TERMS STARTING WITH
enabled ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Enable
enabled the 7 to escape. Nathanel then burnt Jair
enablement ::: n. --> The act of enabling, or the state of being enabled; ability.
enable ::: v. t. --> To give strength or ability to; to make firm and strong.
To make able (to do, or to be, something); to confer sufficient power upon; to furnish with means, opportunities, and the like; to render competent for; to empower; to endow.
enabling ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Enable
enabling {software enabling}
enacted ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Enact
enacting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Enact
enactive ::: a. --> Having power to enact or establish as a law.
enactment ::: n. --> The passing of a bill into a law; the giving of legislative sanction and executive approval to a bill whereby it is established as a law.
That which is enacted or passed into a law; a law; a decree; a statute; a prescribed requirement; as, a prohibitory enactment; a social enactment.
enactor ::: n. --> One who enacts a law; one who decrees or establishes as a law.
enact ::: to represent on or as on the stage; act the part of. enacts, enacted.
enacture ::: n. --> Enactment; resolution.
enact ::: v. t. --> To decree; to establish by legal and authoritative act; to make into a law; especially, to perform the legislative act with reference to (a bill) which gives it the validity of law.
To act; to perform; to do; to effect.
To act the part of; to represent; to play. ::: n.
enaliosaurian ::: a. --> Pertaining to the Enaliosauria. ::: n. --> One of the Enaliosauria.
enaliosauria ::: n. pl. --> An extinct group of marine reptiles, embracing both the Ichthyosauria and the Plesiosauria, now regarded as distinct orders.
enaliosaur ::: n. --> One of the Enaliosauria.
enallage ::: n. --> A substitution, as of one part of speech for another, of one gender, number, case, person, tense, mode, or voice, of the same word, for another.
enallage: When one grammatical form is used in the place of another.
enambush ::: v. t. --> To ambush.
enamelar ::: a. --> Consisting of enamel; resembling enamel; smooth; glossy.
enameled ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Enamel ::: a. --> Coated or adorned with enamel; having a glossy or variegated surface; glazed.
enameler ::: n. --> Alt. of Enamelist
enameling ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Enamel
enamelist ::: n. --> One who enamels; a workman or artist who applies enamels in ornamental work.
enamelled ::: --> of Enamel
enamelling ::: --> of Enamel
enamel ::: v. t. --> A variety of glass, used in ornament, to cover a surface, as of metal or pottery, and admitting of after decoration in color, or used itself for inlaying or application in varied colors.
A glassy, opaque bead obtained by the blowpipe.
That which is enameled; also, any smooth, glossy surface, resembling enamel, especially if variegated.
The intensely hard calcified tissue entering into the composition of teeth. It merely covers the exposed parts of the teeth
enamored ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Enamor
enamoring ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Enamor
enamorment ::: n. --> The state of being enamored.
enamor ::: v. t. --> To inflame with love; to charm; to captivate; -- with of, or with, before the person or thing; as, to be enamored with a lady; to be enamored of books or science.
enamoured ::: filled or inflamed with love. captivated.
enantiomorphous ::: a. --> Similar, but not superposable, i. e., related to each other as a right-handed to a left-handed glove; -- said of certain hemihedral crystals.
enantiopathic ::: a. --> Serving to palliate; palliative.
enantiopathy ::: n. --> An opposite passion or affection.
Allopathy; -- a term used by followers of Hahnemann, or homeopathists.
enantiosis ::: n. --> A figure of speech by which what is to be understood affirmatively is stated negatively, and the contrary; affirmation by contraries.
enapalepsis: A type of repetition (phrase or word) with the repetition occurring at the beginning and again at the end of a sentence.
enarched ::: a. --> Bent into a curve; -- said of a bend or other ordinary.
enarch ::: v. t. --> To arch.
enargite ::: n. --> An iron-black mineral of metallic luster, occurring in small orthorhombic crystals, also massive. It contains sulphur, arsenic, copper, and often silver.
enarmed ::: a. --> Same as Armed, 3.
enarration ::: n. --> A detailed exposition; relation.
enarthrodia ::: n. --> See Enarthrosis.
enarthrosis ::: n. --> A ball and socket joint, or the kind of articulation represented by such a joint. See Articulation.
enascent ::: a. --> Coming into being; nascent.
enatation ::: n. --> A swimming out.
enate ::: a. --> Growing out.
enation ::: n. --> Any unusual outgrowth from the surface of a thing, as of a petal; also, the capacity or act of producing such an outgrowth.
enaunter ::: adv. --> Lest that.
enavigate ::: v. t. --> To sail away or over.
Enabling Law ::: Enacted on March 23, 1933, the law provided the basis of Hitler’s dictatorship by abolishing the Reichstag and allowing the Chancellor to prepare laws to be enacted by the cabinet.
Enan 慧南. See HUINAN
ENAY lord 126
ENAY (lord?) (hath?) 126
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. A suggested explanation for a group of facts or phenomena, either accepted as a basis for further verification (working hypothesis) or accepted as likely to be true. 2. An assumption used in an argument without its being endorsed; a supposition.
1. The expenditure of something, such as time or labour, necessary for the attainment of a goal. Also fig. **2. The price paid or required for acquiring, producing, or maintaining something, usually measured in money, time, or energy; expense or expenditure; outlay. 3. **Suffering or sacrifice; loss; penalty.
aard-wolf ::: n. --> A carnivorous quadruped (Proteles Lalandii), of South Africa, resembling the fox and hyena. See Proteles. html{color:
abalienate ::: v. t. --> To transfer the title of from one to another; to alienate.
To estrange; to withdraw.
To cause alienation of (mind).
abalienation ::: n. --> The act of abalienating; alienation; estrangement.
A being of the lower vital plane who by the medium of a living human being or by some other means or agency is able to materialise itself sufficiently so as to appear and act in a visible form or speak with an audible voice or, without so appearing, to move about material things, e.g., furniture or to materialise objects or to shift them from place to place. This accounts for what are called poltergeists , phenomena of stone-throwing, tree-inhabiting Bhutas, and other well-known phenomena.
aberration ::: n. --> The act of wandering; deviation, especially from truth or moral rectitude, from the natural state, or from a type.
A partial alienation of reason.
A small periodical change of position in the stars and other heavenly bodies, due to the combined effect of the motion of light and the motion of the observer; called annual aberration, when the observer&
abet ::: v. t. --> To instigate or encourage by aid or countenance; -- used in a bad sense of persons and acts; as, to abet an ill-doer; to abet one in his wicked courses; to abet vice; to abet an insurrection.
To support, uphold, or aid; to maintain; -- in a good sense.
To contribute, as an assistant or instigator, to the commission of an offense.
abrahamic ::: a. --> Pertaining to Abraham, the patriarch; as, the Abrachamic covenant.
absolution ::: n. --> An absolving, or setting free from guilt, sin, or penalty; forgiveness of an offense.
An acquittal, or sentence of a judge declaring and accused person innocent.
The exercise of priestly jurisdiction in the sacrament of penance, by which Catholics believe the sins of the truly penitent are forgiven.
An absolving from ecclesiastical penalties, -- for
absolve ::: v. t. --> To set free, or release, as from some obligation, debt, or responsibility, or from the consequences of guilt or such ties as it would be sin or guilt to violate; to pronounce free; as, to absolve a subject from his allegiance; to absolve an offender, which amounts to an acquittal and remission of his punishment.
To free from a penalty; to pardon; to remit (a sin); -- said of the sin or guilt.
To finish; to accomplish.
acoustics ::: n. --> The science of sounds, teaching their nature, phenomena, and laws.
adenalgia ::: n. --> Alt. of Adenalgy
adenalgy ::: n. --> Pain in a gland.
adessenarian ::: n. --> One who held the real presence of Christ&
adhesive ::: a. --> Sticky; tenacious, as glutinous substances.
Apt or tending to adhere; clinging.
adhesiveness ::: n. --> The quality of sticking or adhering; stickiness; tenacity of union.
Propensity to form and maintain attachments to persons, and to promote social intercourse.
adjuration ::: n. --> The act of adjuring; a solemn charging on oath, or under the penalty of a curse; an earnest appeal.
The form of oath or appeal.
adjure ::: v. t. --> To charge, bind, or command, solemnly, as if under oath, or under the penalty of a curse; to appeal to in the most solemn or impressive manner; to entreat earnestly.
adrenal ::: a. --> Suprarenal.
adulterer ::: n. --> A man who commits adultery; a married man who has sexual intercourse with a woman not his wife.
A man who violates his religious covenant.
aegis ::: originally the shield or breastplate of Zeus, or Athena. Currently, protection; support; sponsorship; auspices.
aerate ::: v. t. --> To combine or charge with gas; usually with carbonic acid gas, formerly called fixed air.
To supply or impregnate with common air; as, to aerate soil; to aerate water.
To expose to the chemical action of air; to oxygenate (the blood) by respiration; to arterialize.
aeration ::: n. --> Exposure to the free action of the air; airing; as, aeration of soil, of spawn, etc.
A change produced in the blood by exposure to the air in respiration; oxygenation of the blood in respiration; arterialization.
The act or preparation of charging with carbonic acid gas or with oxygen.
affectionate ::: a. --> Having affection or warm regard; loving; fond; as, an affectionate brother.
Kindly inclined; zealous.
Proceeding from affection; indicating love; tender; as, the affectionate care of a parent; affectionate countenance, message, language.
Strongly inclined; -- with to.
affeer ::: v. t. --> To confirm; to assure.
To assess or reduce, as an arbitrary penalty or amercement, to a certain and reasonable sum.
affirmation ::: n. --> Confirmation of anything established; ratification; as, the affirmation of a law.
The act of affirming or asserting as true; assertion; -- opposed to negation or denial.
That which is asserted; an assertion; a positive statement; an averment; as, an affirmation, by the vender, of title to property sold, or of its quality.
A solemn declaration made under the penalties of
aforenamed ::: a. --> Named before.
agglutination ::: n. --> The act of uniting by glue or other tenacious substance; the state of being thus united; adhesion of parts.
Combination in which root words are united with little or no change of form or loss of meaning. See Agglutinative, 2.
agnostic ::: a. --> Professing ignorance; involving no dogmatic; pertaining to or involving agnosticism. ::: n. --> One who professes ignorance, or denies that we have any knowledge, save of phenomena; one who supports agnosticism, neither affirming nor denying the existence of a personal Deity, a future life,
ailuroidea ::: n. pl. --> A group of the Carnivora, which includes the cats, civets, and hyenas.
air plant ::: --> A plant deriving its sustenance from the air alone; an aerophyte.
album graecum ::: --> Dung of dogs or hyenas, which becomes white by exposure to air. It is used in dressing leather, and was formerly used in medicine.
alfa grass ::: n. --> A plant (Macrochloa tenacissima) of North Africa; also, its fiber, used in paper making.
alienability ::: n. --> Capability of being alienated.
alienable ::: a. --> Capable of being alienated, sold, or transferred to another; as, land is alienable according to the laws of the state.
alienage ::: n. --> The state or legal condition of being an alien.
The state of being alienated or transferred to another.
alienate ::: a. --> Estranged; withdrawn in affection; foreign; -- with from. ::: v. t. --> To convey or transfer to another, as title, property, or right; to part voluntarily with ownership of.
To withdraw, as the affections; to make indifferent of averse, where love or friendship before subsisted; to estrange; to
alienated ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Alienate
alienating ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Alienate
alienation ::: n. --> The act of alienating, or the state of being alienated.
A transfer of title, or a legal conveyance of property to another.
A withdrawing or estrangement, as of the affections.
Mental alienation; derangement of the mental faculties; insanity; as, alienation of mind.
alienator ::: n. --> One who alienates.
aliene ::: v. t. --> To alien or alienate; to transfer, as title or property; as, to aliene an estate.
alienism ::: n. --> The status or legal condition of an alien; alienage.
The study or treatment of diseases of the mind.
alienor ::: n. --> One who alienates or transfers property to another.
aliment ::: n. --> That which nourishes; food; nutriment; anything which feeds or adds to a substance in natural growth. Hence: The necessaries of life generally: sustenance; means of support.
An allowance for maintenance. ::: v. t. --> To nourish; to support.
alimony ::: n. --> Maintenance; means of living.
An allowance made to a wife out of her husband&
allenarly ::: adv. --> Solely; only.
"All force is power or means of a secret spirit; the Force that sustains the world is a conscious Will and Nature is its machinery of executive power.” The Renaissance in India
“All force is power or means of a secret spirit; the Force that sustains the world is a conscious Will and Nature is its machinery of executive power.” The Renaissance in India
"All phenomenal existence resolves itself into Force, into a movement of energy that assumes more or less material, more or less gross or subtle forms for self-presentation to its own experience.” The Life Divine
“All phenomenal existence resolves itself into Force, into a movement of energy that assumes more or less material, more or less gross or subtle forms for self-presentation to its own experience.” The Life Divine
altiscope ::: n. --> An arrangement of lenses and mirrors which enables a person to see an object in spite of intervening objects.
Amal: “There are several levels between the mind and the Supermind. One of them is that of the Ideal. A common classification by Sri Aurobindo is: the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuition, the Overmind Intuition, the Overmind, the supramentalised Overmind. In an early chapter of The Life Divine, there is a triple scheme: the Phenomenal, the Ideal, the Real. The Ideal here would cover all the planes between mind and Supermind.”
amaurosis ::: n. --> A loss or decay of sight, from loss of power in the optic nerve, without any perceptible external change in the eye; -- called also gutta serena, the "drop serene" of Milton.
amenability ::: n. --> The quality of being amenable; amenableness.
amenable ::: a. --> Easy to be led; governable, as a woman by her husband.
Liable to be brought to account or punishment; answerable; responsible; accountable; as, amenable to law.
Liable to punishment, a charge, a claim, etc.
Willing to yield or submit; responsive; tractable.
amenableness ::: n. --> The quality or state of being amenable; liability to answer charges; answerableness.
amenably ::: adv. --> In an amenable manner.
amenage ::: v. t. --> To manage.
amenance ::: n. --> Behavior; bearing.
amel ::: v. t. --> Enamel.
To enamel.
A mental formation stamped by the thoughts and feelings of a departed human being on the atmosphere of a place or locality, wandering about there or repeating itself, till that formation either exhausts itself or is dissolved by one means or another. This is the explanation of such phenomena as the haunted house in which the scenes attending or surrounding or preceding a murder are repeated over and over again and many other similar phenomena.
amercement ::: n. --> The infliction of a penalty at the discretion of the court; also, a mulct or penalty thus imposed. It differs from a fine,in that the latter is, or was originally, a fixed and certain sum prescribed by statue for an offense; but an amercement is arbitrary. Hence, the act or practice of affeering. [See Affeer.]
amerce ::: v. t. --> To punish by a pecuniary penalty, the amount of which is not fixed by law, but left to the discretion of the court; as, the amerced the criminal in the sum on the hundred dollars.
To punish, in general; to mulct.
amoroso ::: n. --> A lover; a man enamored. ::: adv. --> In a soft, tender, amatory style.
amorous ::: a. --> Inclined to love; having a propensity to love, or to sexual enjoyment; loving; fond; affectionate; as, an amorous disposition.
Affected with love; in love; enamored; -- usually with of; formerly with on.
Of or relating to, or produced by, love.
amorous ::: inclined or disposed to love; in love, enamoured, fond. 2. Showing or expressing love. 3. Being in love; enamoured.
amortization ::: n. --> The act or right of alienating lands to a corporation, which was considered formerly as transferring them to dead hands, or in mortmain.
The extinction of a debt, usually by means of a sinking fund; also, the money thus paid.
amortize ::: v. t. --> To make as if dead; to destroy.
To alienate in mortmain, that is, to convey to a corporation. See Mortmain.
To clear off or extinguish, as a debt, usually by means of a sinking fund.
amphisbaena ::: n. --> A fabled serpent with a head at each end, moving either way.
A genus of harmless lizards, serpentlike in form, without legs, and with both ends so much alike that they appear to have a head at each, and ability to move either way. See Illustration in Appendix.
amphisbaenoid ::: a. --> Like or pertaining to the lizards of the genus Amphisbaena.
amphitheatre ::: n. --> An oval or circular building with rising tiers of seats about an open space called the arena.
Anything resembling an amphitheater in form; as, a level surrounded by rising slopes or hills, or a rising gallery in a theater.
anabaptize ::: v. t. --> To rebaptize; to rechristen; also, to rename.
analogy ::: n. --> A resemblance of relations; an agreement or likeness between things in some circumstances or effects, when the things are otherwise entirely different. Thus, learning enlightens the mind, because it is to the mind what light is to the eye, enabling it to discover things before hidden.
A relation or correspondence in function, between organs or parts which are decidedly different.
Proportion; equality of ratios.
ANANDA. ::: Delight; essential principle of delight; bliss; spiritual ecstasy; the bliss of the Spirit which is the secret source· and support of all existence.
Ānanda is the secret delight from which all things are born, by which all is sustained in existence and to which all can rise in the spiritual culmination.
It is the Divine Bliss which comes from above. It is not joy or pleasure, but something self-existent, pure and quite beyond what any joy or pleasure can be.
Something greater than peace or joy, something that, like Truth and Light, is the very nature of the supramental Divine. It can come by frequent inrushes or descents, partially or for a time, but it cannot -remain in the system so long as the system has not been prepared for it.
It can come not only with its fullest intensity but with a more enduring persistence when the mind is at peace and the heart delivered from ordinary joy and sorrow. If the mind and heart are restless, changeful, unquiet, Ānanda of a kind may come, but it is mixed with vital excitement and cannot abide. One must get peace and calm fixed in the consciousness first, then there is a solid basis on which Ānanda can spread itself and in its turn become an enduring part of the consciousness and the nature.
Ānanda (ascension into) ::: It is quite impossible to ascend to the real Ānanda plane (except in a profound trance), until after the supramental consciousness has been entered, realised and possessed; but it is quite possible and normal to feel some form of Ānanda consciousness on any level. This consciousness, wherever it is felt, is a derivation from the Ānanda plane, but it is very much diminished in power and modified to suit the lesser power of receptivity of the inferior levels.
Ānanda (divine) in the physical ::: self-existent in its essence, its manifestation is dependent only on an inner union with the Divine.
Ānanda (of the Brahman) ::: there is an absoluteness of immutable ecstasy in it, a concentrated intensity of silent and inalienable rapture.
anatomism ::: n. --> The application of the principles of anatomy, as in art.
The doctrine that the anatomical structure explains all the phenomena of the organism or of animal life.
And these are in fact always acting upon our subliminal selves unknown to our vvaking mind and with considerable effect on our life and nature. The physical mind is only a little part of us and there is much more considerable range of our being in which the presence, infiuence and powers of the other planes are active upon us and help to shape our external being and its activities. The awakening of the psychical consciousness enables us fb become aware of these powers, presences and influences in and around us ; and while in the impure or yet ignorant and imperfect mind this unveiled contact has its dangers, it enables us too, if lightly used and directed, to be no longer their subject but their master and to coroe into conscious and seJf-confroJled possession of the inner secrets of our nature. The psychical consciousness reveals this interaction between the inner and the outer planes, this world and others, partly by an awareness, which may be very constant, vast and vivid, of their impacts, suggestions, communications to our inner thought and conscious being and a capacity of reaction upon them there, partly ako through many kinds of symbolic, transcriptive or representative images presented to the different psychical senses. But also
"A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the Ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. Even, the highest manifestations of a mind of Light would be an instrumentality of the supermind, a part of it or a projection from it, a stepping beyond humanity into the superhumanity of the supramental principle. Above all, its possession would enable the human being to rise beyond the normalities of his present thinking, feeling and being into those highest powers of the mind in its self-exceedings which intervene between our mentality and supermind and can be regarded as steps leading towards the greater and more luminous principle. This advance like others in the evolution might not be reached and would naturally not be reached at one bound, but from the very beginning it would be inevitable: the pressure of the supermind creating from above out of itself the mind of Light would compel this certainty of the eventual outcome.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the Ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. Even, the highest manifestations of a mind of Light would be an instrumentality of the supermind, a part of it or a projection from it, a stepping beyond humanity into the superhumanity of the supramental principle. Above all, its possession would enable the human being to rise beyond the normalities of his present thinking, feeling and being into those highest powers of the mind in its self-exceedings which intervene between our mentality and supermind and can be regarded as steps leading towards the greater and more luminous principle. This advance like others in the evolution might not be reached and would naturally not be reached at one bound, but from the very beginning it would be inevitable: the pressure of the supermind creating from above out of itself the mind of Light would compel this certainty of the eventual outcome.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
animalculism ::: n. --> The theory which seeks to explain certain physiological and pathological phenomena by means of animalcules.
anime ::: a. --> Of a different tincture from the animal itself; -- said of the eyes of a rapacious animal. ::: n. --> A resin exuding from a tropical American tree (Hymenaea courbaril), and much used by varnish makers.
animism ::: n. --> The doctrine, taught by Stahl, that the soul is the proper principle of life and development in the body.
The belief that inanimate objects and the phenomena of nature are endowed with personal life or a living soul; also, in an extended sense, the belief in the existence of soul or spirit apart from matter.
annex ::: v. t. --> To join or attach; usually to subjoin; to affix; to append; -- followed by to.
To join or add, as a smaller thing to a greater.
To attach or connect, as a consequence, condition, etc.; as, to annex a penalty to a prohibition, or punishment to guilt. ::: v. i.
answerable ::: a. --> Obliged to answer; liable to be called to account; liable to pay, indemnify, or make good; accountable; amenable; responsible; as, an agent is answerable to his principal; to be answerable for a debt, or for damages.
Capable of being answered or refuted; admitting a satisfactory answer.
Correspondent; conformable; hence, comparable.
Proportionate; commensurate; suitable; as, an
antenatal ::: a. --> Before birth.
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.
appenage ::: n. --> See Appanage.
appertainment ::: n. --> That which appertains to a person; an appurtenance.
appertinence ::: n. --> See Appurtenance.
appertinent ::: a. --> Belonging; appertaining. ::: n. --> That which belongs to something else; an appurtenant.
appurtenance ::: n. --> That which belongs to something else; an adjunct; an appendage; an accessory; something annexed to another thing more worthy; in common parlance and legal acceptation, something belonging to another thing as principal, and which passes as incident to it, as a right of way, or other easement to land; a right of common to pasture, an outhouse, barn, garden, or orchard, to a house or messuage. In a strict legal sense, land can never pass as an appurtenance to land.
appurtenant ::: a. --> Annexed or pertaining to some more important thing; accessory; incident; as, a right of way appurtenant to land or buildings. ::: n. --> Something which belongs or appertains to another thing; an appurtenance.
arenaceous ::: a. --> Sandy or consisting largely of sand; of the nature of sand; easily disintegrating into sand; friable; as, arenaceous limestone.
arenae ::: pl. --> of Arena
arena ::: n. --> The area in the central part of an amphitheater, in which the gladiators fought and other shows were exhibited; -- so called because it was covered with sand.
Any place of public contest or exertion; any sphere of action; as, the arenaof debate; the arena of life.
"Sand" or "gravel" in the kidneys.
arenarious ::: a. --> Sandy; as, arenarious soil.
arenas ::: central stages, rings, areas, or the like, used for sports or other forms of entertainment, surrounded by seats for spectators.
arenas ::: pl. --> of Arena
arenation ::: n. --> A sand bath; application of hot sand to the body.
arcade ::: n. --> A series of arches with the columns or piers which support them, the spandrels above, and other necessary appurtenances; sometimes open, serving as an entrance or to give light; sometimes closed at the back (as in the cut) and forming a decorative feature.
A long, arched building or gallery.
An arched or covered passageway or avenue.
argillo-areenaceous ::: a. --> Consisting of, or containing, clay and sand, as a soil.
ark ::: n. --> A chest, or coffer.
The oblong chest of acacia wood, overlaid with gold, which supported the mercy seat with its golden cherubs, and occupied the most sacred place in the sanctuary. In it Moses placed the two tables of stone containing the ten commandments. Called also the Ark of the Covenant.
The large, chestlike vessel in which Noah and his family were preserved during the Deluge. Gen. vi. Hence: Any place of refuge.
armamentary ::: n. --> An armory; a magazine or arsenal.
arsenal ::: n. --> A public establishment for the storage, or for the manufacture and storage, of arms and all military equipments, whether for land or naval service.
arsenate ::: n. --> A salt of arsenic acid.
arseniate ::: n. --> See Arsenate.
artificer ::: n. --> An artistic worker; a mechanic or manufacturer; one whose occupation requires skill or knowledge of a particular kind, as a silversmith.
One who makes or contrives; a deviser, inventor, or framer.
A cunning or artful fellow.
A military mechanic, as a blacksmith, carpenter, etc.; also, one who prepares the shells, fuses, grenades, etc., in a military
ascribe ::: v. t. --> To attribute, impute, or refer, as to a cause; as, his death was ascribed to a poison; to ascribe an effect to the right cause; to ascribe such a book to such an author.
To attribute, as a quality, or an appurtenance; to consider or allege to belong.
aspect ::: n. --> The act of looking; vision; gaze; glance.
Look, or particular appearance of the face; countenance; mien; air.
Appearance to the eye or the mind; look; view.
Position or situation with regard to seeing; that position which enables one to look in a particular direction; position in relation to the points of the compass; as, a house has a southern aspect, that is, a position which faces the south.
asphyxial ::: a. --> Of or relating to asphyxia; as, asphyxial phenomena.
assertion ::: n. --> The act of asserting, or that which is asserted; positive declaration or averment; affirmation; statement asserted; position advanced.
Maintenance; vindication; as, the assertion of one&
assure ::: v. t. --> To make sure or certain; to render confident by a promise, declaration, or other evidence.
To declare to, solemnly; to assert to (any one) with the design of inspiring belief or confidence.
To confirm; to make certain or secure.
To affiance; to betroth.
To insure; to covenant to indemnify for loss, or to pay a specified sum at death. See Insure.
". . . as there is a constant dynamic energy in movement in the universe which takes various material forms more or less subtle or gross, so in each physical body or object, plant or animal or metal, there is stored and active the same constant dynamic force; a certain interchange of these two gives us the phenomena which we associate with the idea of life. It is this action that we recognise as the action of Life-Energy and that which so energises itself is the Life-Force. Mind-Energy, Life-Energy, material Energy are different dynamisms of one World-Force.” The Life Divine
“… as there is a constant dynamic energy in movement in the universe which takes various material forms more or less subtle or gross, so in each physical body or object, plant or animal or metal, there is stored and active the same constant dynamic force; a certain interchange of these two gives us the phenomena which we associate with the idea of life. It is this action that we recognise as the action of Life-Energy and that which so energises itself is the Life-Force. Mind-Energy, Life-Energy, material Energy are different dynamisms of one World-Force.” The Life Divine
astronomer ::: n. --> An astrologer.
One who is versed in astronomy; one who has a knowledge of the laws of the heavenly orbs, or the principles by which their motions are regulated, with their various phenomena.
astronomy ::: n. --> Astrology.
The science which treats of the celestial bodies, of their magnitudes, motions, distances, periods of revolution, eclipses, constitution, physical condition, and of the causes of their various phenomena.
A treatise on, or text-book of, the science.
athenaea ::: pl. --> of Athenaeum
athenaeum ::: n. --> A temple of Athene, at Athens, in which scholars and poets were accustomed to read their works and instruct students.
A school founded at Rome by Hadrian.
A literary or scientific association or club.
A building or an apartment where a library, periodicals, and newspapers are kept for use.
atheneum ::: n. --> Alt. of Athenaeum
atheneums ::: pl. --> of Athenaeum
atmology ::: n. --> That branch of science which treats of the laws and phenomena of aqueous vapor.
attachment ::: n. --> The act attaching, or state of being attached; close adherence or affection; fidelity; regard; an/ passion of affection that binds a person; as, an attachment to a friend, or to a party.
That by which one thing is attached to another; connection; as, to cut the attachments of a muscle.
Something attached; some adjunct attached to an instrument, machine, or other object; as, a sewing machine attachment (i. e., a device attached to a sewing machine to enable it to do
attornment ::: n. --> The act of a feudatory, vassal, or tenant, by which he consents, upon the alienation of an estate, to receive a new lord or superior, and transfers to him his homage and service; the agreement of a tenant to acknowledge the purchaser of the estate as his landlord.
attorn ::: v. t. --> To turn, or transfer homage and service, from one lord to another. This is the act of feudatories, vassals, or tenants, upon the alienation of the estate.
To agree to become tenant to one to whom reversion has been granted.
aubade ::: n. --> An open air concert in the morning, as distinguished from an evening serenade; also, a pianoforte composition suggestive of morning.
audiphone ::: n. --> An instrument which, placed against the teeth, conveys sound to the auditory nerve and enables the deaf to hear more or less distinctly; a dentiphone.
augur ::: n. --> An official diviner who foretold events by the singing, chattering, flight, and feeding of birds, or by signs or omens derived from celestial phenomena, certain appearances of quadrupeds, or unusual occurrences.
One who foretells events by omens; a soothsayer; a diviner; a prophet. ::: v. i.
avenaceous ::: a. --> Belonging to, or resembling, oats or the oat grasses.
avenage ::: n. --> A quantity of oats paid by a tenant to a landlord in lieu of rent.
avena ::: n. --> A genus of grasses, including the common oat (Avena sativa); the oat grasses.
avenge ::: to inflict a punishment or penalty in return for; take vengeance on behalf of. avenges.
average ::: n. --> That service which a tenant owed his lord, to be done by the work beasts of the tenant, as the carriage of wheat, turf, etc.
A tariff or duty on goods, etc.
Any charge in addition to the regular charge for freight of goods shipped.
A contribution to a loss or charge which has been imposed upon one of several for the general benefit; damage done by sea perils.
The equitable and proportionate distribution of loss or
avercorn ::: n. --> A reserved rent in corn, formerly paid to religious houses by their tenants or farmers.
averpenny ::: n. --> Money paid by a tenant in lieu of the service of average.
A Vibhitti is supposed to embody some power of the Divine and is enabled by it to act with great force in the world. The power may be very great, but the consciousness is not that of an inborn or indwelling Divinity.
away-going ::: a. --> Sown during the last years of a tenancy, but not ripe until after its expiration; -- said of crops.
baron ::: n. --> A title or degree of nobility; originally, the possessor of a fief, who had feudal tenants under him; in modern times, in France and Germany, a nobleman next in rank below a count; in England, a nobleman of the lowest grade in the House of Lords, being next below a viscount.
A husband; as, baron and feme, husband and wife.
barracouata ::: n. --> A voracious pikelike, marine fish, of the genus Sphyraena, sometimes used as food.
A large edible fresh-water fish of Australia and New Zealand (Thyrsites atun).
bash ::: v. t. & i. --> To abash; to disconcert or be disconcerted or put out of countenance.
benamed ::: p. p. --> of Bename
bename ::: v. t. --> To promise; to name.
beaconage ::: n. --> Money paid for the maintenance of a beacon; also, beacons, collectively.
beast ::: n. --> Any living creature; an animal; -- including man, insects, etc.
Any four-footed animal, that may be used for labor, food, or sport; as, a beast of burden.
As opposed to man: Any irrational animal.
Fig.: A coarse, brutal, filthy, or degraded fellow.
A game at cards similar to loo.
A penalty at beast, omber, etc. Hence: To be beasted, to be
becuna ::: n. --> A fish of the Mediterranean (Sphyraena spet). See Barracuda.
befriend ::: v. t. --> To act as a friend to; to favor; to aid, benefit, or countenance.
being ::: 1. The state or quality of having existence. 2. The totality of all things that exist. 3. One"s basic or essential nature; self. 4. All the qualities constituting one that exists; the essence. 5. A person; human being. 6. The Divine, the Supreme; God. Being, being"s, Being"s, beings, Beings, beings", earth-being"s, earth-beings, fragment-being, non-being, non-being"s, Non-Being, Non-Being"s, world-being"s.
Sri Aurobindo: "Pure Being is the affirmation by the Unknowable of Itself as the free base of all cosmic existence.” *The Life Divine :::
"The Absolute manifests itself in two terms, a Being and a Becoming. The Being is the fundamental reality; the Becoming is an effectual reality: it is a dynamic power and result, a creative energy and working out of the Being, a constantly persistent yet mutable form, process, outcome of its immutable formless essence.” *The Life Divine
"What is original and eternal for ever in the Divine is the Being, what is developed in consciousness, conditions, forces, forms, etc., by the Divine Power is the Becoming. The eternal Divine is the Being; the universe in Time and all that is apparent in it is a Becoming.” Letters on Yoga
"Being and Becoming, One and Many are both true and are both the same thing: Being is one, Becomings are many; but this simply means that all Becomings are one Being who places Himself variously in the phenomenal movement of His consciousness.” The Upanishads :::
"Our whole apparent life has only a symbolic value & is good & necessary as a becoming; but all becoming has being for its goal & fulfilment & God is the only being.” *Essays Divine and Human
"Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“Being and Becoming, One and Many are both true and are both the same thing: Being is one, Becomings are many; but this simply means that all Becomings are one Being who places Himself variously in the phenomenal movement of His consciousness.” The Upanishads
Being or a Presence — sometimes one of these, sometimes several of them or all together. The movement of ascension has diffe- rent results ; it may liberate the consciousness so that one feels no longer in he body, but above it or else spread in wideness with the body whether almost non-existent or only a point in one’s free expanse. It may enable the being or some part of the being to go out from the body and move elsewhere, and this action is usually accompanied by some kind of partial Samadhi or else a complete trance. Or, it may result in empowering the cons- ciousness, no longer limited by the body and the habits of the external nature, to go within, to enter the inner mental depths, the inner vital, the inner (subtle) physical, the psychic, to become aware of its inmost psychic self or its inner mental, vital, and subtle physical being, and it may be, to move and live in the domains, the planes, the worlds that correspond to these parts of the nature. It is the repeated and constant ascent of the lower consciousness that enables the mind, the vital, the physical to come into touch with the higher planes up to the Supramental and get impregnated with their light and power and influence.
belonging ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Belong ::: n. --> That which belongs to one; that which pertains to one; hence, goods or effects.
That which is connected with a principal or greater thing; an appendage; an appurtenance.
enact ::: to represent on or as on the stage; act the part of. enacts, enacted.
enamoured ::: filled or inflamed with love. captivated.
benefice ::: n. --> A favor or benefit.
An estate in lands; a fief.
An ecclesiastical living and church preferment, as in the Church of England; a church endowed with a revenue for the maintenance of divine service. See Advowson. ::: v. t.
benempt ::: --> of Bename ::: p. p. --> Promised; vowed.
Named; styled.
bicentenary ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to two hundred, esp. to two hundred years; as, a bicentenary celebration. ::: n. --> The two hundredth anniversary, or its celebration.
bicrenate ::: a. --> Twice crenated, as in the case of leaves whose crenatures are themselves crenate.
binocle ::: n. --> A dioptric telescope, fitted with two tubes joining, so as to enable a person to view an object with both eyes at once; a double-barreled field glass or an opera glass.
biostatics ::: n. --> The physical phenomena of organized bodies, in opposition to their organic or vital phenomena.
bitterwood ::: n. --> A West Indian tree (Picraena excelsa) from the wood of which the bitter drug Jamaica quassia is obtained.
black-jack ::: n. --> A name given by English miners to sphalerite, or zinc blende; -- called also false galena. See Blende.
Caramel or burnt sugar, used to color wines, spirits, ground coffee, etc.
A large leather vessel for beer, etc.
The Quercus nigra, or barren oak.
The ensign of a pirate.
blende ::: n. --> A mineral, called also sphalerite, and by miners mock lead, false galena, and black-jack. It is a zinc sulphide, but often contains some iron. Its color is usually yellow, brown, or black, and its luster resinous.
A general term for some minerals, chiefly metallic sulphides which have a somewhat brilliant but nonmetallic luster.
blockhouse ::: n. --> An edifice or structure of heavy timbers or logs for military defense, having its sides loopholed for musketry, and often an upper story projecting over the lower, or so placed upon it as to have its sides make an angle wit the sides of the lower story, thus enabling the defenders to fire downward, and in all directions; -- formerly much used in America and Germany.
A house of squared logs.
bond ::: 1. Something, such as a fetter, cord, or band, that binds, ties, or fastens things together. Also fig. 2. A duty, promise, or other obligation by which one is bound. 3. Something that binds one to a certain circumstance or line of behaviour. 4. A uniting force or tie; a link. 5. A binding agreement; a covenant. bonds.
bondage ::: a. --> The state of being bound; condition of being under restraint; restraint of personal liberty by compulsion; involuntary servitude; slavery; captivity.
Obligation; tie of duty.
Villenage; tenure of land on condition of doing the meanest services for the owner.
bondman ::: n. --> A man slave, or one bound to service without wages.
A villain, or tenant in villenage.
borax ::: n. --> A white or gray crystalline salt, with a slight alkaline taste, used as a flux, in soldering metals, making enamels, fixing colors on porcelain, and as a soap. It occurs native in certain mineral springs, and is made from the boric acid of hot springs in Tuscany. It was originally obtained from a lake in Thibet, and was sent to Europe under the name of tincal. Borax is a pyroborate or tetraborate of sodium, Na2B4O7.10H2O.
bordland ::: n. --> Either land held by a bordar, or the land which a lord kept for the maintenance of his board, or table.
bordlode ::: n. --> The service formerly required of a tenant, to carry timber from the woods to the lord&
bordman ::: n. --> A bordar; a tenant in bordage.
boscage ::: n. --> A growth of trees or shrubs; underwood; a thicket; thick foliage; a wooded landscape.
Food or sustenance for cattle, obtained from bushes and trees; also, a tax on wood.
bowhead ::: n. --> The great Arctic or Greenland whale. (Balaena mysticetus). See Baleen, and Whale.
bravado ::: n. --> Boastful and threatening behavior; a boastful menace.
brazen ::: a. --> Pertaining to, made of, or resembling, brass.
Sounding harsh and loud, like resounding brass.
Impudent; immodest; shameless; having a front like brass; as, a brazen countenance. ::: v. t. --> To carry through impudently or shamelessly; as, to
bread ::: a. --> To spread. ::: n. --> An article of food made from flour or meal by moistening, kneading, and baking.
Food; sustenance; support of life, in general.
breeching ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Breech ::: n. --> A whipping on the breech, or the act of whipping on the breech.
That part of a harness which passes round the breech of a horse, enabling him to hold back a vehicle.
brennage ::: n. --> A tribute which tenants paid to their lord, in lieu of bran, which they were obliged to furnish for his hounds.
bridewell ::: n. --> A house of correction for the confinement of disorderly persons; -- so called from a hospital built in 1553 near St. Bride&
brittle ::: a. --> Easily broken; apt to break; fragile; not tough or tenacious.
brocatel ::: n. --> A kind of coarse brocade, or figured fabric, used chiefly for tapestry, linings for carriages, etc.
A marble, clouded and veined with white, gray, yellow, and red, in which the yellow usually prevails. It is also called Siena marble, from its locality.
brow ::: 1. The part of the face from the eyes to the hairline. forehead. 2. The expression of the face; countenance. 3. The eyebrow. pl. **brows.**
brow ::: n. --> The prominent ridge over the eye, with the hair that covers it, forming an arch above the orbit.
The hair that covers the brow (ridge over the eyes); the eyebrow.
The forehead; as, a feverish brow.
The general air of the countenance.
The edge or projecting upper part of a steep place; as, the brow of a precipice; the brow of a hill.
bulldog ::: n. --> A variety of dog, of remarkable ferocity, courage, and tenacity of grip; -- so named, probably, from being formerly employed in baiting bulls.
A refractory material used as a furnace lining, obtained by calcining the cinder or slag from the puddling furnace of a rolling mill. ::: a.
bullfighting ::: n. --> A barbarous sport, of great antiquity, in which men torment, and fight with, a bull or bulls in an arena, for public amusement, -- still popular in Spain.
burdock ::: n. --> A genus of coarse biennial herbs (Lappa), bearing small burs which adhere tenaciously to clothes, or to the fur or wool of animals.
bursary ::: n. --> The treasury of a college or monastery.
A scholarship or charitable foundation in a university, as in Scotland; a sum given to enable a student to pursue his studies.
burse ::: n. --> A purse; also, a vesicle; a pod; a hull.
A fund or foundation for the maintenance of needy scholars in their studies; also, the sum given to the beneficiaries.
An ornamental case of hold the corporal when not in use.
An exchange, for merchants and bankers, in the cities of continental Europe. Same as Bourse.
A kind of bazaar.
"But in a higher than our present mental consciousness we find that this duality is only a phenomenal appearance. The highest and real truth of existence is the one Spirit, the supreme Soul, Purushottama, and it is the power of being of this Spirit which manifests itself in all that we experience as universe. This universal Nature is not a lifeless, inert or unconscious mechanism, but informed in all its movements by the universal Spirit. The mechanism of its process is only an outward appearance and the reality is the Spirit creating or manifesting its own being by its own power of being in all that is in Nature. Soul and Nature in us too are only a dual appearance of the one existence.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“But in a higher than our present mental consciousness we find that this duality is only a phenomenal appearance. The highest and real truth of existence is the one Spirit, the supreme Soul, Purushottama, and it is the power of being of this Spirit which manifests itself in all that we experience as universe. This universal Nature is not a lifeless, inert or unconscious mechanism, but informed in all its movements by the universal Spirit. The mechanism of its process is only an outward appearance and the reality is the Spirit creating or manifesting its own being by its own power of being in all that is in Nature. Soul and Nature in us too are only a dual appearance of the one existence.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"But in the path of knowledge as it is practised in India concentration is used in a special and more limited sense. It means that removal of the thought from all distracting activities of the mind and that concentration of it on the idea of the One by which the soul rises out of the phenomenal into the one reality.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“But in the path of knowledge as it is practised in India concentration is used in a special and more limited sense. It means that removal of the thought from all distracting activities of the mind and that concentration of it on the idea of the One by which the soul rises out of the phenomenal into the one reality.” The Synthesis of Yoga
But this exclusive consummation t$ not the sole or inevitable result of the Path of Knowledge. For, followed more largely and with a less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no less than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realisation of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but in all beings, and, finally, the realisation of even the pheno- menal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realisation a yet further enlargement is possible, the conversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilisable for the perception of the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the pTay of its fonns and symbols. Such a method might well lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect and perception to the dirine level, to its spiritualisation
calcium ::: n. --> An elementary substance; a metal which combined with oxygen forms lime. It is of a pale yellow color, tenacious, and malleable. It is a member of the alkaline earth group of elements. Atomic weight 40. Symbol Ca.
callithump ::: n. --> A somewhat riotous parade, accompanied with the blowing of tin horns, and other discordant noises; also, a burlesque serenade; a charivari.
caloric ::: n. --> The principle of heat, or the agent to which the phenomena of heat and combustion were formerly ascribed; -- not now used in scientific nomenclature, but sometimes used as a general term for heat. ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to caloric.
calyx ::: n. --> The covering of a flower. See Flower.
A cuplike division of the pelvis of the kidney, which surrounds one or more of the renal papillae.
cameronian ::: n. --> A follower of the Rev. Richard Cameron, a Scotch Covenanter of the time of Charles II.
canon ::: n. --> A law or rule.
A law, or rule of doctrine or discipline, enacted by a council and confirmed by the pope or the sovereign; a decision, regulation, code, or constitution made by ecclesiastical authority.
The collection of books received as genuine Holy Scriptures, called the sacred canon, or general rule of moral and religious duty, given by inspiration; the Bible; also, any one of the canonical Scriptures. See Canonical books, under Canonical, a.
cantabile ::: a. --> In a melodious, flowing style; in a singing style, as opposed to bravura, recitativo, or parlando. ::: n. --> A piece or passage, whether vocal or instrumental, peculiarly adapted to singing; -- sometimes called cantilena.
cantilena ::: n. --> See Cantabile.
caoutchouc ::: n. --> A tenacious, elastic, gummy substance obtained from the milky sap of several plants of tropical South America (esp. the euphorbiaceous tree Siphonia elastica or Hevea caoutchouc), Asia, and Africa. Being impermeable to liquids and gases, and not readly affected by exposure to air, acids, and alkalies, it is used, especially when vulcanized, for many purposes in the arts and in manufactures. Also called India rubber (because it was first brought from India, and was formerly used chiefly for erasing pencil marks) and gum elastic. See
capacitate ::: v. t. --> To render capable; to enable; to qualify.
capite ::: n. --> See under Tenant.
capitol ::: --> The temple of Jupiter, at Rome, on the Mona Capitolinus, where the Senate met.
The edifice at Washington occupied by the Congress of the United States; also, the building in which the legislature of State holds its sessions; a statehouse.
caramel ::: n. --> Burnt sugar; a brown or black porous substance obtained by heating sugar. It is soluble in water, and is used for coloring spirits, gravies, etc.
A kind of confectionery, usually a small cube or square of tenacious paste, or candy, of varying composition and flavor.
careenage ::: n. --> Expense of careening ships.
A place for careening.
cartbote ::: n. --> Wood to which a tenant is entitled for making and repairing carts and other instruments of husbandry.
castle-guard ::: n. --> The guard or defense of a castle.
A tax or imposition an a dwelling within a certain distance of a castle, for the purpose of maintaining watch and ward in it; castle-ward.
A feudal tenure, obliging the tenant to perform service within the realm, without limitation of time.
cataclysmist ::: n. --> One who believes that the most important geological phenomena have been produced by cataclysms.
catadioptrics ::: n. --> The science which treats of catadioptric phenomena, or of the used of catadioptric instruments.
catena ::: n. --> A chain or series of things connected with each other.
catenarian ::: a. --> Relating to a chain; like a chain; as, a catenary curve.
catenary ::: a. --> Alt. of Catenarian ::: n. --> The curve formed by a rope or chain of uniform density and perfect flexibility, hanging freely between two points of suspension, not in the same vertical line.
catenated ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Catenate
catenate ::: v. t. --> To connect, in a series of links or ties; to chain.
catenating ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Catenate
catenation ::: n. --> Connection of links or union of parts, as in a chain; a regular or connected series. See Concatenation.
catechumenate ::: n. --> The state or condition of a catechumen or the time during which one is a catechumen.
catene ::: pl. --> of Catena
catoptrics ::: n. --> That part of optics which explains the properties and phenomena of reflected light, and particularly that which is reflected from mirrors or polished bodies; -- formerly called anacamptics.
catoptromancy ::: n. --> A species of divination, which was performed by letting down a mirror into water, for a sick person to look at his face in it. If his countenance appeared distorted and ghastly, it was an ill omen; if fresh and healthy, it was favorable.
causidical ::: a. --> Pertaining to an advocate, or to the maintenance and defense of suits.
cenanthy ::: n. --> The absence or suppression of the essential organs (stamens and pistil) in a flower.
cenation ::: n. --> Meal-taking; dining or supping.
cenatory ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to dinner or supper.
centenarian ::: a. --> Of or relating to a hundred years. ::: n. --> A person a hundred years old.
centenaries ::: pl. --> of Centenary
centenary ::: a. --> Relating to, or consisting of, a hundred.
Occurring once in every hundred years; centennial. ::: n. --> The aggregate of a hundred single things; specifically, a century.
A commemoration or celebration of an event which
centesimation ::: n. --> The infliction of the death penalty upon one person in every hundred, as in cases of mutiny.
cerebralism ::: n. --> The doctrine or theory that psychical phenomena are functions or products of the brain only.
cessavit ::: n. --> A writ given by statute to recover lands when the tenant has for two years failed to perform the conditions of his tenure.
cesser ::: v. i. --> a neglect of a tenant to perform services, or make payment, for two years.
chamber ::: n. --> A retired room, esp. an upper room used for sleeping; a bedroom; as, the house had four chambers.
Apartments in a lodging house.
A hall, as where a king gives audience, or a deliberative body or assembly meets; as, presence chamber; senate chamber.
A legislative or judicial body; an assembly; a society or association; as, the Chamber of Deputies; the Chamber of Commerce.
A compartment or cell; an inclosed space or cavity; as,
champerty ::: n. --> Partnership in power; equal share of authority.
The prosecution or defense of a suit, whether by furnishing money or personal services, by one who has no legitimate concern therein, in consideration of an agreement that he shall receive, in the event of success, a share of the matter in suit; maintenance with the addition of an agreement to divide the thing in suit. See Maintenance.
change ::: v. t. --> To alter; to make different; to cause to pass from one state to another; as, to change the position, character, or appearance of a thing; to change the countenance.
To alter by substituting something else for, or by giving up for something else; as, to change the clothes; to change one&
chapeau ::: n. --> A hat or covering for the head.
A cap of maintenance. See Maintenance.
charivari ::: n. --> A mock serenade of discordant noises, made with kettles, tin horns, etc., designed to annoy and insult.
check ::: n. --> A word of warning denoting that the king is in danger; such a menace of a player&
cheer ::: n. --> The face; the countenance or its expression.
Feeling; spirit; state of mind or heart.
Gayety; mirth; cheerfulness; animation.
That which promotes good spirits or cheerfulness; provisions prepared for a feast; entertainment; as, a table loaded with good cheer.
A shout, hurrah, or acclamation, expressing joy enthusiasm, applause, favor, etc.
chiliastic ::: a. --> Millenarian.
chiliast ::: n. --> One who believes in the second coming of Christ to reign on earth a thousand years; a milllenarian.
chronoscope ::: n. --> An instrument for measuring minute intervals of time; used in determining the velocity of projectiles, the duration of short-lived luminous phenomena, etc.
— clalraudience, clairsenticnce arc the more external manifesta- tions, — with precisely the same range each in its own kind, the same fields and manner and conditions and saricties of their phenomena.
clamper ::: n. --> An instrument of iron, with sharp prongs, attached to a boot or shoe to enable the wearer to walk securely upon ice; a creeper.
clamp ::: n. --> Something rigid that holds fast or binds things together; a piece of wood or metal, used to hold two or more pieces together.
An instrument with a screw or screws by which work is held in its place or two parts are temporarily held together.
A piece of wood placed across another, or inserted into another, to bind or strengthen.
One of a pair of movable pieces of lead, or other soft material, to cover the jaws of a vise and enable it to grasp without
clam ::: v. t. --> A bivalve mollusk of many kinds, especially those that are edible; as, the long clam (Mya arenaria), the quahog or round clam (Venus mercenaria), the sea clam or hen clam (Spisula solidissima), and other species of the United States. The name is said to have been given originally to the Tridacna gigas, a huge East Indian bivalve.
Strong pinchers or forceps.
A kind of vise, usually of wood.
To clog, as with glutinous or viscous matter.
cledgy ::: a. --> Stiff, stubborn, clayey, or tenacious; as, a cledgy soil.
climate ::: v. i. --> One of thirty regions or zones, parallel to the equator, into which the surface of the earth from the equator to the pole was divided, according to the successive increase of the length of the midsummer day.
The condition of a place in relation to various phenomena of the atmosphere, as temperature, moisture, etc., especially as they affect animal or vegetable life.
To dwell.
climatology ::: n. --> The science which treats of climates and investigates their phenomena and causes.
cling ::: 1. To come or be in close contact with; stick or hold together and resist separation 2. To hold fast or adhere to as if by embracing. 3. To be emotionally or intellectually attached or remain close to. 4. To hold on tightly or tenaciously to. 5. To remain attached as to an idea, hope, memory, etc. clings, clung, clinging.
cloisonne ::: a. --> Inlaid between partitions: -- said of enamel when the lines which divide the different patches of fields are composed of a kind of metal wire secured to the ground; as distinguished from champleve enamel, in which the ground is engraved or scooped out to receive the enamel.
clumps ::: n. --> A game in which questions are asked for the purpose of enabling the questioners to discover a word or thing previously selected by two persons who answer the questions; -- so called because the players take sides in two "clumps" or groups, the "clump" which guesses the word winning the game.
coffer ::: n. --> A casket, chest, or trunk; especially, one used for keeping money or other valuables.
Fig.: Treasure or funds; -- usually in the plural.
A panel deeply recessed in the ceiling of a vault, dome, or portico; a caisson.
A trench dug in the bottom of a dry moat, and extending across it, to enable the besieged to defend it by a raking fire.
The chamber of a canal lock; also, a caisson or a
coigny ::: n. --> The practice of quartering one&
cokenay ::: n. --> A cockney.
colonel ::: n. --> The chief officer of a regiment; an officer ranking next above a lieutenant colonel and next below a brigadier general.
comart ::: n. --> A covenant.
commander ::: n. --> A chief; one who has supreme authority; a leader; the chief officer of an army, or of any division of it.
An officer who ranks next below a captain, -- ranking with a lieutenant colonel in the army.
The chief officer of a commandery.
A heavy beetle or wooden mallet, used in paving, in sail lofts, etc.
commutation ::: n. --> A passing from one state to another; change; alteration; mutation.
The act of giving one thing for another; barter; exchange.
The change of a penalty or punishment by the pardoning power of the State; as, the commutation of a sentence of death to banishment or imprisonment.
A substitution, as of a less thing for a greater, esp.
commute ::: v. t. --> To exchange; to put or substitute something else in place of, as a smaller penalty, obligation, or payment, for a greater, or a single thing for an aggregate; hence, to lessen; to diminish; as, to commute a sentence of death to one of imprisonment for life; to commute tithes; to commute charges for fares. ::: v. i.
compact ::: an agreement or a covenant.
complutensian ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Complutum (now Alcala de Henares) a city near Madrid; as, the Complutensian Bible.
concatenated ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Concatenate
concatenate ::: v. t. --> To link together; to unite in a series or chain, as things depending on one another.
concatenating ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Concatenate
concatenation ::: n. --> A series of links united; a series or order of things depending on each other, as if linked together; a chain, a succession.
CONCENTRATION ::: Fixing the consciousness in one place or on one object and in a single condition.
A gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g. the Divine; there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point.
Concentration is necessary, first to turn the whole will and mind from the discursive divagation natural to them, following a dispersed movement of the thoughts, running after many-branching desires, led away in the track of the senses and the outward mental response to phenomena; we have to fix the will and the thought on the eternal and real behind all, and this demands an immense effort, a one-pointed concentration. Secondly, it is necessary in order to break down the veil which is erected by our ordinary mentality between ourselves and the truth; for outer knowledge can be picked up by the way, by ordinary attention and reception, but the inner, hidden and higher truth can only be seized by an absolute concentration of the mind on its object, an absolute concentration of the will to attain it and, once attained, to hold it habitually and securely unite oneself with it.
Centre of Concentration: The two main places where one can centre the consciousness for yoga are in the head and in the heart - the mind-centre and the soul-centre.
Brain concentration is always a tapasyā and necessarily brings a strain. It is only if one is lifted out of the brain mind altogether that the strain of mental concentration disappears.
At the top of the head or above it is the right place for yogic concentration in reading or thinking.
In whatever centre the concentration takes place, the yoga force generated extends to the others and produces concentration or workings there.
Modes of Concentration: There is no harm in concentrating sometimes in the heart and sometimes above the head. But concentration in either place does not mean keeping the attention fixed on a particular spot; you have to take your station of consciousness in either place and concentrate there not on the place, but on the Divine. This can be done with eyes shut or with eyes open, according as it best suits.
If one concentrates on a thought or a word, one has to dwell on the essential idea contained in the word with the aspiration to feel the thing which it expresses.
There is no method in this yoga except 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 to 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 a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be.
Powers (three) of Concentration ::: By concentration on anything whatsoever we are able to know that thing, to make it deliver up its concealed secrets; we must use this power to know not things, but the one Thing-in-itself. By concentration again the whole will can be gathered up for the acquisition of that which is still ungrasped, still beyond us; this power, if it is sufficiently trained, sufficiently single-minded, sufficiently sincere, sure of itself, faithful to itself alone, absolute in faith, we can use for the acquisition of any object whatsoever; but we ought to use it not for the acquisition of the many objects which the world offers to us, but to grasp spiritually that one object worthy of pursuit which is also the one subject worthy of knowledge. By concentration of our whole being on one status of itself we can become whatever we choose ; we can become, for instance, even if we were before a mass of weaknesses and fears, a mass instead of strength and courage, or we can become all a great purity, holiness and peace or a single universal soul of Love ; but we ought, it is said, to use this power to become not even these things, high as they may be in comparison with what we now are, but rather to become that which is above all things and free from all action and attributes, the pure and absolute Being. All else, all other concentration can only be valuable for preparation, for previous steps, for a gradual training of the dissolute and self-dissipating thought, will and being towards their grand and unique object.
Stages in Concentration (Rajayogic) ::: that in which the object is seized, that in which it is held, that in which the mind is lost in the status which the object represents or to which the concentration leads.
Concentration and Meditation ::: Concentration means fixing the consciousness in one place or one object and in a single condition Meditation can be diffusive,e.g. thinking about the Divine, receiving impressions and discriminating, watching what goes on in the nature and acting upon it etc. Meditation is when the inner mind is looking at things to get the right knowledge.
vide Dhyāna.
concordat ::: n. --> A compact, covenant, or agreement concerning anything.
An agreement made between the pope and a sovereign or government for the regulation of ecclesiastical matters with which both are concerned; as, the concordat between Pope Pius VII and Bonaparte in 1801.
concord ::: n. --> A state of agreement; harmony; union.
Agreement by stipulation; compact; covenant; treaty or league.
Agreement of words with one another, in gender, number, person, or case.
An agreement between the parties to a fine of land in reference to the manner in which it should pass, being an acknowledgment that the land in question belonged to the complainant.
condemn ::: v. t. --> To pronounce to be wrong; to disapprove of; to censure.
To declare the guilt of; to make manifest the faults or unworthiness of; to convict of guilt.
To pronounce a judicial sentence against; to sentence to punishment, suffering, or loss; to doom; -- with to before the penalty.
To amerce or fine; -- with in before the penalty.
To adjudge or pronounce to be unfit for use or service;
conferee ::: n. --> One who is conferred with, or who takes part in a conference; as, the conferees on the part of the Senate.
One upon whom something is conferred.
confirm ::: v. t. --> To make firm or firmer; to add strength to; to establish; as, health is confirmed by exercise.
To strengthen in judgment or purpose.
To give new assurance of the truth of; to render certain; to verify; to corroborate; as, to confirm a rumor.
To render valid by formal assent; to complete by a necessary sanction; to ratify; as, to confirm the appoinment of an official; the Senate confirms a treaty.
conglutinate ::: a. --> Glued together; united, as by some adhesive substance. ::: v. t. --> To glue together; to unite by some glutinous or tenacious substance; to cause to adhere or to grow together.
conglutination ::: n. --> A gluing together; a joining by means of some tenacious substance; junction; union.
consequentially ::: adv. --> With just deduction of consequence; with right connection of ideas; logically.
By remote consequence; not immediately; eventually; as, to do a thing consequentially.
In a regular series; in the order of cause and effect; with logical concatenation; consecutively; continuously.
With assumed importance; pompously.
constitute ::: v. t. --> To cause to stand; to establish; to enact.
To make up; to compose; to form.
To appoint, depute, or elect to an office; to make and empower. ::: n. --> An established law.
constitution ::: n. --> The act or process of constituting; the action of enacting, establishing, or appointing; enactment; establishment; formation.
The state of being; that form of being, or structure and connection of parts, which constitutes and characterizes a system or body; natural condition; structure; texture; conformation.
The aggregate of all one&
constitutive ::: a. --> Tending or assisting to constitute or compose; elemental; essential.
Having power to enact, establish, or create; instituting; determining.
constructiveness ::: n. --> Tendency or ability to form or construct.
The faculty which enables one to construct, as in mechanical, artistic, or literary matters.
consul ::: n. --> One of the two chief magistrates of the republic.
A senator; a counselor.
One of the three chief magistrates of France from 1799 to 1804, who were called, respectively, first, second, and third consul.
An official commissioned to reside in some foreign country, to care for the commercial interests of the citizens of the appointing government, and to protect its seamen.
contenement ::: n. --> That which is held together with another thing; that which is connected with a tenement, or thing holden, as a certain quantity of land adjacent to a dwelling, and necessary to the reputable enjoyment of the dwelling; appurtenance.
contract ::: n. --> To draw together or nearer; to reduce to a less compass; to shorten, narrow, or lessen; as, to contract one&
contractor ::: n. --> One who contracts; one of the parties to a bargain; one who covenants to do anything for another; specifically, one who contracts to perform work on a rather large scale, at a certain price or rate, as in building houses or making a railroad.
contrahent ::: a. --> Entering into covenant; contracting; as, contrahent parties.
controllable ::: a. --> Capable of being controlled, checked, or restrained; amenable to command.
convenable ::: a. --> Capable of being convened or assembled.
Consistent; accordant; suitable; proper; as, convenable remedies.
convenance ::: n. --> That which is suitable, agreeable, or convenient.
convenance ::: suitability; expediency; propriety.
conventicle ::: n. --> A small assembly or gathering; esp., a secret assembly.
An assembly for religious worship; esp., such an assembly held privately, as in times of persecution, by Nonconformists or Dissenters in England, or by Covenanters in Scotland; -- often used opprobriously, as if those assembled were heretics or schismatics.
conventionary ::: a. --> Acting under contract; settled by express agreement; as, conventionary tenants.
conventionist ::: n. --> One who enters into a convention, covenant, or contract.
convictism ::: n. --> The policy or practice of transporting convicts to penal settlements.
convict ::: p.a. --> Proved or found guilty; convicted. ::: n. --> A person proved guilty of a crime alleged against him; one legally convicted or sentenced to punishment for some crime.
A criminal sentenced to penal servitude.
copal ::: --> A resinous substance flowing spontaneously from trees of Zanzibar, Madagascar, and South America (Trachylobium Hornemannianum, T. verrucosum, and Hymenaea Courbaril), and dug from earth where forests have stood in Africa; -- used chiefly in making varnishes.
coparcenaries ::: pl. --> of Coparcenary
coparcenary ::: n. --> Partnership in inheritance; joint heirship; joint right of succession to an inheritance.
copper ::: n. --> A common metal of a reddish color, both ductile and malleable, and very tenacious. It is one of the best conductors of heat and electricity. Symbol Cu. Atomic weight 63.3. It is one of the most useful metals in itself, and also in its alloys, brass and bronze.
A coin made of copper; a penny, cent, or other minor coin of copper.
A vessel, especially a large boiler, made of copper.
the boilers in the galley for cooking; as, a ship&
copyhold ::: n. --> A tenure of estate by copy of court roll; or a tenure for which the tenant has nothing to show, except the rolls made by the steward of the lord&
coralligena ::: n. pl. --> Same as Anthozoa.
coral ::: n. --> The hard parts or skeleton of various Anthozoa, and of a few Hydrozoa. Similar structures are also formed by some Bryozoa.
The ovaries of a cooked lobster; -- so called from their color.
A piece of coral, usually fitted with small bells and other appurtenances, used by children as a plaything.
cornage ::: n. --> Anancient tenure of land, which obliged the tenant to give notice of an invasion by blowing a horn.
corody ::: n. --> An allowance of meat, drink, or clothing due from an abbey or other religious house for the sustenance of such of the king&
corporate ::: a. --> Formed into a body by legal enactment; united in an association, and endowed by law with the rights and liabilities of an individual; incorporated; as, a corporate town.
Belonging to a corporation or incorporated body.
United; general; collectively one. ::: v. t.
corrective ::: a. --> Having the power to correct; tending to rectify; as, corrective penalties.
Qualifying; limiting. ::: n. --> That which has the power of correcting, altering, or counteracting what is wrong or injurious; as, alkalies are correctives
correlatable ::: a. --> Such as can be correlated; as, correlatable phenomena.
correlate ::: v. i. --> To have reciprocal or mutual relations; to be mutually related. ::: v. t. --> To put in relation with each other; to connect together by the disclosure of a mutual relation; as, to correlate natural phenomena.
coryphaenoid ::: a. --> Belonging to, or like, the genus Coryphaena. See Dolphin.
coryphene ::: n. --> A fish of the genus Coryphaena. See Dolphin. (2)
cosenage ::: n. --> See Cozenage.
coshering ::: n. --> A feudal prerogative of the lord of the soil entitling him to lodging and food at his tenant&
cosmic ::: of or pertaining to the cosmos and characteristic of its phenomena as forming a part of the material universe; infinite.
cosmologist ::: one who studies the physical universe considered as a totality of phenomena in time and space.
cotenant ::: n. --> A tenant in common, or a joint tenant.
countenanced ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Countenance
countenancer ::: n. --> One who countenances, favors, or supports.
countenance ::: v. t. --> To encourage; to favor; to approve; to aid; to abet.
To make a show of; to pretend.
countenancing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Countenance
counttenance ::: n. --> Appearance or expression of the face; look; aspect; mien.
The face; the features.
Approving or encouraging aspect of face; hence, favor, good will, support; aid; encouragement.
Superficial appearance; show; pretense.
courage ::: n. --> The heart; spirit; temper; disposition.
Heart; inclination; desire; will.
That quality of mind which enables one to encounter danger and difficulties with firmness, or without fear, or fainting of heart; valor; boldness; resolution.
courage ::: the state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery.
covenable ::: a. --> Fit; proper; suitable.
covenably ::: adv. --> Fitly; suitably.
covenant ::: a binding agreement; a compact. covenants.
covenanted ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Covenant
covenantee ::: n. --> The person in whose favor a covenant is made.
covenanter ::: n. --> One who makes a covenant.
One who subscribed and defended the "Solemn League and Covenant." See Covenant.
covenanting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Covenant ::: a. --> Belonging to a covenant. Specifically, belonging to the Scotch Covenanters.
covenant ::: n. --> A mutual agreement of two or more persons or parties, or one of the stipulations in such an agreement.
An agreement made by the Scottish Parliament in 1638, and by the English Parliament in 1643, to preserve the reformed religion in Scotland, and to extirpate popery and prelacy; -- usually called the "Solemn League and Covenant."
The promises of God as revealed in the Scriptures, conditioned on certain terms on the part of man, as obedience,
covenantor ::: n. --> The party who makes a covenant.
cozenage ::: n. --> The art or practice of cozening; artifice; fraud.
crabfaced ::: a. --> Having a sour, disagreeable countenance.
cradling ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Cradle ::: n. --> The act of using a cradle.
Cutting a cask into two pieces lengthwise, to enable it to pass a narrow place, the two parts being afterward united and rehooped.
crenate ::: a. --> Alt. of Crenated
crenated ::: a. --> Having the margin cut into rounded teeth notches, or scallops.
crenation ::: n. --> A rounded tooth on the edge of a leaf.
The condition of being crenate.
crenature ::: n. --> A rounded tooth or notch of a crenate leaf, or any part that is crenate; -- called also crenelle.
The state of being crenated or notched.
crenel ::: n. --> See Crenelle.
An embrasure or indentation in a battlement; a loophole in a fortress; an indentation; a notch. See Merlon, and Illust. of Battlement.
Same as Crenature.
darkling ::: 1. Dark; obscure. 2. Vaguely threatening or menacing.
DARK PATH. ::: The dark path is there and there are many who make a Gospel of spiritual suffering; many hold it to be the unavoidable price of victory. It may be so under certain circumstances, as it has been in so many lives at the beginning. or one may choose to make it so. But then the price has to be paid with resignation, fortitude or a tenacious resilience. Borne that way, the attacks of the dark forces or the ordeals they impose have a meaning. After each victory gained over them, there is then a sensible advance; often they seem to show us the difficulties in ourselves which we have to overcome. But all the same it is a too dark and difficult way which nobody need follow on whom the necessity does not lie.
"Death has no reality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and renewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of life; death is merely a rapid disintegration subservient to life"s necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Even in the death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for other forms of life.” The Life Divine
“Death has no reality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and renewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of life; death is merely a rapid disintegration subservient to life’s necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Even in the death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for other forms of life.” The Life Divine
Divine, because in the end that enables the sadhaka to bring ou
Divine creates the temporal world out of the timeless existence and conceals its reality behind its phenomena.
dole ::: n. **1. A portion or allotment of money, food, etc., esp. as given at regular intervals by a charity or for maintenance. v. 2. To give out sparingly or in small quantities (usually followed by out). doled, doles.**
Dreams from the subconscient ::: It is one of the most embar- rassing elements of yogic experience to find how obstinately the subconscient retains what has been settled and done with in the upper layers of the consciousness. But just for that reason these dreams are often a useful indication as they enable us to pursue things to their obscure roots in this underworld and excise them.
Dyumatsena ::: : “Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss its kingdom of glory.” (Note at the beginning of Savitri from a letter of Sri Aurobindo to a disciple.)
dyumatsena ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss its kingdom of glory.” Author"s note at beginning of Savitri.
Dyumatsena ::: Sri Aurobindo: “Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss its kingdom of glory.” (Author’s Note at the beginning of Savitri.)**
elements ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The first ripple or vibration in causal matter creates a new and exceedingly fine and pervasive condition of matter called Akasha or Ether; more complex motion evolves out of Ether a somewhat intenser condition which is called Vayu, Air; and so by ever more complex motion with increasing intensity of condition for result, yet three other matter-states are successively developed, Agni or Fire, Apah or Water and Prithvi or Earth.” *Supplement to the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library
elements ::: “The first ripple or vibration in causal matter creates a new and exceedingly fine and pervasive condition of matter called Akasha or Ether; more complex motion evolves out of Ether a somewhat intenser condition which is called Vayu, Air; and so by ever more complex motion with increasing intensity of condition for result, yet three other matter-states are successively developed, Agni or Fire, Apah or Water and Prithvi or Earth.” Supplement to the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library
emotion ::: 1. An affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive or volitional states of consciousness. Also abstract ‘feeling" as distinguished from the other classes of mental phenomena. 2. A state of mental agitation or disturbance. **emotion"s, emotions.
empowered ::: 1. To invest with power, especially legal power or official authority. 2. To equip or supply with an ability; enable; make powerful.
estranged ::: kept at a distance; withdrawn; withheld; displaying or evincing a feeling of alienation.
::: **"Even in failure there is a preparation for success: our nights carry in them the secret of a greater dawn.” The Renaissance in India*
“Even in failure there is a preparation for success: our nights carry in them the secret of a greater dawn.” The Renaissance in India
field ::: 1. A wide unbroken expanse, as of ice. 2. An area or sphere of activity. 3. A broad, level, open expanse of land; a stretch of open land, esp. one used for pasture or tillage; a plain. 4. The surface on which something is portrayed or enacted. An area of human activity or interest. 5. A piece of ground devoted to sports or contests; playing field. 6. A region of space characterized by a physical property, such as gravitational or electromagnetic force or fluid pressure. fields, field-paths, star-field, time-field, play-fields, race-fields.
fierce ::: 1. Menacingly wild, savage, or hostile. 2. Violent in force, intensity, etc. 3. Extremely intense or ardent. fiercest.
“For it is quietness and inwardness that enable one to feel the Presence.” Letters on Yoga
“For the gods are the guardians and increasers of the Truth, the powers of the Immortal, the sons of the infinite Mother; the way to immortality is the upward way of the gods, the way of the Truth, a journey, an ascent by which there is a growth into the law of the Truth, rtasya panthâh.” The Renaissance in India
FREUD’S PSYCHO-ANALYSIS. ::: The last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealtbiest part of the nature, the lower vital sub-consctous layer. Isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in 'the nature.
“From our ascending point of view we may say that the Real is behind all that exists; it expresses itself intermediately in an Ideal which is a harmonised truth of itself; the Ideal throws out a phenomenal reality of variable conscious-being which, inevitably drawn towards its own essential Reality, tries at last to recover it entirely whether by a violent leap or normally through the Ideal which put it forth. It is this that explains the imperfect reality of human existence as seen by the Mind, the instinctive aspiration in the mental being towards a perfectibility ever beyond itself, towards the concealed harmony of the Ideal, and the supreme surge of the spirit beyond the ideal to the transcendental.” The Life Divine
gators or creators often of vast and formidable inner upheavals or of action that overpass the normal human measure. There may also be an awareness of influences, presences, beings that do not seem to belong to other worlds beyond us but are here as a hidden element behind the veil in terrestrial nature. As contact wth the supraphysical is possible, a contact can also take place subjective or objective — or at_ least objectivised — between our own consciousness and the consciousness of other once embodied beings who have passed into a supraphysicaj status in these other regions of existence. It is possible also to pass beyond a subjective contact or a sahiie-scnse perception and, in certain subliminal states of consciousness, to enter actually into other worlds and know something of their secrets, ft is the wore objective order of other-worldly experience that seized most the imagination of mankind in the past, but it was put by popular belief into a gross objective statement which unduly assimilated these phenomena to those of the physical world with which we are familiar for it is the normal tendency of our mind to turn everything into forms or symbols proper to its own kind and terms of expericoce.
GHOST. ::: The word ‘ghost’ as used in popular parlance covers an enormous number of distinct phenomena which have no necessary connection with each other. To name a few only :::
ghost ::: “The word ‘ghost’ as used in popular parlance covers an enormous number of distinct phenomena which have no necessary connection with each other. To name a few only:
Grace ::: Madhav: “Grace is that special movement of the Divine Consciousness, which enables us to live, to move.” The Book of the Divine Mother
history ::: “History teaches us nothing; it is a confused torrent of events and personalities or a kaleidoscope of changing institutions. We do not seize the real sense of all this change and this continual streaming forward of human life in the channels of Time. What we do seize are current or recurrent phenomena, facile generalisations, partial ideas. We talk of democracy, aristocracy and autocracy, collectivism and individualism, imperialism and nationalism, the State and the commune, capitalism and labour; we advance hasty generalisations and make absolute systems which are positively announced today only to be abandoned perforce tomorrow; we espouse causes and ardent enthusiasms whose triumph turns to an early disillusionment and then forsake them for others, perhaps for those that we have taken so much trouble to destroy. For a whole century mankind thirsts and battles after liberty and earns it with a bitter expense of toil, tears and blood; the century that enjoys without having fought for it turns away as from a puerile illusion and is ready to renounce the depreciated gain as the price of some new good. And all this happens because our whole thought and action with regard to our collective life is shallow and empirical; it does not seek for, it does not base itself on a firm, profound and complete knowledge. The moral is not the vanity of human life, of its ardours and enthusiasms and of the ideals it pursues, but the necessity of a wiser, larger, more patient search after its true law and aim.” The Human Cycle etc.
(I) An actual contact with the soul of a human being in its subtle body and transcribed to our mind by the appearance of an image or the hearing of a voice. (2) A mental formation stamped by the thoughts and fccBngs of a departed human being on the atmosphere of a pbee or locality, wandering about there or repeating itself, till that formation either exhausts itself or is dissolved by one means or another- This is the explanation of such phenomena as the haunted house in which the scenes attend- ing or surrounding or preceding a murder are repeated over and over again and many other similar phenomena. (3) A being
"I have started writing about doubt, but even in doing so I am afflicted by the ‘doubt" whether any amount of writing or of anything else can ever persuade the eternal doubt in man which is the penalty of his native ignorance. In the first place, to write adequately would mean anything from 60 to 600 pages, but not even 6000 convincing pages would convince doubt. For doubt exists for its own sake; its very function is to doubt always and, even when convinced, to go on doubting still; it is only to persuade its entertainer to give it board and lodging that it pretends to be an honest truth-seeker. This is a lesson I have learnt from the experience both of my own mind and of the minds of others; the only way to get rid of doubt is to take discrimination as one"s detector of truth and falsehood and under its guard to open the door freely and courageously to experience.” Letters on Yoga
I have started writing about doubt, but even in doing so I am afflicted by the ‘doubt’ whether any amount of writing or of anything else can ever persuade the eternal doubt in man which is the penalty of his native ignorance. In the first place, to write adequately would mean anything from 60 to 600 pages, but not even 6000 convincing pages would convince doubt. For doubt exists for its own sake; its very function is to doubt always and, even when convinced, to go on doubting still; it is only to persuade its entertainer to give it board and lodging that it pretends to be an honest truth-seeker. This is a lesson I have learnt from the experience both of my own mind and of the minds of others; the only way to get rid of doubt is to take discrimination as one’s detector of truth and falsehood and under its guard to open the door freely and courageously to experience.” Letters on Yoga
importunate ::: persistent, pressing, relentless; holding tenaciously to a purpose or course of action in demand or solicitation.
inalienable ::: not capable of being repudiated; inviolable.
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.
It is this which explains many of the phenomena of clair- voyance, clairaudience, etc. ; for these phenomena are only the exceptional admission of the waking mentality into a limited sensitiveness to what might be called the image memory of the subtle ether,' by which not only the signs of all things past and present, but even those of things future can be seized ; for things future are already accomplished to knowledge and vision on higher planes of mind and their images can be reflected upon mind in the present. But these things which are exceptional to the w’aking mentality, difficult and to be perceived only by the pos- session of a special power or else after assiduous training, are natural to the dream-state of trance consciousness in which the subliminal mind is free. And that mind can al^o take cognizance
"It is true that metaphors, symbols, images are constant auxiliaries summoned by the mystic for the expression of his experiences: that is inevitable because he has to express, in a language made or at least developed and manipulated by the mind, the phenomena of a consciousness other than the mental and at once more complex and more subtly concrete.” Letters on Yoga*
“It is true that metaphors, symbols, images are constant auxiliaries summoned by the mystic for the expression of his experiences: that is inevitable because he has to express, in a language made or at least developed and manipulated by the mind, the phenomena of a consciousness other than the mental and at once more complex and more subtly concrete.” Letters on Yoga
It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our appa- rent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term as constituents of Prakrit!, of phenomenal Nature, crea- tions of Maya, the phenomenal consciousness. So it is able to arrive at its right ideotiflcadon with the pure and unique Self which is not mutable or perishable, not determinable by any phenomenon or combination of phenomena. From this point the path, as ordinarily followed, leads to the rejection of the phenomenal worlds from the consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the supreme.
JAPA. ::: Japa is usually successful only on one of two condi- tions ::: if it is repeated with a sense of its significance, a dwelling of something in the mind on the nature, power, beauty, attrac- tion of the Godhead it signifies and is to bring into the cons- ciousness, — - that is the mental way ; or if it comes up from the heart or rings in it with a certain sense or feeling of bhak'ti making it alive, — that is the emotional way. Either the mind or the vital has to give it support or sustenance. But if it makes the mind dry and the vital restless, it must be missing that sup- port and sustenance. There « of course a third way, the reliance on the power of the Mantra or name in itself ; but then one has to go on till that power has sufficiently impressed its vibra- tion on the inner being to make it at a given moment suddenly open to the Presence or the Touch. But Jf there is a struggling or insistence for the result, then this c/Tect which needs a quiet receptivity In the mind is impeded.
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
lists ::: 1. Arenas for jousting tournaments or other contests. 2. A place of combat.
lustre ::: 1. Reflected light; sheen; gloss. 2. Radiance or brilliance of light. 3. Great splendour of the countenance. beauty, etc. lustres.
maenad ::: in Grecian mythology, a priestess of Bacchus. See **Bacchante.**
Madhav: “The House of Flame is the plenary manifestation of Agni, the Mystic Fire of which the Seers of the Veda speak. Here blazes the Divine Consciousness in its incandescent purity.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “the poet uses the word ‘tenant’ to hint that Aswapathi’s presence on earth was only temporary; he was not a permanent resident of the earth; he was someone from above, from elsewhere, tenanting this little plot of earth for a particular purpose.” Sat-Sang Vol. VIII
Madhav: “The powers that create and fashion this world in accordance with the Truth with which they are charged, are not involved, lost in the world-movement. They stand above, governing, shaping, directing the growing world-complex. They know precisely what takes place and why. They are not misled by appearances of phenomena; each event is seen by them as developing from its veiled cause which they perceive undeceived by apparent sequences on the surface.” Readings in Savitri, Vol. II.
Madhav: “This creation is an ordered manifestation of the Divine. There is a central Will, expressing the originating Truth-vision, impelling the whole movement. But also there are special emanations from the Divine charged with specific tasks in the organisation and maintenance of the emerging creation. These are the gods and goddesses, deities, Powers and Personalities that are in charge of their respective domains, on different levels of existence. Each world has its own guardians entrusted by the Supreme Creative Spirit with the work of building and furthering the manifestation of the particular Truth-principle that pushes for expression in that world-formula.” Readings in Savitri Vol. I.
Madra ::: “Name of an ancient country and its people in northwestern India, mentioned in the Mahabaharata. The territory extended from the River Beas to the Chenab or perhaps as far as the Jhelum. Savitri’s father Asvapati was king of this country. (Dow). Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works Madra’s.
madra ::: "Name of an ancient country and its people in northwestern India, mentioned in the Mahabaharata. The territory extended from the River Beas to the Chenab or perhaps as far as the Jhelum. Savitri"s father Asvapati was king of this country. (Dow.)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works ::: **Madra"s.**
"Man himself is not a life and mind born of Matter and eternally subject to physical Nature, but a spirit that uses life and body.” The Renaissance in India
“Man himself is not a life and mind born of Matter and eternally subject to physical Nature, but a spirit that uses life and body.” The Renaissance in India
marble ::: n. 1. A hard crystalline metamorphic rock resulting from the recrystallization of a limestone: takes a high polish and is used for building and sculpture. adj. 2. Resembling metamorphic rock in consistency, texture, venation, color, or coldness, smoothness, whiteness, etc. 3. Hard, rigid and inflexible, as marble.
"Matter is the form of substance of being which the existence of Sachchidananda [a trinity of Existence (sat), Consciousness (cit), and Delight (ananda),] assumes when it subjects itself to this phenomenal action of its own consciousness and force.” The "Matter is the body or field of a consciousness hidden within it, the material universe a form and movement of the Spirit.” The Renaissance in India
“Matter is the form of substance of being which the existence of Sachchidananda [a trinity of Existence (sat), Consciousness (cit), and Delight (ananda),] assumes when it subjects itself to this phenomenal action of its own consciousness and force.” The”Matter is the body or field of a consciousness hidden within it, the material universe a form and movement of the Spirit.” The Renaissance in India
menaced ::: uttered or directed a threat against; threatened.
menace ::: something likely to cause injury, damage etc.; a possible danger; a threat.
menacing ::: threatening.
miraculous ::: of the nature of a miracle; preternatural. 2. So astounding as to suggest a miracle; phenomenal. **miraculously.
moving picture ::: a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement. moving pictures.
nature ::: 1. The universe, with all its phenomena. 2. The forces and processes that produce and control all the phenomena of the material world. 3. The material world, esp. as surrounding human kind and existing independently of human activities. 4. The essential characteristics and qualities of a human being. 5. A particular combination of qualities belonging to a person, animal, thing, of class by birth, origin, or constitution; native or inherent character. 6. Characteristic disposition; temperament. nature"s, Nature"s, natures, earth-nature ("s), Earth-Nature"s, Heaven-nature"s, life-nature"s, soul-nature, World-Nature"s, twi-natured.
Nolini: “Hyphenated words are meant as one word, not merely adjectives.
OCCULT. ::: Occult forces are the forces that can only be known by going behind the veil of apparent phenomena, especially the forces of the subtle physical and supraphysical planes.
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
of the loucr \ilal planes who has aisumetl the discarded \1ial sheath of a departed human being or a fracmcnl of his vital personality and appears and acts in the form'and perhaps with the surface thoughts and memories of that person. (4) A being of the lower vita! plane who by tUe medium of a living human being or by some other means or agency 1$ able to materialise itself sufficiently so as to appear and act in a visible form or speech with an audible vtrfcc or, without so appearing, to move about material things, c.g.. furniture or to materialise objects or to shift them from place to place. This accounts for what arc called poltergeists, phenomena of stone-throwing, ircc-inliabiting
On hyphenated words
pactise ::: Sri Aurobindo combines the word pact [an agreement or covenant] with ise, a noun suffix occurring in loanwords from French, indicating quality, condition, or function.
pacts ::: agreements, covenants, or compacts.
penal code ::: law. The aggregate of statutory enactments dealing with crimes and their punishment.
penalty ::: a punishment established by law or authority for a crime or offense.
persisted ::: 1. Continued to be obstinately repetitious, insistent, or tenacious. 2. Continued in existence; lasted. persists.
phenomenal ::: 1. Of, relating to, or constituting phenomena or a phenomenon; extraordinary; outstanding; remarkable. 2. Phil. Known or derived through the senses rather than through the mind.
phenomena other than the outward physical wh; of t Anc ronsduus of, see, hear, feel, smell, ti, m?'S,«e can b m trance or sleep or in inward state misealfcJV ®nlar, cither and easily m the waking state, nils facu,,, 'kep physical things inlernally or extemaL-sing e,L ' ‘'"ling sunrii-
plan ::: n. 1. A systematic arrangement of elements or important parts; a configuration or outline. 2. A scheme, program, or method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective. plans, heart-plan, life-plan, time-plan, world-plan, vision-plans, world-plan. *v. 3. To formulate a scheme or program for the accomplishment, enactment, or attainment of. *plans, planned, planning.
power ::: “Power means strength and force, Shakti, which enables one to face all that can happen and to stand and overcome, also to carry out what the Divine Will proposes. It can include many things, power over men, events, circumstances, means etc. But all this not of the mental or vital kind, but by an action through unity of consciousness with the Divine and with all things and beings. It is not an individual strength depending on certain personal capacities, but the Divine Power using the individual as an instrument.” Letters on Yoga
power ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Power means strength and force, Shakti, which enables one to face all that can happen and to stand and overcome, also to carry out what the Divine Will proposes. It can include many things, power over men, events, circumstances, means etc. But all this not of the mental or vital kind, but by an action through unity of consciousness with the Divine and with all things and beings. It is not an individual strength depending on certain personal capacities, but the Divine Power using the individual as an instrument.” *Letters on Yoga
presence ::: 1. The state or fact of being present; current existence or occurrence. 2. A divine, spiritual, or supernatural spirit or influence felt or conceived as present. 3. The immediate proximity of someone or something.
Sri Aurobindo: "It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one"s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any further qualification or description. Thus, of the ‘ineffable Presence" it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance, — the essential perception of the essential Presence supporting everything else.” *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.” Essays Divine and Human
"But if we learn to live within, we infallibly awaken to this presence within us which is our more real self, a presence profound, calm, joyous and puissant of which the world is not the master — a presence which, if it is not the Lord Himself, is the radiation of the Lord within.” *The Life Divine
"The true soul secret in us, — subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, — this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” *The Life Divine
"If we need any personal and inner witness to this indivisible All-Consciousness behind the ignorance, — all Nature is its external proof, — we can get it with any completeness only in our deeper inner being or larger and higher spiritual state when we draw back behind the veil of our own surface ignorance and come into contact with the divine Idea and Will behind it. Then we see clearly enough that what we have done by ourselves in our ignorance was yet overseen and guided in its result by the invisible Omniscience; we discover a greater working behind our ignorant working and begin to glimpse its purpose in us: then only can we see and know what now we worship in faith, recognise wholly the pure and universal Presence, meet the Lord of all being and all Nature.” *The Life Divine
"The presence of the Spirit is there in every living being, on every level, in all things, and because it is there, the experience of Sachchidananda, of the pure spiritual existence and consciousness, of the delight of a divine presence, closeness, contact can be acquired through the mind or the heart or the life-sense or even through the physical consciousness; if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the farthest chambers of the outer being.” *The Life Divine
"There is a secret divine Will, eternal and infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, that expresses itself in the universality and in each particular of all these apparently temporal and finite inconscient or half-conscient things. This is the Power or Presence meant by the Gita when it speaks of the Lord within the heart of all existences who turns all creatures as if mounted on a machine by the illusion of Nature.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time He conceals Himself, and then in His own right time He will reveal His Presence.” *Letters on Yoga
"They [the psychic being and the Divine Presence in the heart] are quite different things. The psychic being is one"s own individual soul-being. It is not the Divine, though it has come from the Divine and develops towards the Divine.” *Letters on Yoga
"For it is quietness and inwardness that enable one to feel the Presence.” *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.” *Essays Divine and Human
The Mother: "For, in human beings, here is a presence, the most marvellous Presence on earth, and except in a few very rare cases which I need not mention here, this presence lies asleep in the heart — not in the physical heart but the psychic centre — of all beings. And when this Splendour is manifested with enough purity, it will awaken in all beings the echo of his Presence.” Words of the Mother, MCW, Vol. 15.
"Progress admittedly does not march on securely in a straight line like a man sure of his familiar way or an army covering an unimpeded terrain or well-mapped unoccupied spaces. Human progress is very much an adventure through the unknown, an unknown full of surprises and baffling obstacles; it stumbles often, it misses its way at many points, it cedes here in order to gain there, it retraces its steps frequently in order to get more widely forward.” *The Renaissance in India
“Progress admittedly does not march on securely in a straight line like a man sure of his familiar way or an army covering an unimpeded terrain or well-mapped unoccupied spaces. Human progress is very much an adventure through the unknown, an unknown full of surprises and baffling obstacles; it stumbles often, it misses its way at many points, it cedes here in order to gain there, it retraces its steps frequently in order to get more widely forward.” The Renaissance in India
promenade ::: a stroll or walk, esp. in a public place, as for pleasure or display.
PSYCHIC POWERS. ::: The range of the psychic consciousness and its experiences is almost illimitable and the variety and com- plexity of its phenomena almost infinite The first and most prominent is the activity of the psychic senses of which the sight is the most developed ordinarily and the first to manifest itself with any largeness when the veil of the absorption in the surface consciousness which prevents the inner vision is broken. But all the physical senses have their corresponding powers in the psychical being, there is a p^hical hearing, touch, smell, taste ::: indeed the physical senses are themselves in reality only a pro- jection of the inner sense into a limited and externalised opera- tion in and through and upon the phenomena of gross matter.
real, the ::: Sri Aurobindo: " From our ascending point of view we may say that the Real is behind all that exists; it expresses itself intermediately in an Ideal which is a harmonised truth of itself; the Ideal throws out a phenomenal reality of variable conscious-being which, inevitably drawn towards its own essential Reality, tries at last to recover it entirely whether by a violent leap or normally through the Ideal which put it forth. It is this that explains the imperfect reality of human existence as seen by the Mind, the instinctive aspiration in the mental being towards a perfectibility ever beyond itself, towards the concealed harmony of the Ideal, and the supreme surge of the spirit beyond the ideal to the transcendental.” *The Life Divine
REASON. ::: The reason has its place especially with regard to certain physical things and general worldly questions — though even there it is a very fallible judge — or in the forma- tion of metaphysical conclusions and generalisations ; but its claim to be the decisive aulhori^ in matters of yoga or in spiritual things is untenable. The activities of the outward intellect there lead only to the formation of personal opinions, not to the discovery of Truth. It has always been understood in India that the reason and its logic or its judgment cannot give you the realisation of spiiitua] truths but can only assist in an intellectual presentation of ideas; realisation comes by intuition and inner experience. Reason and intellectuality cannot make you see the Divine, it is the soul that sees. Mind and the other instruments can only share in the vision when it is imparted to them by the soul and welcome and rejoice in it. But also the mind may prevent it or at least stand long in the way of the realisation of the vision. For its prepossessions. prKonceived
recreate ::: to make or create anew. re-create. : (Note: Recreate occurs twice in Savitri, the first time as a whole word and the second time as a hyphenated word.)
Religion does that to man in the name of the Divine, in the name of God. The worst possible evil is enacted and that is because people sincerely believe they are instruments of light when they have actually become instruments of darkness.”
Samadbi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths accord* lag as it dran^ farther and farther away from the nonnal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or calf back the soul that has receded into them ; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the sj'stem owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a lime cannot return ; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had rnhahifed it. finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary pheno- mena of death, by an act of will, or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current
Satyavan ::: “Son of King Dyumatsena; the tale of Satyavan and Savitri is told in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
satyavan ::: "Son of King Dyumatsena; the tale of Satyavan and Savitri is told in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
senates ::: assemblies or councils of citizens having the highest deliberative and legislative functions in a government.
Seraphim ::: “Hybrid celestial beings [including Cherubim] with human, animal, or birdlike characteristics that are depicted in Jewish, Christian and Islamic literature. They act as throne bearers or throne guardians of the deity. In later theology Cherubim is an angel of the second order, and Seraphim of the first. They correspond, according to Sri Aurobindo, to the Gandharvas and Venas of India tradition. (Enc. Br). Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
seraphim ::: "Hybrid celestial beings [including Cherubim] with human, animal, or birdlike characteristics that are depicted in Jewish, Christian and Islamic literature. They act as throne bearers or throne guardians of the deity. In later theology Cherubim is an angel of the second order, and Seraphim of the first. They correspond, according to Sri Aurobindo, to the Gandharvas and Venas of India tradition. (Enc. Br.)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
space ::: 1. The unlimited or incalculably great three-dimensional realm or expanse in which all material objects are located and all events occur. 2. The portion or extent of this in a given instance; extent or room in three dimensions. 3. An interval of time; a while. 4. Extent, or a particular extent, of time. 5. A place available for a particular purpose. Space, spaces, spaces", space-tenancy, feeding-space, mind-space, self-space, soul-space, soul-spaces, spirit-space, world-space. *v. 6. *spaces. Sets or places, arranges or puts, at determinate intervals or distances.
Sri Aurobindo: "Each nation is a Shakti or power of the evolving spirit in humanity and lives by the principle which it embodies.” The Renaissance in India
Sri Aurobindo: "History teaches us nothing; it is a confused torrent of events and personalities or a kaleidoscope of changing institutions. We do not seize the real sense of all this change and this continual streaming forward of human life in the channels of Time. What we do seize are current or recurrent phenomena, facile generalisations, partial ideas. We talk of democracy, aristocracy and autocracy, collectivism and individualism, imperialism and nationalism, the State and the commune, capitalism and labour; we advance hasty generalisations and make absolute systems which are positively announced today only to be abandoned perforce tomorrow; we espouse causes and ardent enthusiasms whose triumph turns to an early disillusionment and then forsake them for others, perhaps for those that we have taken so much trouble to destroy. For a whole century mankind thirsts and battles after liberty and earns it with a bitter expense of toil, tears and blood; the century that enjoys without having fought for it turns away as from a puerile illusion and is ready to renounce the depreciated gain as the price of some new good. And all this happens because our whole thought and action with regard to our collective life is shallow and empirical; it does not seek for, it does not base itself on a firm, profound and complete knowledge. The moral is not the vanity of human life, of its ardours and enthusiasms and of the ideals it pursues, but the necessity of a wiser, larger, more patient search after its true law and aim.” *The Human Cycle etc.
Sri Aurobindo: "Science started on the assumption that the ultimate truth must be physical and objective — and the objective Ultimate (or even less than that) would explain all subjective phenomena. Yoga proceeds on the opposite view that the ultimate Truth is spiritual and subjective and it is in that ultimate Light that we must view objective phenomena.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The Divine and no other is the flame of life that sustains the physical body of living creatures and turns its food into sustenance of their vital force. He is lodged in the heart of every breathing thing; from him are memory and knowledge and the debates of the reason. He is that which is known by all the Vedas and by all forms of knowing; he is the knower of Veda and the maker of Vedanta. In other words, the Divine is at once the Soul of matter and the Soul of life and the Soul of mind as well as the Soul of the supramental light that is beyond mind and its limited reasoning intelligence.” *Essays on the Gita
Sri Aurobindo: “The Divine and no other is the flame of life that sustains the physical body of living creatures and turns its food into sustenance of their vital force. He is lodged in the heart of every breathing thing; from him are memory and knowledge and the debates of the reason. He is that which is known by all the Vedas and by all forms of knowing; he is the knower of Veda and the maker of Vedanta. In other words, the Divine is at once the Soul of matter and the Soul of life and the Soul of mind as well as the Soul of the supramental light that is beyond mind and its limited reasoning intelligence.” Essays on the Gita
Sri Aurobindo: "The word ‘ghost" as used in popular parlance covers an enormous number of distinct phenomena which have no necessary connection with each other. To name a few only: ::: An actual contact with the soul of a human being in its subtle body and transcribed to our mind by the appearance of an image or the hearing of a voice.
SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENA. ::: There are different planes of substance, gross, subtle and more subtle going back to what is called causal (kdrana) substance. ^Vhat is more gross can be reduced to the subtle state and the subtle brought info the gross state ; that accounts for dematerialisation and rematerialisation.
sustenance ::: 1. Something that nourishes. Also fig. 2. Nourishment.
Take it in the right quantity (neither too much nor too little), without greed or repulsion, as the means given you by the Mother for the maintenance of the body, in the right spirit, offering it to the Divine in you.
tenacity ::: the state or quality of being tenacious; firmness of purpose.
tenancy ::: possession or occupancy of lands, buildings, or other property by title, under a lease, or on payment of rent. Also fig.** space-tenancy.**
tenant ::: a dweller in a place; an occupant. Tenants.
tenant ::: “ . . . this tenant from the heights …”
testament ::: a covenant, especially between God and humans.
The Apsaras then are the divine Hetairae of Paradise, beautiful singers and actresses whose beauty and art relieve the arduous and world-long struggle of the Gods against the forces that tend towards disruption by the Titans who would restore Matter to its original atomic condition or of dissolution by the sages and hermits who would make phenomena dissolve prematurely into the One who is above phenomena. They rose from the Ocean, says Valmiki, seeking who should choose them as brides, but neither the Gods nor the Titans accepted them, therefore are they said to be common or universal. The Harmony of Virtue
The course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they have strong family resemblance. One can even- tually overcome If one begins to realise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of observing them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf, finally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and refusing the mind's sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl and the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions. In the end, these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature ; the recurrence becomes feeble, or has no power to last ; even, if the detach- ment is strong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once.
::: "The Divine and no other is the flame of life that sustains the physical body of living creatures and turns its food into sustenance of their vital force.” Essays on the Gita
“The Divine and no other is the flame of life that sustains the physical body of living creatures and turns its food into sustenance of their vital force.” Essays on the Gita
“The Divine and no other is the flame of life that sustains the physical body of living creatures and turns its food into sustenance of their vital force. He is lodged in the heart of every breathing thing; from him are memory and knowledge and the debates of the reason. He is that which is known by all the Vedas and by all forms of knowing; he is the knower of Veda and the maker of Vedanta. In other words, the Divine is at once the Soul of matter and the Soul of life and the Soul of mind as well as the Soul of the supramental light that is beyond mind and its limited reasoning intelligence.” Essays on the Gita
"The Eternal is our refuge; all the rest are false values, the Ignorance and its mazes, a self-bewilderment of the soul in phenomenal Nature.” The Life Divine*
“The Eternal is our refuge; all the rest are false values, the Ignorance and its mazes, a self-bewilderment of the soul in phenomenal Nature.” The Life Divine
The governing factors for us must be the spirit and the psychic being united with the Divine ; the occult laws and phenomena have to be known only as an instrumentation, not as the govern* ing principles. The occult is a vast field and complicated and not without its dangers. It need not be abandoned but it should not be given the first place.
". . . the heart of man is nearer to the Truth than his intelligence.” *The Renaissance in India
“… the heart of man is nearer to the Truth than his intelligence.” The Renaissance in India
::: "The idea is only a partial expression of the spirit.” The Renaissance in India
“The idea is only a partial expression of the spirit.” The Renaissance in India
"The Infinite creates and is Brahma.” The Renaissance in India ::: "Brahman is not only the cause and supporting power and indwelling principle of the universe, he is also its material and its sole material. Matter also is Brahman and it is nothing other than or different from Brahman.” The Life Divine*
“The Infinite creates and is Brahma.” The Renaissance in India
"The intermediate link exists. We call it the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness, because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions.” The Life Divine
“The intermediate link exists. We call it the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness, because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions.” The Life Divine
"The lotus of the eternal knowledge and the eternal perfection is a bud closed and folded up within us. It opens swiftly or gradually, petal by petal, through successive realisations, once the mind of man begins to turn towards the Eternal, once his heart, no longer compressed and confined by attachment to finite appearances, becomes enamoured, in whatever degree, of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The lotus of the eternal knowledge and the eternal perfection is a bud closed and folded up within us. It opens swiftly or gradually, petal by petal, through successive realisations, once the mind of man begins to turn towards the Eternal, once his heart, no longer compressed and confined by attachment to finite appearances, becomes enamoured, in whatever degree, of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga
::: ". . . the modern man, even the modern cultured man, is or tends to be to a degree quite unprecedented politikon zôon, a political, economic and social being valuing above all things the efficiency of the outward existence and the things of the mind and spirit mainly, when not exclusively, for their aid to humanity"s vital and mechanical progress: he has not that regard of the ancients which looked up towards the highest heights and regarded an achievement in the things of the mind and the spirit with an unquestioning admiration or a deep veneration for its own sake as the greatest possible contribution to human culture and progress. And although this modern tendency is exaggerated and ugly and degrading in its exaggeration, inimical to humanity"s spiritual evolution, it has this much of truth behind it that while the first value of a culture is its power to raise and enlarge the internal man, the mind, the soul, the spirit, its soundness is not complete unless it has shaped also his external existence and made of it a rhythm of advance towards high and great ideals. This is the true sense of progress and there must be as part of it a sound political, economic and social life, a power and efficiency enabling a people to survive, to grow and to move securely towards a collective perfection, and a vital elasticity and responsiveness that will give room for a constant advance in the outward expression of the mind and the spirit.” The Renaissance in India
“… the modern man, even the modern cultured man, is or tends to be to a degree quite unprecedented politikon zôon, a political, economic and social being valuing above all things the efficiency of the outward existence and the things of the mind and spirit mainly, when not exclusively, for their aid to humanity’s vital and mechanical progress: he has not that regard of the ancients which looked up towards the highest heights and regarded an achievement in the things of the mind and the spirit with an unquestioning admiration or a deep veneration for its own sake as the greatest possible contribution to human culture and progress. And although this modern tendency is exaggerated and ugly and degrading in its exaggeration, inimical to humanity’s spiritual evolution, it has this much of truth behind it that while the first value of a culture is its power to raise and enlarge the internal man, the mind, the soul, the spirit, its soundness is not complete unless it has shaped also his external existence and made of it a rhythm of advance towards high and great ideals. This is the true sense of progress and there must be as part of it a sound political, economic and social life, a power and efficiency enabling a people to survive, to grow and to move securely towards a collective perfection, and a vital elasticity and responsiveness that will give room for a constant advance in the outward expression of the mind and the spirit.” The Renaissance in India
The more complete y-our faith, sincerity and surrender, the more will grace and protection be with you. And when the grace and protection of the Divine Mother arc with you, what is there lliat can touch you or whom need you fear? A little of it even will carry you through all diiliculties, obstacles and dangers ; surrounded by its full presence you can go securely on your way because it is hers, careless of all menace, unaffected by any hostility however powerful, whether from this world or from worlds invisible. Its touch can turn difficulties into oppor- tunities, failure into success and weakness into unfaltering strength. For the grace of the Divine Mother is the sanction of the Supreme and now or tomorrow its ciTect is sure, a thing decreed. Inevitable and irresistible.
The more complete your faith, sincerity and surrender, the mote will grace and protection be with you. And when the grace and protection of the Divine Mother are with you, what is there that can touch you or whom need you fear? A little of it even will carry you through all difficulties, obstacles and dangers ; surrounded by its full presence you can go securely on your way because it is hers, careless of all menace, unaffected by any hostility however powerful, whether from this world or from worlds invisible. Its touch can turn difficulties into oppor- tunities, failure into success and weakness into unfaltering strength.
The most notable of these more powerful but rarer phenomena are those which attend the power of exterioration of our cons- ciousness for various lands of action otherwise and elsewhere than in the physical body, communication in the psychical body or some emanation or reproduction of it, oftenest, though by no means necessarily, during sleep or trance and the setting up of relations or communtcatioo by various means rvith the denizens of another plane of existence.
The Mother (to a young person): “It is very simple, as you will see. 1) The Infinite is the inexhaustible storehouse of forces. The individual is a battery, a storage cell which runs down after use. Consecration is the wire that connects the individual battery to the infinite reserve of forces. Or 2) The Infinite is the river that flows without cease; the individual is the little pond that dries up slowly in the sun. Consecration is the canal that connects the river to the pond and prevents the pond from drying up.” The Mother—Collected Works, Centenary Ed., Vol. 16—Some Answers from the Mother
::: The Mother (to a young person): "It is very simple, as you will see. 1) The Infinite is the inexhaustible storehouse of forces. The individual is a battery, a storage cell which runs down after use. Consecration is the wire that connects the individual battery to the infinite reserve of forces. Or 2) The Infinite is the river that flows without cease; the individual is the little pond that dries up slowly in the sun. Consecration is the canal that connects the river to the pond and prevents the pond from drying up.” The Mother - Collected Works, Centenary Ed., Vol. 16 - Some Answers from the Mother*
theory ::: 1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena. 2. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture. theory"s, theories.
The process of the integral yoga has three stages, not indeed sharply distingnlsbed or ^parate, but in a certain measure suc- cessive. There must be, first, the effort towards at least an initial and enabling self-transcendence and contact with the Divine ; next, the reception of that which transcends, that with which we have gained communion, into ourselves for the transformation of our whole conscious being ; fast, the utilisation of our trans- formed hiunanity as a divine centre in the world.
::: "The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind — to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms — runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
“The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind—to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms—runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
The Rajayogic Pranayama purifies and clears- theaiervous system ; it enables us to circulate the vital energy equally through the body and direct it also where we will nccarding to need, and thus maintain a perfect health and soundness of the body and the vital being ; it gives us control of all the five habitual opera- tions of the vital energy in the system and at the same time breaks down the habitual divisions by which only the ordinary mechanical processes of the vitality arc possible (o the norma! life. It opens entirely the six centres of the psycho-physical system and brings Into (he waking consciousness the power of the awakened Shakti and the light of the unveiled Furusba on each of the as^nding planes. Cbupled with (be use of the mantra it brings the ^vine energy into the body and prepares for and facilitates that concentration in Samadbi which is the crown of the Rajayogic method.
These and other phenomena create an indirect, a representa- tive range of psychical experience ; but the psychical sense has also the power of putting us in a more direct communication with earthly or supra-terrestrial beings through their psychical selves or their psychical bodies or even with things, for things also have a psychical reality and souls or presences supporting them which can communicate with our psychical consciousness.
::: "The shoreless stream of idea and thought, imagination and experience, name and form, sensation and vibration sweeps onward for ever, without beginning, without end, rising into view, sinking out of sight; through it the one Intelligence with its million self-expressions pours itself abroad, an ocean with innumerable waves. One particular self-expression may disappear into its source and continent, but that does not and cannot abolish the phenomenal universe. The One is for ever, and the Many are for ever because the One is for ever. So long as there is a sea, there will be waves.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“The shoreless stream of idea and thought, imagination and experience, name and form, sensation and vibration sweeps onward for ever, without beginning, without end, rising into view, sinking out of sight; through it the one Intelligence with its million self-expressions pours itself abroad, an ocean with innumerable waves. One particular self-expression may disappear into its source and continent, but that does not and cannot abolish the phenomenal universe. The One is for ever, and the Many are for ever because the One is for ever. So long as there is a sea, there will be waves.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"The Veda is thus the spiritual and psychological seed of Indian culture . . . ." The Renaissance in India
“The Veda is thus the spiritual and psychological seed of Indian culture . . . .“ The Renaissance in India
the whole of created or existing things regarded collectively; all things (including the earth, the heavens, and all the phenomena of space) considered as constituting a systematic whole, esp. as created or existing by Divine power; the whole world or creation; the cosmos. universe"s, universes.
The word is Middle English (1325-75) and is of Anglo-French provenance. Some dictionaries give the first known use as the 15th century.
"This Godhead is one in all things that are, the self who lives in all and the self in whom all live and move; therefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures, to see all in the self and the self in all beings, even to see all things and creatures as himself, âtmaupamyena sarvatra, and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and living. This Godhead is the origin of all that is here or elsewhere and by his Nature he has become all these innumerable existences, abhût sarvâni bhûtâni; therefore man has to see and adore the One in all things animate and inanimate, to worship the manifestation in sun and star and flower, in man and every living creature, in the forms and forces, qualities and powers of Nature, vâsudevah sarvam iti.” Essays on the Gita ::: *godhead, godheads, godhead"s.
“This Godhead is one in all things that are, the self who lives in all and the self in whom all live and move; therefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures, to see all in the self and the self in all beings, even to see all things and creatures as himself, âtmaupamyena sarvatra, and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and living. This Godhead is the origin of all that is here or elsewhere and by his Nature he has become all these innumerable existences, abhût sarvâni bhûtâni; therefore man has to see and adore the One in all things animate and inanimate, to worship the manifestation in sun and star and flower, in man and every living creature, in the forms and forces, qualities and powers of Nature, vâsudevah sarvam iti.” Essays on the Gita
threatens ::: is a menacing indication of something.
Tlie lose that belongs to the spiritual planes is of a dillcrcni kind; the psychic has its own more personal lose, bhalti, sur- render. Love in the higher or spiritual mind is more unisenal and impersonal. The two must go together to male the highest divine los'C.
truth ::: “Science started on the assumption that the ultimate truth must be physical and objective—and the objective Ultimate (or even less than that) would explain all subjective phenomena. Yoga proceeds on the opposite view that the ultimate Truth is spiritual and subjective and it is in that ultimate Light that we must view objective phenomena.” Letters on Yoga
"Usha is the divine illumination and Dakshina is the discerning knowledge that comes with the dawn and enables the Power in the mind, Indra, to know aright and separate the light from the darkness, the truth from the falsehood, the straight from the crooked, vrinîta vijânan.” The Secret of the Veda*
visage ::: 1. The face, usually with reference to features, expression, etc.; countenance. 2. Aspect; appearance. visages.
waste ::: 1. Useless consumption or expenditure; use without adequate return; an act or instance of wasting. 2. An unusable or unwanted substance or material, such as a waste product. 3. An empty, desolate, or dreary tract or area; empty space or untenanted regions. wastes.
way, the upward ::: Sri Aurobindo: "For the gods are the guardians and increasers of the Truth, the powers of the Immortal, the sons of the infinite Mother; the way to immortality is the upward way of the gods, the way of the Truth, a journey, an ascent by which there is a growth into the law of the Truth, rtasya panthâh.” The Renaissance in India
When both words in a hyphenated word are capitalised it is to stress both elements.”
wing ::: n. **1. Either of the two forelimbs of most birds and of bats, corresponding to the human arms, that are specialized for flight. 2. Something likened to a bird"s wing. 3. Theatr. The space offstage to the right or left of the acting area in a theatre. 4. In one"s care or tutelage. wings, god-wings, moth-wings, soul-wings. v. 5. To travel on or as if on wings, fly; soar. 6. Fig. To enable to fly, move rapidly, etc.; lend speed or celerity to. wings, winged, far-winging.**
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.
Wm/ttJ, and other well-known phenomena. (5j Apparitions which arc formations of one's ow-n mind and tale to the senses an objec- tive appearance. (6) Temporary possession of people by vital beings who somclimcs pretend to be departed refatives etc. (7)
KEYS (10k)
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
5 Juvenal
2 John Cena
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:i podlo da napadne neprijatelja u vreme kada j e on van svoje zemlje a nj ena t e r i - ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
2:Ena milo melomon, frai is frau and swee is too, swee is two when swoo is free, ana mala woe is we! ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
3:in Switzerland, it is said that “witches can slip inside through the keyhole” (Häxa chönid dör-ena schlüselloch döra schlüffa). ~ Claude Lecouteux, #NFDB
4:In a world of those who follow the rules without deviation those who innovate even in the shadows, will rule. Never be a carbon copy." -Ena ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
5:Punktvis och kraftig huvudvärk, huvudvärk som inte liknar vanlig huvudvärk, har egentligen bara två orsaker: det ena är hjärntumör, det andra är en mindre lokaliserad stroke. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
6:Ko si zelo majhen, si ena oseba. Pozneje se pretvarjaš, da si vsaj dve, nato tri in tako to gre, dokler ne odrasteš. Bil sem mnogo otrok, v meni pa je bilo samo malo otroštva. ~ Kristian Novak, #NFDB
7:Ena Mercant didn’t believe in flaws or perfection. “We are who we are and we are strong” was her oft-stated motto. It was a motto that had been passed down from one head of the family to the next in an unbroken line. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
8:Ah, furchte fruchte, timid Danaides! Ena milo melomon, frai is frau and swee is too, swee is two when swoo is free, ana mala woe is we! A pair of sycopanties with amygdaleine eyes, one old obster lumpky pumpkin and three meddlars on their slies. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
9:När jag blev trött på det ena eller det andra gick jag till vedbacken ett tag. Vedbackens idé är alldeles klar; att såga och hugga med gott samvete, att få vara ifred, att det luktar gott och att det för en gångs skull blir vad man har tänkt sig. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
10:Jag lade Roman med kokain uppslagen på bordet och hämtade ett par nummer av Vinduet och slängde bredvid, det ena uppslaget, det andra inte. Tre uppslagna böcker verkade för mycket, det såg nästan arrangerat ut, men två uppslagna och en hopslagen kunde ingen misstänka, det var perfekt. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd, #NFDB
11:— Vad vill han då ha hjälp med om man får fråga? sa Allan. Det är väl bara två saker jag kan bättre än de flesta. Den ena är att göra brännvin av getmjölk och den andra att skruva ihop en atombomb.
— Det är just det vi är intresserade av, sa mannen.
— Getmjölken?
— Nej, sa mannen. Inte getmjölken. ~ Jonas Jonasson,#NFDB
12:Somliga värdersätter inte sann och äkta känsla, men här har vi nu två olika naturer som just avsaknaden av denna hade gjort sådana de var - den ena olidligt kärv, den andra ömkligt fadd. Känsla utan förnuft är en mycket vattnig dryck, men förnuft som inte mildras med känsla är alltför beskt och torrt att svälja för en människa (s. 271). ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
13:Pritisnila je na gumb dvigala. Šla bo in kupila letalsko vozovnico. Svoboda, ki jo išče, je njena, ne Satakejeva, ne Jajoina, ne Jošijina, in prepričana je bila, da mora biti tam nekje zunaj. Če so se za njo zaprla še ena vrata, nima druge izbire, kot da najde nova in jih odpre. Dvigalo, ki ji je prišlo naproti, je ječalo kot veter.
END. ~ Natsuo Kirino,#NFDB
14:Försök till räddning genom tankeflykt
och överglidningar från dröm till dröm
blev ofta vår metod.
Med ena benet dränkt i känslosvall
det andra med sitt stöd i känslodöd
vi ofta stod.
Jag frågade mig själv men glömde svara.
Jag drömde mig ett liv men glömde vara.
Jag reste alltet rumt men glömde fara -
ty jag satt fånge här i Aniara. ~ Harry Martinson,#NFDB
15:Od vseh navad, ki jih ima sodobni človek, je prebiranje dnevnega časopisa gotovo ena najslabših. Zjutraj, ko je glava najbolj odprta, se vanjo vsuje zlo, kar ga je prejšnji dan pridelal svet. V preteklosti je zadostovalo, da nisi bral časnikov, pa si bil rešen. Danes to ni več mogoče; obstajajo mediji in dovolj je, da jih vklopiš za sekundo, pa te zlo že naskoči in prodre vate. ~ Susanna Tamaro, #NFDB
16:Allt detta gjorde kyrkan i mina ögon till någonting helt annorlunda än staden i övrigt: en byggnad som, om man kan uttrycka sig så, var rest i fyra dimensioner - av vilka den fjärde var tiden - genom seklerna sträckande sitt skepp, som från travé till travé, från sidokapell till sidokapell tycktes erövra och överskrida icke endast några meter, utan den ena epoken efter den andra. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
17:Čudno, ko zdaj podoživljam čustvene boje tistih časov, dobim vtis, da moja velika mladostniška kriza ni nastopila, kakor se praviloma dogaja, ko sem odraščala v dekle, ampak v otroških letih. Pri dvanajstih, trinajstih štirinajstih sem že imela neko svojo žalostno trdnost... Vse je bilo le ena izmed naštetih malih vlogic, ki sem jih morala odigrati, če sem hotela imeti mir... Niso nas vzgajali za doslednost, temveč za prilagodljivost. ~ Susanna Tamaro, #NFDB
18:Nietzscheja sem prežvečil in prebavil v treh dneh. Po tem velikem zalogaju mi je ostala samo še ena podrobnost osebnosti tega filozofa, še zadnji oreh, ki ga je bilo treba streti: njegovi brki! Federico Garcia Lorca, ki je bil očaran nad Hitlerjevimi brki, je pozneje izjavil, da "so brki tragična konstanta moškega obraza". Celo z brki sem nameraval preseči Nietzscheja! Moji že ne bodo zamorjeni, katastrofični, obteženi z wagnerjansko glasbo in meglo. Ne! Moji bodo zašiljeni, imperialistični, ultraracianalistični in usmerjeni k nebu, kot vertikalni misticizem, kot španski vertikalni sindikati. ~ Salvador Dal, #NFDB
19:När jag i Montreal eller på andra platser möter flickor som frivilligt och avsiktligt skadar sig själva och vill få ärr inristade i huden för all framtid, kan jag inte låta bli att i hemlighet önska att de fick möta de där andra flickorna, som också de bär på outplånliga ärr, men så djupa att de är osynliga för blotta ögat. Jag skulle vilja att de träffades så att jag fick höra dem jämföra ett självförvållat ärr med ett som man tillfogats, det ena betalar man för, det andra gör man mot betalning, det ena är synligt och det andra hemligt, det ena är ytligt och det andra går på djupet, det ena är skarpt, det andra suddigt. ~ Kim Th y, #NFDB
20:Ena najčistejših radosti, ki si jih lahko privošči človek na tem svetu, je obiskati Egejsko morje spomladi, ob pihljanju rahlih sapic; nikoli si nisem znal drugače zamišljati raja. Ali se lahko še kakšna druga radost na nebu in zemlji bolj prilega človeškemu telesu in duši? Ta radost narašča prav do zamaknjenosti, vendar Bog ne dovoli, da bi se stopnjevala, tako da ljubljeni vidni svet ob njej ne izgine; nasprotno, viden postane nevidni svet, in to, čemur rečemo Bog in večno življenje in blaženost, se nam pridruži na ladji in nas spremlja na potovanju. V bridki uri svoje smrti zatisni oči, in ugledal boš Santorin, Naksos, Paros, Mikonos. Tako boš zanesljivo stopil v nebesa, ne da bi ti bila zemlja napoti. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis, #NFDB
21:Čutim, da je lahko človek srečen na tem svetu. In vem, da je ta svet svet domišljije in vizije. Vsaka stvar, ki jo naslikam, je od tega sveta, vendar je vsi ljudje ne vidijo tako. Skopuhovim očem je zlatnik veliko lepši od sončne oble in mošnja, vsa zlizana od denarja, veliko lepše oblikovana kakor vinska trta, ki se šibi pod grozdi. Drevo, ki v oči nekoga zvabi solze sreče, je v očeh nekoga drugega samo nekakšna zelena stvar, ki stoji ob poti. Nekateri vidijo v naravi samo smešnost in in popačenost, a po teh se ne bom zgledoval; samo nekaj redkih ljudi je, ki zares vidijo naravo. Očem človeka z imaginacijo, je narava imaginacija sama. Kakršen je človek, tako tudi vidi. Kakor je oko ustvarjeno, takšna je njegova moč. Prav gotovo se motite, ko trdite, da fantazijske vizije niso od tega sveta. Meni je ves svet ena sama neskončna vizija fantazije ali domišljije… ~ William Blake, #NFDB
22:Jag går omkring i de sömnlösa nätternas trädgård och vill något med mitt liv som inte går att formulera. Mina fötter gör avtryck i snön. Kanske är det jag vill. Lämna spår. Men snöspåren försvinner ju. Dunstar. Blir intet. Eller snarare partiklar som rumlar runt i universum och fäster sig vid än det ena, än det andra, som de skapar eventuellt nytt liv med. Ursprunget har splittrats. Dött. Dödats. Det är så jävla värdelöst!
Universum borde förbjudas. Jag borde förbjudas. För jag orkar inte vara människa. Orkar inte delta i det här meningslösa livspelet. Vad jag än vill med mitt liv så vill Universum/Naturen/Tiden/Gud/Och Andra Idioter ändå att jag ska dö till slut och vad är det då för vits med vad jag vill med mitt liv? [...]
Jag vill något med mitt liv. Fast jag kommer att dö och fast det kanske är meningslöst att vilja något så vill jag ändå. Jag sitter kvar en lång stund i snön och gråter och darrar och samlar nästan ihop till en urinvägsinfektion. ~ Johanna Nilsson,#NFDB
23:We dropped in one evening, and found the ladies at home. My long friend engaged his favourites, the two younger girls, at the game of "Now," or hunting a stone under three piles of tappa. For myself, I lounged on a mat with Ideea the eldest, dallying with her grass fan, and improving my knowledge of Tahitian. The occasion was well adapted to my purpose, and I began. "Ah, Ideea, mickonaree oee?" the same as drawling out—"By the bye, Miss Ideea, do you belong to the church?" "Yes, me mickonaree," was the reply. But the assertion was at once qualified by certain, reservations; so curious that I cannot forbear their relation. "Mickonaree ena" (church member here), exclaimed she, laying her hand upon her mouth, and a strong emphasis on the adverb. In the same way, and with similar exclamations, she touched her eyes and hands. This done, her whole air changed in an instant; and she gave me to understand, by unmistakable gestures, that in certain other respects she was not exactly a "mickonaree." In short, Ideea was "A sad good Christian at the heart— A very heathen in the carnal part." The ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
24:Idel mekaniska fjädrar och hjul skapade de inre rörelserna hos vår urverksmänniska. Man skulle kunna kalla honom puritan. En grundläggande motvilja, formidabel i sin enkelhet, genomsyrade hans tröga själ: han avskydde bedrägeri och orättvisor. Han ogillade föreningen av dessa - de förekom ständigt i par - med träig lidelse som varken ägde eller krävde några ord för att uttryckas. En sådan motvilja skulle ha förtjänat beröm om den inte hade varit en biprodukt av mannens hopplösa stupiditet. Allt som överskred hans fattningsförmåga kallade han orättvist och bedrägligt. Han dyrkade allmänna föreställningar med pedantisk energi. Det allmänna var gudalikt, det specifika djävulskt. Var den ena människan fattig och den andra rik; själva skillnaden var orättvis, och den fattige som inte fördömde den var lika klandervärd som den rike som ignorerade den. Människor som visste för mycket - vetenskapsmän, författare, matematiker, kristallografer etc. - var inte bättre än kungar och präster: de ägde alla en orättvis andel av makten som de andra hade blivit lurade på. En vanlig hederlig person måste ständigt vara på sin vakt mot någon form av listig svindel från naturens och nästans sida. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
223 Integral Yoga
86 Occultism
74 Poetry
55 Christianity
39 Yoga
35 Psychology
29 Philosophy
25 Fiction
14 Science
7 Mythology
7 Kabbalah
7 Hinduism
6 Integral Theory
5 Theosophy
5 Baha i Faith
2 Mysticism
2 Islam
2 Education
1 Thelema
1 Sufism
1 Philsophy
1 Cybernetics
1 Buddhism
1 Alchemy
173 Sri Aurobindo
129 The Mother
78 Satprem
32 Carl Jung
30 Nolini Kanta Gupta
29 Aleister Crowley
25 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
21 James George Frazer
20 Sri Ramakrishna
18 Saint Augustine of Hippo
13 H P Lovecraft
12 Rudolf Steiner
12 Percy Bysshe Shelley
11 William Wordsworth
11 Swami Vivekananda
10 Plotinus
8 Saint Teresa of Avila
8 Franz Bardon
7 Swami Krishnananda
7 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
6 Jordan Peterson
6 Baha u llah
6 Aldous Huxley
5 Walt Whitman
5 Sri Ramana Maharshi
5 Paul Richard
5 Nirodbaran
5 George Van Vrekhem
5 Friedrich Schiller
5 Friedrich Nietzsche
5 A B Purani
4 Plato
4 Ovid
4 Jorge Luis Borges
4 Edgar Allan Poe
3 Thubten Chodron
3 Robert Browning
3 Joseph Campbell
3 John Keats
3 Anonymous
2 William Butler Yeats
2 Patanjali
2 Muhammad
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2 Jean Gebser
2 Henry David Thoreau
2 Alice Bailey
31 The Synthesis Of Yoga
24 The Life Divine
21 The Golden Bough
19 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
16 Liber ABA
14 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
14 City of God
13 Savitri
13 Magick Without Tears
13 Lovecraft - Poems
12 Shelley - Poems
12 Mysterium Coniunctionis
12 Letters On Yoga IV
12 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
11 Wordsworth - Poems
11 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
11 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
11 Agenda Vol 01
10 The Future of Man
10 Agenda Vol 10
9 The Practice of Psycho therapy
9 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
9 Collected Poems
8 Words Of Long Ago
8 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
8 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
7 The Study and Practice of Yoga
7 The Problems of Philosophy
7 Talks
7 General Principles of Kabbalah
7 Essays On The Gita
7 Essays Divine And Human
7 Agenda Vol 04
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Practice of Magical Evocation
6 The Phenomenon of Man
6 The Perennial Philosophy
6 Raja-Yoga
6 Prayers And Meditations
6 Maps of Meaning
6 Letters On Yoga II
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
6 Aion
5 Whitman - Poems
5 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
5 The Secret Of The Veda
5 The Human Cycle
5 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
5 Schiller - Poems
5 Questions And Answers 1953
5 Preparing for the Miraculous
5 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
5 Hymn of the Universe
5 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
5 Agenda Vol 12
5 Agenda Vol 03
5 5.1.01 - Ilion
4 The Way of Perfection
4 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
4 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
4 Some Answers From The Mother
4 Record of Yoga
4 Questions And Answers 1956
4 Questions And Answers 1955
4 Questions And Answers 1954
4 On the Way to Supermanhood
4 Metamorphoses
4 Letters On Yoga III
4 Let Me Explain
4 Isha Upanishad
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
4 Agenda Vol 11
4 Agenda Vol 08
4 Agenda Vol 06
4 Agenda Vol 05
4 Agenda Vol 02
4 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
3 Twilight of the Idols
3 Theosophy
3 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
3 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
3 The Book of Certitude
3 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
3 Poe - Poems
3 Letters On Yoga I
3 Keats - Poems
3 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
3 Browning - Poems
3 Bhakti-Yoga
3 Agenda Vol 13
3 Agenda Vol 09
2 Yeats - Poems
2 Walden
2 Vedic and Philological Studies
2 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Bible
2 Quran
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
2 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
2 On Education
2 Labyrinths
2 Kena and Other Upanishads
2 Initiation Into Hermetics
2 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
2 Faust
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
2 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
2 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
2 Agenda Vol 07
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Each letter of the Qabalistic alphabet has a number, color, many symbols and a Tarot card attributed to it. The Qabalah not only aids in an understanding of the Tarot, but teaches the student how to classify and organize all such ideas, numbers and symbols. Just as a knowledge of Latin will give insight into the meaning of an unfamiliar English word with a Latin root, so the knowledge of the Qabalah with the various attri butions to each character in its alphabet will enable the student to understand and correlate ideas and concepts which otherwise would have no apparent relation.
A simple example is the concept of the Trinity in the Christian religion. The student is frequently amazed to learn through a study of the Qabalah that Egyptian mythology followed a similar concept with its trinity of gods, Osiris the father, Isis the virgin-mother, and Horus the son. The Qabalah indicates similar correspondences in the pantheon of Roman and Greek deities, proving the father-mother (Holy Spirit) - son principles of deity are primordial archetypes of man's psyche, rather than being, as is frequently and erroneously supposed a development peculiar to the Christian era.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Born in an orthodox brahmin family, Sri Ramakrishna knew the formalities of worship, its rites and rituals. The innumerable gods and goddesses of the Hindu religion are the human aspects of the indescribable and incomprehensible Spirit, as conceived by the finite human mind. They understand and appreciate human love and emotion, help men to realize their secular and spiritual ideals, and ultimately enable men to attain liberation from the miseries of phenom enal life. The Source of light, intelligence, wisdom, and strength is the One alone from whom comes the fulfilment of desire. Yet, as long as a man is bound by his human limitations, he cannot but worship God through human forms. He must use human symbols. Therefore Hinduism asks the devotees to look on God as the ideal father, the ideal mother, the ideal husband, the ideal son, or the ideal friend. But the name ultimately leads to the Nameless, the form to the Formless, the word to the Silence, the emotion to the serene realization of Peace in Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. The gods gradually merge in the one God. But until that realization is achieved, the devotee cannot dissociate human factors from his worship. Therefore the Deity is bathed and clothed and decked with ornaments. He is fed and put to sleep. He is propitiated with hymns, songs, and prayers. And there are appropriate rites connected with all these functions. For instance, to secure for himself external purity, the priest bathes himself in holy water and puts on a holy cloth. He purifies the mind and the sense-organs by appropriate meditations. He fortifies the place of worship against evil forces by drawing around it circles of fire and water. He awakens the different spiritual centres of the body and invokes the Supreme Spirit in his heart. Then he transfers the Supreme Spirit to the image before him and worships the image, regarding it no longer as clay or stone, but as the embodiment of Spirit, throbbing with Life and Consciousness. After the worship the Supreme Spirit is recalled from the image to Its true sanctuary, the heart of the priest. The real devotee knows the absurdity of worshipping the Transcendental Reality with material articles — clothing That which pervades the whole universe and the beyond, putting on a pedestal That which cannot be limited by space, feeding That which is disembodied and incorporeal, singing before That whose glory the music of the spheres tries vainly to proclaim. But through these rites the devotee aspires to go ultimately beyond rites and rituals, forms and names, words and praise, and to realize God as the All-pervading Consciousness.
Hindu priests are thoroughly acquainted with the rites of worship, but few of them are aware of their underlying significance. They move their hands and limbs mechanically, in obedience to the letter of the scriptures, and repeat the holy mantras like parrots. But from the very beginning the inner meaning of these rites was revealed to Sri Ramakrishna. As he sat facing the image, a strange transformation came over his mind. While going through the prescribed ceremonies, he would actually find himself encircled by a wall of fire protecting him and the place of worship from unspiritual vibrations, or he would feel the rising of the mystic Kundalini through the different centres of the body. The glow on his face, his deep absorption, and the intense atmosphere of the temple impressed everyone who saw him worship the Deity.
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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."
--
Girish Chandra Ghosh was a born rebel against God, a sceptic, a Bohemian, a drunkard. He was the greatest Bengali dramatist of his time, the father of the modem Bengali stage. Like other young men he had imbibed all the vices of the West. He had plunged into a life of dissipation and had become convinced that religion was only a fraud. Materialistic philosophy he justified as enabling one to get at least a little fun out of life. But a series of reverses shocked him and he became eager to solve the riddle of life. He had heard people say that in spiritual life the help of a guru was imperative and that the guru was to be regarded as God Himself. But Girish was too well acquainted with human nature to see perfection in a man. His first meeting with Sri Ramakrishna did not impress him at all. He returned home feeling as if he had seen a freak at a circus; for the Master, in a semi-conscious mood, had inquired whether it was evening, though the lamps were burning in the room. But their paths often crossed, and Girish could not avoid further encounters. The Master attended a performance in Girish's Star Theatre. On this occasion, too, Girish found nothing impressive about him. One day, however, Girish happened to see the Master dancing and singing with the devotees. He felt the contagion and wanted to join them, but restrained himself for fear of ridicule. Another day Sri Ramakrishna was about to give him spiritual instruction, when Girish said: "I don't want to listen to instructions. I have myself written many instructions. They are of no use to me. Please help me in a more tangible way If you can." This pleased the Master and he asked Girish to cultivate faith.
As time passed, Girish began to learn that the guru is the one who silently unfolds the disciple's inner life. He became a steadfast devotee of the Master. He often loaded the Master with insults, drank in his presence, and took liberties which astounded the other devotees. But the Master knew that at heart Girish was tender, faithful, and sincere. He would not allow Girish to give up the theatre. And when a devotee asked him to tell Girish to give up drinking, he sternly replied: "That is none of your business. He who has taken charge of him will look after him. Girish is a devotee of heroic type. I tell you, drinking will not affect him." The Master knew that mere words could not induce a man to break deep-rooted habits, but that the silent influence of love worked miracles. Therefore he never asked him to give up alcohol, with the result that Girish himself eventually broke the habit. Sri Ramakrishna had strengthened Girish's resolution by allowing him to feel that he was absolutely free.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
As to enable me to raise the wind.
"Put me in LAYLAH'S arms again: the Accurst,
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
I have thought it necessary to write a rather lengthy Introduction to the book. In it I have given the biography of the Master, descriptions of people who came in contact with him, short explanations of several systems of Indian religious thought intimately connected with Sri Ramakrishna's life, and other relevant matters which, I hope, will enable the reader better to understand and appreciate the unusual contents of this book. It is particularly important that the Western reader, unacquainted with Hindu religious thought, should first read carefully the introductory chapter, in order that he may fully enjoy these conversations. Many Indian terms and names have been retained in the book for want of suitable English equivalents. Their meaning is given either in the Glossary or in the foot-notes. The Glossary also gives explanations of a number of expressions unfamiliar to Western readers. The diacritical marks are explained under Notes on Pronunciation.
In the Introduction I have drawn much material from the Life of Sri Ramakrishna, published by the Advaita Ashrama, Myvati, India. I have also consulted the excellent article on Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Nirvednanda, in the second volume of the Cultural Heritage of India.
--
In the spiritual firmament Sri Ramakrishna is a waxing crescent. Within one hundred years of his birth and fifty years of his death his message has spread across land and sea. Romain Rolland has described him as the fulfilment of the spiritual aspirations of the three hundred millions of Hindus for the last two thousand years. Mahatma Gandhi has written: "His life enables us to see God face to face. . . . Ramakrishna was a living embodiment of godliness." He is being recognized as a compeer of Krishna, Buddha, and Christ.
The life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna have redirected the thoughts of the d enationalized Hindus to the spiritual ideals of their forefa thers. During the latter part of the nineteenth century his was the time-honoured role of the Saviour of the Eternal Religion of the Hindus. His teachings played an important part in liberalizing the minds of orthodox pundits and hermits. Even now he is the silent force that is moulding the spiritual destiny of India. His great disciple, Swami Vivekananda, was the first Hindu missionary to preach the message of Indian culture to the enlightened minds of Europe and America. The full consequence of Swami Vivekn and work is still in the womb of the future.
--
May it enable seekers of Truth to grasp the subtle laws of the supersensuous realm, and unfold before man's restricted vision the spiritual foundation of the universe, the unity of existence, and the divinity of the soul!
- Sw mi Nikhilnanda
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
A sense of quality, or of novelty, enabling us to distinguish in
nature certain absolute stages of perfection and growth, without
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
on, at your leisure, will enable you to understand those parts
which eluded you at first glance. Moreover, these "conversations" make no claim to exhaust their subjects or even to deal
--
belongs to Sri Aurobindo, it is his money that enables me to
meet the almost formidable expenses that it entails (our annual
0.03 - III - The Evening Sittings, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
These sittings, in fact, furnished Sri Aurobindo with an occasion to admit and feel the outer atmosphere and that of the group living with him. It brought to him the much-needed direct contact of the mental and vital make-up of the disciples, enabling him to act on the atmosphere in general and on the individual in particular. He could thus help to remould their mental make-up by removing the limitations of their minds and opinions, and correct temperamental tendencies and formations. Thus, these sittings contributed at least partly to the creation of an atmosphere am enable to the working of the Higher Consciousness. Far more important than the actual talk and its content was the personal contact, the influence of the Master, and the divine atmosphere he emanated; for through his outer personality it was the Divine Consciousness that he allowed to act. All along behind the outer manifestation that appeared human, there was the influence and presence of the Divine.
What was talked in the small group informally was not intended by Sri Aurobindo to be the independent expression of his views on the subjects, events or the persons discussed. Very often what he said was in answer to the spiritual need of the individual or of the collective atmosphere. It was like a spiritual remedy meant to produce certain spiritual results, not a philosophical or metaphysical pronouncement on questions, events or movements. The net result of some talks very often was to point out to the disciple the inherent incapacity of the human intellect and its secondary place in the search for the ultimate Reality.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
into you to enable you to overcome all difficulties.
Love.
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but
The Synthesis of the Systems
--
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
Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
widening that enables you to understand everything and love
everything, without preference or exclusiveness.
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is poetry salutary indeed if there were any. We are so often and so much enamoured of the feminine languidness of poetry; the clear, the sane, the virile, that is a type of poetry that our nerves cannot always or for long stand. But there is poetry that is agrable and there is poetry that is grand, as Sainte Beuve said. There are the pleasures of poetry and there are the "ardours of poetry". And the great poets are always grand rather than agrable, full of the ardours of poetry rat her than the pleasures of poetry.
And if there is something in the creative spirit of Sri Aurobindo which tends more towards the strenuous than the genial, the arduous than the mellifluous, and which has more of the austerity of Vyasa than the easy felicity of Valmiki, however it might have affected the ultimate value of his creation, according to certain standards,14 it has illustrated once more that poetry is not merely beauty but power, it is not merely sweet imagination but creative visionit is even the Rik, the mantra that impels the gods to manifest upon earth, that fashions divinity in man.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
former lives. But a drop of Your Grace can enable me to
make up for all the lost time.
--
You put something into Your words which enables us to
see the Truth that words cannot convey. What is it that
0 1957-07-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It went something like this: somewhere, in the center of this enormous edifice, there was a room reservedas it seemed in the story for a mother and her daughter. The mother was a lady, an elderly lady, a very influential matron who had a great deal of authority and her own views concerning the entire organization. Her daughter seemed to have a power of movement and activity enabling her to be everywhere at once while at the same time remaining in her room, which was well, a bit more than a roomit was a kind of apartment which, above all, had the characteristic of being very central. But she was constantly arguing with her mother. The mother wanted to keep things just as they were, with their usual rhythm, which precisely meant the habit of tearing down one thing to rebuild another, then again tearing down that to build still another, thus giving the building an appearance of frightful confusion. But the daughter did not like this, and she had another plan. Most of all, she wanted to bring something completely new into the organization: a kind of super-organization that would render all this confusion unnecessary. Finally, as it was impossible for them to reach an understanding, the daughter left the room to go on a kind of general inspection She went out, looked everything over, and then wanted to return to her room to decide upon some final measures. But this is where something rather peculiar began happening.
She clearly remembered where her room was, but each time she set out to go there, either the staircase disappeared or things were so changed that she could no longer find her way! So she went here and there, up and down, searched, went in and out but it was impossible to find the way to her room! Since all of this assumed a physical appearanceas I said, a very familiar and very common appearance, as is always the case in these symbolic visions there was somewhere (how shall I put it?) the hotels administrative office and a woman who seemed to be the manager, who had all the keys and who knew where everyone was staying. So the daughter went to this person and asked her, Could you show me the way to my room?But of course! Easily! Everyone around the manager looked at her as if to say, How can you say that? However, she got up, and with authority asked for a key the key to the daughters roomsaying, I shall take you there. And off she went along all kinds of paths, but all so complicated, so bizarre! The daughter was following along behind her very attentively, you see, so as not to lose sight of her. But just as they should have come to the place where the daughters room was supposed to be, suddenly the manageress (let us call her the manageress), both the manageress and her key vanished! And the sense of this vanishing was so acute that at the same time, everything vanished!
--
This is why Sri Aurobindo has also written somewhere else that a double movement is necessary: the effort for individual progress and realization must be combined with the effort of trying to uplift the whole so as to enable it to make a progress indispensable for the greater progress of the individual: a mass progress, if you will, that allows the individual to take a further step forward.
And now you understand why I had thought it would be useful to have a few meditations in common, to work at creating a common atmosphere a bit more organized than my big hotel of last night!
0 1958-02-03b - The Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I found myself upon an immense ship, which is the symbolic representation of the place where this work is being carried out. This ship, as big as a city, is thoroughly organized, and it had certainly already been functioning for quite some time, for its organization was fully developed. It is the place where people destined for the supramental life are being trained. These people (or at least a part of their being) had already undergone a supramental transformation because the ship itself and all that was aboard was neither material nor subtle-physical, neither vital nor mental: it was a supramental substance. This substance itself was of the most material supramental, the supramental substance nearest the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a blend of red and gold, forming a uniform substance of luminous orange. Everything was like that the light was like that, the people were like thateverything had this color, in varying shades, however, which enabled things to be distinguished from one another. The overall impression was of a shadowless world: there were shades, but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything worked smoothly and silently. At the same time, I could see all the details of the education, the training in all domains by which the people on board were being prepared.
This immense ship had just arrived at the shore of the supramental world, and a first batch of people destined to become the future inhabitants of the supramental world were about to disembark. Everything was arranged for this first landing. A certain number of very tall beings were posted on the wharf. They were not human beings and never before had they been men. Nor were they permanent inhabitants of the supramental world. They had been delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of all this since the beginning and throughout. I myself had prepared all the groups. I was standing on the bridge of the ship, calling the groups forward one by one and having them disembark on the shore. The tall beings posted there seemed to be reviewing those who were disembarking, allowing those who were ready to go ashore and sending back those who were not and who had to continue their training aboard the ship. While standing there watching everyone, that part of my consciousness coming from here became extremely interested: it wanted to see, to identify all the people, to see how they had changed and to find out who had been taken immediately as well as those who had to remain and continue their training. After awhile, as I was observing, I began to feel pulled backwards and that my body was being awakened by a consciousness or a person from here1and in my consciousness, I protested: No, no, not yet! Not yet! I want to see whos there! I was watching all this and noting it with intense interest It went on like that until, suddenly, the clock here began striking three, which violently jerked me back. There was the sensation of a sudden fall into my body. I came back with a shock, but since I had been called back very suddenly, all my memory was still intact. I remained quiet and still until I could bring back the whole experience and preserve it.
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For the last, for money, he told me, I still dont know exactly what it depends on. Then one day I entered into trance with this idea in mind, and after a certain journey I came to a place like a subterranean grotto (which means that it is in the subconscient, or perhaps even in the inconscient) which was the source, the place and the power over money. I was about to enter into this grotto (a kind of inner cave) when I saw, coiled and upright, an immense serpent, like an all black python, formidable, as big as a seven-story house, who said, You cannot pass!Why not? Let me pass!Myself, I would let you pass, but if I did, they would immediately destroy me.Who, then, is this they?They are the asuric4 powers who rule over money. They have put me here to guard the entrance, precisely so that you may not enter.And what is it that would give one the power to enter? Then he told me something like this: I heard (that is, he himself had no special knowledge, but it was something he had heard from his masters, those who ruled over him), I heard that he who will have a total power over the human sexual impulses (not merely in himself, but a universal power that is, a power enabling him to control this everywhere, among all men) will have the right to enter. In other words, these forces would not be able to prevent him from entering.
A personal realization is very easy, it is nothing at all; a personal realization is one thing, but the power to control it among all men that is, to control or master such movements at will, everywhereis quite another. I dont believe that this condition has been fulfilled. If what the serpent said is true and if this is really what will vanquish these hostile forces that rule over money, well then, it has not been fulfilled.
0 1958-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And I had the impression It was not an impression I saw it. I was descending into a crevasse between two steep rocks, rocks that appeared to be made of something harder than basalt, BLACK, but metallic at the same time, with such sharp edgesit seemed that a mere touch would lacerate you. It appeared endless and bottomless, and it kept getting narrower, narrower and narrower, narrower and narrower, like a funnel, so narrow that there was almost no more roomnot even for the consciousness to pass through. And the bottom was invisible, a black hole. And it went down, down, down, like that, without air, without light, except for a sort of glimmer that enabled me to make out the rock edges. They seemed to be cut so steeply, so sharply Finally, when my head began touching my knees, I asked myself, But what is there at the bottom of this this hole?
And as soon as I had uttered, What is there at the bottom of this hole? I seemed to touch a spring that was in the very depthsa spring I didnt see but that acted instantly with a tremendous power and it cast me up forthwith, hurled me out of this crevasse into (arms extended, motionless) a formless, limitless vast which was infinitely comfortablenot exactly warm, but it gave a feeling of ease and of an intimate warmth.
0 1958-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
That is why the journey is so long, so difficult. For if one would truly consent no longer to be, everything would become so easy, so swift, so luminous, so joyousthough perhaps not in the way men conceive of joy and ease. At heart, there are very few beings who are not enamored of struggle. There are very few who would consent to having no darkness or who can conceive of light as anything other than the opposite of obscurity: Without shadow, there would be no painting. Without struggle, there would be no victory. Without suffering, there would be no joy. That is what they think, and as long as they think like that, they are not yet born to the spirit.
***
0 1959-05-19 - Ascending and Descending paths, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I could have begun this work on the body thirty years ago, but I was constantly caught up in this harassing ashram life. It took this illness2 to enable me truly to begin doing the sadhana of the body. It does not mean that thirty years were wasted, for it is likely that had I been able to start this work thirty years ago, it would have been premature. The consciousness of the others also had to develop the two are linked, the individual progress and the collective progress, and one cannot advance if the other does not advance.
I have also come to realize that for this sadhana of the body, the mantra is essential. Sri Aurobindo gave none; he said that one should be able to do all the work without having to resort to external means. Had he reached the point where we are now, he would have seen that the purely psychological method is inadequate and that a japa is necessary, because only japa has a direct action on the body. So I had to find the method all alone, to find my mantra by myself. But now that things are ready, I have done ten years of work in a few months. That is the difficulty, it requires time
0 1959-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As for the predictions, I am extremely interested. Tell this to X, and also that details of this kind are a great help in my work, for they give physical clues enabling a greater precision in the action. Needless to say, I will be very grateful for any indications he may wish to give me.
For you, my dear child, it is true that something must happen and will happen. Will you please tell X on my behalf that I will participate with all my power in what he wants to undertake. He will understand.
0 1960-05-24 - supramental flood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This experience last night also enabled me to understand what X had felt during one of our meditations. He had explained his experience by way of saying that I was this mystic tree whose roots plunge into the Supreme and whose branches spread forth over the world,3 and he said that one of these branches had entered into himand it had been a unique experience. He had said, this is the Mother.
And now I understand that what he had seen and translated by this Vedic image was that kind of perpetual flood.
0 1960-10-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But its still not luminous in the dark. What is normally luminous in the dark is something else I had that when I was working with Theon (after returning to France, we had group meditationsthough he didnt call it meditation, he called it repose, and we used to do this in a darkened room), and there was it was like phosphorescence, exactly the color of phosphorescent light, like certain fish in the water at night. It would come out [of the body], spread forth, move about. But that is the vital, it originates in the vital. It is a force from above, but what manifests is vital. Whereas now it is absolutely, clearly the golden supramental light in an extraordinary pulsation, vibrant in intensity But probably it still lacks a what Theon used to call density, an agent that enables it to be seen in the dark and then it would be visibly gold, not phosphorescent.
But it is very, very concrete, very material.
0 1960-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its an approach which is not at all mental nor intellectual nor (God knows!) moral in the leastno notion of Good or Evil nor any of those things, absolutely none of that. Theres a moment in life when you begin thinking a little and you see all this from an overall or universal point of view in which all moral notions completely disappearFOR ANOTHER REASON. This experience with Z reminded me of a certain way of approaching Beauty that enables you even to find it in what appears dirty and ugly to the common vision. It is She trying to express herself in this something which to the common vision is ugly, dirty, hypocritical. But of course, if you yourself have striven assiduously and have greatly held yourself in, then you look at it reprovingly.
From my earliest childhood, instinctively, I have never felt the slightest contempt or how should I say (well, well! I was thinking in English) shrinking or disapproval, severe criticism or disgust for the things people call vice.
0 1960-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Formerly, that was my first stepa long time ago. Now its so very different I wonder how it was possible to have been so totally blind as to call that oneself at any moment in ones life! Its a collection of things. And what was the link by which that could be called oneself? Thats more difficult to find out. Only when you climb above do you come to realize that THAT is at work here, but it could work there as well, or as well here, or here, or here At times there is suddenly a drop of something (Oh, I saw that this morningit was like a drop, a little drop, but with SUCH an intense and perfect light ), and where THAT falls it makes its center and begins radiating out and acting. THAT is what can be called oneselfnothing else. And THAT precisely is what enabled me to live in such dreadfully uninteresting, such nonexistent circumstances. And at the moment when you ARE that, you see how that has lived and how that has used everything, not only in this body but in all bodies and through all time.
At the core, this is the experience; it is no longer knowledge. I now understand quite clearly the difference between the knowledge of the eternal soul, of life eternal through all its changes, and this CONCRETE experience of the thing.
0 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 1961-02-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It doesnt ask to be cured of the illness! It doesnt ask, it is ready; All right, it says. As long as I can keep going, I will keep going. As long as I can last, I will last. But thats not what Im asking for: I am asking to be cured of my stupidity. I believe this is what enables it to yes, what gives it the necessary endurance.
Thats enough. I said I wouldnt say anything! You see how you are. When Im up in my room, I always tell myself, Not a word today! I dont want to start saying unpleasant things. And then.
0 1961-06-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Does the past? We know it remains present somewhere. Does this fact enable the past to participate in the progressive movement (progressive for us) of universal change within the manifestation? There is no reason why not.
But it remains present through its consequences.
0 1961-07-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What would it be like, for instance, to have a small supramental creation as a nucleus of action and influence radiating upon earth (to limit it to the earth)? Is it possible? Its easy to conceive of a superhuman nucleusa creation of supermen, that is, of men who by virtue of evolution and transformation (in the true sense of the word) have succeeded in manifesting the supramental forces; yet since their origin is human, there is inevitably a contact; even if everything is transformed, even if their organs are transformed into centers of force, a sort of human coloration still remains. These are the beings who, according to tradition, will discover the secret of direct, supramental creation, bypassing the process of ordinary Nature. Then through them the true supramental beings will be born, who will necessarily have to live in a supramental world. But how would contact be made between these beings and the ordinary world? How to conceive of a transformation of nature sufficient to enable this supramental creation to take place on earth? I dont know.
Of course, we know that such a thing will require a considerable amount of time to be done, and it will probably go by stages, by degrees, with faculties appearing that at the moment we cant know or imagine, and which will change the conditions of the earththis is looking ahead a few thousand years.
--
Note that modern astronomy is divided between the theory of endless phases of contraction-explosion-expansion, and the theory of a universe in infinite expansion starting with a 'Big Bang,' which seems quite as catastrophic, since the universe is then plunging at vertiginous speed into an increasingly cold, empty, and fatal infinity, like a bullet released from all restraints of gravity, until... until what? According to astronomers, an exact measurement of the quantity of matter in a cubic meter of the present universe (one atom for every 400 liters of space) should enable us to decide between these two theories and learn which way it will be best for us to die. If there is more than one atom per 400 liters of space, this quantity of matter will create sufficient gravitation to halt the present expansion of galaxies and induce a contraction, ending with an explosion within an infinitesimal space. If there is less than one atom per 400 liters of space, the quantity of matter and thus the gravitational effect will be insufficient to retain the galaxies within their invisible net, and everything will spin off endlesslyunless we discover, with Mother, a third position, that of a 'progressive equilibrium,' in which the quantity of matter in the universe proves in fact to be a quantity of consciousness, whose contraction or expansion will be regulated by the laws of consciousness.
When the veil of falsehood has gone: the supramental consciousness.
0 1962-01-12 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And, over and above this, for the realization to be total, there are two other conditions, which arent easy either. Intellectually, theyre not too difficult; in fact, for someone who has practiced yoga, followed a discipline (I am not speaking here of just anyone), theyre relatively easy. Psychologically too, given this equality, theres no great difficulty. But as soon as you come to the material plane the physical plane and then to the body, it isnt easy. These two conditions are first, the power to expand, to widen almost indefinitely, enabling you to widen to the dimensions of the supramental consciousness which is total. The supramental consciousness is the consciousness of the Supreme in his totality. By totality, I mean the Supreme in his aspect of Manifestation. Naturally, from a higher point of view, from the viewpoint of the essence the essence of that which in Manifestation becomes the Supermindwhats necessary is a capacity for total identification with the Supreme, not only in his aspect of Manifestation, but in his static or nirvanic aspect, outside of the Manifestation: Nonbeing. But in addition, one must be capable of identifying with the Supreme in the Becoming. And that implies both these things: an expansion that is nothing less than indefinite, and that should simultaneously be a total plasticity enabling one to follow the Supreme in his Becoming. You dont merely have to be as vast as the universe at one point in time, but indefinitely in the Becoming. These are the two conditions. They must be potentially present.
Down to the vital, we are still in the realm of things that are more than feasible they are done. But on the material level it results in my misadventures of the other day.2
--
So long as theres no question of physical transformation, the psychological and in large part, the subjective point of view is sufficientand thats relatively easy. But when it comes to incorporating matter into the work, matter as it is in this world where the very starting point is false (we start off in unconsciousness and ignorance), well, its very difficult. Because, to recover the consciousness it has lost, Matter has had to individualize itself, and for that for the form to last and retain this possibility of individualityit has been created with a certain indispensable measure of rigidity. And that rigidity is the main obstacle to the expansion, to the plasticity and suppleness necessary for receiving the Supermind. I constantly find myself facing this problem, which is utterly concrete, absolutely material when youre dealing with cells that have to remain cells and not vaporize into some nonphysical reality, and at the same time have to have a suppleness, a lack of rigidity, enabling them to widen indefinitely.
There have been times, while working in the most material mind (the mind ingrained in the material substance), when I felt my brain swelling and swelling and swelling, and my head becoming so large it seemed about to burst! On two occasions I was forced to stop, because it was (was it only an impression, or was it a fact?) in any event it seemed dangerous, as if the head would burst, because what was inside was becoming too tremendous (it was that power in Matter, that very powerful deep blue light which has such powerful vibrations; it is able to heal, for example, and change the functioning of the organsreally a very powerful thing materially). Well then, thats what was filling my head, more and more, more and more, and I had the feeling that my skull was (it was painful, you know) that there was a pressure inside my skull pushing out, pushing everything out. I wondered what was going to happen. Then, instead of following the movement, helping it along and going with it, I became immobile, passive, to see what would happen. And both times it stopped. I was no longer helping the movement along, you see, I simply remained passive and it came to a halt, there was a sort of stabilization.
0 1962-03-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact, practically speaking, thats why these things used to be kept secret: one should get knowledge ONLY when its accompanied by discrimination enabling one to distinguish the origin of what is seen or received. One without the other makes for a dangerous weapon.
Some people have even been driven insane, through their own constant fearout of fear they refused all protection. I tell you, only those with a great devotion and a great love are not deceiveda great devotion gives you an immediate sense of things; when your devotion goes like this (shrinking gesture), you know what it means. But your devotion must be sincere and very strong; its the only protection.
0 1962-05-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Striking though the parallel may be, there is still a fundamental difference between these mathematical concepts and Mothers experience. In the first case, we are dealing with conceptual instruments used by the human mind to better explain and master the world: no one has actually seen electromagnetic wavesnot to speak of gravitational ones! They are images, convenient models, invisible and nonexistent in themselves. They exist only through their effects: a beam of sunlight, which is an electromagnetic wave, strikes our retina and enables us to distinguish a flower; by means of gravitational waves, Newtons apple falls from the tree but no one has lived the reality of those waves. The way Mother grasps reality, on the contrary, is first and foremost through lived experience. She is the movement, she is the wave: I walk around the room, and that is what is walking. Here we touch upon a stupendous mystery and a formidable question: How is it possible for a material and cellular body to be the wave that at once constitutes and carries the worlds along in its infinite undulating movement and governs the existence of atoms and galaxies? How is it possible to be an infinite and ubiquitous electromagnetic wave while remaining within the narrow confines of a human body?
In being THAT, it might be said, Mother thus resolves the famous question of the unified-field theory, the theory to which Einstein devoted the last years of his life in vain, that would describe the movements of both planets and atoms in a single mathematical equation. Mothers body-consciousness is one with the movement of the universe, Mother lives the unified-field theory in her body. In so doing she opens up to us not merely one more physical theory, but the very path to a new species on earth, a species that will physically and materially live on the scale of the universe. The posthuman species might not simply be one with a few organs more or less, but rather one capable of being at every point in the universe. A sort of material ubiquity. It may not be so much a new as an ubiquitous species, a species that embraces everything, from the blade of grass under our feet to the far galaxies. A multifarious, undulating existence. A resume or epitome of evolution, really, which at the end of its course again becomes each point and each species and each movement of its own evolution.
0 1962-10-30, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I tell you, it also has an EXTRAORDINARY utility: it automatically renews all the energies. Actually, thats the true reason for sleep: to be able to enter that state. And thats why those who can enter it consciously in meditation need much less sleep. Much less. Its what enables the body to last: Sat. And whenever I have meditated with you, Ive always had a feeling of entering that state.
Pure existence, outside of the Manifestation. It is wonderfully luminous, immobile, tranquil, and a sort of bliss devoid of any vibration, beyond vibration.
0 1962-11-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I woke up after two thousand years with a rejuv enated body. It was a very amusing little story. And I say vision, but you dont watch these things like a movie: you LIVE them. I somehow extricated myself from that sort of sealed grotto, and where Pondicherry had once stood (it had been completely razed), I came upon some people working. They were VERY DIFFERENT, and quite bizarre. I myself must have looked funny, with a kind of costume totally alien to their epoch. (My clothing had also survived the destruction the whole thing was right out of a storybook!) So of course I attracted some curiosity and they tried to make me understand. Ah, yes I know one of them said (I understood them because I could understand their thoughtsthose two thousand years had enabled me to read peoples minds), and they led me to a very old sage, a wise old fellow. I spoke to him and he began leafing through all kinds of books (he had many, many books), and suddenly he exclaimed, Ah, French! An ancient language, you see (Mother laughs).
It was very funny. I told the story to Sri Aurobindo, and he had a good laugh.
0 1963-07-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And now the body KNOWS (in the beginning it didnt, it thought it was attacks from the outside, adverse forces; and it can always be explained like that, it was true in a certain way, but it wasnt the true truth, the deepest truth), now the body KNOWS where it all comes from, and its so marvelous! A marvel of wisdom. It puts everything in its place, it makes you REALIZE that all that play of the adverse forces is a way of seeing things (a necessary way at a given time, maybeby necessary, I mean practical), but its still an illusion; illnesses are a necessary way of seeing things to enable you to resist properly, to fight properly, but its still an illusion. And now, the BODY itself knows all thisas long as it was only the mind that knew it, it was a remote notion in the realm of ideas, but now the body itself knows it. And it is full not only of goodwill but also of an infinite gratitudeit always wonders (thats its first movement), Do I have the capacity? And it always gets the same answer, It isnt YOUR capacity. Will I have the strength?It isnt YOUR strength. Even that sense of infirmity disappears in the joy of infinite gratitude the thing is done with such goodness, such insight, such thoughtfulness, such care to maintain, as far as possible, a progressive balance.
It came with a certitude, an OBVIOUSNESS: this is the process of transformation.
--
A few days later, Mother added: "There is also something I left unsaid: an urgent need to cease all material activity in order to enable the body to receive fullyas fully as possible the divine Force that will replace what has been removed. There is something absolute about that need: to stay totally still, quiet, letting the Force descendpermeate the body, rather. All physical activity must be suspended in some way, and if the material organization, or the habit, tends to make it continue, a kind of material impossibility, an excessive fatigue or discomfort, comes to oblige the body to keep still. Because simply to remove or change what shouldn't be there won't do; it must also be replaced by what SHOULD be there. Otherwise, there would be a dwindling or gradual reduction of substance resulting in dissolution. What has been sublimated or removed has to be replaced by something which is the true Vibration, the one that comes straight from the Supreme."
Mother did not eat anything this morning.
0 1963-08-10, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the question arose for this body [Mothers], just to see, you know. And I saw all kinds of things, and finally the answer was always the same (you see, the problem was presented to me to enable me to understand the situation in all its aspects and see the necessities), that naturally everything would be for the best! (Laughing) Without a doubt. But I mean it was presented very concretely and, I could say, very personally to make me understand the problem. And there was that old thing I was told the other day (old, that is, a few days old! i: I was told that THE CELLS THEMSELVES would be given a free choice. So the conclusion of all that meditation was that there must be a new element in the consciousness of the cellular aggregatesa new element a new experience that must be in progress. The result: last night, I had a series of fantastic cellular experiences, which I cannot even explain and which must be the beginning of a new revelation.
When the experience began, there was something looking on (you know, there is always in me something looking on somewhat ironically, always amused) which said, Very well! If that happened to someone else, he would think he was quite sick! (laughing) Or half mad. So I stayed very quiet and thought, All right, let it be, Ill watch, Ill see Ill see soon enough! It has started, so it will have to end! Indescribable! Indescribable (the experience will have to recur several times before I can understand), fantastic! It started at 8:30 and went on till 2:30 in the morning; that is to say, not for a second did I lose consciousness, I was there watching the most extraordinary things for six hours.
0 1963-08-24, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I SAW myself the way I am, and quite obviously (Mother laughs) my body seems to have been shrunk to enable me to dominate it and exceed it on all sides without difficulty! Thats my impression, something thats shrunk! The English word is very expressive (Mother laughs).
Now, of course, when I say that, people imagine its a psychic or mental vision thats not it, I dont mean that! I mean a PHYSICAL vision, with these very eyes (Mother touches her eyes). But a TRUE physical vision, instead of the distorted vision we have now.
0 1963-08-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For a while I was shown the two functionings to enable me to perceive the difference: how the senses function now, and how they did formerly: and it gives a fuzzy impression, but its an impression of something both very intimate and very complete (same round gesture), whereas, before, each thing was separate, divided (choppy, hard gesture), unconnected with the other, it was very superficialvery precise but very superficial, like a pinpoint. Its not at all that way any more.
And I see very well that if we let ourselves be carried along instead of having that absurd resistance of habit, if we let ourselves be carried along, there would come a sort of very (same round, global gesture) very soft thing, in the sense of smooth, very soft, very complete, very living, and with a very intimate perception of things. Along with a knowledge that becomes if there werent that mixture of the old habit, it would be really extraordinary: the perception of things not as if they were outside, but an INTIMATE perception. When someone enters the room, for instance, or when the clock is about to strike, you know it just (I cant say a second, its a thousandth of a second), just before it takes place materially; which gives you the feeling of a foreknowledge, but its not that! Its not a foreknowledge, its It belongs to the realm of sensation, but its other senses. The FOREMOST feeling you get is one of intimacy, that is to say, there is no more distance, no more difference, no more seer and thing seen; yet, there is in it what corresponds to vision, hearing, sensation, all the perceptions, taste, smell and all of that.
0 1963-10-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So how many HOW MANY consciousnesses must there be, what quantity, if we may say (intensity, there is: off and on it shines like stars), what is the mass of consciousnesses necessary to enable this new world to come down on earth? Otherwise, what would happen to it? It would be swallowed up. Like in 60, when I saw the supramental forces descend (mon petit, what a sight it was! They were descending, it was stupendous, marvelous; they were like torrents, you felt as though they were going to inundate everything), and then, from below, there rose up great, dark blue masses like this, and they went vroof! (gesture of engulfing) And everything was swallowed up.
So it would be the same thing PHYSICALLY, you understand.
0 1963-11-13, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding an old Playground Talk of January 8, 1951, in which Mother said: "The history of the earth seems to be a history of victories followed by defeats, and not of defeats followed by victories.... [ But ] in truth, the movements of Nature are like those of the tides: things go forward, then backward, then forward, then backward... which implies, in universal life, even in earthly life, a progressive advance though apparently broken with retreats. But those retreats are only an appearance, as when you take a run in order to jump. You seem to move back, but it's only to enable you to jump higher. You may tell me that this is all very well, but how do you give a child the certainty that truth will triumph? For when he learns history, he will see that things do not always end well.")
(Mother remains pensive)
0 1963-11-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The first thing is to detach your consciousness, thats most important. And to say: I-AM-NOT-THIS, its something that has been ADDED, placed to enable me to touch Matter but it isnt me. And then if you say, That is me (gesture upward), youll see that you will be happy, because it is lovelylovely, luminous, sparkling. Its really fine, it has an exceptional quality. And thats you. But you have to say, That is me, and be convinced that its you. Naturally, the old habits come to deny it, but you must know that theyre old habits, nothing else, they dont matter that is you.
This movement is indispensable. A moment comes when one must absolutely separate oneself from all this, because only when one has separated oneself and become quite conscious that one is there (gesture above the head), that one is THAT, only then can one come down again to change it all. Not to forsake it, but to be its master.
0 1964-03-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I did see something, but I dont think its very interesting, or collective either. I seemed to kind myself in an enormous plane, a very powerful one, which managed to take off (a takeoff which, besides, gave me a very pleasant sensation). It took off, but it was hedgehopping, that was dangerous. At first, the space before us was clear anyway, but we were flying very low and skimming the trees. Then, suddenly there were all kinds of buildings that stood in the way, in particular a huge tower, like a church steeple, of a very black color. I dont know how it happened, but the plane (or the force) entered itoddly enough and inside it was completely dark; there was only a sort of opening in a watt, and beyond it, a patch of blue sky. It sounds impossible, but the plane tried to go through that hose, and when we tried to, that sort of opening turned out to be covered with very thick glass that stopped us from going through. So I remember that with a pointed instrument I broke the entire window to enable us to go through. We did, but it was too small, the opening was too narrow for such an enormous plane. Afterwards, its very confused; I only remember that in a hidden place, there was a sort of huge gold ciborium, very beautifulit was hidden. But all the rest is quite confused.
Oh, but its interesting.
0 1964-08-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(D., a disciple, sent Mother an eighteenth-century account by a Japanese monk of the Zen Buddhist sect describing a method called "Introspection," which enables one to overcome cold and hunger and attain physical immortality. Mother reads a few pages, then gives up.)
[Herms magazine, Spring 1963.]
0 1964-10-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All ordinary common sense (which is still triumphant in this world) tells me, What illusions you nurse, my child! You arrange things to your satisfaction, youre sugarcoating the pill for yourself, and so on, it comes like that, regularly, in waves. Well its also part of the problem. But a time will come when certain truths will be acknowledged as true and no longer disputed; then the Work will be easier. But in order to get there, there has to be at least a beginning of experience, a beginning of realization that enables you to say, But here is the proof.
This seems to me to be the process under way.
0 1964-11-12, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact, it was after I spoke to him (I mentioned it to him as a sort of dizzy spell) that I was able to perceive precisely those routes. I wondered if it wasnt the projection on a magnifying screen of phenom ena taking place between different brain cells? Because those sorts of dizzy spells always follow (today there hasnt been anything at all), they always follow a moment or a day of intense aspiration for the transformation of the brain. It may be that. You know, all those brain cells in there are hitched together, and if those hitchings are disturbed, generally people become deranged; and it gave me the impression of a magnifying projection enabling me to follow the connections established between certain brain cells, so that the functioning may not be the automatic, semiconscious functioning of the old state anymore and the brain may truly become the instrument of the higher Force. Because the formula of my aspiration is always, Lord, take possession of this brain, and its always after this intense aspiration that those kinds of phenom ena occur. So it is to prepare the brain to be the direct expression of the higher Force.
This is what I have learned these last few days.
--
Mother is perhaps referring to the following passage of The Hour of God: "The experiment of human life on an earth is not now for the first time enacted. It has been conducted a million times before and the long drama will again a million times be repeated. In all that we do now, our dreams, our discoveries, our swift or difficult attainments we profit subconsciously by the experience of innumerable precursors and our labour will be fecund in planets unknown to us and in worlds yet uncreated...."
XVII.149
0 1965-05-29, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You see, it is said that there is now a great difference, that when man came, the animal didnt have the means of taking notice; well, I say its exactly the same thing: in spite of all that man has realized, man doesnt have the means; certain things may happen, but he will know they did only much later, when something in him is sufficiently developed to enable him to take notice.
Even with scientific development taken to its utmost, to the point where one really feels there is almost no difference left, when, for instance, they reach the oneness of substance and there seems to remain just an almost insensible or imperceptible passage from one condition to the other [the material to the spiritual], well, no, its not like that! In order to perceive that sort of identity, you must carry already in yourself the experience of the OTHER THING; otherwise you cannot.
--
Basically, one cannot lead to the other. Except through a phenomenon of grace; if there is inwardly an absolute sincerity enabling the scientist to see, to have the foreknowledge, the perception of the point at which things elude him, then that may lead him to the other state of consciousness, but NOT THROUGH HIS METHODS. There must be something must give in something must give in and accept the new methods, the new perceptions, the new vibrations, the new state of soul.
Then its an individual question. It isnt a question of class or category: its the scientist who becomes ready to be something else.
0 1965-06-18 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I remember, I still have the image in which he is demonstrating things with his test tubes. There was a man who looked like a scientist (a man about forty years old, between forty and fifty, young but not very young) and very thoughtful-looking. He was sitting. I dont know what his nationality was, I dont remember, but he was modern; he was modern, with modern clothes, and Sri Aurobindo showed him his test tubes with things in them and the effect on a totality of matter. I was there, looking on (I was looking with great interest), and I understood everything then. And I still see the image, but the mental knowledge, the mental translation that would have enabled me to say, Now I know, prrt! taken away. Its the same thing every time.
Which means it must be given to people other than me for them to use it, because they have a brain better prepared than mine, and better conditions of research.
0 1965-07-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a lot to do, a whole lot. But it may go relatively fast. When you observe, you realize that what takes the most time is becoming conscious of what must be changed, having a conscious contact that enables it to change. Thats what takes the most time. The change itself There are recurrences, but its growing much less intense. It all depends on the amount of unconsciousness and tamas in the being; as it grows less, the experience grows stronger.
***
0 1965-11-23, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have noticed something very interesting. Suppose there is a pain, some sign or other that something in the body is out of order. In the consciousness in the consciousness you are absolutely indifferent, which means that whether its life or death, disease or health, there is equality; but if the body reacts according to its old habit, What should be done to get over it? and all that it involves (I am not speaking of a reaction in the mind, but here, in the body), the thing takes root. Why? Because it has to stay there (laughing) to enable you to study it! If, on the other hand, the cells have learned their lesson and say right away, Lord, Your presence (without words the attitude), pfft! the thing goes.
Its no use if the thought does it, if the psychic consciousness, EVEN THE PHYSICAL CONSCIOUSNESS, does it: it must be the cells that do it. So the one who does it in the thought says, Here, I give myself to the Divine, I am ready for anything, I am in a state of perfect equality, and still I am ill! So what am I to believe? Thats not the point. In order to have an instantaneous action HERE (instantaneous, meaning what looks like a miracle, which isnt a miracle at all), there should instantaneously be, wherever a disorder has occurred for some reason or other, this: LordLord, this is You; Lord, we are You; Lord, You are hereeverything flies away. A sensation, an attitudeinstantaneously, hup! its over.
0 1966-03-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the consciousness of the people, the whole morning, it was translated by (all this is perceived very clearly), by the thought, Oh, Mother is VERY tired. But there is that sort of state of indifference, unreceptive to the vibration around, which enables you to go on, otherwise you feel that (same gesture of disconnection) something would be seriously disrupted. Once or twice I had to draw within and become still. And its going on. And in fact, while it was like that something came and told me (but all this wordlessly), When Satprem is here, you will understand. Then there was tranquillity, because the moment was (what shall I say?) very uncertain. And there was a sort of relaxing: You will understand when he is here, you will have the explanation.
Those experiences are always preceded by the Supreme Presence drawing near in a very intimate and inner way, with a sort of suggestion, Are you ready for anything? (that was two nights ago). Naturally I answered, Anything. And the Presence takes on such a wonderful intensity that there is a sort of thirst in the whole being for it to be constantly like that. Nothing but That exists anymore, nothing but That has a raison dtre anymore. And in the middle of it comes this suggestion: Are you ready for anything?
0 1966-09-28, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
She writes this: We must stop encouraging torturers, whether of men or of animals. I am writing to beg you to teach me how to obtain the powers to lessen sufferings in others through concentration of fluid, and how to act by inwardly returning blow for blow to the aggressors, without hatred but implacably. I beg you to help me. Which inner giving, which renunciation is necessary? Who will teach me the force and justice that will enable me to act and not to always let evil triumph? It is too easy to forget, deny, minimize others suffering. I can no longer put up with it. I no longer want to shut my eyes and comfort myself till the next time. What should I undertake?
When did you get this letter?
0 1967-03-02, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Some of the things I said in the Talk youve just read to me today, were true at the time, are still true for the majority of people, but are no longer true for me.1 To the present vision, there is nothing that isnt willed and doesnt come purposely (not exactly deliberately, but with a precise aim in view), and it is AT THE SAME TIME a complete, multifaceted and integral whole (which is why its very difficult to grasp). But now the thing is very clearly felt. And that is since two or three days, following a very minute observationprecise and minute The centre of consciousness is fairly high up (gesture far above the head); in the past it was always there (gesture near the top of the head) and it would see things around and inside, but it seems to have ascended and the field of the consciousness is much vaster. Also, the body has become transparent, so to speak, and almost nonexistent; I dont know how to put it it doesnt obstruct the vibrations: all vibrations can go through. For example (Ill give an example to make myself understood, omitting details deliberately), I was asked for a certain amount of money, an increase. (On the material level a certain number of things are controlledby Motherfrom here, and which I have to pay for regularly.) So then, an increase was asked for. Not that the request was unreasonable, thats not it (it was an increase for something special, a daily increase), but I dont know why (because heregesture to the foreheadnothing happens, I am absolutely, not only blank, but transparent, and everything is allowed to go through unobstructed), when I had to take the decision, there was immediately a vision (but a vision, as I said, from above, which sees over a much larger field), of conflict, battle, and to the observation there was something (in Mother) very much displeased, like a protest. I wondered why. If it had been translated into words, there would have been indignation at that request (without there being in the consciousness the least reason for this indignation: it all becomes very, very impersonalvery impersonal). I went on looking with the vision of the consciousness, and then, as if automatically, through this mouth I asked how much this increase would amount to per week (because even the mental state that enables you to calculate isnt there at all: its only a question of consciousness). I asked someone who was there, and he told me. Then, there immediately came the decision: I will give so much once a week. And everything calmed down. Why and how and who? I havent the faintest idea.
So I am forced to conclude that its a highly superior consciousness which sees things with reasons that completely elude us, sees how things must be done and sets them in motion (global gesture to indicate the play of forces) until they are done as they must be done. And where there was a person, it no longer exists there are no more persons: there are forces in movement that bring about certain material actions, but no more persons.
0 1967-05-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And the body is conscious enough to be convinced that it has no right to demand the change (I mean a certain change) in the Whole so as to enable its own change. Because, that it knows very well: Then what use am I? If I am like the others, I am useless I MUST have the capacity to emerge into the Light, whatever the people or difficulties around me. It knows that, its under no illusions. But still, there is a little friction.
(silence)
0 1967-05-10, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Even now, even when I used to play music, the memory of sounds was vague and incomplete. I had the memory of the sounds I heard at the origins of music (gesture above), and when the material music reproduced something of those sounds, I would recognize them; but there isnt the precision, the accuracy that would enable me to reproduce exactly the sound with the voice or an instrument. Its not there, its lacking. Whereas the memory of the eyes was it was astounding. When I had seen a thing ONCE, that was enough, I would never forget it.
Several other times, in visions (visions, I mean memories: relived memories), I spoke the language of that time, I spoke it and heard myself speak, but the sound didnt stay. The MEANING of what I said stayed, but not the sound.
0 1967-12-08, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You understand, its only happy in what it regards as its normal state when its fully conscious and vibrating with the Presence. But in the nights activities (how can I explain?) its becomes more more like something one is used to, you know, like a habit (gesture of a wave flowing); theres no longer the joy of a vibrating observation, but a normal state of things, and its not happy with that: it wants the same intensity (vibrating gesture) to be there at night. For instance, it doesnt tolerate the idea of fatigue, of the necessity of rest (although that never arises from the inconscient any more), but rest as a sort of turning in on oneself, like that, to repair wear and tearit doesnt like that: there must be no wear and tear, there must be a constant adaptation to anything asked of it. Later, it will probably not even accept effort there isnt much effort left, but instead of effort, theres a sort of conscious receptivity that enables it to do things; and there are constant examples to show that if this conscious receptivity isnt there, well, theres an awkwardness, or an impossibility, things like that, but it in the past, it used to feel that was unavoidable, but now it no longer wants it. Now it no longer wants it: it must not be like that. For example, to tidy up, or find something or do something, it sometimes feels a sense of difficulty (its never quite impossible because nothing is asked of it which is impossible), but at times its difficultit starts being displeased. It feels that as an infirmity, or a lack of receptivity, you understand. Also the fact that it has become stooped: in the past it would say, Itll get better; now its beginning to lose patience. Thats quite new. It is since November 24. Because its not a selfish turning in on itself, its not that, its not for itself, its the sense of a lack of receptivity to the Force, of limitation arising from incapacityit doesnt like that anymore.
***
0 1968-03-13, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is an increasingly concrete perception that everything that there is nothing that doesnt hold its own joy of being, because thats THE way of being: without joy of being, there is no being. But its not what we mentally understand by joy of being. Its something which is hard to express. And this perception of suffering and joy (almost of evil and good), all of that is necessities of the work to enable it to be done in a certain field of unconsciousness. Because true consciousness is something entirely, totally different. Thats what the consciousness of the cells is now learning, and learning through a concrete experience; and all those appreciations of what is good and what is evil, of what is suffering and what is joy, all that seems misty. But the thing the Truth the concrete thing still hasnt been caught. Its on the way, one feels its on the way, but its not there yet. If one had it one would be the all-powerful master. And possibly one cannot have it until the world in its totality, or to a sufficient extent, is ready for the transformation.
Thats speculation, what we might call an inspiration. But it still belongs to the upper realm.
0 1968-04-10, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As this vision grows clearer Its a long, long time, years and years, since the sense of possession went away; thats childishness, its nothingits so silly! Will you tell me what pleasure a man can take in keeping heaps of papers in a box or in his wall! A real pleasure he cant have. The height of pleasure is that of the miser who goes and opens his box to look at it thats not much! Some people love to spend, they love to possess and spend; thats different, they are generous natures, but unregulated, unorganized. But the joy of enabling all TRUE needs, all NECESSITIES to express themselves, thats good. Its like the joy of turning an illness into good health, a falsehood into truth, a suffering into joy, its the same thing: turning an artificial and stupid need, which doesnt correspond to anything natural, into a possibility which becomes something quite naturala need for so much money to do this and that which needs to be done, to set right here, repair there, build here, organize there thats good. And I understand one may enjoy being the transmitting channel for all that and bring money just where its needed. It must be the true movement in people who enjoy (thats when it becomes stupid selfishness) who need to hoard.
The combination of the need to hoard and the need to spend (both of them ignorant and blind), the two combined can make for a clear vision and a utilization as useful as possible. Thats good.
0 1968-06-29, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And as you say, this presence is maintained to the extent its useful and indispensable for a certain aspect of the work. And in that case, theres no question of a long or short time, of when, how, what and all that Its as You will. Constantly, in every cell, every activity, every moment: What You will, Lord. All the time. Like that. No question. Only, there is an observation, a very clear perception of the fact that this supreme Will is what enables things to carry on as they do.
So the conclusion is easy to draw: as long as He wills it, it will be like that; when He wills it otherwise, it will be otherwise. And thats all. At the same time, of course, the lesson is given: an increasingly clear perception that the field of the indispensable isnt as large as we imagine. For me, Sri Aurobindos presence is EXTREMELY effectiveactive.
0 1969-02-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This mornings experience was very curious. All of a sudden, it awakened the memory of something that took place in my childhood when I was about eight or ten (which I had completely forgotten). On Sundays (I suppose so, or anyway on holidays), I used to go and play with my first cousins, the children of a brother of my father. I would go and play with them. I remember their house, I can still see it. We would usually spend our time playing scenes or enacting a story in tableaux. And today, it showed me something I had really forgotten. Theres a story of Bluebeard, isnt there? (Bluebeard I forget, I only know what I remembered this morning.) One day, we did a tableau vivant, in several tableaux, with the story of Bluebeard who cut off his wives heads. (To Satprem:) Thats how the story went, isnt it? (Laughter) I only remember this morning, I dont recall the story. Now, we played in a big room, a sort of enclosed verandahin Paris, a big long room. We had stood (our playmates were little boys and girls), we had stood a certain number of girls against the wall: we had stuck them to the wall, with their hair strung above their heads (Mother laughs), and we had put a sheet in front to cover the rest of their bodies the sheet reached down to the floor so that we couldnt see their bodies, only their heads! I am saying that because I saw it this morning, otherwise I didnt remember in the least. I saw this scene, I saw the memory of that room and how it was all arranged. And at the same time there came You see, we found it quite natural, just a story we had read; I remembered my impression at the time: there was no sense of horror! We didnt find it monstrous (laughing), we were having great fun! So the experience came, and it remained for OVER AN HOUR to make me understand very deeply where this memory came from, how it acted and why we were in that state. And all of it not at all from a personal standpoint, not at all: from the general standpoint of the earth and humanity in general. It was exceedingly interesting! And then, at the same time, a vision showing how, with what swift movement, the universal consciousness moves (arrowlike gesture) in a progression towards the Divine the TRUE Divine, I mean, not religions, of coursetowards the TRUE Divine through all that. And with the consciousness of the WHOLEthe whole and nuances (Sade and all that line), from the highest to the lowest. For one hour I saw a whole stage of humanitya stage towards the late 1800s, the second half of the 1800sand how it moved on and progressed (gesture like a great curve). And thats I have no words or capacity to describe it, but its extraordinarily interesting. The vision of the human collectivity on earth, with all its stages, gradations, nuances, and how it all followed a movement (same arrowlike gesture). And this story (story this VISION, rather, because it wasnt a story: I didnt see what we said or anything, only the vision of what we did), this story came as the illustration of a certain state of mind of those times, and how children were given stories of that kind to readwe found it quite natural! (Mother laughs) And those things are so dreadful.
As soon as I am not busy talking or listening to people or doing a work, it goes on and on: certain samples, as it were, of this bodys life are taken up again, and through those samples, the whole is shown. A wonderful education! Never, never does any human education as its conceived resemble this, because its a vision of the whole, in which everything hangs together; youre shown everything together.
0 1969-05-17, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When people speak of individuality, theres always a sort of at least a background of separation, that is, something that exists independently and has its own destiny Now, as the body consciousness knows it, its almost like a pulsation of something which MOMENTARILY has a separate action, but which, deeply, essentially, is always ONE. Like something projected like this (gesture of expansion), momentarily with a form, and then (gesture of contraction) it can cancel that form at will. Its very hard to explain, but at any rate, the sense of the permanence of separation has completely disappeared, completely The universe is an exteriorization (same gesture of pulsation) of the Supreme Consciousness; its our incapacity of total vision that enables us to have that sense of fixity: there is none, its something like pulsations or really a play of formsthere is only ONE being. There is only one being. Theres only one, only one Consciousness, only one Being.
Separation is really I dont know what happened. And thats what made all the mischiefall the misfortune, all the misery. For the last few days, this body has gone through a series of experiences (it would be much too long to tell), through all the states of consciousness one can go through, from the sense of the single reality of this (Mother pinches the skin of her hands), of the substance, with all the misery, all the suffering which is the consequence of seeing matter as the single realityfrom that to liberation. Hour after hour, it has been a whole work. And this incident of Pavitras departure has come as an example, as a demonstration.
0 1969-06-28, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They preach violence to us, or nonviolence. But these are two faces of the same Falsehood, the yes and no of the same impotence: the little saints have gone bankrupt with the rest, and others want to seize powerwhat power? That of the statesmen? Are we going to fight over the prison keys? Or to build another prison? Or do we really want to get out of it? Power does not flow from the barrel of a gun, neither does freedom flow from the bellies of the dead for thirty million years now, we have been building on corpses, on wars, on revolutions. And the drama is enacted over and over again. Perhaps the time has come to build on something else and find the key to the true Power?
Its magnificent, mon petit!
0 1969-08-02, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive received a line from P.L. He is arriving on the 8th. He just writes this: The distress of these last few weeks is slowly turning into strength and calm. I confess that I suffered a good deal from my failure regarding the Vatican, but after what you conveyed to me from Mother, everything is growing clearer Yes, I had told him that it wasnt at all a question of outer triumph or failure, that the simple fact of his PRESENCE there acted as a kind of relay enabling the Light to enter there the very fact of his being there. Thats what I had told him.
As for me, Ill add something. You understand, they made an attempt to unify all of Christendom, and the Pope went to Geneva to unite with the Protestantswhich wouldnt have been so good. Thats not the thing needed, because it would have streng thened Christianitydivision takes away some of its power. Its the unification of ALL religions thats needed, not the unification of Christianity they havent reached that point. So after looking a good deal, I saw it was, on the contrary, a divine grace that it didnt work out.
0 1969-08-16, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When one is assailed by the vision of this disorder and this confusion, there is only one thing to do, its to go into the consciousness in which one knows that there is only ONE Being, ONE Consciousness, ONE Powerthere is only ONE Onenessand all those things take place within this Oneness. And that all our petty vision, our petty knowledge, our petty judgments, our petty all of it is nothing, its microscopic in comparison with the Consciousness that rules over the Whole. And then, if one has in the least the sense of why separate individualities exist, maybe its only to enable aspiration the existence of aspiration, of this movement, this movement of self-giving and surrender, of trust and FAITH. The faith that there lies the raison dtre of the makeup of individuals, and the aspiration to become THAT in all ones intensity and all ones sincerity Thats the only thing needed.
Thats the only thing needed, the ONLY thing; the only thing that subsists. All the rest phantasmagoria.
0 1969-08-30, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I spent a good part of the night (almost the whole night till 3 in the morning) with Sri Aurobindo, and he not only showed me and explained to me, but he himself WAS what he was showing me: he was preparing himself for the new creation. And last night he told me, he showed me how this or that thing would be, how the body would be. I remember that when I woke up, he was lying down on a bed, I was kneeling beside the bed, looking at him, and while he was that new body, he at the same time explained to me how the supermans body would be (the supramental being).1 And it was so living that even when I woke up, it remained I can still see it. But the details (how can I put it?) the memory doesnt have the precision that enables it to explain (I dont know how to put it). I still have the vision it had a color it wasnt casting rays of light, not that, but and not luminescent like an object, but with a special luminosity which had that light a little like Aurovilles flower (but it wasnt like that, it looked perfectly natural). He was showing me his body; he was lying down, and showing me his body, saying, Here is how it is. The form was almost the same, with some I still have the memory there (gesture in the atmosphere), but I dont know how to explain. Lately, I had been wondering, Its odd, we dont at all know how it [the new body] will be. And I was saying to myself, Theres no one to tell me. Because this Consciousness that came, it acts through the consciousness, but not so much through the vision. So then, I had that last night. For a long, long time I was with Sri Aurobindo, a long time, for hours.
It has entered the consciousness, it will come out again one day But I kept the memory of the last thing: I saw myself, I was in two places at the same time (and maybe I too wasnt quite as I am, but that didnt interest me: I was looking at him, who was lying down and explaining to me), and it was it was the same thing as a luminescent body, but it wasnt luminescent, it was if I am not mistaken, it was the color of this sari (Mother points to Sujatas sari), something like that.
0 1969-10-18, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. And what has enabled him to hold it is that the mind isnt developed. The proportion of the mind in the combination of the being is sufficiently poor not to intervene.
Its like that. For a PERFECT realization, the entire being must be illumined; but for an initial realization, its probably easier for a body that doesnt have a highly developed mind. Since he came here, Ive looked a good deal, and I am fully convinced of it. Thats why he You see, for us who have gone up to the highest degree of mental potentiality, its through that highest degree that we went beyondits when the mind realized its highest degree that it abdicated and thats very good for the integral realization, but generally the body is too accustomed to obeying the mind, not supple enough to be transformed. Thats the reason why my mind was sent away. But thats not a process which can be recommended to others. Because nine people out of ten would die.
--
It doesnt ask any questions, but now and then, its conscious of its state of mediocrity, and so, quite naturally, it wonders how it happens to have been chosen to do this work? And it clearly appears to be a sort of goodwill arising from its sense of insignificance. The least sense of capacity and worth takes away all endurance. But it doesnt have that at all, so that enables it to go on.
Did I tell you the story of that child who came here? That child came, holding this (Mother points to a small yellow bird on her table); he thought it was a swan: its a goose, of course, but he thought it was a swan, and he gave it to me very nicely, saying, Its You. I saw in his thought that he was convinced it was a swan, that is to say, the soul. But then, I saw with my own eyes that it was a goose (Mother laughs), and I said, Yes, its true! (Laughter) and that was precisely Oh, Im keeping it, its precisely thata goose (Mother laughs).
0 1969-10-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It must be that. There are innumerable layers of consciousness. The development (the universal development) has progressively enabled us to become conscious of each layer; the more developed one is, the more one perceives the differences between layers. And its only when one is conscious of ALL the layers of consciousness and when they form nothing but a unity (but a unity conscious of its multiplicity), its only then that whats in the deepest depths the Supreme Consciousness can manifest fully. And in bodies, there are still layers that arent fully conscious; there are still layers that remain as a residue of all that preceded: the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, all that. So the whole fully conscious part of the cells is fully illumined, but Besides, one just has to see (Mother shows the skin of her hands, visibly untransformed). It has become EXTREMELY sensitive, the slightest shock causes a It has become extremely sensitive. It appears not to have the same density but the appearance is exactly the same. Those who have an inner vision see something [another form of Mother], but thats only because they have the capacity of inner vision. So thats it [i.e., the residue]. You understand, in the consciousness of the cells, there is the consciousness which is internal to the cells, so to speak, and which is fully, fully conscious, but theres something that remains like this (Mother gestures to show a crust-like covering the residue). So then, that work a man like A.R. hasnt done, you see: its a sort of hazy general consciousness. He himself is conscious of something stronger than his body, and which uses his body, it seems to me. In the world, its very useful and can give birth to all sorts of things. But he isnt ready for the transformation, you understandhimself, his body. He has a sort of inner certitude that it CAN be, but I dont know unless the Lord wants it to take place that way; that would be amusingreally, I would find it very amusing!
Because he speaks of a work of transformation of the cells.
0 1969-12-10, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
enabling one to rise towards higher knowledge.
***
0 1969-12-13, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is an excellent time to read, meditate, and, little by little, go into a receptive silence that will enable the higher Consciousness to enter the body in order to transform it.
It came like that; thats how it takes place: all of a sudden, brff! and it stays on, it wont go away until Ive written. Its amusing!
0 1970-01-28, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But there are many kinds of elsewheres. Those of drugs are uncertain and fraught with danger, and above all dependent on outer meansan experience ought to be obtainable at will and anywhere, in the marketplace as in the solitude of our room, or else it is not an experience but an anomaly or slavery. Those of psychoanalysis are limited, for the moment, to a few dimly lit caves, and above all lack that lever of consciousness which enables us to move about at will, as our own masters and not as helpless witnesses or sickly victims. Those of religion are more illumined, but they too depend on a god or a dogma, and above all confine us within one type of experience, for one can be a prisoner of other worlds as much as of this oneeven more so.
Yes, yes.
0 1970-03-14, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the BODYS experience. Before, those who had inner experiences would say, Yes, up above, thats the way it is, but here Now the but here will soon cease to be. This tremendous change is whats being conquered, so physical life may be ruled by the higher consciousness and not by the mental world. Its the change of authority. Its difficult. Its hard. Its painful. There is some damage done, naturally, but But truly, one can seeone can see. And thats the REAL CHANGE, thats what will enable the new Consciousness to express itself. And the body is learning, its learning its lessonall bodies, all bodies.
(silence)
0 1970-03-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No external measure can enable us to react against the harm caused by mental faith in the necessity of drugs. It is only by emerging from the minds prison and consciously soaring into the light of the spirit that, through a conscious union with the Divine, we will be able to let Him give us back the balance and health which we have lost.
Supramental transformation is the only true remedy.
0 1970-05-13, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
My own impression (its an impression more than a certainty) is that there is a more subtle part (thats where Sri Aurobindo is [Mother raises her right hand slightly]), a part that depends on the above, that is to say, the higher consciousness and the psychic; then there is a part that tries to take form in the body (gesture of connection between the two or of descent of the one into the other), that is, a way of being of the cells that would be the beginning of a new body, but thats when it happens, its a bizarre sensation. A bizarre sensation. The very body feels as if its dying something, it doesnt know what it is. And its rather hard to bear. Its only a state of intense faith that enables you to bear it. As if the one were being changed into the other. As if what is were trying to change into something else. But thats its hard to bear. You really have to be in a state of intense faith to go through the thing; it expresses itself as something resembling something wholly new, so it resembles a discomfort.
Its almost a constant state now for my body. Only at very rare moments does it suddenly Aah! (gesture filled with wonder). When those moments come, its wonderful. But theyre very rare. Sometimes a day goes by without even one. That state [of discomfort] used to be more frequent during the day, but now its beginning to happen at night. Last night, a good part of the night I spent like that, and then I was able to be in peace only because my whole body was (gesture of surrender) saying to the Lord, Your Will, Lord, Your Will, Your Will. Like that.
0 1971-05-15, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Great History tells us that India must again be one, and that particular current of history is so imperative that twice already Destiny has managed to put India before the possibility of her reunification. The first time was in 1965 when Pakistans foolish aggressiveness enabled India to counterattack and carry the battle right into the suburbs of Lahore and up to Karachi had she but had the courage to seize boldly her destiny. The hour was indeed for a decisive choice. The Mother declared categorically: India is fighting for the triumph of Truth, and She must fight until India and Pakistan become ONE again, for such is the truth of their being. At Tashkent, we yielded on the crest of a petty compromise which was to lead us into a second, more bloody and painful reef, Bangladesh. There too destiny graciously arranged to enable India to hasten to the aid of her massacred brethreneven the famous skyjacking incident of January4 was, as it were, arranged by the Grace so as to spare India from delaying her intervention until it was too late (or to spare her the shame of not intervening at all and allowing Pakistans planes to fly over her head loaded with weaponry and murderers to slaughter her brothers). But there again, yielding to the demands of the moment and to the small, shortsighted interests, we refused to accept the challenge of the Great Direction of our History, and we now find ourselves on the brink of a new compromise which will lead us inevitably to a third and even more disastrous and bloody reef. For one day India must inevitably face that which twice she has fled. Only each time the conditions are more disastrous for her and for the worldperhaps so disastrous that the whole earth will even be engulfed in another general conflict, while the whole story could have been resolved at the little symbolic point that is Bangladesh, at the right hour, with the right gesture and a minimum of suffering.
For let there be no doubt about it, the Bangladesh affair is not an Indian event, it is a world event. The division of India is not a local incident, it is a terrestrial Falsehood which must disappear if the division of the world is to disappear. And here again we hear the voice of Sri Aurobindo, six months before his passing, referring to yet another phenomenon which then seemed of such slight importance, so remote, a trifling local affair at the other end of the world: the invasion of South Korea in 1950, twenty-one years ago. And yet that small Korean symbol, like the small symbol of Bangladesh (or the one of Czechoslovakia in 1938), contained in seed the whole fatal course which is still carrying the world toward a sinister destiny: The affair of Korea, wrote Sri Aurobindo, is the first move in the Communist plan of campaign to dominate and take possession first of these northern parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continentin passing, Tibet as a gate opening to India. Now, twenty-one years later, we see that Tibet and the whole of South East Asia have been swallowed up and the gate into India has truly been opened wide by the wound of the Pakistani Falsehoodalready, or very shortly, the Chinese are, or will be, in Khulna, some eighty miles from Calcutta, to help Yahya Khan to pacify Bengal. And Sri Aurobindo added, If they succeed, there is no reason why domination of the whole world should not follow by steps until they are ready to deal with America.
--
Two months before the massacre in Bangladesh, an Indian plane hijacked by some Pakistanis enabled India to close her airspace to Pakistani planes, thus forcing Pakistan to go around Ceylon to carry her troops to Bengal, which once more underscores the geographical absurdity of these two parts of a single country separated by fifteen hundred miles of Indian territory.
***
0 1971-10-20, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One must rely on the Divine and yet do some enabling sadhana the Divine gives the fruit not by the measure of the sadhana but by the measure of the souls sincerity and its aspiration. Also, worrying does no good I shall be this, I shall be that, what shall I be? Say: I am ready to be not what I want but what the Divine wants me to be,all the rest should go on that base.
April 13, 1935
0 1971-11-20, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But hes a man who is enslaved to his lower nature, I think. He has both an intelligence that would enable him to reach very high and a lower nature
Very assertive.
0 1971-12-11, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, the prison is already starting to collapse. The end of a stage of evolution, announced by Sri Aurobindo, is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of the evolution.6 Everywhere about us we see this paroxysmal shattering of all the old forms: our borders, our churches, our laws, our morals are collapsing on all sides. They are not collapsing because we are bad, immoral, irreligious, or because we are not sufficiently rational, scientific or human, but because we have come to the end of the human! To the end of the old mechanism for we are on our way to SOMETHING ELSE. The world is not going through a moral crisis but through an evolutionary crisis. We are not going towards a better worldnor, for that matter, towards a worse onewe are in the midst of a MUTATION to a radically different world, as different as the human world was from the ape world of the Tertiary Era. We are entering a new era, a supramental Quinary. We leave our countries, wander aimlessly, we go looking for drugs, for adventure, we go on strike here, enact reforms there, foment revolutions and counterrevolutions. But all this is only an appearance; in fact, unwittingly, we are looking for the new being. We are in the midst of human evolution.
And Sri Aurobindo gives us the key. It may be that the sense of our own revolution escapes us because we try to prolong that which already exists, to refine it, improve it, sublimate it. But the ape may have made the same mistake amid its revolution that produced man; perhaps it sought to become a super-ape, better equipped to climb trees, hunt and run, a more agile and clever ape. With Nietzsche we too sought a superman who was nothing more than a colossalization of man, and with the spiritualists a super-saint more richly endowed with virtue and wisdom. But human virtue and wisdom are useless! Even when carried to their highest heights they are nothing more than the old poverties gilded over, the obverse of our t enacious misery. Supermanhood, says Sri Aurobindo, is not man climbed to his own natural zenith, not a superior degree of human greatness, knowledge, power, intelligence, will, genius, saintliness, love, purity or perfection.7 It is SOMETHING ELSE, another vibration of being, another consciousness.
0 1971-12-18, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In my case, I dont know, the work was done for me I did nothing. Thats how it was done, very radically. It could be done because I was VERY conscious of my psychic (the psychic being which was formed through all the lives), I was very conscious of it, and it remained; it remained and enabled me to deal with people without its making any difference, thanks to that psychic presence. Thats why there were very few apparent changes. So I can speak only of what I know, and Ill say this: the psychic has to remain very much in comm and of the whole being the whole bodily beingguiding the life, then the mind has time to be transformed. Mine was simply sent away.
You see, the transformation of the bodily mind was indispensable because thats the only one I had left, you follow? Very few people would accept that. (Laughing) In my case, it was done without asking my opinion! The work was very easy.
0 1972-02-02, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This [radical change] could be accomplished because I was very conscious of my psychic it remained and enabled me to deal with people, with no differencethanks to that psychic presence.
It is the psychic that deals with people. It was ALWAYS the psychic that dealt with people, and it continues. This [radical change] didnt make any difference.
0 1972-04-02b, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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.
0 1972-05-27, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, thats it, its not a person anymore sometimes, you know (laughing), I feel like a puppet (gesture of dangling at the end of a string) whose purpose is to enable contact with people. But the physical strength is like this (wobbly gesture). I feel very strongvery strong, and almost nonexistent. Both extremes together, you understand. I must really look stupid.
But there (Mother stretches her arms upwards, then slowly extends them as if to embrace the universe), its luminous, its clear, its strong, its wide. Physically, too. It is PHYSICAL, thats what is amazing! Before, I used to withdraw into an inner state of being (I know them all, Ive experienced them, Ive had a conscious life), but all that, all that is finished. Completely finished. (Smiling) As if the physical world were becoming double.1
02.01 - The World-Stair, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Which if enacted and experienced here
Our dulled capacity soon would cease to feel
02.01 - The World War, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Those that have stood against this Dark Force and its over-shadowing m enaceeven 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 - The Kingdom of Subtle Matter, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All is enamoured of its own delight.
Intact it lives of its perfection sure
02.03 - The Glory and the Fall of Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Then, wantonly enamoured of Sorrow's face,
She plunged into the anguish of the depths
02.05 - The Godheads of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All by their influence is enacted there.
43.15
02.06 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Compelled belief on the enamoured thought
And drew the heart but led it to no goal.
--
This greater life is enamoured of the Unseen;
It calls to some highest Light beyond its reach,
02.11 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A prop of all that human strength enacts,
Creator of hopes by earth unrealised,
02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the older order, however, a kindlier treatment was meted out to this class, this class of the creators of values. They had patrons who looked after their physical well-being. They had the necessary freedom and leisure to follow their own bent and urge of creativity. Kings and princes, the court and the nobility, in spite of all the evils ascribed to them, and often very justly, have nevertheless been the nursery of art and culture, of all the art and culture of the ancient times. One remembers Shakespeare reading or enacting his drama before the Great Queen, or the poignant scene of Leonardo dying in the arms of Francis the First. Those were the truly great classical ages, and art or man's creative genius hardly ever rose to that height ever since. The downward curve started with the advent and growth of the bourgeoisie when the artist or the creative genius lost their supporters and had to earn their own living by the sweat of their brow. Indeed the greatest tragedies of frustration because of want and privation, occur, not as much among the "lowest" classes who are usually considered as the poorest and the most miserable in society, but in that section from where come the intellectuals, "men of light and leading," to use the epithet they are honoured with. For very few of this group are free to follow their inner trend and urge, but have either to coerce and suppress them or stultify them in the service of lesser alien duties, which mean "forced labour." The punishment for refusing to be drawn away and to falsify oneself is not unoften the withdrawal of the bare necessities of life, in certain cases sheer destitution. A Keats wasting his energies in a work that has no relation to his inner life and light, or a Madhusudan dying in a hospital as a pauper, are examples significant of the nature of the social structure man lives in.
It is one of the great illusionsor perhaps a show plank for propagandato think or say that the so-called poorer classes are the poorest and the most miserable. It is not so in fact. Really poor are those who have a standard of life commensurate with their inner nature and consciousnessof beauty and orderliness and material sufficiency and yet their actual status and function in society do not provide them with the necessary where-withals and resources. No amount of philanthropic sentimentalising can suppress or wipe off the fact that the poor do not feel the pinch of poverty so much as do those who are poor and yet are to live and move as not poor. It all depends upon one's standard. One is truly rich or poor not in proportion- to one's income, but" in accordance with one's needs and the means to meet them. And all do not have the same needs and requirements. This does not mean that the needs of the princes, the aristocrats, the magnates are greater than those of the mere commoner. No, it means that there are people, there is a section of humanity found more or less in all these classes, but mostly in less fortunate classes, whose needs are intrinsically greater and they require preferential treatment. There should be none poor or miserable in society, well and good. But this should not mean that all the economic resources of the society must be requisitioned only to enrichto pamper the poor. For there is a pampering possible in this matter. We know the nouveaux riches, the parvenus and the kind of life they lead with their fair share boldly seized. A levelling, a formal equalisation of the economic status, although it may mean uplift in certain cases, may involve gross injustice to others. The ideal is not equal distribution but rational distribution of wealth, and that distribution should not depend upon any material function, but upon psychological demands. Is this bourgeois economics? Even if it is so, the truth has to be faced and recognised. You can call truth by the name bourgeois and hang it, but it will revive all the same, like the Phoenix out of the ashes.
03.04 - Towardsa New Ideology, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And India is pre-eminently fitted to discover this pattern of spiritual values and demonstrate how our normal lifeindividual and collectivecan be moulded and built according to that pattern. It has been India's special concern throughout the mill enaries of her history to know and master the one thing needful (tamevaikam jnatha tmnam any vaco vimucatha), knowing which one knows all (tasmin vijte sarvam vijtam). She has made countless experiments in that line and has attained countless achievements. Her resurgence can be justified and can be inevitable only if she secures the poise and position which will enable her to impart to the world this master secret of life, this art of a supreme savoir vivre. A new India in the old way of the nations of the world, one more among the already too many has neither sense nor necessity. Indeed, it would be the denial of what her soul demands and expects to be achieved and done.
***
03.09 - Art and Katharsis, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
even if they make us sad do not depress the soul; it is a divine sadness fraught with a profound calm and a strange poignant sweetness of secret delight. The rhythm and the sound and the suggestions so insinuate themselves into our nerve and blood that these seem to be sublimatedas if by a process of oxyg enationto a finer substance, a purer and more limpid and vibrant valency. A consciousness opens in our very flesh and marrow that enables us to pierce the veil of things and pass beyond and understandsee and experience the why and the how and the whither of it all. It is a consciousness cosmic in its purview and disposition, which even like the Creator could contemplate all and declare it all as good. Indeed, this is the Good which Art at its highest seeks to envisage and embody the summum bonum that accompanies a summit consciousness. It is idle to say that all or most poets have this revelatory vision of the SeerRishi but a poet is a poet in so far as he is capable of this vision; otherwise he remains more or less either a moralist or a mere sthete.
Whatever is ugly and gross, all the ills and evils of life that is to say, what appears as such to our external mind and senseswhen they have passed through the crucible of the poet's consciousness undergoes a sea-change and puts on an otherworldly beauty and value. We know of the alchemy of poetic transformation that was so characteristic of Wordsworth's manner and to which the poet was never tired of referring, how the physical and brute natureeven a most insignificant and meaningless and unshapely object in it attains a spiritual sense and beauty when the poet takes it up and treasures it in his tranquil and luminous and in-gathered consciousness, his "inward eye". A crude feeling, a raw passion, a tumult of the senses, in the same way, sifted through the poetic perception, becomes something that opens magic casements, glimpses the silence of the farthest Hebrides, wafts us into the bliss of the invisible and the beyond.
03.13 - Human Destiny, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have described man, especially, modern man as homo fabricus; but that is a particular aspect of application of homo intellectualis. And it is a sign and warning that he must step back and look for a new connotation of his consciousness in order to go forward and continue to exist. If, as we have said in the beginning, man is capable of a durable youthfulness, by his very nature, it means he has a resiliency that will enable him to leap into new conditions and adapt himself to them more easily and without much delay.
Mankind has to enter and is entering into new conditions of life, it has to adopt a new mode of living; and for that a new mode of consciousness is imperative and imminent.
04.01 - The Birth and Childhood of the Flame, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
White jasmines haunted the enamoured air,
Pale mango-blossoms fed the liquid voice
04.02 - The Growth of the Flame, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Angrily enamoured of her sweet passionate ray
The weakness of their earth could hardly bear,
04.07 - Readings in Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As, however, mortality bears ill the eternal's touch, the eternal too is intolerant of the mortal natureonly it is intolerant not in the ignorant blind squeamish weak human way, but in a divine way, for it is armed with weapons of light and knowledge, it assaults with its luminous force, the energy of ether and fire, the higher and nobler elements as against the dense dark dumb earth, the lowest element that clothes the human consciousness. Indeed, mortality is enamoured of the tangled beam of joy and sorrow, of laughter and tears, of light and shadow and cannot contemplate the unalloyed sheer delight in Eternity. It is out of breath in the serene rarefied air of immortality; it pines for the terra firma, the mud and slime. The human consciousness has been fleeing the Hound of Heaven down the corridors of Time, and yet it will be caught in the end and wholly transmuted in the divine embrace into the substance of the Divine Himself. All the unwillingness and protestation and revolt are meant to forge and hammer the final union into something perfect, faultless, absolute.
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05.01 - The Destined Meeting-Place, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The dove's soft moan enriched the enamoured air
And fire-winged wild-drakes swam in silvery pools.
05.02 - Satyavan, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Sweet like desires enamoured and unseen,
Cry answering to low insistent cry.
05.06 - Physics or philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Even Eddington is not so absurd or impossible as it may seem to some. He says, as we have seen, that all so-called laws of Nature can be discovered from within the mind itself, can be deduced logically from psychologically given premises: no empiricial observation or objective experimentation is necessary to arrive at them: they are found a priori in the subject. Now, mystic experience always lays stress on extra-sensory knowledge: it declares that such a knowledge is not only possible, but that this alone is the right and correct knowledge. All thingsmatter and mind and life and allbeing but vibrations of consciousness, even as the colours of a spectrum are vibrations, electro-magnetic waves of different frequency, mystic discipline enables one to enter into that condition in which one's consciousness mingles with all consciousness or with another particular consciousness (Patanjali's term is samyama), and one can have all knowledge that one wishes to have by this inner contact or concentration or identification, one discovers the knowledge within oneself, no external means of sense observation and experimental testing, no empirical inductive process is needed. We do not say that Eddington had in view anything of this kind, but that his attitude points in this direction.
That seems to be the burden, the underlying preoccupation of modern physical science: it has been forced to grope towards some kind of mystic perception; at least, it has been put into a frame of mind, due to the crumbling of the very fundamentals of the past structure, which is less obstructive to other sources and spheres and ways of knowledge. Certainly, we must admit that we have moved very far from Laplace when we hear today a hard-boiled rationalist like De Broglie declare:
06.01 - The Word of Fate, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Where with enamoured speed the waters run
Lisping and babbling to the splendour of morn
--
Forcing us to cling enamoured to his grip
As if in love with our own agony.
07.06 - Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That met her eyes with close enamoured eyes,
A living body near to her body's joy.
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The Love enamoured of its own delight
In which the Lover is not nor the Beloved
08.04 - Doing for Her Sake, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Consciousness is there pervading everything and seeking to manifest itself in all movements. And if you, on your side, tell yourself that the effort, the progress you make is to enable you to receive this Consciousness and to manifest it, then the work will naturally be done much better and more quickly.
And this seems to me to be the most elementary thing. For, to tell you the truth, I would be astonished if it were otherwise. For your presence at a place organised as it is would have no meaning if it were not for that. What would be its use? There are any number of universities and schools in the world that are much better manned and equipped than ours. If you are here, it must be for a special reason. It is because here there is a possibility of absorbing consciousness and progress. If you do not put yourself in a state in which you receive it, you lose the chance that you are given.
08.22 - Regarding the Body, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
With regard to their physical being, men live in a formidable ignorance. How many of you know the exact quantity of food and the kind of food the body requires? Yes, simply this, how much to take and when to take? You do not know. You are taught all kinds of things. You learn why and how this earth moves or the sun does not, why or how the triangle consists of two right angles: your faculties of imagination and discrimination are set to the task and get sharpened. But this little bit of exact knowledge you do not have the quantity of food you must take and the hour when the body needs it. It may be you are not unaware at times of this exact need. But to know properly demands a discipline, continuous labour for years perhaps. Years indeed you require when it is a matter of control over your mind, of attaining a consciousness subtle enough to enable you to come in contact with the elements of transformation and progress, to know how to regulate for your body the exact amount of physical effort, material activity, expenditure and reception of energy, how to secure the proportion between what is received and what is given out, how to utilise energy to re-establish the equilibrium that was broken in order to push forward new cells that were lagging behind and then how to build up conditions for a further step in upward progress to be possible etc., etc. The task is formidable. And yet that is the thing to be done if you want the body to be transformed. First of all, you must bring the body into complete harmony with the inner consciousness. That means a work in each cell of the body, in each small activity, in each movement of the organs. Only that and nothing more can keep you busy day and night with no other thing to look to. It is not easy to maintain the effort, the concentration, the inner vision in a continuous manner.
You have to enter into the disposition of the cells, your inner physical organisation, if the body is to answer to the force that descends. First of all, you must be conscious of your physical cells, you must know their different functions, the degree of receptivity in each, which of them are in good condition and which are not. Even the simple thing you do not know whether you are tired or not, not to speak of why you are tired. You do not know if you have a pain somewhere, and why it is there. It is exactly for this reason that you run to the doctor. For you have the illusion that the doctor would know better how to look into what is there inside your body and what is happening there. That does not seem to be quite rational, but there is the habit. Who can look into oneself so precisely, accurately, positively, as to know exactly what is out of order, why it is out of order, how it has come to be so? All that is a matter of pure observation. And then only arises the problem of doing the thing that will bring about a new order which is a much more difficult affair. And yet this is only the ABC of body-transformation.
08.24 - On Food, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This training of taste, this education of the senses is a very good, a necessary means to prepare the consciousness for a higher development. There are persons who are very crude and very simple in nature. They can have a strong inspiration and arrive at a certain spiritual growth but the foundation will always remain of a somewhat inferior quality: and when they come back to their ordinary consciousness they find there great obstacles: for the stuff is missing there; there are not, in the vital and physical consciousness, elements enough to enable it to support a descent of the higher force.
How does fasting bring about a state of receptivity?
08.30 - Dealing with a Wrong Movement, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a great difference between pushing a thing away simply because you do not want it and changing the state of the consciousness so that the thing you do not want becomes completely foreign to your nature. Usually when you have a movement in you which you do not like, you drive it back and repel it, but you do not take the trouble of finding in yourself that which served and serves still as a support to the movement, the particular tendency, the turn of consciousness which enables the thing to enter into the consciousness. If, however, instead of a gesture of mere condemnation and suppression, you enter deep into your vital consciousness and find out the support, that is to say, the small vibration of a special kind embedded far in a corner, often a corner so dark that it is difficult to see it is there, if, in spite of all difficulty, you concentrate and follow on the track of the thing, the origin of the movement, then at the end you discover quite a small snake-like thing, coiled up, quite small, not bigger than a pea, but very black and embedded firmly. There are then two procedures: either to throw a light so intense, the light of the truth-consciousness, so strong upon the point that the thing is dissolved or to seize the little object as with a pair of pincers, pluck it out and place it before your consciousness. The first method is radical, but you have not always at your disposal the light of the Truth and you cannot make use of it whenever you like. So you have to take to the second method. You may follow it, but it will give you pain, a pain as great as when a tooth is being pulled out. I do not know if any of you had the experience, but it is painful. Usually, however, what you do in the presence of an undesirable movement is to try to wipe it offgently, I supposeor cover it up; thus things go on as before. You do not have the courage and so things do not change. Yes, it gives you pain; the pain is usually here in the heart. But if you have the courage, it is better to pull out the thing than to temporize with it; pull it out and put it in front of your gaze; it dissolves. That makes an end of it and you are cured. The thing will not come into you any more to trouble you. But the operation is radical and it has to be done as an operation.
In the beginning you need a great perseverance in seeking out the thing. For normally when you are in search of these things, the mind comes in and deploys a thousand and one reasons and favourable explanations so that you may not pursue the enquiry. It tells you: "No, it is not your fault at all; it is the circumstances, it is the people, it is things coming from outside, it is this and it is that," all excellent excuses, and if you are not firm in your resolution, you let things go on and you remain where you were; the thing will come back to trouble you again and you have to begin all over once more. But if you have done the operation, everything is done with. Do not trust the mind and its explanations. It might inspire you to say: "Yes, yes, on other occasions it was like that, I admit, I was indeed in the wrong; but this time, I am sure, it is not my fault etc., etc." If you do not deal firmly with your adversary, it will be always there, hiding in the subconscient, lodged there comfortably, coming up any day you are off your guard. I have seen people cherishing the evil in this way for more than thirty-five years. And if one does not go about it in the right way, there is no reason why the things should not continue life after life. The only safe way then is to do the operation, cost what it may. For it gives you the final relief. I say, when you throw the beam of light upon the spot, it burns, it seres. But you must bear it. You must have the sincerity that does not allow you to draw back, to cover up the place and retire. You must instead throw it wide open, receive the blow straight upon you.
08.34 - To Melt into the Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
09.03 - The Psychic Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The psychic awakes slowly from its dazed condition and slowly it becomes aware that it is there for some reason and by choice. But the intensive mental education that one usually receives shuts out completely the psychic consciousness. Then a mass of circumstances, happenings of all kinds, emotions and sensations and various other things are needed to open the inner doors and to enable one to begin to rememberremember that one has come from another world, one has come for a very definite reason. If the psychic however had chanced to fall upon a little knowledge instead of falling into a world of ignorance, there could have been a quicker contact.
There are not very many fully developed souls upon earth. Evidently those who have reached a certain culture, a certain growth, a certain individualisation have instinctively the tendency to come together and form groups. It is then that we come across in particular epochs and climes fully formed beings gathering together. But you must not believe that that gives in any way the exact measure of human culture and growth. That is only a spray of foam on the surface. Even among those who already form a selection, there is not perhaps one in a thousand who can be called truly an individual being, conscious of himself, united with his psychic being, governed by his inner law and therefore partially at least if not wholly free from external influences; because being a conscious entity when these influences come he sees them, those that seem to agree with his inner growth and normal development he accepts and those that contradict he rejects. And instead of being a chaos, or in any case a frightful mixture, he is an organised individual being, conscious of himself, moving in life, knowing where he wants to go and how to go.
1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
I think that it is altogether wrong to allow yourself to be worried by "psychological, moral, and artistic problems." It is no good your starting anything of any kind unless you can see clearly into the simplicity of truth. All this humming and hawing about things is moral poison. What is the use of being a woman if you have not got an intuition, an instinct enabling you to distinguish between the genuine and the sham?
Your state of mind suggests to me that you must have been, in the past, under the influence of people who were always talking about things, and never doing any real work. They kept on arguing all sorts of obscure philosophical points; that is all very well, but when you have succeeded in analyzing your reactions you will understand that all this talk is just an excuse for not doing any serious work.
1.00b - INTRODUCTION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
few have left accounts of the Reality they were thus enabled to apprehend and have
tried to relate, in one comprehensive system of thought, the given facts of this
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Fifth. This etheric web, during incarnation, forms a barrier between the physical and astral planes, which can only be transcended when consciousness is sufficiently developed to permit of escape. This can be seen in both the microcosm and the macrocosm. When a man has, through meditation and concentration, expanded his consciousness to a certain point he is enabled to include the subtler planes, and to escape beyond the limits of the dividing web.
PHYSICAL SUB-PLANES
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
We can take up this matter of the centres along three lines. Much has been written and discussed anent the centres, and much mystery exists which has aroused the curiosity of the ignorant, and has tempted many to meddle with that which does not concern them. I seek to elucidate somewhat and to give a new angle of vision to [162] the study of these abstruse matters. I do not in any way intend to take up the subject from such an angle as to convey rules and information that will enable a man to vivify these centres and bring them into play. I sound here a solemn word of warning. Let a man apply himself to a life of high altruism, to a discipline that will refine and bring his lower vehicles into subjection, and to a strenuous endeavor to purify and control his sheaths. When he has done this and has both raised and stabilised his vibration, he will find that the development and functioning of the centres has pursued a parallel course, and that (apart from his active participation) the work has proceeded along the desired lines. Much danger and dire calamity attends the man who arouses these centres by unlawful methods, and who experiments with the fires of his body without the needed technical knowledge. He may, by his efforts, succeed in arousing the fires and in intensifying the action of the centres, but he will pay the price of ignorance in the destruction of matter, in the burning of bodily or brain tissue, in the development of insanity, and in opening the door to currents and forces, undesirable and destructive. It is not the part of a coward, in these matters concerning the subjective life, to move with caution and with care; it is the part of discretion. The aspirant, therefore, has three things to do:
1. Purify, discipline and transmute his threefold lower nature.
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Hearing gives him an idea of relative direction, and enables a man to fix his place in the scheme and to locate himself.
Touch gives him an idea of relative quantity and enables him to fix his relative value as regards other bodies, extraneous to himself.
Sight gives him an idea of proportion, and enables him to adjust his movements to the movements of others.
Taste gives him an idea of value, and enables him to fix upon that which to him appears best.
Smell gives him an idea of innate quality, and enables him to find that which appeals to him as of the same quality or essence as himself.
In all these definitions it is necessary to bear in mind that the whole object of the senses is to reveal the not-self, and to enable the Self therefore to differentiate between the real and the unreal. [lxxxiv]82
[195]
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As regards taste and smell, we might call them minor senses, for they are closely allied to the important sense of touch. They are practically subsidiary to that sense. This second sense, and its connection with this second solar system, should be carefully pondered over. It is predominantly the sense most closely connected with the second Logos. This conveys a hint of much value if duly considered. It is of value to study the extensions of physical plane touch on other planes and to see whither we are led. It is the faculty which enables us to arrive [197] at the essence by due recognition of the veiling sheath. It enables the Thinker who fully utilises it to put himself en rapport with the essence of all selves at all stages, and thereby to aid in the due evolution of the sheath and actively to serve. A Lord of Compassion is one who (by means of touch) feels with, fully comprehends, and realises the manner in which to heal and correct the inadequacies of the not-self and thus actively to serve the plan of evolution. We should study likewise in this connection the value of touch as demonstrated by the healers of the race (those on the Bodhisattva line) [lxxxv]83 and the effect of the Law of Attraction and Repulsion as thus manipulated by them. Students of etymology will have noted that the origin of the word touch is somewhat obscure, but probably means to 'draw with quick motion.' Herein lies the whole secret of this objective solar system, and herein will be demonstrated the quickening of vibration by means of touch. Inertia, mobility, rhythm, are the qualities manifested by the not-self. Rhythm, balance, and stable vibration are achieved by means of this very faculty of touch or feeling. Let me illustrate briefly so as to make the problem somewhat clearer. What results in meditation? By dint of strenuous effort and due attention to rules laid down, the aspirant succeeds in touching matter of a quality rarer than is his usual custom. He contacts his causal body, in time he contacts the matter of the buddhic plane. By means of this touch his own vibration is temporarily and briefly quickened. Fundamentally we are brought back to the subject that we deal with in this treatise. The latent fire of matter attracts to itself that fire, latent in other forms. They touch, and recognition and awareness ensues. The fire of manas burns continuously and is fed by that which is attracted and repulsed. When the two [198] blend, the stimulation is greatly increased and the ability to touch intensified. The Law of Attraction persists in its work until another fire is attracted and touched, and the threefold merging is completed. Forget not in this connection the mystery of the Rod of Initiation. [lxxxvi]84 Later when we consider the subject of the centres and Initiation it must be remembered that we are definitely studying one aspect of this mysterious faculty of touch, the faculty of the second Logos, wielding the law of Attraction.
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.
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Third. A burning away, through a gradual arousing of kundalini, and its correct geometrical progression through the etheric web. This produces a resultant continuity of consciousness which enables the initiate consciously to utilise time as a factor in the plans of evolution.
Fourth. A gradual grasp of the Law of Vibration as an aspect of the basic law of building; the initiate learns consciously to build, to manipulate thought matter for the perfecting of the plans of the Logos, to work in mental essence, and to apply the law of mental levels and thereby affect the physical plane. Motion originates cosmically on cosmic mental levels, and in the microcosm the same order will be seen. There is an occult hint here that will reveal much if pondered upon. At initiation, at the moment of the application of the Rod, the initiate consciously realises the meaning of the Law of Attraction in form building, and in the synthesis of the three fires. Upon his ability to retain that realisation and himself to apply the law, will depend his power and progress.
1.00 - Main, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
Should anyone acquire one hundred mithqals of gold, nineteen mithqals thereof are God's and to be rendered unto Him, the Fashioner of earth and heaven. Take heed, O people, lest ye deprive yourselves of so great a bounty. This We have commanded you, though We are well able to dispense with you and with all who are in the heavens and on earth; in it there are benefits and wisdoms beyond the ken of anyone but God, the Omniscient, the All-Informed. Say: By this means He hath desired to purify what ye possess and to enable you to draw nigh unto such stations as none can comprehend save those whom God hath willed. He, in truth, is the Beneficent, the Gracious, the Bountiful. O people! Deal not faithlessly with the Right of God, nor, without His leave, make free with its disposal. Thus hath His commandment been established in the holy Tablets, and in this exalted Book. He who dealeth faithlessly with God shall in justice meet with faithlessness himself; he, however, who acteth in accordance with God's bidding shall receive a blessing from the heaven of the bounty of his Lord, the Gracious, the Bestower, the Generous, the Ancient of Days. He, verily, hath willed for you that which is yet beyond your knowledge, but which shall be known to you when, after this fleeting life, your souls soar heavenwards and the trappings of your earthly joys are folded up. Thus admonisheth you He in Whose possession is the Guarded Tablet.
Various petitions have come before Our throne from the believers, concerning laws from God, the Lord of the seen and the unseen, the Lord of all worlds. We have, in consequence, revealed this Holy Tablet and arrayed it with the mantle of His Law that haply the people may keep the commandments of their Lord.
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Whoso hath not recognized this sublime and fundamental verity, and hath failed to attain this most exalted station, the winds of doubt will agitate him, and the sayings of the infidels will distract his soul. He that hath acknowledged this principle will be endowed with the most perfect constancy. All honour to this all-glorious station, the remembrance of which adorneth every exalted Tablet. Such is the teaching which God bestoweth on you, a teaching that will deliver you from all manner of doubt and perplexity, and enable you to attain unto salvation in both this world and in the next. He, verily, is the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Bountiful. He it is Who hath sent forth the Messengers, and sent down the Books to proclaim "There is none other God but Me, the Almighty, the All-Wise".
164
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Say: This is the infallible Balance which the Hand of God is holding, in which all who are in the heavens and all who are on the earth are weighed, and their fate determined, if ye be of them that believe and recognize this truth. Say: This is the Most Great Testimony, by which the validity of every proof throughout the ages hath been established, would that ye might be assured thereof. Say: Through it the poor have been enriched, the learned enlightened, and the seekers enabled to ascend unto the presence of God. Beware lest ye make it a cause of dissension amongst you. Be ye as firmly settled as the immovable mountain in the Cause of your Lord, the Mighty, the Loving.
184
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O members of parliaments throughout the world! Select ye a single language for the use of all on earth, and adopt ye likewise a common script. God, verily, maketh plain for you that which shall profit you and enable you to be independent of others. He, of a truth, is the Most Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Informed.
This will be the cause of unity, could ye but comprehend it, and the greatest instrument for promoting harmony and civilization, would that ye might understand! We have appointed two signs for the coming of age of the human race: the first, which is the most firm foundation, We have set down in other of Our Tablets, while the second hath been revealed in this wondrous Book.
1.00 - PREFACE - DESCENSUS AD INFERNOS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
world up simplistically into those who thought and acted properly, and those who did not. Ideology enabled
the believer to hide from his own unpleasant and inadmissible fantasies and wishes. Such realizations upset
1.00 - Preliminary Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
THIS book is intentionally "not" the work of Frater Perdurabo. Experience shows that his writing is too concentrated, too abstruse, too occult, for ordinary minds to apprehend. It is thought that this record of disjointed fragments of his casual conversation may prove alike more intelligible and more convincing, and at least provide a preliminary study which will enable the student to attack his real work from a standpoint of some little general knowledge and understanding of his ideas, and of the form in which he figures them.
Part II, "Magick," is more advanced in style than Part I; the student is expected to know a little of the literature of the subject, and to be able to take an intelligent view of it. This part is, however, really explanatory of Part I, which is a crude outline sketch only.
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In fact, there are three main classes of stroke; the bad stroke, which we associate, and rightly, with wandering attention; the good stroke which we associate, and rightly, with fixed attention; and the perfect stroke, which we do not understand, but which is really caused by the habit of fixity of attention having become independent of the will, and thus enabled to act freely of its own accord.
This is the same phenomenon referred to above as being a good sign.
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We are now in a position to say what happened to Mohammed. Somehow or another this phenomenon happened in his mind. More ignorant than Anna Kingsford, though, fortunately, more moral, he connected it with the story of the Annunciation, which he had undoubtedly heard in his boyhood, and said Gabriel appeared to me. But in spite of his ignorance, his total misconception of the truth, the power of the vision was such that he was enabled to persist through the usual persecution, and founded a religion to which even to-day one man in every eight belongs.
The history of Christianity shows precisely the same remarkable fact. Jesus Christ was brought up on the fables to the Old Testament, and so was compelled to ascribe his experiences to Jehovah, although his gentle spirit could have had nothing in common with the monster who was always commanding the rape of virgins and the murder of little children, and whose rites were then, and still are, celebrated by human sacrifice.1
1.010 - Self-Control - The Alpha and Omega of Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The whole of yoga is self-control in one word, 'self-mastery' in the sense that the rays of the mind and the senses, the projecting powers of individuality, have to be brought back to their source in order that there may be consciousness of the cause. There cannot be a consciousness of the cause as long as the cause is not the object of consciousness, inasmuch as the latter is involved in the externalised activity of the mind and the senses. We cannot know an object unless the consciousness follows this cognitive act and enlivens the senses, activates them towards the object which is seen, cognised or perceived by them. On account of this engagement of consciousness through the mind and the senses in respect of objects outside and in all acts of perception and cognition, it finds no time to revert to its cause. We have no time. The consciousness cannot find time to become aware of its own background, inasmuch as it is heavily engaged and is very busy throughout the day and the night in attending to the needs of the mind and the senses in their activity of projection externally to objects. So, to become aware of the cause would be to enable the consciousness to revert itself in that direction inwardly for which purpose it has to be withdrawn, tentatively at least, in an appreciable measure, from its engagement in objective perception through the mind and the senses.
All perceptions are, therefore, engagements of consciousness, which prevents it from knowing its own background and conditions of action, so that when we are busily engaged in the perceptions and cognitions through the mind and the senses, we cannot know our own background, and we look helpless. The necessity for self-control arises merely because of the fact that the object of our quest is inherently present in the very act of our individual experience, and it cannot be observed by the ordinary means of an academic character or a scientific nature. Here we need no instruments, no types of apparatus either for observation or knowledge, because the object here is the background of our own self. There are causes behind causes, extending one behind the other, and lying one behind the other in larger and larger expansiveness one implying the other, and one inclusive of the other. The causes that are precedent are inclusive of the causes that are succeeding, so that when we go higher up we do not lose anything that is lower, but get everything that is lower in a refined form by transcendence.
1.013 - Defence Mechanisms of the Mind, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Our physical body is not our total personality. We have many things inside us which we cannot see with our eyes. Internal to the body is the vital principle, called the prana in Sanskrit. The prana is not the breath. The breath is only the external function of an energy principle called prana. It cannot be translated into English. Prana is a very subtle, ethereal principle, subtler even than electricity. It is pranic energy that enables the physical body to function, including the functions of breathing, digesting, and the circulation of blood. Everything is controlled by the movement of the pranic energy. It is also this prana which acts as the motive power behind the action of the senses. If the pranas are withheld, the senses become weak in their action. So, the pranas are something like the electric force generated by the dynamo of the individual within, to project the senses externally towards objects. And the mind, which is the synthesising principle of all sense activities, passes judgement of a tentative character upon the reports brought in by the senses. Finally, there is the supreme judge, which is the intellect.
All of these are inside the body not in the sense of pebbles in a bottle, but inseparably permeating everything that is in the body, or that is the body. We cannot separate the intellect, the mind, the senses, the prana, the body, etc. One is involved in the other, so it looks like a compound that has been created by these elements. For some purposes they look like different functions, but for other purposes they look as if they are a single force, acting in different ways. So, self-control would mean a judicious control exercised over every function inside, including the physical functions, the function of the prana, the senses, the mind and the intellect. All of these have to be harnessed in a given direction.
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What is this peculiar situation? The situation, precisely, is a misplacement of the values of life by a limitation of consciousness to a location called the individual. Therefore, yo buddhe paratastu sa there is something higher than the buddhi (the intellect) and the mind, in which we have to take refuge in order that even the mind may be directed along proper channels. Inasmuch as the mind is the general who orders the senses, if it has been instructed properly and advised well, then naturally it will give instructions to the senses accordingly. It comes finally to this: we have to take refuge in the Self not in the individual self, but in the higher self, whose principle alone can regenerate the mind and remove the miscalculated attitudes of the mind in respect of things, consequently enabling the mind to properly direct the senses in a desirable direction.
The special term used in the Yoga Vasishtha for this kind of practice of the principle of the Self behind all things is 'brahmabhyasa'. Brahmabhyasa or atmabhyasa is the practice of the presence of God. A Christian mystic called Brother Lawrence used to practise this technique called 'The Practice of the Presence of God'. The technique involved the practise of the presence of God in everything. It is quite clear that the recognition of the presence of God in things will prevent us from going wrong because, in the presence of God, we would not do anything undesirable. So the recognition of the presence of God in all things is the final remedy for the errors of the mind, and subsequently, of course, of the mistaken movements of the senses.
1.01 - A NOTE ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
We have said that progress is designed to enable considered ac-
tion to proceed from the willpower of mankind, a wholly human
1.01 - Appearance and Reality, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
In daily life, we assume as certain many things which, on a closer scrutiny, are found to be so full of apparent contradictions that only a great amount of thought enables us to know what it is that we really may believe. In the search for certainty, it is natural to begin with our present experiences, and in some sense, no doubt, knowledge is to be derived from them. But any statement as to what it is that our immediate experiences make us know is very likely to be wrong. It seems to me that
I am now sitting in a chair, at a table of a certain shape, on which I see sheets of paper with writing or print. By turning my head I see out of the window buildings and clouds and the sun. I believe that the sun is about ninety-three million miles from the earth; that it is a hot globe many times bigger than the earth; that, owing to the earth's rotation, it rises every morning, and will continue to do so for an indefinite time in the future. I believe that, if any other normal person comes into my room, he will see the same chairs and tables and books and papers as I see, and that the table which I see is the same as the table which I feel pressing against my arm. All this seems to be so evident as to be hardly worth stating, except in answer to a man who doubts whether I know anything. Yet all this may be reasonably doubted, and all of it requires much careful discussion before we can be sure that we have stated it in a form that is wholly true.
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
ment of symbolism could enable us to rediscover the gods as
psychic factors, that is, as archetypes of the unconscious. No
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images. Its development usually shows an enantiodromian struc-
ture like the text of the / Ching, and so presents a rhythm of
1.01 - BOOK THE FIRST, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Th' enamour'd deity pursues the chace;
The scornful damsel shuns his loath'd embrace:
1.01 - Description of the Castle, #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
12.: You may think, my daughters, that all this does not concern you, because, by God's grace, you are farther advanced; still, you must be patient with me, for I can explain myself on some spiritual matters concerning prayer in no other way. May our Lord enable me to speak to the point; the subject is most difficult to understand without personal experience of such graces. Any one who has received them will know how impossible it is to avoid touching on subjects which, by the mercy of God, will never apply to us.
1.01 - Fundamental Considerations, #The Ever-Present Origin, #Jean Gebser, #Integral
The structuration we have discovered seems to us to reveal the bases of consciousness, thereby enabling us to make a contri bution to the understanding of mans emergent consciousness. It is based on the recognition that in the course of mankinds history - and not only Western mans - clearly discernable worlds stand out whose development or unfolding took place in mutations of consciousness. This, then, presents the task of a cultural-historical analysis of the various structures of consciousness as they have proceeded from the various mutations.
For this analysis we shall employ a method of demonstrating the respective consciousness structures of the various epochs on the basis of their representative evidence and their unique forms of visual as well as linguistic expression. This approach, which is not limited to the currently dominant mentality, attempts to present in visible, tangible, and audible form the respective consciousness structures from within their specific modalities and unique constitutions by means appropriate to their natures.
1.01 - How is Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds Attained?, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
different aspect. Of course, this rule of life alone will not yet enable him to see, for instance, what is described as the human aura, because for this still higher training is necessary. But he can rise to this higher training if he has previously undergone a rigorous training in devotion. (In the last chapter of his book Theosophy, the author describes fully the Path of Knowledge; here it is intended to give some practical details.)
Noiseless and unnoticed by the outer world is the treading of the Path of Knowledge. No change need be noticed in the student. He performs his duties as hitherto; he attends to his business as before. The transformation goes on only in the inner part of the soul hidden from outward sight. At first his entire inner life is flooded by this basic feeling of devotion for everything which is truly venerable. His entire soul-life finds in this fundamental feeling its pivot. Just as the sun's rays vivify everything living, so does reverence in the student vivify all feelings of the soul.
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
those who enact them and profess their value. Perhaps this is because planned, logical and intelligible
systems fail to make allowance for the irrational, transcendent, incomprehensible and often ridiculous
1.01 - Necessity for knowledge of the whole human being for a genuine education., #The Essentials of Education, #unset, #Zen
As far as this life period is concerned, if a civilization never spoke of education and in its elementary, primitive way simply educated, it would have a much healthier outlook than ours. This was true of the ancient Eastern regions, which had no educa- tion in our sense of the word. There the adults body, soul, and spirit was allowed to affect the child so that the child could take this adult as a guide, moving a muscle when the teacher moved a muscle and blinking when the teacher blinked. The teacher was trained to do this in a way that enabled the child to imitate. Such a teacher was not as the Western pedagogue, but the Eastern data. 3 A certain instinctive quality was behind this. Even today, its obvious that what Ive learned is totally irrelevant in terms of my ability to teach a child effectively before the change of teeth. After the change of teeth, the teachers knowledge begins to have some significance; but this is lost again, if I merely impart what I learned as it lives in me. It all has to be transformed artistically and made into images, as we shall see later. I have to awaken invis- ible forces between the child and myself.
3. In Sanskrit, the giver.
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Things like this enable us to look deep into human nature and we shall see how this is deepened in the presence of true human wisdom. We come to realize contrary to what has often been thought that we dont recognize someone as a teacher by examining what the person knows after going through college. That would show us only a capacity for lecturing on some sub- ject, perhaps something suitable for students between fourteen and twenty. As far as earlier stages are concerned, what the teacher does in this sense has no relevance whatever. The qualities neces- sary for these early periods need to be assessed on a very different basis.
Thus, we see that a fundamental issue in teaching and educa- tion is the question of who the teacher is. What must really live in the children, what must vibrate and well up into their very hearts, wills, and eventually into their intellect, lives initially in the teach- ers. It arises simply through who they are, through their unique nature, character, and attitude of soul, and through what they bring the children out of their own self-development. So we can see how it is only a true knowledge of human nature, cultivated comprehensively, that can serve as the foundation for a true art of teaching and fulfill the living needs of education. Im eager to pursue these matters further in the lectures that follow.
1.01 - On knowledge of the soul, and how knowledge of the soul is the key to the knowledge of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
You should know also that the enjoyments of this world that are procured through the senses are cut off at death. The enjoyment of the love and knowledge of God, which depends upon the heart, is alone lasting. At death the hindrances that result from the presence of the external senses being removed, the light and brilliancy of the heart come to have full play, and it feels the necessity of the vision of beauty. What has hitherto been said is sufficient to enable a person of intelligence to comprehend the [36] dignity of the heart of man. The subject could not be discussed more at large in this short treatise.
While the heart is one of the pillars of man, the body is another pillar. In the constitution of man's body, there is an infinity of most wonderful things to be observed. Each internal and external organ has various curious uses, of which man is entirely uninformed. Know, that in the body of a man there are thousands of veins and nerves: there are many bones, each of a particular shape and each one created for a particular purpose and effect. You are ignorant of all this, and you only know that the hand was formed to take hold with, the foot to walk with, and the tongue to speak with. But in reference to the hand, you know nothing about its blood, its bones, the number of its nerves and veins, and the uses of each one: nor in reference to the eye, do you know that it is composed of ten layers, nor of what the layers are composed, nor what is the use of them. And if the eye should meet with an injury in one of the layers, you could not tell the cause of it. You know nothing either of the internal organs in the belly, such as the spleen, the liver, the gall-bladder and the kidneys. While these have been given to you to perform, functions in which they are continually engaged, you are entirely unconcerned about it.
1.01 - Our Demand and Need from the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is yet another, the Tantric,1 which though less subtle and spiritually profound, is even more bold and forceful than the synthesis of the Gita, - for it seizes even upon the obstacles to the spiritual life and compels them to become the means for a richer spiritual conquest and enables us to embrace the whole
All the Puranic tradition, it must be remembered, draws the richness of its contents from the Tantra.
1.01 - SAMADHI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
to irritate it, and the oyster throws a sort of enameling around
the sand, and this makes the pearl. This whole universe is our
own enamel, so to say, and the real universe is the grain of
sand. The ordinary man will never understand it, because,
when he tries to, he throws out an enamel, and sees only his
own enamel. Now we understand what is meant by these
Vrttis. The real man is behind the mind, and the mind is the
1.01 - Seeing, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
A sense of quality, or of novelty, enabling us to distinguish
in nature certain absolute stages of perfection and growth,
1.01 - The Castle, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
When our supper ended in a muteness which the sounds of chewing and the smacking of lips gulping wine did not make more pleasant, we remained seated, looking one another in the face, with the torment of not being able to exchange the many experiences each of us had to communicate. At that point, on the table which had just been cleared, the man who seemed the lord of the castle set a pack of playing cards. They were tarot cards, larger than the kind we use for ordinary games or that gypsies employ for predicting the future, but it was possible to discern more or less the same figures that are painted in the enamels of the most precious miniatures. Kings, Queens, Knights, and Pages were all young people magnificently dressed, as if for a princely feast; the twenty-two Major Arcana seemed the tapestries of a court theater; and cups, coins, swords, clubs shone like heraldic devices adorned with scrolls and arabesques.
We began to spread out the cards on the table, face up, and to give them their proper value in games, or their true meaning in the reading of fortunes. And yet none of us seemed to wish to begin playing, and still less to question the future, since we were as if drained of all future, suspended in a journey that had not ended nor was to end. There was something else we saw in those tarots, something that no longer allowed us to take our eyes from the gilded pieces of that mosaic.
1.01 - The First Steps, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
We do not know anything about our own bodies; we cannot know. At best we can take a dead body, and cut it in pieces, and there are some who can take a live animal and cut it in pieces in order to see what is inside the body. Still, that has nothing to do with our own bodies. We know very little about them. Why do we not? Because our attention is not discriminating enough to catch the very fine movements that are going on within. We can know of them only when the mind becomes more subtle and enters, as it were, deeper into the body. To get the subtle perception we have to begin with the grosser perceptions. We have to get hold of that which is setting the whole engine in motion. That is the Prana, the most obvious manifestation of which is the breath. Then, along with the breath, we shall slowly enter the body, which will enable us to find out about the subtle forces, the nerve currents that are moving all over the body. As soon as we perceive and learn to feel them, we shall begin to get control over them, and over the body. The mind is also set in motion: by these different nerve currents, so at last we shall reach the state of perfect control over the body and the mind, making both our servants. Knowledge is power. We have to get this power. So we must begin at the beginning, with Pranayama, restraining the Prana. This Pranayama is a long subject, and will take several lessons to illustrate it thoroughly. We shall take it part by part.
We shall gradually see the reasons for each exercise and what forces in the body are set in motion. All these things will come to us, but it requires constant practice, and the proof will come by practice. No amount of reasoning which I can give you will be proof to you, until you have demonstrated it for yourselves. As soon as you begin to feel these currents in motion all over you, doubts will vanish, but it requires hard practice every day. You must practice at least twice every day, and the best times are towards the morning and the evening. When night passes into day, and day into night, a state of relative calmness ensues. The early morning and the early evening are the two periods of calmness. Your body will have a like tendency to become calm at those times. We should take advantage of that natural condition and begin then to practice. Make it a rule not to eat until you have practiced; if you do this, the sheer force of hunger will break your laziness. In India they teach children never to eat until they have practiced or worshipped, and it becomes natural to them after a time; a boy will not feel hungry until he has bathed and practiced.
1.01 - The Four Aids, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:The supreme Shastra of the integral Yoga is the eternal Veda secret in the heart of every thinking and living being. The lotus of the eternal knowledge and the eternal perfection is a bud closed and folded up within us. It opens swiftly or gradually, petal by petal, through successive realisations, once the mind of man begins to turn towards the Eternal, once his heart, no longer compressed and confined by attachment to finite appearances, becomes enamoured, in whatever degree, of the Infinite. All life, all thought, all energising of the faculties, all experiences passive or active, become thenceforward so many shocks which disintegrate the teguments of the soul and remove the obstacles to the inevitable efflorescence. He who chooses the Infinite has been chosen by the Infinite. He has received the divine touch without which there is no awakening, no opening of the spirit; but once it is received, attainment is sure, whether conquered swiftly in the course of one human life or pursued patiently through many stadia of the cycle of existence in the manifested universe.
3:Nothing can be taught to the mind which is not already concealed as potential knowledge in the unfolding soul of the creature. So also all perfection of which the outer man is capable, is only a realising of the eternal perfection of the Spirit within him. We know the Divine and become the Divine, because we are That already in our secret nature. All teaching is a revealing, all becoming is an unfolding. Self-attainment is the secret; self-knowledge and an increasing consciousness are the means and the process.
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14: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, sayujga, 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 divine Will 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.
15:Always indeed it is the higher Power that acts. Our sense of personal effort and aspiration comes from the attempt of the egoistic mind to identify itself in a wrong and imperfect way with the workings of the divine Force. It persists in applying to experience on a supernormal plane the ordinary terms of mentality which it applies to its normal experiences in the world. In the world we act with the sense of egoism; we claim the universal forces that work in us as our own; we claim as the effect of our personal will, wisdom, force, virtue the selective, formative, progressive action of the Transcendent in this frame of mind, life and body. Enlightenment brings to us the knowledge that the ego is only an instrument; we begin to perceive and feel that these things are our own in the sense that they belong to our supreme and integral Self, one with the Transcendent, not to the instrumental ego. Our limitations and distortions are our contri bution to the working; the true power in it is the Divine's. 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 are 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 universal Nature. The self-abnegation 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.
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18:As the supreme Shastra of the integral Yoga is the eternal Veda secret in the heart of every man, so its supreme Guide and Teacher is the inner Guide, the World-Teacher, jagad-guru, secret within us. It is he who destroys our darkness by the resplendent light of his knowledge; that light becomes within us the increasing glory of his own self-revelation. He discloses progressively in us his own nature of freedom, bliss, love, power, immortal being. He sets above us his divine example as our ideal and transforms the lower existence into a reflection of that which it contemplates. By the inpouring of his own influence and presence into us he enables the individual being to attain to identity with the universal and transcendent.
19:What is his method and his system? 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. Applying themselves even to the pettiest details and to the actions the most insignificant in their appearance with as much care and thoroughness as to the greatest, they in the end lift all into the Light and transform all. For in his Yoga there is nothing too small to be used and nothing too great to be attempted. As the servant and disciple of the Master has no business with pride or egoism because all is done for him from above, so also he has no right to despond because of his personal deficiencies or the stumblings of his nature. For the Force that works in him is impersonal -- or superpersonal-and infinite.
1.01 - THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
that direct and familiar contact with it which would enable me to
do it justice, that contact which comes from experiment and not
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graphic even while subject to revision, enabling the scientist to
put together and to show the non-contradiction of the ever more
1.01 - To Watanabe Sukefusa, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
In contrast to these terrible tales of retri bution, there are also accounts of children who thanks to heaven's miraculous intervention were enabled to carry out acts of great filial devotion: the story of a rare medicinal stone suddenly appearing in the garden of a son who needed it to cure an ailing father; of midwinter ice breaking up and fresh carp leaping into the arms of a son whose stepmo ther had a craving for minced fish; of a poor man whose shovel struck a cauldron filled with gold as he was about to bury his child alive to ensure his mother would be adequately fed; of bamboo shoots emerging in midwinter for a son anxious to feed them to his mother; of a carp-filled fountain gushing up in the garden of a son who wanted to satisfy his mother's yearning for fine water and minced fish.
But even if you don't perform acts of filial devotion like these, of a caliber that elicits heavenly intervention, I devoutly hope you do not commit acts of an unfilial nature that will bring punishment down upon you. A person who ignores or refuses to acknowledge what takes place right under his nose and insists on merely doing as he pleases must be either a stupid man or an evil one.
1.01 - What is Magick?, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
11. Science enables us to take advantage of the continuity of Nature by the empirical application of certain principles whose interplay involves different orders of idea, connected with each other in a way beyond our present comprehension.
(Illustration: We are able to light cities by rule-of-thumb methods. We do not know what consciousness is, or how it is connected with muscular action; what electricity is or how it is connected with the machines that generate it; and our methods depend on calculations involving mathematical ideas which have no correspondence in the Universe as we know it.[AC3])
--
(Illustration: Two generations ago it was supposed theoretically impossible that man should ever know the chemical composition of the fixed stars. It is known that our senses are adapted to receive only an infinitesimal fraction of the possible rates of vibration. Modern instruments have enabled us to detect some of these suprasensibles by indirect methods, and even to use their peculiar qualities in the service of man, as in the case of the rays of Hertz and Rntgen. As Tyndall said, man might at any moment learn to perceive and utilize vibrations of all conceivable and inconceivable kinds. The question of Magick is a question of discovering and employing hitherto unknown forces in nature. We know that they exist, and we cannot doubt the possibility of mental or physical instruments capable of bringing us in relation with them.)
13. Every man is more or less aware that his individuality comprises several orders of existence, even when he maintains that his subtler principles are merely symptomatic of the changes in his gross vehicle. A similar order may be assumed to extend throughout nature.
1.02.3.2 - Knowledge and Ignorance, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
Avidya fulfilled by turning more and more to Vidya enables
the individual and the universal to become what the Lord is
1.02.4.2 - Action and the Divine Will, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
the mind which enables it eventually to pass beyond itself, we
have the first principle of progress from mortality to immortality.
1.025 - Sadhana - Intensifying a Lighted Flame, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Inasmuch as it is a super-logical mystery, there would be no necessity on our part to investigate the causes thereof and the methods thereof, logically or scientifically, beyond a certain limit, though logical and scientific thinking is a help to corroborate the presence of this aspiration. The aspiration is already present within us. It is not created by logical thinking and, therefore, such logical thinking is only a bulwark that we create to reinforce the aspiration that is already there. We already have a faith in God. We already believe that God-realisation is the goal of life. This belief has taken possession of us already, and now all that we do is only an ancillary process which is contri butory to streng thening this aspiration and enabling it to become more and more potent and influential in our daily life. We cannot create a concept of God by any amount of effort.
Sadhana is nothing but the intensifying of this flame that has already been lit up in us by God Himself, ultimately. You have been led to this study due to God's grace. It is not because you have money to purchase a book. It is not money that has brought you these discourses, it is not your effort that has brought you to these discourses it is nothing of the kind. It is a divine mystery that has operated in a very inscrutable and marvellous manner for a purpose which is cosmic in significance, and not merely individual, as we may imagine. You have been led to this study for a cosmic purpose, and a divine purpose, which is a coincidence and a collocation of factors which can be understood only by the Cosmic Thinker, God Himself. I have always been holding that, ultimately, it appears to be God who is doing sadhana for God-realisation, and nobody else can do it; and meditation is nothing but God thinking God.
1.028 - Bringing About Whole-Souled Dedication, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The practice should be continued for a very, very long time, and we should not expect results. We should not expect results because we do not know the conditions to be fulfilled for the materialisation of a result. The result expected is cosmic and infinite, and a little finite effort cannot be expected to bring such a result. All of our practices are finite in their nature. Whatever effort we put forth is limited in its character, and all of our aspiration is completely circumscribed by certain notions that are characteristic of human individuality. How can we expect infinite results to follow from such finite attitudes, which are ingrained in our very structural existence? But our finite effort will give an impetus for us to move onward, so that the push that it gives will enable the next door to be opened before us and we can see a vista that is just ahead of us, though we will not be able to see many miles ahead.
Only one step ahead can be seen at a time, and not one hundred steps. This, of course, is an advantage as well as a disadvantage. It is a disadvantage because we do not know what is before us. We are not quite sure as to where we are standing, how much progress we have made, and the things that we may have to encounter in our future; so this is a type of disadvantage. But it also has an advantage that is similar to the advantage of not having any memory of our previous lives. What would happen to us if we knew everything that has happened in all of our previous lives? We would not be able to live in this world. We would perish in a few minutes by the shock of the memories of previous lives. But the abolition of all this memory keeps us constrained to a limited vision of things, and makes us feel that this world is the entire world, and that the people around us are the only realities, and that there is nothing in the past and nothing in the future. This ignorance keeps us happy, somehow or the other. But if the whole universe is opened up before us like Pandora's box, then the entire world would perish in a few days it could not exist.
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
The domain mapped by a functional narrative (one that, when enacted, produces the results desired)
might reasonably be regarded as explored territory, as events that occur there are predictable. Any
place where enacted plans produce unexpected, threatening or punishing consequences, by contrast, might
be regarded as unexplored territory. What happens there does not conform to our wishes. This means
--
The processes of revolutionary adaptation, enacted and represented, underly diverse cultural phenom ena,
ranging from the rites of primitive initiation47 to the conceptions of sophisticated religious systems.48
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immediate reinforcement history played a context-determining role. This implicit limit enabled him to
sidestep the fundamental issue, and to make inappropriate generalizations. It didnt matter how a rat related
--
consequences of our adaptive struggle our cultures which enable this prediction and control. The
existence of our cultures, however, blinds us to the nature of our true (emotional) natures at least to the
--
can perceive. Higher-order nonhuman primates have a more developed grip, however, which enables more
detailed exploration, and, in addition, have a relatively sophisticated prefrontal cortex. This means that such
--
hand additionally enables long-distance (temporal and spatial) transfer of its ability to another (and for the
elaboration and extension of exploration, during the process of writing, which is hand-mediated thinking).
--
manner. Interplay between hand and brain has literally enabled the individual to change the structure of the
world. Consideration of the structure and function of the brain must take this primary fact into account. A
--
communication immensely. Increasingly detailed exchange of information enabled the resources of all to
become the resources of each, and vice versa. That process of feedback greatly extended the reach and
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higher-order cortical sites,143 was of vital importance to development of visual language, and enabled close
observation, made gathering of detailed information simpler. Combination of hand and eye enabled homo
sapiens to manipulate things, to a degree qualitatively different from that of any other animal. The
--
who we are, and enable us to endlessly elicit new properties from previously stable and predictable
elements of experience. The object any object serves us as a source of limitless possibility (or, at least,
--
which enable us to manipulate things, to change their sensory aspects and, most importantly, to change
their importance to us, to give them new, more desirable value. The capacity for dextrous manipulation is
particularly human, and has enabled us to radically alter the nature of our experience. Equally particular,
however, is our capacity for abstract exploration, which is thought about action (and its consequences), in
--
without developing some understanding of the process of categorization. The act of categorization enables
us to treat the mysterious and complex world we inhabit as if it were simpler as if it were, in fact,
--
and I became enamored of her beauty.
She glorifies her noble birth by living with God,
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unknown. The ubiquitous drama of human sacrifice, (proto)typical of primordial religious practice, enacted
the idea that the essence of man was something to be offered up voluntarily to the ravages of nature
--
of that behavior (which means establishment of a new feedback process) that enables man to abstractly
posit a desired future, to act in such a way as to bring that future about, and to judge the relevance of
--
that they can be considered, abstractly, before their enaction). So this means that it is possible to act in a
manner that looks as-if it were goal-directed, before goals as such have manifested themselves. Rychlak
1.02 - Meditating on Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
is more important because that gives me a sense of security. Cake is an example; we may enact this behavior in other aspects of our life. Generosity is the
antidote that frees our mind.
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Generating the altruistic intention of bodhichitta enables us to know
why we are pursuing this path. This, too, is important, because the result of
--
of spiritual paths enables each person to choose what suits him or her best.
Putting people in categoriesHe is a Christian (Buddhist, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or Wicca)and thinking that therefore we understand them is
1.02 - Prana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Think of the universe as an ocean of ether, consisting of layer after layer of varying degrees of vibration under the action of Prana; away from the centre the vibrations are less, nearer to it they become quicker and quicker; one order of vibration makes one plane. Then suppose these ranges of vibrations are cut into planes, so many millions of miles one set of vibration, and then so many millions of miles another still higher set of vibration, and so on. It is, therefore, probable, that those who live on the plane of a certain state of vibration will have the power of recognising one another, but will not recognise those above them. Yet, just as by the telescope and the microscope we can increase the scope of our vision, similarly we can by Yoga bring ourselves to the state of vibration of another plane, and thus enable ourselves to see what is going on there. Suppose this room is full of beings whom we do not see. They represent Prana in a certain state of vibration while we represent another. Suppose they represent a quick one, and we the opposite. Prana is the material of which they are composed, as well as we. All are parts of the same ocean of Prana, they differ only in their rate of vibration. If I can bring myself to the quick vibration, this plane will immediately change for me: I shall not see you any more; you vanish and they appear. Some of you, perhaps, know this to be true. All this bringing of the mind into a higher state of vibration is included in one word in Yoga Samadhi. All these states of higher vibration, superconscious vibrations of the mind, are grouped in that one word, Samadhi, and the lower states of Samadhi give us visions of these beings. The highest grade of Samadhi is when we see the real thing, when we see the material out of which the whole of these grades of beings are composed, and that one lump of clay being known, we know all the clay in the universe.
Thus we see that Pranayama includes all that is true of spiritualism even. Similarly, you will find that wherever any sect or body of people is trying to search out anything occult and mystical, or hidden, what they are doing is really this Yoga, this attempt to control the Prana. You will find that wherever there is any extraordinary display of power, it is the manifestation of this Prana. Even the physical sciences can be included in Pranayama. What moves the steam engine? Prana, acting through the steam. What are all these phenom ena of electricity and so forth but Prana? What is physical science? The science of Pranayama, by external means. Prana, manifesting itself as mental power, can only be controlled by mental means. That part of Pranayama which attempts to control the physical manifestations of the Prana by physical means is called physical science, and that part which tries to control the manifestations of the Prana as mental force by mental means is called Raja-Yoga.
1.02 - SADHANA PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
continuously emanating these Tanmatras, which enable us to
smell it. Every day of our lives we are throwing out a mass of
1.02 - Skillful Means, #The Lotus Sutra, #Anonymous, #Various
I enable them to enter the wisdom of the buddhas.
But I have never said
--
And enabled them to enter the path of the buddhas.
Understanding the deepest desires of the entire world
1.02 - The Concept of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
106 It is obviously the author's intention to enable the reader to
experience the vision which he had, or which at least he be-
1.02 - The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
circumstances enabling a direct reciprocal action between
the humans and the incarnated gods, leading up to a world
--
was enacted on which humanitys future depended? In his
poems we may find some predictive or relevant passages.
1.02 - The Doctrine of the Mystics, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All this Vedic imagery is easy to understand when once we have the key, but it must not be mistaken for mere imagery. The Gods are not simply poetical personifications of abstract ideas or of psychological and physical functions of Nature. To the Vedic seers they are living realities; the vicissitudes of the human soul represent a cosmic struggle not merely of principles and tendencies but of the cosmic Powers which support and embody them. These are the Gods and the Demons. On the world-stage and in the individual soul the same real drama with the same personages is enacted.
To what gods shall the sacrifice be offered? Who shall be invoked to manifest and protect in the human being this increasing godhead?
1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
have two ways of looking at life which are opposite sides of one reality. Between the pragmatic truth on which the vital thought of modern Europe enamoured of the vigour of life, all the dance of God in Nature, puts so vehement and exclusive a stress and the eternal immutable Truth to which the Indian mind enamoured of calm and poise loves to turn with an equal passion for an exclusive finding,
there is no such divorce and quarrel as is now declared by the partisan mind, the separating reason, the absorbing passion of an exclusive will of realisation. The one eternal immutable Truth is the Spirit and without the Spirit the pragmatic truth of a self-creating universe would have no origin or foundation; it would be barren of significance, empty of inner guidance, lost in its end, a fire-work display shooting up into the void only to fall away and perish in midair. But neither is the pragmatic truth a dream of the non-existent, an illusion or a long lapse into some futile delirium of creative imagination; that would be to make the eternal Spirit a drunkard or a dreamer, the fool of his own gigantic self-hallucinations. The truths of universal existence are of two kinds, truths of the spirit which are themselves eternal and immutable, and these are the great things that cast themselves out into becoming and there constantly realize their powers and significances, and the play of the consciousness with them, the discords, the musical variations, soundings of possibility,
1.02 - The Magic Circle, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
When working in the open air, a magic weapon, dagger or sword has to be used for drawing the circle on the ground. When working in a room, the circle may be drawn on the floor with a piece of chalk. A large sheet of paper can also be used for the circle. The most ideal circle, however, is the one sewn or embroidered into a piece of cloth, flannel or silk, for such a circle can be laid out in a room as well as outside of the house. The circles drawn on paper have the disadvantage that the paper will soon wear out and fall to pieces. In any case, the circle must be large enough to enable the magician to move about in it freely. When drawing the circle, the appropriate state of mind and full concentration are most essential. If a circle were drawn without the necessary concentration, a circle would undoubtedly be the result, but it would not be a magic one. The magic circle that has been worked into a piece of cloth or silk has to be re-drawn symbolically with one's finger or magic wand, or with some other magic weapon; not to forget the necessary concentration, meditation and state of mind. The magician must, in such a case, be fully aware of the fact that it is not the magical weapon in use that draws the circle, but the divine faculties symbolized by that magical instrument. Furthermore, he must realize that it is not he that is drawing the magic circle at the moment of concentration, but that the Divine Spirit is actually guiding his hand and instrument to draw the circle. Therefore, before drawing the magic circle, a conscious contact with the Almighty, with the Infinite, has to be brought about by the help of meditation and identification.
The trained magician, having a thorough comm and of the practical exercises of the first tarot-card, as explained in my first work "Initiation into Hermetics" , has learned during one of the steps of that book how to become fully conscious of the spirit and how to act consciously as a spirit. It is not difficult for him to imagine that not he, but the Divine Spirit in all its high aspects is actually drawing the magic circle he wishes to have. The magician has thus learned also that in the world of the Invisible it is not the same although two persons might physically be doing the same, for a sorcerer, who does not possess the necessary maturity, will never be able to draw a true magic circle.
1.02 - THE NATURE OF THE GROUND, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The purpose of all words is to illustrate the meaning of an object. When they are heard, they should enable the hearer to understand this meaning, and this according to the four categories of substance, of activity, of quality and of relationship. For example cow and horse belong to the category of substance. He cooks or he prays belongs to the category of activity. White and black belong to the category of quality. Having money or possessing cows belongs to the category of relationship. Now there is no class of substance to which the Brahman belongs, no common genus. It cannot therefore be denoted by words which, like being in the ordinary sense, signify a category of things. Nor can it be denoted by quality, for it is without qualities; nor yet by activity because it is without activityat rest, without parts or activity, according to the Scriptures. Neither can it be denoted by relationship, for it is without a second and is not the object of anything but its own self. Therefore it cannot be defined by word or idea; as the Scripture says, it is the One before whom words recoil.
Shankara
--
One of the greatest favours bestowed on the soul transiently in this life is to enable it to see so distinctly and to feel so profoundly that it cannot comprehend God at all. These souls are herein somewhat like the saints in heaven, where they who know Him most perfectly perceive most clearly that He is infinitely incomprehensible; for those who have the less clear vision do not perceive so clearly as do these others how greatly He transcends their vision.
St. John of the Cross
1.02 - The Stages of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
THE information given in the following chapters constitutes steps in an esoteric training, the name and character of which will be understood by all who apply this information in the right way. It refers to the three stages through which the training of the spiritual life leads to a certain degree of initiation. But only so much will here be explained as can be publicly imparted. These are merely indications extracted from a still deeper and more intimate doctrine. In esoteric training itself a quite definite course of instruction is followed. Certain exercises enable the soul to attain to a conscious intercourse with the spiritual world. These exercises bear about the same relation to what will be imparted in the following pages, as the instruction given in
p. 36
--
Anyone having reached this point of spiritual vision is the richer by a great deal, for he can perceive things not only in their present state of being but also in their process of growth and decay. He begins to see in all things the spirit, of which physical eyes can know nothing. And therewith he has taken the first step toward the gradual solution, through personal vision, of the secret of birth and death. For the outer senses a being comes into existence through birth, and passes away through death. This, however, is only because these senses cannot perceive the concealed spirit of the being. For the spirit, birth and death are merely a transformation, just as the unfolding of the flower from the bud is a transformation enacted before our physical eyes. But if we desire to learn this through personal vision we must
p. 67
--
If the candidate is found fit for the foregoing experiences, he is then given what is called symbolically the draught of forgetfulness. This means that he is initiated into the secret knowledge that enables him to act without being continually disturbed by the lower memory. This is necessary for the initiate, for he must have full faith in the immediate present. He must be able to destroy the veil of memory which envelops man every moment of his life. If we judge something that happens to us today according to the experience of yesterday, we are exposed to a multitude of errors. Of course this does not mean that experience gained in life should be renounced. It should always be kept in mind as clearly as possible. But the initiate must have the ability to judge every new experience wholly according to what is inherent in it, and let it react upon him, unobscured
p. 96
by the past. We must be prepared at every moment that every object and every being can bring to us some new revelation. If we judge the new by the standard of the old we are liable to error. The memory of past experiences will be of greatest use for the very reason that it enables us to perceive the new. Had we not gone through a definite experience we should perhaps be blind to the qualities of the object or being that comes before us. Thus experience should serve the purpose of perceiving the new and not of judging it by the standard of the old. In this respect the initiate acquires certain definite qualities, and thereby many things are revealed to him which remain concealed from the uninitiated.
The second draught presented to the initiate is the draught of remembrance. Through its agency he acquires the faculty of retaining the knowledge of the higher truths ever present in his soul. Ordinary memory would be unequal to this task. We must unite ourselves and become as one with the higher truths. We must not only know them, but be able, quite as a matter of course, to manifest and administer them in living actions, even as we ordinarily eat and drink.
1.02 - The Three European Worlds, #The Ever-Present Origin, #Jean Gebser, #Integral
Perspectivation, let us remember, also includes a reduction; and this reductive nature is evident, for instance, in perspectival man's predominantly visual or sight orientation in contrast to unperspectival man's audial or hearing orientation. The basis of the perspectival world view is the visual pyramid; the two lines extend from the eyes and meet at the object viewed. The image formed by the isolated sector includes the subject, the object, and the space in between. Pierodella Francesca clearly expresses this in his remark: "The first is the eye that sees; the second, the object seen; the third, the distance between the one and the other." On this Panofsky comments: "It [perspective] furnished a place for the human form to unfold in a life-like manner and move mimically [which is equivalent to the discovery of space]; but it also enabled light to spread and diffuse in space [the illumination of space is the emergence of spatial awareness] and permitted considerable freedom in the treatment of the human body. Perspective provides a distance between man and objects." Such detachment is always a sign of an emergent objectifying consciousness and of the liberation of previously innate potentialities that are subsequently rediscovered and realized in the outer world.
This example again suggests to what extent perspective is the most tangible expression of an entire epoch. The basic concern of perspective, which it achieves, is to "look through" space and thereby to perceive and grasp space rationally. The very word "perspective" conveys this intent, as Drer suggests: "Besides, perspectiva is a Latin term meaning `seeing through." It is a "seeing through" of space and thus a coming to awareness of space. It is irrelevant here whether we accept Drers interpretation and translate perspicere (from which perspectiva derives) in his sense as "seeing through," or render it, with Panofsky, as "seeing clearly." Both interpretations point to the same thing. The emergent awareness of distantiating space presupposes a clear vision; and this heightening of awareness is accompanied by an increase of personal or ego-consciousness.
1.02 - Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
If a man should walk through this town and see only the reality, where, think you, would the Mill-dam go to? If he should give us an account of the realities he beheld there, we should not recognize the place in his description. Look at a meeting-house, or a court-house, or a jail, or a shop, or a dwelling-house, and say what that thing really is before a true gaze, and they would all go to pieces in your account of them. Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us.
Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.
1.03 - APPRENTICESHIP AND ENCULTURATION - ADOPTION OF A SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
patterns and, secondarily, their concomitant descriptions that enables survival in youth. These patterns
of behavior and hierarchies of value which children mimic and then learn expressly give secure
--
are generally predicated upon enaction of the fundamental narrative structure the Way previously
presented. Ritual initiation, for example a ubiquitous formal feature of pre-experimental culture 365
1.03 - Meeting the Master - Meeting with others, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
So, our first task is to find God and base life on that Consciousness; In that process what is necessary for humanity will naturally be done. But that is not our direct aim. Ours is a tremendous task. It is an adventure in which one must be prepared to leave behind his desires and passions, intellectual preferences and mental constructions in order to enable the Higher Power to do its work. You have to see whether you can give your consent to the radical transformation that is inevitable.
Athavale: Yes, I am prepared for the gamble.
1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
its possession would enable the human being to rise beyond
into those highest powers of the mind in its self-exceedings
--
only a missing link was needed for enabling the connection
in the consciousness and in the substance, and it is this link
--
by all humanity, the precondition to enable the appearance
of a supramental species.
1.03 - Questions and Answers, #Book of Certitude, #unset, #Zen
105. And in another Tablet, these exalted words have been revealed: O Muhammad! The Ancient of Days hath turned His count enance towards thee, making mention of thee, and exhorting the people of God to educate their children. Should a father neglect this most weighty commandment laid down in the Kitab-i-Aqdas by the Pen of the Eternal King, he shall forfeit rights of fatherhood, and be accounted guilty before God. Well is it with him who imprinteth on his heart the admonitions of the Lord, and steadfastly cleaveth unto them. God, in truth, enjoineth on His servants what shall assist and profit them, and enable them to draw nigh unto Him. He is the Ordainer, the Everlasting.
106. He is God, exalted be He, the Lord of majesty and power! The Prophets and Chosen Ones have all been commissioned by the One True God, magnified be His glory, to nurture the trees of human existence with the living waters of uprightness and understanding, that there may appear from them that which God hath deposited within their inmost selves. As may be readily observed, each tree yieldeth a certain fruit, and a barren tree is but fit for fire. The purpose of these Educators, in all they said and taught, was to preserve man's exalted station. Well is it with him who in the Day of God hath laid fast hold upon His precepts and hath not deviated from His true and fundamental Law. The fruits that best befit the tree of human life are trustworthiness and godliness, truthfulness and sincerity; but greater than all, after recognition of the unity of God, praised and glorified be He, is regard for the rights that are due to one's parents. This teaching hath been mentioned in all the Books of God, and reaffirmed by the Most Exalted Pen. Consider that which the Merciful Lord hath revealed in the Qur'an, exalted are His words: "Worship ye God, join with Him no peer or likeness; and show forth kindliness and charity towards your parents..." Observe how loving-kindness to one's parents hath been linked to recognition of the one true God! Happy they who are endued with true wisdom and understanding, who see and perceive, who read and understand, and who observe that which God hath revealed in the Holy Books of old, and in this incomparable and wondrous Tablet.
1.03 - Reading, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
Greek and Latin tongues in the middle ages were not entitled by the accident of birth to _read_ the works of genius written in those languages; for these were not written in that Greek or Latin which they knew, but in the select language of literature. They had not learned the nobler dialects of Greece and Rome, but the very materials on which they were written were waste paper to them, and they prized instead a cheap contemporary literature. But when the several nations of Europe had acquired distinct though rude written languages of their own, sufficient for the purposes of their rising literatures, then first learning revived, and scholars were enabled to discern from that remoteness the treasures of antiquity. What the Roman and Grecian multitude could not _hear_, after the lapse of ages a few scholars
_read_, and a few scholars only are still reading it.
--
Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language in which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge of the history of the human race; for it is remarkable that no transcript of them has ever been made into any modern tongue, unless our civilization itself may be regarded as such a transcript. Homer has never yet been printed in English, nor schylus, nor Virgil evenworks as refined, as solidly done, and as beautiful almost as the morning itself; for later writers, say what we will of their genius, have rarely, if ever, equalled the elaborate beauty and finish and the lifelong and heroic literary labors of the ancients. They only talk of forgetting them who never knew them. It will be soon enough to forget them when we have the learning and the genius which will enable us to attend to and appreciate them. That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and
Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last.
1.03 - Some Practical Aspects, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
has endowed his bodily organs that enable him to see, hear, digest, breath, speak. Gradually he learns to breath and see with this soul, to speak and hear with the spirit.
In the following pages some practical aspects of the higher education of soul and spirit will be treated in greater detail. They are such that anyone can put them into practice regardless of other rules, and thereby be led some distance further into spiritual science.
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he wishes to proceed further, his desire, now ennobled and purified, will enable him to do so.
It is also no use saying: I particularly wish to examine my previous life, and shall study only for this purpose. We must rather be capable of abandoning this desire, of eliminating it altogether, and of studying, at first, with no such intention. We should cultivate a feeling of joy and devotion for what we learn, with no thought of the above end in view. We should learn to cherish and foster a particular desire in such a way that it brings with it its own fulfillment.
1.03 - Spiritual Realisation, The aim of Bhakti-Yoga, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
Bhakti-Yoga, as we have said, is divided into the Gauni or the preparatory, and the Par or the supreme forms. We shall find, as we go on, how in the preparatory stage we unavoidably stand in need of many concrete helps to enable us to get on; and indeed the mythological and symbological parts of all religions are natural growths which early environ the aspiring soul and help it Godward. It is also a significant fact that spiritual giants have been produced only in those systems of religion where there is an exuberant growth of rich mythology and ritualism. The dry fanatical forms of religion which attempt to eradicate all that is poetical, all that is beautiful and sublime, all that gives a firm grasp to the infant mind tottering in its Godward way the forms which attempt to break down the very ridge-poles of the spiritual roof, and in their ignorant and superstitious conceptions of truth try to drive away all that is life-giving, all that furnishes the formative material to the spiritual plant growing in the human soul such forms of religion too soon find that all that is left to them is but an empty shell, a contentless frame of words and sophistry with perhaps a little flavour of a kind of social scavengering or the socalled spirit of reform.
The vast mass of those whose religion is like this, are conscious or unconscious materialists the end and aim of their lives here and hereafter being enjoyment, which indeed is to them the alpha and the omega of human life, and which is their Ishtpurta; work like street-cleaning and scavengering, intended for the material comfort of man is, according to them, the be-all and end-all of human existence; and the sooner the followers of this curious mixture of ignorance and fanaticism come out in their true colours and join, as they well deserve to do, the ranks of atheists and materialists, the better will it be for the world. One ounce of the practice of righteousness and of spiritual Self-realisation outweighs tons and tons of frothy talk and nonsensical sentiments. Show us one, but one gigantic spiritual genius growing out of all this dry dust of ignorance and fanaticism; and if you cannot, close your mouths, open the windows of your hearts to the clear light of truth, and sit like children at the feet of those who know what they are talking about the sages of India. Let us then listen attentively to what they say.
1.03 - Sympathetic Magic, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
One of the great merits of homoeopathic magic is that it enables the
cure to be performed on the person of the doctor instead of on that
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imitative charm, to enable the men to do to the enemy as the women
do to the paw-paws. In the West African town of Framin, while the
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rapid. The rise of one man to supreme power enables him to carry
through changes in a single lifetime which previously many
1.03 - Tara, Liberator from the Eight Dangers, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
Middle Way view enables us to distinguish accurately between what exists
and what doesnt and between what to practice and what to abandon. In this
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teachings for a long time. Positive potential enables us to die without regret
and propels us toward fortunate rebirths in which we can continue our spiritual practice. It also fertilizes our mind so that we will understand the meaning of the Buddhas teachings easily and be able to integrate them into our
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positive potential from generosity. Spiritual wealth enables us to meet a qualied spiritual mentor and good Dharma friends who encourage our practice.
Glory can refer to the ability and conditions to help others skillfully. Plenty
1.03 - The Coming of the Subjective Age, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Behind it all the hope of the race lies in those infant and as yet subordinate tendencies which carry in them the seed of a new subjective and psychic dealing of man with his own being, with his fellow-men and with the ordering of his individual and social life. The characteristic note of these tendencies may be seen in the new ideas about the education and upbringing of the child that became strongly current in the pre-war era. Formerly, education was merely a mechanical forcing of the childs nature into arbitrary grooves of training and knowledge in which his individual subjectivity was the last thing considered, and his family upbringing was a constant repression and compulsory shaping of his habits, his thoughts, his character into the mould fixed for them by the conventional ideas or individual interests and ideals of the teachers and parents. The discovery that education must be a bringing out of the childs own intellectual and moral capacities to their highest possible value and must be based on the psychology of the child-nature was a step forward towards a more healthy because a more subjective system; but it still fell short because it still regarded him as an object to be handled and moulded by the teacher, to be educated. But at least there was a glimmering of the realisation that each human being is a self-developing soul and that the business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being, not to be kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material. It is not yet realised what this soul is or that the true secret, whether with child or man, is to help him to find his deeper self, the real psychic entity within. That, if we ever give it a chance to come forward, and still more if we call it into the foreground as the leader of the march set in our front, will itself take up most of the business of education out of our hands and develop the capacity of the psychological being towards a realisation of its potentialities of which our present mechanical view of life and man and external routine methods of dealing with them prevent us from having any experience or forming any conception. These new educational methods are on the straight way to this truer dealing. The closer touch attempted with the psychical entity behind the vital and physical mentality and an increasing reliance on its possibilities must lead to the ultimate discovery that man is inwardly a soul and a conscious power of the Divine and that the evocation of this real man within is the right object of education and indeed of all human life if it would find and live according to the hidden Truth and deepest law of its own being. That was the knowledge which the ancients sought to express through religious and social symbolism, and subjectivism is a road of return to the lost knowledge. First deepening mans inner experience, restoring perhaps on an unprecedented scale insight and self-knowledge to the race, it must end by revolutionising his social and collective self-expression.
Meanwhile, the nascent subjectivism preparative of the new age has shown itself not so much in the relations of individuals or in the dominant ideas and tendencies of social development, which are still largely rationalistic and materialistic and only vaguely touched by the deeper subjective tendency, but in the new collective self-consciousness of man in that organic mass of his life which he has most firmly developed in the past, the nation. It is here that it has already begun to produce powerful results whether as a vitalistic or as a psychical subjectivism, and it is here that we shall see most clearly what is its actual drift, its deficiencies, its dangers as well as the true purpose and conditions of a subjective age of humanity and the goal towards which the social cycle, entering this phase, is intended to arrive in its wide revolution.
1.03 - THE GRAND OPTION, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
ever-growing task of enabling the world to live and progress! We
are like the ant that slaves itself to death that its fellow slaves may
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light. For one thing, though it may enable the individual to achieve
the heights of momentary ecstasy, it robs him in return of the in-
1.03 - The House Of The Lord, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Now, the part of the time that remains unaccounted for was the night. For a number of years, especially during the last ones, it was the most interesting period. For gradually, attending to Sri Aurobindo's meal, his walking and his sleep became very complicated since these activities had to depend on the Mother's round of work. I have said before that, like life, our daily routine was continually changing. The midday meal shifted from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. We had to be guided by her clock. She had thousands of things to attend to in addition to the organisational work of the Ashram. Now she had also to bear additional responsibility for Sri Aurobindo. No wonder her time had to be very flexible. And too subtle, elusive and quick are her movements for our human calculation! Can we imagine her holding collective meditation at 11 p.m., sometimes even at 1 a.m.? Consequently Sri Aurobindo's supper began to shift from normal hours to as late as 11 p.m. after which she would go down for meditation. But if she was late, then the meal had to be served after the meditation. Later on the meditation was followed by a regular Pranam attended by more than three hundred individuals. Then the Mother would come to Sri Aurobindo's room to attend to his walking, normally at 11 p.m., but there were occasions when she came even at 1 a.m.! Then she would come half an hour or one hour later to give him an eye-wash with a blue liquid called "blue water", and to rub lightly his upper body with a perfumed white cream. That was her last service of the day. We naturally had to keep awake till then, awaiting the soft tread of her feet in the corridor, for there was no knowing when she would turn up. Of course whenever possible, we did snatch a cat-nap in between, but it had to be "conscious sleep"! Purani, whose duty began at 2.30 a.m., sometimes found us awake! I am sure that it was Sri Aurobindo's radiant Presence which was the source of all our energy and kept us fit as a fiddle, in spite of many days of scanty sleep. I have read in Kalidasa that during Shiva's deep meditation, a constant stream of energy Tapas went out to fill his two attendants to enable them to keep vigil over the world of Nature. Even after the Mother's departure, Sri Aurobindo kept awake and only when he had learnt that she had retired, did our lights go out; that was at about 2 a.m. It was my duty to switch off the last light. The switch was above the foot, of his bed. Putting my hand on it I would look at him: he gave his impersonal sweet smile in return and the light went off. A night lamp was kept burning. Then we too would retire, sleeping in the same room. Once I had a frightful nightmare and screamed. Sri Aurobindo called me, "Nirod! Nirod!" and I woke up. Very often, Purani said, when he came he found me snoring. Champaklal amended, saying, "No, he snores even long before!" "That is perhaps in anticipation of Purani's arrival!" added Sri Aurobindo.
In spite of there being a swarm of mosquitoes, Sri Aurobindo was not in the habit of using a mosquito net. Instead, mosquito-coils imported from China were lighted and placed around the bed. These coils burn slowly, emitting a thin white trail of smoke with a smell of burnt hay or dry leaves. Its somewhat sharp odour is supposed to stave off the invasion of the invincible army of tiny pests. Chinese discovery indeed! But the smoke-line, I fear, was not impregnable and some of the wily pests would, under the cover of night, plunge their keen short proboscis into Sri Aurobindo's bare tender skin producing angry weals or scarlet buttons. Some Insectol had to be applied to prevent sepsis. During the breeding season when the army division was at its height, the Mother would bring a globe-like thing and burst, as it were, a 'gas bomb' from it, just before she took her leave at night. A huge volley of white smoke with a strong smell would fill the whole room and clear up soon after. With the installation of the ceiling-fan, these crude devices were of course dispensed with. In the daytime, when the mosquitoes were flying and humming around him, or about to sit on his legs, we would rush to kill them with a clap of our hands. Sometimes he would ask, "Got it?" and on our answering "Yes", an approving smile would be our reward.
1.03 - The Phenomenon of Man, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
The Vision of the Past has enabled us to appreciate the general current
of Evolution and to set the 'human zoological group' at the head of that
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The coefficient of complexity enables us to establish among
the natural units which it has helped us to 'identify' and iso-
1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Qabalah is the most suitable system for the basis of our magical alphabet, to which we shall be able to refer the sum total of all our knowledge and experience- reli- gious, philosophical, and scientific. The Qabalistic Alpha- bet is, as we shall proceed to explain, an elaborate system of attri butions and correspondences ; a convenient method of classification enabling the philosopher to docket his experiences and ideas as he obtains them. It is comparable to a filing cabinet of thirty-two jackets in which an exten- sive system of information is filed.
It would be fallacious for the student to expect a concrete definition of everything which the cabinet contains. That is a sheer impossibility for quite obvious reasons. Each student must work for himself, once given the method of putting the whole of his mental and moral constitution into these thirty-two filing jackets. The necessity for personal work becomes apparent when one realizes that in normal business procedure, for instance, one would not purchase a filing cabinet with the names of all past, present, and future correspondents already indexed. It becomes quite evident that the Qabalistic cabinet (our thirty-two Paths) has a system of letters and numbers meaningless in them- selves, but as the files are completed, ready to take on a meaning, different for each student. As experience increased, each letter and number would receive fresh accessions of meaning and significance, and by adopting this orderly arrangement we would be enabled to grasp our inner life much more comprehensively than might otherwise be the case. The object of the theoretical (as separate from the Practical) Qabalah, insofar as this thesis is concerned, is to enable the student to do three main things :
First, to analyse every idea in terms of the Tree of Life.
1.03 - The Sunlit Path, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Then the question sinks a little deeper. In fact, it is not that it sinks or intensifies; it is as if a first breath of air enabled us to appreciate better the daily suffocation we live in and revealed deeper layers to our eyes, other, subtler coverings. We are indeed Bill Smith, a legal and national artifice, a little mechanized cog that would like to get out of the machine. But what is behind Bill Smith? There is a man walking a boulevard, going up and down the great mental roller coaster, humming with a thousand thoughts, of which none truly matters, none remedies his sorrow or desire; there is what the latest book thinks, what that billboard or those headlines scream, what the professor or schoolmaster or friend or colleague or neighbor said a thousand passersby milling in the inner street but where is the one who does not pass, the lodger of the dwelling? There is yesterday's experience, which ties in with the accident of the day before, which ties in with... a gigantic telephone network, with switches, relays and instant communications, but which really communicates nothing, except the same rehashed and self-contained story, which keeps swelling up and swelling up and curling back onto itself and unrolling a sum of past that never makes a true present, or a future that is but the sum of a million acts adding up to zero where is the act, where? Where is the self of that addition, the minute of being that is not the result of the past, the pure touch of sunlight that escapes that machinery, even more merciless than the other one? There is what our fathers and mothers have put into us, and books, priests, partisans, grandfa ther's cancer, great-uncle's lust, the good of this one, the less good of that one; there are the Tables of the Law of iron, the thou-cannots, thou-should-nots, Newton and the churches, Mendel and the law of gestation of germ cells but what germinates in all that? Where is the Germ, the pure unexpected seed suddenly bursting open, the Thou-Can like a stroke of grace in this implacable round conditioned by the fathers of our fathers inside the mental fortress? There is this little man walking along a boulevard, going up and down the same avenue a thousand times; inside, outside, it's all the same, like nothing walking in nothing, anybody inside anything, John or Peter with only different neckties: between this lamppost and that one nothing has happened. There was nothing, not a single second of being!
But, suddenly, on this boulevard, there is a sort of second-degree suffocation. We stop and stare. What do we stare at? We don't know, but we stare. All of a sudden we are no longer in the machine; we are no longer in it, we never were! We are no longer Bill Smith or American or New Yorker, the son of our father or the father of our son, our thought, or heart or feelings, or yesterday or tomorrow, or male or female or anything of the kind we are something else altogether. We don't know what, but it stares. We are like a window opening.
1.03 - The Two Negations 2 - The Refusal of the Ascetic, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3:If the materialist is justified from his point of view in insisting on Matter as reality, the relative world as the sole thing of which we can in some sort be sure and the Beyond as wholly unknowable, if not indeed non-existent, a dream of the mind, an abstraction of Thought divorcing itself from reality, so also is the Sannyasin, enamoured of that Beyond, justified from his point of view in insisting on pure Spirit as the reality, the one thing free from change, birth, death, and the relative as a creation of the mind and the senses, a dream, an abstraction in the contrary sense of Mentality withdrawing from the pure and eternal Knowledge.
4:What justification, of logic or of experience, can be asserted in support of the one extreme which cannot be met by an equally cogent logic and an equally valid experience at the other end? The world of Matter is affirmed by the experience of the physical senses which, because they are themselves unable to perceive anything immaterial or not organised as gross Matter, would persuade us that the suprasensible is the unreal. This vulgar or rustic error of our corporeal organs does not gain in validity by being promoted into the domain of philosophical reasoning. Obviously, their pretension is unfounded. Even in the world of Matter there are existences of which the physical senses are incapable of taking cognisance. Yet the denial of the suprasensible as necessarily an illusion or a hallucination depends on this constant sensuous association of the real with the materially perceptible, which is itself a hallucination. Assuming throughout what it seeks to establish, it has the vice of the argument in a circle and can have no validity for an impartial reasoning.
1.03 - Time Series, Information, and Communication, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
nication engineering. It enables us to evaluate different systems,
such as amplitude modulation or frequency modulation or
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with an electric circuit as mathematical procedures to enable
statisticians to obtain the best results with statistically impure
1.03 - To Layman Ishii, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
"First you have the students who, after engaging in genuine Zen practice for a long time until principles and wisdom are gradually exhausted, emotions and views eliminated, techniques and verbal resources used up, wither into a perfect and unflappable serenity, their bodies and minds completely dispassionate. Suddenly, satori comes. They are liberated. Like the phoenix that soars up from its golden cage. Like the crane that breaks free of its pen. Releasing their hands from the cliffside, they die the great death and are reborn into life anew. These are students who have thoroughly penetrated, who have bored through all forms and penetrated all sounds and can see their self-nature as clearly as if it was in the palm of their hand. After painstakingly working their way through the final barrier koans set up by the patriarchal teachers, their minds, in one single vigorous effort, abruptly transform. Such students are possessed of deep discernment and innate ability that enables them to enter liberation at a single blow from the iron hammer. They are foremost among all the outstanding seeds and buds of our school. The only thing they lack is the personal confirmation of a genuine teacher.
"Next there are students who move forward in their koan practice until they gain strength that is almost mature. Thanks to a word or phrase of the Buddha-patriarchs or perhaps some advice from a good friend, they suddenly achieve kensh, breakthrough into satori. Let us call them "initial penetrators." Their penetration is complete in some areas, but not in others. They have a sure grasp of
1.046 - The Dunes, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
15. We have enjoined upon man kindness to his parents. His mother carried him with difficulty, and delivered him with difficulty. His bearing and weaning takes thirty months. Until, when he has attained his maturity, and has reached forty years, he says, “Lord, enable me to appreciate the blessings You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents, and to act with righteousness, pleasing You. And improve my children for me. I have sincerely repented to You, and I am of those who have surrendered.”
16. Those are they from whom We accept the best of their deeds, and We overlook their misdeeds, among the dwellers of Paradise—the promise of truth which they are promised.
1.04 - ADVICE TO HOUSEHOLDERS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Now I have taken out the treasure.' Such brooding near the door will not enable you to achieve anything. You must practise discipline.
Brahman and Divine Incarnations
1.04 - Body, Soul and Spirit, #Theosophy, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
kind of sense of touch. For these there exist only those mineral forces of which the sense of touch enables them to become aware. In proportion as the other senses are developed in the higher animals is the surrounding world richer and more varied for them. It depends, therefore, on the organs of a being whether that which exists in the outer world exists also for the being itself, as perception, as sensation. What is present in the air as a certain motion becomes in man the sensation of hearing. Man does not perceive the manifestations of the life-force through the ordinary senses. He sees the colors of the plants; he smells their perfume; the life-force remains hidden from this form of observation. But the ordinary senses have just as little right to deny the existence of the life-force as has the man born blind to deny that colors exist. Colors are there for the person born blind just as soon as he has been operated upon; in the same way, the life-force, as creating the various species of plants and animals created by it, is present to man as an object of perception as soon as the necessary organ unfolds within him. An entirely new world opens out to man through
p. 27
1.04 - BOOK THE FOURTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Whom an enamour'd nymph transform'd to stone,
Because she fear'd another nymph might see
1.04 - Communion, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
communion which will enable it to find in me the
food it has come in the last resort to seek.
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in the immensity of her arms, and will enable him
to contemplate the face of God.
1.04 - Descent into Future Hell, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
98. In The Relations between the I and the Unconscious (1927), Jung refers to the destructive and anarchic aspects that are constellated in societies being enacted by prophetically inclined individuals though spectacular crimes such as regicide (CW 7, 240).
99. Political assassinations were frequent at the beginning of the twentieth century: The particular event referred to here is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Martin Gilbert describes this event, which played a critical role in the events that led to the outbreak of the First World
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
The ever-expanding human capacity for abstraction central to human consciousness has enabled
us to produce self-models sufficiently complex and extended to take into account the temporal boundaries
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The ever-expanding human capacity for abstraction has enabled us as a species, and as individuals
to produce self-models that include the temporal boundaries of existence. We have become able to imagine
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of the same process that enables him to seek redress a process that is troublesome in the extreme, but so
valuable that it will not be abandoned, once attained. The questing spirit undermines its own stability, but
1.04 - The Conditions of Esoteric Training, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
6. A sixth condition is the development of a feeling of thankfulness for everything with which man is favored. We must realize that our existence is a gift from the entire universe. How much is needed to enable each one of us to receive and maintain his existence! How much to we not owe to nature and to our fellow human beings! Thoughts such as these must come naturally to all who seek esoteric training, for if the latter do not feel inclined to entertain them, they will be incapable of developing within themselves that all-embracing love which is necessary for the attainment of higher knowledge. Nothing can reveal itself to us which we do not love. And every revelation must fill us with thankfulness, for we ourselves are the richer for it.
7. All these conditions must be united in a seventh: to regard life unceasingly in the manner demanded by these conditions. The student
1.04 - The Divine Mother - This Is She, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
I have dwelt at length in the previous chapters on the Mother's relation with Sri Aurobindo and her role in his outer life. There used to be considerable speculation in the early days about their mutual relationship. Was it one of Purusha and Prakriti, Master and disciple or Shiva and Shakti? I was therefore very curious from the start to observe and discern the relationship. I came to the conclusion that it was that of Shiva and Shakti. The Mother has said, "Without him, I exist not; without me he is unmanifest." And we were given the unique opportunity of witnessing the dual personality of the One enacting on our earth-plane an immortal drama, rare in the spiritual history of man. I could perfectly realise that without the Mother, Sri Aurobindo's stupendous realisations could not have taken such a concrete shape on this terrestrial base. In fact, he was waiting for the Mother's coming. He said that with the Mother's help he covered ten years of sadhana in one year. The very building up of the Ashram testifies to this irrefutable truth: "He wills, I execute." After Sri Aurobindo's passing, it was feared in some quarters that the Ashram would collapse, at least decline. On the contrary, the manifestation of the Supramental Truth took place after his withdrawal, and since then the Ashram has expanded beyond all belief.
Sri Aurobindo wrote to me, "...The Mother's pressure for change is always strong even when she does not put it as force, it is there by the very nature of the Divine Energy in her." That is the indubitable, puissant impression of all those who have had anything to do with her from near or far. While one felt in Sri Aurobindo's atmosphere a wide and large freedom of nature, the Mother's contact always brought us to the hard reality of things. Whenever she came to Sri Aurobindo's room, a powerful vibration was set within the calm, passive silence of the Self and we had to be qui vive. We were no longer left to our easy movements. If chattering was going on, it would stop; a newspaper would remain unread; if anyone was leaning against the wall, he would sit upright. In a word, everyone was like a taut bow-string, certainly not out of fear but to rise to her expectations. Even Sri Aurobindo, if in the course of the evening talk, happened to see her coming, would say in a hushed voice, "The Mother is coming!" and would stop talking, while the Mother would encourage us with a smile, "Go on, go on!" Such was her dynamism, cit tapas! This does not imply that she was a stern school-mistress.
1.04 - The First Circle, Limbo Virtuous Pagans and the Unbaptized. The Four Poets, Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. The Noble Castle of Philosophy., #The Divine Comedy, #Dante Alighieri, #Christianity
There opposite, upon the green enamel,
Were pointed out to me the mighty spirits,
1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
correspondence is Hermod, the envoy of the Gods, the son of Odin, who gave him a helmet and corselet which Hermod wore when despatched on his dangerous missions. Un- fortunately, the Hindu gods are not sufficiently determinate to enable one to make an attri bution from their number with any degree of satisfaction, unless we decide upon
Krishna in his r6Ie of driving the chariot of Arjuna to the battle of Kurukshetra, as described in the
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The conception of this Path as a whole is that of vir- ginity, its astrological sign being tie. Virgo. We therefore attri bute to it the unmarried Isis and Nephthys, both vir- gins. The Hindu equivalent is that of the Gopi cow-girls, or the shepherdesses of Brindaban, who became enamoured with love of Shri Krishna. Narcissus, the beautiful youth inaccessible to the emotion of love ; and Adonis, who was the youthful beloved of Aphrodite, are other correspon- dences. Balder, as the beautiful virgin God residing in the heavenly mansion called Breidablik into which naught unclean could enter, is undoubtedly the Norse attri bution.
Its jewel is the Peridot ; its flowers the Snowdrop and
1.04 - The Sacrifice the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And the fruit also of the sacrifice of works varies according to the work, according to the intention in the work and according to the spirit that is behind the intention. But all other sacrifices are partial, egoistic, mixed, temporal, incomplete,even those offered to the highest Powers and Principles keep this character: the result too is partial, limited, temporal, mixed in its reactions, effective only for a minor or intermediate purpose. The one entirely acceptable sacrifice is a last and highest and uttermost self-giving,it is that surrender made face to face, with devotion and knowledge, freely and without any reserve to One who is at once our immanent Self, the environing constituent All, the Supreme Reality beyond this or any manifestation and, secretly, all these together, concealed everywhere, the immanent Transcendence. For to the soul that wholly gives itself to him, God also gives himself altogether. Only the one who offers his whole nature, finds the Self. Only the one who can give everything, enjoys the Divine All everywhere. Only a supreme self-abandonment attains to the Supreme. Only the sublimation by sacrifice of all that we are, can enable us to embody the Highest and live here in the immanent consciousness of the transcendent Spirit.
***
--
But as the consciousness deepens, he becomes aware that this is only a first frontal appearance. For he finds that it is by the silent support, permission or sanction of this witness soul in him that this executive nature can work intimately or persistently upon his being; if the soul withdraws its sanction, the movements of Nature in their action upon and within him become a wholly mechanical repetition, vehement at first as if seeking still to enforce their hold, but afterwards less and less dynamic and real. More actively using this power of sanction or refusal, he perceives that he can, slowly and uncertainly at first, more decisively afterwards, change the movements of Nature. Eventually in this witness soul or behind it is revealed to him the presence of a Knower and master Will in Nature, and all her activities more and more appear as an expression of what is known and either actively willed or passively permitted by this Lord of her existence. Prakriti herself now seems to be mechanical only in the carefully regulated appearance of her workings, but in fact a conscious Force with a soul within her, a self-aware significance in her turns, a revelation of a secret Will and Knowledge in her steps and figures. This Duality, in aspect separate, is inseparable. Wherever there is Prakriti, there is Purusha; wherever there is Purusha, there is Prakriti. Even in his inactivity he holds in himself all her force and energies ready for projection; even in the drive of her action she carries with her all his observing and mandatory consciousness as the whole support and sense of her creative purpose. Once more the seeker discovers in his experience the two poles of existence of One Being and the two lines or currents of their energy negative and positive in relation to each other which effect by their simultaneity the manifestation of all that is within it. Here too he finds that the separative aspect is liberative; for it releases him from the bondage of identification with the inadequate workings of Nature in the Ignorance. The unitive aspect is dynamic and effective; for it enables him to arrive at mastery and perfection; while rejecting what is less divine or seemingly undivine in her, he can rebuild her forms and movements in himself according to a nobler pattern and the law and rhythm of a greater existence. At a certain spiritual and supramental level the Duality becomes still more perfectly Two-in-one, the Master Soul with the Conscious Force within it, and its potentiality disowns all barriers and breaks through every limit. Thus this once separate, now biune Duality of Purusha-Prakriti is revealed to him in all its truth as the second great instrumental and effective aspect of the Soul of all souls, the Master of existence, the Lord of the Sacrifice.
On yet another line of approach the seeker meets another corresponding but in aspect distinct Duality in which the biune character is more immediately apparent,the dynamic Duality of Ishwara-Shakti. On one side he is aware of an infinite and self-existent Godhead in being who contains all things in an ineffable potentiality of existence, a Self of all selves, a Soul of all souls, a spiritual Substance of all substances, an impersonal inexpressible Existence, but at the same time an illimitable Person who is here self-represented in numberless personality, a Master of Knowledge, a Master of Forces, a Lord of love and bliss and beauty, a single Origin of the worlds, a self-manifester and self-creator, a Cosmic Spirit, a universal Mind, a universal Life, the conscious and living Reality supporting the appearance which we sense as unconscious inanimate Matter. On the other side he becomes aware of the same Godhead in effectuating consciousness and power put forth as a self-aware Force that contains and carries all within her and is charged to manifest it in universal Time and Space. It is evident to him that here there is one supreme and infinite Being represented to us in two different sides of itself, obverse and reverse in relation to each other. All is either prepared or pre-existent in the Godhead in Being and issues from it and is upheld by its Will and Presence; all is brought out, carried in movement by the Godhead in power; all becomes and acts and develops by her and in her its individual or its cosmic purpose. It is again a Duality necessary for the manifestation, creating and enabling that double current of energy which seems always necessary for the world-workings, two poles of the same Being, but here closer to each other and always very evidently carrying each the powers of the other in its essence and its dynamic nature. At the same time by the fact that the two great elements of the divine Mystery, the Personal and the Impersonal, are here fused together, the seeker of the integral Truth feels in the duality of Ishwara-Shakti his closeness to a more intimate and ultimate secret of the divine Transcendence and the Manifestation than that offered to him by any other experience.
For the Ishwari Shakti, divine Conscious-Force and World-Mother, becomes a mediatrix between the eternal One and the manifested Many. On one side, by the play of the energies which she brings from the One, she manifests the multiple Divine in the universe, involving and evolving its endless appearances out of her revealing substance; on the other by the reascending current of the same energies she leads back all towards That from which they have issued so that the soul in its evolutionary manifestation may more and more return towards the Divinity there or here put on its divine character. There is not in her, although she devises a cosmic mechanism, the character of an inconscient mechanical Executrix which we find in the first physiognomy of Prakriti, the Nature-Force; neither is there that sense of an Unreality, creatrix of illusions or semi-illusions, which is attached to our first view of Maya. It is at once clear to the experiencing soul that here is a conscious Power of one substance and nature with the Supreme from whom she came. If she seems to have plunged us into the Ignorance and Inconscience in pursuance of a plan we cannot yet interpret, if her forces present themselves as all these ambiguous forces of the universe, yet it becomes visible before long that she is working for the development of the Divine Consciousness in us and that she stands above drawing us to her own higher entity, revealing to us more and more the very essence of the Divine Knowledge, Will and Ananda. Even in the movements of the Ignorance the soul of the seeker becomes aware of her conscious guidance supporting his steps and leading them slowly or swiftly, straight or by many detours out of the darkness into the light of a greater consciousness, out of mortality into immortality, out of evil and suffering towards a highest good and felicity of which as yet his human mind can form only a faint image. Thus her power is at once liberative and dynamic, creative, effective,creative not only of things as they are, but of things that are to be; for, eliminating the twisted and tangled movements of his lower consciousness made of the stuff of the Ignorance, it rebuilds and new-makes his soul and nature into the substance and forces of a higher divine Nature.
In this Duality too there is possible a separative experience. At one pole of it the seeker may be conscious only of the Master of Existence putting forth on him His energies of knowledge, power and bliss to liberate and divinise; the Shakti may appear to him only an impersonal Force expressive of these things or an attribute of the Ishwara. At the other pole he may encounter the World-Mother, creatrix of the universe, putting forth the Gods and the worlds and all things and existences out of her spirit-substance. Or even if he sees both aspects, it may be with an unequal separating vision, subordinating one to the other, regarding the Shakti only as a means for approaching the Ishwara. There results a one-sided tendency or a lack of balance, a power of effectuation not perfectly supported or a light of revelation not perfectly dynamic. It is when a complete union of the two sides of the Duality is effected and rules his consciousness that he begins to open to a fuller power that will draw him altogether out of the confused clash of Ideas and Forces here into a higher Truth and enable the descent of that Truth to illumine and deliver and act sovereignly upon this world of Ignorance. He has begun to lay his hand on the integral secret which in its fullness can be grasped only when he overpasses the double term that reigns here of Knowledge inextricably intertwined with an original Ignorance and crosses the border where spiritual mind disappears into supramental Gnosis. It is through this third and most dynamic dual aspect of the One that the seeker begins with the most integral completeness to enter into the deepest secret of the being of the Lord of the Sacrifice.
For it is behind the mystery of the presence of personality in an apparently impersonal universeas in that of consciousness manifesting out of the Inconscient, life out of the inanimate, soul out of brute Matter that is hidden the solution of the riddle of existence. Here again is another dynamic Duality more pervading than appears at first view and deeply necessary to the play of the slowly self-revealing Power. It is possible for the seeker in his spiritual experience, standing at one pole of the Duality, to follow Mind in seeing a fundamental Impersonality everywhere. The evolving soul in the material world begins from a vast impersonal Inconscience in which our inner sight yet perceives the presence of a veiled infinite Spirit; it proceeds with the emergence of a precarious consciousness and personality that even at their fullest have the look of an episode, but an episode that repeats itself in a constant series; it arises through experience of life out of mind into an infinite, impersonal and absolute Superconscience in which personality, mind-consciousness, life-consciousness seem all to disappear by a liberating annihilation, Nirvana. At a lower pitch he still experiences this fundamental impersonality as an immense liberating force everywhere. It releases his knowledge from the narrowness of personal mind, his will from the clutch of personal desire, his heart from the bondage of petty mutable emotions, his life from its petty personal groove, his soul from ego, and it allows them to embrace calm, equality, wideness, universality, infinity. A Yoga of works would seem to require Personality as its mainstay, almost its source, but here too the impersonal is found to be the most direct liberating force; it is through a wide egoless impersonality that one can become a free worker and a divine creator. It is not surprising that the overwhelming power of this experience from the impersonal pole of the Duality should have moved the sages to declare this to be the one way and an impersonal Superconscience to be the sole truth of the Eternal.
--
It is for this that a surrender and submission to That which is beyond us enabling the full and free working of its Power is indispensable. As that self-giving progresses, the work of the sacrifice becomes easier and more powerful and the prevention of the opposing Forces loses much of its strength, impulsion and substance. Two inner changes help most to convert what now seems difficult or impracticable into a thing possible and even sure. There takes place a coming to the front of some secret inmost soul within which was veiled by the restless activity of the mind, by the turbulence of our vital impulses and by the obscurity of the physical consciousness, the three powers which in their confused combination we now call our self. There will come about as a result a less impeded growth of a Divine Presence at the centre with its liberating Light and effective Force and an irradiation of it into all the conscious and subconscious ranges of our nature. These are the two signs, one marking our completed conversion and consecration to the great Quest, the other the final acceptance by the Divine of our sacrifice.
***
1.04 - The Silent Mind, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
little vibrations drawing our attention; if we pay closer attention in order to "see" what they are, that is, if we let one of these little swirls enter us, we suddenly find ourselves "thinking" of something. What we had felt at the periphery of our being was a thought in its pure form, or rather a mental vibration before it enters us and comes to the surface of our being clad in a personal form, enabling us to claim:
"This is my thought." This is how a good mind-reader can read what goes on in a person whose language he does not even know, because it is not the "thoughts" that he catches but the vibrations, to which he then attributes his own corresponding mental form. But we should not really be too surprised, because if we were capable of creating a single thing ourselves, even a tiny little thought, we would be the creators of the world! Where is the I in you that can create all that? Mother used to ask. It is just that the process is not perceptible to the ordinary man,
1.04 - Wherefore of World?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
It is, therefore, only an integral experience that can enable us to attain, beyond the multiple forms and successive depths of the reality, its ultimate sources. The discovery cannot be effected by the sole aid of the logical reason. The data of sensation must enter into it no less than those of the understanding, no less than those of the still more transcendent faculties of intuitive consciousness and of knowledge that is lived.
When the mind, then, assembles these data and makes its language sufficiently supple to translate them synthetically, it perceives that each of them justifies from its own point of view one or other of the reasons which philosophies and religions have assigned for the existence of beings and of the world. And as the being within proceeds to resume them and make an integral whole of them all, it learns to discover by them the being itself and by the being the wherefore of the worlds.
1.04 - Yoga and Human Evolution, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The animal is distinguished from man by its enslavement to the body and the vital impulses. Aany mtyu, Hunger who is Death, evolved the material world from of old, and it is the physical hunger and desire and the vital sensations and primary emotions connected with the pra that seek to feed upon the world in the beast and in the savage man who approximates to the condition of the beast. Out of this animal state, according to European Science, man rises working out the tiger and the ape by intellectual and moral development in the social condition. If the beast has to be worked out, it is obvious that the body and the pra must be conquered, and as that conquest is more or less complete, the man is more or less evolved. The progress of mankind has been placed by many predominatingly in the development of the human intellect, and intellectual development is no doubt essential to self-conquest. The animal and the savage are bound by the body because the ideas of the animal or the ideas of the savage are mostly limited to those sensations and associations which are connected with the body. The development of intellect enables a man to find the deeper self within and partially replace what our philosophy calls the dehtmaka-buddhi, the sum of ideas and sensations which make us think of the body as ourself, by another set of ideas which reach beyond the body, and, existing for their own delight and substituting intellectual and moral satisfaction as the chief objects of life, master, if they cannot entirely silence, the clamour of the lower sensual desires. That animal ignorance which is engrossed with the cares and the pleasures of the body and the vital impulses, emotions and sensations is tamasic, the result of the predominance of the third principle of nature which leads to ignorance and inertia. That is the state of the animal and the lower forms of humanity which are called in the Purana the first or tamasic creation. This animal ignorance the development of the intellect tends to dispel and it assumes therefore an all-important place in human evolution.
But it is not only through the intellect that man rises. If the clarified intellect is not supported by purified emotions, the intellect tends to be dominated once more by the body and to put itself at its service and the lordship of the body over the whole man becomes more dangerous than in the natural state because the innocence of the natural state is lost. The power of knowledge is placed at the disposal of the senses, sattva serves tamas, the god in us becomes the slave of the brute. The disservice which scientific Materialism is unintentionally doing the world is to encourage a return to this condition; the suddenly awakened masses of men, unaccustomed to deal intellectually with ideas, able to grasp the broad attractive innovations of free thought but unable to appreciate its delicate reservations, verge towards that reeling back into the beast, that relapse into barbarism which was the condition of the Roman Empire at a high stage of material civilisation and intellectual culture and which a distinguished British statesman declared the other day to be the condition to which all Europe approached. The development of the emotions is therefore the first condition of a sound human evolution. Unless the feelings tend away from the body and the love of others takes increasingly the place of the brute love of self, there can be no progress upward. The organisation of human society tends to develop the altruistic element in man which makes for life and battles with and conquers aany mtyu. It is therefore not the struggle for life, or at least not the struggle for our own life, but the struggle for the life of others which is the most important term in evolution,for our children, for our family, for our class, for our community, for our race and nation, for humanity. An ever-enlarging self takes the place of the old narrow self which is confined to our individual mind and body, and it is this moral growth which society helps and organises.
1.053 - A Very Important Sadhana, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The point is that if you cannot do anything else, at least do this much. Take to regular study so that your day is filled with divine thoughts, philosophical ideas and moods which are spiritual in some way or the other. You may closet yourself in your study for hours together and browse through these profound texts, whatever be the nature of their presentation, because all these philosophical and spiritual presentations through the scriptures and the writings of other masters have one aim namely, the analysis of the structure of things, and enabling the mind to know the inner reality behind this structure. There is a threefold prong provided by Patanjali in this connection wherein he points out that self-control the control of the senses, austerity, or tapas together with svadhyaya, or study of sacred scriptures, will consummate in the adoration of God as the All-reality.
The idea that God is extra-cosmic and outside us, incapable of approach, and that we are likely not to receive any response from Him in spite of our efforts at prayer, etc. all these ideas are due to certain encrustations in the mind, the tamasic qualities which cover the mind and make it again subtly tend towards objects of sense. The desire for objects of sense, subtly present in a very latent form in the subconscious level, becomes responsible for the doubt in the mind that perhaps there is no response from God. This is because our love is not for God it is for objects of sense, and for status in society and enjoyments of various types in the world. And when, through austerity, or tapas, we have put the senses down with the force of our thumb, there is a temporary cessation of their activity.
1.05 - BOOK THE FIFTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
And the moist ground smiles with enamel'd flow'rs
The chearful birds their airy carols sing,
1.05 - Christ, A Symbol of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
13 enarrationes in Psalmos, XLVIII, Sermo II (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 564):
"Imago Dei intus est, non est in corpore . . . ubi est intellectus, ubi est mens,
--
14 enarr. in Ps., LIV, 3 (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 629): "... ubi autem homo
ad imaginem Dei factum se novit, ibi aliquid in se agnoscit amplius esse quam
--
18 enarr. in Ps., LIV, 1 (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 628).
19 Contra Faustum, XXII, 38 (Migne, P.L., vol. 42, col. 424): "Est enim et sancta
1.05 - Consciousness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
sleep, waking and "death" and enables us to come into contact with other forms of consciousness.
The Centers of Consciousness Pursuing our experimental method based on mental silence, we are led to several discoveries that will gradually put us on the track. First, we see the general confusion in which we live slowly settle; more and more clearly, strata will appear in our being as if we were made up of separate fragments, each with its own individual personality and specific center, and, what is more, with its own life independent of the others. This polyphony (or, rather, cacophony) is generally masked from us by the voice of the mind, which drowns out and appropriates everything. There is not a single movement of our being, at any level,
1.05 - Knowledge by Aquaintance and Knowledge by Description, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
Chancellor of the German Empire', the proposition we should like to affirm may be described as 'the proposition asserting, concerning the actual object which was the first Chancellor of the German Empire, that this object was an astute diplomatist'. What enables us to communicate in spite of the varying descriptions we employ is that we know there is a true proposition concerning the actual Bismarck, and that however we may vary the description (so long as the description is correct) the proposition described is still the same. This proposition, which is described and is known to be true, is what interests us; but we are not acquainted with the proposition itself, and do not know it, though we know it is true.
It will be seen that there are various stages in the removal from acquaintance with particulars: there is Bismarck to people who knew him;
--
The chief importance of knowledge by description is that it enables us to pass beyond the limits of our private experience. In spite of the fact that we can only know truths which are wholly composed of terms which we have experienced in acquaintance, we can yet have knowledge by description of things which we have never experienced. In view of the very narrow range of our immediate experience, this result is vital, and until it is understood, much of our knowledge must remain mysterious and therefore doubtful.
1.05 - Pratyahara and Dharana, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
The Yogi must always practice. He should try to live alone; the companionship of different sorts of people distracts the mind; he should not speak much, because to speak distracts the mind; not work much, because too much work distracts the mind; the mind cannot be controlled after a whole day's hard work. One observing the above rules becomes a Yogi. Such is the power of Yoga that even the least of it will bring a great amount of benefit. It will not hurt anyone, but will benefit everyone. First of all, it will tone down nervous excitement, bring calmness, enable us to see things more clearly. The temperament will be better, and the health will be better. Sound health will be one of the first signs, and a beautiful voice. Defects in the voice will be changed. This will be among the first of the many effects that will come. Those who practise hard will get many other signs. Sometimes there will be sounds, as a peal of bells heard at a distance, commingling, and falling on the ear as one continuous sound. Sometimes things will be seen, little specks of light floating and becoming bigger and bigger; and when these things come, know that you are progressing fast.
Those who want to be Yogis, and practice hard, must take care of their diet at first. But for those who want only a little practice for everyday business sort of life, let them not eat too much; otherwise they may eat whatever they please. For those who want to make rapid progress, and to practice hard, a strict diet is absolutely necessary. They will find it advantageous to live only on milk and cereals for some months. As the organisation becomes finer and finer, it will be found in the beginning that the least irregularity throws one out of balance. One bit of food more or less will disturb the whole system, until one gets perfect control, and then one will be able to eat whatever one likes.
1.05 - Prayer, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
us of your heart was to enable our love to escape
from the constrictions of the too narrow, too pre-
1.05 - Problems of Modern Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
independence, and critical power which enabled them successfully to
withstand the catharsis. They are mostly cultivated, differentiated
1.05 - Ritam, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Daksha we have supposed to be the viveka, the intuitive discriminating reason which once active is hard to overcome by the powers of ignorance & error; it is again his activity which here also constitutes the essence or the essential condition of the successful sacrifice; for it is evidently meant that by enjoying or stimulating the activity of Daksha, Daksham ddabham, daksham apasam, Mitra & Varuna are enabled to enjoy the effective activities of men under the law of truth, rit ena kratum brihantam, ritun yajnam shthe, activities of right knowledge, right action, right emotion, free from crookedness & ignorance & sin. For it is viveka that helps us to distinguish truth from error, right-doing from wrong-doing, just feeling from false & selfish emotions. Once again it is Mitra & Varuna who preside over & take the enjoyment of Dakshas functioning. The same psychological intention perseveres, the same simple & profound ideas & expressions recur in the same natural association, with the same harmony & fixed relation founded on the eternal truth of human nature & a fine & subtle observation of its psychological faculties & functionings.
The next reference to Ritam meets us in the twenty-third hymn of the Mandala, the last hymn of the series assigned to Medhatithi Kanwa, and once again it occurs in connection with the great twin powers, Mitra & Varuna.
--
We do not find the word ritam in the hymns that follow and are ascribed to Sunahshepa Ajigarti and Hiranyastupa Angirasa, but the first two hymns of Sunahshepa are addressed mainly or entirely to the god Varuna and we glean from them certain indications which are of considerable interest & importance in connection with Varuna & the Truth. He is hymned by Sunahshepa as the master of wide vision, uruchakshasam, the god of august, boundless & universal knowledge. He has made a wide path for Surya,the Vedic god of ideal knowledge, as I shall suggest,to follow in his journeyings; he has made places for him to set his feet in the unfooted vasts of the infinite. He is hymned also as the punisher of sin and the deliverer from sinKritam chid enah pra mumugdhi asmat. And loose from us the sin we have done. Kshayann asmabhyam Asura prachet rjann ennsi sisrathah kritni, Dwelling in us, O Mighty One, O King, in conscious knowledge, cleave from us the sins of our doing.
Now in the 18th hymn, a hymn of Medhatithi to Brahmanaspati, I have passed over designedly a verse in which we have a direct reference to that goddess Dakshina whom I suppose to be the female energy of Daksha, the divine master of the viveka
1.05 - Some Results of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
permits intercourse with beings of higher worlds, though only when their existence is manifested in the astral or soul-world. The development of this lotus flower, however, is not advisable unless the student has made great progress on that path of esoteric development which enables him to raise his spirit into a still higher world. This entry into the spiritual world proper must always run parallel with the development of the lotus flowers, otherwise the student will fall into error and confusion. He would undoubtedly be able to see, but he would remain incapable of forming a correct estimate of what he saw. Now, the development of the six-petalled lotus flower itself provides a certain security against confusion and instability, for no one can be easily confused who has attained perfect equilibrium between sense (or body), passion (or soul), and idea (or spirit). And yet, something more than this security is required when, through the development of the six-petalled lotus flower, living beings of independent existence are revealed to his spirit, beings belonging to a world so completely different from the world known to his physical senses. The development
p. 162
--
Continued practice enables the student to determine for himself the position of this etheric body. Hitherto this position depended upon external forces proceeding from the physical body. Through further development the student is able to turn his etheric body to all sides. This faculty is effected by currents moving approximately
p. 169
--
A completely new life opens out before the student when the development of his etheric body begins in the way described above, and at the proper time, in the course of his training, he must receive that enlightenment which enables him to adapt himself to this new existence. The sixteen-petalled lotus, for instance, enables him to perceive spiritual figures of a higher world. He must learn now how different these figures can be when caused by different objects or beings. In the first place, he must notice that his own thoughts and feelings exert a powerful influence on certain of these figures, on others little or no influence. One kind of figure alters immediately if the observer, upon seeing it, says to himself: "that is beautiful," and then in the course of his observation changes this thought to: "that is useful." It is characteristic of the forms proceeding from minerals or from artificial objects that they change
p. 177
1.05 - The Belly of the Whale, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
the slaying of the dragon have enacted upon their own bodies
the great symbolic act, scattering their flesh, like the body of
--
man enacts his role, the merchant empire, wherein each is out for himself.
Such practices of substitution seem to have become general throughout the an
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
inseparably linked. The fascist sacrifices his soul, which would enable him to confront change on his own,
to the group, which promises to protect him from everything unknown. The decadent, by contrast, refuses to
--
strength attendant upon faith in the conditions of experience enables him to stand outside the group,
when necessary, and to use it as a tool, rather than as armor. The hero rejects identification with the group
--
(in Goethes Faust, for example). This association has enabled the dogmatic forces of the Church to adopt
an anti-scientific stance, frequently science rationality devil and to justify unfortunate Church
--
idea of the Devil as the eternal enemy of Christ enabled those who profess Christianity to persecute those
who do not. The presuppositions of the persecutor are, for example: the Devil is the enemy, the Jew is not
--
evil emerged first as ritual enactment then dynamic image, expressed in myth. This representation covers
a broad spatial and temporal territory, whose examination helps flesh out understanding of the personality
--
make them Solomons slave tomorrow. The dullness of the imagination of these people enables them to
forget what left the Buddha with no peace: the inevitability of sickness, old age, and death, which if not
--
socialization to the very principle of domestication itself that enables him to participate in production of
the most truly efficient and organized of human evils. It was the discipline of the Germans, not their
--
Chinese communists that enabled the mass persecution and destructive-labor camp elimination of their
countrymen. Neither is man a victim of society, innocent lamb perverted by social forces beyond individual
control. Man created society in his own image; it enables him as much as it corrupts him. Man chooses evil,
for the sake of the evil. Man exults in agony, delights in pain, worships destruction and pathology. Man can
--
The group provides the protective structure conditional meaning and behavioral pattern that enables
the individual to cast off the dependence of childhood, to make the transition from the maternal to the
--
and for all: it might more reasonably be considered the description of a process that, if enacted, could
bring about the establishment of peace on earth.
--
be described; that usually precedes big developments, for there is now a model which enables a much
fuller explanation than was hitherto possible.
--
motion. By so doing, and by quantifying the forces, he enabled the mechanical philosophies to rise
above the level of imaginary impact mechanisms (p. 211). In analyzing the Newtonian conception of
--
mythological role, enabled him to persevere in his quest, in the face of grave difficulty. Jung states:
Only the living presence of the eternal images can lend the human psyche a dignity which makes it
--
his attainment of enlightenment. The ritual of pilgrimage the journey to the holy city constitutes halfritual, half-dramatic enactment of this idea. The pilgrim voluntarily places him or herself outside the
protective walls of original culture and, through the difficult and demanding (actual) journey to
--
with all mankind) that enables him to manifest his full identity with God and it is that identity which
350
--
universe; as an event that doomed humanity to suffering and death. But it was this same fall that enabled
the individual to adopt the redemptive role of the hero, the creator of culture; the same fall that lifted the
1.05 - The Magical Control of the Weather, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
presented to the sun to maintain him in vigour and enable him to run
his course across the sky. Thus the Mexican sacrifices to the sun
1.05 - THE NEW SPIRIT, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
progress of this synthesis which enables us to draw closer together
among ourselves, while at the same time it raises us toward God.
1.05 - War And Politics, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
About Chamberlain's inactivity when the Germans were preparing to attack Norway. Sri Aurobindo remarked, "So long as he is at the helm, nothing will happen. He applies only business intelligence to politics.... I can't understand the moves of the British. As soon as they heard of the German occupation, they could have occupied Bergen. Bergen would have been far away from Oslo and within their striking distance. If Germany had six destroyers, they could have brought twenty.... They seem to be enamoured of the idea of blockade by the Navy resulting in the starvation of Germany. They are daunted by the presence of the Siegfried Line on their east. They don't want to risk anything. They are tied up by their organisation while Hitler fixes himself to nothing."
April 15, 1940
1.05 - Yoga and Hypnotism, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What is this force that enables or compels a weak man to become so rigid that strong arms cannot bend him? that reverses the operations of the senses and abrogates pain? that changes the fixed character of a man in the shortest of periods? that is able to develop power where there was no power, moral strength where there was weakness, health where there was disease? that in its higher manifestations can exceed the barriers of space and time and produce that far-sight, far-hearing and far-thinking which shows mind to be an untrammelled agent or medium pervading the world and not limited to the body which it informs or seems to inform? The European scientist experimenting with hypnotism is handling forces which he cannot understand, stumbling on truths of which he cannot give a true account. His feet are faltering on the threshold of Yoga. It is held by some thinkers, and not unreasonably if we consider these phenom ena, that mind is all and contains all. It is not the body which determines the operations of the mind, it is the mind which determines the laws of the body. It is the ordinary law of the body that if it is struck, pierced or roughly pressed it feels pain. This law is created by the mind which associates pain with these contacts, and if the mind changes its dharma and is able to associate with these contacts not pain but insensibility or pleasure, then they will bring about those results of insensibility or pleasure and no other. The pain and pleasure are not the result of the contact, neither is their seat in the body; they are the result of association and their seat is in the mind. Vinegar is sour, sugar sweet, but to the hypnotised mind vinegar can be sweet, sugar sour. The sourness or sweetness is not in the vinegar or sugar, but in the mind. The heart also is the subject of the mind. My emotions are like my physical feelings, the result of association, and my character is the result of accumulated past experiences with their resultant associations and reactions crystallising into habits of mind and heart summed up in the word, character. These things like all the rest that are made of the stuff of associations are not permanent or binding but fluid and mutable, anity sarvasaskr. If my friend blames me, I am grieved; that is an association and not binding. The grief is not the result of the blame but of an association in the mind. I can change the association so far that blame will cause me no grief, praise no elation. I can entirely stop the reactions of joy and grief by the same force that created them. They are habits of the mind, nothing more In the same way though with more difficulty I can stop the reactions of physical pain and pleasure so that nothing will hurt my body. If I am a coward today, I can be a hero tomorrow. The cowardice was merely the habit of associating certain things with pain and grief and of shrinking from the pain and grief; this shrinking and the physical sensations in the vital or nervous man which accompany it are called fear, and they can be dismissed by the action of the mind which created them. All these are propositions which European Science is even now unwilling to admit, yet it is being proved more and more by the phenom ena of hypnotism that these effects can be temporarily at least produced by one man upon another; and it has even been proved that disease can be permanently cured or character permanently changed by the action of one mind upon another. The rest will be established in time by the development of hypnotism.
The difference between Yoga and hypnotism is that what hypnotism does for a man through the agency of another and in the sleeping state, Yoga does for him by his own agency and in the waking state. The hypnotic sleep is necessary in order to prevent the activity of the subjects mind full of old ideas and associations from interfering with the operator. In the waking state he would naturally refuse to experience sweetness in vinegar or sourness in sugar or to believe that he can change from disease to health, cowardice to heroism by a mere act of faith; his established associations would rebel violently and successfully against such contradictions of universal experience. The force which transcends matter would be hampered by the obstruction of ignorance and attachment to universal error. The hypnotic sleep does not make the mind a tabula rasa but it renders it passive to everything but the touch of the operator. Yoga similarly teaches passivity of the mind so that the will may act unhampered by the saskras or old associations. It is these saskras, the habits formed by experience in the body, heart or mind, that form the laws of our psychology. The associations of the mind are the stuff of which our life is made. They are more persistent in the body than in the mind and therefore harder to alter. They are more persistent in the race than in the individual; the conquest of the body and mind by the individual is comparatively easy and can be done in the space of a single life, but the same conquest by the race involves the development of ages. It is conceivable, however, that the practice of Yoga by a great number of men and persistence in the practice by their descendants might bring about profound changes in human psychology and, by stamping these changes into body and brain through heredity, evolve a superior race which would endure and by the law of the survival of the fittest eliminate the weaker kinds of humanity. Just as the rudimentary mind of the animal has been evolved into the fine instrument of the human being so the rudiments of higher force and faculty in the present race might evolve into the perfect buddhi of the Yogin.
Yo yacchraddha sa eva sa. According as is a mans fixed and complete belief, that he is,not immediately always but sooner or later, by the law that makes the psychical tend inevitably to express itself in the material. The will is the agent by which all these changes are made and old saskras replaced by new, and the will cannot act without faith. The question then arises whether mind is the ultimate force or there is another which communicates with the outside world through the mind. Is the mind the agent or simply the instrument? If the mind be all, then it is only animals that can have the power to evolve; but this does not accord with the laws of the world as we know them. The tree evolves, the clod evolves, everything evolves Even in animals it is evident that mind is not all in the sense of being the ultimate expression of existence or the ultimate force in Nature. It seems to be all only because that which is all expresses itself in the mind and passes everything through it for the sake of manifestation. That which we call mind is a medium which pervades the world. Otherwise we could not have that instantaneous and electrical action of mind upon mind of which human experience is full and of which the new phenom ena of hypnotism, telepathy etc. are only fresh proofs. There must be contact, there must be interpenetration if we are to account for these phenom ena on any reasonable theory. Mind therefore is held by the Hindus to be a species of subtle matter in which ideas are waves or ripples, and it is not limited by the physical body which it uses as an instrument. There is an ulterior force which works through this subtle medium called mind. An animal species develops, according to the modern theory, under the subtle influence of the environment. The environment supplies a need and those who satisfy the need develop a new species which survives because it is more fit. This is not the result of any intellectual perception of the need nor of a resolve to develop the necessary changes, but of a desire, often though not always a mute, inarticulate and unthought desire. That desire attracts a force which satisfies it What is that force? The tendency of the psychical desire to manifest in the material change is one term in the equation; the force which develops the change in response to the desire is another. We have a will beyond mind which dictates the change, we have a force beyond mind which effects it. According to Hindu philosophy the will is the Jiva, the Purusha, the self in the nandakoa acting through vijna, universal or transcendental mind; this is what we call spirit. The force is Prakriti or Shakti, the female principle in Nature which is at the root of all action. Behind both is the single Self of the universe which contains both Jiva and Prakriti, spirit and material energy. Yoga puts these ultimate existences within us in touch with each other and by stilling the activity of the saskras or associations in mind and body enables them to act swiftly, victoriously, and as the world calls it, miraculously. In reality there is no such thing as a miracle; there are only laws and processes which are not yet understood.
Yoga is therefore no dream, no illusion of mystics. It is known that we can alter the associations of mind and body temporarily and that the mind can alter the conditions of the body partially. Yoga asserts that these things can be done permanently and completely. For the body conquest of disease, pain and material obstructions, for the mind liberation from bondage to past experience and the heavier limitations of space and time, for the heart victory over sin and grief and fear, for the spirit unclouded bliss, strength and illumination, this is the gospel of Yoga, is the goal to which Hinduism points humanity.
1.060 - Tracing the Ultimate Cause of Any Experience, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
In practice, this method will fail unless the intelligence is far superior to the demands of the instinct; which is, of course, very rare to find in people. The senses generally get stirred up in the presence of their respective objects. Sense does not necessarily mean the ear or the eye even the ego is one of the senses. In an atmosphere where the ego is to be pampered, or can be pampered, where it can be elevated, where it can find its food in such an atmosphere it gets stirred up. It is activated, and its mood changes. Immediately, it flies up through a pair of new wings. When such a stirring activity within takes place, either of the senses or of the ego, one can infer the presence of a conducive atmosphere. A wise person will flee from that atmosphere; that is what an intelligent sadhaka would do. He would not stay in that place because he has found that his senses are becoming very turbulent due to the presence of certain external things. What can one do, except place oneself in a different condition where such an urge would not manifest itself? The cause of the event, the cause of the effect, is the presence of the personality in a given condition, just as favourable conditions enable a seed to sprout into a small plant while unfavourable conditions compel it to remain under the earth, as if it has no life at all. Likewise, the impulses remain inactive under unfavourable circumstances, and they manifest themselves under favourable ones.
Once we provide these impulses with the conditions that are favourable, they gain an upper hand. Then, we cannot do anything with them. They will rush forth like a river which has found a small outlet. If a river that is in high flood finds even a little outlet, it will break the entire bund and will go wherever it wishes. Likewise, even a little outlet that is provided for the movement of an impulse outside in respect of an object may be enough for it to go out of control.
1.06 - A Summary of my Phenomenological View of the World, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
That device enables us to distinguish, within the biosphere,
a specially favoured axis of complexity-consciousness: that
1.06 - LIFE AND THE PLANETS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
men; but it is astonishingly fruitful, since it enables exact measure-
ments to be made of the mass, energy, diameter, distance and
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amination of their degree of complexity enables us to distinguish
and separate those which may be called "true natural units," the
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Secondly, the coefficient of complexity further enables us to es-
tablish, among the natural units which it has helped us to "iden-
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exactly the right distance from the sun to enable the higher
chemisms to take place on its surface. We do well to look at it with
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And this we are enabled to do by the idea (a corollary, as we
have seen, of the mechanism of planetization) that ahead of, or
1.06 - Magicians as Kings, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
influence he was enabled to bring rain or sunshine, fair winds or
foul ones, sickness or health, success or disaster in war, and
1.06 - MORTIFICATION, NON-ATTACHMENT, RIGHT LIVELIHOOD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The relationship between moral action and spiritual knowledge is circular, as it were, and reciprocal. Selfless behaviour makes possible an accession of knowledge, and the accession of knowledge makes possible the performance of further and more genuinely selfless actions, which in their turn enhance the agents capacity for knowing. And so on, if all goes well and there is perfect docility and obedience, indefinitely. The process is summed up in a few lines of the Maitrayana Upanishad. A man undertakes right action (which includes, of course, right recollectedness and right meditation), and this enables him to catch a glimpse of the Self that underlies his separate individuality. Having seen his own self as the Self, he becomes selfless (and therefore acts selflessly) and in virtue of selflessness he is to be conceived as unconditioned. This is the highest mystery, betokening emancipation; through selflessness he has no part in pleasure or pain (in other words, he enters a state of non-attachment or holy indifference), but achieves absoluteness (or as Albertus Magnus phrases it, becomes immutable and arrives at that true life which is God Himself).
When mortification is perfect, its most characteristic fruit is simplicity.
1.06 - On Induction, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
The _only_ reason for believing that the laws of motion will remain in operation is that they have operated hitherto, so far as our knowledge of the past enables us to judge. It is true that we have a greater body of evidence from the past in favour of the laws of motion than we have in favour of the sunrise, because the sunrise is merely a particular case of fulfilment of the laws of motion, and there are countless other particular cases. But the real question is: Do _any_ number of cases of a law being fulfilled in the past afford evidence that it will be fulfilled in the future? If not, it becomes plain that we have no ground whatever for expecting the sun to rise to-morrow, or for expecting the bread we shall eat at our next meal not to poison us, or for any of the other scarcely conscious expectations that control our daily lives. It is to be observed that all such expectations are only _probable_; thus we have not to seek for a proof that they _must_ be fulfilled, but only for some reason in favour of the view that they are _likely_ to be fulfilled.
Now in dealing with this question we must, to begin with, make an important distinction, without which we should soon become involved in hopeless confusions. Experience has shown us that, hitherto, the frequent repetition of some uniform succession or coexistence has been a
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It has been argued that we have reason to know that the future will resemble the past, because what was the future has constantly become the past, and has always been found to resemble the past, so that we really have experience of the future, namely of times which were formerly future, which we may call past futures. But such an argument really begs the very question at issue. We have experience of past futures, but not of future futures, and the question is: Will future futures resemble past futures? This question is not to be answered by an argument which starts from past futures alone. We have therefore still to seek for some principle which shall enable us to know that the future will follow the same laws as the past.
The reference to the future in this question is not essential. The same question arises when we apply the laws that work in our experience to past things of which we have no experience--as, for example, in geology, or in theories as to the origin of the Solar System. The question we really have to ask is: 'When two things have been found to be often associated, and no instance is known of the one occurring without the other, does the occurrence of one of the two, in a fresh instance, give any good ground for expecting the other?' On our answer to this question must depend the validity of the whole of our expectations as to the future, the whole of the results obtained by induction, and in fact practically all the beliefs upon which our daily life is based.
1.06 - Quieting the Vital, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
depending on the degree of our mastery, neutralize the pain by disconnecting the consciousness from that area. The key to mastery is always silence, at every level, because silence enables us to discern the vibrations, and to discern them is to be able to act upon them. This has countless practical applications, and hence countless opportunities for progress. Ordinary everyday life (which is ordinary only for those who live it ordinarily) becomes an extraordinary field of experience and handling of vibrations, which is why Sri Aurobindo always wanted his yoga to encompass it. It is very easy to live isolated in a flawless illusion of self-mastery.
This power of silence or inner immobility has even more significant applications, for our own psychological life. The vital is not only a place of many troubles and perturbations, it is also the source of a great energy; we must therefore try to separate the life energy from its complications, without separating ourselves from life.
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corrupted, and sometimes even completely disintegrated, depending upon his own inner state. It is an individual atmosphere, as it were, a protective envelope (sensitive enough to enable us to feel somebody approaching, or avoid an accident just before it happens) where we can feel and stop the psychological vibrations before they enter us.
Generally, they are so accustomed to coming right in, since they find such affinity in us, that we do not even feel them coming; the process of appropriating and identifying with them is instantaneous. But our practice of silence has now created a transparency within us that gradually allows us to see them coming, stop them on their way in,
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spontaneously perceive all vibrations; and distinguishing what they are enables us to manipulate them, quiet them, avert or even alter them. Tranquillity, says Mother, is a very positive state; there is a positive peace which is not the opposite of strife an active and contagious and powerful peace, which subdues and calms, straightens and puts things in their place. We will give an example of this "contagious peace," although it belongs to a somewhat later stage in Sri Aurobindo's life. It was in Pondicherry, many years ago, in the season when tropical rains and sometimes cyclones sweep down suddenly and bring devastation. Doors and windows have to be barricaded with thick bamboo laths. That night, a cyclone erupted with torrents of rain, and Mother hurried to Sri Aurobindo's room to help him shut his windows. He was seated at his table, writing (for years Sri Aurobindo spent twelve hours a day writing, from six in the evening till six in the morning, then eight hours walking up and down "for the yoga"). The windows were wide open, but not a drop of rain had come inside his room. The peace that reigned there, recalls Mother, was so solid, so compact, that the cyclone could not enter.
1.06 - The Literal Qabalah, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel, will be enabled to utilize in a correct manner - that is in a way wherein arbitrary notions do not intrude - the three processes demonstrated here. For the Adept will have the inner spiritual vision with which to see beyond the mere letter and external form of the Law. In basking in the sunshine of Shechinah, and the revelation vouchsafed to him by reason of these- what otherwise might justifiably be termed - " juggleries ", he will have obtained much new knowledge to assist him on the Path. And this Path it is which goes for ever onward. Its way proceeds undeviat- ingly forward and forward, upward and upward, unto that
Goal which has neither beginning nor ending, start nor finish, but journeys eternally in every direction and dimension into Infinity.
1.06 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Intense longing enables one to see God
BRAHMO DEVOTEE: "What are the means by which one can see God?"
1.06 - The Sign of the Fishes, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the end of time. The beginning of the enantiodromia would fall,
logically, midway between the two fishes. We have seen that
1.06 - Wealth and Government, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Gracious Mother, we need Your guidance which will enable us to remain faithful to our aspiration while we work with people whose way of work may not necessarily be consistent with our aspiration and on occasions may be divergent from it. Kindly give us a guiding principle.
Here is my definition which can serve also as a motto and a programme.
1.07 - A Song of Longing for Tara, the Infallible, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
gem enable me to carry even a sesame seed with me? Since I do not
trust in illusions, you are my real richness. Please grant my desires,
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realistic appraisal of ourselves that enables us to be both humble and condent. Ive developed some qualities, and theres a long way to go. Humility is based on self-condence but leaves us open to learning, whereas
arrogance closes the door to learning.
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our spiritual practice; it enables us to develop better and better qualities.
Vigilantly observing and continuously cultivating our motivation is
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When practicing the bodhisattva path, its useful to have a good reputation because others condence in us enables us to benet them. If we do
things that cause other people to lose respect for us, beneting them and
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unless I understand the true nature, could a wish-fullling gem enable me to
carry even a sesame seed with me? Since I do not trust in illusions, you are my
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When it is time to die, unless I understand the true nature, could a wishfullling gem enable me to take even a sesame seed with me? People in
reflections on a song of longing for tara, the infallible
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Thinking this is what enabled me to cut my hair in order to ordain. I had
long, beautiful hair down to my waist that I had tended for many years while
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liberation, and enlightenment and lead us to wonderful results. Faith, condence, and trust enable our refuge in the Three Jewels to be deep and stable.
This is the basis of the rest of our practice. Some people who are new to the
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Ethical discipline enables us to be generous without harming anyone in
the process. It restrains us from actions that damage ourselves and others.
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love. Meditating on love and compassion enables us to see the tremendous
potential in each and every living being; it helps us respect them and see
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else. Instead, vows make us more aware and enable us to subdue our harmful
impulses. Because we wish to experience the benet of living in vows, we
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through gaining all the realizations of the path up to Buddhahood. The wisdom, compassion, and skillful means we develop through practice will enable
us to benet sentient beings most effectively. The kindness others have
1.07 - BOOK THE SEVENTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
What must the tender, and enamour'd maid?
Her spirits sink, the blood her cheek forsook;
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For there enamour'd Phyllius, like a slave,
Perform'd what tasks his paramour would crave.
1.07 - On Dreams, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Almost the same in form to these, but more important in their consequences, are the dreams which I mentioned just now, those which arise from the inner being seeking revenge when it is freed for a moment from the constraint that we impose upon it. These dreams often enable us to perceive tendencies, inclinations, impulses, desires of which we were not conscious so long as our will to realise our ideal kept them concealed in some obscure recess of our being.
You will easily understand that rather than letting them live on unknown to us, it is better to bring them boldly and courageously to the light, so as to force them to leave us for ever.
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If our night has enabled us to gain some new knowledge the solution of a problem, a contact of our inner being with some centre of life or light, or even the accomplishment of some useful taskwe shall always wake up with a feeling of strength and well-being.
The hours that are wasted in doing nothing good or useful are the most tiring.
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The same discipline of concentration which enables man not to remain a stranger to the inner activities of the waking state also provides him with a way to escape from his ignorance of the even richer activities of the various states of sleep.
These activities usually leave behind them only a few rare and confused memories.
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This regular exercise will enable him to go further every day towards the obscure retreat of the subconscient where these forgotten phenom ena of sleep take refuge, and thus trace out an easily followed path between these two domains of consciousness.
One useful remark to be made from this point of view is that the absence of memories is very often due to the abruptness of the return to the waking consciousness. (The waking should not be too abrupt.)
1.07 - On Our Knowledge of General Principles, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
In addition to the logical principles which enable us to prove from a given premiss that something is _certainly_ true, there are other logical principles which enable us to prove, from a given premiss, that there is a greater or less probability that something is true. An example of such principles--perhaps the most important example is the inductive principle, which we considered in the preceding chapter.
One of the great historic controversies in philosophy is the controversy between the two schools called respectively 'empiricists' and
1.07 - The Continuity of Consciousness, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
Now this condition is only transitional to still higher stages of knowledge. If the student continues his esoteric exercises he will find, in due time, that the radical change, as described above, does not confine itself to his dream life, but that this transformation also extends to what was previously a condition of deep dreamless sleep. Isolated conscious experiences begin to interrupt the complete insensibility of this deep sleep. Perceptions previously unknown to him emerge from the pervading unknown to him emerge from the pervading darkness of sleep. It is, of course, not easy to describe these perceptions, for our language is only adapted to the physical world, and therefore only approximate terms can be found to express what does not at all belong to that world. Still, such terms must be used to describe the higher worlds, and this is only possible by the free use of simile; yet seeing that everything in the world is interrelated, the attempt may be made. The things and beings of the higher worlds are closely enough related to those of the physical world to enable, with a little good will, some sort of conception of these higher worlds to be formed, even though words suitable for the physical world are used. Only the reader
p. 206
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into waking consciousness as well. The acquisition of this faculty will enable him to perceive the spiritual world in its own character, among and within the experiences of the day; that is, the hidden secrets of his environment will be conveyed to his soul as tones and words.
Now, the student must realize at this stage of development that he is dealing with separate and more or less isolated spiritual experiences. He should therefore beware of constructing out of them a complete whole or even a connected system of knowledge. In this case, all manner of fantastic ideas and conceptions would be mixed into the soul-world, and a world might thus easily be constructed which had nothing to do with the real spiritual world. The student must continually practice self-control. The right thing to do is to strive for an ever clearer conception of the isolated real experiences, and to await the spontaneous arrival of new experiences which will connect themselves, as though of their own accord, with those already recorded. By virtue of the power of the spiritual world into which he has now found his way, and through continued application to his prescribed exercises, the student experiences an
1.07 - The Ego and the Dualities, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
16:We have then the manifestation of the divine Conscious Being in the totality of physical Nature as the foundation of human existence in the material universe. We have the emergence of that Conscious Being in an involved and inevitably evolving Life, Mind and Supermind as the condition of our activities; for it is this evolution which has enabled man to appear in Matter and it is this evolution which will enable him progressively to manifest God in the body, - the universal Incarnation. We have in egoistic formation the intermediate and decisive factor which allows the One to emerge as the conscious Many out of that indeterminate totality general, obscure and formless which we call the subconscient, - hr.dya samudra, the ocean heart in things of the Rig Veda. We have the dualities of life and death, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, truth and error, good and evil as the first formations of egoistic consciousness, the natural and inevitable outcome of its attempt to realise unity in an artificial construction of itself exclusive of the total truth, good, life and delight of being in the universe. We have the dissolution of this egoistic construction by the self-opening of the individual to the universe and to God as the means of that supreme fulfilment to which egoistic life is only a prelude even as animal life was only a prelude to the human. We have the realisation of the All in the individual by the transformation of the limited ego into a conscious centre of the divine unity and freedom as the term at which the fulfilment arrives. And we have the outflowing of the infinite and absolute Existence, Truth, Good and Delight of being on the Many in the world as the divine result towards which the cycles of our evolution move. This is the supreme birth which maternal Nature holds in herself; of this she strives to be delivered.
1.07 - THE GREAT EVENT FORESHADOWED - THE PLANETIZATION OF MANKIND, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
because no power in the world can enable us to escape from what
is in itself the power of the world. And wrongly because the real
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ing of things will enable human collectivization to pass beyond the
enforced phase, where it now is, into the Jree phase: that in which
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quality and intensity of individual relationships enables the phe-
nomenon to achieve its full extent) it explains the rapid psychic rise
1.07 - The Ideal Law of Social Development, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Man, the mental being in Nature, is especially distinguished from her less developed creatures by a greater power of individuality, by the liberation of the mental consciousness which enables him finally to understand more and more himself and his law of being and his development, by the liberation of the mental will which enables him under the secret control of the universal Will to manage more and more the materials and lines of his development and by the capacity in the end to go beyond himself, beyond his mentality and open his consciousness into that from which mind, life and body proceed. He can even, however imperfectly at present, get at his highest to some consciousness of the Reality which is his true being and possess consciously also, as nothing else in terrestrial Nature can possess, the Self, the Idea, the Will which have constituted him and can become by that the master of his own nature and increasingly, not as now he is, a wrestler with dominant circumstance but the master of Nature. To do this, to arrive through mind and beyond mind at the Self, the Spirit which expresses itself in all Nature and, becoming one with it in his being, his force, his consciousness, his will, his knowledge, to possess at once humanly and divinelyaccording to the law and nature of human existence, but of human existence fulfilled in God and fulfilling God in the worldboth himself and the world is the destiny of man and the object of his individual and social existence.1
This is done primarily through the individual man; for this end man has become an individual soul, that the One may find and manifest Himself in each human being. That end is not indeed achieved by the individual human being in his unaided mental force. He needs the help of the secret Divine above his mentality in his superconscient self; he needs the help also of the secret Divine around him in Nature and in his fellow-men. Everything in Nature is an occasion for him to develop his divine potentiality, an occasion which he has a certain relative freedom to use or to misuse, although in the end both his use and misuse of his materials are overruled in their results by the universal Will so as to assist eventually the development of his law of being and his destiny. All life around him is a help towards the divine purpose in him; every human being is his fellow worker and assists him whether by association and union or by strife and opposition. Nor does he achieve his destiny as the individual Man for the sake of the individual soul alone,a lonely salvation is not his complete ideal,but for the world also or rather for God in the world, for God in all as well as above all and not for God solely and separately in one. And he achieves it by the stress, not really of his separate individual Will, but of the universal Will in its movement towards the goal of its cycles.
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Naturally, this is an ideal law which the imperfect human race has never yet really attained and it may be very long before it can attain to it. Man, not possessing, but only seeking to find himself, not knowing consciously, obeying only in the rough subconsciously or half-consciously the urge of the law of his own nature with stumblings and hesitations and deviations and a series of violences done to himself and others, has had to advance by a tangle of truth and error, right and wrong, compulsion and revolt and clumsy adjustments, and he has as yet neither the wideness of knowledge nor the flexibility of mind nor the purity of temperament which would enable him to follow the law of liberty and harmony rather than the law of discord and regimentation, compulsion and adjustment and strife. Still it is the very business of a subjective age when knowledge is increasing and diffusing itself with an unprecedented rapidity, when capacity is generalising itself, when men and nations are drawn close together and partially united though in an inextricable, confused entanglement of chaotic unity, when they are being compelled to know each other and impelled to know more profoundly themselves, mankind, God and the world and when the idea of self-realisation for men and nations is coming consciously to the surface,it is the natural work and should be the conscious hope of man in such an age to know himself truly, to find the ideal law of his being and his development and, if he cannot even then follow it ideally owing to the difficulties of his egoistic nature, still to hold it before him and find out gradually the way by which it can become more and more the moulding principle of his individual and social existence.
It may be said that since man is a mental being limited by the mind, life and body, this development and organisation of a power beyond mind, a supramental power, would be the creation of a new superhuman race and that the use of the words human and humanly would no longer be in place. This is no doubt true, but the possibility for the race still remains, if not for all in the same degree or at the same time, yet in an eventual fulfilment.
1.07 - The Magic Wand, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
A rubber hose of the same length or a wooden handle that has been pierced for this purpose may also be used. Such a wand will enable the magician to cause many magnetic and magical phenom ena, of which only a few will be treated here.
If the magician is working with the electromagnetic fluid of the universe, intending to intensify it strongly in the physical world, then he must take hold of the wand in such a manner that his right hand will touch the plus-pole and his left hand the minuspole, with the ends of the rod touching the middle of his palms.
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The experienced magician need not be told again that the power then dwelling in the wand will radiate to the furthest distances. If he introduces the Akasha-principle between himself and his object, he will be able to bridge time and space, and the power in question will immediately, by using the wand, work on the person concerned with the same kind of influence, intensity and success as it would be if the person were standing right in front of him. Charged with life-force or magnetism, with the right idea of setting limits or conditions (that is, in this case, with the idea that the life-force or magnetism in the wand will be automatically intensified from one day to the other) the wand will easily enable the magician to call into existence any phenom ena that can be effected by life-force. With a rod charged in this way, even an unexperienced person could work miracles, providing he knew how to use it. Therefore it is in the magician's own interest to keep well the secret of his magic wand. He may also charge his wand in a manner that it will automatically, without any effort on part of the will-power of the magician, bring to him a piece of life-force from the universe, which will then radiate from the wand. This kind of charging the wand with magnetism - biomagnetism - is preferred for curative operations. A magician working in the medical field may like to make use of this method and heal people far away from him by force of his wand charged in the above mentioned manner. In the hands of a magician, a wand charged in this manner, which can heal people miraculously over the widest distances, is, no doubt, a blessing for the suffering man.
The charge of a magic wand with an electric, magnetic, or electromagnetic fluid is always the same, with the only exception that the transfer of the magician's consciousness may be omitted. If only one wand is to be charged, the procedure is a little more complicated. For the wand to be charged with one fluid only, be it electric or magnetic, that fluid has to be drawn from the 50 universe with the help of the imagination und must be impelled into the rod, to which end the magician has to concentrate on the wish that whenever he desires something, the fluid inside the rod will realize at once what he wishes, even though it be directed to the furthest possible sphere or the Akasha-principle. If you terminate the accumulation so that the fluid accumulated in the rod will intensify itself automatically from the universe, that it will, in other words, work by itself bioelectrically and biomagnetically, the rod will grow into an enormously strong battery. The magician is recommended to accumulate in his own body, prior to every use, the revelant fluid in order to be strong enough for the work with the accumulated fluid of the wand. If he is not willing to do this, he should at least insulate himself before he starts work by putting on a pair of pure silk-gloves, preferably manufactured by himself. Not before he has thus insulated himself should he take the wand into his hands. Since the magician usually works with both fluids, he should take the wand charged with the electrical fluid into his right hand, and the wand charged with the magnetic fluid into his left. It is always better to charge two rods; one with the electric the other with the magnetic fluid, especially if simple twigs or wooden wands, which are not impregnated with a fluid condenser, are used. This is not absolutely necessary, but it will make work easier. The magician who has a wand filled with a fluid condenser, without the wand being parted in the middle, will find it more advantagious to have the wand filled with only one fluid, as this also will make the work easier for him. If the rod is to be charged electromagnetically, that is if both fluids should be prevalent in the wand, the magician must use a rod which has no hole in its middle. Either end of the rod has to be pierced instead, and each half of it has to be provided with a fluid condenser. The magician must, however, put a mark on either end to remind him where the electrical and where the magnetic fluid is. To give the magician a better view, the half provided for the electrical fluid is usually painted red, the half provided for the magnetic fluid is usually painted blue. The rod must then be charged in such a manner that the largest intensity of the fluids rest at the ends of the rod and that the middle, insulated with silk, remains neutral. Charging of either half has to be carried out separately, that means that you may draw from the universe first the electric fluid, accumulating it in the one end of the rod until that end is sufficiently loaded, and immediately after that the magnetic fluid, or vice versa. The magician should never try to accumulate the electric fluid several times and then the magnetic fluid several times; for the equilibrium of the fluids inside the wand must be maintained. The magician must therefore accumulate the electrical fluid on one day and the magnetic fluid the next day. When charging the wand again, he has to go about in the other way.
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2. The other way to charge the wand with elements is as follows: The magician draws the element which he wants to use for his work directly from the universe, that is, its particular Iphere, by force of the imagination, and dynamically accumulates it in the wand. When working with this kind of loaded wand, the results wanted are not caused by the beings of the elements, but directly by the magician himself. The advantage of this way of charging a wand is that it will give the magician a strong feeling of latisfaction, because he is the immediate cause of the magical effect. It is necessary, however, that a separate rod be manufactured for each of the elements and the wands must be stored apart from each other. To prevent the magician from mixing them up, he must be sure that he can easily differentiate between them by their outside appearance. Each wand may, for this purpose, have the colour of the relevant element. At the beginning the results will only occur on the mental plane, but prolonged use and repeated charging will make it work also on the astral plane, and eventually also on the physical world. This kind of wand will enable its owner to influence all manners of spirits, men, animals, even inanimate nature, by the element, similar to the influence of the electromagnetic fluid. Good magicians are able to cause, by the force of such a wand, marvelous natural phenom ena, for in Itance, change of weather, acceleration of the growth of plants, and many other things of that nature.
Regarding Point 5: Charge with the Akasha-principle:
When applying this principle, the charge of the magic wand is possible, but not any kind of accumulation, since the Akashaprinciple cannot be intensified. But repeated meditation on the qualities of the Akasha-principle with all its aspects in the magic wand will finally enable the magician to create causes in the Akasha-principle, which will itself realize in the mental and astral planes, and also in the physical plane. Using a rod charged in the manner described, the magician will be able to impel, by force of imagination, a power or quality via the wand into the Akasha, which then, like a volt created by an electromagnetic fluid, will have direct influence on the three-dimensional world from above.
Such a wand will be regarded with awe by positive intelligences and will have a frightening effect on negative beings. A wand charged in this fashion is usually preferred by magicians working with negative beings, so-called demons, in order to make them pliant. For further details on this subject see the chapter dealing with necromancy.
1.07 - THE MASTER AND VIJAY GOSWAMI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"But it isn't any and every kind of bhakti that enables one to realize God. One cannot realize God without prema-bhakti. Another name for prema-bhakti is raga-bhakti. God cannot be realized without love and longing. Unless one has learnt to love God, one cannot realize Him.
"There is another kind of bhakti, known as vaidhibhakti, according to which one must repeat the name of God a fixed number of times, fast, make pilgrimages, worship God with prescribed offerings, make so many sacrifices, and so forth and so on. By continuing such practices a long time one gradually acquires raga-bhakti. God cannot be realized until one has raga-bhakti. One must love God. In order to realize God one must be completely free from worldliness and direct all of one's mind to Him.
1.07 - The Primary Data of Being, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Thus the analysis of the essential categories of being enables us to understand how the identity of principles in the Absolute is represented in the relative by the synthesis of movement.
If desire is the first cause of the being, movement is the being itself.
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The same principle of individualisation which enables the being to detach itself from the Impersonal, determines in it a progressive differentiation of all the hitherto indistinguishable elements which constitute its existence. Each of these elements becomes as it were, a little world in the great and in its turn divisible.
But if all substance tends to be decomposed into more and more simple elements, everywhere also these elements grouped and organised attempt to recover their primal unity. And each group, each aggregation becomes a sort of collective entity with its own proper soul in which that unity is affirmed. For each of these individual egos its conscious subjectivity depends entirely on the wealth of the elements and the perfection of the relations which have gone to make up its synthesis.
1.07 - The Prophecies of Nostradamus, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
teenth century. After that an enantiodromian process set in
which, in contrast to the "Gothic" striving upwards to the
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event; in the French Revolution men witnessed the enantio-
dromia that had set in with the R enaissance and ran parallel
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22 enar. in Ps. XLVII, 3; Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 534.
23 Sancti Victoris Parisiensis Gregorianum; Migne, P.L., vol. 193, cols. 59L
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tradamus to predict the imminent enantiodromia of the Chris-
tian aeon; indeed, by making this prediction, he placed himself
1.07 - The Psychic Center, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
moments of pure transparency or of a sudden blossoming, and twenty or forty years later that picture is still alive, along with the exact hue of the sky, the stone along the path, or the insignificant gesture enacted on that day, as if all that had now become eternal. It is not even "as if"; it is eternal. These are the only moments we have lived,
the only moments when a real "I" has broken through to the surface in thousands of hours of nonexistence. In tragic circumstances, also, the psychic can emerge, when the whole being is gathered up in such a poignant intensity that something in us is suddenly rent asunder; then we sense something like a presence behind, which makes us do things we would normally be incapable of doing. For this is the other face of the psychic: not only is it joy and sweetness, but also quiet strength, as if it were forever above every possible tragedy an invulnerable master. In this case, too, the details of a scene can be indelibly engraved. But what passes on to the next life is not so much the details as the essence of the scene: we will be struck by certain repetitive patterns of events or deadlocked situations that have an air of dj vu and seem surrounded by an aura of fatality for what has not been overcome in the past returns again and again, each time with a slightly different appearance, but basically always identical, until we confront the old knot and untie it. Such is the law of inner progress.
1.07 - TRUTH, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
What is true of aesthetics is also true of theology. Theological speculation is valuable insofar as it enables those who have had immediate experience of various aspects of God to form intelligible ideas about the nature of the divine Ground, and of their own experience of the Ground in relation to other experiences. And when a coherent system of theology has been worked out, it is useful insofar as it convinces those who study it that there is nothing inherently self-contradictory about the postulate of the divine Ground and that, for those who are ready to fulfill certain conditions, the postulate may become a realized Fact. In no circumstances, however, can the study of theology or the minds assent to theological propositions take the place of what Law calls the birth of God within. For theory is not practice, and words are not the things for which they stand.
Theology as we know it has been formed by the great mystics, especially St Augustine and St Thomas. Plenty of other great theologiansespecially St Gregory and St Bernard, even down to Suarezwould not have had such insight without mystic super-knowledge.
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The word intellect is used by Eckhart in the scholastic sense of immediate intuition. Intellect and reason, says Aquinas, are not two powers, but distinct as the perfect from the imperfect. The intellect means, an intimate penetration of truth; the reason, enquiry and discourse. It is by following, and then abandoning, the rational and emotional path of word and discrimination that one is enabled to enter upon the intellectual or intuitive path of realization. And yet, in spite of the warnings pronounced by those who, through selflessness, have passed from letter to spirit and from theory to immediate knowledge, the organized Christian churches have persisted in the fatal habit of mistaking means for ends. The verbal statements of theologys more or less adequate rationalizations of experience have been taken too seriously and treated with the reverence that is due only to the Fact they are intended to describe. It has been fancied that souls are saved if assent is given to what is locally regarded as the correct formula, lost if it is withheld. The two words, filioque, may not have been the sole cause of the schism between the Eastern and Western churches; but they were unquestionably the pretext and casus belli.
The overvaluation of words and formulae may be regarded as a special case of that overvaluation of the things of time, which is so fatally characteristic of historic Christianity. To know Truth-as-Fact and to know it unitively, in spirit and in truth-as-immediate-apprehensionthis is deliverance, in this standeth our eternal life. To be familiar with the verbalized truths, which symbolically correspond to Truth-as-Fact insofar as it can be known in, or inferred from, truth-as-immediate-apprehension, or truth-as-historic-revelationthis is not salvation, but merely the study of a special branch of philosophy. Even the most ordinary experience of a thing or event in time can never be fully or adequately described in words. The experience of seeing the sky or having neuralgia is incommunicable; the best we can do is to say blue or pain, in the hope that those who hear us may have had experiences similar to our own and so be able to supply their own version of the meaning. God, however, is not a thing or event in time, and the time-bound words which cannot do justice even to temporal matters are even more inadequate to the intrinsic nature and our own unitive experience of that which belongs to an incommensurably different order. To suppose that people can be saved by studying and giving assent to formulae is like supposing that one can get to Timbuctoo by poring over a map of Africa. Maps are symbols, and even the best of them are inaccurate and imperfect symbols. But to anyone who really wants to reach a given destination, a map is indispensably useful as indicating the direction in which the traveller should set out and the roads which he must take.
1.080 - He Frowned, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
19. From a sperm drop He created him, and enabled him.
20. Then He eased the way for him.
1.08 - Independence from the Physical, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
depending on how "removed" the consciousness is from the physical level. This is an opportunity to verify concretely that when consciousness withdraws, force withdraws, because they are one and the same thing. When we faint, the consciousness withdraws also, because we are unable to withstand certain degrees of intensity, and since we have not built a conscious bridge between our various states of being, this involuntary withdrawal results in a void for us. Finally, we notice that remembering his Master, in this case the Mother, was enough to restore order in the disorder of fear, and to enable the young disciple to make the correct movement for reentering his body. By thinking of Mother, he instantly tuned in to the right vibration, which set everything right. This is, roughly speaking, one of the mechanisms of protection or help from Master to disciple.
viewpoint of the truth of things.95 For the true viewpoint is always that of the Master, the psychic, the spirit in us. Each time we feel an impossibility, a limitation, or a barrier, we can be sure that this represents tomorrow's victory, because without perceiving the obstacle we could not conquer it; we are created to conquer all and live all our dreams, for it is the spirit in us that dreams. In a world where constraints are closing in on us like an iron network, the first of these dreams is perhaps to be able to sail out in the open, unhampered by the body and by boundaries. Then we will no longer need passports;
1.08 - Psycho therapy Today, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
normal life runs this enantiodromian course and compels a change of
attitude from the extreme of the child to the other extreme of the parent.
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psycho therapeutic systems which enabled man to accomplish the difficult
transition-stages. And we do find, even at the most primitive level, certain
1.08 - SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE SPIRITUAL REPERCUSSIONS OF THE ATOM BOMB, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
with a method which would enable him to master all the forces sur-
rounding him. For one thing he had acquired absolute and final
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brains were enabled to join together in a single organism, at the
same time more complex and more centered, for the purpose of
1.08 - Sri Aurobindos Descent into Death, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
precedence was enacted on which humanitys future de-
pended?
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at the root of things has enabled the manifestation of the
Supermind in 1956. His words about the capability of the
1.08 - Stead and the Spirits, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is not, however, Lord Curzon but Mr. Stead and the spirits with whom we have to deal. We know Mr. Stead as a pushing and original journalist, not always over-refined or delicate either in his actions or expressions, skilful in the advertisement of his views, excitable, earnest, declamatory, loud and even hysterical, if you will, in some of his methods, but certainly neither a liar nor a swindler. He does and says what he believes and nothing else. It is impossible to dismiss his Bureau as an imposture or mere journalistic rclame. It is impossible to dismiss the phenom ena of spirit communications, even with all the imposture that unscrupulous money-makers have imported into them, as unreal or a deception. All that can reasonably be said is that their true nature has not yet been established beyond dispute. There are two conceivable explanations, one that of actual spirit communication, the other that of vigorously dramatised imaginary conversations jointly composed with wonderful skill and consistency by the subconscious minds, whatever that may be, of the persons present, the medium being the chief dramaturge of this subconscious literary Committee. This theory is so wildly improbable and so obviously opposed to the nature of the phenom ena themselves, that only an obstinate unwillingness to admit new facts and ideas can explain its survival, although it was natural and justifiable in the first stages of investigation. There remains the explanation of actual spirit communication. But even when we have decided on this hypothesis as the base of our investigation, we have to be on our guard against a multitude of errors; for the communications are vitiated first by the errors and self-deceptions of the medium and the sitters, then by the errors and self-deceptions of the communicant spirits, and, worst of all, by deliberate deceit, lies and jugglery on the part of the visitants from the other world. The element of deceit and jugglery on the part of the medium and his helpers is not always small, but can easily be got rid of. Cheap scepticism and cheaper ridicule in such matters is only useful for comforting small brains and weak imaginations with a sense of superiority to the larger minds who do not refuse to enquire into phenom ena which are at least widespread and of a consistently regular character. The true attitude is to examine carefully the nature of the phenom ena, the conditions that now detract from their value and the possibility of removing them and providing perfect experimental conditions which would enable us to arrive at a satisfactory scientific result. Until the value of the communications is scientifically established, any attempt to use them for utilitarian, theatrical or yet lighter purposes is to be deprecated, as such misuse may end in shutting a wide door to potential knowledge upon humanity.
From this point of view Mr. Steads bizarre experiments are to be deprecated. The one redeeming feature about them is that, as conducted, they seem to remove the first elementary difficulty in the way of investigation, the possibility of human deceit and imposture. We presume that he has got rid of professional mediums and allows only earnest-minded and honourable investigators to be present. But the other elements of error and confusion are encouraged rather than obviated by the spirit and methods of Mr. Steads Bureau. First, there is the error and self-deception of the sitters. The spirit does not express himself directly but has to give his thoughts at third hand; they come first to the intermediary spirit, Julia or another, by her they are conveyed to the human medium and through him conveyed by automatic or conscious speech or writing to the listeners. It is obvious how largely the mind of the medium and, to a smaller but still great extent, the thought-impressions of the other sitters must interfere, and this without the least intention on their part, rather in spite of a strong wish in the opposite direction. Few men really understand how the human mind works or are fitted to watch the processes of their own conscious and half-conscious thought even when the mind is disinterested, still less when it is active and interested in the subject of communication. The sitters interfere, first, by putting in their own thoughts and expressions suggested by the beginnings of the communication, so that what began as a spirit conversation ends in a tangle of the mediums or sitters ideas with the little of his own that the spirit can get in now and then. They interfere not only by suggesting what they themselves think or would say on the subject, but by suggesting what they think the spirit ought dramatically to think or say, so that Mr. Gladstone is made to talk in interminable cloudy and circumambient periods which were certainly his oratorical style but can hardly have been the staple of his conversation, and Lord Beaconsfield is obliged to be cynical and immoral in the tone of his observations. They interfere again by eagerness, which sometimes produces replies according to the sitters wishes and sometimes others which are unpleasant or alarming, but in neither case reliable. This is especially the case in answers to questions about the future, which ought never to be asked. It is true that many astonishing predictions occur which are perfectly accurate, but these are far outweighed by the mass of false and random prediction. These difficulties can only be avoided by rigidly excluding every question accompanied by or likely to raise eagerness or expectation and by cultivating entire mental passivity. The last however is impossible to the medium unless he is a practised Yogin, or in a trance, or a medium who has attained the habit of passivity by an unconscious development due to long practice. In the sitters we do not see how it is to be induced. Still, without unemotional indifference to the nature of the answer and mental passivity the conditions for so difficult and delicate a process of communication cannot be perfect.
Error and self-deception from the other side of the veil cannot be obviated by any effort on this side; all that we can do is to recognise that the spirits are limited in knowledge and cabined by character, so that we have to allow for the mental and moral equation in the communicant when judging the truth and value of the communication. Absolute deception and falsehood can only be avoided by declining to communicate with spirits of a lower order and being on guard against their masquerading under familiar or distinguished names. How far Mr. Stead and his circle have guarded against these latter errors we cannot say, but the spirit in which the sittings are conducted, does not encourage us to suppose that scrupulous care is taken in these respects. It is quite possible that some playful spirit has been enacting Mr. Gladstone to the too enthusiastic circle and has amused himself by elaborating those cloudy-luminous periods which he saw the sitters expected from the great deceased Opportunist. But we incline to the view that what we have got in this now famous spirit interview, is a small quantity of Gladstone, a great deal of Stead and a fair measure of the disembodied Julia and the assistant psychics.
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1.08 - The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:We arrive at the conception and at the knowledge of a divine existence by exceeding the evidence of the senses and piercing beyond the walls of the physical mind. So long as we confine ourselves to sense-evidence and the physical consciousness, we can conceive nothing and know nothing except the material world and its phenom ena. But certain faculties in us enable our mentality to arrive at conceptions which we may indeed deduce by ratiocination or by imaginative variation from the facts of the physical world as we see them, but which are not warranted by any purely physical data or any physical experience. The first of these instruments is the pure reason.
3:Human reason has a double action, mixed or dependent, pure or sovereign. Reason accepts a mixed action when it confines itself to the circle of our sensible experience, admits its law as the final truth and concerns itself only with the study of phenomenon, that is to say, with the appearances of things in their relations, processes and utilities. This rational action is incapable of knowing what is, it only knows what appears to be, it has no plummet by which it can sound the depths of being, it can only survey the field of becoming. Reason, on the other hand, asserts its pure action, when accepting our sensible experiences as a starting-point but refusing to be limited by them it goes behind, judges, works in its own right and strives to arrive at general and unalterable concepts which attach themselves not to the appearances of things, but to that which stands behind their appearances. It may arrive at its result by direct judgment passing immediately from the appearance to that which stands behind it and in that case the concept arrived at may seem to be a result of the sensible experience and dependent upon it though it is really a perception of reason working in its own right. But the perceptions of the pure reason may also - and this is their more characteristic action - use the experience from which they start as a mere excuse and leave it far behind before they arrive at their result, so far that the result may seem the direct contrary of that which our sensible experience wishes to dictate to us. This movement is legitimate and indispensable, because our normal experience not only covers only a small part of universal fact, but even in the limits of its own field uses instruments that are defective and gives us false weights and measures. It must be exceeded, put away to a distance and its insistences often denied if we are to arrive at more adequate conceptions of the truth of things. To correct the errors of the sense-mind by the use of reason is one of the most valuable powers developed by man and the chief cause of his superiority among terrestrial beings.
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9:But always mental experience and the concepts of the reason have been held by it to be even at their highest a reflection in mental identifications and not the supreme self-existent identity. We have to go beyond the mind and the reason. The reason active in our waking consciousness is only a mediator between the subconscient All that we come from in our evolution upwards and the superconscient All towards which we are impelled by that evolution. The subconscient and the superconscient are two different formulations of the same All. The master-word of the subconscient is Life, the master-word of the superconscient is Light. In the subconscient knowledge or consciousness is involved in action, for action is the essence of Life. In the superconscient action re-enters into Light and no longer contains involved knowledge but is itself contained in a supreme consciousness. Intuitional knowledge is that which is common between them and the foundation of intuitional knowledge is conscious or effective identity between that which knows and that which is known; it is that state of common self-existence in which the knower and the known are one through knowledge. But in the subconscient the intuition manifests itself in the action, in effectivity, and the knowledge or conscious identity is either entirely or more or less concealed in the action. In the superconscient, on the contrary, Light being the law and the principle, the intuition manifests itself in its true nature as knowledge emerging out of conscious identity, and effectivity of action is rather the accompaniment or necessary consequent and no longer masks as the primary fact. Between these two states reason and mind act as intermediaries which enable the being to liberate knowledge out of its imprisonment in the act and prepare it to resume its essential primacy. When the selfawareness in the mind applied both to continent and content, to own-self and other-self, exalts itself into the luminous selfmanifest identity, the reason also converts itself into the form of the self-luminous intuitional3 knowledge. This is the highest possible state of our knowledge when mind fulfils itself in the supramental.
10:Such is the scheme of the human understanding upon which the conclusions of the most ancient Vedanta were built. To develop the results arrived at on this foundation by the ancient sages is not my object, but it is necessary to pass briefly in review some of their principal conclusions so far as they affect the problem of the divine Life with which alone we are at present concerned. For it is in those ideas that we shall find the best previous foundation of that which we seek now to rebuild and although, as with all knowledge, old expression has to be replaced to a certain extent by new expression suited to a later mentality and old light has to merge itself into new light as dawn succeeds dawn, yet it is with the old treasure as our initial capital or so much of it as we can recover that we shall most advantageously proceed to accumulate the largest gains in our new commerce with the ever-changeless and ever-changing Infinite.
1.08 - The Supreme Will, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
4:The social law, that second term of our progress, is a means to which the ego is subjected in order that it may learn discipline by subordination to a wider collective ego. This law may be quite empty of any moral content and may express only the needs or the practical good of the society as each society conceives it. Or it may express those needs and that good, but modified and coloured and supplemented by a higher moral or ideal law. It is binding on the developing but not yet perfectly developed individual in the shape of social duty, family obligation, communal or national demand, so long as it is not in conflict with his growing sense of the higher Right. But the sadhaka of the Karmayoga will abandon this also to the Lord of works. After he has made this surrender, his social impulses and judgments will, like his desires, only be used for their exhaustion or, it may be, so far as they are still necessary for a time to enable him to identify his lower mental nature with mankind in general or with any grouping of mankind in its works and hopes and aspirations. But after that brief time is over, they will be withdrawn and a divine government will alone abide. He will be identified with the Divine and with others only through the divine consciousness and not through the mental nature.
5:For, even after he is free, the sadhaka will be in the world and to be in the world is to remain in works. But to remain in works without desire is to act for the good of the world in general or for the kind or the race or for some new creation to be evolved on the earth or some work imposed by the Divine Will within him. And this must be done either in the framework provided by the environment or the grouping in which he is born or placed or else in one which is chosen or created for him by a divine direction. Therefore in our perfection there must be nothing left in the mental being which conflicts with or prevents our sympathy and free self-identification with the kind, the group or whatever collective expression of the Divine he is meant to lead, help or serve. But in the end it must become a free selfidentification through identity with the Divine and not a mental bond or moral tie of union or a vital association dominated by any kind of personal, social, national, communal or credal egoism. If any social law is obeyed, it will not be from physical necessity or from the sense of personal or general interest or for expediency or because of the pressure of the environment or from any sense of duty, but solely for the sake of the Lord of works and because it is felt or known to be the Divine Will that the social law or rule or relation as it stands can still be kept as a figure of the inner life and the minds of men must not be disturbed by its infringement. If, on the other hand, the social law, rule or relation is disregarded, that too will not be for the indulgence of desire, personal will or personal opinion, but because a greater rule is felt that expresses the law of the Spirit or because it is known that there must be in the march of the divine All-Will a movement towards the changing, exceeding or abolition of existing laws and forms for the sake of a freer larger life necessary to the world's progress.
1.08 - The Synthesis of Movement, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
This acceleration of the internal movement which makes the living being an always more rapid epitome of all the past phases of the world and all the accumulated progress of the race, enables it to embrace more and more vast spaces of Time and enlarge itself to the infinity of its intuitive capacities.
It is this progress in the internal rapidity which renders some capable of living, in the course of their brief minutes, not the petty and very limited number of experiences to which existence is ordinarily reduced, but the equivalent of several successive lives. Far from being confined in the narrow circle of a given environment they seem to belong to all places and all times and participate in all the modes of human existence. In them successive traditions and contrary tendencies rejoin and become unified. And it is by the increasing acceleration of its course that the mind embracing an always vaster circle of the universal mounts from synthesis to synthesis towards the unity of the universal.
But if each instant of its course associates it a little more with the movement of the Infinite, each instant also, if it arrests the torrent of the becoming which sweeps it onward, enables it to enjoy the repose of the immutable and communicate in its absolute silence with the silence of the Absolute. For in every moment there is That towards which tends its infinite progress.
***
1.08 - Wherein is expounded the first line of the first stanza, and a beginning is made of the explanation of this dark night, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
3. Since, then, the conduct of these beginners upon the way of God is ignoble,61 and has much to do with their love of self and their own inclinations, as has been explained above, God desires to lead them farther. He seeks to bring them out of that ignoble kind of love to a higher degree of love for Him, to free them from the ignoble exercises of sense and meditation (wherewith, as we have said, they go seeking God so unworthily and in so many ways that are unbefitting), and to lead them to a kind of spiritual exercise wherein they can commune with Him more abundantly and are freed more completely from imperfections. For they have now had practice for some time in the way of virtue and have persevered in meditation and prayer, whereby, through the sweetness and pleasure that they have found therein, they have lost their love of the things of the world and have gained some degree of spiritual strength in God; this has enabled them to some extent to refrain from creature desires, so that for God's sake they are now able to suffer a light burden and a little aridity without turning back to a time62 which they found more pleasant. When they are going about these spiritual exercises with the greatest delight and pleasure, and when they believe that the sun of Divine favour is shining most brightly upon them, God turns all this light of theirs into darkness, and shuts against them the door and the source of the sweet spiritual water which they were tasting in God whensoever and for as long as they desired. (For, as they were weak and tender, there was no door closed to them, as Saint John says in the Apocalypse, iii, 8). And thus He leaves them so completely in the dark that they know not whither to go with their sensible imagination and meditation; for they cannot advance a step in meditation, as they were wont to do afore time, their inward senses being submerged in this night, and left with such dryness that not only do they experience no pleasure and consolation in the spiritual things and good exercises wherein they were wont to find their delights and pleasures, but instead, on the contrary, they find insipidity and bitterness in the said things. For, as I have said, God now sees that they have grown a little, and are becoming strong enough to lay aside their swaddling clothes and be taken from the gentle breast; so He sets them down from His arms and teaches them to walk on their own feet; which they feel to be very strange, for everything seems to be going wrong with them.
4. To recollected persons this commonly happens sooner after their beginnings than to others, inasmuch as they are freer from occasions of backsliding, and their desires turn more quickly from the things of the world, which is necessary if they are to begin to enter this blessed night of sense. Ordinarily no great time passes after their beginnings before they begin to enter this night of sense; and the great majority of them do in fact enter it, for they will generally be seen to fall into these aridities.
1.099 - The Entry of the Eternal into the Individual, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
But, greater means than this is the power of mantras. The continuous recitation of certain mantras, or spiritual formulae, may create internal vibrations which enable a person to exercise supernormal powers. And the effects that follow from this practice are more lasting than the use of medicinal herbs. If a mantra is recited continuously, for a very long period, with deep concentration of mind, it sets up certain vibrations which release energy from the body and the entire system. Then, what works in ones system is the mantra itself. The deity of the mantra begins to operate. Thus, the aphorism tells us that this also is one of the ways of acquiring powers by yoga.
Austerity, or tapas, of an intense character may also generate powers. The subjugation of the senses, beyond a certain degree, will set up a corresponding reaction from within, and that reaction comes in the form of powers. Any form of self-control should bring powers; it is a natural consequence thereof. We are perpetually endowed with supernormal energy, but we look weak and incapacitated on account of indulgence of the senses. Our minds and senses are the channels for the loss of energy of the system, on account of which we appear to be divested of power. So when we block the channel by which energy is depleted, there is a rousing of the force with which we are perpetually associated. This force is not created from within. In fact, the achievements or powers we are speaking of are not generated, manufactured or invented nothing of the kind. Only they are allowed to reveal themselves, while at other times their revelation is blocked by an obstructive activity of the mind and the senses a fact which is mentioned in the next sutra.
1.09 - Concentration - Its Spiritual Uses, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
A good deal of explanation is necessary here. We have to understand what Chitta is, and what the Vrittis are. I have eyes. Eyes do not see. Take away the brain centre which is in the head, the eyes will still be there, the retinae complete, as also the pictures of objects on them, and yet the eyes will not see. So the eyes are only a secondary instrument, not the organ of vision. The organ of vision is in a nerve centre of the brain. The two eyes will not be sufficient. Sometimes a man is asleep with his eyes open. The light is there and the picture is there, but a third thing is necessary the mind must be joined to the organ. The eye is the external instrument; we need also the brain centre and the agency of the mind. Carriages roll down a street, and you do not hear them. Why? Because your mind has not attached itself to the organ of hearing. First, there is the instrument, then there is the organ, and third, the mind attached to these two. The mind takes the impression farther in, and presents it to the determinative faculty Buddhi which reacts. Along with this reaction flashes the idea of egoism. Then this mixture of action and reaction is presented to the Purusha, the real Soul, who perceives an object in this mixture. The organs (Indriyas), together with the mind (Manas), the determinative faculty (Buddhi), and egoism (Ahamkra), form the group called the Antahkarana (the internal instrument). They are but various processes in the mind-stuff, called Chitta. The waves of thought in the Chitta are called Vrittis (literally "whirlpool") . What is thought? Thought is a force, as is gravitation or repulsion. From the infinite storehouse of force in nature, the instrument called Chitta takes hold of some, absorbs it and sends it out as thought. Force is supplied to us through food, and out of that food the body obtains the power of motion etc. Others, the finer forces, it throws out in what we call thought. So we see that the mind is not intelligent; yet it appears to be intelligent. Why? Because the intelligent soul is behind it. You are the only sentient being; mind is only the instrument through which you catch the external world. Take this book; as a book it does not exist outside, what exists outside is unknown and unknowable. The unknowable furnishes the suggestion that gives a blow to the mind, and the mind gives out the reaction in the form of a book, in the same manner as when a stone is thrown into the water, the water is thrown against it in the form of waves. The real universe is the occasion of the reaction of the mind. A book form, or an elephant form, or a man form, is not outside; all that we know is our mental reaction from the outer suggestion. "Matter is the permanent possibility of sensations," said John Stuart Mill. It is only the suggestion that is outside. Take an oyster for example. You know how pearls are made. A parasite gets inside the shell and causes irritation, and the oyster throws a sort of enamelling round it, and this makes the pearl. The universe of experience is our own enamel, so to say, and the real universe is the parasite serving as nucleus. The ordinary man will never understand it, because when he tries to do so, he throws out an enamel, and sees only his own enamel. Now we understand what is meant by these Vrittis. The real man is behind the mind; the mind is the instrument his hands; it is his intelligence that is percolating through the mind. It is only when you stand behind the mind that it becomes intelligent. When man gives it up, it falls to pieces and is nothing. Thus you understand what is meant by Chitta. It is the mind-stuff, and Vrittis are the waves and ripples rising in it when external causes impinge on it. These Vrittis are our universe.
The bottom of a lake we cannot see, because its surface is covered with ripples. It is only possible for us to catch a glimpse of the bottom, when the ripples have subsided, and the water is calm. If the water is muddy or is agitated all the time, the bottom will not be seen. If it is clear, and there are no waves, we shall see the bottom. The bottom of the lake is our own true Self; the lake is the Chitta and the waves the Vrittis. Again, the mind is in three states, one of which is darkness, called Tamas, found in brutes and idiots; it only acts to injure. No other idea comes into that state of mind. Then there is the active state of mind, Rajas, whose chief motives are power and enjoyment. "I will be powerful and rule others." Then there is the state called Sattva, serenity, calmness, in which the waves cease, and the water of the mind-lake becomes clear. It is not inactive, but rather intensely active. It is the greatest manifestation of power to be calm. It is easy to be active. Let the reins go, and the horses will run away with you. Anyone can do that, but he who can stop the plunging horses is the strong man. Which requires the greater strength, letting go or restraining? The calm man is not the man who is dull. You must not mistake Sattva for dullness or laziness. The calm man is the one who has control over the mind waves. Activity is the manifestation of inferior strength, calmness, of the superior.
1.09 - Fundamental Questions of Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
social. His medical premises enable him to size up correctly the somatic
and biological aspects of the material he has to deal with; his general
--
experiences; and, by means of a ritualistic anamnesis, they enable the
conscious mind to preserve its link with the unconscious, which continues
1.09 - Man - About the Body, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
This law of analogy is a very important factor in the hermetic science and the knowledge of it enables the adept to perform great miracles with the aid of this key.
The food contains the elements mingled with each other. The result of taking in food is a chemical process by which the elements are preserved in our body. From the medical point of view, the taking in of any kind of food, together with the breathing, causes a process of combustion. The hermetist sees far more in this process than just a simple chemical event. He regards this combustion as the mutual dissolving of food, just like the fire is kept burning by fuel. Therefore the whole life depends on the continuous supply of fuel, that is the food and the breathing. To supply every element with the necessary preserving substances, a mixed food is advisable which contains the fundamental materials of the elements. If we were to restrict our whole life to a one-sided kind of food only, our body would, without any doubt, fall ill, meaning that such a kind of food would produce a disharmony in the body. By the disintegration of air and food, the elements are provided with the supporting substances and in this way their activity is maintained. Such is mans natural mode of life. If an element is missing, as it were, the fuel, all the functions depending on it are immediately affected. If, e.g., the fiery element in the body works excessively, we feel thirsty, the air element makes us feel hungry, the element of water causes a feeling of cold, and the earthy element produces tiredness. On the other hand, every over-saturation of the elements causes reinforced effects in the body. A surplus of the fiery element creates a yearning for movement and activity. If this be the case with the watery element, the secretive process will be stronger. Any over-saturation of the airy element indicates that we must be moderate in taking food at all. An over-saturation of the earth element affects the aspects of sexual life, which must not necessarily find expression in the sexual instinct in the fleshly sense. It is quite possible -- and this will especially occur in the case of elderly people that they will feel a longing for increased activity and for productive agility.
1.09 - PROMENADE, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
Such an enamored fool in air would blow
Sun, moon, and all the starry legions,
1.09 - SKIRMISHES IN A WAY WITH THE AGE, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
rather the very prerequisite which enables the artist to accomplish
something?... Is his most fundamental instinct concerned with art?
1.09 - The Absolute Manifestation, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Is it impossible to conceive between the pure absolute and the state of manifestation some middle term which will enable us to discern the origin of the desire to be?
If from the pure Absolute unseizable by our thought the relative cannot originate, yet may that relative appear to us, beyond our experimental concepts, in forms more and more remote from those in which it is clothed by the concrete reality, more and more approximating to the Indiscernable. In other words, it is in the Absolute itself, at the limits of our concepts, that we may attempt to imagine what the relative may have been before it became the relative.
1.09 - The Guardian of the Threshold, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
preparation must aim at enabling him to endure the terrible sight without a trace of timidity and, at the moment of the meeting, to feel his strength so increased that he can undertake fully conscious the responsibility for transforming and beautifying the Guardian.
If successful, this meeting with the Guardian results in the student's next physical death being an entirely different event from the death as he knew it formerly. He experiences death consciously by laying aside the physical body as one discards a garment that is worn out or perhaps rendered useless through a sudden rent. Thus his physical death is of special importance only for those living with him, whose perception is still restricted to the world of the senses. For them the student dies; but for himself nothing of importance is changed in his whole environment. The entire supersensible world stood open to him before his death, and it is this same world that now confronts him after death.
1.09 - The Secret Chiefs, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
(It should go without saying that the adroit use of these vibrations enables one to perform all the classical "miracles.")
These powers are stupendous: they seem almost beyond imagination to conceive.
1.09 - The Worship of Trees, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
they set a little ladder against the trunk to enable him to descend
with safety and comfort. The Mandelings of Sumatra endeavour to lay
1.1.01 - Seeking the Divine, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Shantimaya Shiva; in the Light, in the delivering Knowledge, the Love, the fulfilling and uplifting Power you can meet the presence of the Divine Mother It is this perception that makes the experiences of the bhaktas and mystics so rapturous and enables them to pass more easily through the nights of anguish and separation - when there is this soul-perception, it gives to even a little or brief Ananda a force or value it would not otherwise have and the Ananda itself gathers by it a growing power to stay, to return, to increase.This was what the Mother meant
Seeking the Divine
11.01 - The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The enamoured laugh which rhymed the chanting worlds:
"O beautiful body of the incarnate Word,
--
I will enact the drama of thy soul,
Inscribe the long romance of Thee and Me.
--
And thrill with love of God the enamoured heart
And place Light's crown on Nature's lifted head
--
And hearts grow enamoured of divine delight
And human wills tune to the divine will,
--
In an enamoured grasp her spirit strove
Admitting no release till Time should end,
1.1.02 - Sachchidananda, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Power means strength and force, Shakti, which enables one to face all that can happen and to stand and overcome, also to carry out what the Divine Will proposes. It can include many things, power over men, events, circumstances, means etc. But all this not of the mental or vital kind, but by an action through unity of consciousness with the Divine and with all things and beings. It is not an individual strength depending on certain personal capacities, but the Divine Power using the individual as an instrument. It has no special relation to occult siddhis.
Force is the essential Shakti; Energy is the working drive of the
1.10 - Aesthetic and Ethical Culture, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Republican Romebefore it was touched and finally taken captive by conquered Greecestands out in relief as one of the most striking psychological phenom ena of human history. From the point of view of human development it presents itself as an almost unique experiment in high and strong character-building divorced as far as may be from the sweetness which the sense of beauty and the light which the play of the reason brings into character and uninspired by the religious temperament; for the early Roman creed was a superstition, a superficial religiosity and had nothing in it of the true religious spirit. Rome was the human will oppressing and disciplining the emotional and sensational mind in order to arrive at the self-mastery of a definite ethical type; and it was this self-mastery which enabled the Roman republic to arrive also at the mastery of its environing world and impose on the nations its public order and law. All supremely successful imperial nations have had in their culture or in their nature, in their formative or expansive periods, this predominance of the will, the character, the impulse to self-discipline and self-mastery which constitutes the very basis of the ethical tendency. Rome and Sparta like other ethical civilisations had their considerable moral deficiencies, tolerated or deliberately encouraged customs and practices which we should call immoral, failed to develop the gentler and more delicate side of moral character, but this is of no essential importance. The ethical idea in man changes and enlarges its scope, but the kernel of the true ethical being remains always the same,will, character, self-discipline, self-mastery.
Its limitations at once appear, when we look back at its prominent examples. Early Rome and Sparta were barren of thought, art, poetry, literature, the larger mental life, all the amenity and pleasure of human existence; their art of life excluded or discouraged the delight of living. They were distrustful, as the exclusively ethical man is always distrustful, of free and flexible thought and the aesthetic impulse. The earlier spirit of republican Rome held at arms length as long as possible the Greek influences that invaded her, closed the schools of the Greek teachers, banished the philosophers, and her most typical minds looked upon the Greek language as a peril and Greek culture as an abomination: she felt instinctively the arrival at her gates of an enemy, divined a hostile and destructive force fatal to her principle of living. Sparta, though a Hellenic city, admitted as almost the sole aesthetic element of her deliberate ethical training and education a martial music and poetry, and even then, when she wanted a poet of war, she had to import an Athenian. We have a curious example of the repercussion of this instinctive distrust even on a large and aesthetic Athenian mind in the utopian speculations of Plato who felt himself obliged in his Republic first to censure and then to banish the poets from his ideal polity. The end of these purely ethical cultures bears witness to their insufficiency. Either they pass away leaving nothing or little behind them by which the future can be attracted and satisfied, as Sparta passed, or they collapse in a revolt of the complex nature of man against an unnatural restriction and repression, as the early Roman type collapsed into the egoistic and often orgiastic licence of later republican and imperial Rome. The human mind needs to think, feel, enjoy, expand; expansion is its very nature and restriction is only useful to it in so far as it helps to steady, guide and streng then its expansion. It readily refuses the name of culture to those civilisations or periods, however noble their aim or even however beautiful in itself their order, which have not allowed an intelligent freedom of development.
1.10 - Concentration - Its Practice, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
Now we shall understand the aphorism that the states of the qualities are defined, undefined, indicated only, and signess. By the "defined" are meant the gross elements, which we can sense. By the "undefined" are meant the very fine materials, the Tanmatras, which cannot be sensed by ordinary men. If you practise Yoga, however, says Patanjali, after a while your perceptions will become so fine that you will actually see the Tanmatras. For instance, you have heard how every man has a certain light about him; every living being emits a certain light, and this, he says, can be seen by the Yogi. We do not all see it, but we all throw out these Tanmatras, just as a flower continuously sends out fine particles which enable us to smell it. Every day of our lives we throw out a mass of good or evil, and everywhere we go the atmosphere is full of these materials. That is how there came to the human mind, unconsciously, the idea of building temples and churches. Why should man build churches in which to worship God? Why not worship Him anywhere? Even if he did not know the reason, man found that the place where people worshipped God became full of good Tanmatras. Every day people go there, and the more they go the holier they get, and the holier that place becomes. If any man who has not much Sattva in him goes there, the place will influence him and arouse his Sattva quality. Here, therefore, is the significance of all temples and holy places, but you must remember that their holiness depends on holy people congregating there. The difficulty with man is that he forgets the original meaning, and puts the cart before the horse. It was men who made these places holy, and then the effect became the cause and made men holy. If the wicked only were to go there, it would become as bad as any other place. It is not the building, but the people that make a church, and that is what we always forget. That is why sages and holy persons, who have much of this Sattva quality, can send it out and exert a tremendous influence day and night on their surroundings. A man may become so pure that his purity will become tangible. Whosoever comes in contact with him becomes pure.
Next "the indicated only" means the Buddhi, the intellect. "The indicated only" is the first manifestation of nature; from it all other manifestations proceed. The last is "the signless". There seems to be a great difference between modern science and all religions at this point. Every religion has the idea that the universe comes out of intelligence. The theory of God, taking it in its psychological significance, apart from all ideas of personality, is that intelligence is first in the order of creation, and that out of intelligence comes what we call gross matter. Modern philosophers say that intelligence is the last to come. They say that unintelligent things slowly evolve into animals, and from animals into men. They claim that instead of everything coming out of intelligence, intelligence itself is the last to come. Both the religious and the scientific statements, though seeming directly opposed to each other are true. Take an infinite series, ABAB AB. etc. The question is which is first, A or B? If you take the series as AB. you will say that A is first, but if you take it as BA, you will say that B is first. It depends upon the way we look at it. Intelligence undergoes modification and becomes the gross matter, this again merges into intelligence, and thus the process goes on. The Sankhyas, and other religionists, put intelligence first, and the series becomes intelligence, then matter. The scientific man puts his finger on matter, and says matter, then intelligence. They both indicate the same chain. Indian philosophy, however, goes beyond both intelligence and matter, and finds a Purusha, or Self, which is beyond intelligence, of which intelligence is but the borrowed light.
1.10 - Harmony, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
And the Rhythm, the great Rhythm, was scattered, broken up, pulverized to enter the heart of its world and make itself the size of the millipede or a little leaf quivering in the wind, to make itself understood by a brain, loved by a passerby. We have drawn from it syncopated music, multicolored pictures, joys, sorrows, since we could no longer contain its whole, unbroken flow. We have made it into equations, poems, architecture; we have trapped it in our machines, locked it in an amulet or a thought, since we could no longer bear the pressure of its great direct flow. And we have made dungeons, hells, which were the absence of that rhythm, the lack of a lungful of eternal air, the suffocation of a little man who believes only in his suffering, only in the push buttons of his machine and the walls of his intelligence. We have graphed, multiplied, broken down, atomized to infinity; and we could no longer make out or understand anything, since we had lost the one little breath of the great breath, the one little sign of the great Direction, the little note that loves and understands all. And since we had closed everything around us, locked ourselves in a shell, armor-plated ourselves in our thinking logic, equipped ourselves with irrefutable helmets and antennas, we have declared that that Harmony, that Rhythm, did not exist, that it was far, far above, the paradise of our virtues, the crackling of our little antennas, the dream of a collective unconscious, the product of the evolved earthworm, the meeting of two enamored molecules like the savage of old who used to cut up the unknown lands, we have cut up space and time, thrown back into another geography the Ganges and El Dorados we have not yet crossed, the pretty fords of that little river. But that Ganges and that El Dorado are here, as well as many other marvels, many other currents of the great Current. All is here, under our feet, if we will only open the little shell and stop putting off until heaven or doomsday what sings in each minute of time and each pebble of space.
This is the Harmony of the new world, the joy of the greater Self. It is here, instantly, if we want. All it takes is removing our blinders. All it takes is a true look, a simple look at the great world. All it takes is a little fire inside to consume all the shells and sufferings and bubbles for the only suffering is to be confined there.
1.10 - Laughter Of The Gods, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
The old ide fixe that Sri Aurobindo was an anchorite who did not know how to smile or laugh is by now dead. A new fixed notion may swing to the other extreme that he smiled or laughed too much for a yogi. But a sensible estimate, after a reading of his letters, talks and creative works, will confirm the view that his Yoga instead of drying up the fountain of laughter made it flow like the Ganges. For his consciousness grew as vast as the universe; it sounded the uttermost depths and heights of existence. He read the "wonder-book of Common things" as well as the supernal mysteries of God and found the very rasa which is at the root of things. His love and compassion flowed towards all men and creatures like a life-giving ocean. He said in one of his letters: "It is only divine Love which can bear the burden I have to bear, that all have to bear who have sacrificed everything else to the one aim of uplifting earth out of its darkness towards the Divine. The Gallio-like 'Je m'en fiche'-ism (I do not care) would not carry me one step; it would certainly not be divine. It is quite another thing that enables me to walk unweeping and unlamenting towards the goal." In his own Ashram which is composed, on the one hand, of unlettered villagers and, on the other, of the intellectual lite, with what patience and forbearance, love and sympathy he, like a grand patriarch, guided and led us all towards the goal! Humour that springs from a heart of sympathy made him smile at our follies and foibles and the numerous eccentricities of our human nature. The readers of Talks with Sri Aurobindo must have observed how Sri Aurobindo threw aside his mantle of gravity and enjoyed with us pure fun and frolic, as if we had been his close playmates. In the preceding chapter we have already touched upon one instance. In the period after the accident to his right leg, when he failed to carry out Dr. Manilal's instructions about hanging the leg, he would exclaim as if out of fear, "Oh, Manilal is coming, I must hang my leg." And one of us, piqued by his fear, would remark, "Sir, you seem to be afraid of Dr. Manilal." When Manilal arrived and enquired about the leg, he replied, "The leg is still hanging."
Yogis and great men there were, who used to joke with their disciples and friends; but it seems to me that there was always a barrier of awe and reverence between them. And though Sri Aurobindo allowed us to forget that and we cut jokes with him on equal terms, the sense of his being our Guru was there.
1.10 - Life and Death. The Greater Guardian of the Threshold, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
In the above the answer will be found to the question why man works his way only gradually through error and imperfection to the good and true. His actions, feelings, and thoughts are at first dominated by the perishing and the mortal. The latter gave rise to his sense-organs. For this reason, these organs and all things activating them are doomed to perish The imperishable will not be found in the instincts, impulses, and passions, or in the organs belonging to them, but only in the work produced by these organs. Man must extract from the perishable everything that can be extracted, and this work alone will enable him to discard the background out of which he has grown, and which finds its expression in the physical sense-world.
p. 252
1.10 - Mantra Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
9. OM, Soham, Sivoham, Aham Brahmasmi are Moksha Mantras. They will help you to attain Self-realisation. Om Sri Ramaya Namah, Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya are Saguna Mantras which will enable you to attain Saguna realisation first and then Nirguna realisation in the end.
10. Mantra for curing scorpion stings and cobra bites should be repeated on eclipse days for getting Mantra Siddhi quickly. You should stand in the water and repeat the Mantra. This is more powerful and effective. They can be recited on ordinary days also for attaining Mantra-Siddhi.
1.10 - On our Knowledge of Universals, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
We believe that all men are mortal because we know that there are innumerable instances of men dying, and no instances of their living beyond a certain age. We do not believe it because we see a connexion between the universal _man_ and the universal _mortal_. It is true that if physiology can prove, assuming the general laws that govern living bodies, that no living organism can last for ever, that gives a connexion between _man_ and _mortality_ which would enable us to assert our proposition without appealing to the special evidence of _men_ dying. But that only means that our generalization has been subsumed under a wider generalization, for which the evidence is still of the same kind, though more extensive. The progress of science is constantly producing such subsumptions, and therefore giving a constantly wider inductive basis for scientific generalizations. But although this gives a greater _degree_ of certainty, it does not give a different _kind_: the ultimate ground remains inductive, i.e. derived from instances, and not an _a priori_ connexion of universals such as we have in logic and arithmetic.
Two opposite points are to be observed concerning _a priori_ general propositions. The first is that, if many particular instances are known, our general proposition may be arrived at in the first instance by induction, and the connexion of universals may be only subsequently perceived. For example, it is known that if we draw perpendiculars to the sides of a triangle from the opposite angles, all three perpendiculars meet in a point. It would be quite possible to be first led to this proposition by actually drawing perpendiculars in many cases, and finding that they always met in a point; this experience might lead us to look for the general proof and find it. Such cases are common in the experience of every mathematician.
1.10 - The Absolute of the Being, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
The concept of the infinite manifestation enables us to understand and so to justify one of the fundamental tendencies of the being, one of the essential characteristics of desire.
If the being is entirely an exclusive will towards self-affirmation, towards individual fixity, it is also by a sort of self-contradiction the field of the most constantly changing desires. This contradiction carries in it the mark of the beings origin and essence. It wishes at one and the same time for the unity and the infinity of being of the Absolute because, itself one of the possibilities of the Absolute, it implies and desires all the others. But desiring itself more than the others it leaves the eternal plenitude to enter into the limitation, into the privation, into the inconstant state of the relative.
1.10 - THE FORMATION OF THE NOOSPHERE, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
has enabled man zoologically to emerge and triumph upon earth,
is that he has avoided the anatomical mechanization of his body.
--
at the outset was enabled by the tool to preserve and develop his
THE FORMATION OF THE NOO SPHERE 161
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of our ideas, has been enabled to leap the optical gap between the
cell and the direct observation of large molecules.
--
were to enable him to invade the New World. Then, only seven or
eight thousand years ago, there came the first civilizations, each
--
powers which will enable it to superorganize matter. And, even
more important, is it not possible that by the direct converging of
1.10 - The Methods and the Means, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
These two explanations are apparently conflicting, yet both are true and necessary. The manipulating and controlling of what may be called the finer body, viz the mood, are no doubt higher functions than the controlling of the grosser body of flesh. But the control of the grosser is absolutely necessary to enable one to arrive at the control of the finer. The beginner, therefore, must pay particular attention to all such dietetic rules as have come down from the line of his accredited teachers; but the extravagant, meaningless fanaticism, which has driven religion entirely to the kitchen, as may be noticed in the case of many of our sects, without any hope of the noble truth of that religion ever coming out to the sunlight of spirituality, is a peculiar sort of pure and simple materialism. It is neither Jnna, nor Bhakti, nor Karma; it is a special kind of lunacy, and those who pin their souls to it are more likely to go to lunatic asylums than to Brahmaloka. So it stands to reason that discrimination in the choice of food is necessary for the attainment of this higher state of mental composition which cannot be easily obtained otherwise.
Controlling the passions is the next thing to be attended to. To restrain the Indriyas (organs) from going towards the objects of the senses, to control them and bring them under the guidance of the will, is the very central virtue in religious culture. Then comes the practice of self-restraint and self-denial.
1.10 - Theodicy - Nature Makes No Mistakes, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
hidden, profound, subconscious, it is that which enables
and compels things to remain in existence. It is the reason
--
Avatars enabling and supporting the evolution. This Love
would also create the presence of the soul, the divine Self,
1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If this traditionlet us call it mystic or esoteric for want of a less abused wordwas already formed at the time of the Brahmanas and Upanishads, when and how did it originally arise? Two possibilities present themselves. The tradition may have grown up gradually in the period between the Vedic hymns and the exegetical writings or else the esoteric sense may have already existed in the Veda itself and descended in a stream of tradition to the later mystics, developing, modifying itself, substituting new terms for oldas is the way of traditions. The former is, practically, the European theory.We are told that this spiritual revolution, this movement away from ritual Nature-worship to Brahmavada, begun in the seed in the later Vedic hymns, is found in a more developed state in the Upanishads & culminated in Buddha. In these writings and in the Brahmanas some record can be found of the speculations by which the development was managed. If it prove to be so, if these ancient writings are really the result of progressive intellectual speculation departing from crude & imperfect beginnings of philosophic thought, the European theory justifies itself to the reason and can no longer easily be disputed. But is this the true character of the Upanishads? It seems to me that in most of their dealings with our religions and our philosophical literature European scholars have erred by imposing their own familiar ideas and the limits of their own mentality on the history of an alien mentality and an alien development. Nowhere has this error been more evident than in the failure to realise the true nature of the Upanishads. In India we have never developed, but only affirmed thought by philosophical speculation, because we have never attached to the mere intellectual idea the amazingly exaggerated value which Europe has attached to it, but regarded it only as a test of the logical value to be attached to particular intellectual statements of truth. That is not truth to us which is merely well & justly thought out & can be justified by ratiocinative argument; only that is truth which has been lived & seen in the inner experience. We meditate not to get ideas, but in order to experience, to realise. When we speak of the Jnani, the knower, we do not mean a competent and logical thinker full of wise or of brilliant ideas, but a soul which has seen and lived & spoken in himself with the living truth. Ratiocination is freely used by the later philosophers, but only for the justification against opponents of the ideas already formed by their own meditation or the meditation of others, Rishis, gurus, ancient Vedantins; it is not itself a sufficient means towards the discovery of truth, but at best a help. The ideas of our great thinkers are not mere intellectual statements or even happy or great intuitions; they are based upon spiritual experiences formalised by the intellect into a philosophy. Shankaras passionate advocacy of the idea of Maya as an explanation of life was not merely the ardour of a great metaphysician enamoured of a beautiful idea or a perfect theory of life, but the passion of a man with a deep & vast spiritual experience which he believed to be the sole means of human salvation. Therefore philosophy in India, instead of tending as in Europe to ignore or combat religion, has always been itself deeply religious. In Europe Buddha and Shankara would have become the heads of metaphysical schools & ranked with Kant or Hegel or Nietzsche1 as strong intellectual influences; in India they became, inevitably, the founders of great religious sects, immense moral & spiritual forces;inevitably because Europe has made thought its highest & noblest aim, while India seeks not after thought but soul-vision and inner experience and even in the realm of ideas believes that they can & ought to be seen & lived inwardly rather than merely thought and allowed indirectly to influence outward action. This has been the mentality of our race for ages.Was the mentality of our Vedic forefa thers entirely different from our own? Was it, as Western scholars seem to insist, a European mentality, the mentality of incursive Western savages, (it is Sergis estimate of the Aryans), changed afterwards by the contact with the cultured & reflective Dravidians into something new and strange, rationality changing to mysticism, materialism to a metaphysical spirituality? If so, the change had already been effected when the Upanishads were written. We speak of the discussions in the Upanishads; but in all truth the twelve Upanishads contain not a single genuine discussion. Only once in that not inconsiderable mass of literature, is there something of the nature of logical argument brought to the support of a philosophical truth. The nature of debate or logical reasoning is absent from the mentality of the Upanishadic thinkers. The grand question they always asked each other was not What hast thou thought out in this matter? or What are thy reasonings & conclusions? but What dost thou know? What hast thou seen in thyself? The Vedantic like the Vedic Rishi is a drashta & srota, not a manota, a kavi, not a manishi. There is question, there is answer; but solely for the comparison of inner knowledge & experience; never for ratiocinative argument, for disputation, for the battles of the logician. Always, knowledge, spiritual vision, experience are what is demanded; and often a questioner is turned back because he is not yet prepared in soul to realise the knowledge of the master. For all knowledge is within us and needs only to be awakened by the fit touch which opens the eyes of the soul or by the powerful revealing word.We find throughout the Vedic era always the same method, always the same theory of knowledge; they persist indeed in India to the present day and later habits of metaphysical debate unknown to the Vedic Brahmavadins have never been able to dethrone them from their primaeval supremacy. Let a man present never so finely reasoned a system of metaphysical philosophy, few will turn to hear, none leave his labour to receive, but let a man say as in the old Vedantic times I have experienced, my soul has seen, & hundreds in India will yet leave all to share in this new light of the eternal Truth.
concrete visualisation & passion for his ideas & experiences which mark off the religious from the merely philosophical mind.
1.11 - Powers, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
By the threefold changes in the mind-stuff as to form, time and state are explained the corresponding changes in gross and subtle matter and in the organs. Suppose there is a lump of gold. It is transformed into a bracelet and again into an ear-ring. These are changes as to form. The same phenom ena looked at from the standpoint of time give us change as to time. Again, the bracelet or the ear-ring may be bright or dull, thick or thin, and so on. This is change as to state. Now referring to the aphorisms 9, l1 and 12, the mind-stuff is changing into Vrittis this is change as to form. That it passes through past, present and future moments of time is change as to time. That the impressions vary as to intensity within one particular period, say, present, is change as to state. The concentrations taught in the preceding aphorisms were to give the Yogi a voluntary control over the transformations of his mind-stuff, which alone will enable him to make the Samyama named in III. 4.
14. That which is acted upon by transformations, either past, present, or yet to be manifested is the qualified.
1.11 - The Change of Power, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
In fact, the first effect of Truth as it touches a new layer is to produce a frightful disorder, or so it seems. The first effects of mental truth when it touched the primates must have been traumatic, we can assume, and utterly subversive of the simian order and effectiveness; a peasant has only to take a book for the first time for all his bucolic peace to be upset and his sound and simple notion of things to be thrown into turmoil. Truth is a great disturber. Indeed if it were not there to goad and press on the world, the stone would have forever remained in its mineral bliss and man in his satisfied economy which is why no supereconomy, no acme of political ingenuity, no perfection of egalitarianism or distribution of human wealth, nor even any paroxysm of charity and philanthropy can ever satisfy the heart of man and halt the irresistible onrush of Truth. Truth can only stop at the totality of Truth the totality of Joy and Harmony in each particle and the entire universe although it will not stop anywhere, for Truth is infinite and its marvels inexhaustible. We tend quite naturally and anthropocentrically to declare that we make great efforts to attain light and truth, and this and that, but it may be presumptuousness on our part, and the lotus seed rises inevitably toward the light, wrenches itself free from the mud and bursts open in the sunshine, in spite of all its efforts to become, say, a water lily or a supertulip and that Sun presses and presses, churns and kneads and ferments its rebellious soil, brings its chemical ingredients to a boil and breaks the husk, till everything is returned to its ultimate beauty, in spite of all our efforts to become, say, just a social and intelligent fellow. The great Sun of evolution presses upon its world, cracking its old molds, fermenting the heresies of the future and bringing to a boil the pale canned wisdoms of the mental legislators. Was there ever a more desperate time, more empty, more dreadfully confined in its flimsy triumphs and enameled virtues than the so-called belle poque? But that enamel is cracking, and so much the better; all our virtues and mental certainties and fantasies of a great economic Disneyl and on earth are crumbling, and again, so much the better. Truth, the great Harmony to be, is mercilessly tightening its screw on our intellectual helmets, exposing each speck of dirt, each weakness, drawing out the poison and churning its humanity, like the ocean of unconsciousness of the Puranic legends, until it yields all its nectar of immortality.
And the seeker discovers on his own small scale, in the microcosm he represents that the Harmony of the new world, the new consciousness he has touched gropingly, is a tremendous transforming Power. In the past, it may have chanted up above, produced lovely poems and cathedrals of wisdom and beauty, but when it touches matter, it takes on the austere face of the angry Mother, thrashing her children and sculpting them mercilessly into the image of her own demanding Rectitude and compassion, the infinite grace that stops just in time, administers just the necessary does and does not inflict one ounce of suffering more than is indispensable. When the seeker begins to open his eyes to this Compassion, this infinite wisdom in the minutest detail, these unbelievable detours to achieve a fuller and more encompassing perfection, these studied obscurities and concerted rebellions, these falls into a greater light, and the infinite march of a Beauty that leaves no hidden stain, no trace of imperfection, no refuge of weakness or disguised pettiness, no recess of falsehood, he is filled with a wonder that surpasses all sidereal measures and cosmic magic. For, truly, being able to attend to such a microscopic point of matter so futile under the stars, so complicated in its tangle of pain and revolt, its obscure resistance that threatens disaster at every instant, and those thousands of little disasters to ward off every day and at every step, those millions of little sufferings to transmute without blowing up the world requires a power such as the earth has never known before. Disease is breaking out everywhere, in every country, every consciousness, every atom of the great earthly body this is a merciless revolution, a relentless transmutation and yet, here and there, in each human consciousness, each country, each fragment of the great torn body, the catastrophe is avoided at the last minute, the best slowly comes out of the worst, consciousness awakens, and our stumbling steps take us despite themselves to the ultimate gate of deliverance. Such is the formidable Harmony, the imperative Power that the seeker discovers step by step and in his own substance.
1.11 - The Kalki Avatar, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
body some power of the Divine and is enabled by it to act
with great force in the world, but that is all that is neces-
1.11 - The Seven Rivers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Gods and men, says Vishwamitra in effect, kindle this divine force by lighting the fires of the inner sacrifice; they enable it to work by their adoration and submission to it; they express in heaven, that is to say, in the pure mentality which is symbolised by Dyaus, the knowings of the Seers, in other words the illuminations of the Truth-consciousness which exceeds Mind; and they do this in order to make a passage for this divine force which in its strength seeking always to find the word of right self-expression aspires beyond mind. This divine will carrying in all its workings the secret of the divine knowledge, kavikratuh., befriends or builds up the mental and physical consciousness in man, divah. pr.thivyah., perfects the intellect, purifies the discernment so that they grow to be capable of the "knowings of the seers" and by the superconscient Truth thus made conscient in us establishes firmly the Beatitude (vs. 2-3).
The rest of the passage describes the ascent of this divine conscious-force, Agni, this Immortal in mortals who in the sacrifice takes the place of the ordinary will and knowledge of man, from the mortal and physical consciousness to the immortality of the Truth and the Beatitude. The Vedic Rishis speak of five births for man, five worlds of creatures where works are done, panca janah., panca kr.s.t.h. or ks.ith.. Dyaus and Prithivi represent the pure mental and the physical consciousness; between them is the Antariksha, the intermediate or connecting level of the vital or nervous consciousness. Dyaus and Prithivi are Rodasi, our two firmaments; but these have to be overpassed, for then we find admission to another heaven than that of the pure mind - to the wide, the Vast which is the basis, the foundation (budhna) of the infinite consciousness, Aditi. This Vast is the Truth which supports the supreme triple world, those highest steps or seats
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The force of the vital breath enables us to bring up and speed
outward from the body this speech that we use to express, to
--
and enable the mental being to realise that which is the hidden
secret of all its formal practice and action. Thus shall man come
--
in a way that utterly satisfies my being because it enables me
first to comprehend it through these figures as far as it can be
1.12 - Delight of Existence - The Solution, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:IN THIS conception of an inali enable underlying delight of existence of which all outward or surface sensations are a positive, negative or neutral play, waves and foamings of that infinite deep, we arrive at the true solution of the problem we are examining. The self of things is an infinite indivisible existence; of that existence the essential nature or power is an infinite imperishable force of self-conscious being; and of that self-consciousness the essential nature or knowledge of itself is, again, an infinite inali enable delight of being. In formlessness and in all forms, in the eternal awareness of infinite and indivisible being and in the multiform appearances of finite division this self-existence preserves perpetually its self-delight. As in the apparent inconscience of Matter our soul, growing out of its bondage to its own superficial habit and particular mode of self-conscious existence, discovers that infinite Conscious-Force constant, immobile, brooding, so in the apparent non-sensation of Matter it comes to discover and attune itself to an infinite conscious Delight imperturbable, ecstatic, all-embracing. This delight is its own delight, this self is its own self in all; but to our ordinary view of self and things which awakes and moves only upon surfaces, it remains hidden, profound, subconscious. And as it is within all forms, so it is within all experiences whether pleasant, painful or neutral. There too hidden, profound, subconscious, it is that which enables and compels things to remain in existence. It is the reason of that clinging to existence, that overmastering will-to-be, translated vitally as the instinct of self-preservation, physically as the imperishability of matter, mentally as the sense of immortality which attends the formed existence through all its phases of self-development and of which even the occasional impulse of self-destruction is only a reverse form, an attraction to other state of being and a consequent recoil from present state of being. Delight is existence, Delight is the secret of creation, Delight is the root of birth, Delight is the cause of remaining in existence, Delight is the end of birth and that into which creation ceases. "From Ananda" says the Upanishad "all existences are born, by Ananda they remain in being and increase, to Ananda they depart."
2:As we look at these three aspects of essential Being, one in reality, triune to our mental view, separable only in appearance, in the phenom ena of the divided consciousness, we are able to put in their right place the divergent formulae of the old philosophies so that they unite and become one, ceasing from their agelong controversy. For if we regard world-existence only in its appearances and only in its relation to pure, infinite, indivisible, immutable Existence, we are entitled to regard it, describe it and realise it as Maya. Maya in its original sense meant a comprehending and containing consciousness capable of embracing, measuring and limiting and therefore formative; it is that which outlines, measures out, moulds forms in the formless, psychologises and seems to make knowable the Unknowable, geometrises and seems to make measurable the limitless. Later the word came from its original sense of knowledge, skill, intelligence to acquire a pejorative sense of cunning, fraud or illusion, and it is in the figure of an enchantment or illusion that it is used by the philosophical systems.
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8:If this view be right, then certain consequences inevitably impose themselves. In the first place, since in our depths we ourselves are that One, since in the reality of our being we are the indivisible All-Consciousness and therefore the inali enable All-Bliss, the disposition of our sensational experience in the three vibrations of pain, pleasure and indifference can only be a superficial arrangement created by that limited part of ourselves which is uppermost in our waking consciousness. Behind there must be something in us, - much vaster, profounder, truer than the superficial consciousness, - which takes delight impartially in all experiences; it is that delight which secretly supports the superficial mental being and enables it to persevere through all labours, sufferings and ordeals in the agitated movement of the Becoming. That which we call ourselves is only a trembling ray on the surface; behind is all the vast subconscient, the vast superconscient profiting by all these surface experiences and imposing them on its external self which it exposes as a sort of sensitive covering to the contacts of the world; itself veiled, it receives these contacts and assimilates them into the values of a truer, a profounder, a mastering and creative experience. Out of its depths it returns them to the surface in forms of strength, character, knowledge, impulsion whose roots are mysterious to us because our mind moves and quivers on the surface and has not learned to concentrate itself and live in the depths.
9:In our ordinary life this truth is hidden from us or only dimly glimpsed at times or imperfectly held and conceived. But if we learn to live within, we infallibly awaken to this presence within us which is our more real self, a presence profound, calm, joyous and puissant of which the world is not the master - a presence which, if it is not the Lord Himself, is the radiation of the Lord within. We are aware of it within supporting and helping the apparent and superficial self and smiling at its pleasures and pains as at the error and passion of a little child. And if we can go back into ourselves and identify ourselves, not with our superficial experience, but with that radiant penumbra of the Divine, we can live in that attitude towards the contacts of the world and, standing back in our entire consciousness from the pleasures and pains of the body, vital being and mind, possess them as experiences whose nature being superficial does not touch or impose itself on our core and real being. In the entirely expressive Sanskrit terms, there is an anandamaya behind the manomaya, a vast Bliss-Self behind the limited mental self, and the latter is only a shadowy image and disturbed reflection of the former. The truth of ourselves lies within and not on the surface.
10:Again this triple vibration of pleasure, pain, indifference, being superficial, being an arrangement and result of our imperfect evolution, can have in it no absoluteness, no necessity. There is no real obligation on us to return to a particular contact a particular response of pleasure, pain or neutral reaction, there is only an obligation of habit. We feel pleasure or pain in a particular contact because that is the habit our nature has formed, because that is the constant relation the recipient has established with the contact. It is within our competence to return quite the opposite response, pleasure where we used to have pain, pain where we used to have pleasure. It is equally within our competence to accustom the superficial being to return instead of the mechanical reactions of pleasure, pain and indifference that free reply of inali enable delight which is the constant experience of the true and vast Bliss-Self within us. And this is a greater conquest, a still deeper and more complete self-possession than a glad and detached reception in the depths of the habitual reactions on the surface. For it is no longer a mere acceptance without subjection, a free acquiescence in imperfect values of experience, but enables us to convert imperfect into perfect, false into true values, - the constant but veritable delight of the Spirit in things taking the place of the dualities experienced by the mental being.
11:In the things of the mind this pure habitual relativity of the reactions of pleasure and pain is not difficult to perceive. The nervous being in us, indeed, is accustomed to a certain fixedness, a false impression of absoluteness in these things. To it victory, success, honour, good fortune of all kinds are pleasant things in themselves, absolutely, and must produce joy as sugar must taste sweet; defeat, failure, disappointment, disgrace, evil fortune of all kinds are unpleasant things in themselves, absolutely, and must produce grief as wormwood must taste bitter. To vary these responses is to it a departure from fact, abnormal and morbid; for the nervous being is a thing enslaved to habit and in itself the means devised by Nature for fixing constancy of reaction, sameness of experience, the settled scheme of man's relations to life. The mental being on the other hand is free, for it is the means she has devised for flexibility and variation, for change and progress; it is subject only so long as it chooses to remain subject, to dwell in one mental habit rather than in another or so long as it allows itself to be dominated by its nervous instrument. It is not bound to be grieved by defeat, disgrace, loss: it can meet these things and all things with a perfect indifference; it can even meet them with a perfect gladness. Therefore man finds that the more he refuses to be dominated by his nerves and body, the more he draws back from implication of himself in his physical and vital parts, the greater is his freedom. He becomes the master of his own responses to the world's contacts, no longer the slave of external touches.
1.12 - God Departs, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Then came the 1st and 2nd December programmes for the School Anniversary. The entire Ashram was busy and bustling. The Mother also had no rest. Nobody suspected that a profound tragedy was being enacted in the closed chambers of Sri Aurobindo. His ailment had been kept a guarded secret. On 1st December, some improvement was noticed; the temperature was normal. He was in a more cheerful mood and even joked with Sanyal. When the doctor suggested that a detailed blood examination would be advisable, Sri Aurobindo smiled and retorted, "You doctors can think only in terms of disease and medicine, but always there is much more effectual knowledge beyond and above it. I don't need anything." We were very happy with the answer, but missed its ambiguous import and thought that it carried a consoling assurance. Next evening the temperature shot up. It had been a heavy day for the Mother because of the Annual Physical Display in the Playground where more than two hundred people took part. The function went off well. When Sri Aurobindo was informed of it, he remarked with a contented smile, "Ah, it is finished!" As soon as the activities were over, the Mother came to Sri Aurobindo's room, placed the garland from her neck at his feet and stood there quietly. Her count enance was very grave. He was indrawn with his eyes closed. Later Sanyal expressed a desire to use some drugs in order to fight the infection. The Mother warned him against the use of any violent drugs or drastic methods not only because Sri Aurobindo would not like them, but they would be, on the contrary, positively harmful. "He will work out whatever is necessary. Give some simple medicines," was her instruction.
On 3rd December, the temperature again dropped to normal. Thinking that Sri Aurobindo was improving, Sanyal proposed to leave that evening. The Mother heard him gravely, but gave no reply. He took the hint and added quickly, "I would rather stay for a few more days, Mother." A smile lit up her face. In the afternoon the picture rapidly changed. The temperature shot up, respiratory distress showed itself for the first time. Sri Aurobindo refused to take any liquid. At the Mother's persuasion he sipped some fruit juice and immediately lapsed into a trance. Almost the whole day he remained in that condition. The Mother, owing to this set-back, did not go to the Playground.
1.12 - THE FESTIVAL AT PNIHTI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The Master said to M.: "Listen. This is known as the vision of Satchidananda, the Formless Brahman. The Kundalini, rising above the Visuddha chakra, enables one to see everything as ka."
M: "Yes, sir."
--
Remaining silent a few moments, he added: "I understand it, Mother. That little bit will be enough for him and will serve Thy purpose. That little bit will enable him to teach people."
Did the Master thus transmit spiritual powers to his disciples? Did he thus come to know that his disciples, after him, would go out into the world as teachers of men?
1.12 - The Office and Limitations of the Reason, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Meanwhile, the intellect performs its function; it leads man to the gates of a greater self-consciousness and places him with unbandaged eyes on that wide threshold where a more luminous Angel has to take him by the hand. It takes first the lower powers of his existence, each absorbed in its own urge, each striving with a blind self-sufficiency towards the fulfilment of its own instincts and primary impulses; it teaches them to understand themselves and to look through the reflecting eyes of the intelligence on the laws of their own action. It enables them to discern intelligently the high in themselves from the low, the pure from the impure and out of a crude confusion to arrive at more and more luminous formulas of their possibilities. It gives them self-knowledge and is a guide, teacher, purifier, liberator. For it enables them also to look beyond themselves and at each other and to draw upon each other for fresh motives and a richer working. It streng thens and purifies the hedonistic and the aesthetic activities and softens their quarrel with the ethical mind and instinct; it gives them solidity and seriousness, brings them to the support of the practical and dynamic powers and allies them more closely to the strong actualities of life. It sweetens the ethical will by infusing into it psychic, hedonistic and aesthetic elements and ennobles by all these separately or together the practical, dynamic and utilitarian temperament of the human being. At the same time it plays the part of a judge and legislator, seeks to fix rules, provide systems and regularised combinations which shall enable the powers of the human soul to walk by a settled path and act according to a sure law, an ascertained measure and in a balanced rhythm. Here it finds after a time that its legislative action becomes a force for limitation and turns into a bondage and that the regularised system which it has imposed in the interests of order and conservation becomes a cause of petrifaction and the sealing up of the fountains of life. It has to bring in its own saving faculty of doubt. Under the impulse of the intelligence warned by the obscure revolt of the oppressed springs of life, ethics, aesthetics, the social, political, economic rule begin to question themselves and, if this at first brings in again some confusion, disorder and uncertainty, yet it awakens new movements of imagination, insight, self-knowledge and self-realisation by which old systems and formulas are transformed or disappear, new experiments are made and in the end larger potentialities and combinations are brought into play. By this double action of the intelligence, affirming and imposing what it has seen and again in due season questioning what has been accomplished in order to make a new affirmation, fixing a rule and order and liberating from rule and order, the progress of the race is assured, however uncertain may seem its steps and stages.
But the action of the intelligence is not only turned downward and outward upon our subjective and external life to understand it and determine the law and order of its present movement and its future potentialities. It has also an upward and inward eye and a more luminous functioning by which it accepts divinations from the hidden eternities. It is opened in this power of vision to a Truth above it from which it derives, however imperfectly and as from behind a veil, an indirect knowledge of the universal principles of our existence and its possibilities; it receives and turns what it can seize of them into intellectual forms and these provide us with large governing ideas by which our efforts can be shaped and around which they can be concentrated or massed; it defines the ideals which we seek to accomplish. It provides us with the great ideas that are forces (ides forces), ideas which in their own strength impose themselves upon our life and compel it into their moulds. Only the forms we give these ideas are intellectual; they themselves descend from a plane of truth of being where knowledge and force are one, the idea and the power of self-fulfilment in the idea are inseparable. Unfortunately, when translated into the forms of our intelligence which acts only by a separating and combining analysis and synthesis and into the effort of our life which advances by a sort of experimental and empirical seeking, these powers become disparate and conflicting ideals which we have all the difficulty in the world to bring into any kind of satisfactory harmony. Such are the primary principles of liberty and order, good, beauty and truth, the ideal of power and the ideal of love, individualism and collectivism, self-denial and self-fulfilment and a hundred others. In each sphere of human life, in each part of our being and our action the intellect presents us with the opposition of a number of such master ideas and such conflicting principles. It finds each to be a truth to which something essential in our being responds,in our higher nature a law, in our lower nature an instinct. It seeks to fulfil each in turn, builds a system of action round it and goes from one to the other and back again to what it has left. Or it tries to combine them but is contented with none of the combinations it has made because none brings about their perfect reconciliation or their satisfied oneness. That indeed belongs to a larger and higher consciousness, not yet attained by mankind, where these opposites are ever harmonised and even unified because in their origin they are eternally one. But still every enlarged attempt of the intelligence thus dealing with our inner and outer life increases the width and wealth of our nature, opens it to larger possibilities of self-knowledge and self-realisation and brings us nearer to our awakening into that greater consciousness.
1.12 - The Sacred Marriage, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
well as the espousals, was enacted at the ceremony; but whether the
part of the god was played by a man or an image we do not know. We
--
were enacted in the sacred drama. This revelation of the reaped corn
appears to have been the crowning act of the mysteries. Thus through
1.12 - TIME AND ETERNITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
There is therefore a catholic spirit, a communion of saints in the love of God and all goodness, which no one can learn from that which is called orthodoxy in particular churches, but is only to be had by a total dying to all worldly views, by a pure love of God, and by such an unction from above as delivers the mind from all selfishness and makes it love truth and goodness with an equality of affection in every man, whether he is Christian, Jew or Gentile. He that would obtain this divine and catholic spirit in this disordered, divided state of things, and live in a divided part of the church without partaking of its division, must have these three truths deeply fixed in his mind. First, that universal love, which gives the whole strength of the heart to God, and makes us love every man as we love ourselves, is the noblest, the most divine, the Godlike state of the soul, and is the utmost perfection to which the most perfect religion can raise us; and that no religion does any man any good but so far as it brings this perfection of love into him. This truth will show us that true orthodoxy can nowhere be found but in a pure disinterested love of God and our neighbour. Second, that in this present divided state of the church, truth itself is torn and divided asunder; and that, therefore, he can be the only true catholic who has more of truth and less of error than is hedged in by any divided part. This truth will enable us to live in a divided part unhurt by its division, and keep us in a true liberty and fitness to be edified and assisted by all the good that we hear or see in any other part of the church. Thirdly, he must always have in mind this great truth, that it is the glory of the Divine Justice to have no respect of parties or persons, but to stand equally disposed to that which is right and wrong as well in the Jew as in the Gentile. He therefore that would like as God likes, and condemn as God condemns, must have neither the eyes of the Papist nor the Protestant; he must like no truth the less because Ignatius Loyola or John Bunyan were very zealous for it, nor have the less aversion to any error, because Dr. Trapp or George Fox had brought it forth.
William Law
1.13 - Gnostic Symbols of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the Gnostic concepts. The separation or unmixing enables the
alchemist to extract the anima or spiritus from the prima ma-
--
which enables them to rise above the world of the Seven into the upper world of
light, where dwell the unknown Father and the heavenly Mother."
1.13 - Knowledge, Error, and Probably Opinion, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
But although this sort of self-evidence is an absolute guarantee of truth, it does not enable us to be _absolutely_ certain, in the case of any given judgement, that the judgement in question is true. Suppose we first perceive the sun shining, which is a complex fact, and thence proceed to make the judgement 'the sun is shining'. In passing from the perception to the judgement, it is necessary to analyse the given complex fact: we have to separate out 'the sun' and 'shining' as constituents of the fact. In this process it is possible to commit an error; hence even where a _fact_ has the first or absolute kind of self-evidence, a judgement believed to correspond to the fact is not absolutely infallible, because it may not really correspond to the fact. But if it does correspond (in the sense explained in the preceding chapter), then it _must_ be true.
The second sort of self-evidence will be that which belongs to judgements in the first instance, and is not derived from direct perception of a fact as a single complex whole. This second kind of self-evidence will have degrees, from the very highest degree down to a bare inclination in favour of the belief. Take, for example, the case of a horse trotting away from us along a hard road. At first our certainty that we hear the hoofs is complete; gradually, if we listen intently, there comes a moment when we think perhaps it was imagination or the blind upstairs or our own heartbeats; at last we become doubtful whether there was any noise at all; then we _think_ we no longer hear anything, and at last we _know_ we no longer hear anything. In this process, there is a continual gradation of self-evidence, from the highest degree to the least, not in the sense-data themselves, but in the judgements based on them.
1.13 - The Divine Maya, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
7:It is true that this Law when we analyse it, seems to resolve itself into an equilibrium of the play of forces and a determination of that play into fixed lines of working by the accident of development and the habit of past realised energy. But this apparent and secondary truth is final to us only so long as we conceive of Force solely. When we perceive that Force is a selfexpression of Existence, we are bound to perceive also that this line which Force has taken, corresponds to some self-truth of that Existence which governs and determines its constant curve and destination. And since consciousness is the nature of the original Existence and the essence of its Force, this truth must be a self-perception in Conscious-Being and this determination of the line taken by Force must result from a power of selfdirective knowledge inherent in Consciousness which enables it to guide its own Force inevitably along the logical line of the original self-perception. It is then a self-determining power in universal consciousness, a capacity in self-awareness of infinite existence to perceive a certain Truth in itself and direct its force of creation along the line of that Truth, which has presided over the cosmic manifestation.
8:But why should we interpose any special power or faculty between the infinite Consciousness itself and the result of its workings? May not this Self-awareness of the Infinite range freely creating forms which afterwards remain in play so long as there is not the fiat that bids them cease, - even as the old Semitic Revelation tells us, "God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light"? But when we say, "God said, Let there be Light", we assume the act of a power of consciousness which determines light out of everything else that is not light; and when we say "and there was Light" we presume a directing faculty, an active power corresponding to the original perceptive power, which brings out the phenomenon and, working out Light according to the line of the original perception, prevents it from being overpowered by all the infinite possibilities that are other than itself. Infinite consciousness in its infinite action can produce only infinite results; to settle upon a fixed Truth or order of truths and build a world in conformity with that which is fixed, demands a selective faculty of knowledge commissioned to shape finite appearance out of the infinite Reality.
1.13 - The Kings of Rome and Alba, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
goddess of vegetation and water for the purpose of enabling him to
discharge his divine or magical functions. In such a rite the part
1.13 - THE MASTER AND M., #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Money enables a man to get food and drink, build a house, worship the Deity, serve devotees and holy men, and help the poor when he happens to meet them. These are the good uses of money. Money is not meant for luxuries or creature comforts or for buying a position in society.
"People practise various Tantrik disciplines to acquire supernatural powers. How mean such people are! Krishna said to Arjuna, 'Friend, by acquiring one of the eight siddhis you may add a little to your power, but you will not be able to realize Me.' One cannot get rid of maya as long as one exercises supernatural powers. And maya begets egotism.
--
I thought it might enable me to payoff some of my debt for milk. That night I went to bed and, if you will believe me, I suddenly woke up with a pain. I felt as if a cat were scratching inside my chest. I at once went to Ramlal and asked him: 'For whom did Mahendra give this money? Was it for your aunt?'7 'No,' said Ramlal, 'it is meant for you.' I said to him, 'Go and return the money at once, or I shall have no peace of mind.'
Ramlal returned the money early in the morning and I felt relieved.
--
MASTER: "It is Satchidananda that comes to us in the form of the guru. If a man is initiated by a human guru, he will not achieve anything if he regards his guru as a mere man. The guru should be regarded as the direct manifestation of God. Only then can the disciple have faith in the mantra given by the guru. Once a man has faith he, achieves all. The sudra Ekalavya learnt archery in the forest before a clay image of Drona; He worshipped the image as the living Drona; that by itself enabled him to attain mastery in archery.
"Don't mix intimately with brahmin pundits. Their only concern is to earn money. I have seen brahmin priests reciting the Chandi while performing the swastyayana. It is hard to tell whether they are reading the sacred book or something else. They turn half the pages without reading them. (All laugh.)
1.14 - Bibliography, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
. enarrationes in Psalmos. See Migne, P.L., vols. 36, 37.
. Liber Sententiarum ex Augustino. See: Prosperi Aquitani
1.14 - The Book of Magic Formulae, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
The book of formulae, sometimes wrongly called the book of spirits, is the genuine magical diary of the magician practising ritual magic, in which he enters, step by step, the procedures of his ritual in order to be able to follow every point conscientiously up to his goal. Some readers might wish to know how mutilated charms, furmulae for incantation etc. could ever develop? From the days of yore the secret of magic has been restricted to high castes, potentates, kings and high priests. In order that the real truth, that true ideas and spiritual facts might never be known by the public, many code-words and secret formulae have been introduced, the deciphering of which has been reserved to the mature. The key for these codes was only transferred upon mature persons by word of mouth, and their profanation was punished with death. This is the reason why this science has remained a secret up to our time and it will continue to remain an occult and mystic science even if it is directly published, as the immature und profane person will regard it all as delusion or fantastic nonsense and, depending on his grade of maturity and psychic receptivity, will always have at hand an individual interpretation or view of this science. The most secret matters will thus never lose their occult tradition and there will always be but a few people who will profit by it. If a person who is not an initiate gets such a book of magic formulae in his hands and does not know the key to it, he will take everything in its literal sense without knowing that the particular words and formulae are nothing but aids for the magician's memory and that it is a schematic layout for the ritual work of a true magician. This makes it clear why sometimes the most senseless words have been used as magic charms to evoke a certain being. But the book of formulae is a proper note-book in which the genuine magician writes the whole procedure of his magic operations from beginning to end. If he is not sure that his book will never fall into the hands of another person, he will have to use, point by point, code-names. I can only give here a few instructions. These will, however, enable the magician to procede according to his own taste and ideas.
1. Purpose of the operation
1.14 - The Limits of Philosophical Knowledge, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
What has happened in the case of space and time has happened, to some extent, in other directions as well. The attempt to prescribe to the universe by means of _a priori_ principles has broken down; logic, instead of being, as formerly, the bar to possibilities, has become the great liberator of the imagination, presenting innumerable alternatives which are closed to unreflective common sense, and leaving to experience the task of deciding, where decision is possible, between the many worlds which logic offers for our choice. Thus knowledge as to what exists becomes limited to what we can learn from experience--not to what we can actually experience, for, as we have seen, there is much knowledge by description concerning things of which we have no direct experience. But in all cases of knowledge by description, we need some connexion of universals, enabling us, from such and such a datum, to infer an object of a certain sort as implied by our datum. Thus in regard to physical objects, for example, the principle that sense-data are signs of physical objects is itself a connexion of universals; and it is only in virtue of this principle that experience enables us to acquire knowledge concerning physical objects. The same applies to the law of causality, or, to descend to what is less general, to such principles as the law of gravitation.
Principles such as the law of gravitation are proved, or rather are rendered highly probable, by a combination of experience with some wholly _a priori_ principle, such as the principle of induction. Thus our intuitive knowledge, which is the source of all our other knowledge of truths, is of two sorts: pure empirical knowledge, which tells us of the existence and some of the properties of particular things with which we are acquainted, and pure _a priori_ knowledge, which gives us connexions between universals, and enables us to draw inferences from the particular facts given in empirical knowledge. Our derivative knowledge always depends upon some pure _a priori_ knowledge and usually also depends upon some pure empirical knowledge.
Philosophical knowledge, if what has been said above is true, does not differ essentially from scientific knowledge; there is no special source of wisdom which is open to philosophy but not to science, and the results obtained by philosophy are not radically different from those obtained from science. The essential characteristic of philosophy, which makes it a study distinct from science, is criticism. It examines critically the principles employed in science and in daily life; it searches out any inconsistencies there may be in these principles, and it only accepts them when, as the result of a critical inquiry, no reason for rejecting them has appeared. If, as many philosophers have believed, the principles underlying the sciences were capable, when disengaged from irrelevant detail, of giving us knowledge concerning the universe as a whole, such knowledge would have the same claim on our belief as scientific knowledge has; but our inquiry has not revealed any such knowledge, and therefore, as regards the special doctrines of the bolder metaphysicians, has had a mainly negative result. But as regards what would be commonly accepted as knowledge, our result is in the main positive: we have seldom found reason to reject such knowledge as the result of our criticism, and we have seen no reason to suppose man incapable of the kind of knowledge which he is generally believed to possess.
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
tion of the enantiodromian changes of the conscious attitude
which can have a favourable or an unfavourable effect on the
--
is being enacted before our eyes.
3 6 9 The development briefly outlined here seems to have been
--
the change of place is always an enantiodromian change of situa-
tion, corresponding to the complementary or compensatory
1.15 - In the Domain of the Spirit Beings, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
If the magician has experienced his physical death, there is no reason why he should return to the physical world, and he is not desirous of restoring the band between the material and astral worlds. Of course, there are also magicians and sorcerers of lower degree, who consciously try, from the astral world, to build again the link between their astral and their physical bodies. But because they lack the necessary perfection enabling them to condense the light sufficiently, their success must remain a partial one. Usually such beings, clinging to their physical shape, try to evade the pre-conditions for such a realisation and vampirise the electro-magnetic fluid (vital energy) from living bodies in order to accumulate it in their abandoned physical bodies, assuming that in the course of time they will be able to revive them. The physical body laid aside by such a being in the manner indicated may be saved from decay for centuries. History gives us many examples of the conservation of deceased persons, and science cannot yet give any satisfactory explanation for this. Such vampires are, from the hermetic point of view, to be pitied, and the religious belief of those days did well in destroying such bodies which did not decay. Usually only by this destruction, such a body was usually pierced with a wooden spear or its head cut off and the body itself burned, was the spirit of such a body freed from its bondage. The sagas of the werewolves, too, can be explained from the hermetic point of view. The procedure was the same, only that at the moment of vampirizing, the astral body took on the shape of an animal in order to evade recognition by the possibly sensitive person who was vampirized.
In summing up: in the physical world the physical and the astral bodies are kept together by food and breath and all the three parts - body, soul and spirit - are streng thened from the higher spheres by more subtle material elements during the sleep.
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Beings incarnate themselves from the astral world into the physical sphere of our planet, bordered by time and space, in order to work on their development, since the material laws of this plane put far more hindrances in front of every individual than is the case in the astral sphere. The impediments of the physical world streng then the spirit and enable it to grow more rapidly in its development than it would be possible in the astral world. Therefore the human beings of the astral world are urged to achieve re-incarnation in this world as soon as possible, and are ready to accept even the toughest conditions in order to be able to continue their spiritual development.
Every man can reach perfection, for the evolution of the whole of mankind leads towards it. The spiritual guide designated to each individual by Divine Providence for his initiation into the astral world leads and controls the spiritual development of his protege and in many cases carries on with his commission after his protege has re-incarnated in the physical world. The magician should therefore try at the very beginning of his development to get into contact with his genius. How this is achieved has already been told in "Initiation into Hermetics". It sometimes happens that people who have already reached a high degree of perfection here on earth are able to continue their spiritual development in the astral world up to perfection, but these are selected by Divine
--
The analogies and the hierarchy of each zone are dealt with in the next chapter. Each sphere lying above the zone girdling the earth, between the Moon and Saturn, has a threefold effect: firstly on the mental, secondly on the astral and thirdly on the physical world. Depending on the question in which sphere of the earthzone a certain effect should be caused, the creation of the cause for such an effect must be considered in that zone. Since the zones mentioned above have certain individual influences on our earthzone the magician operating with beings of such zones must have a clear picture of the analogy of the laws of each zone regarding his own microcosm and the microcosm of any other human being. Each analogy of the zones to the micro- and macrocosm must be quite clear to him and he must know how to create the cause corresponding to the analogies with the help of the beings. In the magician's conception each zone will not be a limited plane beyond the earth-zone, but all zones run into one another in the microcosm as well as in the macrocosm. The zones bear astrological names, but do not have directly to do with the constructions of the stars of the universe, although there exists some relation between the stars and their constellations, enabling the astrologers to draw their conclusions for mantic purposes or to find out unfavourable influences. I have already given some hints about the synthesis of astrology.
Each zone is inhabited in just the same way as the earth-zone already known to us. The beings of the zones have their special commissions and are subject to the laws of their zone, as far as causes and effects are concerned. In our opinion there exist millions of beings in each zone. It is impossible to grade these beings categorically. Each of these beings has reached a certain degree in its spiritual development, a certain degree of maturity, and a commission has been transferred upon it according to this degree.
--
If a being of another zone wishes to enter the earth-zone or our physical world because Divine Providence has ordered it to do so or because it is its personal desire, no matter whether in a mental, astral or physical way, then such a being or head, irrelevant of its rank, must take on the shape appropriate to the qualities of the sphere from which it comes. An angel, for instance, who has love as its main quality, will appear as a perfect beauty; a being whose qualities are severity and strictness will have to appear in the shape appropriate to these qualities. It is exactly the same with beings of negative qualities: depending on the negative qualities they represent, they will have to take on, when appearing in the earthzone or on our physical earth, the shapes which symbolize these qualities. The appearing shapes of these beings, no matter whether good or evil or from whatever zone they come, will enable the magician who is well acquainted with symbolism to tell their qualities. The qualities of a being, its appearance and symbolic representation, is fully appropriate to its name, and according to the Law of Analogy, so that even a being of the highest rank is not able to give itself a name unsuitable to its qualities.
The magician, especially if acquainted with quabbalah, is capable of thoroughly checking the analogies according to the law of analogy and of determining whether the assertion of a being is true or not. No being, not even the worst and most deceitful type, will ever dare to tell the genuine magician a name which it does not really possess, and it will never dare to appear in a shape other than the one corresponding to its qualities. The genuine magician, however, is naturally free to order the being who has appeared in its true shape to change its shape into one desired by him. He will always be obeyed by the being concerned, for the genuine magician, as repeatedly stated before, is a perfect authority, is a God-man.
--
Hermetics", or directly by word-power (cosmic language) and leads it through the world of causes of the relevant zone into the world of causes of the earth-zone, condensed by imagination, and from here, depending on the kind of effect it should cause, into the mental, astral or physical sphere. This is the actual procedure in respect of the beings capable of making their influence work from their zone into our sphere. A spirit being, however, is not able to do anything on its own accord or by its own will to influence our sphere. Only the strict order of a magician given with his absolute authority enables a being to influence our sphere effectively from its zone; by doing so the being cannot be made responsible for anything; every responsibility lies with the magician. To make it yet clearer: the work done by a being is the same kind of work which a servant does for his master.
Of course, a true magician will never dare ask a being, especially a negative being, to do things causing negative effects, for although he has become the master of life and death, the master of the laws, Divine Providence still controls him, and he would have to atone immensely for evil deeds which he could not account for.
1.15 - Truth, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
If knowledge and wisdom keep the same pace in development, the adept is enabled to grasp all the laws of the microcosm and the microcosm, not only from the point of view of wisdom, but also from the intellectual side, that is, in a bipolar way, to perceive and utilize them for his own development.
In al the planes, we have already learned how to know one of the numerous laws, the first main key, the secret of the tetragrammaton or the four-pole magnet. Being a universal key, it can be used to solve all problems, all laws, all kinds of truth in sort, everything, provided that the adept knows how to use it properly. As time goes on and his development unfolds and he is advancing in hermetics, he will be acquainted with many more aspects of this key, and be forced to accept it as an unchangeable law. He will no more wander in darkness and uncertainty, but he will carry a torch in his hand, the light of which will penetrate the night of ignorance.
1.16 - Dianus and Diana, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
precision which enable the patient observer to anticipate in general
the season, if not the very hour, when they will bring round the
1.16 - Man, A Transitional Being, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Our language is false, as is our vision of the world. In reality, Being and Becoming, He and She, are two concurrent faces of the same eternal FACT. The universe is a perpetual phenomenon, as perpetual as the Silence beyond time: In the beginning, it is said, was the Eternal, the Infinite, the One. In the middle, it is said, is the finite, the transient, the Many. In the end, it is said, shall be the One, the Infinite, the Eternal. For when was the beginning? At no moment in Time, for the beginning is at every moment; the beginning always was, always is and always shall be. The divine beginning is before Time, in Time and beyond Time for ever. The Eternal, Infinite and One is an endless beginning. And where is the middle? There is no middle; for there is only the junction of the perpetual end and the eternal beginning; it is the sign of a creation which is new at every moment. The creation was for ever, is for ever, shall be for ever. The Eternal, Infinite and One is the magical middle-term of his own existence; it is he that is the beginningless and endless creation. And when is the end? There is no end. At no conceivable moment can there be a cessation. For all end of things is the beginning of new things which are still the same One in an ever developing and ever recurring figure. Nothing can be destroyed, for all is He who is forever. The Eternal, Infinite and One is the unimaginable end that is never closing upon new interminable vistas of his glory.316 And Sri Aurobindo added: The experience of human life on an earth is not now for the first time enacted. It has been conducted a million times before and the long drama will again a million times be repeated. In all that we do now, our dreams, our discoveries, our swift or difficult attainments, we profit subconsciously by the experience of innumerable precursors and our labour will be fecund in planets unknown to us and in worlds yet uncreated. The plan, the peripetia,
the denouement differ continually, yet are always governed by the conventions of an eternal Art. God, Man, Nature are the three perpetual symbols. The idea of eternal recurrence affects with a shudder of alarm the mind entrenched in the minute, the hour, the years, the centuries, all the finite's unreal defences. But the strong 316
1.16 - The Season of Truth, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But this unyielding husk, this old illusory matter everywhere under our feet, continues to exist, at least for others. Its prevailing perception is the criterion of objectivity, what we call the world as it is. Is it conceivable that a handful of more advanced beings, of pioneers of the new world, will live in that true way, that true body (invisible to others), while others will continue living and seeing in the old shadow, stumbling along and suffering and dying with it, until they too become capable of effecting the ultimate conversion and entering the new world which will become the prevailing objectivity yet on this earth and in this matter, but seen with the true look? The old husk would fall off when everyone is capable of seeing with the same look when everyone, thrust into a more advanced season, would see the tree in bloom rather than the old pod?... The tree is in bloom because the season has come. Perhaps we must wait till men realize that the season has come and that all the flowers are there, on the beautiful tree they are indeed there, except for those who dawdle in winter when spring is breaking out all over. The supramental consciousness, the supramental rhythm, is actually an extraordinarily swift rhythm the present earth seems immobile and stagnant compared to that rhythm and maybe that simple acceleration is what makes all the difference, what brings out the orange sweetness of the supramental radiation, its warm and vivid depths, its light earth, the way the acceleration of the galaxies turns the stars red or purple depending on their direction. How could this new vision, as concrete as that of all the Himalayas put together, even more concrete because it discloses all the innermost depths of the Himalayas and their living peace, their solid eternity, not radically change the whole life of humanity, at least for those who can see, and gradually everybody, as radically as man's perception changed the world as perceived by the caterpillar?... For, ultimately, this new vision does not abolish the world; it reveals it as it is (and this supramental as it is is also capable of growing with future ages where is the end?). It is not true that matter suddenly becomes different by some miraculous and transmuting stroke it becomes (for our eyes) what it always was. It ceases to be this winding and steep caterpillar trail to level out into its sun-drenched prairies, which extend farther and farther with our look. True matter, supramental matter, was forever awaiting our true look only like recognizes like. The divine season is waiting for us on earth, if we consent to recognize this Like of which we are now only a semblance. And the whole problem of the transmutation arises again: Is it a transmutation of matter or a transmutation of vision? Doubtless it is both, but the change of vision is what triggers the change of matter; the change in vision is what permits a new manipulation of matter, as our human eyes have enabled a new manipulation of the world. And this change of matter seems possible only if humanity as a whole, or a sufficiently effective proportion of the great earthly body because we are a single body, we always forget consents to brea the the new air, to soak up that sap, to stop believing in its phantoms and fears and old mental impossibilities. And we can believe we can even see that this change of vision is contagious. There is contagion of Truth, an irrepressible spreading of Truth. It is Truth that is breaking our molds and our human consciousnesses and our law and our systems and our countries under its invisible golden pressure the world is under a solar spell, which is shaking our age and throwing it into panic by its influx of vigor, and the Truth of a few will force all the rest to change, as simply and inevitably as the first touch of spring spreads from branch to branch and bursts out from bud to bud.
The secrets are simple, we have said, and we wonder if that difficult transmutation, that complex alchemy, those thick manuals and mysterious initiations, those educated austerities and spiritual exercises, those meditations and retreats and tortured breathing, that whole labor of the spirit are not actually the labor of the mind trying to make it difficult, tremendously difficult, so it can inflate itself further, and then glory in untying the enormous knot it had itself tied. If things are too simple, it does not believe in them, because it has nothing to do because it yearns to do, at all costs. That is its food and livelihood its ego's livelihood. But that mental inflation and pontification may hide from us an utter simplicity, a supreme facility, a supreme nondoing that is the art of doing well. We have had to do and do again, tramp around the trails of the mind to individualize a fragment of that formidable, immense Consciousness-Force, that universal Energy-Harmony, to make it self-conscious, as it were, in one form and in billions of forms. But has not the time come, at the end of the little flame's long journey, to break the mold that helped us to grow and rediscover the totality of Consciousness and Energy and Harmony in one small center of being, a little point of matter, in one clear little note, and to let That do, That change our eyes, That permeate our tissues, That widen our substance to let a supreme Child who runs over the great prairies of the world play in us and for us, if we want, because he is us? This difficult transmutation may not be so difficult after all. It must be as simple as truth, simple as a smile, simple as a child at play. Perhaps everything hinges simply on whether we wish to take the path of difficulty the path of the mind desperately inflating itself to try to blow itself up to the size of the universe, the path of the buts and whys and hows and all the implacable laws that choke us time and again in our mental straitjacket or the path of an unknown little something stealing through the air, sparkling in the air, winking at every street corner and every encounter, in everything, all the trifles of the day, as though carrying us along in an indescribable golden wake in which everything is easy and simple and miraculous we are right in the midst of the miracle! We are in the full supramental season. It is knocking at all our closed windows, at our countries, our hearts, our crumbling systems, our shaky laws, our faltering wisdoms, in our thousands of ills that keep coming out, our thousands of little lies abandoning the skiff in distress it is softly slipping its golden skiff beneath the old specious appearances, it is growing its unexpected buds beneath the old rags, awaiting a tiny little crack to spring out into the open, a tiny little call. The transmutation is not difficult; it is all there, already done, only waiting for us to open our eyes to the unreality of misery and falsehood and death and our impotence to the unreality of the mind and the laws of the mind. It is waiting for our radical saltus into that future of truth, our mass uprising against the old cage, our general strike against the Machine. Oh! let us leave it to the elders, the old elders of the old world, the old believers in misery and suffering and the bomb and the gospel and the millions of gospels that struggle for a share of the world, to run their old squeaky machine for a few more days, to quarrel over borders, argue over reforms of the rot, debate agreements of disagreement, stockpile bombs and false knowledge and libraries and museums, preach good and evil, preach the friend and the enemy, preach country and no-country, build more and more machines and supermachines and rockets to the moon and misery for every pocketbook let us leave to them the last convulsions of the falsehood, the last cries of the rot, we who do not care about countries, borders, machines and all that walled-in future, we who believe in a light and inexpressible something that is pounding at the doors of the world and pounding in our hearts, in a completely new future, completely clear and vibrant and marvelous, without borders, without laws, without gospels, beyond all their possibilities and impossibilities, their good and evil, their small countries and small thoughts we who believe in Truth, in the supreme beauty of Truth, the supreme joy of Truth, the supreme power of Truth. We are the sons of a more marvelous Future which is already there, which will spring out into the open by our cry of trust, sweeping away all the old machinery like an unreal dream, a nightmare of the mind, an old windbag filled with only as much air as we still consent to lend it. The transmutation has to be done in our hearts, the last revolution to be carried out, the supramental revolution of the human species as others had launched the human revolution among the apes its great rebellion against the Machine, its general strike against mental knowledge, mental power and mental fabrications against the mental prison its mass defection from the old groove of pain, and its calling out for what has to be, its simple cry for truth amidst the rubble of the mental age: the truth, the truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth.
1.17 - Legend of Prahlada, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Again established in the dwelling of his preceptor, Prahlāda gave lessons himself to the sons of the demons, in the intervals of his leisure. "Sons of the offspring of Diti," he was accustomed to say to them, "hear from me the supreme truth; nothing else is fit to be regarded; nothing, else here is an object to be coveted. Birth, infancy, and youth are the portion of all creatures; and then succeeds gradual and inevitable decay, terminating with all beings, children of the Daityas, in death: this is manifestly visible to all; to you as it is to me. That the dead are born again, and that it cannot be otherwise, the sacred texts are warrant: but production cannot be without a material cause; and as long as conception and parturition are the material causes of repeated birth, so long, be sure, is pain inseparable from every period of existence. The simpleton, in his inexperience, fancies that the alleviation of hunger, thirst, cold, and the like is pleasure; but of a truth it is pain; for suffering gives delight to those whose vision is darkened by delusion, as fatigue would be enjoyment to limbs that are incapable of motion[3]. This vile body is a compound of phlegm and other humours. Where are its beauty, grace, fragrance, or other estimable qualities? The fool that is fond of a body composed of flesh, blood, matter, ordure, urine, membrane, marrow, and bones, will be enamoured of hell. The agreeableness of fire is caused by cold; of water, by thirst; of food, by hunger: by other circumstances their contraries are equally agreeable[4]. The child of the Daitya who takes to himself a wife introduces only so much misery into his bosom; for as many as are the cerished affections of a living creature, so many are the thorns of anxiety implanted in his heart; and he who has large possessions in his house is haunted, wherever he goes, with the apprehension that they may be lost or burnt or stolen. Thus there is great pain in being born: for the dying man there are the tortures of the judge of the deceased, and of passing again into 'the womb. If you conclude that there is little enjoyment in the embryo state, you must then admit that the world is made up of pain. Verily I say unto you, that in this ocean of the world, this sea of many sorrows, Viṣṇu is your only hope. If ye say, you know nothing of this; 'we are children; embodied spirit in bodies is eternal; birth, youth, decay, are the properties of the body, not of the soul[5].' But it is in this way that we deceive ourselves. I am yet a child; but it is my purpose to exert myself when I am a youth. I am yet a youth; but when I become old I will do what is needful for the good of my soul. I am now old, and all my duties are to be fulfilled. How shall I, now that my faculties fail me, do what was left undone when my strength was unimpaired?' In this manner do men, whilst their minds are distracted by sensual pleasures, ever propose, and never attain final beatitude: they die thirsting[6]. Devoted in childhood to play, and in youth to pleasure, ignorant and impotent they find that old age is come upon them. Therefore even in childhood let the embodied soul acquire discriminative wisdom, and, independent of the conditions of infancy, youth, or age, strive incessantly to be freed. This, then, is what I declare unto you; and since you know that it is not untrue, do you, out of regard to me, call to your minds Viṣṇu, the liberator from all bondage. What difficulty is there in thinking upon him, who, when remembered, bestows prosperity; and by recalling whom to memory, day and night, all sin is cleansed away? Let all your thoughts and affections be fixed on him, who is present in all beings, and you shall laugh at every care. The whole world is suffering under a triple affliction[7]. 'What wise man would feel hatred towards beings who are objects of compassion? If fortune be propitious to them, and I am unable to partake of the like enjoyments, yet wherefore should I cerish malignity towards those who are more prosperous than myself: I should rather sympathise with their happiness; for the suppression of malignant feelings is of itself a reward[8]. If beings are hostile, and indulge in hatred, they are objects of pity to the wise, as encompassed by profound delusion. These are the reasons for repressing hate, which are adapted to the capacities of those who see the deity distinct from his creatures. Hear, briefly, what influences those who have approached the truth. This whole world is but a manifestation of Viṣṇu, who is identical with all things; and it is therefore to be regarded by the wise as not differing from, but as the same with themselves. Let us therefore lay aside the angry passions of our race, and so strive that we obtain that perfect, pure, and eternal happiness, which shall be beyond the power of the elements or their deities, of fire, of the sun, of the moon, of wind, of Indra, of the regent of the sea; which shall be unmolested by spirits of air or earth; by Yakṣas, Daityas, or their chiefs; by the serpent-gods or monstrous demigods of Swerga; which shall be uninterrupted by men or beasts, or by the infirmities of human nature; by bodily sickness and disease[9], or hatred, envy, malice, passion, or desire; which nothing shall molest, and which every one who fixes his whole heart on Keśava shall enjoy. Verily I say unto you, that you shall have no satisfaction in various revolutions through this treacherous world, but that you will obtain placidity for ever by propitiating Viṣṇu, whose adoration is perfect calm. What here is difficult of attainment, when he is pleased? Wealth, pleasure, virtue, are things of little moment. Precious is the fruit that you shall gather, be assured, from the exhaustless store of the tree of true wisdom."
Footnotes and references:
1.17 - The Seven-Headed Thought, Swar and the Dashagwas, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Rishis are able to get through the ten months, but this thought once found they become assured of the protection of the gods and pass beyond the assault of the evil, the harms of the Panis and Vritras. This Swar-conquering thought is certainly the same as that seven-headed thought which was born from the Truth and discovered by Ayasya the companion of the Navagwas; for by it, we are told, Ayasya becoming universal, embracing the births in all the worlds, brought into being a fourth world or fourfold world, which must be the supramental beyond the three lower sessions, Dyaus, Antariksha and Prithivi, that wide world which, according to Kanwa son of Ghora, men reach or create by crossing beyond the two Rodasi after killing Vritra. This fourth world must be therefore Swar. The seven-headed thought of Ayasya enables him to become visvajanya, which means probably that he occupies or possesses all the worlds or births of the soul or else that he becomes universal, identifying himself with all beings born, - and to manifest or give being to a certain fourth world (Swar), turyam svij janayad visvajanyah. (X.67.1); and the thought established in the waters which enables the
Navagwa Rishis to pass through the ten months, is also svars.a, that which brings about the possession of Swar. The waters are clearly the seven rivers and the two thoughts are evidently the same. Must we not then conclude that it is the addition
The Seven-Headed Thought, Swar and the Dashagwas 177 of Ayasya to the Navagwas which raises the nine Navagwas to the number of ten and enables them by his discovery of the seven-headed Swar-conquering thought to prolong their ninemonths' sacrifice through the tenth month? Thus they become the ten Dashagwas. We may note in this connection that the intoxication of the Soma by which Indra manifests or increases the might of Swar or the Swar-Purusha (Svarn.ara) is described as ten-rayed and illuminating (dasagvam vepayantam).
This conclusion is entirely confirmed by the passage in
1.17 - The Spiritus Familiaris or Serving Spirits, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
One might oppose that Divine Providence, in its aspects of love and charity, could, in some cases, make an exception. However, the genuine magician knows that causes are always followed up by the relevant effects, otherwise the Law of Karma, the law of retaliation, the rule of law of the whole universe, would be untrue, that is illusory. That this is not so, but that, on the contrary, everything takes place due to the most genuine laws with a most admirable precision need not be stressed here. Divine love and charity with all their other aspects such as benevolence etc. work up to the point where man realizes that he himself is the cause of the sorrows that have overcome him, and this knowledge enables him to carry his burden more easily. From the correct universal point of view Providence, in its aspects of love, benevolence etc., cannot further intervene. Every experienced magician, knowing the universal laws, finds this in order. Every genuine magician should therefore take heed not to conclude a contract which would entirely halt his personal magical development and evolution. A true initiate will not even be tempted to conclude contacts with high and good heads, no matter how great the advantages might be. To bind oneself to spirit beings and their spheres means losing the freedom of one's own thoughts and doings.
Why then, one might ask, is it necessary to deal with the magic of evocation; is it not better to work for one's personal development and to leave the beings where they are? The answer to this
1.17 - The Transformation, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
This "true movement" behind our breathing is, according to Sri Aurobindo, the same as the one governing electromagnetic fields, what the ancient yogis termed vayu, the Life-Energy. The well-known breathing exercises (pranayama) are simply one system (among others) of controlling vayu, which eventually enables one to escape gravity.
347
1.18 - Mind and Supermind, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
17:It is only when the veil is rent and the divided mind overpowered, silent and passive to a supramental action that mind itself gets back to the Truth of things. There we find a luminous mentality reflective, obedient and instrumental to the divine Real-Idea. There we perceive what the world really is; we know in every way ourselves in others and as others, others as ourselves and all as the universal and self-multiplied One. We lose the rigidly separate individual standpoint which is the source of all limitation and error. Still, we perceive also that all that the ignorance of Mind took for the truth was in fact truth, but truth deflected, mistaken and falsely conceived. We still perceive the division, the individualising, the atomic creation, but we know them and ourselves for what they and we really are. And so we perceive that the Mind was really a subordinate action and instrumentation of the Truth-consciousness. So long as it is not separated in self-experience from the enveloping Masterconsciousness and does not try to set up house for itself, so long as it serves passively as an instrumentation and does not attempt to possess for its own benefit, Mind fulfils luminously its function which is in the Truth to hold forms apart from each other by a phenom enal, a purely formal delimitation of their activity behind which the governing universality of the being remains conscious and untouched. It has to receive the truth of things and distribute it according to the unerring perception of a supreme and universal Eye and Will. It has to uphold an individualisation of active consciousness, delight, force, substance which derives all its power, reality and joy from an inali enable universality behind. It has to turn the multiplicity of the One into an apparent division by which relations are defined and held off against each other so as to meet again and join. It has to establish the delight of separation and contact in the midst of an eternal unity and intermiscence. It has to enable the One to behave as if He were an individual dealing with other individuals but always in His own unity, and this is what the world really is. The mind is the final operation of the apprehending Truth-consciousness which makes all this possible, and what we call the Ignorance does not create a new thing and absolute falsehood but only misrepresents the Truth. The Ignorance is the Mind separated in knowledge from its source of knowledge and giving a false rigidity and a mistaken appearance of opposition and conflict to the harmonious play of the supreme Truth in its universal manifestation.
18:The fundamental error of the Mind is, then, this fall from self-knowledge by which the individual soul conceives of its individuality as a separate fact instead of as a form of Oneness and makes itself the centre of its own universe instead of knowing itself as one concentration of the universal. From that original error all its particular ignorances and limitations are contingent results. For, viewing the flux of things only as it flows upon and through itself, it makes a limitation of being from which proceeds a limitation of consciousness and therefore of knowledge, a limitation of conscious force and will and therefore of power, a limitation of self-enjoyment and therefore of delight. It is conscious of things and knows them only as they present themselves to its individuality and therefore it falls into an ignorance of the rest and thereby into an erroneous conception even of that which it seems to know: for since all being is interdependent, the knowledge either of the whole or of the essence is necessary for the right knowledge of the part. Hence there is an element of error in all human knowledge. Similarly our will, ignorant of the rest of the all-will, must fall into error of working and a greater or less degree of incapacity and impotence; the soul's self-delight and delight of things, ignoring the all-bliss and by defect of will and knowledge unable to master its world, must fall into incapacity of possessive delight and therefore into suffering. Self-ignorance is therefore the root of all the perversity of our existence, and that perversity stands fortified in the self-limitation, the egoism which is the form taken by that self-ignorance.
1.18 - The Human Fathers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Usha is the divine illumination and Dakshina is the discerning knowledge that comes with the dawn and enables the Power in the mind, Indra, to know aright and separate the light from the darkness, the truth from the falsehood, the straight from the crooked, vr.n.ta vijanan. The right and left hand of Indra are his two powers of action in knowledge; for his two arms are called gabhasti, a word which means ordinarily a ray of the sun but also forearm, and they correspond to his two perceptive powers, his two bright horses, har, which are described as suneyed, suracaks.asa and as vision-powers of the Sun, suryasya ketu. Dakshina presides over the right-hand power, daks.in.a, and therefore we have the collocation daks.in.e daks.in.avan. It is this discernment which presides over the right action of the sacrifice and the right distribution of the offerings and it is this which enables Indra to hold the herded wealth of the Panis securely, in his right hand. And finally we are told what is this secret thing
The Human Fathers
1.19 - Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:WE PERCEIVE, then, what Mind is in its divine origin and how it is related to the Truth-consciousness, - Mind, the highest of the three lower principles which constitute our human existence. It is a special action of the divine consciousness, or rather it is the final strand of its whole creative action. It enables the Purusha to hold apart the relations of different forms and forces of himself to each other; it creates phenom enal differences which to the individual soul fallen from the Truth-consciousness take the appearance of radical divisions, and is by that original perversion the parent of all the resultant perversions which impress us as the contrary dualities and oppositions proper to the life of the Soul in the Ignorance. But so long as it is not separated from the Supermind, it supports, not perversions and falsehoods, but the various working of the universal Truth.
2:Mind thus appears as a creative cosmic agency. This is not the impression which we normally have of our mentality; rather we regard it primarily as a perceptive organ, perceptive of things already created by Force working in Matter, and the only origination we allow to it is a secondary creation of new combined forms from those already developed by Force in Matter. But the knowledge we are now recovering, aided by the last discoveries of Science, begins to show us that in this Force and in this Matter there is a subconscious Mind at work which is certainly responsible for its own emergence, first in the forms of life and secondly in the forms of mind itself, first in the nervous consciousness of plant-life and the primitive animal, secondly in the ever-developing mentality of the evolved animal and of man. And as we have already discovered that Matter is only substance-form of Force, so we shall discover that material Force is only energy-form of Mind. Material force is, in fact, a subconscious operation of Will; Will that works in us in what seems to be light, though it is in truth no more than a halflight, and material Force that works in what to us seems to be a darkness of unintelligence, are yet really and in essence the same, as materialistic thought has always instinctively felt from the wrong or lower end of things and as spiritual knowledge working from the summit had long ago discovered. We may say, therefore, that it is a subconscious Mind or Intelligence which, manifesting Force as its driving-power, its executive Nature, its Prakriti, has created this material world.
1.19 - ON THE PROBABLE EXISTENCE AHEAD OF US OF AN ULTRA-HUMAN, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
The study of this vital question will enable us to define both
the physical conditions necessary to the realization of the Ultra-
1.19 - The Practice of Magical Evocation, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
This information refers only to the essentials, and every magician, whether poor or wealthy, should therefore be able to practise magical evocation, even should he have no special room at his disposal. The magician is not bound to any special place, and he may carry out the citation in a bed-room as well as in a kitchen; even an attic or a suitable place in a cellar may serve the purpose and enable the magician to carry out a faultless evocation. If the magician has none of the above mentioned possibilities, then all he needs to do is to betake himself to a lonely place somewhere in the open air where he is sure that he is not being watched by anybody and, consequently, can work without being disturbed.
Of course, conditions like this cannot be taken into consideration in detail in the description, and every magician should know best how and where he may carry out his operations. Since it is easy to understand, I have chosen as the example of an evocation the
--
Before the magician begins the actual evocation he must know in advance exactly, apart from having worked out a precise plan, from which plane or sphere he intends to call a being, or intelligence, and what he indends to ask from it. In part two of this book, dealing with the hierarchy of beings, the magician will find a number of good, (i. e. positive) beings of various individual spheres, a large selection, enabling him to choose the being, according to his wish, which will help him to realize his plans. It must be understood, however, that this book by no means gives the reader complete information on all beings and intelligences, for there are thousands of them in each plane and sphere. But the intelligences mentioned will be, in general, sufficient for practical work.
Let us assume that the magician has decided to evoke the
--
Hagiel's departure, in a state of happiness, a feeling of bliss will pervade you, and, as if dominated by true happiness, you will find yourself in a state of exaltation. If you please, you may remain in the room within the magic circle for some time and reconstruct the whole experience with Hagiel once more in your mind so that you will remember well every part of it when you completely finish your evocation. By help of imagination you dissolve the accumulated light into the universe, take the sign out of the triangle and put it away in safe keeping. You can leave the circle without any danger, put out the lamps, etc. All magical instruments and aids are returned to their repository. If Hagiel has informed you of any special knowledge which you should not put down in writing, but merely keep well in your head, the knowledge being intended for you alone, then you must comply with such a wish. Otherwise you enter the procedure of the whole evocation into your diary to enable you to keep a good control over your workings and to have a reference book for them. You can follow the same procedure as with Hagiel in respect of any other being from any other sphere. By and by you will also become a perfect master in this respect and your personal experience will grow immensely.
The description of the practice of a magical evocation is herewith completed.
1.19 - The Victory of the Fathers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Agni, the truth-conscious seer-will, is the principal godhead who enables us to effect the sacrifice; he leads it on the path of the
The Victory of the Fathers
1.200-1.224 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Sara and visited several saints, sadhus and yogis, probably 1,500 as he puts their number. A sadhu in Trimbak has told him that he has still debts to pay which, if done, will enable him to have realisation. His only debt, as he conceived it, was the marriage of his son. It has since been performed and he now feels himself free from karmic indebtedness.
He therefore seeks Sri Bhagavans guidance for freedom from mental unhappiness which persists in spite of his not being indebted.
1.2.05 - Aspiration, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
One must rely on the Divine and yet do some enabling sadhana
- the Divine gives the fruits, not by the measure of the sadhana but by the measure of the soul and its aspiration. Also worrying does no good - "I shall be this, I shall be that, what shall I be?"
1.20 - RULES FOR HOUSEHOLDERS AND MONKS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Once a theatrical troupe in the village was enacting the life of Rma. When Kaikeyi asked Rma to go into exile in the forest, Haladhri's father, who had been watching the performance, sprang up. He went to the actor who played Kaikeyi, crying out, 'You wretch!', and was about to burn the actor's face with a torch. He was a very pious man.
After finishing his ablutions he would stand in the water and meditate on the Deity, reciting the invocation: 'I meditate on Thee, of red hue and four faces', while tears streamed down his cheeks.
1.20 - Tabooed Persons, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
and thus be enabled to work their destruction by magic. Among some
Indian tribes of North America a young warrior in his first campaign
1.2.11 - Patience and Perseverance, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
His sincerity must enable him to persevere always - for it is a longing for the Divine that nothing can quench, neither delay nor disappointment nor difficulty nor anything else.
You have got troubled again because you have allowed your mind to become active again in its ignorance, questioning, trying to refute the simplest and most established spiritual truths, trying to decide without waiting for the inner knowledge. Throw all that away and go on in quietude, not minding if it takes short or long for things to open up. That was what you had undertaken to do. Keep to it and, however slowly, the consciousness will open and light come.
1.21 - FROM THE PRE-HUMAN TO THE ULTRA-HUMAN, THE PHASES OF A LIVING PLANET, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
cosmic hazard has enabled it to hatch out and establish itself, it
cannot thereafter cease to become intensified to the utmost, in ac-
1.21 - WALPURGIS-NIGHT, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
My reverence, I hope, will me enable
To curb my temperament unstable;
--- Grep of noun ena
alpena
amphisbaena
andrena
arena
athena
avena
balaena
battle of jena
beach sand verbena
brown hyena
cartagena
catena
desert sand verbena
dracaena
dreissena
enabling act
enabling clause
enabling legislation
enactment
enalapril
enallage
enamel
enamelware
enamine
enamoredness
enanthem
enanthema
enantiomer
enantiomorph
enantiomorphism
enarthrodial joint
enarthrosis
enate
enation
euglena
galena
genus amphisbaena
genus andrena
genus avena
genus balaena
genus dracaena
genus dreissena
genus euglena
genus gomphrena
genus holarrhena
genus hyaena
genus hypsiglena
genus irena
genus leptarrhena
genus leucaena
genus lycaena
genus payena
genus phocoena
genus richmondena
genus sciaena
genus scorpaena
genus sphyraena
genus stenochlaena
genus tetrahymena
genus verbena
globicephala melaena
gomphrena
habenaria peramoena
helena
holarrhena
hyaena
hyaena hyaena
hyena
hypsiglena
irena
jena
laughing hyena
lena
leptarrhena
leucaena
lycaena
magdalena
melaena
melena
n'djamena
ndjamena
nigella damascena
novena
nuphar advena
ozaena
ozena
pallas athena
pasadena
payena
phocoena
phocoena phocoena
pink sand verbena
podiceps grisegena
political arena
psychic phenomena
richmondena
rosa damascena
sand verbena
sciaena
scorpaena
solanum melongena
sphyraena
sphyrna zygaena
sports arena
spotted hyena
stenochlaena
striped hyena
subpoena
sweet sand verbena
tetrahymena
tulipa armena
vena
vena saphena
verbena
yellow sand verbena
yerba buena