we could say that their ego has taken the attitude of being the Divines instrument but its the ego. So naturally, they dont see clearly: they see what they want to see, do what they want to do. And for them, I am Gods instrument.
Well see.
0 1967-10-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I met Y. Theyre preparing an issue on Auroville, and she came with a list of questions this long (gesture), saying, I dont know Aurovilles sociology too well. I told her (laughing), Neither do I! Then she asked me questions (very intelligent ones, mind you), and I answered her. But there was one thing about the selection of people and admissions to Auroville I told her that naturally, the essential condition to be able to select people was that preferences, attractions and repulsions, likes and dislikes, all moral rules, all of that must have completely disappearednot that one should be on the way to overcoming it, its not that: it must have disappeared (laughing), there must be no more ego! Then I told her, Its not a judgment, its not that you look at people and judge whether they are fit to be there or not, if they are destined to be there or not, its not that at allyou dont judge. And after she left, I noted the end of the thing (Mother takes a note and reads):
The Force is put on all, identical and supreme
--
You know, its so wonderful, in fact. Where That manifests doesnt matter in the least; whether It manifests here, there, or there, doesnt matter in the least, its always the same thing manifesting everywhere. And wherever That chooses to manifest, which is where That must necessarily best manifest, there That manifests. The only thing the only thingis not to allow illusion and deceit to mix in, to hold them ruthlessly in their place, otherwise None of the egos mischiefwe dont want any of it; because its petty, mean, stupid, useless and a waste of time, and because it causes unnecessary turmoil in the atmosphere. But apart from that whether That manifests here or there or there
(silence)
--
From the start Ive had a sense of recoil from her. The egos hardness, thats it.
Yes, with a wholly benevolent mask.
--
But the gods have a divine ego. Thats what was really interesting this morning. They feel they exist in themselves, by themselves, for themselves (Mother clenches her fist). Only, of course, theres no comparison with the sordidness of the human ego.
But thats what was so interesting this morning. Once these divine egos have abdicated, and depending on the extent of that abdication, it will mean an EXTRAORDINARY transformation in the creation. It was like a vision being worked out slowly (Mother closes her eyes), almost with images, as if you saw the entire earth (gesture like a hall) and the image of Durga (gesture enveloping the earth), and the two together, it was quite lovely.
The earth in her arms
0 1967-11-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Basically, its the vital ego, mental ego, etc., its all of that which waspoff!taken away.
It was a radical operation.
0 1968-01-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the physical ego that has been destroyed and is now like this (gesture with arms open upward). So it finds it odd! I dont know how to explain. This way of putting oneself in the center of things and seeing them in relation to that center of consciousness seems so You understand, the consciousness is spread out; its as much there or there as here, and it sees everything in relation to a higher, central Consciousness (Mother brings her two arms together, joining the tips of her hands above her head in a triangle pointing towards the Supreme), which is like a kind of Beaconan immutable, all-powerful beacon throwing the same light on all things, without the least personal reaction of any sort.
And the last vestigesyesterday they seemed to be the last ones, because of this text they had asked me to read Naturally, when I speak I say I because its the body that speaks, but it has no sense of I, it Its very hard to explain. Anyway, because of this affair, I said, Ah, but how, how can that be said when its not me?Theres no me, its not me! And at the same time, there was this Consciousness above, saying, No personal reactions theres no more me, and if this must be done, let it be done. And for hours and hours, there was such a peculiar state in which everything It was like kinds of vestiges, or pieces of bark, I dont know; pieces of something a bit hard or shriveled, which had crumbled and were turning into dust, and nothing, nothing but this Great Vibration (gesture like two great wings beating in the infinite), so powerful, so calm the whole day. A sort of perception that life in a seemingly personal form like this one is only for actiononly for action, for the requirements of action; and there must be no reactions, only the instrument actingacting on the supreme Impulse, without reactions. And the perception was so clear that all, but all memories have been abolished, and are being increasingly abolished, so there may only remain a sort of mass of vibrations organized so as to make you do what needs to be done in the whole for everything to be prepared and (gesture of ascent) for everything to grow, to strive more and more towards the transformation.
0 1968-01-12, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a key in the relationship between man and woman, but not in their sexual relations. The so-called left-hand Tantrics (of the Vama Marga) are to true Tantrism what Boccaccios tales are to Christianity, or what the sodden Roman Bacchus is to Dionysos of the Greek mysteries. I know Tantrism, to say the least. As for the Cathars, whom I hold in the highest esteem, it would be doing them little honor to believe that they followed a sort of yoga of sexuality. Through my own experience I have often had the feeling of reliving the Cathars experience, and I see plainly that if some of them attempted to mix sexual relations into the true relationship between man and woman, they soon realized their error. It is a dead-end road, or rather its only end is to show you that it leads you nowhere forward. The Cathars were too sincere and conscious men to persist in a burdening experience. For ultimately, and that is the crux of the matter, the sexual experience in its very nature (whether or not there is backward flow or whatever its mode) automatically fastens you again to the old animal vibrations there is nothing you can do about it: however much love you may put into it, the very function is tied to millennia of animality. It is as if you wanted to plunge into a swamp without stirring up any mudit cannot be done, the milieu is like that. And when one knows how much transparency, clarification and inner stillness it takes to slowly rise to a higher consciousness, or to allow a higher light to enter our waters without being instantly darkened, one fails to see how sexual activity can help you attain that still limpidity in which things can start happening??? The union, the oneness of two beings, the true and complete meeting of two beings does not take place at that level or through those means. That is all I can say. But I have seen that in the silent tranquillity of two beings who have the same aspiration, who have overcome the difficult transition, something quite unique slowly takes place, of which one can have no inkling as long as one is still stuck in the struggles of the flesh, to use a preachers language! I think the Cathars experience begins after that transition. After it, the man-woman couple assumes its true meaning, its effectiveness, if I may say so. Sex is only a first mode of meeting, the first device invented by Nature to break the shell of individual egosafterwards, one grows and discovers something else, not through inhibition or repression, but because something different and infinitely richer takes over. Those who are so eager to preserve sex and to mystify it in order to move on to the second stage of evolution are very much like children clinging to their scootersit isnt more serious than that. There is nothing in it to do a yoga with, nothing also to be indignant about or raise ones eyebrows at. So I have nothing to criticize, I am merely observing and putting things in their place. All depends on the stage one has reached. As for those who want to use sex for such and such a sublime or not-so-sublime reason, well, let them have their experience. As Mother told me on the very same subject no later than yesterday, To tell the truth, the Lord makes use of everything. One is always on the way towards something. One is always on the way, through any means, but what is necessary is, as much as possible, to keep ones lucidity and not to deceive oneself.
I will try to find one or two passages from Sri Aurobindo to give you his point of view.
0 1968-02-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo said it several times: as soon as the being is annulled, the essence, the essential purpose of individualization immediately reappears WITHOUT the egos limits. But what you are speaking of, that sort of anguish that makes one stop,4 is a necessary movement till the whole being is ready, because if that annulment of the personality, of the individual, took place before all the elements of the body, or even of the vital or the mind, were ready you understand, it would be dissolved, and then theres no knowing what would happen. So this need to get a grip on oneself occurs until one is entirely readywhen one is ready, one can let oneself go. And as soon as the fusion is done (what can I call it?) not the law but what we might call the raison dtre [of individualization] comes back, and without the egos limitations.
I had that experience in the vital and in the mind; now I see that its the same in the body, that there is still a recall because this or that part, this or that element isnt yet ready and one has to wait until its ready. But in fact, in this mornings experience, all that remained was like pieces of bark floating about.
--
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.
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.
0 1968-04-10, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The first thing, to begin with (this is elementary), is to have no sense of possession Its mine, what does that mean? What does it mean? I cant really understand it now. Why do people want it to be theirs?To be able to use it as they wish, do with it what they wish and handle it according to their own idea. Thats how it is. Otherwise, yes, there are people who love to keep it in a pile somewhere But thats a disease. To be sure of always having money, they heap it up. But if people understood that one must be like a receiver-transmitter set; that the vaster the set (just the contrary of personal), the more impersonal and generous and vast the set is, and the more forces it can contain (forces, that is, to translate materially, banknotes or money). And that power to contain is in proportion to the best capacity of utilization the best, that is, from the standpoint of general progress: the broadest vision, the broadest understanding and the most enlightened, exact, true utilization, not according to the egos falsified needs, but according to the earths general need in its evolution and development. In other words, the broadest vision should have the broadest capacity.
Behind all false movements, there is a true one: there is a joy in being able to direct, utilize, organize things so as to keep wastage to a minimum while having a maximum of results. (Thats a very interesting vision to have.) And that must be the true side in those who want to amass: a capacity of utilization on a very large scale.
0 1968-06-08, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its so strong that if anyone dares say that the world and all creations exist for the Divines satisfaction, it immediately raises a violent protest and he is accused of they say, But this Divine is a monster! A monster of egoism, without noticing that they are precisely like that.
(silence)
--
No, what I meant was that you may widen, broaden almost to infinity the kind of consciousness human beings haveits nothing. You must go beyond, in the sense that this notion of egoism, in fact, still wholly belongs to humanity.
You see, every human being (and that resists all developments and all widenings) spontaneously and naturally puts himself in the center and organizes the world around himself; so, for him, the Divine is necessarily something that has put itself in the center and organizes the world in the same way.
0 1968-08-07, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So things appear to have taken an accelerated turn, and all the old energy which came in fact which came simply from the ego, from the sense of personalitygone. And materially, the result was that the pulse started behaving more than fancifully.
But spontaneously and constantly, the body is invoking, invoking, invoking.
0 1968-09-21, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its well veiled, in the sense that I cant manage to find precisely what it is. But its Ill give you an example: no later than yesterday evening or this morning (or in the night, I dont know), the body said, But what have I done that everything keeps grating like this all the time? And then, that (who? I dont know) shows me things from my life. This time, it showed me something rather recent, that is, from my life in India (not things from the beginning but from my life with Sri Aurobindo), and in what a manner! A manner in which all I did, all I thought, my whole way of acting, it all becomes so ugly, mon petit! So egoistic, so narrow, so petty, so ugly Then, the immediate conclusion: The state you are in is quite natural! It was something like that.
What is it?
0 1968-10-05, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He wasnt asleep: he could hear the noise of the [Ashrams] generator. It was a vision at 5:30 in the morning. He found himself in an immense hall with red carpets. There were all kinds of people there, each moving about according to his order. Then, in a corner, seated in a big armchair, there was a man wearing a red hat, a sort of miter,1 and in concentration. He was concentrated, and was repeating something with a certain gesture of the hand, as if turning something in a circle. V. instantly knew it was him. A man with intense blue eyes, long eyelashes, not strong physically but with a very powerful appearance, a thin, pointed nose, a sparse beard like that of someone who doesnt shave properly or hasnt shaved for two or three days, about fifty-five years old. A man who gave the impression of a great egoistic ambition, says V. And he was intently watching P.L., particularly your symbol which P.L. wears around his neck. And he was repeating something while turning his wrist.
Oh, thats it! Thats why: P.L. went back there, and its since then that the attacks have come back.
0 1968-10-26, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In other words, its not an egoistic complaint.
There is a very clear and spontaneous perception that its impossible to extract a small part from the whole and make something harmonious out of it when the whole isnt harmonious.
0 1969-02-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the sense of the bodys ego that has gone away, with a very strange result. While the experience is there, I might just manage to describe it, but First the sense of limit, that is, of the body existing as a separate thing, has disappeared; for instance, the sensation that you knock against something else (I dont know how to explain) has completely gone. And it leaves
I have no memory at all; I cant keep a memory of something and relate it: I can relate it only at the time of the experience. But its almost visual, I dont know how to explain (Mother looks at her hands), its not limited and impossible, I cant express it.
0 1969-03-19, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This Consciousness has becomeis becomingmore and more active, and that began when the body lost the sense of a separate individuality, of the ego. Thats how it began. It seems to be the necessary base for manifestation.
Its really interesting.
0 1969-03-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The silence was dense, the stupefaction huge. And I went on again: But we believe we are the interpreters, and except us none has the right to speak. Nevertheless we are faced with the current phenomenon of anti-establishment protest. The youth is running away from us, our formulas are old, ineffective, we preach without conviction, we demand absurd things, and to have peace, we stick a label of sin on all taboos. I know that my speech will be called subversive. In dictatorial or established regimes, those who move forward are suspicious. For twenty centuries we have used the weapon of heresy, and we know the atrocities that were committed in the name of Christ: that was our defenseit was his wisdom to keep power But if Christ suddenly appeared here, in front of us, do you think he would recognize himself in us? Is the Christ we preach the Christ of the BEATITUDES? Our preoccupation is to prohibit opening. And we make fools of ourselves with the pill. But are we also preoccupied with the TRUTH? Yet we should read our holy books again, but read them without passion, without egoistic interest; almost two thousand years ago, St. Paul said, Multifariam, multisque modis olim Deus loquens in prophetis, novissime diebus istis locutus est nobis in Filio (several times and in several ways God has spoken through the prophets, but now in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son Jesus Christ). Thus God has spoken in several ways. I know that a new light has just appeared, a new Consciousness let us go in search of it. But we shall have to step down from our throne, from our convenience; perhaps to leave the place to others and do away with the Hierarchy: no more Pope or Cardinals or Bishops, but all of us seekers of the TRUTH, of the CONSCIOUSNESS, the POWER, the SUPRANATURAL, the SUPRAHUMAN..
Satprem, I left the room and went away for a walk in the countryside. What is going to happen to me? Will they put me on trial? Will they declare me insane, heretic? I am waiting. I am eager to go and see Mother. I am preparing my travel for Easter. (That took place on Monday the 24th of February.) To this day, no reaction. Has the Pope been informed? I do not know. I have continued with the inquiry entrusted to me. I feel very calm, very strong. I have not spoken about all that to any of those close to me (not even to Msgr. R.). The malefic character seen in dream (Msgr. Z) was present, but he did not react either.
0 1969-04-16, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No shadow, that is, no ego.
Yes, its precisely that. It means no ego.
(silence)
0 1969-04-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not constant. It comes when I am left in peace ([laughing] which doesnt happen often!), when I can melt into the joy of belonging to the Divine (something like that). There isnt even the idea of being the Divine, its not that! That seems so silly! The first time I read that, to me it was the height of egoism: You are the Divine! (Laughing) Its not the Divine who contains you, its you who contain the Divine, dont forget! But there is the joy of wholly belonging to the Divine, and suddenly (gesture of breaking away) something takes place (Mother shows the absence of any more separation, of a giving and of a someone to give oneself to).
Strangely, as soon as theres the slightest slackening in the attitude, for instance, a second of forgetfulness (what I might call forgetfulness, that is, the former old habit, the old terrestrial habit of being), the body instantly feels about to be dissolved. And that, strangely, is something The body is now aware that it can hold together, exist together ONLY through the Lords Power, not through any natural law that it knowsand so, at such times, brr! there can come two or three seconds like that: you feel everything, but everything is about to be dissolved.
0 1969-04-30, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At the same time, it showed (oh, its constantly, constantly teaching something), it showed how with people who still have the sense of ego, when they receive a little bit of this Power (that is, when this Power uses them), that causes a sort of panic, and it showed why: the ego becomes tremendous. And that was to show, to make the body clearly understand the necessity of its present state: it has almost no more sense of its existence, as little as possible; that mostly comes back with things that still grate quite materially. But if, at such times, the body can, or has the time to, or knows how to go into this state of then the difficulty vanishes as if by miracle, in a trice. There was even something to show how, this way (Mother presses her two index fingers together, then slightly lowers the index finger of her right hand), there is sufferingthis way, theres suffering and when its like that (Mother raises slightly the index finger of her left hand), it no longer exists. (Mother does the same gesture again): This way, suffering; that way, it no longer exists. So the body may know exactly in which position suffering no longer exists.
That goes on all the time, all the time, night and day, constantly, continuouslyone thing after another, one thing after another. I would have to spend hours to narrate it all.
0 1969-05-03, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Last year, you remember, there was a boy who drowned at Gingee:3 that was with P. [the groups captain]; and this little one, it was with B., Rs sister [also a captain]. So I looked: outwardly, they are vitally very strong and very egocentric, which would be the external, material reason that allows the accident to take place that is, no intuition of others needs or state: no contact, theyre like this (gesture closed in on oneself), but with an inner solidity on which, the psychic was leaning, for both of them [the two captains].
The other one too [the boy who drowned in the pond] wanted to go, but in his case it was very interesting: I saw Sri Aurobindo come and fetch him under water, and Sri Aurobindo said, He will be born in the family (he came back in a child), he will come back in the first child to be born in the family. And this girl, I dont know yet what will happen, but her psychic being WANTED to go (for some reason or other).4
--
So then, for instance, these two I mentioned [P. and his sister, the two captains], from a human standpoint, you would say theyre really insensitiveits because theyre insensitive and too egocentric that the accident took place. In other words, a reproach. In this light, Oh, these are good instruments, one can lean on them5 (solid gesture), they wont sag, theyre strong enough for one to lean on them. And all that is shown to the body, which is really beginning (laughing) to know things no body had ever learned beforeever. And to see life quite differently It feels (laughing) you know, it feels stupid, that is, consciously its in one way, and then out of atavism, out of construction, its tied down in the other way. So it feels very silly, very silly. But the Consciousness held it (with yesterdays event), it HELD it in its Consciousness like that, present, until it had really understood everything in detail, and once it had really understood, poff! the thing was gone, finished. So it understands that when something is held like that, it means theres something to understand, it has a lesson to learn, and when the lesson has been learned, when it has understood, seen clearlyonce it has seen clearly and its all simple and very clear thats it, poff! its gone, finished (gesture showing the Consciousness letting go of the body), as though the thing were quite taken away That was taking place at night, while I am not disturbed (the night hours are the only ones when I am not disturbed every minute; I can carry on with my work untroubled), and then I saw. And that night was so peaceful, but with such peace! Its ten rungs above the ordinary material peace, completely You know, the peace of a psychic will so powerful (Mother stretches her arms in a sovereign gesture), so tranquil that all our emotions, our reactions, all that absolutely looks like childishness. But the body understands very well (since this Consciousness came it has begun to understand lots of things), it understands that all that [emotions, reactions] was a necessary path to prepare receptive instruments.
Its really interesting.
0 1969-05-17, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I can say (and it was almost like a surprise, I mean I didnt know it), I can say that the consciousness that came out of Pavitras body was a consciousness without egowithout ego. Without SENSE of ego. There was a clear will to merge, a will with an intensity of aspiration, it was fantastic! Fantastic.7
But by individuality, I dont mean an ego: I mean the something thats identical through all lives, the one thing that progresses through all lives. The something that remains the same and pursues its development.
Thats the Supreme.
--
With separation: the ego.
But that [the something that persists] is obvious. Its there, very strong, in this action of Pavitrasit was very strong. And in fact, it was free from the illusion of ego and had the full force of That. But that [center] remains! It cant disappear.
(silence)
0 1969-07-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As you say, it is the failure of the right attitude that comes in the way of passing through ordeals to a change of nature. The pressure is becoming greater now for this change of character even more than for decisive Yoga experience for if the experience comes, it fails to be decisive because of the want of the requisite change of nature. The mind, for instance, gets the experience of the One in all, but the vital cannot follow, because it is dominated by ego-reaction and ego-motive or the habits of the outer nature keep up a way of thinking, feeling, acting, living which is quite out of harmony with the experience. Or the psychic and part of the mind and emotional being feel frequently the closeness of the Mother, but the rest of the nature is unoffered and goes its own way prolonging the division from her nearness, creating distance. It is because the Sadhaks have never even tried to have the Yogic attitude in all things, they have been contented with the common ideas, common view of things, common motives of life, only varied by inner experiences and transferred to the framework of the Asram instead of that of the world outside. It is not enough and there is great need that this should change.9
Sri Aurobindo
0 1969-08-02, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, and I was struck by one thing: the impression of a natural absence of ego in this man.
It looks like that, indeed.
0 1969-09-03, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It began with a sort of thoroughly repellant perception of peoples condition from the standpoint of consciousnessof the darkness and of this so narrow sort of egocentric vision. That was the beginning, and then the Consciousness seemed to be telling me, Oh, but dont worry, its much better than it was before! (Mother laughs) And it showed me everything like that (gesture as in a film), oh! it was so frightful that I wondered how it could have existed.
The state of mind of the people who burned Joan of Arc, for instance.
0 1969-09-24, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. Then the woman died the day after giving birth, and the child is now seventeen, I think. He told me, Thats how it is: there is NO power, it doesnt existthere is That, the Harmony; everyone has the capacity to call this Harmony, and It acts. And It acts in a second, instantly. But then, he told me, Here is my question (as far as I can express what he said). Basically, he is aware of quite an extraordinary Powerthough I should say I didnt feel a shadow of ego in this man, theres no trace of ego. He read my book, but that didnt teach him things, it only confirmed some experiences. This man spoke to me for more than three hours, and apart from you and Sri Aurobindo, I have heard no one speak like him. It was a sage who spoke, a living experience that sprang forth, there wasnt one thing he said you wouldnt subscribe to: those great Forces of Harmony that must be embodied on earth, brought down on earth It was really a sage who spoke, and those were your words, Sri Aurobindos words.
Thats what A. told me; the first day when he received him, he told me, I thought I was listening to you or to Sri Aurobindo!
0 1969-10-01, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Naturally, the two are interdependent: the ego must be abolished the RULE of the ego must be abolished. Generally, people think its not possible to abolish the physical ego; not only is it possible, its DONE, and the body continues, it keeps on walkingit hasnt gone! (It had a difficult little moment a little moment.)
Now these cells are wondering how one can continue to exist without this movement of adoration. Theyre like this, everywhere (gesture of intense aspiration), everywhere. Its very interesting.
0 1969-10-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But then, in his case, he felt even more convinced, you understand? He felt [in front of Mother], yes, quite comfortable. Thats why I told you that the physical ego hasnt gone. He found it quite naturalhe must have felt very comfortable!
(silence)
0 1969-11-05, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I get some very impertinent letters from people asking me why I did this or why I did that (Im absolutely indifferent to it: when I read that, I laughits all the same to me), but I see, I see the atmosphere: theres a progression of trust and dependence, a very rapid and great progression. And there is at the same time all the little egos which rebel and are furious! But its very good because it comes from the Pressure of the Consciousness that wants things to be open.
For instance, some people had rancor for a long time, without saying anything they are forced to say it. Thats how it is. Theres a very strong pressure for the transformation. And naturally, thats why I am flooded with people. Because theres one point on which I dont yield, its the hours of so-called sleep; from 8 at night till about 8 in the morning, it makes twelve hours during which the inner work can be done, and that I dont want to touch. Of course, twelve hours is a lot: its half of the day So the other twelve hours, its an avalanche. But I am holding on to that, because those are the hours when the most important work is done. (Its a little less, its really like that between 9 and 5 in the morning, rather; thats really when the work is concentrated on the transformation.) Its not that the rest of the time is a denial, not at all: that state of consciousness is immutable. Basically, I dont think there are many minutes, even in a days twenty-four hours, when the body isnt conscious of the divine Presence thats how the body is. But the daytime hours are spent in action, theyre for others; the night hours are for its own transformation.
0 1969-12-10, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Aphorism 68"The sense of sin was necessary in order that man might become disgusted with his own imperfections. It was God's corrective for egoism. But man's egoism meets God's device by being very dully alive to its owns sins and very keenly alive to the sins of others."
***
0 1969-12-13, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its concrete? Whats needed You understand, theres only ONE way, its for the ego to go away, thats all. Thats the thing. Its when, instead of an I, nothing remains therecompletely flat, you know, like this (immense, even gesture, without a ripple), with a sort of not even expressed with words, but a very STABLE expression of, What You will, what You will. (Words become very small.) Really with a concrete sensation that this [the body] doesnt exist, its only made use of, as it were, and theres NOTHING but That. That which goes like this (gesture of exerting a pressure). The impression of That, this conscious immensity which (Mother stretches out her arms) You eventually see it, you know (see it, its not a vision with pictures, but a vision I dont know with what! But its very concrete, much more concrete than pictures), a vision of this IMMENSE Force, this IMMENSE Vibration pressing and pressing and pressing and then, the world wriggling about underneath (!) and the thing opening and when it opens, that enters and spreads.
Its really interesting.
0 1969-12-27, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday, I heard Sunils music (and it was so interesting because of that). Its very fine, his music, and then this Consciousness showed me how You see, the consciousness here takes a certain attitude, and it has the whole joy and harmony; the thing remains the same, but then (Mother makes a gesture of a slight tipping to the left) a very slight change in the attitude of the consciousness, and it becomes almost unbearable! Experiences of that sort, all the time, all the time to show you that in reality, only ONE THING matters, its the attitude of the consciousness: the old attitude of the individual being (Mother makes a gesture of contraction into oneself), or this (gesture of expansion). Probably it must be (to put it into words we can understand) the presence of the ego and the abolition of the ego. Thats it.
And then, as I said, for all the most ordinary activities of life, there is the demonstration that if the presence is tolerated (certainly in order to make you understand what it is), it can actually throw you off balance from the standpoint of health, and that the only remedy is the disappearance of the egoand along with it, the disappearance of the whole discomfort. For the things we regard as the most indifferent, the most Its for everything, just everything, all the time, all the time, night and day.
But then, added to that is the complication of all the spots of incomprehension and discontent, which express themselves (gesture as of a truckload being dumped on Mother), as though they were unbridled and were coming out into the open. So all that pours down at the same time so that the experience may be total in every field.
0 1969-12-31, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He says that for a few years, energies in Auroville have been scattered: they are egoistic, everyone wants to build his own little hut, his own little story, or, at best, hopes to build a supercity, which will only be an improvement on all the existing cities of the world. In this Auroville, an axis, a center is missing. Whats missing is a unification of the consciousnesses around a center, an axis. So he said that in the past, they built pyramids, they built cathedrals, and around those symbolic constructions, consciousnesses could unify
(Mother nods approvingly)
0 1970-01-07, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But is there mercy for total egoism?
Yes, oh, yes! Thats just it!
0 1970-01-17, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is the living fruit of egoism. The only saving thing would be for the Ashram people to come in and do the work, and for the others to be absorbed in that, otherwise
(after a long silence)
0 1970-02-11, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For the moment still, liberty, equality, fraternity are nothing but words loudly proclaimed but never put into practice yet. They cannot be, so long as men remain as they are, governed by their ego and all its desires instead of being governed solely by the One Supreme and supremely Divine.
And I added:
0 1970-03-04, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
135All disease is a means towards some new joy of health, all evil and pain a tuning of Nature for some more intense bliss and good, all death an opening on widest immortality. Why and how this should be so, is Gods secret which only the soul purified of egoism can penetrate.
Yes, yes (Mother nods approvingly), thats what I am doing right now. And one has be really persevering.
0 1970-03-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a consciousness in which the sense of ego completely disappears, it does not exist. There isnt a person in front of others, you understand, receiving and sending influencesits no longer like that at all. Its a general play of forces (Mother makes a vast, fluid gesture) in which everyone spontaneously plays his part.
Several times the body has had that experience. It remains in that for a long time. Now its almost that relationship with things and beings (the old relationship) is on the verge of becoming a memory. Its no longer no longer natural.
--
I dont know how to explain. Theres something radically changed not only in the bodys consciousness, but in its functioning. For the moment its still hard to explain. You see, the image of being at the center with things coming towards you and everything being in relationship with this [the egocentric center] is an old thing that went away long ago. But there were still
(silence)
0 1970-04-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It amounted to this: Yes, to you the world is still this way because you WANT it this way; when you no longer want it this way, it will be the true way. Then But the you want it isnt with the idea of the small egos will, of course, it has nothing to do with that.
Its probably a theres a position to be changed, a position of the consciousness to be changed.
0 1970-06-03, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
2) One lives in Auroville to be free from moral and social conventions; but that freedom must not be a new slavery to the ego, its desires and ambitions.
Is that all? Its enough for today!
0 1970-07-11, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
O my unique Love which sprang from my heart and filled it so much that it made my life blossom. O my Lord of unique Love who has given himself to me wholly and by the Grace-Light has transmuted me. My Love that has entered and unified with me in my heart, so as to transform my body into a golden body. The skin has become supple, the influx of the nervous current all over the body is vibrating, with pauses in between; the bones have become pliable and plastic in their nature; the soft muscles have become truly loosened; the blood has become condensed within; the semen has become concentrated into a single drop and confined in the chest; the petals of the brain2 have blossomed or expanded; amrita [nectar of immortality] is welling up into springs all over the body and filling it up; the luminous forehead perspires; the luminous face brightens up; the breath full of peace becomes cool and refreshing; the inner smile beams up; the hair stands on end; tears of joy flow down towards the feet; the mouth vibrates into the passionate calling [of the Divine]; the ear tubes ring with the sense of musically humming sound; the body has become cool; the soft chest moves; the hands join [as in prayer]; the legs revolve or spin round; the mind melts sweetly, the intelligence becomes full of light; the will becomes full of joy and harmony; the individuality has enlarged itself everywhere; the heart has blossomed into the universality of feeling so as to be felt by the world outwardly; the whole knowledge-body has become blissful; even the spiritual egoism of the senses has gone away; the senses (tattva) have been replaced wholly by the truth (sattva), the truth-principle or truth-substance which alone prevails now uniquely; attachment to objects of the senses and to things of the world has dissolved away, and only the aspiration and will towards the illimitable Grace grows and intensifies.3
And how long did he live like this?
0 1970-10-10, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are moments when the Spirit moves among men there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny.
Is it the end?
0 1970-11-25, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And its beyond persons. There is no ego.
Yes.
0 1971-04-28, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"To overcome one's ego, to live only in the service of the Divine that is the ideal and the shortest way towards acquiring the true consciousness."
Nor do we know what kind of report Mother was getting from the trio of intriguers who were already quarreling over the direction and funds of Auroville. Certainly there was a lazy group in Auroville, but that group quickly disappeared on its own. Is it a "lack of authority" over the Aurovillians or over the trio, whose rivalries were beginning to arouse the mistrust of the Aurovillians?
0 1971-05-01, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We (human beings) are not living for the satisfaction of our ego; we live to fulfill Gods will. But to be able to perceive and to know the will of God, we must be without desires and preferences. Otherwise we mistake for Gods will our own limited ideas and principles.
It is in the wide peace of an absolute and devoted sincerity free from fixed ideas and preferences that we can realize the conditions required to know Gods Will and it is with a fearless discipline that we must execute it.
0 1971-06-05, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Humanity has a dread (it must have been necessary at one time, some thousands of years ago, I dont know), a dread of the Divine. The human animal. For him, it is equivalent to disappearing. And in effect it is the disappearance of the ego. And the disappearance of that [physical] ego for a long time one has had the impression that if the ego disappears, the being disappears, the form disappears but thats not true! It isnt true. In any case, it has become ready [Mothers body] to live without an ego. The trouble is that lifes ordinary laws no longer hold. Which means all the old habit, plus the new thing to be learned.
Its as if the cellsnot the bodys cells: the organization that makes up the form (that holds everything together and makes up a form, a form we call human), its as if that had to learn it can go on living without the sense of separate individuality. Curious. Without the sense of ego. While for thousands of years its been accustomed to existing separately only because of the egowithout ego it goes on according to another law the body doesnt yet know, and which it finds incomprehensible. It has nothing to do with a will, its not I dont know a something a way of being. But then, billions of ways of being.
It has to learn to be a certain way of being.
0 1971-06-09, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And that which says that we will perish or be destroyed by That is the egoit is Mr. ego trying to pass himself off as the true being.
But the body has learned that even without ego it is what it is, because it is that by the Divine Will and not at all by the egowe exist by the Divine Will and not by the ego. The ego was a meansa centuries-old means. Centuries old. Now, its worthless, its time is over. It had its time, it had its usefulnessits over, its past, its way past. Now (Mother lowers her fist sharply): consciousness is the Divine; power is the Divine; action is the Divine; individuality is the Divine.
And the body has understood, sensed very well; it has realized and understood, as they say in English, that the sense of being a separate personality is PERFECTLY useless, perfectly useless, it is not in the least indispensable to its existence, its perfectly useless. It exists by another power and another will, which is not individual, not personal: the Divine Will. And it will become what it is supposed to be the day it feels there is no difference between itself and the Divine. Thats all.
0 1971-06-16, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Then Satprem suggests some extracts from the conversation of June 9 on the onslaught of Falsehood and in particular the passage on the dissolution of the ego.)
Its quite a current truth [the onslaught].
Oh, that [the dissolution of the ego] is perfect; that should be published, its my everyday experience, every minute, all the time. That should be published now.
You know, its my experience every minute, for every single thing, constantly: for rest, for activity, for food, for everything, for action with people, for everything, everything; its a kind of I could almost say a possession by the Divine. And my body senses that it exists only like this (fists clenched, clinging to the Divine): without That, there is nothing. Ah, the experience is constant and total!
0 1971-08-25, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told you about those activities at night (I have no impression of sleeping, and yet the body is perfectly at rest), in which there are people who are living and people who are dead in ordinary language and they are absolutely alike. Except that the living seem still to have egoistic reactions, which the others dont have. But its (fluid gesture). What to us is real doesnt exist anymore. And its very concrete.
I am in a state where I know nothing, thats all.
0 1971-10-16, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now, I think the bodily ego is in the process of disappearing. Then it will be perfect.
Its really quite spontaneousspontaneous and sincere: You, You, You. What You want, what You want. what You want.
0 1971-11-10, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but then I wonder if it isnt egoistic?
No, mon petit! Sri Aurobindo used to tell me, The Divine is the supreme egoist! (Mother laughs and everyone laughs.)
(long silence)
0 1971-12-08, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
2) Progressive abolition of the ego.
The divine help is assured to those who set to work sincerely.
0 1971-12-15, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Difficult periods come on earth to compel men to overcome their small personal egoism and to turn exclusively to the Divine for help and light. The wisdom of men is ignorant. Only the Divine knows.
It came imperiously.
0 1971-12-25, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And its effect on us, the sensation it produces in us depends exclusively on the position of our consciousness. There is the consciousness of being in oneself or being in the whole (being in the whole is already a bit better than being egoistically oneself, and it has its advantages and disadvantages, but its not the truth), the Truth is the Divine as totalitytotality in time and totality in space. And that consciousness, the body CAN have, because this body had it (momentarily, for a few moments), and while it has it, everything is so you see, its not joy, its not pleasure, its not happiness, nothing of all that a sort of blissful peace and luminous and creative. Magnificent. Only, it comes and goes, comes and goes. And when you go out of it, you have the impression of falling into a horrible pitour ordinary consciousness (I mean the ordinary human consciousness) is a horrible pit. But we also know why it had to be momentarily that way, for it was necessary in order to go from this to that: everything that happens is necessary for the full development of the goal of creation. You could say (we could word-paint): the goal of creation is for the creature to become conscious as the Creator. There you are.
Its word-painting, but its in that direction.
0 1972-01-01, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A special help has come onto the earth for Sri Aurobindos centenary year; let us take advantage of it to overcome the ego and emerge into the light.
Happy New Year.
0 1972-02-08, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the beginnings of humanity, the ego was the unifying element. It is around the ego that the various states of being were formed. But now that a superhumanity is about to be born, the ego must disappear and leave place for the psychic being which has slowly developed through divine agency to manifest the Divine in man.
The Divine manifests in man under the psychic influence, and that is how the coming of superhumanity is prepared.
--
Hence, the important thing now is to find ones psychic being, unite with it, and allow it to replace the ego, which will be forced either to convert itself or disappear.
***
0 1972-02-10, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Human consciousness is so corrupt that people prefer the misery and ignorance of the ego to the luminous joy that comes from sincere surrender to the Divine. Their blindness is so great that they refuse even to attempt the experience and prefer to be subjected to the misery of their ego rather than make the necessary effort to free themselves from it.
Their blindness is so total that they would not hesitate to make the Divine a slave to their ego, if such a thing were possible, just to avoid giving themselves to the Divine.
***
0 1972-03-08, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Unwillingness. egoism (what we call egoism), Matters egoism.
Matters egoism.
Which refuses to surrender.
0 1972-03-29a, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The young Indian students with whom I discuss your books understand perhaps better than Westerners the reason for all those bloody and apparently useless sacrifices the torments conflicts and revolts of your heroes condemned to death, the great Hunger that drives them beyond themselves for they know that these are like the contractions of childbirth, and that the thick shell of egoism, routine, conformism, intellectual and sentimental habits must be broken for the inner Divine to transpierce the surface of this life for the Divine is indeed WITHIN man, and life harbors its own hidden justification. Echoing the Upanishad, Sri Aurobindo tells us that The earth is His foothold. He also wrote, God is not only in the still small voice, but in the fire and the whirlwind.
I think I am correctly interpreting the feeling of my young Indian friends when I say that they see the heroes of your novels as raw mystics, to use Claudels description of Rimbaud. This may seem a surprising attribute, considering your heroes atheism, but that is because we have too often confused mysticism or spirituality with religion, as Sri Aurobindo stresses. One need not believe in a personal, extracosmic God to be a mystic. (That is certainly why religion has from time to time taken upon itself to bum alive all the non-regular mystics.) Here we touch upon a huge confusion rooted in religions. Through their monks, sannyasins and ascetics, religions have shown us a purely contemplative, austere and lifeless side of mysticismindeed those mystics, like the religions they practice, live in a negation of life; they go through this vale of tears with their eyes exclusively fixed on the Beyond. But true mysticism is not so limited as that, it seeks to transform life, to reveal the Absolute hidden in it; it seeks to establish the kingdom of God in man, as Sri Aurobindo wrote, and not the kingdom of a Pope, clergy or sacerdotal class. If the modem world lives in conflict and anguish, if it is torn between being and doing, it is because religion has driven away God from this world, severed him from his creation and flung him back to some distant heaven or empty nirvana, thus denying any possibility of human perfection on this earth and digging an unbridgeable gulf between being and doing, between mystics sunk in their dreams and this world abandoned to the forces of evil, to Satan and all those who consent to get their hands dirty.
0 1972-04-02b, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Each one, all of you have good reasons, everybody seems to lie. Everybody has good reasons. You know, the ego is the most clever rogue I have ever met. He takes such nice, nice appearances, and each one says: I would, but I cant. Voil. And I tell you, from some places far away and from near, from far and from near, from India and from other countries: Begin with yourself. That is, we are ridiculousridiculous. And such good reasons we have!all the people have good reasons. It is above reason, it has nothing to do with reason, nothing to do with that, we want a new creation.
If the Divine had only for one hour the same feelings as men have, there would be no more world. That I can tell you. I have seen clearlyyou believe me if you want I have seen the world with the eye of the Divine. It is something so terrible, you know, so contrary to what it must be, that if the Divine said only He, brrt! everything would go, there would be no world, there would be no men, there would be only That. Des ego pulverises [smashed egos].
It is difficult, it is the most difficult thingwe are here to do difficult things. We are in the period of transition. I cant tell you: be like this or be like that, because there is no example as yet. It is being done, and we are just at the time of the transition. It is very, very difficult but very interesting.
--
You are here now, I mean on earth, because you once chose to beyou dont remember it, but I know; thats why you are here. Well, you must stand up to the task. You must make an effort, you must conquer pettiness and limitations, and above all tell the ego: your time is over. We want a race without ego, with the divine consciousness in place of the ego. Thats what we want: the divine consciousness, which will enable the race to develop and the superman1 to be born.
If you think I am here because I am bound, you are wrong. I am not bound. I am here because my body has given itself for the first attempt at transformation. Sri Aurobindo told me so, he told me, I know of no one who can do it, except you. I said, All right, I will do it. Its not I dont wish anyone to do it in my place, because because its not very pleasant, but I am doing it gladly, because everybody will benefit from the results. I ask only one thing: dont listen to the ego. Thats all. The time of the ego is over. We want to go beyond humanity and its ego, to leave it behind, we want a race without ego, with a divine consciousness in place of the ego. There, thats all.
Anything to say?
--
(To N. and U.:) You and you, you must agree. You are here for that. You have come to this place at this time for that. We must give to the world the example of what must be, not petty egoistic movements, but an aspiration towards the manifestation of Truth. Voil.
(silence)
0 1972-04-05, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the ego demanding that things be done without forgetting its due respect(laughing) Mister ego wants to continue enjoying all due respect! It complains shrilly before departing.
Oh, I have seen such fascinating things, mon petit! For hours I was a spectator the consciousness witnessed an encounter between the ego and the supermans consciousness (laughing) it was like a duel! The ego was arguing so glibly! It seemed to be saying, See, if you send me off, the world will become hellish! And it was showing the most frightful scenes: If I withdraw from this one, it said, this is what he will do; if I withdraw from that, this is what will happen (Mother laughs) Horrible things, you know, the most staggering catastrophes! It went on for hours.
At night I dont sleep, you know; I remain very still, and I am then a spectator of all those scenes.
0 1972-04-13, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
My help is there for all those who need itits the ego that prevents people from receiving it. Does V. understand the difference between the ego and the psychic being? ego is the obstruction. ego was necessary to shape humanity, but we are now preparing the way for a superhumanity, a supra-humanity. The job of the ego is overit did its job well, now it must disappear. And it is the psychic being, the Divines representative in man, that will stay on and pass into the next species. So we must learn to gather all our being around the psychic. Those who wish to pass to the supra-humanity must get rid of the ego and concentrate themselves around the psychic being.
But does he know the difference between the ego and the psychic? Because the ego is very artfula rogue!
***
0 1972-05-06, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But there is one essential condition: the egos reign must come to an end. The ego is now the obstacle. The ego must be replaced by the divine consciousness what personally I call divine consciousness. Sri Aurobindo called it supramental, so we can call it supramental to avoid confusion, because as soon as you say Divine, people start thinking of a God, and that spoils everything. It isnt like that. Not like that, it is the descent of the supramental world (Mother slowly lowers her fists), which is not mere imagination (pointing above): it is an ABSOLUTELY material Power. But (smilingly) with no need for any material means.
A world is trying to be born into this world.
0 1972-06-24, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Action is evident. And it is the egos authority which is disappearingincreasingly disappearing. With total acceptance, you know, one that doesnt even need to understand. We always want to understand in the old mental waytheres NO NEED to understand. An acceptance like this (gesture, hands open).
Under that Pressure, the old remnants of authority, the remnants of the egos authority should disappear and be replaced by this (same gesture, hands open): a receptivity and obedience (not obedience, because there is no need to understand): to be impelled exclusively by the Divine. This in place of the ego. The last traces of the ego getting erased, and (gesture, hands open) being replaced by (same gesture).
I continually have the feeling (fifty times a day, perhaps) of being a little baby (gesture, kicking hands and legs), completely wrapped in and tossed about by the divine forces! (laughter) Exactly like that.
There are still. It isnt completely transparent, naturally, there still remain some old things, the egos old rule over the body, which causes grating and friction, but otherwise otherwise just like a baby!
Like a baby.
0 1972-07-22, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The only important thing is to mix as little personal ego as possible with the divine vision. Thats all.
(Andr:) Yes, right.
0 1973-02-14, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But, Mother, Ive seen it: all the translators, whether French, English, German or whatever, have a translators COLOSSAL ego; the minute you touch their translation, its as if you were ripping their little selves apart. Whether its Y, T., CS. or any of the people I have dealt with, translators are simply not-to-be-touched This is the truth. Well, lets leave them alone. A veritable grace is needed to make them understand.
But I myself wasnt satisfied with my translations.
0 1973-02-18, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Violence is necessary as long as men are ruled by their ego and its desires. But violence must be used only as a means of defense when you are attacked. The ideal towards which humanity is moving and which we want to realize is a state of luminous understanding in which each persons needs as well as the harmony of the whole are taken into account.
The future will have no need of violence because it will be governed by the Divine Consciousness, in which all things are harmonized and complement each other.
02.01 - Metaphysical Thought and the Supreme Truth, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Knowledge - the Knowledge by which we become what we know. To pass from the external to a direct and intimate inner consciousness; to widen consciousness out of the limits of the ego and the body; to heighten it by an inner will and aspiration and opening to the Light till it passes in its ascent beyond Mind; to bring down a descent of the supramental Divine through selfgiving and surrender with a consequent transformation of mind, life and body - this is the integral way to the Truth.1 It is this that we call the Truth here and aim at in our Yoga.
02.01 - The World War, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When man was a dweller of the forest,a jungle man,akin to his forbear the ape, his character was wild and savage, his motives and impulsions crude, violent, egoistic, almost wholly imbedded in, what we call, the lower vital level; the light of the higher intellect and intelligence had not entered into them. Today there is an uprush of similar forces to possess and throw man back to a similar condition. This new order asks only one thing of man, namely, to be strong and powerful, that is to say, fierce, ruthless, cruel and regimented. Regimentation can be said to be the very characteristic of the order, the regimentation of a pack of wild dogs or wolves. A particular country, nation or raceit is Germany in Europe and, in her wake, Japan in Asiais to be the sovereign nation or master race (Herrenvolk); the rest of mankindo ther countries and peoplesshould be pushed back to the status of servants and slaves, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. What the helots were in ancient times, what the serfs were in the mediaeval ages, and what the subject peoples were under the worst forms of modern imperialism, even so will be the entire mankind under the new overlordship, or something still worse. For whatever might have been the external conditions in those ages and systems, the upward aspirations of man were never doubted or questioned they were fully respected and honoured. The New Order has pulled all that down and cast them to the winds. Furthermore in the new regime, it is not merely the slaves that suffer in a degraded condition, the masters also, as individuals, fare no better. The individual here has no respect, no freedom or personal value. This society or community of the masters even will be like a bee-hive or an ant-hill; the individuals are merely functional units, they are but screws and bolts and nuts and wheels in a huge relentless machinery. The higher and inner realities, the spontaneous inspirations and self-creations of a free soulart, poetry, literaturesweetness and light the good and the beautifulare to be banished for ever; they are to be regarded as things of luxury which enervate the heart, diminish the life-force, distort Nature's own virility. Man perhaps would be the worshipper of Science, but of that Science which brings a tyrannical mastery over material Nature, which serves to pile up tools and instruments, arms and armaments, in order to ensure a dire efficiency and a grim order in practical life.
Those that have stood against this Dark Force and its over-shadowing menaceeven though perhaps not wholly by choice or free-will, but mostly compelled by circumstancesyet, because of the stand they have taken, now bear the fate of the world on their shoulders, carry the whole future of humanity in their march. It is of course agreed that to have stood against the Asura does not mean that one has become sura, divine or godlike; but to be able to remain human, human instruments of the Divine, however frail, is sufficient for the purpose, that ensures safety from the great calamity. The rule of life of the Asura implies the end of progress, the arrest of all evolution; it means even a reversal for man. The Asura is a fixed type of being. He does not change, his is a hardened mould, a settled immutable form of a particular consciousness, a definite pattern of qualities and activitiesgunakarma. Asura-nature means a fundamental ego-centricism, violent and concentrated self-will. Change is possible for the human being; he can go downward, but he can move upward too, if he chooses. In the Puranas a distinction has been made between the domain of enjoyment and the domain of action. Man is the domain of action par excellence; by him and through him evolve new and fresh lines of activity and impulsion. The domain of enjoyment, on the other hand, is where we reap the fruits of our past Karma; it is the result of an accumulated drive of all that we have done, of all the movements we have initiated and carried out. It is a status of being where there is only enjoyment, not of becoming where there can be development and new creation. It is a condition of gestation, as it were; there is no new Karma, no initiative or change in the stuff of the consciousness. The Asuras are bhogamaya purusha, beings of enjoyment; their domain is a cumulus of enjoyings. They cannot strike out a fresh line of activity, put forth a new mode of energy that can work out a growth or transformation of nature. Their consciousness is an immutable entity. The Asuras do not mend, they can only end. Man can certainly acquire or imbibe Asuric force or Asura-like qualities and impulsions; externally he can often act very much like the Asura; and yet there is a difference. Along with the dross that soils and obscures human nature, there is something more, a clarity that opens to a higher light, an inner core of noble metal which does not submit to any inferior influence. There is this something More in man which always inspires and enables him to break away from the Asuric nature. Moreover, though there may be an outer resemblance between the Asuric qualities of man and the Asuric qualities of the Asura, there is an intrinsic different, a difference in tone and temper, in rhythm and vibration, proceeding as they do, from different sources. However cruel, hard, selfish, egocentric man may be, he knows, he admitsat times, if hot always, at heart, if not openly, subconsciously, if not wholly consciously that such is not the ideal way, that these qualities are not qualifications, they are unworthy elements and have to be discarded. But the Asura is ruthless, because he regards ruthlessness as the right thing, as the perfect thing, it is an integral part of his swabhava and swadharma, his law of being and his highest good. Violence is the ornament of his character.
The outrages committed by Spain in America, the oppression of the Christians by Imperial Rome, the brutal treatment of Christians by Christians themselves (the inquisition, that is to say) or the misdeeds of Imperialists generally were wrong and, in many cases, even inhuman and unpardonable. But when we compare with what Nazi Germany has done in Poland or wants to do throughout the world, we find that there is a difference between the two not only in degree, but in kind.One is an instance of the weakness of man, of his flesh being frail; the other illustrates the might of the Asura, his very spirit is unwilling. One is undivine; the other antidivine, positively hostile. They who cannot discern this difference are colour-blind: there are eyes to which all deeper shades of colour are black and all lighter shades white.
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
At the very outset when and where the Many has come out into manifestation in the Onehere also it must be remembered that we are using a temporal figure in respect of an extra-temporal factthere and then is formed a characteristic range of reality which is a perfect equation of the one and the many: that is to say, the one in becoming many still remains the same immaculate one in and through the many, and likewise the many in spite of its manifoldnessand because of the special quality of the manifoldnessstill continues to be the one in the uttermost degree. It is the world of fundamental realities. Sri Aurobindo names it the Supermind or Gnosis. It is something higher than but distantly akin to Plato's world of Ideas or Noumena (ideai, nooumena) or to what Plotinus calls the first divine emanation (nous). These archetypal realities are realities of the Spirit, Idea-forces, truth-energies, the root consciousness-forms, ta cit, in Vedic terminology. They are seed-truths, the original mother-truths in the Divine Consciousness. They comprise the fundamental essential many aspects and formulations of an infinite Infinity. At this stage these do not come into clash or conflict, for here each contains all and the All contains each one in absolute unity and essential identity. Each individual formation is united with and partakes of the nature of the one supreme Reality. Although difference is born here, separation is not yet come. Variety is there, but not discord, individuality is there, not egoism. This is the first step of Descent, the earliest one-not, we must remind ourselves again, historically but psychologically and logically the descent of the Transcendent into the Cosmic as the vast and varied Supermindcitra praketo ajania vibhw of the Absolute into the relational manifestation as Vidysakti (Gnosis).
The next steps, farther down or away, arrive when the drive towards differentiation and multiplication gathers momentum becomes accentuated, and separation and isolation increase in degree and emphasis. The lines of individuation fall more and more apart from each other, tending to form closed circles, each confining more and more exclusively to itself, stressing its own particular and special value and function, in contradistinction to or even against other lines. Thus the descent or fall from the Supermind leads, in the first instance, to the creation or appearance of the Overmind. It is the level of consciousness where the perfect balance of the One and the Many is disturbed and the emphasis begins to be laid on the many. The source of incompatibility between the two just starts here as if Many is notOne and One is not Many. It is the beginning of Ignorance, Avidya, Maya. Still in the higher hemisphere of the Overmind, the sense of unity is yet maintained, although there is no longer the sense of absolute identity of the two; they are experienced as complementaries, both form a harmony, a harmony as of different and distinct but conjoint notes. The Many has come forward, yet the unity is also there supporting it-the unity is an immanent godhead, controlling the patent reality of the Many. It is in the lower hemisphere of the Overmind that unity is thrown into the background half-submerged, flickering, and the principle of multiplicity comes forward with all insistence. Division and rivalry are the characteristic marks of its organisation. Yet the unity does not disappear altogether, only it remains very much inactive, like a sleeping partner. It is not directly perceived and envisaged, not immediately felt but is evoked as reminiscence. The Supermind, then, is the first crystallisation of the Infinite into individual centres, in the Overmind these centres at the outset become more exclusively individualised and then jealously self-centred.
The next step of Descent is the Mind where the original unity and identity and harmony are disrupted to a yet greater degree, almost completely. The self-delimitation of consciousness which is proper to the Supermind and even to the Overmind, at least in its higher domainsgives way to self-limitation, to intolerant egoism and solipsism. The consciousness withdraws from its high and wide sweep, narrows down to introvert orbits. The sense of unity in the mind is, at most, a thing of idealism and imagination; it is an abstract notion, a supposition and a deduction. Here we enter into the very arcana of Maya, the rightful possession of Ignorance. The individualities here have become totally isolated and independent and mutually conflicting lines of movement. Hence the natural incapacity of mind, as it is said, to comprehend more than one object simultaneously. The Super mind and, less absolutely, the Overmind have a global and integral outlook: they can take in each one in its purview all at once the total assemblage of things, they differentiate but do not divide the Supermind not at all, the Overmind not cat egorically. The Mind has not this synthetic view, it proceeds analytically. It observes its object by division, taking the parts piecemeal, dismantling them, separating them, and attending to each one at a time. And when it observes it fixes itself on one point, withdrawing its attention from all the rest. If it bas to arrive at a synthesis, it can only do so by collating, aggregating and summing. Mental consciousness is thus narrowly one pointed: and in narrowing itself, being farther away from the source it becomes obscurer, more and more outward gazing (parci khni) and superficial. The One Absolute in its downward march towards multiplicity, fragmentation and partiality loses also gradually its subtlety, its suppleness, its refinement, becomes more and more obtuse, crude, rigid and dense.
Between the Overmind and the Mind proper, varying according to the degree of immixture of the two, according to the degree of descent and of emergence of one and the other respectively, there are several levels of consciousness of which three main ones have been named and described by Sri Aurobindo. The first one nearest to the Overmind and the least contaminated by the Mind is pure Intuition; next, the intermediary one is called the Illumined Mind, and last comes the Higher Mind. They are all powers of the Overmind functioning in the Mind. The higher ranges are always more direct, intense, synthetic, dynamic than the lower ones where consciousness is slower, duller, more uncertain, more disintegrated. The lower the consciousness descends the more veiled it becomes, losing more and more the directness, the sureness, the intensity and force and the synthetic unity native to the highest ranges of our consciousness and being.
--
Mind is the birth-place of absolute division and exclusivismit is the own home of egoism. egoism is that ignorant modea twist or knot of consciousness which cuts up the universal unity into disparate and antagonistic units: it creates isolated, mutually exclusive whorls in the harmonious rhythm and vast commonalty of the one consciousness or conscious existence. The Sankhya speaks of the principle of ego coming or appearing after the principle of vastness (mahat). The Vast is the region above the Mind, where the unitary consciousness is still intact; with the appearance of the Mind has also appeared an intolerant self-engrossed individualism that culminates, as its extreme and violent expression, in the asuraAsura, the mentalised vital being.
The Asura or the Titan stands where consciousness descends from the Mind into the Vital or Life-Force. He is the personification of ambition and authority and arrogance, he is the intolerant and absolute self-seekerhe is Daitya, the son of division. The Asura belongs to what we call the Higher Vital; but lower down in the Mid Vital, made wholly of unmixed life impulses, appear beings that are still less luminous, less controlled, more passionate, vehement and violent in their self-regarding appetite. They are the Rakshasas. If the Asura is perverse power, the Rakshasa is insatiate hunger.
02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The principle of Avatarhood stands justified in this scheme as a necessary and inevitable element in the terrestrial evolutionary movement. An Avatar embodies a new emergent property: he incarnates a new principle of being and consciousness, he manifestsunfolds from below or brings down from above upon eartha higher and deeper principle of organisation. He is the nucleus round which the new organisation crystallises. A Rama comes and human society attains a new status: against a mainly vitalistic and egoistic organisation whose defender and protagonist is Ravana, is set up an ideal of sattwic humanity. A Krishna appears and human consciousness is lifted, potentially at least, to a still higher level of spiritual possibility. The Avatar following, rather tracing, in his upward movement the central line of the evolutionary nisus, cuts a path, as it were, in the virgin forest of a realm of consciousness still unknown and foreign to human steps. As the Avatar presses and passes on, the way is cleared for other, ordinary human beings to come up and naturalise themselves in a new country promising a higher destiny which He discovers and conquers for them.
Now at this point we reach the crux of the problem, the supreme secretrahasyam uttamamas the Gita would say. For the apex of the pyramid, the crown of evolution, the consummation of the central line of emergence would then be nothing less than the manifestation, the terrestrial incarnation of the Supreme Divine. The Deity thus fully emerged would embody the truth and play of creation in its widest scope and highest elevation; it would mean the utter fulfilment of human destiny and terrestrial Purpose.
--
Still Overmindwhose characteristic is a cosmic consciousness and a transcendence of all ego-senseis not the firm basis on which a new terrestrial organisation can stand and endure. It is still a basis of unstable equilibrium. For it is not the supernal light and, although it transcends all ignorance, yet does not possess that absolute synthetic unity, that transcendent power of consciousness which is at once the cosmic and the individual. That is the domain of the Supermind.
The whole urge of evolutionary Nature today is to bring out first the Overmental principle and then through it the Supramental which will establish and fix upon earth the principle of Deity and the Supreme Divine.
02.04 - The Kingdoms of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Each in his own kind saw his ego's glass;
All served the aim and action of the pack.
--
And tiny egos took the world as means
To sate awhile dwarf lusts and brief desires,
02.05 - The Godheads of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Or with the ego's factories and marts
Surround the beautiful temple of the soul.
--
An image of ego treads through an ignorant dream
Counting the moments of a spectral Time.
--
Its shape of person and its ego-face
Divested of this mortal travesty,
02.06 - The Integral Yoga and Other Yogas, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
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
Ignorance, the fixity of the consciousness in the union with the
--
From where did you get this singular attitude towards the old Yogas and Yogis? Is the wisdom of the Vedanta and Tantra a small and trifling thing? Have then the sadhaks of this Asram attained to self-realisation and are they liberated Jivan-muktas, free from ego and ignorance? If not, why then do you say, "it is not a very difficult stage", "their goal is not high", "is it such a long process?"
I have said that this Yoga was "new" because it aims at the integrality of the Divine in this world and not only beyond it and at a supramental realisation. But how does that justify a superior contempt for the spiritual realisation which is as much the aim of this Yoga as of any other?
02.07 - The Descent into Night, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The ego battened on righteousness and sin
And each became an instrument of Hell.
--
There ego was lord upon his peacock seat
And Falsehood sat by him, his mate and queen:
--
Of the merchant ego's interest and desire.
Thus was a balance kept, the world could live.
02.08 - Jules Supervielle, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Alter ego
Une souriss'chappe
--
Alter ego
A mouse runs out
02.09 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern French, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The queen upstairs is the higher consciousness. The king downstairs is the egoistic being in the lower consciousness. While it is dawn and daylight with the queen, it is night with the kinghe is just entering into sleep. The king sees dark 'Shadows closing him in, binding him downbonds of ignorance imprisoning him in the ordinary life and consciousness. The queen, the higher power, is free of all that.
Both are being led towards a high divine destiny. But the ego-being is frightened, while the higher consciousness has no worry. And yet the lower consciousness is aflame; for its veins are flowing with a secret fire which its own sister has kindled in it. Ignorance harbours within its bosom a secret knowledge that is a reflection of the higher consciousness.
There are tranquil moments in the lower eternity that come from on high, from the queen. They do not belong to the king.
--
The king will understand that the higher consciousness must come down and touch and kiss the bleak earth-consciousness. The spirit must embrace the cold bare earth. Then only the human soul, the king free of his ego, will attain peace and felicity.
Here is the second poem. I follow the same principle I do not give a translation but, as I said, an explanatory paraphrase, and I conclude by a short comment.
02.10 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a call for all the parts of the being to precipitate to the very foundation of the being, coalesce and evoke a wild and weird, doleful and discordant symphonya painful cry. Unrealised dreams, that had faded into oblivion, are now like possessed beings and hang like bats on darkling branches:they are about to begin their phantom dance. Even so, the body, the material precipitate into which they gather, gives them a basic unity. These elements with their ardour and zeal kindle a common Fire. There is a divine Flame, Agni, burning within the flesh, burning brighter and brighter, making the bones whiter and whiter, as it were the purificatory Flame,Pvaka, of which the Vedic Rishis spoke, Master of the House, ghapati, dwelling in the inner heart of the human being, impelling it to rise to purer and larger Truth. But here our modern poet replaces the Heart by the Liver and makes of this organ the central altar of human aspiration and inspiration. We may remember in this connection that the French poet Baudelaire gave a similar high position and functionto the other collateral organ, the spleen. The modern Bengali poet considers that man's consciousness, even his poetic inspiration, is soaked in the secretion of that bilious organ. For man's destiny here upon earth is not delight but grief, not sweetness but gall and bitterness; there is no consolation, no satisfaction here; there is only thirst, no generosity but narrowness, no consideration for others, but a huge sinister egoism.
The cry of our poet is a cry literally deprifundis, a deep cavernous voice surging, spectral and yet sirenlike, out of the unfathomed underground abysses.
02.11 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Our struggling ego cannot change her course:
Yet is it a conscious power that moves in us,
--
When naked of ego and mind it hears the Voice;
It looks through light to ever greater light
02.12 - The Ideals of Human Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A different type of wider grouping is also being experimented upon nowadays, a federal grouping of national units. The nation is taken in this system as the stable indivisible fundamental unit, and what is attempted is a free association of independent nations that choose to be linked together because of identity of interests or mutual sympathy in respect of ideal and culture. The British Empire is a remarkable experiment on this line: it is extremely interesting to see how an old-world Empire is really being liquidated (in spite of a Churchill) and transformed into a commonwealth of free and equal nations. America too has been attempting a Pan-American federation. And in continental Europe, a Western and an Eastern Block of nations seem to be developing, not on ideal lines perhaps at present because of their being based upon the old faulty principle of balance of power hiding behind it a dangerously egoistic and exclusive national consciousness; but that may change when it is seen and experienced that the procedure does not pay, and a more natural and healthier approach may be adopted.
Now out of this complex of forces and ideals, what seems to stand out clearly is this: (i) the family unit remains for practical purposes,whatever breaking or modification affects its outward forms, the thing seems to be a permanent feature of life organization; (ii) the nation too has attained a firm stability and inviolability; it refuses to be broken or dissolved and in any larger aggregate that is formed this one has to be integrated intact as a living unit. The other types of aggregates seem to be more in the nature of experiments and temporary necessities; when they have served their purpose they fade and disappear or are thrown into the background and persist as vestigial remains. It seems to us that the clan, the tribe, the race are such formations. Regionalism, Imperialism (political, economic or religious) are also not stable aggregates.
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.
03.01 - Humanism and Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Indian sage is not and cannot be human in the human way. For the end of his whole spiritual effort is to transcend the human way and establish himself in the divine way, in the way of the Spirit. The feeling he has towards his fellow beingsmen and animals, the sentient or the insentient, the entire creation in factis one of identity in the One Self. And therefore he does not need to embrace physically his brother, like the Christian saint, to express or justify the perfect inner union or unity. The basis of his relation with the world and its objects is not the human heart, however purified and widened, but something behind it and hidden by it, the secret soul and self. It was Vivekananda who very often stressed the point that the distinctive characteristic of the Vedantist was that he did not look upon created beings as his brethren but as himself, as the one and the same self. The profound teaching of the Upanishadic Rishi iswhat may appear very egoistic and inadmissible to the Christian saint that one loves the wife or the I son or anybody or anything in the world not for the sake of the wife or the son or that body or thing but for the sake of the self, for the sake of oneself that is in the object which one seems to love.
The pragmatic man requires an outward gesture, an external emotion to express and demonstrate his kinship with creation. Indeed the more concrete and tangible the expression the more human it is considered to be and all the more worthy for it. There are not a few who think that giving alms to the poor is more nobly human than, say, the abstract feeling of a wide commonalty, experienced solely in imagination or contemplation in the Wordsworthian way.
--
It is sometimes said that to turn away from the things of human concern, to seek liberation and annihilation in the Self and the Beyond is selfishness, egoism; on the contrary, to sacrifice the personal delight of losing oneself in the Impersonal so that one may live and even suffer in the company of ordinary humanity in order to succour and serve it is the nobler aim. But we may ask if it is egoism and selfishness to seek delight in one's own salvation beyond, would it be less selfish and egoistic to enjoy the pleasure of living on a level with humanity with the idea of aiding and uplifting it? Indeed, in either case, the truth discovered by Yajnavalkya, to which we have already referred, stands always justified, that it is not for the sake of this or that that one loves this or that but for the sake of the self that one loves this or that.
The fact of the matter is that here we enter a domain inwhich the notion of egoism or selfishness has no raison dtre. It is only when one has transcended not only selfishness but egoism and sense of individuality that one becomes ready to enter the glory and beatitude of the Self, or Brahman or Shunyam. One may actually and irrevocably pass beyond, or one may return from there (or from the brink of it) to work in and on the worldout of compassion or in obedience to a special call or a higher Will or because of some other thing; but this second course does not mean that one has attained a higher status of being. We may consider it more human, but it is not necessarily a superior realisation. It is a matter of choice of vocation only, to use a mundane phraseology. The Personal and the Impersonal are two co-ordinates of the same supreme Realitysome choose (or are chosen by) the one and others choose (or are chosen by) the other, perhaps as the integral Play or the inscrutable Plan demands and determines, but neither is intrinsically superior to the otheralthough, as I have already said, from an interested human standpoint, one may seem more immediately profitable or nearer than the other; but from that standpoint there may be other truths that are still more practically useful, still closer to the earthly texture of humanity.
The humanism, known to Europe generally, both in its profane and religious aspects, is all "humantoo human" as Nietzsche pronounced it; it was for this reason that the Promethean prophet conjured man to transcend his humanity anyhow, and rise to a superior status of culture and civilisation, of being and consciousness as we would say.
03.01 - The New Year Initiation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Today at the beginning of the New Year we have to bear in mind what aim, what purpose inspired us to enter into this tremendous terrible work, what force, what strength has been leading us to victory. They who consider themselves as collaborators in the progressive evolution of Nature must constantly realise the truth that if victory has come within the range of possibility, it has done so in just proportion to their sincerity, by the magic grace of the Mahashakti, the grace which the aspiration of their inner consciousness has called down. And what is now but possible will grow into the actual if we keep moving along the path we have so far followed. Otherwise, if we falter, fail and break faith, if we relapse into the old accustomed track, if under pressure of past habits, under the temptation of immediate selfish gain, under the sway of narrow parochial egoism, we suppress or maim the wider consciousness of our inner being or deny it in one way or another, then surely we shall wheel back and fall into the clutches of those very hostile powers which it has been our determined effort to overthrow. Even if we gain an outward victory it will be a disastrous, moral and spiritual defeat. That will mean a tragic reversalto be compelled to begin again from the very beginning. Nature will not be baulked of her aim. Another travail she will have to undergo and that will be far more agonising and terrible.
But we do not expect such a catastrophe. We have hope and confidence that the secret urge of Nature, the force of the Mahashakti will save man, individually and collectively, from ignorance and foolishness, vouchsafe to him genuine good sense and the true inspiration.
03.02 - The Adoration of the Divine Mother, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The ego is dead; we are freed from being and care,
We have done with birth and death and work and fate.
03.03 - The House of the Spirit and the New Creation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Bodied unthinkably the egoless Self;
Rapture of beatific energies
03.05 - The World is One, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The distinctions and differences that held good in other times and climes can have no sense or value in the world of today. Race or religion can divide man no longer; even nationhood has lost much of its original force and meaning. It is strangeperhaps it is inevitable in the secret process of Nature's working that when everything in conditions and circumstances obviously demands and points to an obliteration of all frontiers of division and separationeconomically and politically tooand all drives towards a closer co-operation and intermingling, it is precisely then that the contrary spirit and impulse raises its head and seems even to gather added strength and violence. The fact may have two explanations. First of all, it may mean a defence gesture in Nature, that is to say, certain forces or formations have a permanent place in Nature's economy and when they apprehend that they are being ousted and neglected, when there is a one-pointed drive for their exclusion, naturally they surge up and demand recognition with a vengeance: for things forgotten or left aside that form indissolubly part of Nature's fabric and pattern, one has to retrace one's steps in order to pick them up again. But also the phenomenon may mean a simple case of atavism: for we must know that there are certain old-world aboriginal habits and movements that have to go and have no place in the higher scheme of Nature and these too come up off and on, especially when the demand is there for their final liquidation. They have to be recognised as such and treated as such. Radical and religious (including ideological) egoisms seem to us to belong to this cat egory.
In the higher scheme of Nature, the next evolutionary status that is being forged,itis unity, harmony that is insisted upon, for that is the very basis of the new creation: whatever militates against that, whatever creates division and disruption must be banned and ruthlessly eschewed. In the reality of things, in the actual life that man lives, it will be found that on the whole, things that separate are less numerous and insistent than those which unite, man and man and nation and nation, if each one simply lives and lets live: on the contrary, it is the points of concordance and mutuality that abound. A certain knot or twist in the mind makes all the difference: it brings in the ignorance, selfishness, blind passiona possession by the dark forces of atavism that makes the mischief.
03.06 - Divine Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Indian sage is not and cannot be human in the human way. For the end of his whole spiritual effort is to transcend the human way and establish himself in the divine way, in the way of the Spirit. The feeling he has towards his fellow-beingsmen and animals, the sentient and the insentient, the entire creation, in factis one of identity in the One Self. And, therefore, he does not need to embrace physically his brother, like the Christian saint, to express or justify the perfect inner union or unity. The basis of his relation with the world and its objects is not the human heart, however purified and widened, but something behind it and hidden by it, the secret soul and self. It was Vivekananda who very often stressed the point that the distinctive characteristic of the Vedantin was that he did not look upon created beings as his brethren, but as himself, as the one and the same self. The profound teaching of the Upanishadic Rishi iswhat may appear very egoistic and inadmissible to the Christian saint that one loves the wife or the son or anybody or anything in the world, not for the sake of the wife or the son or that body or that thing, but for the sake of the self, for the sake of one's own self that is in the object which one seems to love.
The pragmatic man requires an outward gesture, an external emotion to express and demonstrate his kinship with the creation. Indeed the more concrete and tangible the expression, the more human it is considered to be and all the more worthy for it. There are not a few who think that giving alms to the poor is more nobly human than, say, to have the abstract feeling of a wide commonalty, experienced solely in imagination or contemplation in the Wordsworthian way.
--
It is sometimes said that to turn away from the things of human concern, to seek liberation and annihilation in the Self and the Beyond, is selfishness, egoism; on the contrary, to sacrifice the personal delight of losing oneself in the Impersonal so that one may live and even suffer in the company of ordinary humanity, in order to succour and serve it, is the nobler aim. But one may ask, if it is egoism and selfishness to seek delight in one's own salvation beyond, would it be less selfish and egoistic to enjoy the pleasure of living on a level with humanity with the idea of aiding and uplifting it? Indeed, in either case, the truth discovered by Yajnavalkya, to which we have already referred, stands always justified,that it is not for the sake of this or that thing that one loves this or that thing, but for the sake of the Self that one loves this or that thing.
The fact of the matter is that here we enter a domain in which the notion of egoism or selfishness has no raison d'tre. It is only when one has transcended not only selfishness, but egoism and all sense of individuality that one becomes ready to step into the glory and beatitude of the Self or Brahman or unyam. One may actually and irrevocably pass beyond, or one may return from there (or from the brink of it) to work in and on the worldout of compassion, or in obedience to a special call or a higher Will, or because of some other thing; but this second course does not mean that one has attained a higher status of being. We may consider it more human, but it is not necessarily a superior realisation. It is a matter of choice of vocation only, to use a mundane figure. The Personal and the Impersonal are two co-ordinates of the same supreme Realitysome choose (or are chosen by) one and others choose (or chosen by) the other, perhaps as the integral Play or the inscrutable Plan demands and determines, but neither is intrinsically superior to the other.
The humanism with which Europe is familiar, both in its profane and religious aspects, would look, from an IndianVedanticstandpoint, all 'human, too human'; it was a European who declared it so. It was for this reason that the Promethean prophet conjured man to transcend his humanity anyhow and rise to a superior status of culture and civilisationof being and consciousness, as we would say.
03.06 - Here or Otherwhere, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The question naturally turns upon the nature and the kind of workwhe ther there is a choice and selection in it. Gita speaks indeed of all works, ktsna-karmakt, but does that really mean any and every work that an ignorant man, an ordinary man steeped in the three Gunas does or can do? It cannot be so. For, although all activity, all energy has its source and impetus in the higher consciousness of the Divine, it assumes on the lower ranges indirect, diverted or even perverted formulations and expressions, not because of the inherent falsity of these so-called inferior strata, the instruments, but because of their temporary impurity and obscurity. There are evidently activities and impulsions born exclusively of desire, of attachment and egoism. There are habits of the body, urges of the vital, notions of the mind, there are individual and social functions that have no place in the spiritual scheme, they have to be rigorously eschewed and eliminated. Has not the Gita said, this is desire, this is passion born of the quality of Rajas? . . . There is not much meaning in trying to do these works unattached or to turn them towards the Divine. When you are unattached, when you turn to the Divine, these 'Simply drop away of themselves. Yes, there are social duties and activities and relations that inevitably dissolve and disappear as you move into the life divine. Some are perhaps tolerated for a period, some are occasions for the consciousness to battle and surmount, grow strong and pass beyond. You have to learn to go beyond and new-create your environment.
It was Danton who said, one carries not his country with him at the sole of his shoe. Even so you cannot hope to shift bodily your present social ensemble, place it wholesale in the divine life on the plea that it will be purified and transformed in the process. Purification is there indeed, but one must remember purification literally means burning and not a little of the past and present has to be burnt down to ashes.
03.08 - The Democracy of Tomorrow, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The great mantra of individual liberty, in the social and political domain, was given by Rousseau in that famous opening line of his famous book,The Social Contract, almost the Bible of an age; Man is born free. And the first considerable mass rising seeking to vindicate and realise that ideal came with the toxin of the mighty French Revolution. It was really an awakening or rebirth of the individual that was the true source and sense of that miraculous movement. It meant the advent of democracy in politics and romanticism in art. The century that followed was a period of great experiment: for the central theme of that experiment was the search for the individual. In honouring the individual and giving it full and free scope the movement went far and even too far: liberty threatened to lead towards licence, democracy towards anarchy and disintegration; the final consequence of romanticism was surrealism, the deification of individual reason culminated in solipsism or ego-centricism. Naturally there came a reaction and we are in this century, still, on the high tide of this movement of reaction. Totalitarianism in one form or another continues to be the watchword and although neither Hitler nor Mussolini is there, a very living ghost of theirs stalks the human stage. The liberty of the individual, it is said and is found to be so by experience, is another name of the individual's erraticism and can produce only division and mutual clash and strife, and, in the end, social disintegration. A strong centralised power is necessary to hold together the warring elements of a group. Indeed, it is asserted, the group is the true reality and to maintain it and make it great the component individuals must be steamrollered into a compact mass. Evidently this is a poise that cannot stand long: the repressed individual rises in revolt and again we are on the move the other way round. Thus a never-ending see-saw, a cyclic recurrence of the same sequence of movements appears to be an inevitable law governing human society: it seems to have almost the absolutism of a law of Nature.1
In this connection we can recall Plato's famous serial of social types from aristocracy to tyranny, the last coming out of democracy the type that precedes it, (almost exactly as we have experienced it in our own days). But the most interesting point to which we can look with profit is Plato's view that the types are as men are, that is to say, the character and nature of man in a given period determines the kind of government or social system he is going to have. There has been this cyclic rotation of types, because men themselves were rotating types, because, in other words, the individuals composing human society had not found their true reality, their abiding status. Plato's aristocracy was the ideal society, it was composed of and ruled by the best of men (aristas, srestha) the wisest. And the question was put by many and not answered by Plato himself, what brought about the decline in a perfect system. We have attempted to give our answer.
03.08 - The Spiritual Outlook, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The spiritual consciousness dawns precisely with the rejection of this monomania, this obsession of one-track mentality. It means, in other words, nothing les than coming out of the shell of one's egoism. To be able thus to come out of oneself, enter into others' consciousness, see things as others see them, that is the great initiation, the true beginning of the life of the spirit. For the Spirit is the truth of all things: all things, even what appears evil and reprehensible, exist and have their play because of a core of truth and force of truth in each. Mind and mind's external consciousness and practical drive compel one to take to a single line of perception and action and that which is more or less superficial and immediately necessary. But it is only when one withdraws from the drive' of Maya and gets behind, gets behind all opposing views and standpoints and tries to see what is the underlying truth that seeks to manifest in each that one enters the gateway of the spiritual consciousness.
The spiritual consciousness is global, not in the sense that it is eclectic, that is to say, the sum-total of all the superficial views, but in the sense that it experiences the one dynamic truth that underlies all and which manifests its varying powers and potentials in various objects and forces, expressing itself in multiple standpoints and modes and angles of vision.
03.09 - Art and Katharsis, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Aristotle speaks of the purifying function of the tragic art. How is the purification effected? By the evocation of the feelings of pity and terror. For such feelings widen the sympathies, pull us out of our small egoistic personal ephemeral pleasures and put us in contact with what is to be shared and enjoyed in wide commonalty. Tragedy, in this way, initiates the spectator into the enjoyment that is born not of desire and gain but of detachment and freedom.
The uplifting power of Art is inherent in its nature, for Art itself is the outcome of an uplifted nature. Art is the expression of a heightened consciousness. The ordinary consciousness in which man lives and moves is narrow, limited, obscure, faltering, unhappyit is the abode of all that is evil and ugly; it is inartistic. The poetic zeal, enthusiasm or frenzy, when it seizes the consciousness, at once lifts it high into a state that is characterised by wideness and depth and a new and fresh exhilarating intensity of perception and experience. We seem to arrive at the very fountain-head, where things take birth and are full of an unspoilt life and power and beauty and light and harmony. A line burdened with the whole tragedy of earthly existence such as Shakespeare's:
03.10 - Hamlet: A Crisis of the Evolving Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In Macbeth we move up one step farther; human consciousness attains here a higher level. Something of the mental being enters into the purely vital creature: instead of the Eater, the man with the mere stomach, we have here the Ruler, the Tyrant, the human being with its will and its arms that execute the will: the dominating motive is no longer hunger and greed and cruelty for cruelty's sake, but power and position and lordship, and the driving force, not blind passion and dark furysheer unconsciousness but deliberate resolution, foreseeing calculation and steady purposiveness; the Rakshasa gives place to the Asura. The Asura is the incarnation of conscious egotism, the will to dominate, to be the sole master and monarch; he is the self-aggrandising vaulting ambition. He does not seek to possess things for their own sake, not so much to enjoy them as to hold them as symbols of his royalty, of his personal worth and majesty. In Macbeth we have the world of the Asuraa creation of the mode of rajas.
Hamlet is the third stage; it is a vision of sattva-guna and a creation attempted by that vision. The human consciousness that was imprisoned in the vital mind, is released here into the higher or pure mind. The soul escapes from its sheath of sheer hunger and desire and egoism and self-aggrandisementyearns for light, more light. Lear is a dark mass of unconsciousness, crude and violent, even like the naked and raging elements into whose arms he is thrown; Macbeth is the beginning of consciousness in which one is conscious of one's own self alone, and keenly and deliberately attached to it,here light has dawned, but a lurid light. Hamlet is consciousness that is seeking to transcend the barrier of the little self and its narrow and vulgar appetites and impulses. Man here comes into touch with something that is impersonal, other-regarding, afar; he has grown interests that are not merely mundane, utilitarian, pragmatic, self-centred, but abstract, metaphysical, beyond the individual's own and immediate concern: he has now ideals and aspirationshe is a seeker of the true, the good, the beautiful. He has been initiated into the divinedaivanature. Culture, refinement, sensibility, understandingall the graces of a truly rational being make Hamlet the very flower of an evolving humanity.
Over against the personality of Hamlet stands another which represents false height, the wrong perfection, the counterfeit ideal. Polonius is humanity arrested in its path of straight development and deviated into a cut-de-sac of self-conceit and surface urbanity, apparent cleverness and success and pretentious and copy-book morality. When one has outgrown the barbarian, one runs the risk of becoming a snob or philistine. It is a side table-land, as it were, on mid-heights, the standard perhaps of a commoner humanity, but which the younger ideal has to transcend or avoid or even to destroy, so that it may find itself and live its own life. To the philistine too the mere biological man is a taboo, but he seeks to confine human nature into a scheme of codes and maxims and lifeless injunctions and prohibitions. He is also the man of Reason but without the higher inflatus, the living and creative Something More the poetry, the vision, the dream that would transfigure the merely pragmatic, practical, worldly wise the bourgeoisinto the princely aristocratic idealist, elevate the drab terre terre To-day into the glory of a soaring To-morrow.
03.11 - True Humility, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Humility is unreservedly humble, as it envisages the immensity of the labour the Divine has undertaken, sees the Grace, infinite and inscrutable, working miracles every moment: and it is full of gratitude and thanksgiving and quiet trust and hopefulness. Certainly, it means self-forgetfulness and selflessness, as it cannot co-exist with the sense of personal worth and merit, with any appreciation of one's own tapasya and achievement, even as it thrives ill upon self-abasement and self-denigration, for if one is rajasic, the other is tamasic egoism egoism, in any case. Absolute nullity of the egoistic self is the condition needed, but anything less than that, any lowering of the consciousness beyond this zero point means reaffirming the ego in a wrong direction. True humility has an unostentatious quietness, as it has a living and secret contact with the divine consciousness.
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03.12 - The Spirit of Tapasya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Heroism consists in this untiring march upward to more and more rarefied heights. That means the growth of consciousness, its uplifting and expansion, freeing it from the limitations of the ignorant egoistic movements, pressing it forward to the domains of higher illuminations, towards spiritual consciousness and soul-knowledge, towards communion with the Divine, the cosmic and the transcendent Reality. That is the real work and labour. Bodily suffering is nothing: it is neither a sign nor a test of the ardours of consciousness thus seeking to uplift itself. Indeed, Tapas, the word from which tapasya is derived, means energy of consciousness, and Tapasya is the exercise, the utilisation of that energy for the ascent and expansion of the consciousness. It is this inner athleticism that is the thing needful, not its vain physical simulacrumnot the one which is commonly worshipped.
Virgil: Aeneid, VI. 128
03.13 - Dynamic Fatalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man can help or retard the process of Nature, in a sense. If his force of consciousness acts in line with Nature's secret movement, then that movement is accelerated: through the soul or self that is man, it is the Divine, Nature's lord and master who drives and helps Nature forward. If, on the contrary, man follows his lesser self, his lower ego, rajasic and tamasic, then he throws up obstacles and barriers which hamper and slow down Nature's march.
In a higher sense, from a transcendental standpoint, however, this too is only an appearance. In reality man neither helps nor hinders Prakriti. For in that sphere the two are not separate entities. What is viewed as the helping hand of man is really Nature helping herself: man is the conscious movement of Nature. In that transcendent status the past and the future are rolled together in the eternal present and all exist there as an accomplished fact: there is nothing there to be worked out and achieved. But lower down there is a play of forces, of conflicting possibilities and the resultant is a balance of these divergent lines. When one identifies oneself with the higher static consciousness one finds nothing to be done, all is realised the eternal play of the eternal child in the eternal garden.2 But when one lives in the Kurukshetra of forces, one cannot throwaway one's Gandiva and say, I will not fight.
04.03 - Consciousness as Energy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Consciousness has a fourfold potential. The first is the normal consciousness, which is predominantly mental; it is the sphere comprising movements of which man is usually and habitually aware. It is what the Upanishad names Jgrat or jgaritasthna and characterises as bahipraja: it is the waking state and has cognition only of external things. In other words, the consciousness here is wholly objectivised, externalisedextrovert: it is also a strongly individualised formation, the consciousness is hedged in, isolated and contoured by a protective ring, as it were, of a characteristically separative personality; it is a surface formation, a web made out of day-to-day sensations and thoughts, perceptions and memories, impressions and associations. It is a system of outward actions and reactions against or in the midst of one's actual environment. The second potential is that of the Inner Consciousness: its characteristic is that the consciousness here is no longer trenchantly separative and individual, narrowly and rigidly egoistic. It feels and sees itself as part of or one with the world consciousness. It looks upon its individuality as only a wave of the universal movement. It is also sometimes called the subliminal consciousness; for it plays below or behind the normal surface range of consciousness. It is made up of the residuary powers of the normal consciousness, the abiding vibrations and stresses that settle down and remain in the background and are not immediately required or utilised for life purposes: also it contacts directly energies and movements that well out of the universal life. The phenomena of clairvoyance and clairaudience, the knowledge of the past and the future and of other worlds and persons and beings, certain more dynamic movements such as distant influence and guidance and controlling without any external means, well known in all yogic disciplines, are various manifestations of the power of this Inner Consciousness. But there is not only an outward and an inner consciousness; there is also a deeper or nether consciousness. This is the great field that has been and is being explored by modern psychologists. It is called the subconscious, sometimes also the unconscious: but really it should be named the inconscient, for it is not altogether devoid of consciousness, but is conscious in its own way the consciousness is involved or lost within itself or lies buried. It comprises those movements and impulsions, inclinations and dispositions that have no rational basis, on the contrary, have an irrational basis; they are not acquired or developed by the individual in his normal course of life experience, they are ingrained, lie imbedded in man's nature and are native to his original biological and physical make-up. As the human embryo recapitulates in the womb the whole history of man's animal evolution, even so the normal man, even the most civilised and apparently the farthest from his ancient moorings and sources, enshrines in his cells, in a miraculously living manner, the memory of vast geological epochs, the great struggles and convulsions through which earth and its inhabitants have passed, the basic urges of the crude life force, its hopes, fears, desires, hungers that constitute the rudimental and aboriginal consciousness, the atavism that links the man of today not only to his primitive ancestry but even to the plant worldeven perhaps to the mineral worldout of which his body cells have issued and evolved. Legends and fairy tales, mythologies and fables are a rationalised pattern and picture of the vibrations and urges that moved the original consciousness. It was a collectivea racial and an aboriginal consciousness. The same lies chromosomic, one can almost say, in the constitution of the individual man of today. This region of the unconscious (or the inconscient) is a veritable field of force: it lies at the root of all surface dynamisms. The surface consciousness, jgrat, is a very small portion of the whole, it is only the tip of the pyramid or an iceberg, the major portion lies submerged beyond our normal view. In reflex movements, in sudden unthinking outbursts, in dreams and day-dreams, this undercurrent is silhouetted and made visible and recognisable. Even otherwise, they exercise a profound influence upon all our conscious movements. This underground consciousness is the repository of the most dark and unenlightened elements that grew and flourished in the slime of man's original habitat. They are small, ugly, violent, anti-social, chaotic forces, their names are cruelty, lust, hunger, blind selfishness. Nowhere else than in this domain can the great Upanishadic truth find its fullest applicationHunger that is Death.
But this is the seamy side of Nature, there is also a sunny side. If there is a nadir, there must be a corresponding zenith. In the Vedic image, if man is born of the Dark Mother, he is also a child of the White Mother (ka and vet). Or again, if Earth is our mother, the Heaven is our fatherdyaur me pit mat pthiv iyam. In other words, consciousness extends not in depth alone, but in height alsoit is vertically extended, infinite both ways. As there is a sub-consciousness or unconsciousness, so also there is at the other end super-consciousness.
04.03 - The Eternal East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The East does not consider the individual in his social behaviour in terms of freedom and liberty but of service and obligation, not in terms of rights but of duties. The Indian term for right and duty is the sameadhikar. The word originally and usually meant duty, one's sphere of work or service, capacity: the meaning of "right" was secondary and only latterly, probably as a result of the impact from the West, has gained predominance. The West measures human progress by the amount of rights gained for the individual or for the group. It does not seem to have any other standard: submission, obedience, any diminution of the sense of separate individuality meant slavery and loss of human value and dignity. It was the Greek perhaps, with Socrates as the great pioneer, who first declared the supremacy of the individual reason (although he himself obeyed in all things his guardian angel, the Daemon). In India, generally in the East, the value of the individual is estimated in another way. So long as he is in the society, the individual is bound by its demands: he has to serve it according to his best capacity. That is the dharma the Law that one has to observe conscientiously. But if he chooses, he can break the bonds forthwith, come out, come out of the society altogether and be free absolutely that is the only meaning of freedom. In the West the individual is taught to remain in the world and with the society, maintain his individuality and independence and gradually enlarge them in and through the natural fetters and bondages that a collective life and efficient organisation demands and inevitably imposes. The East, on the contrary, asks the individual never to protest and assert his individuality, which is in their view only another name for Ignorant egoism, but to know his position in the social scheme and fulfil the duties and obligations of that position. But the individual has the freedom not to enter into the social frame at all. If he chooses freedom as his ideal, it is the supreme freedom that he must choose, out of the chain of a terrestrial life. He can become the spiritual "outlaw", the sanysi, the word means one who has abandoned everything totally and absolutely.
The contrast points to a synthesis parallel to or an extension of the one we spoke of earlier. The first thing to note is that the individual is the source of all progress; the individual has the right, as it is also his duty to maintain himself and fulfil himself, grow to his largest and highest dimensions! Secondly, the individual has to take cognisance of the others, the whole humanity, in fact, even for the sake of his own progress. The individual is not an isolated entity, a freak product in Nature, but is integrated into it, a part and parcel of its texture and composition. Indeed the individual has a double role to perform, first to increase himself and secondly to increase others. Using the terms which the Sartrian view of existence has put into vogue, we can say, the individual en soi (in himself) is the individual in commonalty with others, living and moving in and through every other person; and then there is the individual pour soi (for himself), that is to say, existing for himself, apart and away from others, in his own inner absolute autonomy. The individual is individualised, i.e. raises and lifts himself and then becomes the spearhead breaking through the level where Nature stands fixed, leading others to follow and raise themselves. The individual is the power of organised self-consciousness; the growth of the individual means the growth of this power of organised consciousness. And growth means ascension or evolution from level to level. The individual starts from the organic cell, that is the lower end, it progresses through various gradations of the vital and mental worlds till he reaches the culmination of its growth in the Spirit as tman. But this vertical growth must be reflected in a horizontal growth too. There is a solidarity among the individuals forming the collective humanity so that the progress of one means the progress of others in the same direction, at least a chance and possibility opened for an advance. On the other hand, it may be noted that unless the collectivity rises to a certain level the individual too cannot go very far from it. A higher lift in the individual presupposes a corresponding or some minimum lift in others. There cannot or should not be too great a rift between the individual and the collective.
As I said, the East usually ignores this correspondence and posits an exclusive either-or relation between the two terms. The individual, according to it, can reach its true individuality by only dissolving itin the Infinite. Of course, I am referring to an extreme position which is general in the East and symptomatic of its fundamental character. The West does not concern itself with these higher lines of individual growth and fulfilment, it limits the individual within the social frame and his mundane or profane life; but what we learn from this outlook is the necessity of the collective growth through which only can the individual thrive and grow. It is however a growth in extension, rather than in intensity i.e. depth and height. This outlook errs in the limitation put upon individuality, precisely identifying it more or less with the " egoism" to which the spirituality of the East objects. This normal individual in its normal development cannot go very far, nor can he lead the others, the society or humanity, to a perfect and supreme fulfilment. The ego-bound normal individuality must transcend itselfexactly the thing that the East teaches; only this transcendence need not mean an abolition of all individuality, but a transformation, a higher integration in a spiritualised, a universalised and divinised individuality.
Such an individual will not be like the blind leading the blind, one ego, .in its half-light, with its small narrow mental formation imposing its ignorant and ineffective will upon others in the same state of consciousness, but, as I have said, a universalised individual, who has identified himself with all and everyone in his being and consciousness, who has also at the same time transcended himself and others and attained a supreme unitary consciousness and being. It is such a person who is called the leader of human or terrestrial evolution and they who are of the same make are the pioneers who shall build heaven upon earth.
Towards that consummation, these two great world currents, East and West, are moving carrying each its own truth and contri buting to the realisation of the integral truth that is to take body here below.
04.04 - A Global Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Viewed as a progressive growth of consciousness and transformation of nature, man's advance has been marked out in a few very definite stages. The first was the purely animal manPasuwhen man lived merely as a physical being, concerned solely about his body. Then came the Pisacha, the man of vital urges in their crudest form, the man of ignorant passions and dark instincts who has been imaged in the popular mind as the ghoul. At the next stage, with a further release of the consciousness, when the larger vital impulses come into play man becomes the Rakshasa, the demon. egoistic hunger for possession, enjoyment, enlarged and increased appetite are his characteristics. Next came the Asura, the Titan, the egoistic mental man in his earlier avatar seeking to emerge out of the purely vital nature. Ambition and pride are his guiding spirit. Prometheus is his prototype. There are still two higher types which have been established in the human consciousness and in the world atmosphere as dynamic ideals, if not as common concrete facts of the material world. The first is the ethical man, who seeks to govern his life according to some principles of light and purity, such, for example, as unselfishness, altruism, chivalry, self-abnegation, rectitude, truthfulness etc. He is the Sattwic man, as known in India. There is also a still higher cat egory, where consciousness endeavours to go beyond mind, enters into the consciousness of the Spirit; then we have the spiritual man, the saint and the sage. Beyond lie the supra-mental domains formed of the consciousness of the gods.
Man, individually and collectively, has passed and is passing through these steps of evolution. The last one is his goal at the present stage. To be a saint, seer or sage is not enough for man. He must be a god. Indeed when he has succeeded to be a god then only would it be possible for him to become what a saint or a seer or sage has to be in order to fulfil himself totally and integrally. The human race as a whole is progressing along the same line towards the same consummation. That is the secret purpose and end of Nature, to evolve a growing developing material form housing, embodying higher and wider ranges of consciousness, integrating all elements into a more and more intimate and inviolable unity and harmony.
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Humanity is evolving and developing the various groupings to manifest fundamental aspects of its cosmic person. Ancient Egypt, for example, brought us in contact with an occult world and a subliminal consciousness. We know also of the nature of the Hebraic genius, the moral fervour, the serious, almost grim spirit of Righteousness that formed and even now forms a major strain in the European or Christian culture and civilisation. The famous "sweetness and light" of the Hellenic mind supplied the other strain. The Roman genius for law and government is a well-known commonplace of history. Well-known also India's spirituality. All these modes of consciousness are elementsforces, energies and personalities that build up the godhead of humanity. Peoples and races in the past were the scattered limbs of the godhead-scattered and isolated from one another, because of the original unconsciousness and sharp egocentricity out of which Nature started its course of evolution. The disjecta membra are being collected together by a growing consciousness.
Such then is the destiny of man and mankindman to rise to higher heights of consciousness beyond mental reason that are not governed by the principle of division, separation, antithesis but by the principle of unity, identity, mutuality and totality. In other words, he will take his seat in the status of his soul, his inner and inmost being, his divine personality where he is one with all beings and with the world. This is a rare and difficult realisation for man as he is today, but tomorrow it will be his normal nature. The individual will live in his total being and therefore in and through other individuals; as a consequence the nature too in each will undergo a divine transmutation, a marvellous sea-change.
04.06 - To Be or Not to Be, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yes, there is one thing intrinsically evil and undivine and that has to be rejected and cast aside ruthlessly that is nothing else than the egoistic consciousness. It is this that has passions and prejudices, likes and dislikes, ideas and ideals, formations of its own, other deities installed in place of the Divine Truth and Reality. The ego goes, indeed, and with it also those rhythms and stresses, lines and shades germane to it that bar the free flow of the Supreme Breath. But the instrument remains and the arms and the weapons they are cleansed and sanctified: instead of the Asura wielding them, it is now the gods, the Divine Himself who possess and use them.
Canto I 5
05.01 - Man and the Gods, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man possesses characters that mark him as an entity sui generis and give him the value that is his. First, toil and suffering and more failures than success have given him the quality of endurance and patience, of humility and quietness. That is the quality of earth-natureearth is always spoken of by the poets and seers as all-bearing and all-forgiving. She never protests under any load put upon her, never rises in revolt, never in a hurry or in worry, she goes on with her appointed labour silently, steadily, calmly, unflinchingly. Human consciousness can take infinite pains, go through the infinite details of execution, through countless repetitions and mazes: patience and perseverance are the very badge and blazon of the tribe. Ribhus, the artisans of immortalitychildren of Mahasaraswatiwere originally men, men who have laboured into godhood. Human nature knows to wait, wait infinitely, as it has all the eternity before it and can afford and is prepared to continue and persist life after life. I do not say that all men can do it and are of this nature; but there is this essential capacity in human nature. The gods, who are usually described as the very embodiment of calmness and firmness, of a serene and concentrated will to achieve, nevertheless suffer ill any delay or hindrance to their work. Man has not perhaps the even tenor, the steadiness of their movement, even though intense and fast flowing; but what man possesses is persistence through ups and downshis path is rugged with rise and fall, as the poet says. The steadiness or the staying power of the gods contains something of the nature of indifference, something hard in its grain, not unlike a crystal or a diamond. But human patience, when it has formed and taken shape, possesses a mellowness, an understanding, a sweet reasonableness and a resilience all its own. And because of its intimacy with the tears of things, because of its long travail and calvary, human consciousness is suffused with a quality that is peculiarly human and humane that of sympathy, compassion, comprehension, the psychic feeling of closeness and oneness. The gods are, after all, egoistic; unless in their supreme supramental status where they are one and identical with the Divine himself; on the lower levels, in their own domains, they are separate, more or less immiscible entities, as it were; greater stress is laid here upon their individual functioning and fulfilment than upon their solidarity. Even if they have not the egoism of the Asuras that sets itself in revolt and antagonism to the Divine, still they have to the fullest extent the sense of a separate mission that each has to fulfil, which none else can fulfil and so each is bound rigidly to its own orbit of activity. There is no mixture in their workingsna me thate, as the Vedas say; the conflict of the later gods, the apple of discord that drove each to establish his hegemony over the rest, as narrated in the mythologies and popular legends, carry the difference to a degree natural to the human level and human modes and reactions. The egoism of the gods may have the gait of aristocracy about it, it has the aloofness and indifference and calm nonchalance that go often with nobility: it has a family likeness to the egoism of an ascetic, of a saintit is sttwic; still it is egoism. It may prove even more difficult to break and dissolve than the violent and ebullient rjasicpride of a vital being. Human failings in this respect are generally more complex and contain all shades and rhythms. And yet that is not the whole or dominant mystery of man's nature. His egoism is thwarted at every stepfrom outside, by, the force of circumstances, the force of counter- egoisms, and from inside, for there is there the thin little voice that always cuts across egoism's play and takes away from it something of its elemental blind momentum. The gods know not of this division in their nature, this schizophrenia, as the malady is termed nowadays, which is the source of the eternal strain of melancholy in human nature of which Matthew Arnold speaks, of the Shelleyan saddest thoughts: Nietzsche need not have gone elsewhere in his quest for the origin and birth of Tragedy. A Socrates discontented, the Christ as the Man of Sorrows, and Amitabha, the soul of pity and compassion are peculiarly human phenomena. They are not merely human weaknesses and failings that are to be brushed aside with a godlike disdain; but they contain and yield a deeper sap of life and out of them a richer fulfilment is being elaborated.
Human understanding, we know, is a tangled skein of light and shademore shade perhaps than lightof knowledge and ignorance, of ignorance straining towards knowledge. And yet this limited and earthly frame that mind is has something to give which even the overmind of the gods does not possess and needs. It is indeed a frame, even though perhaps a steel frame, to hold and fix the pattern of knowledge, that arranges, classifies, consolidates effective ideas, as they are translated into facts and events. It has not the initiative, the creative power of the vision of a god, but it is an indispensable aid, a precious instrument for the canalisation and expression of that vision, for the intimate application of the divine inspiration to physical life and external conduct. If nothing else, it is a sort of blue print which an engineer of life cannot for ego if he has to execute his work of building a new life accurately and beautifully and perfectly.
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This is the divine love, love proper to Maheshwari. But there is another love more intimate, close, human the love of Mahalakshmi. This is the love that comes down here upon earth and takes on an earthly quality, a terrestrial vibration. In other words, it has what we call the psychic quality that characterises the human feeling with its peculiar charm and sweetness and intensity and magic. It goes without saying that by human we do not 'mean here the gross human thing which is more animal than human, a matter of the external heart, made up of crude passion and egoistic demand, but that which is the truth of all this deviation and deformation, lying behind in the inner heart. The psychic being is a special creation in and for earth, in and for man, the earthly creature. It is, as we have said, divine Grace imbedded in Matter.
The gods are glorious beings; they are aspects and personalities of the Divine, presiding and ruling over the cosmic laws, each with his own truth and norm and dominion, although, in the higher status, all work together and harmoniously. Even then they do not possess a soul, a psychic core of being. They are forms and powers of consciousness organised round a divine truth, a typal Idea; but they do not have this exquisite presence secretly seated in the heart, which is the privilege of the terrestrial creature.
05.04 - The Immortal Person, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet the building up of an abiding individual is the secret urge of Nature's evolution: it is the hidden spring of human aspiration and the purpose of God's creation. Not mere disparate particlesof substance or energy or consciousness breaking up constantly and scattering and finally dissolving into the void (the great law of Running Downor as the Veda figures it, tucchyena abwapihitamabsorbed by the infinitesimal)but a gathering of elements, integrating them into organic wholes, moulding definite forces into definite formssuch is the secret plan behind. Indeed, ego is the first formation, the original instrument which Nature fashioned to carry out this object of hers.
ego means a hardened core that is not easily broken by the impact of forces. It delimits, ,cuts out, endeavours to maintain its formation by a strong violent self-assertion. ego is a helper, but also it is a bar. It assists the first formation but delays and obstructs the true and final formation. For the ego is a formation, an individual formation, but on the level of universal Nature: it is of a piece with the normal cosmic movement, only bounded by a peripheral line. In the general expanse it puts up enclosures and preserves and fencings; the constituting elements remaining the same in substance and quality. Even the delimitation is illusory in reality, it is something like the membrane in the body separating the different functional organs, rigid yet allowing interaction and interpenetration. That is why, when death removes the outward fencing, the individuality also cannot long maintain itself and merges into the general. We may look upon egoism as a kind of artificial or experimental individuality, a laboratory formation, as it were, tried and developed under given conditions. In fact, however, egoism is a shadow or an echo upon this side of our nature of the true individuality which lies and comes from elsewhere.
And that is the soul of the man. We have spoken of the body, the life and the mind of the individual, but beside and beyond these elements which are only instruments there is this secret master and overlord. It is the particle of divinity in each, the developing consciousness the spark of Fire, the ray of Light the immortal in the mortal no bigger than one's thumb." The soul is an individual, an individual formation of the divine reality: it is a godhead formulating an aspect or function of God. We may thus say that the whole purpose of earthly evolution is the evolution of this soul-formation, that is to say, its growing individualisation in light and power, in the expression of the godhead. This growth is first in itself and of itself, its inherent being and consciousness; then, the growth is that of its instrumentation, in other words, the development and organisation of the mind, the life and the body.
05.07 - Man and Superman, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Even so mankind, at the crucial parting of the ways, would very naturally look askance at the diminished value of many of its qualities and attri butes in the new status to come. First of all, as it has been pointed out, the intellect and reasoning power will have to surrender and abdicate. The very power by which man has attained his present high status and maintains it in the world has to be sacrificed for something else called intuition or revelation whose value and efficacy are unknown and have to be rigorously tested. Anyhow, is not the known devil by far and large preferable to the unknown entity? And then the zest of life, peculiar to man, that works through contradictionsdelight and suffering, victory and defeat, war and peace, doubt and knowledge, all the play of light and shade, the spirit of adventure, of combat and struggle and heroic effort, will have to go and give place to something, peaceful and harmonious perhaps but monotonous, insipid, unprogressive. The very character of human life is its passion to battle through, even if it is not always through. For it is often said that the end or goal does not matter, the goal is always something uncertain; it is the way, the means, the immediate action that is of supreme consequence: for it is that that tests man's manhood, gives him the value he may have. And above all man is asked to give up the very thing which he has laboured to build up through millenniums of his terrestrial life, his individuality, his personality, for the demand is that he must lose his ego in order to attain the superhuman status.
So, the probability is that a large part of humanity will remain wedded to the normal human life. But this does not lessen in any way the value, the tremendous importance of what happens to the other part, may be, not insignificant or inconsiderable. Along with those that doubt and deny, there will be those who believe and affirm, who will stand for divinisation, whatever dehumanisation it may imply.
05.08 - True Charity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This condition is attained, fully and sovereignly, when there is absolute egolessness, when there is no consciousness of a separate person, the dual consciousness of the helper and the helped, the reformer and the reformed, the doctor and the patient. The normal human sense of values is based upon such a division, upon egohood, mamatvam. A philanthropic man helps others through a sense of sympathy giving rise to a sense of duty and obligation. This feeling of pity, of commiseration is dangerous, for it puts you in a frame of mind that tends to make you look down upon, take a superior air towards your object of pity. You become self-conscious, with the consciousness of your inferior self, that you are helping others, doing good to the world, doing something that raises your value: this sense of personal merit is only another name for vanity. Vanity and ambition are the motive powers that lie behind the philanthropical spirit born of sympathy. To denote a shade of meaning different from what is usually conveyed by the word sympathy, modern psychology has I found another wordempathy. Sympathy may be said to be the relation or contact between two egos; it is a link or bridge between two separate and independent entities; empathy, on the other hand, means the entering into the I very being and consciousness of another, becoming that other one; it is identification and identity. This again is what I spiritual consciousness alone can do. Sympathy leads to! philanthropy, empathy is the origin of true charity, the spiritual I compassion of a Buddha or a Christ. Philanthropy is human, I charity (caritas) is divine.
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05.10 - Children and Child Mentality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The inquisitiveness that so strongly possesses a child is also the drive of an awakening and growing consciousness. He indulges in breaking, tearing, ripping because of this curiosity, this keen edge of a developing and experimenting consciousness. It seems to be hard and unfeeling, even an aberration, precisely because of the egocentric nature of the child consciousness yet unfamiliar with values normal to age and experience.
But if it is nature to a certain extent that makes the child so apathetic, self-regarding and cruel, it is not the only cause and it is not the whole story. There are other very active factors in life that affect and mould the child's consciousness from the very beginning.
05.15 - Sartrian Freedom, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The poise of the ego, the consciousness of the psycho-vital Purusha as envisaged and experienced by Sartre leads to many other not less catastrophic conclusions. Here is something more on Freedom which seems to be almost the corner-stone of his system:
"Freedom is not abeing: it is thebeing of man, that is to say, his not-being". A very cryptic mantra. Let us try to unveil the Shekinah. "Being" means "being" i.e. existing, something persisting, continuing in the same condition, something fixed, a status. Freedom is not a thingof that kind, it is movement: even so, it is not a continuous movement. According to Bergson, the true, the ultimate reality is a continuity of urge (lan vital); according to Sartre, however, in line with the trend of modern scientific knowledge, the reality is an assemblage of discrete units of energy, packets or quanta. So freedom is an urge, a spurt (jaillissement):it acts in a disconnected fashion and it is absolute and unconditional. It is veritably the wind that bloweth where it listeth. It has no purpose, no direction, no relation: for all those attributes or definitions would annul its absoluteness. It does not stop or halt or dwell upon, it bursts forth and passes. It does not exist, that is stay: therefore it is non-being. Man's being then consist of a conglomeration (ensemble)of such freedoms. And that is the whole reality ofman, his very essence. We have said that a heavy sense of responsibility hangs upon the .free Purusha: but it appears the Sartrian Purusha is a divided personality. In spite of the sense of responsibility (or because of it?) he acts irresponsibly; for, acting otherwise would not be freedom. So then this essence, the self-consciousness, self-existence, presence in oneself is not a status, a fixed standing entity: it is not a point, even if geometrical; it is, Sartre describes, the jet from one point to another, for, real point there is none: so it is the emptiness behind all concrete realities that is the true reality, asat brahman, unyamto Sartre that is freedom, freedom absolute and ultimate.
Practically this conception of freedom brings into high relief, makes almost all in all, only one aspect, one character or attri bute of freedom: the abolition of all ties and obligations and relations beyond oneself involving a hollow self-sufficiency. Naturally such an outlook requires against it a complementary one, even if it is not to correct and complete, at least to support and implement it. Sartre too cannot ignore the fact that the free being is not an isolated phenomenon in the world; it exists along with and in the company of others of the same nature and quality. Indeed human society is that in essence, an association of freedoms, although these movements of freedom are camouflaged in appearance and are not recognised by the free persons themselves. The interaction between the free persons, the reflection of oneself in others and the mutual dependence of egos is a constant theme in the novels and plays of Sartre.
'Freedom cannot be real freedom unless it is licence : yet society means a curtailment or inhibition or modification of this absolute liberty. This, conflict has never been resolved in Sartre and is fundamental to his ideology, 'the source of his tragic nihilism. That is because the consciousness here lives horizontally, level with the normal, what we described as psycho-vital consciousness. The way out lies in transcendence, in a vertical uplifting of the consciousness and the being.
05.16 - A Modernist Mentality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Further Monsieur Gide says, God is nowhere, he has to be created. If he means that God is not anywhere in the manifest physical world, especially, the physical world of today, it is true, though here too partially true. God is never truly absent; even in and through this dismal and distressed age of ours he is ever present, a living power of abounding Graceeven if behind the veil, even if not patent to the sense-bound observer. Still God has to be made patent, established concretely in the physical world also, in the everyday normal human affairs. But, again, how to do it? And who is to do it? You or I in our complete, at best half-lit hazy ignorance? By running blindly full tilt against any and all atheism and denial and egoism and arrogance, shouting at them, pointing the finger of scorn at them or being physically violent upon them? It were best if we moved with as much vigour against our own selves, against the ungodly within us. If one begins seriously at home, in dealing with oneself one will be best equipped to deal with the others and the world, in the process of new-creating in oneself one will be in a position to find out exactly what lies in the way of a new creation outside.
A deeper sense of truth and rectitude says: you have no right to break unless you have the power to make. Even an illusion you cannot and should not break if you do not know how and what to replace; you will only replace it by a greater and more disastrous illusion, you must yourself have the full vision of the truth, you must yourself realise and establish it in yourself, in your inner being as well as your outer personality. Then only you will have secured full authority (Ramakrishna's chaprash, badge) to make and unmake. If you have not the needed authority, then you must obey implicitly one who possesses the authority.
05.18 - Man to be Surpassed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"Man is a thing that shall be surpassed". This burning phrase of Nietzsche has unsealed many eyes: it has also scalded and frightened others. It has been hailed by many as the motto, the mantra of the age to come; it has been denounced equally as a false light, a lead of arrogance and egoism.
Erich Kahler (a Czech now become an American citizen) in his book Man the Measureseeks to strike a balance, but as the title indicates, evidently leans more to the second, the reactionary, than to the original ideal. He posits that man's humanity is to be preserved and fostered, that is to say, his true humanity, that which distinguishes him from mere animality. The Greek ideal, according to Kahler, was an advance upon the animal man; it brought in the ideal of the rational man. And yet the Greek ideal, in spite of its acceptance of the whole manmens sana in corpore sanoembracing as it did his physical, ethical and sthetic development, laid on the whole a greater emphasis upon reason, upon ration-alising, that is, ordering life according to a rational pattern. And then the Greek ideal was more for the individual; it was for the culture and growth of the individuality in man. Society was considered as composed of such individualised units. The degree of personal choice, of individual liberty, of free understanding that a Greek citizen enjoyed marked the evolution secured by man out of the primitive society. Still the integral man is not the rationalistic man, even as he is not the mere biological man: and he is not predominantly individualistic either.
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But there was danger in individualism too: and the Greek polity suffered from it. For individualism meant clash of personalities: indeed rivalry, ambition, intolerance, arrogance, all the violent or vulgar movements of egoism occupy a good part of the life story of the old-world peoples trained in the classical culture. On the other hand, modern collectivism tends towards a uniform levelling down of all individual eccentricity. But dangers apart, the truth of either conception, ingrained in human nature, has to be recognised and accepted. A humanity, composed of developed and formed individuals living in broad commonalty that is the highest achievement the present author holds before mankind.
Mr. Kahler does not define very clearly the nature and function of this commonalty: but it almost borders on what I may call human humanism, something in the manner of the other modern humanist Albert Schweitzer. Two types of humanism have been distinguished: man-centred humanism and God-centred humanism. Kahler's (and even Schweitzer's) humanism belongs, very much to the first cat egory. He does not seem to believe in any transcendent Spirit or God apart from the universal totality of existence, the unitary life of all, somewhat akin to the Vie Unanime of Jules Romains.
06.02 - The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
His ego has stretched into infinity.
His mind, a beat in original Nothingness,
06.07 - Total Transformation Demands Total Rejection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The reason is very simple. The experience or realisation is not a total one, that is to say, it belongs to a part only of the nature and is not shared by other parts. The sadhak is not of one piece: the whole of his nature is not worked to the same pitch and amplitude, it is not equally responsive everywhere. Thus, when the psychic brings forward an experience and the inner consciousness is full of the light and energy and joy and faith, even then, in the background or by the side, if you are vigilant and observe carefully, you will see that the mind, the external mind, has its reservations or continues to move in its accustomed way. It looks askance at the experience, criticises or doubts; or it tries to understand or explain in its own terms, seize it within its frame of comprehension. Or else, the vital rises up and tries to get hold of the experience and utilise it for its own purposes; it is enjoyed as a tasty food, made to serve the vital's ambition or vanity, some lower ignorant egoistic urge. Or again, the physical, the body consciousness may not at all participate in the experience; it may remain indifferent, listless, lethargic with no impulse or enthusiasm to carry out in practice the experience of the inner consciousness. Any of these drags or cross-currents is sufficient to maim and diminish and even wipe out the experience: and usually all the three are finally there to combine and reinforce each other's effects to do the mischief.
The remedy is to turn back and hold to the spot of light that is there in the consciousness, the clarity or the aspiration that belongs to the inner and higher being. That has to be used as a torch, as a staff to support and guide you in your periods of darkness and vacillation. That beam of burning light should be thrown, in turn, upon those parts in you that besiege with their obscurity and inconscience, doubt and arrogance, the realisation that comes, the progress on the way. It must be done with firmness, vigilance and perseverance. The mixture has to be sorted out, the dross separated, kept on one side and the pure element on the other: the impurities have to be put under the flame-light to melt, burn away and be eliminated. And this means an ardent sincerity, for that is the tinder which keeps the fire blazing.
06.08 - The Individual and the Collective, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
An integral sadhana cannot be confined to the individual alone; an element of collectivity must enter into it. An individual is not an isolated being in any way. There are, of course, schools of Yoga and philosophy that seek to isolate the individual, consider him as an entity hemmed in by his own consciousness; indeed they view the individuals as all distinct and separate, each a closed circle or sphere, they may barely touch each other but never interpenetrate or inter-communicate. Each stands as a solitary island, all together forming the vast archipelago of the universe. This is a position; no doubt, that can be acquired by a kind of discipline of the consciousness, though not to a great perfection; but it is not a natural or necessary poise. Normally, individuals do merge into each other and form one weft of give and take. A desire, an impulse, even a thought that rises in you, goes out of you, overflows you and spreads around even to the extreme limit of the earth, like a Hertzian wave. Again, any movement in any person anywhere in the world would come to you, penetrate you, raise a similar vibration in you, even though you may not so recognise it but consider it as something exclusively personal to you. You send out vibrations into the world and the world sends out vibrations into you. Individual life is the meeting-ground of these outgoing and incoming forces. It is precisely to avoid this circle or cycle of world-vibrations that the older Yogis used to leave the world, away from society, retire to mountain-tops, into the virgin forest where they hoped to find themselves alone and aloof, to be single with the Single Self. This is a way out, but it is not the only or the best solution. It is not the best solution, for although apparent-ly one is alone on the hill-top, in the desert crypt, or the forest womb, one always carries with oneself a whole world within, the normal nature with all its instincts and impulses, reactions, memories and hopes: you cut away the outside, run away from it, but what about the outside that is within you? The taste for a tasty thing does not drop with the removal of the object. Secondly, such an individual solution, even if it were possible, would still be a purely personal matter and, in the ultimate analysis, egoistic. It is why the Buddha refused to enter definitely into Nirvana and withdrew from the brink to work among men. Indeed, the real solution is else-where. It is not to withdraw or go away but to find within the orbit here a centre, a focus of consciousness which is not controlled by the outside forces but can control them, which is not coloured by them but can lend them its own luminosity. That is the soul or the psychic centre.
And this centre is not an isolated entity in its nature: it is, as it were, a universal centre, that is to say, it links itself indissolubly in a secret sense of identity with all other centres. For this self is only one of the selves through which the One Self has multiplied itself for a varied self-objectification. The light that shines here, the fire that burns here and the delight that flows here illumine, purify and revitalise not only the individual in which it dwells, but move abroad and extend into the other individuals with which it lives in spiritual identity.
06.10 - Fatigue and Work, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man usually chooses his work or is made to choose a work because of a vital preference, a prejudice or notion that it is the kind in which he can shine or succeed. This egoistic vanity or opportunism may be necessary or unavoidable in ordinary life; but when one wishes to go beyond the ordinary life and aspires for the true life, this attachment or personal choice is more an impediment than a help to progress, towards finding the way to the true life. The Yogic attitude to work therefore is that of absolute detachment, not to have any choice, but to accept and do whatever is given to you, whatever comes to you in your normal course of life and do it with the utmost perfection possible. It is in that way and that way alone that all work becomes supremely interesting, and all life a miracle of delight.
This does not mean, however, that there is no work natural to you, for which you have a special aptitude, in and through which your soul, the Divine, can express itself fully and wholly in a special manner. But what is that work? The kartavyam karma the work that demands to be donederiving from your swadharmayour self-nature? Evidently, it is not that of your superficial nature, which the mind chooses, the vital prefers and the body finds convenient. To come by your true or soul work, you have to pass through a considerable discipline, a rigorous training.
06.16 - A Page of Occult History, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
At the beginning of creation, four individual formations the first personalitiesmade their appearance. There were: (1) a Being of Light or Consciousness, (2) a Being of Truth or Reality, (3) a Being of Love or Ananda and (4) a Being of Life. And the first law of creation was freedom of decision. These Beings were manifestations in the free movement of the Divine; they themselves moved free, according to their individualised conscious will. They stood out, as if in bold relief, on the background of the Divine Existence. For originally, although they differentiated themselves from each other and from the Divine, yet they formed a unified harmony and lived and moved and had their being as different members of the same divine Body. At first they stood out, but still essentially and apparently linked on to their fount and origin. Soon, however, they stood out no longer on the Divine, but moved out of him, away and separate; they sought to fulfil their individualised will and destiny. The Divine did not impose its will or force these individualities to turn round: that would frustrate the very purpose of creation. He allowed these independent beings to enjoy their full independence, although they were born out of him and essential part and parcel of his own being. They went abroad on a journey of adventure, each carving out its own line of growth and fulfilment. The first fruit, the inevitable reaction of freedom was precisely, as is just said, a separation from the Divine, each one encircled within its ego, limited and bound to its own fund of potency: individualism means limitation. Now, once separated, the connection with the source snapped, that is to say in the outward activity, in dynamic movement or becoming (not in essential being), the Four Independents lapsed into their opposites: Light changed to Darkness, i.e. conscious-ness to unconsciousness, Truth changed to Falsehood, Delight changed to Pain and Suffering, and Life changed to Death. That is how the four undivine principles, the Powers of the Undivine came to rule and fashion the material creation.
Into the heart of this Darkness and Falsehood and Pain and Death, a seed was sown, a grain that is to be the epitome and symbol of material creation and in and through which the Divine will claim back all the elements gone astray, the prodigal ones who will return to recognise and fulfil the Divine. That was Earth. And the earth, in her turn, in her labour towards the Divine Fulfilment, out of her bosom, threw up a being who would again symbolise and epitomise the earth and material creation. That is Man. For, man came with the soul in him, the Psychic Being, the Divine Flame, the spark of consciousness in the midst of universal unconsciousness, a miniature of the original Divine Light-Truth-Love-Life. In the meantime, to help the evolution, to join hands with the aspiring soul in the human being, there was created, on the defection of the First Lords the Asuric Quaternitya second hierarchy of luminous beingsDevas, gods. (Some-thing of this inner history of the world is reflected in the Greek legend of struggle between the Titans and the Olympians.) These gods, however, being a latter creation, perhaps because they were young and inexperienced, could not cope immediately with their strong Elders. It is why we see in the mythological legends the gods very often worsted at the hands of the Asuras: Indra hiding under the sea, Zeus threatened often with defeat and disaster. It is only an intervention from the Supreme (the Greeks called it Fate) that saved them in the end and restored the balance.
06.20 - Mind, Origin of Separative Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This power which in the inferior human consciousness appears as mind or mental discernment is the image or delegate here below of that very force of consciousness that originally separated the world from the Divine, created the ego and placed it as an objective reality against itself. It was a force of dividing consciousness, of exclusive concentration, that created the fission in the original unitary status of the Divine: it was that that precipitated the world of negation, of ignorance and inconscience out of the supreme Light and Reality.
It was a power of denial that severed the world from its pure source: the same power can now be utilised for the return back for the reintegration. The power that separated from the Divine is capable of separating from the world; the consciousness that moved away from the One Divine can move away also from the Multiple Ignorance. As the individualised element isolated itself from the unitary consciousness of the Divine, in the same way the individualised element in man can stand aloof from the unitary being of the world: as it came down the ladder of consciousness from the supreme light of the spirit into the lowest depth of unconscious dead matter, the same path it can take in the opposite way and from the unconsciousness rise into the fullness of the original light. The soul has freely chosen the bondage, he is free too to choose his freedom again. That is what the Upanishad meant when it said: avidyay mtuym tirtw, by the Ignorance he shall cross death.
06.21 - The Personal and the Impersonal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As you go up in your consciousness towards the origin of things you come finally at the end of things: you are beyond the names and forms that make up the universe, beyond even the subtle names and forms at the topmost. You arrive at something formless, impersonal,' unthinkable, unique, infinite and eternal. It is at best a vast force or a state of consciousness. When you come in contact with it, you lose your personal form, your separate individuality and become the featureless absolute. Many religions and philosophies consider this status to be the supreme, the highest and the origin of things. In reality, however, it is not the end of things nor the supreme status. You can rise further beyond. Your consciousness enters into the formless and impersonal and merges its separate existence there and then emerges again; it envisages a reality which is not formless but has a form, it is not impersonality but a Person, with which or with whom you can have a personal relation unlike the relation or lack of relation with the Impersonal. But this form beyond the formless is not like the forms of the inferior consciousness: it is the Form of forms. And it is not a person like a human being or even a divine being or god, but an essential Personality, the Person of persons. It has not the limitation or exclusiveness of ego-bounded individuality (even the gods are ego-bounded); it has a kind of fluid boundedness or outline which is recognizable as that of a definite Person, but it has not the fixity or rigidity of lower forms.
And yet to arrive at this supreme Person, to come in contact with Him, it is necessary to pass through and have the experience of the formless impersonal infinity. For that breaks the inferior moulds, the narrow egoistic formations which are only aberrations or obscure images of the true Person.
Somewhat on the same line the vital too has to proceed to transform itself. It must get rid of its ignorant and violent impulses, its obscure formations: it must be thoroughly cleansed and purified. For that it must learn to be quiet and silentabsolutely still and passive; and in that quiet passivity to feel, to be conscious of the Divine Presence, to be saturated with it. When once that is done, it is called upon to come out and take part in active life. Normally, however, the tendency is, when one has withdrawn and lived an inward quieted life, on coming back to outer life, to turn to the old accustomed ways and reactions; one falls back into the old groove of the consciousness. The vital should then make the experience and the realisation of the Divine Presence dynamic so that it may be a living reality; the vital must be conscious of it in the midst of all activities, not merely in the indrawn state. The energy of the vital must be put out into a complete and perfected living, but it must not run into old moulds and take up the habitual modes; with the constant sense of the Divine, the ever present truth and beauty of the Divine's consciousness, the vital will possess a new life and create a new pattern of living.
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.
06.27 - To Learn and to Understand, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is an iron door there nailed and fixed. It has to be broken open. It is the door that shuts you within your narrow ego-consciousness. You have to throw down that barrier and widen yourself out. You have to will for it, exert for it with a settled constancy. There is the pressure on the other side too, the pressure of Grace. Your aspiring will meeting the Grace will surely make the necessary opening in the dead wall.
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06.29 - Towards Redemption, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As I have often said, creation is the self-objectivisation of the Supreme Divine; it is the supreme consciousness putting itself lout of itself so that it may look at itself. In so doingin self-objectifying and self-dividingit scattered itself abroad: the one infinite multiplied itself into infinite atoms. Not only so, in detaching itself from itself the consciousness became the very opposite of itself: consciousness became unconsciousness, spirit became matter, delight became pain, knowledge' became ignorance, and light became darkness. Boundless universality was the essential nature of the Divine, now it got clotted into the knots of egoism upon which is based this inconscient creation. In the midst of this utter negation, this denial by the universe of its origin, the Divine Love descended and lodged itself in order to bring back the erring creation to its lost home. The Divine Love became involved and entangled in the Inconscient, became one with it; only so could she (it was indeed the Divine Mother in her Grace) suffuse the inconscient universe with her own substance and transmute it into its original nature. The first effect or visible sign of this descent or divine infusion is the emergence of the psychic or the soul element in the material body: it is the speck of consciousness imbedded in matter, inhabiting the apparently dead particle or aggregate of particles, which continually grows in and through its relation of action and reaction with its surrounding unconsciousness, and at the same time extending its light into that darkness transforms it gradually into what it was originally at its source.
The origin of creation is an individualisation the manifestation or emanation of many, as units, out of the undivided and indivisible Single. It meant freedom for each unit to choose: the individual became, so to say, a unit of freedom. The immediate result, however, was not very successful, apparently, that is to say. For the individual unit chose to follow a path exactly opposite to its origin: the individualisation happened as if an element shot out of the infinite unity and flung itself in its momentum, as far away as possible, to the other pole. That is how the one spirit became the infinite particles of inconscient matter. The purpose and problem then set was to bring back the straying elements to their source and origin. The work was long travail. It took and it is taking even now ages for the one Being who could do the thing to prepare slowly, mount the steps gradually along which creation slid down, recover the ground painfully and achieve the hidden purpose, vindicating amply the deviation and the fall. Through devious ways, long, winding, arduous marches the spirit of evolution laboured through millenniums; it was the instrument utilised by the Divine Grace.
The original individual was a hard concentrated point of ego, concerned wholly and absolutely with itself. So a situation of give and take was brought about so that even to exist meant to exist through others. Human society began in this way. The solitary human animal for its own sake had to come out of its solitariness, take to a mate and thus gradually bring up a family. The wall of egoism was broken to that extent, its scope extended. The enlargement of the ego continuedstill continuesincreasing the content of the unity. From the family the human ego enlarged into the tribe, and the tribal ego has now enlarged into the nation. Larger and larger aggregates are being formed in place of the original individual unities. The nations too are now approaching and interpenetrating each other and in many ways the whole of humanity has been moving as an aggregate. The individual has thus learnt to find himself in the life of humanity as a whole. He has to look upor will soon have to look upto the whole creation as one existence in and through which he has to exist. Thus the universe is recovering its original indivisible unity, but having gained something in the process; for it is now no longer the featureless unity at the source but an enriched and multiple unity in expression. Furthermore the individual can proceed yet beyond. He has to and now is able to, not only in his individual but in his collective consciousness turn back and move straight to its original unity: he can establish direct contact, commune and unite with the Divine Himself from whom it I came and drifted away. The ranges of ascent are within him I and are in line with those outside which the universe is traversing in the path of evolution. Such is the process the Divine I Grace has undertaken to fulfil the Divine's purpose in creation.
The earliest sense of ego or I is limited and confined to one's own self as against others and other things. It is then I that one has the feeling of want and asks for things he has not. I He has shut out from his wing-spread men and things, of his I own accord, to enjoy his individual free will: he is now compelled to ask of them materials to enjoy, to grow and increase, I even to exist. On the other hand, if you enlarge yourself, I if you identify yourself with all, then you find all things I within yourself, you have no need to go out and seek for them, you have no feeling of want. Whatever is needed to be brought and utilised for a definite purpose or in a particular circumstance, at a certain time or place, is automatically presented then and there. You do not, however, lose your real I. Your I finds its I in all other Is and all other Is in the I you call yourself. You have lost your old ego, the small narrow person, and transcended and transmuted it into the cosmic and transcendental ego. The Divine is that ego and that individual person. In reality it is the Divine alone who is that, in the supreme and truest sense.
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06.30 - Sweet Holy Tears, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The tears that the soul sheds are holy, are sweet; they come bidden by the Divine and are blessed by His Presence. They are like the dew from heaven. For they are pure, they are spontaneous, welling out of a heart of innocent freedom. The feeling is infinitely impersonal, completely egoless: there is only an intense movement of self-giving, total simple self-giving. Tears are the natural expression in one who needs help, who has the complete surrender and simplicity of a child, the abdication of all vanity. Such tears are beautiful in their nature and beneficent in character. They are therefore like dewdrops that belong to heaven as it were and come from there with a sovereign healing virtue. Such tears are not idle tears, as the English poet says in a vein of melancholy, they are instinct with a power, an effective energy which brings you relief, ease and peace. And it is not only pure but purifying, this feeling made of quiet intensity and aspiration and surrender: it is unmixed, free from any demand or need of reward or return; it is so impersonal that the aspiration is, so to say, even independent of the object for which it exists.
At a supreme crisis of the soul when there seems to be no issue before you, if you come, in the naked simplicity of your whole being, pour yourself out in a flood of self-giving, to one who can be your refugein the end the Divine alone can be such a oneand who can respond fully to the intensity and ardent sincerity of your approach, you come holding your tearful soul as a complete self-offering, you do not know what tremendous response you call forth, the blessing divine you bring down in and around you.
06.31 - Identification of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Prayers1 speak always of the identification of consciousness with the Supreme. There is also the other identification of the consciousness, on the other side, namely, with things and beings, with the world outside: to that also the Prayers refer constantly. In reality, however, there is only one consciousness; it is everywhere, in all objects, in the universe and beyond. When a limit is put around it somewhere, a frame is erected, then it becomes or appears to become an individual consciousness. It is man's ego, a spot or point cutting and shutting itself off from the global consciousness, that has thus separated itself from the Divine; it is that ego, that separative consciousness which is asked to break the limits and regain its natural unity with the one consciousness. And when it can do so it is said to have made the identification with the Supreme. Apart from this, however, when the consciousness has separated and individualised itself in different centres, even then it exists and acts in hiding in all the multiple varieties of forms, from the tiniest to the biggest. The same consciousness is alive in the atom, the stone, the plant, the animal, in the earth and the sun and the stars, in the universe as a whole. Each object big or small, living or non-living, conscious or unconscious, contains that consciousness at its centre and embodies or ex-presses it in various ways.
Consider, for example, your country, India. When you say India, what do you mean to convey? Is it the geographical boundary that goes by the name or the expanse of soil contained within that boundary or its hills and rivers, forests and fields or the beasts that range in it or its human inhabitants or all of these together? No, it is something else; it is a centre of consciousness which has as its bodily frame the particular geographical boundary: it is that which dwells in its mountains and meadows, vibrates in its vegetation, lives and moves in its animal kingdom; and it is that which is behind the mind and aspiration of its people, animating its culture and civilisation and moving it towards higher and higher illuminations and achievements. It is not India alone, but every country upon earth has its consciousness, which is the central core of its life and culture. Not only so, even the earth itself, the earth as a whole, has a consciousness at its centre and is the embodiment of that consciousness: and earth's evolution means the growth and expression of that consciousness. Likewise the sun too has a solar consciousness, a solar being presiding over its destiny. Further, the universe too has a cosmic consciousness, one and indivisible, moving and guiding it. And still beyond there lies the transcendental consciousness, outside creation and manifestation.
07.02 - The Parable of the Search for the Soul, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Gathered round a small ego's pin-point head;
In it a sentient creature found its poise,
07.03 - The Entry into the Inner Countries, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But cared for nothing but its ego's drive.
A rally without key of common will,
07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
His altruism is ego's other face:
He serves the world that him the world may serve.
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The ego of this great world of desire
Claimed earth and the wide heavens for the use
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The cry of the ego shall be hushed within,
Its lion roar that claims the world as food,
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His spirit by spiritual ego sink,
Or his soul dream shut in sainthood's brilliant cell
07.06 - Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Although his ego claims the world for its use,
Man is a dynamo for the cosmic work;
07.07 - The Discovery of the Cosmic Spirit and the Cosmic Consciousness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Her mortal ego perished in God's night.
Only a body was left, the ego's shell
Afloat mid drift and foam of the world-sea,
07.14 - The Divine Suffering, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Divine's compassion, translated in the individual physical consciousness, becomes a sorrow that is not egoistic, a sorrow that is an expression of one's identification with the universal sorrow through sympathy. I have described the experience at some length in one of the Prayers and Meditations. I spoke there of the sweetest tears that I shed in life; for those tears were not for my sake, I was not weeping for myself. In almost every case man grieves for egoistic reasons, in the human way. Whenever anyone loses a person he loves, he suffers and weeps, not over the condition of the person: in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred or even more, people do not know in what condition the person gone may be, do not and cannot know if the person is happy or unhappy, if he is suffering or is in peace. It is the sense of separation that causes the grief, the feeling that he will not be with them anymore which they so much wish. At the root of all human sorrow, there lies this return upon one's own self, more or less conscious, more or less admitted. But when you feel unhappy for the unhappiness of others, there comes in a mixture. That is to say, to your personal grief is added a psychic element which I described as the reversed image of the Divine Compassion. Now, if you can distinguish between the two, the personal anguish and the disinterested sorrow, come out of what is egoistic and concentrate upon the divine element, make yourself one with it, then you can in that way come in contact with the great universal compassion, which is something immense, vast, calm, mighty, pro-found, which is perfect peace and infinite Bliss. If you know then how to enter into your suffering, go down to the very bottom of it, pass beyond the portion that is egoistic and personal, go farther on, then you arrive at the door of a wonderful revelation. Not that you should seek suffering for the sake of the suffering and in order to have the experience; but when it is there, when it has come upon you, then try what I have suggested, cross the border, the barrier of egoism in your suffering: note first where is the egoistic part, what is it that makes you suffer, what is the egoistic reason of your suffering, then step across and beyond, towards something universal, towards a greater principle. You enter then into the vast, the infinite compassion, the door of the Psychic opens for you. If, in that domain, you see me in tears, as you say you did in your dream, then you can identify yourself with me at the moment, enter into those tears as it were, melt into them. That will open the door and it will bring you an experience, a very unique experience that leaves always a deep mark upon the consciousness. It is never blotted out altogether even if the door closes again and you become once more what you are in your ordinary movements. That experience, that mark remains behind and you can recall it, go back to it, refer to it in your moments of concentration. You feel then the immensity of an infinite sweetness, a great peace, pervading all your being, it is not in your thought only; it goes out and sympathises with everything and can cure everything.
Only you must sincerely wish, you must have the will, to be cured. Everything lies there. Now I always come back to the same theme. You must be sincere. If you want an experience for the sake of the experience and, once you have it, to go back to your ordinary ways, that will not do. You must sincerely will to be curedcured precisely of the ordinary waysyou must have the aspiration, the true aspiration to overcome the obstacle, to mount up and up, above and beyond yourself, so that you may drop all that pulls you back, drags you down, to break all limits, clarify and purify yourself, rid yourself of all that lies in your way. If you have this will, the true intense will not to fall back into past errors, to rise out of obscurity and ignorance towards the light, shorn of all that is human, too humantoo small, too ignorant then that will and that aspiration shall act, act gradually, strongly and effectively bringing you a complete and definitive result. But beware, there must be nothing that clings to the old movements, that does not declare itself but hides its head and when the occasion is opportune puts up its snout.
07.15 - Divine Disgust, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Naturally, the poison will not have the same effect upon the Divine as upon man. For there is an essential difference between a state of ignorance and a state of knowledge. Something untoward happens to you in your normal state of ignorance, it has a certain character and brings mentally certain results: but the same thing happening to you in a state of knowledge will not carry the same effect. For example, take a very material thing, a blow, a right royal physical blow, well, if you are in a state of inconscience and ignorance, as you usually are, you will have to suffer the full consequence which in its turn depends wholly upon the force of the blow, who or what gave the blow and the helplessness of the object. But the the same blow delivered in the same way by the same agent but upon a being who is conscious and full of knowledge, will produce instantly a reaction reducing the natural consequences to a minimum, even annulling the consequences altogether; for the reaction here is a reaction of knowledge, of light and not that of ignorance, of obscurity. On the moral level the action can be clearly noticed. For example, you can receive an emotional shock, not in egoistic blindness, that is to say, identifying yourself with it or drowned in it; you can hold it away from you, look at it in an objective manner, see what it is, note the nature of its vibration, etc., etc., and then you put the light of your knowledge, the ultra-violet ray, as it were, of truth upon it. As a result, there comes a new disposition, the shock loses its effectivity. Even so, the physical result of a physical blow can be obviated. If that were not possible what would be the utility of the Divine taking upon himself the evil thing. Evil would continue in the same way and the world continue suffering in the same way. Precisely because the obscure vibrations are transformed into vibrations of light in the divine consciousness that the Divine takes upon and within himself all the ills of the world.
In the case of the physical occurrence, the knowledge I speak of is the inner knowledge of the body cells, their existence, composition, distribution and the knowledge of the consequences of the blow, its natural and expected effects. Also at the same time there should be the knowledge of what the cells should be like, how they ought to react to the blow. And the procedure adopted too is quite different from that of physical Nature which takes hours, days, months to repair a damage; the inner knowledge can do the thing immediately. This inner knowledge can be brought down from its highest source. Instead of the mere psychological knowledge, one can call down the supramental knowledge and focus it upon the part of the body endangered. If the elements of the body, the cells come under the influence of the force of truth and receive it, then there can be an immediate new ordering of the elements according to the higher law. That will bring about not only the cure from the blow received, the mending of the accident, but initiate a big progress in the general consciousness. This power to comm and the consciousness has no limit. If you have committed an error, even a grave error, and if you can yet call upon the consciousness of truth, this power of the supramental and allow it to work, it will give you an occasion to make a formidable progress. In other words, never be discouraged if you have blundered, blundered even more than once. Only you must keep your will firm, and take sometimes the unshakable resolution not to repeat. Rest assured you will in the end triumph over your difficulty.
07.24 - Meditation and Meditation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Meditation will come to you as much as is necessary for you. When it comes it seizes you; then you should not resist. You sit down and go within yourself, withdraw yourself inside and you make the needed inner advance. When that is done you come out and start again with your work. But above all, do not be vain. People who believe they are exceptional creatures and have more merit, put a bar to all their progress. I must insist on the need of humility. People have often spoken much about it but without understanding it very well. Be humble, but in the right way. If you could but root out this weed that is vanity! How difficult it is, yes, how difficult! You cannot do a single good thing, make the slightest progress, without being puffed up secretly somewhere, cherishing a hidden self-satisfaction! You have to deal hammer blows to break that hard core of egoism. You have to work all your life to destroy this poisonous herb. You think you have done it and you are so satisfied with the idea of having done it at last.
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07.25 - Prayer and Aspiration, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are many kinds of prayers. There is one external and physical, that is to say, simply words learnt by rote and repeated mechanically. It does not mean much. It has usually one result, however, making you quiet. If you go on repeating a few words or sounds for some time, it puts you into a state of calmness in the end. There is another kind which is the natural expression of a wish; you want a particular thing and you express it clearly. You can pray for an, object or for a circumstance, you can pray also for a person or for yourself. There is still another kind in which the prayer borders on aspiration and the two meet: it is the spontaneous formulation of a living experience; it shoots out of the depth of your being, it is the utterance of something lived within: it wants to express gratitude for the experience, asks for its continuation or seeks an explanation. It is then, what I said, almost an aspiration. Aspiration, however, does not necessarily formulate itself in words; if it uses words at all, it makes of them a kind of invocation. Thus, you wish to be in a certain condition. You have, for example, found in you something which is not in harmony with your ideal, a movement of obscurity or ignorance or even bad will. You wish to see it changed. You do not express the thing in so many words, but it rises up in you like a flame, an ardent offering of the experience itself which seeks increase and greatening to be made more clear and precise. It is true all this is capable of being expressed in words, if one tries to recall and note down the experience. But the experience, the aspiration itself is, as I say, like a flame shooting up and contains within it the very thing it asks for. I say asks for, but the movement is not at all that of a desire; it is truly a flame, the flame of purifying will carrying at its centre the very object which it wished to be realised. The discovery of a fault in you impels you to make it an occasion for more progress, for greater self-discipline, for further ascension towards the Divine. It opens out a door upon your future, which you wish to be clearer, truer, intenser; all that gathers in you like a concentrated force and tosses you up in a movement of ascension. It needs no expression in words. It is indeed a flame that leaps up. Such is true aspiration. Prayer usually is something much more external; it is about a very precise object. It is always formulated; for the formulation itself makes what a prayer is. You may have an aspiration and you can transcribe it into a prayer, but the aspiration itself exceeds the prayer. It is something much more intimate, much more self-forgetful, living only in the object it wishes to be or the thing to do, almost identified with it. A prayer can be of a very high quality. Instead of being a request for a fulfilment of your particular desire, it may express your thankfulness and gratefulness for what the Divine has done and is doing for you. You are not busy with your little self and its egoistic interests, you ask for the Divine's ways in you and in the world. This leads you to the border of aspiration. For aspiration too has many degrees and it is expressed on many levels. But the core of aspiration is in the psychic being, it is there at its purest, for there is its origin and source. Prayers come from the other, the lower or secondary levels of being. That is to say, there are physical or material prayers, asking for physical or material things, vital prayers, mental prayers; there are psychic prayers and spiritual prayers too. Each has its own character and its own value. I say again there is a certain type of prayer which is so spontaneous and so disinterested, more like an appeal or a call, generally not for one's own sake, but acting sometimes like an intercession with the Divine on behalf of others. Such a prayer is extremely powerful. I have seen innumerable cases where such a prayer had brought about its immediate fulfilment. It means a great faith, a great fervour, a great sincerity and also a great simplicity of heart, something which does not calculate, which does not bargain or barter, does not give with the idea of receiving. The majority of prayers are precisely made with the idea of giving so that one may receive. But I was speaking of the rarer variety which also does exist, which is a kind of thanksgiving, a canticle or a hymn.
To sum up then it can be said that a prayer is always formed of words. Words have different values, according to the state of consciousness of the person when he formulates it. But always prayer is a formulated thing. But one can aspire without formulating. And then, prayer needs a person to whom one prays. There is, of course, a certain class of people whose conception of the universe is such that there is no room in it for the Divine (the famous French scientist Laplace, for example). Such people are not likely to favour the existence of any being superior to themselves to whom they can appeal or look up for guidance and help. There is no question of prayer for them. But even they, though they may not pray, may aspire. They may not believe in God, but they may believe, for example, in progress. They may conceive of the world as a progressive movement, that it is becoming better and better, rising higher and higher, growing constantly to a nobler fulfilment. They can ask for, will for, aspire for such progress; they need not look for the Divine. Aspiration requires faith, certainly, but not faith necessarily in a personal God. But prayer is always addressed to a person, a person who hears and grants it. There lies the great difference between the two. Intellectual people admit aspiration, but prayer they consider as something inferior, fit for unintellectual persons. The mystics say, aspiration is quite all right, but if your aspiration is to be heard and fulfilled, you must also pray, know how to pray and to whomwho else but the Divine? The aspiration need not be towards any person; the aspiration is not for a person, but for a state of consciousness, a knowledge, a realisation. Prayer adds to it the relation to a person. Prayer is a personal thing addressed to a person for a thing which he alone can grant.
07.29 - How to Feel that we Belong to the Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To have such an experience, you must first have the will for it; you must will and aspire, try to be less and less an egoist, to have less and less the feeling of being a particular person. You must have then within you this flame, this ardent yearning, this need of union. It is a kind of luminous enthusiasm that possesses you, an irresistible necessity of your being to dissolve in the divine and not to be separate. True, it is a state that does not last longin the beginningyou have the contrary experience immediately after. But if you continue, persist in your will and aspiration, the other state will come again. The two alternate for a time till the complete fusion is achieved. Finally there is no longer the distinction of your personal being and the Divine Being, the two are one. There is no more the state of yearning towards an ecstatic sense of submission in which the two are still separate. The state of fusion and mingling, of complete identity is extremely simple and supremely spontaneous. I heard once from an Indian Sufi at Paris of this state of consciousness. They too know of it.
Is that then the final stage, no more progress after that?
07.40 - Service Human and Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To wish to serve humanity, to do good to it shows ambition and egoism? How?
Why do you wish to serve humanity? What is your purpose? What is your motive? Do you know in what consists the good of humanity? And do you know better than humanity itself what is good for it? Or do you know it better than the Divine? You say the Divine is everywhere, so if you serve humanity, it is the Divine whom you serve. Well, if the Divine is everywhere, he is in you too; so the best and the most logical thing should be to begin by serving yourself.
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I do not think that the spirit of charity has in any way improved human conditions. I do not see that men have become either more or less subject to disease and indigence than before. Charity was always there and misery has coexisted with it ever. I do not think the ratio between the two has diminished in any way. You remember the ironical but pertinent remark of someone who said in view of science's attempts to cure and remove misery: Poor philanthropists would be in a sad plight, their occupation will go! The true reason why one wishes to do charity is elsewhere, it is to please oneself, it is for self-satisfaction. It amuses you to do the thing: it gives you the sense that you are doing something, that you are a valuable member of humanity, not like the others, that you are somebody. What else all that is except that you are vain, full of self-importance, full of yourself? That is what I meant when I said that it is ambition or egoism that makes you humanitarian. Of course, if it pleases you to do the work, if you feel happy in doing it, you are at perfect liberty to do the work and continue. But do not imagine that you are doing any real or effective service to humanity; particularly do not imagine that by that you are serving God, leading a spiritual life or doing Yoga.
Just an illustration of the quality of the spirit that animates humanitarianism. A charitable man will give generously for a thing that is known, recognised, appreciated; he will be liberal if he finds his name attached to the work, announced and pronounced, if there is fame for him in it. But ask him a dole for something genuine, comparatively modest or out of the way, something that is truly spiritual and divine, you will find his purse-strings tightened, his heart closed up. A gift that bears no value to the giver does not tempt the ordinary humanitarian. There is indeed another different cat egory of givers, of the opposite kind, who want precisely to remain anonymous: they would be displeased if their names were announced. But the motive here too is not very different; in fact it is the same motive acting rebours, backward as it were. Here there is an additional element of self-glorification: one gives and people do not know who he is; it is something all the more to be proud of.
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It is this self-discovery that will give you the basic knowledge, the foundation of your life, the discovery that your self as yourself does not exist, you are indeed nothing. This sense of nothingness must pervade your being, fill all the elements of your being before the truth can dawn upon you and the Divine Presence can be felt. And what you have been doing all along is the very contrary thing, asserting your egoism, your vanitypretending that you were somebody, you could do something, that the world needed your help and you could give that help. Nothing of the kind. When you discover this truth and accept it, when you are humbled and in true humility you approach life and reality, you will find your real career and vocation.
In a deeper sense it is indeed by serving yourself that you serve others best. When you discover a dark spot in you, a grain of egoism, ambition, selfishness, when you do not yield to its impulsion but surmount it, when you thus conquer in yourself a movement that leads you astray, in the same gesture you make the conquest for the sake of others too, you create the same possibility in others. There can be nothing more dynamic than this setting of personal example. It is not that others observe you and imitate you; the influence is more subtle and more powerful. You create the opportunity, make an opening, bring into active play the force of your realisation, even without the knowledge of others; the others are only benefited by the invisible help that is lent to them. But you must be on your guard here too. You must not say, 1 will help others, so let me improve myself. There should not be any such spirit of barter or bargain. Confine yourself to your own business; how others are affected or not affected is not your concern. If you entertain that kind of idea, you invite the same vanity and egoism, by the back door. Yours should be like the blooming of a flower; it blooms out of its own joy and delight of self-fulfilment; in the process, by its very existence it spreads its perfume all around, fills the surroundings with its glad vibration, but that simply happens, it does not do all that purposely or intentionally. Even so the soul that perfects himself: the victory he wins for himself is contagious and extends automatically.
I have said your ego is an illusion. Your I does not exist at all. There is nothing like separate, distinct individualities and individual fulfilment. The Divine alone exists and the Divine's Will. He is the single and unique and all-embracing reality. What then is the source of this variety and diversity of existence? What is the significance, if any, of the many individualities and personalities, their appearance and play on the world-stage?
That is another story. I leave it for a future occasion.
08.01 - Choosing To Do Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not for a personal and egoistic aim that you seek perfection, it is for the sake of manifesting the Divine, it is to put all at the service of the Divine. You do not do Yoga with the intention of perfecting yourself personally, for your own sake, but for the divine work that has to be done, for the fulfilment of the Divine Will.
So long as a personal aspiration is there, a personal desire, an egoistic will, it is a mixture, it is not the exact expression of the Divine Will. The only thing that counts is the Divine, His Will, His manifestation, His expression. You are for that, you are that, and nothing else. If there happens to be a feeling of I, of ego, of the individual person, it means that you are not yet what you ought to be. I do not say that the thing can be done forthwith, but that this is the truth of the matter.
For, on this level, on the spiritual level, too many people,in fact, the majority of those who take up the spiritual lifedo Yoga for personal reasons, all kinds of personal reasons : some because they are disgusted with life, others because they are unhappy, some others because they wish to have more knowledge, others again because they want to be spiritually great, yet others because they want to learn things so that they may teach them to others, and so On, there are a thousand personal reasons for doing the Yoga. But there are not many for doing the simple act of giving oneself to the Divinethis act in all its purity and consistencyso that the Divine may take one up and do with One what He wants. With that you go straight to your goal and never run the risk of making a mistake. But all the other motives are mixed up, tainted with ego and they can lead, you hither and thither and far away from the goal.
This feeling that there is for you only one reason for existence, one single motive, the total complete perfect consecration to the Divine, to such a degree that you are unable to distinguish between yourself and the Divine, you become the Divine wholly, absolutely, without any personal reaction whatsoever intervening: this is the ideal attitude. And that is the only one with which you can progress safely in life, protected from everything, protected even from yourself for of all dangers the greatest is that which comes from one's own self, one's egoistic self.
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08.02 - Order and Discipline, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You must become conscious of yourself, conscious in every detail. You must organise what you call yourself around the psychic centre, the divine centre of your being so that you can possess a single, cohesive, fully conscious being: as this centre is wholly consecrated to the Divine, if all the elements are organised harmoniously around it, they too get consecrated to the Divine. Thus, when the Divine wills it, when the time comes, when the work of individualisation is complete, then the Divine permits you to let your ego melt in Him, so that you may exist for the Divine alone. But it is the Divine that takes the decision. You should have done the whole preliminary work first, become a conscious being, solely and exclusively centred around the Divine and governed by Him. When your ego has served its purpose in forming a complete individual out of you, when that work has been perfectly, fully achieved, then you can say to the Divine, "Here, I am ready now; do you want me?" The Divine generally says, "Yes". Then everything is worked out, everything accomplished. You become a true instrument for the Divine's work. But the instrument must be built up first.
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.
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Anyway the result is the same. That is to say, confusion. There are children who, when they undress, throw their clothing right and left or, when they have done their task, do not know where they put their books and paper, pencil, or ink pot; it takes a lot of trouble to find them again or bring them together. In reality, all this shows an undisciplined nature, a character that is not methodical; it shows that not only in the outside but internally too the person is disorderly. There are people, perhaps considering themselves big, who even have a contempt for physical objects. But Sri Aurobindo says, people who cannot take care of things do not deserve to have them, have no right to ask for them. As I say, it shows a kind of acute egoism, much inner confusion.
There are people who live in rooms apparently clean and tidy. But open a cupboard, pull out a drawer, you will find there a battlefield: all is mixed up. They have a head too that is very much like thata poor small head where ideas are in the same condition as the objects outside in the cupboard. They have not organised them, put them in order. You may take it as an absolute rule. I have never seen a man who keeps things in a disorder and yet possesses a logical brain. In him ideas like the objects are thrown together pell-mell, the most dissimilar and contradictory ideas form a jumble, they are not organised, harmonised into a higher synthesis.
08.03 - Organise Your Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Moral notions have nothing to do with the growth of the inner being. I regret to say it, but the two are ill-assorted mates and go opposite ways. You may fall totally sick by doing a very unselfish act, on the other hand you may continue to be hale and hearty while doing the most egoistic acts.
There is a great difference between a moral consciousness and a consciousness that is the expression of truth. I tell you again it is infinitely more difficult to have a consciousness expressing the truth than to have a moral consciousness. For any blockhead who knows social rules and follows them has a moral consciousness, but to have a consciousness of the truth, one must not be a blockhead, that is the first condition.
08.10 - Are Not Dogs More Faithful Than Men?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yes, for it is their nature to be faithful and they have not man's mental complications. What prevents men from becoming faithful is the complexes of their mind. Most men are not faithful because they are afraid of being dupes, afraid of being cheated, exploited. Also behind the faithfulness they have there is always a large dose of egoism hidden, there is a bargaining more or less conscious, a give and take: 'I am faithful to you. You too must be faithful to me, in other words, you must be nice to me, must not exploit me etc. Dogs do not have these complexities, for they have a very rudimentary mind. They have not this marvellous capacity of reasoning which drives man to commit such follies. But, of course, we cannot go back to the dog state. What we have to do is to rise higher, to become a superman, to have the dog's quality on a higher level, if I am allowed to say so, i.e. instead of being faithful instinctively, blindly, half-consciously, through a kind of binding need, it must be a conscious, willing, deliberate faithfulness, above all, free from egoism. There is a point where all the virtues meet: it is the point that is beyond egoism. If we take faithfulness or devotion or love or the will to serve,all these when they are above the level of egoism are similar to one another in the sense that they give themselves and ask no return. And if you get up a step higher, you see they are done not through the sense of duty or abnegation but out of an intense joy that carries its own reward, which needs nothing in exchange, for it is joy itself. But for that you should have risen very high where there is no longer any turn-back on oneself, these movements that draw you down that kind of sympathy for oneself, the self-pity that one feels for oneself and says "Poor me I" This is a most degrading sentiment and it pulls you immediately into a dark hole.
You must leave that far behind if you will have the joy of faithfulness, the joy of self-giving, that does not notice at all whether it is properly received or not, whether there is a response or not. Never to wait for a return in exchange for what one does, wait for nothing, not through asceticism or the sense of sacrifice, but because of the joy of being in that consciousness: that is sufficient, that is much more that what one can receive from anything outside.
08.16 - Perfection and Progress, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In any case, that is what I mean by sincerity. That is to say, if you regard the new realisation as the only thing truly worth living for, if what is is intolerable, not only for oneself, perhaps not so much for oneself as for the whole world, one feels the need of it if one is not small and egoistic; one feels that the present has lasted too long and one can do nothing but take up all that one is, all that one can do and hurl oneself completelyhead foremost, without looking backward, without considering what may happen or notinto the adventure. It is far better to jump into the abyss, than to stand on the brink shivering.
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08.17 - Psychological Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Next in the series comes Devotion. Certainly, devotion is very good; but here too, unless it is accompanied with many other things, it can lead you into much error. For with devotion one keeps one's ego also. Out of devotion you may behave most egoistically. You think of your devotion, only of your devotion, that is to say, you think of yourself alone, you do not think of others, of the world, of the work that you do and ought to doyou become formidably egoistic. And when you see that the Divine, for some reason or other, does not respond to your devotion with an enthusiasm you expect of him, you despair and fall into one or all of the three difficulties I spoke of just now. Either the Divine must be cruelwe know of devotees who throw all their anger upon the Divine, accusing him of neglect and cruelty; or then they think, "I must have made a grave, blunder, I am hopeless in his eyes and I am rejected."
Now, there is a movement which one can have and constantly along with devotion, as complementary to ita sense of gratitude, that the Divine exists and one feels a kind of gratefulness, born of wonder, which fills you truly with a sublime joy; the very fact that the Divine exists, that there is something in the universe which is the Divine, that it is not merely a monstrosity that we see here below, brings a flow of unspeakable gladness in you. Every time the least thing puts you in contact with this sublime reality of the Divine's existence, whether directly or indirectly, your heart is filled with a feeling so intense, so marvellous, the feeling precisely of a profound gratitude which has of all things the sweetest savour, that no other joy can bring. So I say devotion by itself is incomplete, it must have gratitude as its companion.
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.
08.26 - Faith and Progress, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You must be sincere in your aspiration, you need not even know that you are aspiring: you should become the aspiration. When you can do that, you feel an extraordinary strength. One minute of such an experience prepares you for years of progress. When you are no longer a person, an ego that is always looking at itself, when you are the very action you doespecially in the act of aspirationwell, I say nothing can be better than that. When it is not a person that aspires, when the aspiration shoots up in a concentrated momentum, one can go very far. Otherwise there is a mixture of vanity, self-sufficiency, even self-pity, all kinds of petty movements which spoil the affair.
What are the conditions for a descent of faith?
08.27 - Value of Religious Exercises, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I have been to holy places. I have seen monuments considered as very highly religious, in France, in Japan and elsewhere; they were not always the same kind of temples or churches nor were they the same gods but the impression they left on me, my experiences of them were everywhere almost the same, with but slight differences. There is usually a force concentrated at the place, but its character depends entirely upon the faith of the faithful; also there is a difference between the force as it really exists and the form in which it appears to the faithful. For instance, in a most famous and most beautiful place of worship which was, from the standpoint of art, the most magnificent creation one could imagine, I saw within its holy of holies a huge black Spider that had spread its net all around, caught within it and absorbed all the energies emanating from the devotion of the people, their prayers and all that. It was not a very pleasant spectacle. But the people who were there and prayed felt the divine contact, they received all kinds of benefit from their prayers. And yet the truth of the matter was what I saw. The people had the faith and their faith changed what was bad into something that was good to them. Now if I had gone and told them: 'you think it is God you are praying to! it is only a formidable vital Spider that is sucking your force,' surely it would not have been very charitable on my part. But everywhere it is almost the same thing. There is a vital Force presiding. And vital beings feed upon the vibrations of human emotion. Very few are they, a microscopic number, who go to the temples and churches and holy places with the true religious feeling, that is to say, not to pray or beg something of God, but to offer themselves, to express gratitude, to aspire, to surrender. One in a million would be too many. These when they are there, get some touch of the Divine just for the moment. But all others go only out of superstition, egoism, self-interest and create the atmosphere as it is found and it is that that you usually brea the in when you go to a holy place; only as you go there with a good feeling, you say to yourself "what a peace-giving spot!"
I am sorry to say it. But it is like that. I tell you I have purposely made the experiment to some extent everywhere. Perhaps I came across at times in far-away small cornerslike a small village church, for exampleplaces where there was real peace and quiet and some true aspiration. Barring that, everywhere it is but a web of adverse vital forces that use everything for their food. The bigger the congregation, the more portentous the vital deity. Besides, in the invisible world it is only the vital beings that like to be worshipped. For, as I have said, that pleases them, gives them importance. They are puffed up with pride and are happy; when they can have a troop of people adoring them, they reach the very height of satisfaction.
08.28 - Prayer and Aspiration, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What you do has an inevitable and absolute consequence. This is a necessary concept at a given moment of the evolutionary process. It is meant to prevent men from becoming completely egoistic or doing what they do in a totally unconscious manner. There are many who are like that, the majority, I suppose; they follow their impulses and do not ask what consequences their actions will have for themselves and for others. It is good then if someone told them with a severe air: "Take care, that has consequences which, last long, very long." There are religions that rose to warn you: "You will pay for that in another life," "If you commit this sin, you will go into hell for eternity" and so on. That is, however, a most fantastic story that man has invented; still, people are frightened and checked in some way. It spares them a moment for reflection before they run after their impulses, not always, sometimes the reflection comes after, a little late.
In all religions people who declared that the consequences of Karma are rigorous and who gave these absolute rules, must have done so, I believe, to put themselves in place of Nature, to pull the strings that move ordinary men. For these rules are mental constructions, more or less sincere perhaps, cutting things into bits and telling you: "Do this, do that; it is not this, it is that." People are confused, frightened, they do not know what to do at the end.
08.34 - To Melt into the Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
How to melt into the Divine? That is to say, how to get dissolved in the Divine, lose one's ego?
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.
You have to go a long way before you can think of merging your ego, your self in the Divine. First of all, you cannot merge your ego or your self until you are a completely individualised being. And do you know what does that mean'to be completely individualised'? It means one capable of resisting all external influences. The other day I received a letter from someone who says that he hesitates to read books; for he has a very strong tendency to identify himself with what he reads; if he reads a novel or a drama he becomes the character pictured and is possessed by the feelings and thoughts and movements of the character. There are many like that. If they read something, while they read they are completely moved by the ideas and impulsions and even ideals they read about and are totally absorbed in them and become them, without their knowing it even. That is because ninety-nine per cent of their nature is made of butter as it were: if you press your finger it leaves a mark. That is the ordinary man's character. One takes in, as one comes across it, a thought experienced by another, a phrase read in a book, a thing observed or an incident the eyes fall upon, a will or wish of a neighbour, all that enters pell-mell intermixed enters and goes out, others come inlike electric currents. And one does not notice it. There is a conflict, a clash among these various movements, each trying to get the upper hand. Thus the person is tossed to and fro like a piece of cork upon the waves in the sea.
Instead of this unformed and unconscious mass, one has to become conscious, cohesive, individualised, that which exists by itself and in itself, independently of its surroundings, that which can hear, read, see anything and will not change because of that. It receives from outside only what it wishes to receive. It rejects automatically what does not agree with its purpose: nothing can leave any impression upon it, unless it wishes to have the impress. It is thus that one begins to be individualised. And when one is an individual, then only can one make a gift of it, for unless you possess a thing you cannot give it; when you have nothing or are nothing you can give nothing. So in order that the separate ego may disappear, one must be able to give oneself wholly, totally without restrictions. And to be able to give, one must exist and to exist one must be an individual. If your body were not rigid as it is the body is indeed terribly rigidif it were not something quite fixed and if you had not this solid skin around the skeleton, if you were the exact expression of what you are vitally and mentally, it would be worse than the gelatinous jelly fish. All would enter and melt into one another, what a chaos and confusion would it be! That is why a rigid form is given at the outset. And you complain: the physical is so fixed, it lacks plasticity, supplenessit lacks the fluidity that enables one to melt into the Divine! But it was a necessity. For if you were out of your body and entered into the regions behind the vital,you would see how things stand there: things get mixed, separated, intertwined, all kinds of vibrations, currents, forces that come and go, struggle and fight, seize each other, absorb each other, repulse each other! Very difficult to find a personality in all that. It is only forces, movements, impulsions, desires. Not that there are not individualities and personalities there too! But they are Powers. They who have individualised themselves in such a world are either heroes or demons!
And then in the mind, if you become conscious only of the physical mind, apart from what belongs to the brain, independent of the head, you will see that it is really a market place, as it has been called: everything enters here, all kinds of ideas and notions cross and recross and move about, jostle one another, knock against each otherthere are even accidents sometimes. There you can search, but search in vain to find where your own mind lies.
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I do not mean to confront you with complicated movements. What I say is this that if you speak of melting into the Divine or uniting with the Divine, you must first of all know what you are. You are apparently the ego. It is there. The ego is meant to make you conscious, an independent, individualised being that is to say, you must not be a market place where all kinds of movements mingle and jostle; you must be able to exist in yourself. The ego is for that and that is why you have a skin, to form a closed circle (allowing, of course, things to infiltrate through its pores, so to say, but it must be at your will and bidding).
You must form yourself, you must be conscious of yourselfnot in a general way but in every detail. Every detail of what you call yourself must be organised around one centre, your true self, the divine being in you, so that the whole may be a cohesive organised entity. When thus wholly conscious, harmoniously organised around the divine centre, then it can be wholly consecrated, united with the Divine: then the time comes, the Divine permits the true union to be made. When the individualisation is complete then He lets you merge your ego into the Divine, you live and exist for the Divine alone.
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08.35 - Love Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Divine Love is there in its full intensity, as a tremendous force. But most people, ninety-nine out of a hundred, feel nothing at all. What they feel is exactly in proportion to what they are, what they can receive and hold. Indeed, you are always bathed in an atmosphere vibrant with Divine Love. Sometimes, on rare occasions, for a few seconds perhaps, there is all on a sudden just the impression of something, and you say: "there, the Divine Love came to me!" Well, it is a way of saying: the true fact being that for some reason or other you happened to be just a little open and you had the perception of the thing that is always with you. The Love is there, the divine consciousness, too, is there in the same way. They are one, after all. They are there all the while; only you do not feel it or do so only spasmodically. Once in a way you find yourself, without any rhyme or reason as it were, in that happy state and you declare that the Divine Love has at last turned towards you! But, as I say, the matter is not like that. There came about an opening in you, perhaps no more than a pinpoint, and that was sufficient for the thing to rush in; for the atmosphere is surcharged with it and wherever there is a possibility of its being received, it is received. The same is true of all things divine. They are there: you do not receive or perceive them, because you are closed, shut off, blocked up. You are occupied, most of the time with other things. You are full of yourself, packed with it, and there is no room for anything else. You are not merely passively filled with yourself, but very actively, you are furiously busy with yourself. How can you notice then the marvellous things that are about you, around you? You get a glimpse unawares, perhaps when you are asleep; but it fades away soon. Man's ego is a formidable thing; the whole universe, to him, is a mere function of the ego. You are the centre and the entire creation revolves around you. Such is your vision of the universe. You do not see it as it is; you see only yourself when you look at it.
To begin, then, you must be able to come out of your ego. You will have to enter, as the first step, into something like a state of inexistence. Thereafter only will you begin to see things as they are, that is to say, from a height. If you want to see things as they truly are, you must become absolutely like a mirrorsilent, peaceful, immobile, impartial, with no preference, in a state of total receptivity. You will begin to see many things that did not seem to be there before, but only now becoming active. Well, you may very well have gone inside one of these things instead of being shut up into a minute spot in the infinite universe, which you call yourself. There are many ways by which you can come out of yourself. Anyhow that is the one thing to be done, if you wish to see the world as it is, not as it seems to be, a function of yourself.
Now to come out of the ego, you must have naturally, first of all, the will to do so. The surest way to do it is to give yourself to the Divine, not to pull the Divine towards you but to abandon yourself to Him. That is how you start forgetting yourself. Usually when people think of the Divine, the immediate impulse in them is to pull Him (or whatever they represent Him to be) towards themselves, within themselves. The result generally is that they receive nothing; and they grumble: "Oh, I called and called, I prayed and prayed, but there was no answer, I received nothing, nothing came." But before grumbling, ask yourself if you had offered yourself. You would find that instead of offering yourself you had pulled. Instead of being generous, open-handed and open-hearted, you were a miser, a beggar. When you pull you remain wholly within yourself, shut up, sealed within your ego. You raise a wall of separation between you and the thing that is around you and wants to come in, which is thus not admitted, almost deliberately refused entrance. You enclose yourself within a prison and grumble that you have nothing, feel nothing. At least if you had opened a window you would have had something of the light and air about you.
Sri Aurobindo: Elements of Yoga.
08.36 - Buddha and Shankara, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
His work does not seem to have been very constructive indeed. It was necessary to give a practical training to man not to be egoistic. In that way it proved to be useful.
But taken in its fundamental principle it has not helped much in the transformation of earth and earthly life. It has not encouraged the descent of a higher Consciousness into earthly life; instead it has very strongly encouraged the separation of the Consciousness, which he said was the only truth, from all external expression.
09.05 - The Story of Love, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All wonderful things are there around you: You do not see them, or see them occasionally only, at a moment when you are a little more receptive, or perhaps in sleep, when you are less exclusively occupied with your petty affairs. Then a light comes to you of something; you see, you feel something. But generally, as soon as you wake up, all that is obliterated by the formidable ego that is full of itself.
If you look at yourself closely you will see that it is always like that. Your vision of the universe is this: that you are at the centre and the universe is around you. It is not the universe that you see but you see yourself in the universe. So there is no room for any other thing.
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Generally, when people think of the Divine, the first thing they do is to pull as much as they can and they receive nothing. They tell you: "Oh, I have called, I have prayed and I have had no answer". If they are asked: "Have you offered yourself?", they reply: "No, I have pulled." "But that is why you have not received." It is not that the answer did not come. But when you pull, you are so much shut up within your ego that you raise a wall between what is to be received and yourself. You confine yourself within a prison and yet you are astonished that in your prison you feel nothing.
Throw yourself out of yourself. Give yourself without holding back anything, simply for the joy of the self-giving. Then there is a chance of your feeling something.
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Therefore the best means is, when love comes in any form whatsoever, to try to pierce through its external appearance, to find out the divine principle that is behind and that is the cause of its existence. Naturally it is full of snares and difficulties, but it is the most effective. In other words, instead of ceasing to love, because you love in the wrong way, you must cease to love in the wrong way and try to love in the right way. For example, the love between human creatures, in all its forms, the love of the parents for their children, of the children for their parents, the love between brothers, between lovers, all are tainted with ignorance and egoism and every other fault that is the common human fault. So, instead of ceasing altogether to love, which is besides very difficult, as it will simply dry up the heart and therefore serve no purpose, you must learn to love with devotion and self-giving and self-abnegation, you are to fight not against love itself but against its deformities. All forms of appropriation, the sense of possession, jealousy, all other feelings that accompany and support these root feelings are to be rejected. Instead you must not seek to possess, dominate, impose your will or caprice or desire, must not be eager to take and receive, but to give. Do not demand a return from the other, but be satisfied with your own love; do not seek your interest, your personal pleasure, the fulfilment of your own desire but rest content with your love and affection, do not ask for a response, but remain happy with loving only, nothing more.
If you have done that, you have taken a big step, and then through that attitude, little by little you may progress more into the feeling itself, and you will find one day that love is not a personal thing, love is a divine universal feeling that manifests through you as well as it can, but it is in its essence a divine thing.
The first step then is to cease to be egoistic. It is the same rule for all, not only for those who want to do Yoga, but even in ordinary life, if you want to love, truly, first of all you must not love yourself and particularly do not love in an egoistic way; you must give yourself to the object of your love without asking for anything in return. This is the very elementary discipline, if you are to transcend yourself, and live a life that is not wholly commonplace.
In Yoga, you add something more. It is, as I have said, the will to pierce through this limited and human form of love and discover the principle of Divine Love that is there behind; it is there then that you are sure to arrive at a result. That is better than drying up one's heart. It is more difficult perhaps, but it is always better because, by so doing, you do not make others suffer egoistically, you leave others to their own movements, you concern yourself with your own transformation, without imposing your will upon others and that, even in ordinary life, is a step towards something that is a little higher and more harmonious.
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09.13 - On Teachers and Teaching, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
They who are successful here as teachers,I do not mean an external, artificial and superficial success,they who become truly good teachers, are exactly those who are capable of making an inner progress towards impersonalisation, capable of eliminating their egoism, becoming masters of their movements, possessing insight, comprehension of others and a patience, proof against all test and trial.
If you have passed through that discipline and succeeded, then you will not have wasted your time here. I ask everyone who accepts the work of giving lessons to accept it in that spirit. It is all very nice to be obliging, to give service, to be useful; it is a very good thing, certainly. But it is only one side, perhaps the most unimportant side of the question. The much greater, more important side is this, that you have been given the Grace so that you may arrive at mastering yourself, at an understanding of your subject and of other persons which you could not have done but for this opportunity. And if you have not profited during all these years that you have been teaching, well, it means you have wasted at least half of your time.
09.17 - Health in the Ashram, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I wonder at their ignorance. Perhaps I should not wonder; human nature is like that. These people do not know or see or feel in the least that they are here in the best of conditions for cure, nowhere else in the world would they get anything like the opportunity or the help that is here. Naturally, if one is to be here and derive the full benefit of his stay, one has to fulfil certain conditions or rather one condition. That one condition is to give up the ego, not to live the life of the ego, but to live the life of the soul, to dedicate oneself to the Divine. So it is evident that if this condition is not fulfilled, that is to say, being here you continue to live the life of your old self, your ego, if you refuse to change, naturally you do not get the benefit of the help that is given here. And when you refuse to go forward, not only do you halt where you are, you go backward. That is the meaning of one's health getting worse. Of course if you ask my permission to go away, you have it. The Grace is every where for all to the extent they can receive and allow it to come to them. But that is not what things would be if you were here and agreed to attempt to fulfil the conditions of the life here.
To be able to stay here one must have faith. But people's faith depends upon what the ego desires and seeks. "I believe in the Divine provided I find Him doing or arranging things as I would like them to be. If things happen contrary to my notions and wishes, then I believe no more in the Divine." That is their attitude.
Now it is precisely this ego-view that vitiates one's approach to life and existence. In the true and the most ancient tradition of spirituality, the world was never looked upon as Maya or illusion, it was the ego that was considered as an illusion and the generator of illusions. It is the ego and ego's view that puts us in a wrong relation with the world and the consequences are all the falsehoods and miseries. Be egoless, do not contaminate your perception or your movement with the ego's touch, you will see the world changed and transformed.
If you had faith, if you had less of the egoistic demands and shrinkings, you would see how beautifully Nature collaborates with you.
The greatest thing that can ever be, the most marvellous thing since the beginning of creation, the miracle has happened. And that is the only thing that concerns us most intimately and the only thing we should be concerned with. A new world, yes a completely new world, is born and is here. Nothing can be more momentous. And yet, do you know, feel or perceive it? Unless things give a physical knock upon your nose, you do not believe in its reality. And yet it is there. You are blind and without sense because you are ego-bound. It is your I, My and Mine that has woven around you a web, a screen.
II
10.02 - The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Two egos straining in a single leash,
Two minds divided by their jarring thoughts,
1.002 - The Heifer, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
54. And recall that Moses said to his people, “O my people, you have done wrong to yourselves by worshiping the calf. So repent to your Maker, and kill your egos. That would be better for you with your Maker.” So He turned to you in repentance. He is the Accepter of Repentance, the Merciful.
55. And recall that you said, “O Moses, we will not believe in you unless we see God plainly.” Thereupon the thunderbolt struck you, as you looked on.
10.03 - Life in and Through Death, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The injunction is: you must die to the world if you want the life Eternal. Even so you must die to yourself if you want the Divine. The existing life which your ego has built up is a life of ignorance, misery and decadence. Death is indeed the natural and inevitable consequence; but this is a death in ignorance and bondage, it does not lead you to liberation and freedom. The dying that liberates is a conscious, deliberate movement of intelligence and will; dying to the world means withdrawing yourself from the world and turning within. Dying to yourself means withdrawing from your egohood and turning to the self, the being that is beyond. This withdrawal is to be done constantly and consistently in all the parts of the being. The mind is to move away from its thoughts, the vital from its desires and impulses and the body from its hunger and thirst. The first result of this withdrawal is a division of the being, an inner passive part and an outer active part. The inner part becomes gradually a mere witness and the outer part a mere mechanical functioning. When the withdrawal is so complete that the outer being or the world has no effect upon the inner, does not raise any ripple in it by its touch or contiguity then is accomplished the real death. Then it is said the outer existence, the material life does not continue long, it comes sooner or later to a dead stop. Thus the inner being is liberated completely and is freed into the life beyond, the Divine Existence, the Brahman. It is said that when each and every seed of the various elements that compose the being, that sprouts into the luxuriant tree of material life, when each and every seed is burnt up by the heat of mounting 'tapas', the force of aspiring consciousness, then there is no more chance or possibility of an ignorant earthly life, one is then naturally born into the Life of the Eternal. That is the final, the supreme death which is laya or pralaya.
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.
10.07 - The World is One, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The disturbing factor in the universal sway of unity is the sense of individualisation, the sense of ego. That is the dark ray that cuts across the radiant harmony and produces the apparent discordance and disunion with all its attendant and consequent evil and bale.
The sense of separated and isolated existence, the feeling of a closed system that one assumes in opposition to others is the Maya of which the Vedanta speaks. It is real so long as it is taken to be real. But it possesses no inherent or absolute reality. A re-orientation or a remodelling of the individual self is the way towards re-establishing in the forefront, the background unity. egoism, as it happens to be now, is the broken-up and scattered unity. Polarisation means precisely re-ordering and re-orienting the dispersal movement of ignorance and bringing into a new purposeful existence the unity that already exists.
Laser: Light amplifications due to the stimulated emission of Radiation.
1.008 - The Principle of Self-Affirmation, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
This is the argument of the central principle of individuality called the ego, or the asmita or ahamkara. The protection of this ego is the main function of our psychophysical individuality. Its existence and its operation have two sides or aspects of emphasis a like for certain things, and a dislike for certain other things. We may be wondering why it is that we like certain things and dislike certain things. Is there any reason behind it? The reason is not easily available, though it is available if we go a little deeper. A like, a want, a love or an affection is that pattern of the movement of our consciousness towards an external object, whose characteristics are observed by the mind for the time being to be the counterpart, the correlative of the present condition of one's individuality so much so that when the condition of our personality changes, our like or love will also change. We cannot go on loving the same thing for eternity, nor can we hate a thing for eternity.
Loves and hatreds change when our condition changes, so that likes and dislikes, loves and hatreds are the reactions set up in respect of certain external objects by the changing pattern of our own personality or individuality. If it is summer, I like to drink water; if it is winter, I like to drink hot tea. My liking for hot tea or for cold water has some connection with what is taking place inside me in my biological and psychological personality. When there is drying up of the system due to heat, there is a need for water I would like to drink cold water. But when it is freezing cold due to the wintry atmosphere, I would like to have hot tea. So our like of hot tea and dislike of cold water in winter is caused by a peculiar condition of our body coupled with the condition of the mind, of course. In summer we would not like to drink hot tea. We would like a soda or cold water, etc., and dislike anything that is hot; we would not like to have hot coffee or hot tea in such climate. "Oh, it is so hot. I will take cold water." We dislike during summer that very thing which we liked in winter. What has happened to us? Why did we like it that day and today we dislike it? It is not because there is something wrong with tea or something wrong with water. They are the same things; nothing has happened to them. But something has happened to us. So today I like that which I disliked the other day, and today I dislike that which I liked the other day. What is the reason? The reason is us only. What has happened to us? Something has happened to us. If one can very carefully go into the deepest recesses of one's nature, one would know why loves and hatreds arise in one's mind. We project upon others, by a peculiar process called a defense-mechanism in psychoanalysis, the counterpart of our own nature. That which will not fit into our present condition is not liked by us. By 'present condition' I mean physical, biological, psychological, social everything. Anything that will fit into our present physical, biological, psychological and social condition is liked or loved by us. Anything that is outside the need of this condition is disliked; it becomes an obstacle. "I don't like it," we say. Why don't we like it? We do not know. "I don't like it; that is all." But if we are good physicians of the mind we will know why it is that we like it, and why it is that we do not like it.
Asmita or egoism, which is the principle of the affirmation of a particular condition of individuality, is the reason for a particular love or hatred under given conditions. This affirmation of individuality is a peculiar thing, which cannot be understood by the intellect, by ordinary logic. Whatever be the condition with which consciousness identifies itself, that is affirmed by the ego, so that the ego does not have a set pattern it goes on changing itself. "Today I assert myself as a collector; tomorrow I assert myself as a minister." Though the principle of assertion is the same, the way of its function is different. The principle, and not merely the function, has to be tackled. It is not important to know what kind of food we want. We may want chapatti, or rice, or dal, or bread, or jam, or butter; that is not important. What is important is why we are feeling hungry that is the principle behind eating. What we eat is a minor detail, but it is why we eat that is important.
Likewise, what type of assertion we are making is a different matter it is a detail. But why we are making this assertion at all is the subject for analysis in yoga. Why is it that today we identify ourself as a sannyasi "I am a mandaleshwar" and we go on asserting that we are mandaleshwars; we are officers; we are such and such; we are this and that. This principle of affirmation is a peculiar twist in consciousness that has got identified with a changing condition. Every condition changes. We cannot have a permanent condition in life, so the affirmation of the ego also goes on changing. How do we know what we were in the previous birth? We had a different type of affirmation at that time. Who was our father in a previous birth? Who was our mother? And what has happened to that father and that mother? We have completely forgotten them. We now have another father and mother. In the next birth, what will happen to us? We will have some other father and mother. How many fathers? How many mothers? How many sisters? How many brothers? How many friends? How many enemies? So, who is our friend and who is our enemy? Who is our father and who is our mother.
The ego does not want all these questions to be raised; it cannot answer these questions. It is a terrific sword that we brandish before it, to put these questions to it. It will become mad if such questions are put. It doesn't want to listen to all these things; it will affirm a particular condition only. Immediately there is a ramification with two tentacles on one side there is love and on the other side there is hatred. They are automatic manifestations of the principle of individuality. The moment we assert ourselves in a particular condition, love and hatred must be there, because love is an automatic projection of the mind in respect of the counterpart of our present condition, which also explains hatred.
Patanjali mentions that these are terrible obstacles in our spiritual progress. We are caught up and we do not know how we are caught up. First of all there is the self-affirmative principle which reinforces itself, like hard concrete, by repeated hammering upon loves and hatreds throughout the day and night; and the love of this individual life and the consequent fear of the death that may come upon it are natural consequences of this ego-ridden individuality. Therefore, we can say the whole problem of life is the ego of man. This has to be tackled with caution.
1.009 - Perception and Reality, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
In the previous chapter we were discussing a very important subject which every student of yoga should remember: how the two types of perception, about which Sage Patanjali tells us some very important aspects, tell upon not only our personal and social life, but upon our efforts towards spiritual perfection. The determinate aspects of psychological experience were touched upon briefly as consisting principally of self-affirmation or egoism, which projects itself as love and hatred. Also, we had occasion to go a little deep into the mystery of love and hatred as to why they arise at all. Generally this is the type of life that the individual lives in the world, getting identified with these psychological processes to such an extent that one cannot know that one is so involved.
The worst thing for a person would be to get involved in something and not know that it has happened, because in such a case, observation, experiment, and analysis would not be possible. There should be some sort of a possibility for objective observation by a state of mind which will act as a witness of these conditions which are to be observed. But when these conditions to be observed get identified with the witnessing consciousness itself, then observation is not possible. So, self-analysis is a very difficult process. It is a difficult process because in the self which is to be analysed, the subject and the object cannot be distinguished, and we are used to only those types and kinds of analyses where the objects of observation stand outside the subject of investigation. Self-investigation is difficult merely for this reason. One cannot know oneself, analyse oneself, study oneself, examine oneself, or treat oneself, for obvious reasons.
Why has this situation arisen? Why this vehement affirmation of the ego, this assertion of the mind in respect of a particular condition which is passing, transitory, phenomenal? The attachment of the mind to a particular condition is the principle of egoism. Why does it happen? Why does it breed the further problems of like, dislike, love of physical life, individual life, fear of death, etc.? This happens because of a background which is still deeper than this particular psychological involvement. The very belief in the reality of externals is the cause for this calamity, because the moment we have a conviction that an object of perception is real, we have to develop a real attitude towards it. The perception of the object as something real is the beginning of the trouble. The trouble then intensifies itself as a compulsive activity towards the development of an attitude towards that object. The precondition of this attitude is egoism.
To describe the series or the successive stages of this development there is, first, a perception of the object, such as a tree, for example, in front. I perceive an object in front of me such as a tree, and I am convinced that it is a real tree. The tree is really there; it is not an unreal perception. The existence of the tree is real. It is really there outside me. The 'outsideness' of the tree is also real. The tree is real, its externality to me is real and, therefore, I am now compelled to develop a real attitude towards it.
Now comes the second problem. What is this real attitude that I have to develop towards it? The force that urges this real attitude towards the object is egoism. It is the breeding ground for the impulsive power which drives the consciousness out towards that object which has been regarded as real. It is not possible to merely perceive an object and have no attitude towards it, because the very consciousness of an object is the demand of the object to be recognised in a certain manner, and this recognition is called attitude. Therefore, we now have to find out the reason for this perception of the object itself.
We are going from the lower stage to a higher stage, from the immediate experience of a concrete trouble to the causes thereof. We have a complex problem in the form of like and dislike for objects, and we want to maintain this condition of like and dislike. Therefore, there is love of life and fear of death, which, of course, requires the affirmation of the individual subject maintaining this attitude. We have now arrived at the stage where we understand that the reason behind all this psychological activity is the perception of an object as a real something, external to oneself. Why do we perceive the object? We are not deliberately, or of our own accord, perceiving the object; here also, we are forced. Ultimately we will find that everything that we do is under a compulsion. Though people parade under the notion that they are free people and they can do whatever they want, it is not so. There is no free person in this world. Everybody is a slave of an urge, a force, a compulsion that is at the back of all these psychological activities. Just as we cannot see our own back, we cannot see the existence of these forces they are behind.
1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
It would be better for you to get a copy of The Equinox of the Gods and study it. The Great Work is the uniting of opposites. It may mean the uniting of the soul with God, of the microcosm with the macrocosm, of the female with the male, of the ego with the non- ego or what not.
By "love under will" one refers to the fact that the method in every case is love, by which is meant the uniting of opposites as above stated, such as hydrogen and chlorine, sodium and oxygen, and so on. Any reaction what- ever, any phenomenon, is a phenomenon of "love", as you will understand when I come to explain to you the meaning of the word "point-event". But love has to be "under will," if it is to be properly directed. You must find your True Will, and make all your actions subservient to the one great purpose.
1.00b - DIVISION B - THE PERSONALITY RAY AND FIRE BY FRICTION, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
2. The egoic ray.
3. The monadic ray.
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b. The egoic Ray.
c. The Personality Ray.
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The egoic Ray has a similar action upon the astral permanent atom.
The Monadic Ray has a close connection with the mental unit.
The effect which they have is threefold, but is not simultaneous; they work ever, as do all things in Nature, in ordered cycles. The stimulation, for instance, that is the result of the action of the monadic Ray upon the mental unit is only felt when the aspirant treads the Path, or after he has taken the first Initiation. The action of the egoic Ray upon the astral permanent atom is felt as soon as the ego can make good connection with the physical brain; when this is so the egoic ray is beginning to affect the atom powerfully and continuously; this occurs when a man is highly evolved and is nearing the Path. This threefold force is felt in the following way:
First. It plays upon the wall of the atom as an external force and affects its rotary and vibratory action.
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The Personality Ray deals with the first four spirillae, and is the source of their stimulation. Note here the [72] correspondence to the lower quaternary and its stimulation by the ego. The egoic Ray concerns itself with the fifth spirilla and with the sixth, and is the cause of their emerging from latency and potentiality into power and activity. The Monadic Ray is the source of the stimulation of the seventh spirilla.
There is great interest attached to this subject and wide reaches of thought and vast fields for investigation open up before the earnest student. This threefold action varies in point of time and sequence according to the ray itself upon which the Monad may be found; but the subject is too vast to be handled at this time.
In looking at the matter from the standpoint of fire the idea may be grasped a little through the realisation that the latent fire of matter in the atom is brought into brilliance and usefulness by the action of the personality Ray which merges with this fire and stands in the same position to the permanent atom in the microcosm as FOHAT does on the cosmic plane. The fire is there hidden within the sphere (whether the sphere systemic or the sphere atomic) and the personality Ray in the one case, and Fohat in the other, acts as the force which brings latency into activity and potentiality into demonstrated power. This correspondence should be thought out with care and judgment. Just as Fohat has to do with active manifestation or objectivity, so the personality Ray has to do with the third, or activity aspect in the microcosm. The work of the third aspect logoic was the arranging of the matter of the system so that eventually it could be built into form through the power of the second aspect. Thus the correspondence works out. By life upon the physical plane (that life wherein the physical permanent atom has its full demonstration) the matter is arranged and separated that must eventually be built into the Temple of Solomon, the egoic body, through the agency of the egoic life, the second [73] aspect. In the quarry of the personal life are the stones prepared for the great Temple. In existence upon the physical plane and in the objective personal life is that experience gained which demonstrates as faculty in the ego. What is here suggested would richly repay our closest attention, and open up before us reaches of ideas, which should eventuate in a wiser comprehension, a sounder judgment, and a greater encouragement to action.
III. THE PERSONALITY RAY AND KARMA
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
When man begins in a small sense to co-ordinate the buddhic vehicle or, to express it otherwise, when he has developed the power to contact ever so slightly the buddhic plane, then he begins simultaneously and consciously to achieve the ability to escape from the etheric web on the physical plane. Later he escapes from its correspondence on the astral plane, and finally from the correspondence on the fourth subplane of the mental plane this time via the mental unit. This leads eventually to causal functioning, or to the ability to dwell, and to be active in, the vehicle of the ego, who is the embodiment of the love and wisdom aspect of the Monad. Note here the correspondence to that proved fact, that many can even now escape from the etheric body, and function in their [114] astral sheath, which is the personality reflection of that same second aspect.
When a man takes the fourth Initiation, he functions in the fourth plane vehicle, the buddhic, and has escaped permanently from the personality ring-pass-not, on the fourth subplane of the mental. There is naught to hold him to the three worlds. At the first Initiation he escapes from the ring-pass-not in a more temporary sense, but he has yet to escape from the three higher mental levels, which are the mental correspondences to the higher ethers, and to develop full consciousness on these three higher subplanes. We have here a correspondence to the work to be done by the initiate after he has achieved the fourth solar plane, the buddhic. There yet remains the development of full consciousness on the three higher planes of spirit before he can escape from the solar ring-pass-not, which is achieved at the seventh Initiation, taken somewhere in the system, or in its cosmic correspondence reached by the cosmic sutratma, or cosmic thread of life [liii]51
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The fourth subplane of the monadic plane is in a very real sense the place of transition from off the egoic ray (whichever that ray may be) on to the monadic ray; these three major rays are organised on the three higher subplanes of the monadic plane in the same way that the three abstract subplanes of the mental are the group of transference from off the personality ray on to the egoic.
The four lesser rays blend with the third major ray of active intelligence on the mental plane and on the atmic plane. The four Logoi or planetary Spirits work as one, on the atmic plane.
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On the fourth subplane of the mental plane, man begins to control his causal or egoic body, and to polarise his consciousness therein until the polarisation is complete. He functions then consciously on it when he has mastered the correspondences to the ethers on the mental plane.
On the buddhic plane (the fourth cosmic ether) the Heavenly Men (or the grouped consciousness of the human and deva Monads) begin to function, and to escape eventually from the cosmic etheric planes. When these three cosmic ethers are mastered, the functioning is perfected, polarisation is centred in the monadic vehicles, and the seven Heavenly Men have achieved Their goal.
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It produces a quickening of the normal vibration of the physical body so that it responds with more readiness to the higher note of the ego, and causes a steady rising of the blending fires through the threefold channel in the spinal column. In the second stage this vitalising blended fire reaches a centre between the lower part of the shoulder blades, which is the point of conjunction, and of complete merging, of the fire from the base of the [124] spine and the fire circulating along the pranic triangle. It will be remembered how one point of this triangle originates there. When the threefold basic fire and the threefold pranic fire meet and merge, then evolution proceeds with greatly increased velocity. This is effected definitely at the first Initiation when the polarisation becomes fixed in one or other of the three higher centres,which centre being dependent upon a man's ray.
The result of this merging leads to a change in the action of the centres. They become "wheels turning upon themselves," and from a purely rotary movement become fourth dimensional in action, and manifest as radiant whirling centres of living fire.
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As the fire of kundalini and prana proceed with their work, and the channel becomes more and more cleared, the centres more active, and the body purer, the flame [125] of spirit, or the fire from the ego, comes more actively downwards till a flame of real brilliance issues from the top of the head. This flame surges upwards through the bodies towards its source, the causal body.
Simultaneously with the activity of these fires of matter and of Spirit, the fires of mind, or manas, burn with greater intensity. These are the fires given at individualisation. They are fed continuously by the fire of matter, and their heat is augmented by solar emanatory fire, which originates on the cosmic levels of mind. It is this aspect of the manasic fire that develops under the forms of instinct, animal memory, and functional recollection which are so apparent in the little evolved man. As time progresses the fire of mind burns more brightly and thus reaches a point where it begins to burn through the etheric web that portion of the web that can be found guarding the centre at the very top of the head, and admitting entrance to the downflow from the Spirit. By its means certain things are brought about:
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Second. The etheric double of a man, a planetary Logos, and a solar Logos, being shattered, becomes non-polarised as regards its indweller, and permits therefore of escape. It is (to word it otherwise) no longer a source of attraction, nor a focal magnetic point. It becomes non-magnetic, and the great Law of Attraction ceases to [131] control it; hence disintegration is the ensuing condition of the form. The ego ceases to be attracted by its form on the physical plane, and, proceeding to inbrea the, withdraws its life from out of the sheath. The cycle draws to a close, the experiment has been made, the objective (a relative one from life to life and from incarnation to incarnation) has been achieved, and there remains nothing more to desire; the ego, or the thinking entity, loses interest therefore in the form, and turns his attention inward. His polarisation changes, and the physical is eventually dropped.
The planetary Logos likewise in His greater cycle (the synthesis or the aggregate of the tiny cycles of the cells of His body) pursues the same course; He ceases to be attracted downward or outward, and turns His gaze within; He gathers inward the aggregate of the smaller lives within His body, the planet, and severs connection. Outer attraction ceases and all gravitates towards the centre instead of scattering to the periphery of His body.
1.00d - DIVISION D - KUNDALINI AND THE SPINE, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The merging of the fires of matter and the fires of mind results in the energising of the sumtotal of the atoms of the matter of the body. This is the secret of the immense staying power of the great thinkers and workers of the race. It results also in a tremendous stimulation of the three higher centres in the body, the head, the heart, the throat and in the electrification of this area of the body. These higher centres then form a field of attraction for the downflow of the third fire, that of Spirit. The many-petalled head centre at the top of the head becomes exceedingly active. It is the synthetic head centre, and the sumtotal of all the other centres. The stimulation of the centres throughout the body is paralleled or duplicated by the concurrent vivification of the many-petalled lotus. It is the meeting place of the three fires, those of the body, of the mind, and of the Spirit. The at-one-ment with the ego is completed when it is fully stimulated, and combustion then ensues; this is duplicated in the subtler vehicles and causes the final consummation and the liberation of Spirit.
The merging of the fires of matter is the result of evolutionary growth, when left to the normal, slow development that time alone can bring. The junction of the two fires of matter is effected early in the history of man, and is the cause of the rude health that the clean-living, high-thinking man should normally enjoy. When the fires of matter have passed (united) still further along the etheric spinal channel they contact the fire of manas as it radiates from the throat centre. Clarity of thought is here essential, and it will be necessary to elucidate somewhat this rather abstruse subject.
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The other fire of matter (the dual fire) is attracted upward, and merges with the fire of mind through a junction effected at the alta major centre. This centre is situated at the base of the skull, and there is a slight gap between this centre and the point at which the fires of matter issue from the spinal channel. Part of the work the man who is developing thought power has to do, is to build a temporary channel in etheric matter to bridge the gap. This channel is the reflection in physical matter of the antaskarana [lxv]63 that the ego has to build in order to bridge the gap between the lower and higher mental, between the causal vehicle on the third subplane of the mental plane, and the manasic permanent atom on the first subplane. This is the work that all advanced thinkers are unconsciously doing now. When the gap is completely [138] bridged, man's body becomes co-ordinated with the mental body and the fires of mind and of matter are blended. It completes the perfecting of the personality life, and as earlier said, this perfecting brings a man to the portal of initiationinitiation being the seal set upon accomplished work; it marks the end of one lesser cycle of development, and the beginning of the transference of the whole work to a still higher spiral.
We must always bear in mind that the fires from the base of the spine and the splenic triangle are fires of matter. We must not lose this recollection nor get confused. They have no spiritual effect, and concern themselves solely with the matter in which the centres of force are located. These centres of force are always directed by manas or mind, or by the conscious effort of the indwelling entity; but that entity is held back in the effects he seeks to achieve until the vehicles through which he is seeking expression, and their directing, energising centres, make adequate response. Hence it is only in due course of evolution, and when the matter of these vehicles is energised sufficiently by its own latent fires that he can accomplish his long-held purpose. Hence again the need of the ascension of the fire of matter to its own place, and its resurrection from its long burial and seeming prostitution before it can be united with its Father in Heaven, the third Logos, Who is the Intelligence of matter itself. The correspondence, again, holds good. Even the atom of the physical plane has its goal, its initiations and its ultimate triumph.
1.00d - Introduction, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Nietzsche said it also. But his superman was only a colossalization of man; we saw what he did as he tramped over Europe. That was not an evolutionary progress, only a return to the old barbarism of the blond or brunet brute of human egoism. We do not need a super-man, but something else, which is already murmuring in the heart of man and is as different from man as Bach's cantatas are from the first grunts of the hominid. And, truly, Bach's cantatas sound poor when our inner ear begins to open up to the harmonies of the future.
It is this opening, this new development we would like to investigate in the light of what we have learned from Sri Aurobindo and Her who continued his work, the modus operandi of the transition, so we can grasp the handle ourselves and work methodically at our own evolution perform experimental evolution the way others try to make test-tube embryos, though they may only hear the echo of their own monsters.
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Eventually the Indweller of the form feels the urge, or attractive pull, of its Own Self. The reincarnating jiva, for instance, lost in the maze of illusion, begins in course of time to recognise (under the Law of Attraction) the vibration of its own ego, which stands to it as the Logos of its own system, its deity in the three worlds of experience. Later, when the body egoic itself is seen as illusion, the vibration of the Monad is felt, and the jiva, working under the same law, works its way back through the matter of the two planes of superhuman evolution, till it is merged in its own essence.
Therefore:
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The first Logos embodies the "will to live" and it was through His instrumentality that the Manasaputras came into objective existence in relation to the human and deva hierarchies. In this system, the blending of the Divine Ray of Wisdom and the Primordial Ray of intelligent matter forms the great dual evolution; back of both these cosmic Entities stands another Entity Who is the embodiment of Will, and Who is the utiliser of formsthough not the forms of any other than the Greater Building devas and the human hierarchies in time and space. He is the animating principle; the will-to-live aspect of the seven Hierarchies. Nevertheless these seven Hierarchies are (as says H. P. B.) the sevenfold ray of wisdom, the dragon in its seven forms. [lxviii]66, [lxix]67, [lxx]68 This is a [147] deep mystery, and only a clue to it all can be found at this time by man in the contemplation of his own nature in the three worlds of his manifestation. Just as our Logos is seeking objectivity through His solar system in its threefold form of which the present is the second, so man seeks objectivity through his three bodiesphysical, astral and mental. At this time he is polarised in his astral body, or in his second aspect in like manner as the undifferentiated Logos is polarised in His second aspect. In time and space as we now conceive it, the sum total of jivas are governed by feeling, emotion, and desire, and not by the will, yet at the same time the will aspect governs manifestation, for the ego who is the source of personality shows in manifestation the will to love.
The difficulty lies in the inability of the finite mind to grasp the significance of this threefold manifestation, but by thoughtful brooding over the Personality and its relation to the ego, who is the love aspect and who nevertheless in relation to manifestation in the three worlds is the will aspect likewise, will come some faint light upon the same problems raised to Deity, or expanded from microcosmic to macrocosmic spheres.
The Mahadeva aspect or the first Logos (who embodies cosmic will) is controlled by the Law of Synthesis, the cosmic law governing the tendency to unification; only in this case, it is not the unification of matter and Spirit, but the unification of the seven into the three, and into the one. These three figures primarily stand for Spirit, [148] for quality, for principle, and not so primarily for matter, although matter, being inspired by spirit, conforms. The Law of Synthesis has a direct connection with One Who is still higher than our Logos, and is the law of control exercised by Him upon the Logos of our system. This is a spiritual relationship that tends to abstraction or to that synthesis of the spiritual elements that will result in their conscious return (the whole point lying in that word "conscious") to their cosmic point of synthesis, or of unification with their source. Their source is the ONE ABOUT WHOM NAUGHT MAY BE SAID, as we have earlier seen.
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If we carry the analogy down to the microcosm a glimpse can be gained of the same idea and hence ability to comprehend with greater facility. The ego (being to the man on the physical plane what the Logos is to His system) is likewise the animating will, the destroyer of forms, the producer of pralaya and the One Who withdraws the inner spiritual man from out of his threefold body; he draws them to himself the centre of his little system. The ego is extra-cosmic as far as the human being on the physical plane is concerned, and in the realisation of this fact may come elucidation of the true cosmic problem involving the Logos and "the spirits in prison," as the Christian puts it.
c. His mode of action is a driving forward; the will that lies back of evolutionary development is His, and He it is who drives Spirit onward through matter till it eventually emerges from matter, having achieved two things:
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The first Logos is electric fire, the fire of pure Spirit. Yet in manifestation He is the Son, for by union with matter (the mother) the Son is produced by Whom He is [151] known. "I and my Father are One" [lxxi]69 is the most occult statement in the Christian Bible, for it not only refers to the union of a man with his source, the monad, via the ego, but to the union of all life with its source, the will aspect, the first Logos.
We will now endeavor to confine ourselves strictly to the subject of fire in matter, and its active effect upon the sheaths of which it is the animating factor, and upon the centers which come primarily under its control.
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in every grade and type of atom,a solar system, a sun, a planet, a plane, a ray, the body of the ego, or a cell in the physical body.
III. THE QUALITIES OF ROTARY MOTION
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4. The Circle divided into four. This is the true circle of matter, the equal armed cross of the Holy Spirit, Who is the personification of active intelligent matter. This shows the fourth dimensional quality of matter and the penetration of the fire in four directions, its threefold radiation being symbolised by the triangles formed by the fourfold cross. This portrays the fourfold revolution of any atom. By this is not meant the ability of any atom to make four revolutions, but the fourth dimensional quality of the revolution which is the goal aimed at, and which is even now becoming known in matter during this [161] fourth round, and in this fourth chain. As the fifth spirilla or fifth stream of force in an atom becomes developed, and man can conceive of a fourth-dimensional rotary movement, the accuracy of this symbol will be recognised. It will then be seen that all sheaths in their progress from inertia to rhythm, via mobility, pass through all stages, whether they are logoic sheaths, the rays in which the Heavenly Men veil Themselves, the planes which form the bodies of certain solar entities, the causal body (or the sheath of the ego on the mental plane), the human physical body in its etheric constitution, or a cell in that body etheric. All these material forms (existent in etheric matter which is the true matter of all forms) are primarily undifferentiated ovoids; they then become actively rotating or manifest latent heat; next they manifest duality or latent and radiatory fire; the expression of these two results in fourth dimensional action or the wheel or rotary form turning upon itself.
5. The swastika, or the fire extending not only from the periphery to the centre in four directions, but gradually circulating and radiating from and around the entire periphery. This signifies completed activity in every department of matter until finally we have a blazing, fiery wheel, turning every way, with radiant channels of fire from the centre to the ring-pass-not,fire within, without and around until the wheel is consumed and there is naught remaining but perfected fire.
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The centres are formed entirely of streams of force, pouring down from the ego, who transmits it from the Monad. In this we have the secret of the gradual vibratory quickening of the centres as the ego first comes into control, or activity, and later (after initiation) the Monad, thus bringing about changes and increased vitality within these spheres of fire or of pure life force.
The centres, therefore, when functioning properly, form the "body of fire" which eventually is all that is left, first to man in the three worlds, and later to the Monad. This body of fire is "the body incorruptible" [lxxiv]72 or indestructible, spoken of by St. Paul, and is the product of evolution, of the perfect blending of the three fires, which ultimately destroy the form. When the form is [167] destroyed there is left this intangible spiritual body of fire, one pure flame, distinguished by seven brilliant centres of intenser burning. This electric fire is the result of the bringing together of the two poles and demonstrates at the moment of complete at-one-ment, the occult truth of the words "Our God is a consuming Fire." [lxxv]73
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2. The Heart centre...The ego. Love and Wisdom.
3. The Throat centre..The Personality. Activity or Intelligence.
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4. Man partially controlled by the ego, advanced man.
a. The heart.
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2. That wherein he comes under the Ray of the ego.
3. That wherein the Monadic Ray holds sway.
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The second period, wherein the egoic ray holds sway, is not so long comparatively; it covers the period wherein the fourth and fifth triangles are being vivified, and marks the lives wherein the man throws his forces on the side of evolution, disciplines his life, steps upon the Probationary Path, and continues up to the third Initiation. Under the regime of the Personality Ray, the man proceeds upon the five Rays to work consciously with Mind, the sixth sense, passing first upon the four minor Rays and eventually upon the third. He works [176] upon the third Ray, or that of active Intelligence, and from thence proceeds to one of the subrays of the two other major Rays, if the third is not his egoic Ray.
Enquiry might naturally arise as to whether the egoic ray is necessarily one of the three major rays, and if Initiates and Masters are not to be found upon some of the rays of mind, the minor four.
The answer lies here: The egoic ray can always be one of the seven, but we need to remember that, in this astral-buddhic solar system, wherein love and wisdom are being brought into objectivity, the bulk of the monads are on the love-wisdom ray. The fact, therefore, of its being the synthetic ray has a vast significance. This is the system of the SON, whose name is Love. This is the divine incarnation of Vishnu. The Dragon of Wisdom is in manifestation, and He brings into incarnation those cosmic Entities who are in essence identical with Himself. After the third Initiation all human beings find themselves on their monadic ray, on one of the three major rays, and the fact that Masters and Initiates are found on all the rays is due to the following two factors:
First. Each major ray has its subrays, which correspond to all the seven.
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Under the regime of the ego, the ray upon which the ego can be found holds sway. This ray is simply a direct reflection of the monad, and is dependent upon that aspect of the spiritual triad which for the man is at any particular time the line of least resistance. By that we must understand that sometimes the ray will have for its centre of force the atmic aspect, sometimes the buddhic, and at other times the manasic aspect. Though the triad is threefold, yet its egoic outposts (if one may so express it) will be either definitely atmic, or predominantly buddhic or manasic. Here again I would draw attention to the fact that this triple demonstration can be seen under three forms, making in all a ninefold choice of rays for the ego:
Atmic aspect.
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This literally means that the three major rays can each be subdivided (in connection with the ego) into three divisions. This fact is also little appreciated.
[178]
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b. Two triangles brought to vivification by the egoic ray.
c. The synthesising triangle of the Monad.
We must, nevertheless, recollect that the complexity is increased by the fact that the personality triangles will be brought to full activity according to the ray of the Monad or Spirit. Therefore, no hard or fast rule can be laid down about development. The egoic triangles are dependent largely upon the reflection in the personality of the spiritual life force. They are the midway point, just as the causal or egoic body is the transmitting point (when sufficiently equipped and built) between the higher and the lower.
The permanent atoms are enclosed within the periphery of the causal body, yet that relatively permanent body is built and enlarged, expanded and wrought into [179] a central receiving and transmitting station (using inadequate words to convey an occult idea) by the direct action of the centres, and of the centres above all. Just as it was spiritual force, or the will aspect, that built the solar system, so it is the same force in the man that builds the causal body. By the bringing together of spirit and matter (Father-Mother) in the macrocosm, and their union through the action of the will, the objective solar system, or the Son, was produced that Son of desire, Whose characteristic is love, and Whose nature is buddhi or spiritual wisdom. By the bringing together (in microcosm) of Spirit and matter, and their coherence by means of force (or the spiritual will) that objective system, the causal body, is being produced; it is the product of transmuted desire, whose characteristic (when fully demonstrated) will be love, the expression eventually on the physical plane of buddhi. The causal body is but the sheath of the ego. The solar system is but the sheath of the Son. In both the greater and the lesser systems, force centres exist which are productive of objectivity. The centres in the human being are reflections in the three worlds of those higher force centres.
Before taking up the subject of kundalini and the centres, it would be well to extend the information given above, from its prime significance for man, as that which concerns himself, to the solar system, the macrocosm, and to the cosmos. What can be predicated of the microcosm is naturally true of the macrocosm and of the cosmos. It will not be possible to give the systemic triangles, for the information would have to be so blinded that, except for those who have occult knowledge and the intuition developed, it would be practically useless intellectually, but certain things may be pointed out in this connection that may be of interest.
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Hearing on the mental plane is simply an extension of the faculty of differentiating sound. The hearing dealt with on all these planes is the hearing that has to do with the form, that concerns the vibration of matter, and that is occupied with the not-self. It has not to do with the psyche, or the telepathic communication that proceeds from mind to mind, but with the sound of the form or that power whereby one separated unit of consciousness is aware of another unit who is not himself. Bear this carefully in mind. When the extension of hearing becomes such that it concerns the psyche, then we call it telepathy or that wordless communication that is the synthesis of hearing on all the three lower planes and which is known by the ego in the causal body on the formless levels of the mental plane.
On the buddhic plane, hearing (now of the synthetic quality called telepathy) demonstrates as complete comprehension, for it has involved two things:
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Let us now finish what may be imparted on the remaining three sensessight, taste, smell and then briefly sum up their relationship to the centres, and their mutual action and interaction. That will then leave two more points to be dealt with in this first division of the Treatise on Cosmic Fire, and a summing up. We shall then be in a position to take up that portion of the treatise that deals with the fire of manas and with the development of the manasaputras, [lxxxvii]85 both in their totality and likewise individually. This topic is of the most imperative importance as it deals entirely with man, the ego, the thinker, and shows the cosmic blending of the fires of matter and of mind, and their utilisation by the indwelling Flame.
c. Sight. This sense, as said before, is the paramount correlating sense of the solar system.
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d. Tasting. He tastes then finally and discriminates, for taste is the great sense that begins to hold sway during the discriminating process that takes place when the illusory nature of matter is in process of realisation. Discrimination is the educatory process to which the Self subjects itself in the process of developing intuition that faculty whereby the Self recognises its own essence in and under all forms. Discrimination concerns the duality of nature, the Self and the not-self, and is the means of their differentiation in the process of abstraction; the intuition concerns unity and is the capacity of the Self to contact other selves, and is not a faculty whereby the not-self is contacted. Hence, its rarity these days owing to the intense individualisation of the ego, and its identification with the forma necessary identification at this particular time. As the sense of taste on the higher planes is developed, it leads one to ever finer distinctions till one is finally led through the form, right to the heart of one's nature.
e. Smelling is the faculty of keen perception that eventually brings a man back to the source from whence he came, the archetypal plane, the plane where his true home is to be found. A perception of difference has been cultivated that has caused a divine discontent within the [202] heart of the Pilgrim in the far country; the prodigal son draws comparisons; he has developed the other four senses, and he utilises them. Now comes in the faculty of vibratory recognition of the home vibration, if it might be so expressed. It is the spiritual counterpart of that sense which in the animal, the pigeon and other birds, leads them back unerringly to the familiar spot from whence they originally came. It is the apprehension of the vibration of the Self, and a swift return by means of that instinct to the originating source.
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c. That as the higher triangle comes into play and the polarisation steps up to the higher centres, the senses begin to make themselves felt on the mental level and [203] man becomes aware on that plane. We have in the human body an interesting reflection of the transference of the polarisation from the Personality to the ego, or into the causal body, in the division that exists between the higher and the lower mental planes, and the dividing line of the diaphragm between the higher and the lower portions of the body. Below the diaphragm we have the four lower centres:
1. The solar plexus.
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e. In the Heavenly Man and His body, a chain of globes [lxxxix]87 likewise can be seen and we need here to remember very carefully that the seven chains of a scheme are the expression of a planetary Logos. The Heavenly Men are expressing Themselves through a scheme of seven chains and the emphasis has been laid unduly, perhaps, upon the dense physical planet in any particular chain. This has caused the fact of the chain importance to be somewhat overlooked. Each of the seven chains might be looked upon as picturing the seven centres of one of the Heavenly Men. The idea of groups of egos forming centres in the Heavenly Men is nevertheless correct, but in this connection the reference is to the centres of force on buddhic and monadic levels. [xc]88
[207]
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c. By the application of the Rod of Initiation the downflow of force from the ego to the personality is tripled, the direction of that force being dependent upon whether the centres receiving attention are the etheric, or the astral at the first and second Initiations, or whether the initiate is standing before the LORD OF THE WORLD. In the latter case, his mental centres or their corresponding force vortices on higher levels, will receive stimulation. When the World Teacher initiates at the first and second Initiations, the direction of the Triadal force is turned to the vivification of the heart, and throat centres, and the ability to synthesise the force of the lower centres is greatly increased. When the One Initiator applies the Rod of His Power, the downflow is from the Monad, and though the throat and heart intensify vibration as a response, the main direction of the force is to the seven head centres, and finally (at liberation) to the radiant head centre above, and synthesising the lesser seven head centres.
d. The centres at initiation receive a fresh access of [209] vibratory capacity and of power, and this results, in the exoteric life, as:
1.00 - INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
It likewise demonstrates, as yet imperfectly, as the vitalising factor in the thought forms fabricated by the thinker. As yet but few thought forms, comparatively, can be said to be constructed by the center of consciousness, the thinker, the ego. Few people as yet are in such close touch with their higher self, or ego, that they can build the matter of the mental plane into a form which can be truly said to be an expression of the thoughts, purpose or desire of their ego, functioning through the physical brain. Most of the thought forms at present in circulation may be said to be aggregations of matter, built into form with the aid of kama-manas (or of desire faintly tinged with mind producing thus an admixture of astral and mental matter, mostly astral), and largely due to reflex elemental action.
These dualities of expression are:
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Just as it is not possible upon the physical plane for the physical vehicle fully to express the total point of development of the ego or higher self, so it is not possible even for the ego fully to sense and express the quality of spirit. Hence the utter impossibility for human consciousness justly to appraise the life of the spirit or Monad.
b. The working of the flame divine under the Law of Synthesisa generic term which will be seen eventually to include the other two laws as subdivisions.
1.00 - Preface, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
I am greatly indebted to Madame H. P. Blavatsky's writings, and I believe I shall not be too egotistical in claiming that a proper understanding of the principles outlined herein will reveal many points of subtlety and philosophic interest in her Secret Doctrine , and aid in the comprehension of this monumental work of hers. The same is also true of S. L. McGr egor Mathers' translation of portions of the Zohar, " The Kaballah Unveiled ", and of Arthur E. Waite's excellent compendium of the Zohar, " The Secret Doctrine in Israel ", both of which are closed books, in the main, to most students of mystical lore and philosophy who do not have the specialized comparative knowledge which I have endeavoured to incorporate in this little book.
I should here call attention to a tract, the author of which is unknown, entitled The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom, of which splendid translations have been made by W. Wynn Westcott, Arthur E. Waite, and Knut Stenring. In the course of time this appears to have become incorporated into, and affiliated with, the text of the Sepher Yetsirah, although several critics place it at a later date than the genuine Mishnahs of the Sepher Yetsirah. However, in giving the titles of the Paths from this tract, I have named throughout the source as the Sepher Yetsirah to avoid unnecessary confusion. It is to be hoped that no adverse criticism will arise on this point.
1.00 - Preliminary Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Finally something happens whose nature may form the subject of a further discussion later on. For the moment let it suffice to say that this consciousness of the ego and the non- ego, the seer and the thing seen, the knower and the thing known, is blotted out.
There is usually an intense light, an intense sound, and a feeling of such overwhelming bliss that the resources of language have been exhausted again and again in the attempt to describe it.
1.010 - Self-Control - The Alpha and Omega of Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Previously we were touching upon the nature of perceptions of objects, and these were explained as the reasons behind our attachments and aversions, our love of individual physical life and dread of death, etc. It was also discovered that self-affirmation or egoism becomes a necessary link, an intermediary between the external acts of cognition, perception, attachment, aversion etc., and the ultimate cause of the appearance of this phenomenon, of which we have no knowledge. This phenomenon was explained also as having been caused by a vast multiple manifestation of the Ultimate Reality in the form of what we may call 'located individuals', as if one is not connected with the other, so that each individual which was originally an inseparable part of the Ultimate Truth or Reality, enjoying the status of pure selfhood or subjectivity got distorted into an object of the cognitive act and perceptive action of the senses, so that it is possible to regard any person and any object in this world either as a subject from its own point of view, or as an object from another's point of view. It is this peculiar double character, or dual role, of persons and things in this world that has made life difficult. Which is the correct attitude: to regard things as subjects, or regard them as objects? Well, the correct attitude would be to regard everything as it ought to be regarded from the point of view of what it really is.
Can we look upon anything, any person, any object for the matter of that, as something which is to be utilised as a kind of instrument in perception or cognition, or has it a status of its own? What we mean by a status of one's own is a capacity to exist by oneself, independent of external relations and dependence on others; this is the nature of subjectivity. Everyone, you and I included, has a status of one's own. It is this status that gets distorted later on into what they call egoism, pride, etc., what is called ijjat in Hindi a kind of stupid form which it has taken, though originally it was a spiritual status. Our status as pure subjects is incapable of objectification, and it is not intended to be used as a tool for another's activity or satisfaction. It is not in the nature of things to subject themselves into objects as vehicles of action and satisfaction for somebody else, because every individual, judged from its own real status, enjoys subjectivity. It is an end in itself, and not a means.
That is why everyone is egoistic, and everyone wants satisfaction for one's own self. When we analyse all our actions, we will find that there is no such thing as unselfish action, finally. Every action is selfish, if we very closely define the principle of selfishness. The element of self is present in every act, every perception, every cognition and every effort, because when the self is isolated, all things lose their meaning the whole world looks empty. What we call unselfishness is only the presence of a higher type of self as an element in our act of perception, cognition, etc. It does not mean that the Self is absolutely absent that is not possible. We only mean that a higher, more expansive kind of self is present rather than a lower self. What we call selfishness is nothing but the interference of the lower self in our actions, and what we call unselfishness is the presence in the same way of a higher form of self, but Self is there it cannot be absent. There is nothing in this world where the Self is absent. The whole universe is invaded by the Self. It is present in everything, and nothing can exist without it, because that is the only existence.
The act of self-control is the return of consciousness to a higher selfhood from a lower one. It is a rise from self to self, we may call it from the self that is involved in externality and objectivity, to a self that is less involved in this manner a return from objectivity to subjectivity through higher and higher degrees of ascent. But this process becomes extremely difficult on account of our weddedness to the senses. We have been habituated to look at things only through the senses, and we have no other way of knowing or judging. We immediately pass a judgement on anything that is seen with the eyes it is there in such-and-such a condition, it has such-and-such a value, it is real in this percentage. Our judgement of value and reality depends, therefore, unfortunately for us, on our sense-perceptions, so that external relationships are mistaken by us as realities. A reality is not a relationship; it is an existence by itself. So, self-control is a return of consciousness from its life of relationships, to a higher form of life where relationships become less and less palpable.
10.13 - Go Through, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The best way to tackle the thing is, as the Mother says, to go through it. To go through means to stand and face it and not run away from it. To go through does not mean, however, to satisfy or to indulge the urge that makes you a slave of it more and more; you get all the more entangled and can never hope to be free. You stand and face in order to seize the truth, the reality of the thing you have to deal with. You have to purify it and clean it in order to remove the dust that covers the gold. If it is human love, to purify means to free it from selfishness, from egoistic desire, the sense of possession. Instead, you love simply for the joy of loving without any expectation or demand of return. You find in the end that this way of loving brings to you a greater delight, a new thrill and poignancy, proper to a pure feeling.
Indeed not only love but all human impulses and urges are to be dealt with in the same way. The Gita furnishes a beautiful and crucial example. The Gita teaches man to go through the field of activity and not to reject or avoid it. The whole of the Gita is an ideal lesson in the technique of going through. The Gita says, do not renounce work but dedicate itnot karmatyga but karmanysa. What does this dedication mean? The first step in the process of dedication is desirelessnessto do work without desire. It is usually thought that desire is the source and origin of work. If you have no desire, you have no need or impulse to work. But this is a very superficial view of things. The impulse for work springs from elsewhere, from a deeper and impersonal source. The true spirit in which you should work is, as the Gita enjoins, to do a work because it is a thing to be done, not because you desire it. So naturally you do not hanker for the fruit of your action. First then, no attachment to the action itself, then no attachment to the fruit that it brings. This can be done only when you are unselfish. Not only unselfishness but you have to go a step farther, to selflessness. So then there are these three stages in the process of dedication or purification. First to work without desire, without attachment to the result of the work. Then you will be able to see that you are an instrument only, the work is being done through you. At the beginning you are a desireless, unselfish doer of works, next you see yourself as a detached witness of your action and finally you see that the action happening in you is Nature working in you, Nature the instrument of the Divine. Finally yourself is no longer there, it is the Divine alone that is and acts.
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
boundless egoistic pride deemed themselves equal to be
the very Divine and therefore turned into the great Asuras:
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the ego, and only apprehends surfaces and externals always
through the medium of space. It experiences everything as an
--
ing atmosphere of egocentric subjectivity, and in this blind
alley is exposed to the attack of all the ferocious beasts which the
--
tive ego-consciousness, and the latter is more its object than its
subject. But we ourselves have not yet climbed the last peak of
1.01 - Economy, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book. In most books, the _I_, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other mens lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.
1.01 - Fundamental Considerations, #The Ever-Present Origin, #Jean Gebser, #Integral
It is our intent to furnish evidence that the aperspectival world, whose nascence we are witnessing, can liberate us from the superannuated legacy of both the unperspectival and the perspectival worlds. In very general terms we might say that the unperspectival world preceded the world of mind- and ego-bound perspective discovered and anticipated in late antiquity and first apparent in Leonardos application of it. Viewed in this manner the unperspectival world is collective, the perspectival individualistic. That is, the unperspectival world is related to the anonymous one or the tribal we, the perspectival to the I or ego; the one world is grounded in Being, the other, beginning with the Renaissance, in Having; the former is predominantly irrational, the later rational.
Today, at least in Western civilization, both modes survive only as deteriorated and consequently dubious variants. This is evident from the sociological and anthropological questions currently discussed in the Occidental forum; only questions that are unresolved are discussed with the vehemence characteristic of these discussions. The current situation manifests on the one hand an egocentric individualism exaggerated to extremes and desirous of.possessing everything, while on the other it manifests an equally extreme collectivism that promises the total fulfillment of mans being. In the latter instance we find the utter abnegation of the individual valued merely as an object in the human aggregate; in the former a hyper-valuation of the individual who, despite his limitations, is permitted everything. This deficient, that is destructive, antithesis divides the world into two warring camps, not just politically and ideologically, but in all areas of human endeavor.
Since these two ideologies are now pressing toward their limits we can assume that neither can prevail in the long run. When any movement tends to the extremes it leads away from the center or nucleus toward eventual destruction at the outer limits where the connections to the life-giving center finally are severed. It would seem that today the connections are already broken, for it is increasingly evident that the individual is being driven into isolation while the collective degenerates into mere aggregation. These two conditions, isolation and aggregation, are in fact clear indications that individualism and collectivism have now become deficient.
When we have grasped this it is at once apparent that we can extricate ourselves from our dangerous situation only by ordering ou relationships to ourselves, to our I or ego, and not just our relationships with others, to the Thou, that is to God, the world, our fellow man and neighbor. That seems possible only if we are willing to assimilate the entirety of our human existence into our awareness. This means that all of our structures of awareness that form and support our present consciousness structure will have to be integrated into a new and more intensive form, which would in fact unlock a new reality. To that end we must constantly relive and re-experience in a decisive sense the full depth of our past. The adage that anyone who denies and condemns his past also abnegates his future is valid for the individual as well as for mankind. Our plea for an appropriate ordering and conscious realization of our relationships to the I as well as the Thou chiefly concerns the ordering and conscious recognition of our origin, and of all factors leading to the present. It is only in terms of man in his entirety that we shall achieve the necessary detachment from the present situation, Le., from both our unperspectival ties to the group or collective, and our perspectival attachment to the separated, individual ego. When we become aware of the exhausted residua of past or passing forms of our understanding of reality we will recognize more clearly the signs of the inevitable new. We will also sense that there are new sources which can be tapped: the sources of the aperspectival world that can liberate us from the two exhausted and deficient forms which have become almost completely invalid and are certainly no longer all-inclusive or decisive.
It is our task in this book to work out this aperspectival basis. Our discussion will rely more an the evidence presented in the history of thought than on the findings of the natural sciences as is the case with the authors Transformation of the Occident. Among the disciplines of historical thought the investigation of language will form the predominant source of our insight since it is the preeminent means of reciprocal communication between man and the world.
--
There is hardly another text extant that describes so succinctly and so memorably the collapse of an entire world and a hitherto valid and effectual human attitude. The magic-mythical world of the Mexicans could not prevail against the Spaniards; it collapsed the moment it encountered the rational-technological mentality. The materialistic orientation of present-day Europeans will tend to attribute this collapse to the Spaniards technological superiority, but in actual fact it was the vigor of the Spanish consciousness vis--vis the weakness of the Mexican that was decisive. It is the basic distinction between the ego-less man, bound to the group and a collectivementality, and the individual securely conscious of his individuality. Au thentic spell-casting, a fundamental element of the collective consciousness for the Mexicans, is effective only for the members attuned to the group consciousness. It simply by-passes those who are not bound to, or sympathetic toward, the group. The Spaniards superiority, which compelled the Mexicans to surrender almost without a struggle, resulted primarily from their consciousness of individuality, not from their superior weaponry. Had it been possible for the Mexicans to step out of their egoless attitude, the Spanish victory would have been less certain and assuredly more difficult.
What is of interest to us within the present context is not the historical predicament occasioned by the collision of peoples of differing might, but rather the supersession of the magic group-consciousness and its most potent weapon, spell-casting, by rational, ego-consciousness. Today this rational consciousness, with nuclear fission its strongest weapon, is confronted by a similar catastrophic situation of failure; consequently, it too can be vanquished by a new consciousness structure. We are convinced that there are powers arising from within ourselves that are already at work overcoming the deficiency and dubious nature of our rational ego-consciousness via the new aperspectival awareness whose manifestations are surging forth everywhere. The aperspective consciousness structure is a consciousness of the whole, an integral consciousness encompassing all time and embracing both mans distant past and his approaching future as a living present. The new spiritual attitude can take root only through an insightful process of intensive awareness. This attitude must emerge from its present concealment and latency and become effective, and thereby prepare the transparency of the world and man in which spirituality can manifest itself.
The first part of the present work, which is devoted to the foundations of the aperspectival world, is intended to furnish convincing evidence for this new spiritual attitude. This evidence rests an two guiding principles whose validity will gradually become clear:
1.01 - How is Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds Attained?, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
The student is told to set apart moments in his daily life in which to withdraw into himself, quietly and alone. He is not to occupy himself at such moments with the affairs of his own ego. This would result in the contrary of what is intended. He should rather let his experiences and the messages from the outer world re-echo within his own completely silent self. At such silent moments every flower, every animal, every action will unveil to him secrets undreamt of. And thus he will prepare himself to receive quite new impressions of the outer world through quite different eyes. The desire to enjoy impression after impression merely blunts the faculty of cognition; the latter, however, is nurtured and cultivated if the enjoyment once experienced is allowed to reveal its message. Thus the student must accustom himself not merely to let the enjoyment
p. 16
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
1.01 - Introduction, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
How often have the predestined messengers of knowledge, the circumstances privileged to bring to us supreme teachings, passed before our eyes, teaching us nothing? The very abyss has opened without revealing to us the secret of its depths. We weep before a tomb. The sensations of our egoistic nature compel us to suffer where we might have thought and our affliction remains to us a barren experience. It has torn from us what we loved, but what it brought to us, we did not know how to receive. The tumult of the heart prevents the mind from learning these eternal verities, "There is no death; there is no night."
All is light, a lustre which blinds instead of enlightening us because it is too puissant for our gaze; for all the veils in which our vision is enveloped, are only veils of dazzlement. There are for our eyes excessive splendours as well as insufficient gleams. The measure of every obscurity is the imperfection of our vision and the night is the symbol of our ignorance.
--
But now the day which the luminous point of the conscious ego has created in us, can extend itself beyond our limits over the whole universe. For that extension it is enough that we should learn to enter once more into communion with all that we have rendered alien to us.
There is not in the whole of infinity a single reality, be it object or being, on which our internal gaze, once clarified, cannot shed its pure illumination.
1.01 - Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
14 The word vidhema is used of the ordering of the sacrifice, the disposal of the offerings to the God and, generally, of the sacrifice or worship itself. The Vedic namas, internal and external obeisance, is the symbol of submission to the divine Being in ourselves and in the world. Here the offering is that of completest submission and the self-surrender of all the faculties of the lower egoistic human nature to the divine Will-force, Agni, so that, free from internal opposition, it may lead the soul of man through the truth towards a felicity full of the spiritual riches, raye. That state of beatitude is intended, self-content in the principle of pure Love and Joy, which the Vedic initiates regarded as the source of the divine existence in the universe and the foundation of the divine life in the human being. It is the deformation of this principle by egoism which appears as desire and the lust of possession in the lower worlds.
1.01 - MASTER AND DISCIPLE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
M. had yet to learn the distinction between knowledge and ignorance. Up to this time his conception had been that one got knowledge from books and schools. Later on he gave up this false conception. He was taught that to know God is knowledge, and not to know Him, ignorance. When Sri Ramakrishna exclaimed, "And you are a man of knowledge!", M.'s ego was again badly shocked.
God with and without form
--
The assertion that both are equally true amazed M.; he had never learnt this from his books. Thus his ego received a third blow; but since it was not yet completely crushed, he came forward to argue with the Master a little more.
God and the clay image
--
This time M. felt that his ego was completely crushed. He now said to himself: "Yes, he has spoken the truth. What need is there for me to teach others? Have I known God?
Do I really love Him? 'I haven't room enough for myself in my bed, and I am inviting my friend to share it with me!' I know nothing about God, yet I am trying to teach others.
1.01 - Our Demand and Need from the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
God and all others are either impostures or at best imperfectly inspired, that this or that philosophy is the last word of the reasoning intellect and other systems are either errors or saved only by such partial truth in them as links them to the one true philosophical cult. Even the discoveries of physical Science have been elevated into a creed and in its name religion and spirituality banned as ignorance and superstition, philosophy as frippery and moonshine. And to these bigoted exclusions and vain wranglings even the wise have often lent themselves, misled by some spirit of darkness that has mingled with their light and overshadowed it with some cloud of intellectual egoism or spiritual pride. Mankind seems now indeed inclined to grow a little modester and wiser; we no longer slay our fellows in the name of God's truth or because they have minds differently trained or differently constituted from ours; we are less ready to curse and revile our neighbour because he is wicked or presumptuous enough to differ from us in opinion; we are ready even to admit that Truth is everywhere and cannot be our sole monopoly; we are beginning to look at other religions and philosophies for the truth and help they contain and no longer merely in order to damn them as false or criticise what we conceive to be their errors. But we are still apt to declare that our truth gives us the supreme knowledge which other religions or philosophies
Essays on the Gita
--
In the Gita there is very little that is merely local or temporal and its spirit is so large, profound and universal that even this little can easily be universalised without the sense of the teaching suffering any diminution or violation; rather by giving an ampler scope to it than belonged to the country and epoch, the teaching gains in depth, truth and power. Often indeed the Gita itself suggests the wider scope that can in this way be given to an idea in itself local or limited. Thus it dwells on the ancient Indian system and idea of sacrifice as an interchange between gods and men, - a system and idea which have long been practically obsolete in India itself and are no longer real to the general human mind; but we find here a sense so entirely subtle, figurative and symbolic given to the word "sacrifice" and the conception of the gods is so little local or mythological, so entirely cosmic and philosophical that we can easily accept both as expressive of a practical fact of psychology and general law of Nature and so apply them to the modern conceptions of interchange between life and life and of ethical sacrifice and self-giving as to widen and deepen these and cast over them a more spiritual aspect and the light of a profounder and more far-reaching Truth. Equally the idea of action according to the Shastra, the fourfold order of society, the allusion to the relative position of the four orders or the comparative spiritual disabilities of Shudras and women seem at first sight local and temporal, and, if they are too much pressed in their literal sense, narrow so much at least of the teaching, deprive it of its universality and spiritual depth and limit its validity for mankind at large. But if we look behind to the spirit and sense and not at the local name and temporal institution, we see that here too the sense is deep and true and the spirit philosophical, spiritual and universal. By Shastra we perceive that the Gita means the law imposed on itself by humanity as a substitute for the purely egoistic action of the natural unregenerate man and a control on his tendency to seek in the satisfaction of his desire the standard and aim of his life. We see too that the fourfold order of society is merely the concrete form of a spiritual truth which is itself independent of the form; it rests on the conception of right works as a rightly ordered
Our Demand and Need from the Gita
1.01 - SAMADHI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
flashes the idea of egoism. Then this mixture of action and
reaction is presented to the PuruSa, the real Soul, who
--
( Buddhi ) and egoism ( Ahamkara ), form the group called the
Antahkarana (the internal instrument). They are but various
--
unqualified ego.
This Samadhi is divided into two varieties. One is called the
--
already told you. As you will remember, egoism and will, and
mind, have a common basis, and that common basis is called
--
the ego remains, but differentiated from all other objects, this
is called Asmita Samadhi, and the man who has attained to
--
itself, but the egoism. By practice, the Yogi gets established in
all these meditations. Whenever he meditates he can keep out
--
Tanmatras or fine particles. The organs, the mind 1 , egoism,
the mind-stuff (the cause of all manifestion) the equilibrium
1.01 - Soul and God, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
52. The Draft continues: How thick the earlier darkness was! How impetuous and how egotistic my passion was, subjugated by all the daemons of ambition, the desire for glory, greed, uncharitableness, and zeal! How ignorant I was at the time! Life tore me away, and I deliberately moved away from you and I have done so for all these years. I recognize how good all of this was. But I thought that you were lost, even though I sometimes thought that I was lost. But you were not lost. I went on the way of the day. You went invisibly with me and guided me step by step, putting the pieces together meaningfully (pp. 20-21).
53. In 1912, Jung endorsed Maeder's notion of the prospective function of the dream (An attempt at an account of psychoanalytic theory, CW 4, 452). In a discussion in the Zrich Psychoanalytical
1.01 - Tara the Divine, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
is none other than the ego itself, or more exactly,
attachment to the ego, the "I." The greater this
attachment, the more numerous are the fearful states.
1.01 - THAT ARE THOU, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
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.
The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without.
--
It is ignorance that causes us to identify ourselves with the body, the ego, the senses, or anything that is not the Atman. He is a wise man who overcomes this ignorance by devotion to the Atman.
When a man follows the way of the world, or the way of the flesh, or the way of tradition (i.e. when he believes in religious rites and the letter of the scriptures, as though they were intrinsically sacred), knowledge of Reality cannot arise in him.
--
Those who vainly reason without understanding the truth are lost in the jungle of the Vijnanas (the various forms of relative knowledge), running about here and there and trying to justify their view of ego-substance.
The self realized in your inmost consciousness appears in its purity; this is the Tathagata-garbha (literally, Buddha-womb), which is not the realm of those given over to mere reasoning
--
I am not competent, nor is this the place to discuss the doctrinal differences between Buddhism and Hinduism. Let it suffice to point out that, when he insisted that human beings are by nature non-Atman, the Buddha was evidently speaking about the personal self and not the universal Self. The Brahman controversialists, who appear in certain of the Pali scriptures, never so much as mention the Vedanta doctrine of the identity of Atman and Godhead and the non-identity of ego and Atman. What they maintain and Gautama denies is the substantial nature and eternal persistence of the individual psyche. As an unintelligent man seeks for the abode of music in the body of the lute, so does he look for a soul within the skandhas (the material and psychic aggregates, of which the individual mind-body is composed). About the existence of the Atman that is Brahman, as about most other metaphysical matters, the Buddha declines to speak, on the ground that such discussions do not tend to edification or spiritual progress among the members of a monastic order, such as he had founded. But though it has its dangers, though it may become the most absorbing, because the most serious and noblest, of distractions, metaphysical thinking is unavoidable and finally necessary. Even the Hinayanists found this, and the later Mahayanists were to develop, in connection with the practice of their religion, a splendid and imposing system of cosmological, ethical and psychological thought. This system was based upon the postulates of a strict idealism and professed to dispense with the idea of God. But moral and spiritual experience was too strong for philosophical theory, and under the inspiration of direct experience, the writers of the Mahayana sutras found themselves using all their ingenuity to explain why the Tathagata and the Bodhisattvas display an infinite charity towards beings that do not really exist. At the same time they stretched the framework of subjective idealism so as to make room for Universal Mind; qualified the idea of soullessness with the doctrine that, if purified, the individual mind can identify itself with the Universal Mind or Buddha-womb; and, while maintaining godlessness, asserted that this realizable Universal Mind is the inner consciousness of the eternal Buddha and that the Buddha-mind is associated with a great compassionate heart which desires the liberation of every sentient being and bestows divine grace on all who make a serious effort to achieve mans final end. In a word, despite their inauspicious vocabulary, the best of the Mahayana sutras contain an au thentic formulation of the Perennial Philosophya formulation which in some respects (as we shall see when we come to the section, God in the World) is more complete than any other.
In India, as in Persia, Mohammedan thought came to be enriched by the doctrine that God is immanent as well as transcendent, while to Mohammedan practice were added the moral disciplines and spiritual exercises, by means of which the soul is prepared for contemplation or the unitive knowledge of the Godhead. It is a significant historical fact that the poet-saint Kabir is claimed as a co-religionist both by Moslems and Hindus. The politics of those whose goal is beyond time are always pacific; it is the idolaters of past and future, of reactionary memory and Utopian dream, who do the persecuting and make the wars.
--
Crude formulations of some of the doctrines of the Perennial Philosophy are to be found in the thought-systems of the uncivilized and so-called primitive peoples of the world. Among the Maoris, for example, every human being is regarded as a compound of four elementsa divine eternal principle, known as the toiora; an ego, which disappears at death; a ghost-shadow, or psyche, which survives death; and finally a body. Among the Oglala Indians the divine element is called the sican, and this is regarded as identical with the ton, or divine essence of the world. Other elements of the self are the nagi, or personality, and niya, or vital soul. After death the sican is reunited with the divine Ground of all things, the nagi survives in the ghost world of psychic phenomena and the niya disappears into the material universe.
In regard to no twentieth-century primitive society can we rule out the possibility of influence by, or borrowing from, some higher culture. Consequently, we have no right to argue from the present to the past. Because many contemporary savages have an esoteric philosophy that is monotheistic with a monotheism that is sometimes of the That art thou variety, we are not entitled to infer offh and that neolithic or palaeolithic men held similar views.
1.01 - The Divine and The Universe, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The more we get free from the limits of our small ego, the more these wonders disclose themselves to us.
The Lord will possess His universe perfectly only when the universe will have become the Lord.
1.01 - The Ego, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
object:1.01 - The ego
class:chapter
--
THE ego
Investigation of the psychology of the unconscious con-
--
known as the ego, but includes it in a supraordinate concept.
We understand the ego as the complex factor to which all con-
scious contents are related. It forms, as it were, the centre of the
--
pirical personality, the ego is the subject of all personal acts of
consciousness. The relation of a psychic content to the ego forms
the criterion of its consciousness, for no content can be con-
--
know, which, therefore, is not related to the ego as the centre
of the field of consciousness. The unknown falls into two groups
--
The ego, as a specific content of consciousness, is not a sim-
ple or elementary factor but a complex one which, as such,
--
and are associated with the ego, and are therefore conscious.
They are produced by endosomatic stimuli, only some of which
--
The somatic basis of the ego consists, then, of conscious and
unconscious factors. The same is true of the psychic basis: on
the one hand the ego rests on the total field of consciousness,
and on the other, on the sum total of unconscious contents.
--
When I said that the ego "rests" on the total field of con-
sciousness I do not mean that it consists of this. Were that so, it
--
whole. The ego is only the latter's point of reference, grounded
on and limited by the somatic factor described above,
--
unconscious, the ego is a conscious factor par excellence. It is
even acquired, empirically speaking, during the individual's
--
Despite the unlimited extent of its bases, the ego is never
more and never less than consciousness as a whole. As a con-
scious factor the ego could, theoretically at least, be described
completely. But this would never amount to more than a pic-
--
not coincide with the ego, that is, with the conscious personality,
but forms an entity that has to be distinguished from the ego.
Naturally the need to do this is incumbent only on a psychology
--
present, cannot be fully known, the self. The ego is, by defini-
tion, subordinate to the self and is related to it like a part to the
--
freedom, so the self acts upon the ego like an objective occur-
rence which free will can do very little to alter. It is, indeed, well
known that the ego not only can do nothing against the self, but
is sometimes actually assimilated by unconscious components
--
description of the ego except a formal one. Any other mode of
observation would have to take account of the individuality
which attaches to the ego as one of its main characteristics. Al-
though the numerous elements composing this complex factor
--
result of their combination- the ego- is therefore, so far as one
can judge, individual and unique, and retains its identity up
--
ness, the ego is the subject of all successful attempts at adapta-
tion so far as these are achieved by the will. The ego therefore
has a significant part to play in the psychic economy. Its position
--
udice that the ego is the centre of the personality, and that the
field of consciousness is the psyche per se. If we discount certain
--
position of the ego, till then absolute, became relativized; that
is to say, though it retains its quality as the centre of the field of
--- Overview of noun ego
The noun ego has 3 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
1. (6) ego, egotism, self-importance ::: (an inflated feeling of pride in your superiority to others)
2. (1) self, ego ::: (your consciousness of your own identity)
3. ego ::: ((psychoanalysis) the conscious mind)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun ego
3 senses of ego
Sense 1
ego, egotism, self-importance
=> pride, pridefulness
=> feeling
=> state
=> attribute
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
self, ego
=> consciousness
=> cognitive state, state of mind
=> psychological state, psychological condition, mental state, mental condition
=> condition, status
=> state
=> attribute
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 3
ego
=> mind, head, brain, psyche, nous
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun ego
1 of 3 senses of ego
Sense 2
self, ego
=> anima
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun ego
3 senses of ego
Sense 1
ego, egotism, self-importance
=> pride, pridefulness
Sense 2
self, ego
=> consciousness
Sense 3
ego
=> mind, head, brain, psyche, nous
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun ego
3 senses of ego
Sense 1
ego, egotism, self-importance
-> pride, pridefulness
=> dignity, self-respect, self-regard, self-worth
=> self-esteem, self-pride
=> ego, egotism, self-importance
=> amour propre, conceit, self-love, vanity
Sense 2
self, ego
-> consciousness
=> stream of consciousness
=> self, ego
=> awareness, sentience
=> sensibility, esthesia, aesthesia
=> waking
Sense 3
ego
-> mind, head, brain, psyche, nous
=> noddle
=> tabula rasa
=> ego
=> unconscious mind, unconscious
=> subconscious mind, subconscious
--- Grep of noun ego
alter ego
ego
ego ideal
ego trip
egocentric
egocentrism
egoism
egoist
egomania
egomaniac
egotism
egotist
fuego
greater pichiciego
lego
pichiciego
san diego
superego
tierra del fuego
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