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higher consciousness ::: the higher spiritual or divine consciousness.
highering ::: a. --> Rising higher; ascending.
higher mind ::: (c. 1931, in the diagram on page 1360) a plane of consciousness with three levels: "liberated intelligence", "intuitive [higher mind]" and "illumined [higher mind]" (in ascending order). The first level may correspond to vijñanabuddhi in the earlier terminology of the Record of Yoga. The "intuitive" and "illumined" levels may be what Sri Aurobindo soon after making the diagram began to refer to as "higher mind" (defined as "a luminous thought-mind, a mind of spiritborn conceptual knowledge") and "illumined mind" (characterised by "an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the spirit"); cf. logistic ideality (also called luminous reason) and hermetic ideality or srauta vijñana (distinguished by "a diviner splendour of light and blaze of fiery effulgence") in the terminology of 1919-20.
higher-order function "functional programming" (HOF) A {function} that can take one or more functions as {arguments} and/or return a function as its value. E.g. map in (map f l) which returns the list of results of applying function f to each of the elements of list l. A {curried function} is an example of a higher-order function. (2018-05-25)
higher-order function ::: (HOF) A function that can take one or more functions as argument and/or return a function as its value. E.g. map in (map f l) which returns the list of results of applying function f to each of the elements of list l. See also curried function.
higher-order macro ::: A means of expressing certain higher-order functions in a first order language. Proposed by Phil Wadler. Higher-order macros cannot be recursive at the top level but they may contain recursive definitions. E.g. map f l = m lwhere Expanding a call to this macro is equivalent to specialising a call to map in its first argument.See partial evaluation.
higher-order macro "functional programming" A means of expressing certain {higher-order functions} in a {first-order language}, proposed by {Phil Wadler}. Higher-order macros cannot be {recursive} at the top level but they may contain recursive definitions. For example, the normal, definition of the {map} function, map f [] = [] map f (x:xs) = f x : map f xs is higher-order because its argument, f, is a function. The alternative formulation map f l = map_f l where map_f [] = [] map_f (x:xs) = f x : m xs defines a first-order function, map_f, that is a specialisation of map in its first argument. This can be considered a {macro} because it works purely by textual substitution, requiring no knowledge about f for its validity. This is an example of {partial evaluation} - the call, map f l, has been partially evaluated to yeild an intermediate result. This may be useful in optimising compilation or execution, e.g. if the call to f can be subject to {in-lining} or when executing map_f on a long list. (2018-05-25)
higher-order neurons ::: Neurons that are relatively remote from peripheral targets.
higher region.
higher revelatory ::: (in 1920) same as full revelatory. higher trik trikaladrsti
higher than Metatron, which would make him
Higher consciousness ::: abosr the ordinary mind and different from it in Its workings ; it ranges from higher mine! through illumined mind, intuition and overmind upto the border line of the Supramental.
Higher Education National Software Archive ::: (HENSA) . (1995-01-06)
Higher Education National Software Archive (HENSA) {(http://hensa.ac.uk/)}. (1995-01-06)
Higher Ego The individuality, as contrasted with the personality; the higher ego lies in atma-buddhi-manas as the reincarnating ego, and is a reflection or minor projection of the higher self or atman. The higher ego is contrasted with the lower or personal ego which is formed from the kamic, astral, and physical imbodiments of the former.
Higher Manas The aspect of the dual manas or human mental principle, which is attracted to buddhi or the spiritual principle, and which therefore is conditionally immortal. The lower manas is attracted to the kama or desire principle and dissolves after death as part of the kama-rupa. ( )
Higher Mind ::: a luminous thought-mind whose instrumentation is through an elevated thought-power and comprehensive mental sight. In the Higher Mind one becomes constantly and closely aware of the Self, the One everywhere and knows and sees habitually with that awareness.
Higher Mind ::: I mean by the Higher Mind a first plane of spiritual [consciousness] where one becomes constantly and closely aware of the Self, the One everywhere and knows and sees things habitually with that awareness; but it is still very much on the mindlevel although highly spiritual in its essential substance; and its instrumentation is through an elevated thought-power and comprehensive mental sight—not illumined by any of the intenser upper lights but as if in a large strong and clear daylight. It acts as an intermediate state between the Truth-Light above and the human mind; communicating the higher knowledge in a form that the Mind intensified, broadened, made spiritually supple, can receive without being blinded or dazzled by a Truth beyond it.Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is th
refore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind,—but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin,—as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of spirit-born conceptual knowledge.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 27, 21-22 Page: 20, 974
Higher mind/mental ::: Overtopping the ordinary mind, hidden in our own superconscient parts, there are higher ranges of Mind, gradations of spiritualised mind leading to the Supermind. In ascending order they are: Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind, Intuition and Overmind. See spiritualised mind.
Higher Order Conditioning ::: Pairing a second conditioned stimulus with the first conditioned stimulus in order to produce a second conditioned response.
Higher Planes ::: From the point of view of the ascent of consciousness from our mind upwards through a rising series of dynamic powers by which it can sublimate itself, the gradation can be resolved into a stairway of four main ascents, each with its high level of fulfilment. These gradations may be summarily described as a series of sublimations of the consciousness through Higher Mind, IlluminedMind and Intuition into Overmind and beyond it; there is a succession of self-transmutations at the summit of which lies the Supermind or Divine Gnosis.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 972
Higher Self ::: An aspect of self linked to Mental Plane archetypes and Solar Consciousness and which transcends individual lives (essentially it imparts some of the meaning that drives "lower" levels of self to manifest, including the need for a physical form). Higher Self tends to guide the soul to its optimal evolution and seeks to help one take control of their fate and learn to work Will. The HGA is often considered an aspect of Higher Self.
Higher Self The divine-spiritual essence or essential egoity overshadowing the human being, the atma-buddhi with the efflorescence of manas. The higher self is the god within, the source of all right motive, the fountain of intuition, and the voice of divine harmony seeking to control the individual’s life and to transform or transmute all the voices of personal desire.
Higher triad: In occult philosophy, the vital soul, the animal soul and the rationalized soul.
Higher Triad In theosophical literature a distinction is often made between that part of human nature which is immortal and that which is mortal. Hence the seven principles were divided into the higher triad — comprising atman, buddhi, and manas — and lower quaternary — kama, prana, linga-sarira, and sthula-sarira. Another division is also frequently used: higher triad — atman, buddhi, and higher manas; lower quaternary — lower manas or kama-manas, prana, linga-sarira, and sthula-sarira.
Higher Triad ::: The imperishable spiritual ego considered as a unity. It is the reincarnating part of man's constitutionwhich clothes itself in each earth-life in a new personality or lower quaternary. The higher triad, speakingin the simplest fashion, is the unity of atman, buddhi, and the higher manas; and the lower quaternaryconsists of the lower manas or kama-manas, the prana or vitality, the linga-sarira or astral model-body,and the physical vehicle.Another manner of considering the human constitution in its spiritual aspects is that viewed from thestandpoint of consciousness, and in this latter manner the higher triad consists of the divine monad, thespiritual monad, and the higher human monad. The higher triad is often spoken of in a collective sense,and ignoring details of division, as simply the reincarnating monad, or more commonly the reincarnatingego, because this latter is rooted in the higher triad.Many theosophists experience quite unnecessary difficulty in understanding why the human constitutionshould be at one time divided in one way and at another time divided in another way. The difficulty liesin considering these divisions as being absolute instead of relative, in other words, as representingwatertight compartments instead of merely indefinite and convenient divisions. The simplestpsychological division is probably that which divides the septenary constitution of man in three parts: anuppermost duad which is immortal, an intermediate duad which is conditionally immortal, and a lowertriad which is unconditionally mortal. (See Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, 1st ed., pp. 167,525; 2nd rev. ed., pp. 199, 601).
Higher vital ::: Usually refers to the vital mind and emouve being as opposed to the middle vital which has its scat in the navel and is dynamic, sensational and passionate and the lower which is made up the smaBer movements of human Jj/e-desjre and life-reactions.
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. Higher, as in place or position. 2. More elevated or lofty; higher in altitude.
1. To or towards a higher or loftier position, point, place, or plane; having a vertical or ascensional course or direction; taking place or inclined upwards; ascending. 2. Situated or lying aloft or above; higher in place or position; lofty. upwards.
(2) make it easier for the Force and other powers of the higher being to descend.
(5) If there is gossip about others and harsh criticism not to join— for these things are helpful in no way and only lower the consciousness from its higher level.
abate ::: v. t. --> To beat down; to overthrow. To bring down or reduce from a higher to a lower state, number, or degree; to lessen; to diminish; to contract; to moderate; to cut short; as, to abate a demand; to abate pride, zeal, hope. To deduct; to omit; as, to abate something from a price. To blunt. To reduce in estimation; to deprive. To bring entirely down or put an end to; to do away with;
“About the subconscient—it is the sub-mental base of the being and is made up of impressions, instincts, habitual movements that are stored there. Whatever movement is impressed in it, it keeps. If one impresses the right movement in it, it will keep and send up that. That is why it has to be cleared of old movements before there can be a permanent and total change in the nature. When the higher consciousness is once established in the waking parts, it goes down into the subconscient and changes that also, makes a bedrock of itself there also.” Letters on Yoga
ABOVE-HEAD CENTRE. ::: Above the head extends the higher consciousness centre, sahasradala padma, the thousandpetalled lotus, commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The sahasradala centralises spiritual mind, higher mind, intuitive mind and acts as a receiving station for the intuition proper and overmind.
It is the seventh and highest centre. Usually those who take the centres in the body only count six centres, the sahasrāra being excluded. It is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error; the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, śūnya, either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.
Wide Crown centre.
above ::: prep. --> In or to a higher place; higher than; on or over the upper surface; over; -- opposed to below or beneath. Figuratively, higher than; superior to in any respect; surpassing; beyond; higher in measure or degree than; as, things above comprehension; above mean actions; conduct above reproach. Surpassing in number or quantity; more than; as, above a hundred. (Passing into the adverbial sense. See Above, adv., 4.)
academical ::: a. --> Belonging to the school or philosophy of Plato; as, the Academic sect or philosophy. Belonging to an academy or other higher institution of learning; scholarly; literary or classical, in distinction from scientific.
academy ::: n. --> A garden or grove near Athens (so named from the hero Academus), where Plato and his followers held their philosophical conferences; hence, the school of philosophy of which Plato was head. An institution for the study of higher learning; a college or a university. Popularly, a school, or seminary of learning, holding a rank between a college and a common school. A place of training; a school. A society of learned men united for the advancement of the
"A change into a higher consciousness or state of being is not only the whole aim and process of religion, of all higher askesis, of Yoga, but it is also the very trend of our life itself, the secret purpose found in the sum of its labour.” *The Life Divine
“A change into a higher consciousness or state of being is not only the whole aim and process of religion, of all higher askesis, of Yoga, but it is also the very trend of our life itself, the secret purpose found in the sum of its labour.” The Life Divine
acockbill ::: adv. --> Hanging at the cathead, ready to let go, as an anchor. Topped up; having one yardarm higher than the other.
ACTION. ::: If a man is spiritual and has gone beyond the vital and mind, he does not need to be always “doing” something. The self or spirit has the joy of its own existence. It is free to do nothing and free to do everything - but not because it is bound to action and unable to exist without it.
To be able to work with full energy is necessary, but to be able not to work is also necessary. Action in sādhanā ::: The feeling that all one does is from the Divine, that all action is the Mother’s is a necessary step in experience but one cannot remain in it ; one has to go further. Those can remain in it who do not want to change the nature, but only to have the experience of the Truth behind it. Your action is according to universal Nature and in that again it is according to your individual nature, and all Nature is a force put out by the Divine Mother for the action of the universe. But as things are it is an action of the Ignorance and the ego; while what we want is an action of the divine Truth unveiled and undeformed by the Ignorance and the ego.
The aim of the sadhana is to become a conscious and perfect instrument instead of one that is unconscious and therefore imperfect. One can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when one is no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature but in surrender to the Mother and aware of her higher Force acting within oneself.
adj. 1. Having dropped or come down from a higher place, from an upright position, or from a higher level, degree, amount, quality, value, number. 2. Having sunk in reputation or honour; degraded. 3. Overthrown, destroyed or conquered, esp. of those who have died in battle. (Also, pp. of fall**.**)
adown ::: adv. --> From a higher to a lower situation; downward; down, to or on the ground. ::: prep. --> Down.
advancement ::: v. t. --> The act of advancing, or the state of being advanced; progression; improvement; furtherance; promotion to a higher place or dignity; as, the advancement of learning. An advance of money or value; payment in advance. See Advance, 5. Property given, usually by a parent to a child, in advance of a future distribution. Settlement on a wife, or jointure.
advance ::: v. t. --> To bring forward; to move towards the van or front; to make to go on. To raise; to elevate. To raise to a higher rank; to promote. To accelerate the growth or progress; to further; to forward; to help on; to aid; to heighten; as, to advance the ripening of fruit; to advance one&
Aftermath of descent: Whenever there .is a descent of the higher consciousness in the adhara: (1) Part of it is stored up in the frontal consdousness and remains there. (2) Part of it goes behind and remains as a support to the active part of the being. (3) Part flows out into the universal Nature. (4) Part is" absorbed by the inconsdent and lost to the individual cons- dousness and its action.
AGNI. ::: Fire; Fire of Sacrifice; the Fire-God; Flame of Divine Force; illumined will; Divine Will; Fire of human aspiration; flame of purification or transformation in the psychic being; psychic fire.
The psychic fire is the fire of aspiration, purification and Tapasya.
Without Agni the sacrificial flame cannot bum on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with Knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity. Agni and colours ::: the principle of Fire can manifest all the colours and the pure white fire is that which contains in itself all the colours.
Agni first, for without him the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity.” *The Secret of the Veda
Agni first, for without him the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity.” The Secret of the Veda
“Agni is the leader of the sacrifice and protects it in the great journey against the powers of darkness. The knowledge and purpose of this divine Puissance can be entirely trusted; he is the friend and lover of the soul and will not betray it to evil gods. Even for the man sitting far off in the night, enveloped by the darkness of the human ignorance, this flame[Agni] is a light which, when it is perfectly kindled and in proportion as it mounts higher and higher, enlarges itself into the vast light of the Truth. Flaming upward to heaven to meet the divine Dawn, it rises through the vital or nervous mid-world and through our mental skies and enters at last the Paradise of Light, its own supreme home above where joyous for ever in the eternal Truth that is the foundation of the sempiternal Bliss the shining Immortals sit in their celestial sessions and drink the wine of the infinite beatitude.” The Secret of the Veda
*[Agni]. Sri Aurobindo: "Agni is the leader of the sacrifice and protects it in the great journey against the powers of darkness. The knowledge and purpose of this divine Puissance can be entirely trusted; he is the friend and lover of the soul and will not betray it to evil gods. Even for the man sitting far off in the night, enveloped by the darkness of the human ignorance, this flame[Agni] is a light which, when it is perfectly kindled and in proportion as it mounts higher and higher, enlarges itself into the vast light of the Truth. Flaming upward to heaven to meet the divine Dawn, it rises through the vital or nervous mid-world and through our mental skies and enters at last the Paradise of Light, its own supreme home above where joyous for ever in the eternal Truth that is the foundation of the sempiternal Bliss the shining Immortals sit in their celestial sessions and drink the wine of the infinite beatitude.” *The Secret of the Veda
Aiilomalic action of the Force ::: The need for calling help diminishes as one gets higher and higher or rather fuller and fuller, being replaced more and more by the automatic action of the Force.
“A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be characterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the beginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material Nature.” The Life Divine
::: ". . . all our spiritual and psychic experience bears affirmative witness, brings us always a constant and, in its main principles, an invariable evidence of the existence of higher worlds, freer planes of existence. Not having bound ourselves down, like so much of modern thought, to the dogma that only physical experience or experience based upon the physical sense is true, the analysis of physical experience by the reason alone verifiable, and all else only result of physical experience and physical existence and anything beyond this an error, self-delusion and hallucination, we are free to accept this evidence and to admit the reality of these planes. We see that they are, practically, different harmonies from the harmony of the physical universe; they occupy, as the word ‘plane" suggests, a different level in the scale of being and adopt a different system and ordering of its principles.” The Life Divine
“… all our spiritual and psychic experience bears affirmative witness, brings us always a constant and, in its main principles, an invariable evidence of the existence of higher worlds, freer planes of existence. Not having bound ourselves down, like so much of modern thought, to the dogma that only physical experience or experience based upon the physical sense is true, the analysis of physical experience by the reason alone verifiable, and all else only result of physical experience and physical existence and anything beyond this an error, self-delusion and hallucination, we are free to accept this evidence and to admit the reality of these planes. We see that they are, practically, different harmonies from the harmony of the physical universe; they occupy, as the word ‘plane’ suggests, a different level in the scale of being and adopt a different system and ordering of its principles.” The Life Divine
aloft ::: adv. --> On high; in the air; high above the ground. In the top; at the mast head, or on the higher yards or rigging; overhead; hence (Fig. and Colloq.), in or to heaven. ::: prep. --> Above; on top of.
alt ::: a. & n. --> The higher part of the scale. See Alto.
Amal: “If nothing existed except the Gods there would be no mediating passage for the spirit awaking in matter and moving towards the higher regions and reaching the glory of the Oversoul after much labour and gradual process.”
Amal: “The ‘Bird of Wonder’ is the unimaginably beautiful carrier of the higher consciousness.”
Amal: “‘The first-born of the Sun’ is Manu, man’s higher mental self connected with the Supermind.”
Amal: “The ‘inner prophet’ is the psychic being who corresponds in the lower hemisphere of the cosmos to the higher hemisphere’s ananda planes.”
Amal: “The phrase ‘The Angel of the Vigil Tower’ connotes the inner watcher (of one’s lower actions) from either the Higher Mind or the psychic being.”
Amal: “The phrase ‘the Book of Bliss’ is a reference to the plane of Ananda which is beyond-behind the plane of the Supermind. I have equated ‘beyond’ to ‘behind’ because there is nothing higher than the Supermind. Through Supermind comes the disclosure of the supreme Ananda which may be called its inmost self.”
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.”
Amal: “The subtle powers behind the surface reality were met by him because of the inner and higher consciousness he acquired, a consciousness by which he was open to a god-knowledge and a world-knowledge coming to him from above and from within.”**
Ananda) and if the lower movements are active, it forms an obstacle to the establishment of the higher consciousness. But the higher can descend, if there is at all an opening, even before
Ananda cannot descend or are mixed and split from the effer- vescing crude emotional vesseL No amount of ordinary reason- ing can get rid of the necessity of surmounting the lower in order that the higher may be there.
ANUBHAVA. ::: The system of getting rid of things by anubhava* has behind it two well-known psychological motives. One, the motive of purposeful exhaustion, is valid only in some cases, especially when some natural tendency has too strong a hold or too strong a drive in it to be got rid of by vicāra+ t or by the process of rejection and the substitution of the true movement in its place. The other motive for anubhava is of a more general applicability ; for in order to reject anything from the being, one has first to become conscious of it, to have the clear inner experience of its action and to discover its actual place in the workings of the nature. One can then work upon it to eliminate it, if it is en entirely wrong movement, or to transform it if it is only the degradation of a higher and true movement.
ape ::: n. --> A quadrumanous mammal, esp. of the family Simiadae, having teeth of the same number and form as in man, and possessing neither a tail nor cheek pouches. The name is applied esp. to species of the genus Hylobates, and is sometimes used as a general term for all Quadrumana. The higher forms, the gorilla, chimpanzee, and ourang, are often called anthropoid apes or man apes. One who imitates servilely (in allusion to the manners of the ape); a mimic.
appeal ::: 1. An earnest request for aid, support, sympathy, mercy, etc.; entreaty; petition; plea. 2. An application or proceeding for review by a higher tribunal. 3. The power or ability to attract, interest; attraction. appealed, appealing, sense-appeal.
appealable ::: a. --> Capable of being appealed against; that may be removed to a higher tribunal for decision; as, the cause is appealable. That may be accused or called to answer by appeal; as, a criminal is appealable for manslaughter.
appellant ::: a. --> Relating to an appeal; appellate. ::: n. --> One who accuses another of felony or treason. One who appeals, or asks for a rehearing or review of a cause by a higher tribunal. A challenger.
appellants ::: those who appeal to a higher tribunal; entreat.
apsis ::: n. --> One of the two points of an orbit, as of a planet or satellite, which are at the greatest and least distance from the central body, corresponding to the aphelion and perihelion of a planet, or to the apogee and perigee of the moon. The more distant is called the higher apsis; the other, the lower apsis; and the line joining them, the line of apsides. In a curve referred to polar coordinates, any point for which the radius vector is a maximum or minimum.
archegonium ::: n. --> The pistillidium or female organ in the higher cryptogamic plants, corresponding to the pistil in flowering plants.
archierey ::: n. --> The higher order of clergy in Russia, including metropolitans, archbishops, and bishops.
archilute ::: n. --> A large theorbo, or double-necked lute, formerly in use, having the bass strings doubled with an octave, and the higher strings with a unison.
argentous ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or containing, silver; -- said of certain silver compounds in which silver has a higher proportion than in argentic compounds; as, argentous chloride.
arise ::: v. i. --> To come up from a lower to a higher position; to come above the horizon; to come up from one&
ASCENT AND DESCENT. ::: The practice of this yoga is double ::: one side is of an ascent of the consciousness to the higher planes, the other is that of a descent of the power of the higher planes into the earth-consciousness so as to drive out the Power of darkness and ignorance and transform the nature.
All the consciousness in the human being who is the mental embodied in living matter has to rise so as to meet the higher consciousness; the higher consciousness has also to descend into mind, into life, into matter.
To ascend is easier than to bring down ; the higher consciousness gets entangled and impeded in the physical and the mind and vital.
ASCENT AND RETURN. ::: Once the being or its different parts begin to ascend to the planes above, any part of the being may do it, frontal or other. The samskāra that one cannot come back must be got rid of. One can have the experience of Nirvana at the summit of the mind or anywhere in those planes that are now superconscient to the mind; the mind spiritualised by the ascent into Self has the sense of laya, dissolution of itself, its thoughts, movements, samskāras into a superconscient Silence and Infinity which it is unable to grasp, - the Unknowable. But this would bring or lead to some form of Nirvana only if one makes Nirvana the goal, if one is tied to the mind and accepts its dissolution into the Infinite as one’s own dissolution or if one has not the capacity to reorganise experience on a higher than the mental plane. But otherwise what was superconscient becomes conscient, one begins to possess or else to be the instrument of the dynamis of the higher planes and there is a movement, not of liberation into Nirvana but of liberation and transformation. However high one goes one can always return, unless one has the will not to do so.
aspirant ::: n. **1. One who seeks with eagerness and steady purpose. adj. 2. Aspiring, striving for a higher position; mounting up, ascending. aspirants.**
ASPIRATION. ::: The call in the being for the Divine or for the higher things that belong to the Divine Consciousness.
A call to the Divine; aspiration for the discovery and embodiment of the Divine Truth and to nothing else whatever.
An aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing- the mind’s will, the heart’s seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature.
There is no need of words in aspiration. It can be expressed or unexpressed in words.
Aspiration need not be in the form of thought; it can be a feeling within that remains even when the mind is attending to the work.
Aspiration is to call the forces. When the forces have answered, there is a natural state of quiet receptivity concentrated but spontaneous.
In aspiration there is a self-giving for the higher consciousness to descend and take possession ; the more intense the call, the greater the self-giving.
Aspiration keeps the consciousness open, prevents an inert state of acquiescence in all that comes and exercises a sort of pull on the sources of the higher consciousness.
The intensity of aspiration brings the intensity of the experience and by repeated intensity of the experience, the change. It is the psychic that gives the true aspiration; if the vital is purified and subjected to the psychic, then the vital gives intensity. Aspiration in the physical consciousness ::: the physical consciousness is always in everybody in its own nature a little inert and in it a constant strong aspiration is not natural, it has to be created. But first there must be the opening, a purification, a fixed quietude, otherwise the physical vital will turn the strong aspiration into over-eagerness and impatience or rather it will try to give it that turn.
associationist ::: n. --> One who explains the higher functions and relations of the soul by the association of ideas; e. g., Hartley, J. C. Mill.
"As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power.” The Life Divine*
"As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power.” The Life Divine
“As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power.” The Life Divine
ASURA. ::: Titan; a being of ignorant egoism as opposed to the Deva or god, who is a being of Light; sons of Darkness and Division.
Asuras are really the dark side of the mental, or more strictly, of the vital mind plane. This mind is the very field of the Asuras. Their main characteristic is egoistic strength and struggle, which refuse the higher law. The Asura has self-control, tapas, and intelligence, but all that for the sake of his ego.
There are no Asuras on the higher planes where the Truth prevails, except in the Vedic sense -“ the Divine in its strength “. The mental and vital Asuras are only a deviation of that power.
There are two kinds of Asuras - one kind were divine in their origin but have fallen from their divinity by self-will and opposition to the intention of the Divine; they are spoken in the Hindu scriptures as the former or earlier gods; these can be converted and their conversion is indeed necessary for the ultimate purpose of the universe. But the ordinary Asura is not of this character, is not an evolutionary but a typal being and represents a fixed principle of the creation which does not evolve or change and is not intended to do so. These Asuras, as also the other hostile beings, Rakshasas, Pishachas and others resemble the devils of the Christian tradition and oppose the divine intention and the evolutionary purpose in the human being; they don’t change the purpose in them for which they exist which is evil, but have to be destroyed like the evil. The Asura has no soul, no psychic being which has to evolve to a higher state; he has only an ego and usually a very powerful ego; he has a mind, sometimes even a highly intellectual mind; but the basis of his thinking and feeling is vital and not mental, at the service of his desire and not truth. He is a formation assumed by the life-principle for a particular kind of work and not a divine formation or soul.
Some kinds of Asuras are very religious, very fanatical about their religion, very strict about rules of ethical conduct. There are others who use spiritual ideas without believing in them to give them a perverted twist and delude the sadhaka.
"A third step is to find out that there is something in him other than his instrumental mind, life and body, not only an immortal ever-developing individual soul that supports his nature but an eternal immutable self and spirit, and to learn what are the categories of his spiritual being, until he discovers that all in him is an expression of the spirit and distinguishes the link between his lower and his higher existence; thus he sets out to remove his constitutional self-ignorance. Discovering self and spirit he discovers God; he finds out that there is a Self beyond the temporal: he comes to the vision of that Self in the cosmic consciousness as the divine Reality behind Nature and this world of beings; his mind opens to the thought or the sense of the Absolute of whom self and the individual and the cosmos are so many faces; the cosmic, the egoistic, the original ignorance begin to lose the rigidness of their hold upon him.” The Life Divine
“A third step is to find out that there is something in him other than his instrumental mind, life and body, not only an immortal ever-developing individual soul that supports his nature but an eternal immutable self and spirit, and to learn what are the categories of his spiritual being, until he discovers that all in him is an expression of the spirit and distinguishes the link between his lower and his higher existence; thus he sets out to remove his constitutional self-ignorance. Discovering self and spirit he discovers God; he finds out that there is a Self beyond the temporal: he comes to the vision of that Self in the cosmic consciousness as the divine Reality behind Nature and this world of beings; his mind opens to the thought or the sense of the Absolute of whom self and the individual and the cosmos are so many faces; the cosmic, the egoistic, the original ignorance begin to lose the rigidness of their hold upon him.” The Life Divine
Attacks of illnesses ::: These forces, when thronm out, retreat into the environmental consciousness and remain there concealed and at any opportunity make an attack on the centres accustomed to receive them (external mind and the external emotional) and get in. This happens with most sadbakas. Two things are neces- sary — (1) to open fully the physical to the higher forces, (2) to reach the stage when even if the forces attack they cannot come fully in, the inner being remaining calm and free. Then even if there is still a surface dIfiBcuIty, there will not be these overpowerings.
attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
auric ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to gold. Pertaining to, or derived from, gold; -- said of those compounds of gold in which this element has its higher valence; as, auric oxide; auric chloride.
AUSTERITY. ::: A premature and excessive physical austerity, tapasyā, may endanger the process of the sadhana by establishing a disturbance and abnormality of the forces in the different parts of the system. A great energy may pour into the mental and vital parts, but the nerves and the body may be overstrained and lose the strength to support the play of these higher energies.
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.
bema ::: n. --> A platform from which speakers addressed an assembly. That part of an early Christian church which was reserved for the higher clergy; the inner or eastern part of the chancel. Erroneously: A pulpit.
highering ::: a. --> Rising higher; ascending.
(higher mind) comes of the Divine’s Will and the right way to do it.
bismuthic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to bismuth; containing bismuth, when this element has its higher valence; as, bismuthic oxide.
bloom ::: n. --> A blossom; the flower of a plant; an expanded bud; flowers, collectively. The opening of flowers in general; the state of blossoming or of having the flowers open; as, the cherry trees are in bloom. A state or time of beauty, freshness, and vigor; an opening to higher perfection, analogous to that of buds into blossoms; as, the bloom of youth. The delicate, powdery coating upon certain growing or
borrow ::: v. t. --> To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; -- the opposite of lend. To take (one or more) from the next higher denomination in order to add it to the next lower; -- a term of subtraction when the figure of the subtrahend is larger than the corresponding one of the minuend. To copy or imitate; to adopt; as, to borrow the style,
brevet ::: n. --> A warrant from the government, granting a privilege, title, or dignity. [French usage]. A commission giving an officer higher rank than that for which he receives pay; an honorary promotion of an officer. ::: v. t. --> To confer rank upon by brevet.
bronze ::: a. --> An alloy of copper and tin, to which small proportions of other metals, especially zinc, are sometimes added. It is hard and sonorous, and is used for statues, bells, cannon, etc., the proportions of the ingredients being varied to suit the particular purposes. The varieties containing the higher proportions of tin are brittle, as in bell metal and speculum metal. A statue, bust, etc., cast in bronze. A yellowish or reddish brown, the color of bronze; also, a
But at first there is a difficulty in keeping it intact when there is the contact wth others because the consciousness has the habit of running outwards in speech or external interchange or else coming down to the normal fevel. One must therefore be very careful until it is fixed ; once fixed it usually defends itself, for all outer contacts become surface things to a consciousness full of the higher peace.
"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
By enforcing the peace of the higher being in the lower parts down to the physical It becomes possible to (I) create that separateness which would prevent the inner being from being affected by the superficial disturbance and resistance, and
By Saraadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of with- drawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consdousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consdousness and posses thence to the higher supra- mental planes on which the indiWdual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and conrentrated energising of consdousness on its object which our phiJos^hy asserts as the priraa/j' cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the
call ::: “All Yoga is in its nature a new birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material life of man into a higher spiritual consciousness and a greater and diviner being. No Yoga can be successfully undertaken and followed unless there is a strong awakening to the necessity of that larger spiritual existence. The soul that is called to this deep and vast inward change, may arrive in different ways to the initial departure. It may come to it by its own natural development which has been leading it unconsciously towards the awakening; it may reach it through the influence of a religion or the attraction of a philosophy; it may approach it by a slow illumination or leap to it by a sudden touch or shock; it may be pushed or led to it by the pressure of outward circumstances or by an inward necessity, by a single word that breaks the seals of the mind or by long reflection, by the distant example of one who has trod the path or by contact and daily influence. According to the nature and the circumstances the call will come.” The Synthesis of Yoga
call ::: Sri Aurobindo: "All Yoga is in its nature a new birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material life of man into a higher spiritual consciousness and a greater and diviner being. No Yoga can be successfully undertaken and followed unless there is a strong awakening to the necessity of that larger spiritual existence. The soul that is called to this deep and vast inward change, may arrive in different ways to the initial departure. It may come to it by its own natural development which has been leading it unconsciously towards the awakening; it may reach it through the influence of a religion or the attraction of a philosophy; it may approach it by a slow illumination or leap to it by a sudden touch or shock; it may be pushed or led to it by the pressure of outward circumstances or by an inward necessity, by a single word that breaks the seals of the mind or by long reflection, by the distant example of one who has trod the path or by contact and daily influence. According to the nature and the circumstances the call will come.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
calorescence ::: n. --> The conversion of obscure radiant heat into light; the transmutation of rays of heat into others of higher refrangibility.
capt ::: Tehmi: “This passage is about the Kings of Thought. They come as the crown or overlie the imperatives. They go higher than the imperatives.”
carburize ::: v. t. --> To combine with carbon or a carbon compound; -- said esp. of a process for conferring a higher degree of illuminating power on combustible gases by mingling them with a vapor of volatile hydrocarbons.
CENTRAL BEING. ::: The portion of the Divine in us which supports all the rest and survives through death and birth. This centra! being has two forms ::: above, it is Jivatman, our true being, of which we become aware when the higher self-know- ledge comes ; below, it is the psychic being which stands behind mind, body and life. The Jivatman is above the manifestation in life and presides over it ; the psychic being stands behind the manifestation in life and supports it,
CENT, There is no connection between the Christian concep- tion (of the Kingdom of Heaven) and the idea of the Supra- mental descent. The Christian conception supposes a state of things brought about by religious emotion' and d'mdral'purifica- tion but ' these things are no more"capable of changing the world, 'whatever value they may base for the individual, than mental idealism or any bther power yet called upon for the pur- pose] The Christian proposes to substitute the sattsic religious ego for the rajasic and tamasic cgo| but although this can be donc-as an individual achievement, it has never succeeded and win never succeed in • accomplishing itself in the mass. It has no higher spiritual or psjchological knowledge behind it and ignores the' foundation -of htimao character and the source of the difBculty — the duality 6f mind, ‘life and body. Unless there is a descent of a new Power of Consdousness, not subject to the dualities but still dynamic which will preside a new foundation and a lifting of the centre of consciousness above the mind, the
cephalothorax ::: n. --> The anterior portion of any one of the Arachnida and higher Crustacea, consisting of the united head and thorax.
cfilcicnt mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more power- fuJ vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher supercooscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges.
Chance ::: Madhav: “Chance, erratic happening, is only an appearance. It is not the governing truth or feature of this existence. What look like unregulated result is really an effect foreseeable by an Intelligence higher than the mental reason; in fact, it is part of a process initiated and conducted by a divine wisdom, prajna, that rules the universe. What passes for chance is a purposive movement permitted and contained in the larger operations of the Law.” Readings in Savitri, Vol. I.
cheiropterygium ::: n. --> The typical pentadactyloid limb of the higher vertebrates.
chromic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or obtained from, chromium; -- said of the compounds of chromium in which it has its higher valence.
chrysene ::: n. --> One of the higher aromatic hydrocarbons of coal tar, allied to naphthalene and anthracene. It is a white crystalline substance, C18H12, of strong blue fluorescence, but generally colored yellow by impurities.
chute ::: n. --> A framework, trough, or tube, upon or through which objects are made to slide from a higher to a lower level, or through which water passes to a wheel. See Shoot.
C/ia/JSc of vital ::: It is not coerdon that is the way, but an inner change in which he lower vital is led, enlightened and transformed by a higher consciousness which is detached from the objects of vital desire. But in order to let this grow an atti- tude has to be tahen in which a decreasing Importance has to be attached to the satisfaction of the claims of the lower vital, a certain mastery, saniyama, being above any clamour of these things, limiting such things as food to their proper place. The lower vital has its place, it is not to be crushed or killed, but it has to be changed.
cilia ::: n. pl. --> The eyelashes. Small, generally microscopic, vibrating appendages lining certain organs, as the air passages of the higher animals, and in the lower animals often covering also the whole or a part of the exterior. They are also found on some vegetable organisms. In the Infusoria, and many larval forms, they are locomotive organs. Hairlike processes, commonly marginal and forming a fringe like the eyelash.
cissoid ::: n. --> A curve invented by Diocles, for the purpose of solving two celebrated problems of the higher geometry; viz., to trisect a plane angle, and to construct two geometrical means between two given straight lines.
climb ::: v. i. --> To ascend or mount laboriously, esp. by use of the hands and feet. To ascend as if with effort; to rise to a higher point. To ascend or creep upward by twining about a support, or by attaching itself by tendrils, rootlets, etc., to a support or upright surface. ::: v. t.
cobaltic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, derived from, or containing, cobalt; -- said especially of those compounds in which cobalt has higher valence; as, cobaltic oxide.
Colilen light is that of the Divine Truth on the higher planes ; the light of the Divine Truth which comes out from the supra- mcntal sunlight and modified according to the level it crosses, creates the ranges from Overraind to Higher Mind. It always means the light o£ Truth ; but the nature of the Truth varies according to the plane to which it belongs.
college ::: n. --> A collection, body, or society of persons engaged in common pursuits, or having common duties and interests, and sometimes, by charter, peculiar rights and privileges; as, a college of heralds; a college of electors; a college of bishops. A society of scholars or friends of learning, incorporated for study or instruction, esp. in the higher branches of knowledge; as, the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and many American colleges.
col ::: n. --> A short ridge connecting two higher elevations or mountains; the pass over such a ridge.
colonist ::: Madhav: “King Aswapathy had come to birth on earth with a special mission from the higher realms of the Spirit: to prepare the conditions for a divine advent, to embody in himself the soul of evolving humanity and to develop its aspiration for the Divine Life. he was conscious of the purpose for which he had sojourned in this mortal Nature and strove to extend here the reign of his native country of Infinity and Immortality.
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.
congo ::: n. --> Black tea, of higher grade (finer leaf and less dusty) than the present bohea. See Tea.
*consciousforce. ::: Sri Aurobindo: "In actual fact Mind measures Time by event and Space by Matter; but it is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension, — no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
Consciousness has not taken up the entire control of our God- ward endeavour. The working of the DIvme Force in m under the conditions of the transition and the tight of the psychic being turning us alw’aj'S towards a conscious and seeing obedience to that higher impulsion and away from the demands and instiga- tions of the Forces of the Ignorance, these between them create an ever progressive inner Jaw of our action which continues rilJ the spiritual and supramental can be established in our nature.
cosmic mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes, — towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” *The Life Divine
"If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, — not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
"There is one cosmic Mind, one cosmic Life, one cosmic Body. All the attempt of man to arrive at universal sympathy, universal love and the understanding and knowledge of the inner soul of other existences is an attempt to beat thin, breach and eventually break down by the power of the enlarging mind and heart the walls of the ego and arrive nearer to a cosmic oneness.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"[The results of the opening to the cosmic Mind:] One is aware of the cosmic Mind and the mental forces that move there and how they work on one"s mind and that of others and one is able to deal with one"s own mind with a greater knowledge and effective power. There are many other results, but this is the fundamental one.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness has many levels — the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga*
cosmoline ::: n. --> A substance obtained from the residues of the distillation of petroleum, essentially the same as vaseline, but of somewhat stiffer consistency, and consisting of a mixture of the higher paraffines; a kind of petroleum jelly.
CROWN. ::: The place of passage between the body-conscious- ness with all it contains of mind and life and the higher being above the body. It is there that the two consciousnesses begin to meet.
debase ::: a. --> To reduce from a higher to a lower state or grade of worth, dignity, purity, station, etc.; to degrade; to lower; to deteriorate; to abase; as, to debase the character by crime; to debase the mind by frivolity; to debase style by vulgar words.
decene ::: n. --> One of the higher hydrocarbons, C10H20, of the ethylene series.
decine ::: n. --> One of the higher hydrocarbons, C10H15, of the acetylene series; -- called also decenylene.
DEFECTS. ::: Each defect of the nature of the Ignorance is a deformation of something in the higher nature — a deformation which amounts to a perversion even.
defilade ::: v. t. --> To raise, as a rampart, so as to shelter interior works commanded from some higher point.
degeneration ::: n. --> The act or state of growing worse, or the state of having become worse; decline; degradation; debasement; degeneracy; deterioration. That condition of a tissue or an organ in which its vitality has become either diminished or perverted; a substitution of a lower for a higher form of structure; as, fatty degeneration of the liver. A gradual deterioration, from natural causes, of any
degrade ::: v. t. --> To reduce from a higher to a lower rank or degree; to lower in rank; to deprive of office or dignity; to strip of honors; as, to degrade a nobleman, or a general officer. To reduce in estimation, character, or reputation; to lessen the value of; to lower the physical, moral, or intellectual character of; to debase; to bring shame or contempt upon; to disgrace; as, vice degrades a man. To reduce in altitude or magnitude, as hills and
descend ::: to move or pass from a higher to a lower place; come down. Also fig. descends, descended.
descend ::: v. i. --> To pass from a higher to a lower place; to move downwards; to come or go down in any way, as by falling, flowing, walking, etc.; to plunge; to fall; to incline downward; -- the opposite of ascend. To enter mentally; to retire. To make an attack, or incursion, as if from a vantage ground; to come suddenly and with violence; -- with on or upon. To come down to a lower, less fortunate, humbler, less
Descent into the most physical ::: It brings light, consciousness, force, Ananda into the cells and all the physical movements. The body becomes conscious and vi^ant and performs the right movements, obeying the higher will or else automatically by the force of the consciousness that has come into iL It becomes more possible to control the functions of the body and set right any> thing that is mong, to deal with illness and pain etc. A greater control comes over the actions of the body and even ov'er bap> penings to it from outside, e.g. minimising of aeddents and small happenings. The body becomes a more effective instrument for work. It becomes possible to mimmise fatigue. Peace, happiness, strength, lightness come in the whole system. There is also the unity with the earth-consdousness, the constant sense of the
descent ::: n. --> The act of descending, or passing downward; change of place from higher to lower. Incursion; sudden attack; especially, hostile invasion from sea; -- often followed by upon or on; as, to make a descent upon the enemy. Progress downward, as in station, virtue, as in station, virtue, and the like, from a higher to a lower state, from a higher to a lower state, from the more to the less important, from the better to
DESCENT. ::: The descent is that of the powers of the higher consciousness which is above the head. It. comes in order to transform the consciousness.
destiny ::: “Destiny in the rigid sense applies only to the outer being so long as it lives in the Ignorance. What we call destiny is only in fact the result of the present condition of the being and the nature and energies it has accumulated in the past acting on each other and determining the present attempts and their future results. But as soon as one enters the path of spiritual life, this old predetermined destiny begins to recede. There comes in a new factor, the Divine Grace, the help of a higher Divine Force other than the force of Karma, which can lift the sadhak beyond the present possibilities of his nature. One’s spiritual destiny is then the divine election which ensures the future.” Letters on Yoga
DESTINY. ::: Destiny in the ripd sense applies only to the outer being so long as it lives in the Ignorance. What we call destiny is only in fact the result of the present condition of the being and the nature and energies it has accumulated in the past acting on each other and detenmning the present attempts and their future results. But as soon as one enters the path of spiri- tual life, this old predetermined destiny begins to recede. There comes in a new factor, the Divine Grace, the help of a higher
development ::: n. --> The act of developing or disclosing that which is unknown; a gradual unfolding process by which anything is developed, as a plan or method, or an image upon a photographic plate; gradual advancement or growth through a series of progressive changes; also, the result of developing, or a developed state. The series of changes which animal and vegetable organisms undergo in their passage from the embryonic state to maturity, from a lower to a higher state of organization.
develop ::: v. t. --> To free from that which infolds or envelops; to unfold; to lay open by degrees or in detail; to make visible or known; to disclose; to produce or give forth; as, to develop theories; a motor that develops 100 horse power. To unfold gradually, as a flower from a bud; hence, to bring through a succession of states or stages, each of which is preparatory to the next; to form or expand by a process of growth; to cause to change gradually from an embryo, or a lower state, to a higher
Difference in the Descent in old Yogas and this Yoga ::: I explain the absence of the descent experiences by the old yogas having been mainly confined to the psj'cho-spiritual-occult range of experience in which the higher experiences come into the still mind or the conceniraied heart by a sort of filtration or reflection — the field of this experience being from the
disulphuric ::: a. --> Applied to an acid having in each molecule two atoms of sulphur in the higher state of oxidation.
divine Force ::: Sri Aurobindo: "That there is a divine force asleep or veiled by Inconscience in Matter and that the Higher Force has to descend and awaken it with the Light and Truth is a thing that is well known; it is at the very base of this yoga.” *Letters on Yoga.
divine life ::: Sri Aurobindo: "A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be characterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the beginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material Nature.” *The Life Divine ::: "The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man"s real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.” The Life Divine
Divinity ::: “The Divinity in man dwells veiled in his spiritual centre; there can be no such thing as self-exceeding for man or a higher issue for his existence if there is not in him the reality of an eternal Self and Spirit.” The Life Divine
dom ::: n. --> A title anciently given to the pope, and later to other church dignitaries and some monastic orders. See Don, and Dan. In Portugal and Brazil, the title given to a member of the higher classes.
DOUBLE FOUNDATION OF YOGA. ::: If you Leep the wide- ness and calm and also the love for the Mother in the heart, then all is safe for it means the double foundation of the Yoga ::: the descent of the higher consciousness with its peace, freedom and serenity from above and the openness of the psychic which keeps all the effort or all the spontaneous movement turned towards the true goal.
DOUBLE MOVEMENT. ::: Our yoga is a double movement of ascent and descent ; one rises to higher and higher levels of consciousness, but at the same time one brings down their power not only into mind and life, but in the end even into the body.
downward ::: adj. 1. Descending from a source or beginning. 2. Moving or tending to a lower place or condition. 3. Toward a lower amount, degree, or rank. adv. 4. Spatially or metaphorically from a higher to a lower level or position.
downward ::: adv. --> Alt. of Downwards ::: a. --> Moving or extending from a higher to a lower place; tending toward the earth or its center, or toward a lower level; declivous. Descending from a head, origin, or source; as, a downward
downwards ::: adv. --> From a higher place to a lower; in a descending course; as, to tend, move, roll, look, or take root, downward or downwards. From a higher to a lower condition; toward misery, humility, disgrace, or ruin. From a remote time; from an ancestor or predecessor; from one to another in a descending line.
Dreams of physical mind and yogic dreams ; The dreams of the physical mind are an incoherent jumble made up partly of responses to vague touches from the physical world round which the lower mind-faculties disconnected from the will and reason, the bttddhi, weave a web of wandering phantasy, partly of disordered associations from the bram-memory, partly of reflections from the soul travelling on the mental plane, reflections which are, ordinarily, received without intelligence or co-ordination, wildly distorted in the reception and mixed up confusedly with the other dream elements, wnlh brain-memories and fantastic responses to any sensory touch from the physical world. In the yogic dream-state, on the other hand, the mind is in clear pos- session of itself, though not of the physical world, works cohe- rently and is able to use either its ordinary will and intelligence with a concentrated power or else the higher will and intelli- gence of the more exalted planes of mind. It withdraws from experience of the outer world, it puts its seals upon the physical senses and their doors of communication with material things ; but everything that is proper to itself, thought, reasoning, reflec- tion, vision, it can continue to execute with an increased purity and power of sovereign concentration free from the distractions and unsteadiness of the waking mind. It can use too its will and produce upon itself or upon its environment mental, moral and even physical effects which may continue and have their after-consequences on the waking state subsequent to the cessa- tion of the trance.
Dreams of the mental and higher vital planes ::: Things hap- pen with another rhjihm than here and freer forces, but some of them are formative of things and events here — not that they arc falSUtd exactly iite propfreefcs but they cceste forces for fulfilment.
DRY PERIOD. ::: There is a long stage of preparation neces- sary in order to arrive at the moer psychologic^ condition in which the doors of experience can open and one can walk from vista to vista — though even then new gates may present them- selves and refuse to open until all is ready. This period can be dry and desert-like unless one has the ardour of self-introspec- tion and self-conquest and finds every step of the effort and struggle interesting or unless one has or gets the secret of trust and self-giving which secs the hand of the Divine in every step of the path and even in the difficulty the grace or the guidance.
Such interval periods come to all and cannot be avoided.
The main thing is to meet them with quietude and not become restless, depressed or despondent. A constant fire can be there only when a certain stage has been reached, that is when one is always inside consciously living in the psychic being, but for that all this preparation of the mind, vital, physical is necessary.
For this fire belongs to the psychic and one cannot command it always merely by the mind's effort. The psychic has to be fully liberated and that is what the Force is working to make fully possible.
The difficulty comes when either the vital with its desires or the physical with its past habitual movements comes in — as they do with almost everyone. It is then that the dryness and difficulty of spontaneous aspiration come. This dryness is a well- known obstacle in all sadhana. But one has to persist and not be discouraged. If one keep? the will fixed even in these barren periods, they pass and after their passage a greater force of aspiration and experience becomes possible.
Dryness comes usually when the vital dislikes a movement or' condition or the refusal of its desires and starts non-co-operation.
But sometimes it is a condition that has to be crossed through, e.g. the neutral or dry quietude which sometimes comes when the ordinary movements have been thrown out but nothing positive has yet come to take their place, i.e, peace, joy, a higher know- ledge or force or action.
Dynamic realisation ::: When the higher consciousness comes into the mental it brings the peace of the Purusha and liberation and it may bring ako knowled^. It is when it comes into the vital that the dynamic realisation becomes present and 'living.
"Each person follows in the world his own line of destiny which is determined by his own nature and actions — the meaning and necessity of what happens in a particular life cannot be understood except in the light of the whole course of many lives. But this can be seen by those who can get beyond the ordinary mind and feelings and see things as a whole, that even errors, misfortunes, calamities are steps in the journey, — the soul gathering experience as it passes through and beyond them until it is ripe for the transition which will carry it beyond these things to a higher consciousness and higher life.” Letters on Yoga*
“Each person follows in the world his own line of destiny which is determined by his own nature and actions—the meaning and necessity of what happens in a particular life cannot be understood except in the light of the whole course of many lives. But this can be seen by those who can get beyond the ordinary mind and feelings and see things as a whole, that even errors, misfortunes, calamities are steps in the journey,—the soul gathering experience as it passes through and beyond them until it is ripe for the transition which will carry it beyond these things to a higher consciousness and higher life.” Letters on Yoga
elaboration ::: n. --> The act or process of producing or refining with labor; improvement by successive operations; refinement. The natural process of formation or assimilation, performed by the living organs in animals and vegetables, by which a crude substance is changed into something of a higher order; as, the elaboration of food into chyme; the elaboration of chyle, or sap, or tissues.
elevate ::: a. --> Elevated; raised aloft. ::: v. t. --> To bring from a lower place to a higher; to lift up; to raise; as, to elevate a weight, a flagstaff, etc. To raise to a higher station; to promote; as, to elevate to an office, or to a high social position.
elevation ::: n. --> The act of raising from a lower place, condition, or quality to a higher; -- said of material things, persons, the mind, the voice, etc.; as, the elevation of grain; elevation to a throne; elevation of mind, thoughts, or character. Condition of being elevated; height; exaltation. That which is raised up or elevated; an elevated place or station; as, an elevation of the ground; a hill. The distance of a celestial object above the horizon, or
"Emptiness is not in itself a bad condition, only if it is a sad and restless emptiness of the dissatisfied vital. In sadhana emptiness is very usually a necessary transition from one state to another. When mind and vital fall quiet and their restless movements, thoughts and desires cease, then one feels empty. This is at first often a neutral emptiness with nothing in it, nothing in it either good or bad, happy or unhappy, no impulse or movement. This neutral state is often or even usually followed by the opening to inner experience. There is also an emptiness made of peace and silence, when the peace and silence come out from the psychic within or descend from the higher consciousness above. This is not neutral, for in it there is the sense of peace, often also of wideness and freedom. There is also a happy emptiness with the sense of something close or drawing near which is not yet there, e.g. the closeness of the Mother or some other preparing experience.” Letters on Yoga*
“Emptiness is not in itself a bad condition, only if it is a sad and restless emptiness of the dissatisfied vital. In sadhana emptiness is very usually a necessary transition from one state to another. When mind and vital fall quiet and their restless movements, thoughts and desires cease, then one feels empty. This is at first often a neutral emptiness with nothing in it, nothing in it either good or bad, happy or unhappy, no impulse or movement. This neutral state is often or even usually followed by the opening to inner experience. There is also an emptiness made of peace and silence, when the peace and silence come out from the psychic within or descend from the higher consciousness above. This is not neutral, for in it there is the sense of peace, often also of wideness and freedom. There is also a happy emptiness with the sense of something close or drawing near which is not yet there, e.g. the closeness of the Mother or some other preparing experience.” Letters on Yoga
endecane ::: n. --> One of the higher hydrocarbons of the paraffin series, C11H24, found as a constituent of petroleum.
entresol ::: n. --> A low story between two higher ones, usually between the ground floor and the first story; mezzanine.
ethereal ::: a. --> Pertaining to the hypothetical upper, purer air, or to the higher regions beyond the earth or beyond the atmosphere; celestial; as, ethereal space; ethereal regions. Consisting of ether; hence, exceedingly light or airy; tenuous; spiritlike; characterized by extreme delicacy, as form, manner, thought, etc. Pertaining to, derived from, or resembling, ether; as, ethereal salts.
ethics ::: “In other words, ethics is a stage in evolution. That which is common to all stages is the urge of Sachchidananda towards self-expression. This urge is at first non-ethical, then infra-ethical in the animal, then in the intelligent animal even anti-ethical for it permits us to approve hurt done to others which we disapprove when done to ourselves. In this respect man even now is only half-ethical. And just as all below us is infra-ethical, so there may be that above us whither we shall eventually arrive, which is supra-ethical, has no need of ethics. The ethical impulse and attitude, so all-important to humanity, is a means by which it struggles out of the lower harmony and universality based upon inconscience and broken up by Life into individual discords towards a higher harmony and universality based upon conscient oneness with all existences. Arriving at that goal, this means will no longer be necessary or even possible, since the qualities and oppositions on which it depends will naturally dissolve and disappear in the final reconciliation.” The Life Divine
eupione ::: n. --> A limpid, oily liquid obtained by the destructive distillation of various vegetable and animal substances; -- specifically, an oil consisting largely of the higher hydrocarbons of the paraffin series.
Every sadbaka Is faced with two elements in him, the inner being which wants the Divine and the sadhana and the outer mainly vital and physical being which does not want them but remains attached to the things of the ordinary life. The mind is sometimes led by one, someUoves by the other. One of the most important things he has to do, therefore, is to decide fundamentally the quarrel between these two parts and to persuade or compel by psychic aspiration, by steadiness of the mind’s thought and will, by the choice of the higher vital in his emotional being, the opposing elements to be first quiescent and then consenting. So long as he is not able to do that his progress must be either very slow or fluctuating and chequered as the aspiration within cannot have a continuous action or a continuous result. Besides so long as thb is so, there are likely to be periodical revolts of the vita! repining at the slow progress, des- pairing, desponding, declaring the Adhar unfit ; calls from old life will come ; circumstances will be attracted which seem to justify it, suggestions will come from men and unseen powers pressing the sadhaka away from the sadhana and pointing back- ward to the former life. And yet in that life he is not likely to get any real satisfaction.
excelsior ::: v. t. --> More lofty; still higher; ever upward. ::: n. --> A kind of stuffing for upholstered furniture, mattresses, etc., in which curled shreds of wood are substituted for curled hair.
ferric ::: a. --> Pertaining to, derived from, or containing iron. Specifically (Chem.), denoting those compounds in which iron has a higher valence than in the ferrous compounds; as, ferric oxide; ferric acid.
fluoranthene ::: n. --> A white crystalline hydrocarbon C/H/, of a complex structure, found as one ingrdient of the higher boiling portion of coal tar.
fluorene ::: n. --> A colorless, crystalline hydrocarbon, C13H10 having a beautiful violet fluorescence; whence its name. It occurs in the higher boiling products of coal tar, and is obtained artificially.
fn sleep one very commonly passes from consciousness to deeper consciousness in a long succession until one reaches the psychic and rests there or else from higher to higher consciousness until one reaches rest in some silence and peace.
foothill ::: n. --> A low hill at the foot of higher hills or mountains.
"For if we examine carefully, we shall find that Intuition is our first teacher. Intuition always stands veiled behind our mental operations. Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the Unknown which are the beginning of his higher knowledge.” The Life Divine*
“For if we examine carefully, we shall find that Intuition is our first teacher. Intuition always stands veiled behind our mental operations. Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the Unknown which are the beginning of his higher knowledge.” The Life Divine
"For it is a gnostic way of dynamic living that must be the fulfilled divine life on earth, a way of living that develops higher instruments of world-knowledge and world-action for the dynamisation of consciousness in the physical existence and takes up and transforms the values of a world of material Nature.” The Life Divine
“For it is a gnostic way of dynamic living that must be the fulfilled divine life on earth, a way of living that develops higher instruments of world-knowledge and world-action for the dynamisation of consciousness in the physical existence and takes up and transforms the values of a world of material Nature.” The Life Divine
" For man is precisely that term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the forms of the lower.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“For man is precisely that term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the forms of the lower.” The Synthesis of Yoga
::: "For the impersonal Divine is not ultimately an abstraction or a mere principle or a mere state or power and degree of being any more than we ourselves are really such abstractions. The intellect first approaches it through such conceptions, but realisation ends by exceeding them. Through the realisation of higher and higher principles of being and states of conscious existence we arrive not at the annullation of all in a sort of positive zero or even an inexpressible state of existence, but at the transcendent Existence itself which is also the Existent who transcends all definition by personality and yet is always that which is the essence of personality.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
“For the impersonal Divine is not ultimately an abstraction or a mere principle or a mere state or power and degree of being any more than we ourselves are really such abstractions. The intellect first approaches it through such conceptions, but realisation ends by exceeding them. Through the realisation of higher and higher principles of being and states of conscious existence we arrive not at the annullation of all in a sort of positive zero or even an inexpressible state of existence, but at the transcendent Existence itself which is also the Existent who transcends all definition by personality and yet is always that which is the essence of personality.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Four M'ays of changins the Nature ::: either the higher cons- ciousness has to make a dynamic descent into the whole being and change it ; or it must establish itself in the inne'r being down to the inner physical so that the latter feels itself separate from the outer and is able to act freely upon it ; or the psychic must come forward and change the nature ; or the inner will must awake and force the nature to change.
fusel oil ::: --> A hot, acrid, oily liquid, accompanying many alcoholic liquors (as potato whisky, corn whisky, etc.), as an undesirable ingredient, and consisting of several of the higher alcohols and compound ethers, but particularly of amyl alcohol; hence, specifically applied to amyl alcohol.
future. Things future are already accomplished to know- ledge and vision on higher planes of mind.
gymnasium ::: n. --> A place or building where athletic exercises are performed; a school for gymnastics. A school for the higher branches of literature and science; a preparatory school for the university; -- used esp. of German schools of this kind.
gyrencephala ::: n. pl. --> The higher orders of Mammalia, in which the cerebrum is convoluted.
head ::: n. --> The anterior or superior part of an animal, containing the brain, or chief ganglia of the nervous system, the mouth, and in the higher animals, the chief sensory organs; poll; cephalon. The uppermost, foremost, or most important part of an inanimate object; such a part as may be considered to resemble the head of an animal; often, also, the larger, thicker, or heavier part or extremity, in distinction from the smaller or thinner part, or from the point or edge; as, the head of a cane, a nail, a spear, an ax, a mast,
Heart opening ::: The heart opens to the psychic being and the mind centres open to the higher consciousness and the nexus between the psychic being and the higher consciousness is the principal means of the siddhi.
heighten ::: 1. To make high or higher; raise. 2. To raise or increase the quantity or degree of; intensify. heightened, heightening.
heighten ::: v. t. --> To make high; to raise higher; to elevate. To carry forward; to advance; to increase; to augment; to aggravate; to intensify; to render more conspicuous; -- used of things, good or bad; as, to heighten beauty; to heighten a flavor or a tint.
Here, the living divine person in Aswapathy, finding earth too trifling, exceeds it and grows larger and larger, higher and higher, to encompass the unconquered worlds above.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Higher consciousness ::: abosr the ordinary mind and different from it in Its workings ; it ranges from higher mine! through illumined mind, intuition and overmind upto the border line of the Supramental.
Higher vital ::: Usually refers to the vital mind and emouve being as opposed to the middle vital which has its scat in the navel and is dynamic, sensational and passionate and the lower which is made up the smaBer movements of human Jj/e-desjre and life-reactions.
hoveling ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Hovel ::: n. --> A method of securing a good draught in chimneys by covering the top, leaving openings in the sides, or by carrying up two of the sides higher than the other two.
How the being receives the higher dynamism depends on the condition of the body or rather of the physical and most material consciousness. In one condition it is tamasic, inert, unopen and cannot bear or cannot receive or cannot contain the force ; in another rajas predominates and tries to seize on the dynamism, but wastes and spills and loses it ; in another, there is receptivity, harmony, balance and the result is a harmonious action without strain or eflort.
HUMAN BEING. ::: Man is precisely that term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the form of the loiver.
hyperdulia ::: n. --> Veneration or worship given to the Virgin Mary as the most exalted of mere creatures; higher veneration than dulia.
hyperorganic ::: a. --> Higher than, or beyond the sphere of, the organic.
hyperoxygenized ::: a. --> Combined with a relatively large amount of oxygen; -- said of higher oxides.
hypoglossal ::: a. --> Under the tongue; -- applied esp., in the higher vertebrates, to the twelfth or last pair of cranial nerves, which are distributed to the base of the tongue. ::: n. --> One of the hypoglossal nerves.
ideal ::: Madhav: “What is not yet achieved on earth but what must be achieved because it presses for expression from above is cherished in the aspiration and thought of man as an Ideal. It is a truth from the higher regions of existence that seeks to formulate itself in this world. It clothes itself in the form of an Idea, organises itself in the human mind through a series of perceptions and leaps of thought as an Ideal to be realised and goes on exerting pressure on the evolving spirit of man to actualise it in life as a working factor. Progress is effected by these translations of the ideal into the actual.” Readings in Savitri, Vol. III.
"Ideals are truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a higher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“Ideals are truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a higher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"Ideals are truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a higher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation. To the pragmatical intellect which takes its stand upon the ever-changing present, ideals are not truths, not realities, they are at most potentialities of future truth and only become real when they are visible in the external fact as work of force accomplished. But to the mind which is able to draw back from the flux of force in the material universe, to the consciousness which is not imprisoned in its own workings or carried along in their flood but is able to envelop, hold and comprehend them, to the soul that is not merely the subject and instrument of the world-force but can reflect something of that Master-Consciousness which controls and uses it, the ideal present to its inner vision is a greater reality than the changing fact obvious to its outer senses. The Supramental Manifestation*
“Ideals are truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a higher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation. To the pragmatical intellect which takes its stand upon the ever-changing present, ideals are not truths, not realities, they are at most potentialities of future truth and only become real when they are visible in the external fact as work of force accomplished. But to the mind which is able to draw back from the flux of force in the material universe, to the consciousness which is not imprisoned in its own workings or carried along in their flood but is able to envelop, hold and comprehend them, to the soul that is not merely the subject and instrument of the world-force but can reflect something of that Master-Consciousness which controls and uses it, the ideal present to its inner vision is a greater reality than the changing fact obvious to its outer senses. The Supramental Manifestation
"I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights, — yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam.” Letters on Yoga
“I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,—yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam.” Letters on Yoga
If it opens, then there will be an increasing union with the higher consciousness and it will be able to share the experiences and the developments in the mind and >ital.
If some reactions of a slight character remain, it is not a thing to get disturbed about — only it must not be permitted to increase so as to disturb (he sadhana or get too strong for the restraining will of the mental and higher vital being.
“If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
“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
"I have said that the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way for humanity to a higher consciousness —. . . .” Letters on Yoga
“I have said that the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way for humanity to a higher consciousness—….” *Letters on Yoga
“I have said that the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way for humanity to a higher consciousness—….” Letters on Yoga
illumined mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"The Illumined Mind does not work primarily by thought, but by vision; . . . .” The Life Divine
"As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power.” The Life Divine*
“In actual fact Mind measures Time by event and Space by Matter; but it is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension,—no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
Indirect hostile attaclcs arc done through covert suggestions, half-truth, half-falsehood, attempts to represent the falsehood in the garb of the Divine Truth or to raix the lower consciousness cleverly with the higher. Their attempt is to mislead by guile rather than to conquer by force.
inhibition ::: n. --> The act of inhibiting, or the state of being inhibited; restraint; prohibition; embargo. A stopping or checking of an already present action; a restraining of the function of an organ, or an agent, as a digestive fluid or ferment, etc.; as, the inhibition of the respiratory center by the pneumogastric nerve; the inhibition of reflexes, etc. A writ from a higher court forbidding an inferior judge from further proceedings in a cause before; esp., a writ issuing from a
In its nature and law the Overmind is a delegate of the Supermind Consciousness, its delegate to the Ignorance. Or we might speak of it as a protective double, a screen of dissimilar similarity through which Supermind can act indirectly on an Ignorance whose darkness could not bear or receive the direct impact of a supreme Light. Even, it is by the projection of this luminous Overmind corona that the diffusion of a diminished light in the Ignorance and the throwing of that contrary shadow which swallows up in itself all light, the Inconscience, became at all possible. For Supermind transmits to Overmind all its realities, but leaves it to formulate them in a movement and according to an awareness of things which is still a vision of Truth and yet at the same time a first parent of the Ignorance. A line divides Supermind and Overmind which permits a free transmission, allows the lower Power to derive from the higher Power all it holds or sees, but automatically compels a transitional change in the passage. The integrality of the Supermind keeps always the essential truth of things, the total truth and the truth of its individual self-determinations clearly knit together; it maintains in them an inseparable unity and between them a close interpenetration and a free and full consciousness of each other: but in Overmind this integrality is no longer there. And yet the Overmind is well aware of the essential Truth of things; it embraces the totality; it uses the individual self-determinations without being limited by them: but although it knows their oneness, can realise it in a spiritual cognition, yet its dynamic movement, even while relying on that for its security, is not directly determined by it. Overmind Energy proceeds through an illimitable capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral and indivisible all-comprehending Unity. It takes each Aspect or Power and gives to it an independent action in which it acquires a full separate importance and is able to work out, we might say, its own world of creation. Purusha and Prakriti, Conscious Soul and executive Force of Nature, are in the supramental harmony a two-aspected single truth, being and dynamis of the Reality; there can be no disequilibrium or predominance of one over the other. In Overmind we have the origin of the cleavage, the trenchant distinction made by the philosophy of the Sankhyas in which they appear as two independent entities, Prakriti able to dominate Purusha and cloud its freedom and power, reducing it to a witness and recipient of her forms and actions, Purusha able to return to its separate existence and abide in a free self-sovereignty by rejection of her original overclouding material principle. So with the other aspects or powers of the Divine Reality, One and Many, Divine Personality and Divine Impersonality, and the rest; each is still an aspect and power of the one Reality, but each is empowered to act as an independent entity in the whole, arrive at the fullness of the possibilities of its separate expression and develop the dynamic consequences of that separateness. At the same time in Overmind this separateness is still founded on the basis of an implicit underlying unity; all possibilities of combination and relation between the separated Powers and Aspects, all interchanges and mutualities of their energies are freely organised and their actuality always possible.
INNER CONSCIOUSNESS (Divisions) ::: There are five main divisions. At the top above the head arc layers (or as we call them planes) of which we arc not conscious and which become conscious to us only by sadhana — those above the human mind — that is the higher consciousness. Below from the crown of the head to the throat are the layers (there are many of them) of the mind, the three principal being one at the top of the head communicating with the higher consciousness, another between the eye-brows where is the thought, sight and will, a third in the throat which is the externalising mind. A second division is from the shoulders to the navel ; these are the layers of the higher vital presided over by the heart centre where is the emotional being with the psychic behind it. From the navel downwards is the rest of the vital being containing several layers. From the bottom of the spine downward are the layers of the physical consciousness proper, the material, and below the feet is the sub- conscient which has also many levels.
Inner consciousness ::: means the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical and behind them the psychic which is their inmost being. But the inner mind is not the higher mind ; ft is more in touch with the universal forces and more open to the higher consciousness and capable of an immensely deeper and larger range of action than the outer or surface mind — but it is of the same essential nature.
::: "In our yoga the Nirvana is the beginning of the higher Truth, as it is the passage from the Ignorance to the higher Truth. The Ignorance has to be extinguished in order that the Truth may manifest.” Letters on Yoga*
“In our yoga the Nirvana is the beginning of the higher Truth, as it is the passage from the Ignorance to the higher Truth. The Ignorance has to be extinguished in order that the Truth may manifest.” Letters on Yoga
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.
Integration means a harmonisation of the conflicting parts of the personality brought about by the control and the working of a higher principle ; a transformation more or less complete so as to admit of a total changed working of the whole being and nature.
intellect ::: n. --> The part or faculty of the human soul by which it knows, as distinguished from the power to feel and to will; sometimes, the capacity for higher forms of knowledge, as distinguished from the power to perceive objects in their relations; the power to judge and comprehend; the thinking faculty; the understanding.
intellectual ::: a. --> Belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental; as, intellectual powers, activities, etc. Endowed with intellect; having the power of understanding; having capacity for the higher forms of knowledge or thought; characterized by intelligence or mental capacity; as, an intellectual person. Suitable for exercising the intellect; formed by, and existing for, the intellect alone; perceived by the intellect; as,
intermediate zone ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The intermediate zone means simply a confused condition or passage in which one is getting out of the personal consciousness and opening into the cosmic (cosmic Mind, cosmic vital, cosmic physical, something perhaps of the cosmic higher Mind) without having yet transcended the human mind levels. One is not in possession of or direct contact with the divine Truth on its own levels , but one can receive something from them, even from the overmind, indirectly. Only, as one is still immersed in the cosmic Ignorance, all that comes from above can be mixed, perverted, taken hold of for their purposes by lower, even by hostile Powers. ::: It is not necessary for everyone to struggle through the intermediate zone. If one has purified oneself, if there is no abnormal vanity, egoism, ambition or other strong misleading element, or if one is vigilant and on one"s guard, or if the psychic is in front, one can either pass rapidly and directly or with a minimum of trouble into the higher zones of consciousness where one is in direct contact with the Divine Truth.
INTUITION. ::: Above illumined Mind which is simply higher
intuition ::: direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process. intuition"s, intuitions, half-intuition.
Sri Aurobindo: "Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude.” *The Life Divine
"Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings"". When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"I use the word ‘intuition" for want of a better. In truth, it is a makeshift and inadequate to the connotation demanded of it. The same has to be said of the word ‘consciousness" and many others which our poverty compels us to extend illegitimately in their significance.” *The Life Divine - Sri Aurobindo"s footnote.
"For intuition is an edge of light thrust out by the secret Supermind. . . .” The Life Divine
". . . intuition is born of a direct awareness while intellect is an indirect action of a knowledge which constructs itself with difficulty out of the unknown from signs and indications and gathered data.” The Life Divine
"Intuition is above illumined Mind which is simply higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration.” Letters on Yoga
"Intuition sees the truth of things by a direct inner contact, not like the ordinary mental intelligence by seeking and reaching out for indirect contacts through the senses etc. But the limitation of the Intuition as compared with the supermind is that it sees things by flashes, point by point, not as a whole. Also in coming into the mind it gets mixed with the mental movement and forms a kind of intuitive mind activity which is not the pure truth, but something in between the higher Truth and the mental seeking. It can lead the consciousness through a sort of transitional stage and that is practically its function.” Letters on Yoga
“Intuition is above illumined Mind which is simply higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration.” Letters on Yoga
“Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings’’. When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” The Life Divine
“Intuition sees the truth of things by a direct inner contact, not like the ordinary mental intelligence by seeking and reaching out for indirect contacts through the senses etc. But the limitation of the Intuition as compared with the supermind is that it sees things by flashes, point by point, not as a whole. Also in coming into the mind it gets mixed with the mental movement and forms a kind of intuitive mind activity which is not the pure truth, but something in between the higher Truth and the mental seeking. It can lead the consciousness through a sort of transitional stage and that is practically its function.” Letters on Yoga
irresponsible ::: not responsible, answerable, or accountable to higher authority.
— is a characteristic working of the lower vital nature. The only way to get rid of it is to meet it with a fixed resolution of the higher vital and the mind and the psychic being to combat, reject and master it.
“It could be affirmed as a consequence that there is one all-pervading Life or dynamic energy—the material aspect being only its outermost movement—that creates all these forms of the physical universe, Life imperishable and eternal which, even if the whole figure of the universe were quite abolished, would itself still go on existing and be capable of producing a new universe in its place, must indeed, unless it be held back in a state of rest by some higher Power or hold itself back, inevitably go on creating. In that case Life is nothing else than the Force that builds and maintains and destroys forms in the world; it is Life that manifests itself in the form of the earth as much as in the plant that grows upon the earth and the animals that support their existence by devouring the life-force of the plant or of each other. All existence here is a universal Life that takes form of Matter. It might for that purpose hide life-process in physical process before it emerges as submental sensitivity and mentalised vitality, but still it would be throughout the same creative Life-principle.” The Life Divine
I -The’thousand'petalled lotus, sahasradala, commands the higher thinking mind, houses the still higher illumined mind and at the highest opens to the intuition through which or else by an over- flooding directness the ovennind can have with the rest com- munication or .an liramediate contact,, (Colour ::: .blue with' gold light around.) i. ' j i i . n ,•,,/! i, ,i i i
"It is a call of the being for higher things — for the Divine, for all that belongs to the higher or Divine Consciousness.” Guidance
“It is a call of the being for higher things—for the Divine, for all that belongs to the higher or Divine Consciousness.” Guidance
It is here, when this foundation has been secured, that the practice of Asana and Franayama come in and can then bear their perfect fruits. By itself the control of the mind and moral being only puts our normal consciousness into the right preli- minary condition ; it cannot bring about that evolution or mani- festation of the higher psychic being which is neccssaiy for the greater aims of Yoga. In order fo bring about this manifesta- tion the present nodus of the rrital and physical body with the mental being has to be loosened and the way made clear for the ascent through the greater psychic being to the union with the superconscient Purusha. This can be done by Franayama.
It is not necessary for everyone to struggle through the intermediate zone. If one has purified oneself, if there is no abnormal vanity, egoism, ambition or other strong misleading element, or if one is vigilant and on one’s guard, or if the psychic is in front, one can either pass rapidly and directly or with a minimum of trouble into the higher zones of consciousness where one is in direct contact with the Divine Truth.
It is the insinimentation of the Sachchidananda, — the Infinite consciousness higher than the mental being. It Is a Self- awareness of the Infinite and Eternal and a power of Self- determination Inherent in that Self-awareness. Supermind keeps always and in every status and condition the spiritual realisation of the unity of all. It is the Consciousness creatrix of the world, a W”!!! to light and vision and also a will to power of works. It
". . . it is the seat of two powers, in front the higher vital or emotional being, behind and concealed the soul or psychic being.” *Letters on Yoga
“… it is the seat of two powers, in front the higher vital or emotional being, behind and concealed the soul or psychic being.” Letters on Yoga
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 the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, — and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners, — is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges.” *Letters on Yoga
It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know,—and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners,—is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges.” Letters on Yoga
::: "It needs a quiet mind to know the Divine Will. In the quiet mind turned towards the Divine the intuition (higher mind) comes of the Divine"s Will and the right way to do it.” *Letters on Yoga
“It needs a quiet mind to know the Divine Will. In the quiet mind turned towards the Divine the intuition (higher mind) comes of the Divine’s Will and the right way to do it.” Letters on Yoga
"It [the Cosmic Spirit] uses Truth and Falsehood, Knowledge and Ignorance and all the other dualities as elements in the manifestation and works out what has to be worked out till all is ready for a higher working.” Letters on Yoga*
“It [the Cosmic Spirit] uses Truth and Falsehood, Knowledge and Ignorance and all the other dualities as elements in the manifestation and works out what has to be worked out till all is ready for a higher working.” Letters on Yoga
I use transformation in a special sense, a change of conscious- ness radical and complete and of a certain specific kind which is so conceived as to bring about a strong and assured step fonvard in the spiritual evolution of the being of a greater and higher kind and of a larger sweep and completeness than what took place when a mentalised being first appeared in a vital and matciiaV ammal world.
Jhumur: “Every ideal is like a kind of guide on a certain path, it helps to make a path clear, defines a line of advance. So to me, the word Angel is associated with a conscious, luminous guide on the way, and here this is the heaven of the ideal so the ideal becomes the angel. A perfect conception, a perfect idea leads man into another higher realm of expression or action.
Jhumur: “The Book of bliss is really the ultimate Satchitananda, the everlasting day when one has moved out of all contact with the unconscious and lives no longer in between sunlight and darkness but wholly in the light, wholly in the Divine. There was once a question that somebody asked Mother when She used to take our classes. She (the person) said that in our world there is a change from lesser to greater if one tries to progress. It is a constant change. When one enters the higher plane, the upper hemisphere as you call it, will there be no change, will it always be the same? Mother said,”No, it is not that. One perfection can then be manifested later in another kind of perfection.” There is a variety of different laws of perfection, hence the myriad volumes of the Book of Bliss. Delight has so many modes of expression, perfection or delight, they are all the same and there is not just one way of manifesting the Divine. There are infinite modes of expression of that delight.”
Jhumur: “The intimations from the higher worlds of light.”
Just as the higher consciousness is superconscient to us and supports all our spiritual possibilities and nature, so the subconscient is the basis of our material being and supports all that comes up in the physical nature.” Letters on Yoga
justiciary ::: n. --> An old name for the judges of the higher English courts.
lethal ::: n. --> One of the higher alcohols of the paraffine series obtained from spermaceti as a white crystalline solid. It is so called because it occurs in the ethereal salt of lauric acid. ::: a. --> Deadly; mortal; fatal.
Light or rays of light arc always light of the higher conscious- ness working in the being to illumine or to purify or to awaken the consciousness or attune it to the Truth.
loco ::: adv. --> A direction in written or printed music to return to the proper pitch after having played an octave higher. ::: n. --> A plant (Astragalus Hornii) growing in the Southwestern United States, which is said to poison horses and cattle, first making them insane. The name is also given vaguely to several other species of
locomotion ::: n. --> The act of moving from place to place. The power of moving from place to place, characteristic of the higher animals and some of the lower forms of plant life.
lord ::: n. --> A hump-backed person; -- so called sportively. One who has power and authority; a master; a ruler; a governor; a prince; a proprietor, as of a manor. A titled nobleman., whether a peer of the realm or not; a bishop, as a member of the House of Lords; by courtesy; the son of a duke or marquis, or the eldest son of an earl; in a restricted sense, a boron, as opposed to noblemen of higher rank. A title bestowed on the persons above named; and also, for
lyceum ::: n. --> A place of exercise with covered walks, in the suburbs of Athens, where Aristotle taught philosophy. A house or apartment appropriated to instruction by lectures or disquisitions. A higher school, in Europe, which prepares youths for the university. An association for debate and literary improvement.
Madhav: “Aswapathy is in the mid-world. He is neither in the nether realms of struggle and obscurity nor in the brighter worlds above of power and rapture. He is in realms of Beauty that point to still happier altitudes. The Birds of Wonder are the marvellous beings of that region, the angels, who call upon the higher worlds of Light to manifest in their world.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Gold represents Truth, Divinity. The Hawk is the high soaring bird, the soul embodied in higher nature.”
Madhav: “The guardians of eternity, the gods, the higher gods, …” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The triple world is the world of higher thought: the lower reaches are close to the thinking human mind; the next pertains to a knowledge that knows the truth of things from within; the highest, bordering on the planes of eternity is where knowledge as such—with the triad of knower, known and knowledge—ceases and it is one with the truth of all. Three successive steps of ascent lead to this triple realm of higher thought.” The Book of the Divine Mother
MAHAKALI ::: Goddess of the supreme strength ; with her are all mights and spiritual force and severest austerity of lapas and swiftness to the battle and the victory and the laughter, the attahosya, that makes light of defeat and death and the powers of the ignorance. .*
Afa/ifliflh' and Kdh are not the same. Kali is a lesser form.
Mahakali in the higher planes appears usually with the golden colour.
malacostraca ::: n. pl. --> A subclass of Crustacea, including Arthrostraca and Thoracostraca, or all those higher than the Entomostraca.
manganic ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to resembling, or containing, manganese; specif., designating compounds in which manganese has a higher valence as contrasted with manganous compounds. Cf. Manganous.
"Man is a transitional being, he is not final. He is too imperfect for that, too imperfect in capacity for knowledge, too imperfect in will and action, too imperfect in his turn towards joy and beauty, too imperfect in his will for freedom and his instinct for order. Even if he could perfect himself in his own type, his type is too low and small to satisfy the need of the universe. Something larger, higher, more capable of a rich all embracing universality is needed, a greater being, a greater consciousness summing up in itself all that the world set out to be. He has, as was pointed out by a half blind seer, to exceed himself; man must evolve out of himself the divine superman: he was born for transcendence. Humanity is not enough, it is only a strong stepping stone; the need of the world is a superhuman perfection of what the world can be, the goal of consciousness is divinity. The inmost need of man is not to perfect his humanity, but to be greater than himself, to be more than man, to be divine, even to be the Divine.” Essays Divine and Human
“Man is a transitional being, he is not final. He is too imperfect for that, too imperfect in capacity for knowledge, too imperfect in will and action, too imperfect in his turn towards joy and beauty, too imperfect in his will for freedom and his instinct for order. Even if he could perfect himself in his own type, his type is too low and small to satisfy the need of the universe. Something larger, higher, more capable of a rich all embracing universality is needed, a greater being, a greater consciousness summing up in itself all that the world set out to be. He has, as was pointed out by a half blind seer, to exceed himself; man must evolve out of himself the divine superman: he was born for transcendence. Humanity is not enough, it is only a strong stepping stone; the need of the world is a superhuman perfection of what the world can be, the goal of consciousness is divinity. The inmost need of man is not to perfect his humanity, but to be greater than himself, to be more than man, to be divine, even to be the Divine.” Essays Divine and Human
marmot ::: n. --> Any rodent of the genus Arctomys. The common European marmot (A. marmotta) is about the size of a rabbit, and inhabits the higher regions of the Alps and Pyrenees. The bobac is another European species. The common American species (A. monax) is the woodchuck. Any one of several species of ground squirrels or gophers of the genus Spermophilus; also, the prairie dog.
Material consciousness ::: It is mostly subconscienl, but part of it that is conscious is mechanical, inertly moved by habits or by the forces of the lower nature- Always repeating the same unintelligent and unenlightened movements, it is attached to the routine and established rule of what already exists, unwilling to change, unwilling to receive the Light or obey the higher Force.
material world ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Our material world is the result of all the others, for the other principles have all descended into Matter to create the physical universe, and every particle of what we call Matter contains all of them implicit in itself; their secret action, as we have seen, is involved in every moment of its existence and every movement of its activity. And as Matter is the last word of the descent, so it is also the first word of the ascent; as the powers of all these planes, worlds, grades, degrees are involved in the material existence, so are they all capable of evolution out of it. It is for this reason that material being does not begin and end with gases and chemical compounds and physical forces and movements, with nebulae and suns and earths, but evolves life, evolves mind, must evolve eventually Supermind and the higher degrees of the spiritual existence.” The Life Divine
MEDIUMS. ::: They are most of them in contact with the vital-physical or subtle physical worlds and do not receive any- thing higher at aii.
Mediums’ trance ::: They get not into touch with Sachchidananda but with the beings of the lowrr vital plane. To doxlop the power of going into this higher kind of trance, one must haw done sadhana. Entire purification is not necessary, but some part of the being must have turned to higher things.
megasthene ::: n. --> One of a group which includes the higher orders of mammals, having a large size as a typical characteristic.
“Mental intelligence thinks out because it is merely a reflecting force of consciousness which does not know, but seeks to know; it follows in Time step by step the working of a knowledge higher than itself, a knowledge that exists always, one and whole, that holds Time in its grasp, that sees past, present and future in a single regard.: The Life Divine
Mental transformation ::: All the works of the mind and intellect must first be heightened and widened, then illumined, lifted into the domains of a higher Intelligence, afterwards translated into workings of a greater non-mental Intuition, then again trans- formed into the dynamic outpourings of the Overmind radiance, and these transfigured into the full light and sovereignty of the supramental Gnosis.
meride ::: n. --> A permanent colony of cells or plastids which may remain isolated, like Rotifer, or may multiply by gemmation to form higher aggregates, termed zoides.
mimical ::: a. --> Imitative; mimetic. Consisting of, or formed by, imitation; imitated; as, mimic gestures. Imitative; characterized by resemblance to other forms; -- applied to crystals which by twinning resemble simple forms of a higher grade of symmetry.
Mind acts by representations and constructions, by the separa- tion and weaving together of its constructed data ; it can make a synthetic constnietlon and see it as a whole, but when it looks for the reality of things, it takes refuge in abstractions — it has not the concrete vision, experience, contact sought by the mystic and the spiritual seeker. To know Self and Reality directly or truly, It has to be silent and reflect some light of these things or undergo self-exceeding and Iransfonnation, and this is only possible either by a higher Light descending into it or by its ascent, the taking up or immcrgcncc of it into a higher Light of e^tence.
mind, illumined ::: Sri Aurobindo: "This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge.” *The Life Divine
Mind in the physical or mental physical is limited by the physical view and experience of things, it mentalises the experi- ences brought by the contacts of outward life and things, and docs not go beyond that (though it can do that much very cleverly), unlike the externalising mmd which deals with them more from the reason and its higher intelligence. But in practice these two usually get mixed together. The niec/innicai mind is a much lower action of the mental physical which, left to itself, woutd only repeat customary ideas and record the natural reflexes of the physical consciousness to the contacts of outward life and things.
mind, spiritual ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The spiritual mind is a mind which, in its fullness, is aware of the Self, reflecting the Divine, seeing and understanding the nature of the Self and its relations with the manifestation, living in that or in contact with it, calm, wide and awake to higher knowledge, not perturbed by the play of the forces. When it gets its full liberated movement, its central station is very usually felt above the head, though its influence can extend downward through all the being and outward through space.” Letters on Yoga
mollah ::: n. --> One of the higher order of Turkish judges; also, a Turkish title of respect for a religious and learned man.
molybdic ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or containing, molybdenum; specif., designating those compounds in which the element has a higher valence, as contrasted with molybdous compounds; as, molybdic oxide.
Moon ::: Spirituality, sometimes also spiritual Ananda. A golden moon means a form of spirituality full of the light of higher
mortar ::: n. --> A strong vessel, commonly in form of an inverted bell, in which substances are pounded or rubbed with a pestle. A short piece of ordnance, used for throwing bombs, carcasses, shells, etc., at high angles of elevation, as 45¡, and even higher; -- so named from its resemblance in shape to the utensil above described. A building material made by mixing lime, cement, or plaster of Paris, with sand, water, and sometimes other materials; -- used in
Mountain ::: Ascending planes of the higher consdousness.
mountain ::: n. --> A large mass of earth and rock, rising above the common level of the earth or adjacent land; earth and rock forming an isolated peak or a ridge; an eminence higher than a hill; a mount. A range, chain, or group of such elevations; as, the White Mountains. A mountainlike mass; something of great bulk. ::: a.
mount ::: v. **1. To climb or ascend. 2. To place oneself upon; get up on. 3. To go upward; rise; soar. mounts, mounted, mounting. adj. mounting. 4.** Soaring, ascending, rising to a higher point.
music ::: n. --> The science and the art of tones, or musical sounds, i. e., sounds of higher or lower pitch, begotten of uniform and synchronous vibrations, as of a string at various degrees of tension; the science of harmonical tones which treats of the principles of harmony, or the properties, dependences, and relations of tones to each other; the art of combining tones in a manner to please the ear. Melody; a rhythmical and otherwise agreeable succession of tones.
myricin ::: n. --> A silky, crystalline, waxy substance, forming the less soluble part of beeswax, and regarded as a palmitate of a higher alcohol of the paraffin series; -- called also myricyl alcohol.
n. 1. The horizontal line or plane in which anything is situated, with regard to its elevation. 2. A plane or position in a graded scale; position in a hierarchy. 3. On the same plane, on an equality (with). levels. *adj. 4.** *Having a surface without slope, tilt in which no part is higher or lower than another. 5. Height, position, strength, rank, plane, etc. Also fig. v. 6. Fig. To bring persons or things to an equal level; equalize. levelled, all-levelling.**
NATURE (CHANGE OF). Merely to have experiences of the higher consciousness will not change the nature. Either the higher consciousness has to make a dynamic descent into the whole being and change it ; or it must establish itself in the inner being down to the inner physical so that the latter feels itself separate from the outer and is able to act freely upon it ; or the psychic must come forward and change the nature ; or the inner will must awake and force the nature to change.
Navel — higher vital (proper).
Navel—higher vital (proper).
negligence ::: n. --> The quality or state of being negligent; lack of due diligence or care; omission of duty; habitual neglect; heedlessness. An act or instance of negligence or carelessness. The omission of the care usual under the circumstances, being convertible with the Roman culpa. A specialist is bound to higher skill and diligence in his specialty than one who is not a specialist, and liability for negligence varies acordingly.
“Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes,—towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” The Life Divine
Next, as a consequence, it follows that only a limited part of the action of the vital or other higher plane is concerned with the earth-existence. But even this creates a mass of possibilities which is far greater than the earth can at one time mainfest or contain in its own less plastic formulas. All these possibilities do not realise themselves ; some fail altogether and leave at the most an idea that comes to nothing ; some try seriously and are repelled and defeated and, even if in action for a time, come to nothing. Others effectuate a half manifestation, and this is the most usual result, the more so as these vital or other supraphysical forces come Into conflict and have not only to overcome the resistance of the physical consciousness and of matter, but their own internecine resistance to each other. A certain number succeed in precipitating their results in a more complete and successful creation, so that if you compare this creation with its original in the higher plane, there is something
nickelic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or containing, nickel; specifically, designating compounds in which, as contrasted with the nickelous compounds, the metal has a higher valence; as nickelic oxide.
Nirvana is a liberated condition of the being, not a world ; it is a withdrawal from the worlds and the manifestation. In our yoga the Nirvana is the beginning of the higher Truth, as it is the passage from the Ignorance to the higher Truth.
nitric ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or containing, nitrogen; specifically, designating any one of those compounds in which, as contrasted with nitrous compounds, the element has a higher valence; as, nitric oxide; nitric acid.
No doubt, the Supermind has also acted in the history of the world but always through the Overmind. It is the direct descent of the Supramental Consciousness and Power that alone can utterly re-create life in terms of the Spirit. For, in the Overmind there is already the play of possibilities which marks the beginning of this lower triple world of Mind, Life and Matter in which we have our existence. And whenever there is this play and not the spontaneous and infallible working of the innate Truth of the Spirit, there is the seed of distortion and ignorance. Not that the Overmind is a field of ignorance; but it is the border-line between the Higher and the Lower, for, the play of possibilities, of separate even if not yet divided choice, is likely to lead to deviation from the Truth of things.
"No system indeed by its own force can bring about the change that humanity really needs; for that can only come by its growth into the firmly realised possibilities of its own higher nature, and this growth depends on an inner and not an outer change. But outer changes may at least prepare favourable conditions for that more real amelioration, — or on the contrary they may lead to such conditions that the sword of Kalki can alone purify the earth from the burden of an obstinately Asuric humanity. The choice lies with the race itself; for as it sows, so shall it reap the fruit of its Karma.” The Human Cycle*
“No system indeed by its own force can bring about the change that humanity really needs; for that can only come by its growth into the firmly realised possibilities of its own higher nature, and this growth depends on an inner and not an outer change. But outer changes may at least prepare favourable conditions for that more real amelioration,—or on the contrary they may lead to such conditions that the sword of Kalki can alone purify the earth from the burden of an obstinately Asuric humanity. The choice lies with the race itself; for as it sows, so shall it reap the fruit of its Karma.” The Human Cycle
nuncio ::: n. --> A messenger. The permanent official representative of the pope at a foreign court or seat of government. Distinguished from a legate a latere, whose mission is temporary in its nature, or for some special purpose. Nuncios are of higher rank than internuncios.
Ocean (blue): Often a symbol of the spiritual consdousness in the higher Mind one and indiviribJe.
". . . One Being and Consciousness is involved here in Matter. Evolution is the method by which it liberates itself; consciousness appears in what seems to be inconscient, and once having appeared is self-impelled to grow higher and higher and at the same time to enlarge and develop towards a greater and greater perfection. Life is the first step of this release of consciousness; mind is the second; but the evolution does not finish with mind, it awaits a release into something greater, a consciousness which is spiritual and supramental. The next step of the evolution must be towards the development of Supermind and Spirit as the dominant power in the conscious being. For only then will the involved Divinity in things release itself entirely and it become possible for life to manifest perfection.” On Himself
“… One Being and Consciousness is involved here in Matter. Evolution is the method by which it liberates itself; consciousness appears in what seems to be inconscient, and once having appeared is self-impelled to grow higher and higher and at the same time to enlarge and develop towards a greater and greater perfection. Life is the first step of this release of consciousness; mind is the second; but the evolution does not finish with mind, it awaits a release into something greater, a consciousness which is spiritual and supramental. The next step of the evolution must be towards the development of Supermind and Spirit as the dominant power in the conscious being. For only then will the involved Divinity in things release itself entirely and it become possible for life to manifest perfection.” On Himself
One can go forward even if there is not peace — quietude and concentration are necessary. Peace is necessary for the higher states to develop.
One must universalise oneself and allow a harmonious un- cgoistic action. Afterward a truer and higher order can come m from above.
On the other hand the passage through the higher zones — higher Mind, illumined Mind, Intuition, overmind is obligatory — they are the true Intermediaries between the present consciousness and the supermind.” Letters on Yoga
On the other hand the passage through the higher zones—higher Mind, illumined Mind, Intuition, overmind is obligatory—they are the true Intermediaries between the present consciousness and the supermind.” Letters on Yoga
on the satisfaction of cgo-dcsire or on the eating up of the fuel it embraces. It is a while flame, not a red one ; but white heat is not inferior to the red variety in its ardour. It is true that the psychic love does not usually get its full play in human rela- tions and human nature ; it finds the fullness of -its fire and ecstasy more easily when it is lifted towards the Divine. In the human relation the psychic love gets mixed up with other ele- ments which seek at once to use it and overshadow it. It gels an outlet for its o^vn full intensities only at rare moments. Other- wise it comes in only as an element, but even so it contributes all the higher things in a love fundamentally vital-— all the finer sweetness, tenderness, fidelity, self-giving, self-sacrifice, rcachings of soul to soul, idealising sublimations that lift up human love beyond itself, come from the psychic. If it could dominate and govern and transmute the other elements, mental, vital, phj-sieal, of human love, then love could be on the earth some reflection or preparation of the real thing, an integral union of the soul and its instruments in a dual life.
“Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the Spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind,—but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin,—as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realising its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge.” The Life Divine
“Our material world is the result of all the others, for the other principles have all descended into Matter to create the physical universe, and every particle of what we call Matter contains all of them implicit in itself; their secret action, as we have seen, is involved in every moment of its existence and every movement of its activity. And as Matter is the last word of the descent, so it is also the first word of the ascent; as the powers of all these planes, worlds, grades, degrees are involved in the material existence, so are they all capable of evolution out of it. It is for this reason that material being does not begin and end with gases and chemical compounds and physical forces and movements, with nebulae and suns and earths, but evolves life, evolves mind, must evolve eventually Supermind and the higher degrees of the spiritual existence.” The Life Divine
overhead ::: over or above the level of the head; high or higher up; situated or operating above head height or some other reference level; on high.
overlooking ::: looking over or at from a higher place.
overmind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The overmind is a sort of delegation from the supermind (this is a metaphor only) which supports the present evolutionary universe in which we live here in Matter. If supermind were to start here from the beginning as the direct creative Power, a world of the kind we see now would be impossible; it would have been full of the divine Light from the beginning, there would be no involution in the inconscience of Matter, consequently no gradual striving evolution of consciousness in Matter. A line is therefore drawn between the higher half of the universe of consciousness, parardha , and the lower half, aparardha. The higher half is constituted of Sat, Chit, Ananda, Mahas (the supramental) — the lower half of mind, life, Matter. This line is the intermediary overmind which, though luminous itself, keeps from us the full indivisible supramental Light, depends on it indeed, but in receiving it, divides, distributes, breaks it up into separated aspects, powers, multiplicities of all kinds, each of which it is possible by a further diminution of consciousness, such as we reach in Mind, to regard as the sole or the chief Truth and all the rest as subordinate or contradictory to it.” *Letters on Yoga
"The overmind is the highest of the planes below the supramental.” *Letters on Yoga
"In its nature and law the Overmind is a delegate of the Supermind Consciousness, its delegate to the Ignorance. Or we might speak of it as a protective double, a screen of dissimilar similarity through which Supermind can act indirectly on an Ignorance whose darkness could not bear or receive the direct impact of a supreme Light.” The Life Divine
"The Overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit; its energy is an all-dynamism as well as a principle of separate dynamisms: it is a sort of inferior Supermind, — although it is concerned predominantly not with absolutes, but with what might be called the dynamic potentials or pragmatic truths of Reality, or with absolutes mainly for their power of generating pragmatic or creative values, although, too, its comprehension of things is more global than integral, since its totality is built up of global wholes or constituted by separate independent realities uniting or coalescing together, and although the essential unity is grasped by it and felt to be basic of things and pervasive in their manifestation, but no longer as in the Supermind their intimate and ever-present secret, their dominating continent, the overt constant builder of the harmonic whole of their activity and nature.” The Life Divine
"The overmind sees calmly, steadily, in great masses and large extensions of space and time and relation, globally; it creates and acts in the same way — it is the world of the great Gods, the divine Creators.” *Letters on Yoga
"The Overmind is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis which is not limited by rules and canons, it sees a universal and an eternal beauty while it takes up and transforms all that is limited and particular. It is besides concerned with things other than beauty or aesthetics. It is concerned especially with truth and knowledge or rather with a wisdom that exceeds what we call knowledge; its truth goes beyond truth of fact and truth of thought, even the higher thought which is the first spiritual range of the thinker. It has the truth of spiritual thought, spiritual feeling, spiritual sense and at its highest the truth that comes by the most intimate spiritual touch or by identity. Ultimately, truth and beauty come together and coincide, but in between there is a difference. Overmind in all its dealings puts truth first; it brings out the essential truth (and truths) in things and also its infinite possibilities; it brings out even the truth that lies behind falsehood and error; it brings out the truth of the Inconscient and the truth of the Superconscient and all that lies in between. When it speaks through poetry, this remains its first essential quality; a limited aesthetical artistic aim is not its purpose.” *Letters on Savitri
"In the overmind the Truth of supermind which is whole and harmonious enters into a separation into parts, many truths fronting each other and moved each to fulfil itself, to make a world of its own or else to prevail or take its share in worlds made of a combination of various separated Truths and Truth-forces.” Letters on Yoga
*Overmind"s.
Overmind ::: “The overmind is a sort of delegation from the supermind (this is a metaphor only) which supports the present evolutionary universe in which we live here in Matter. If supermind were to start here from the beginning as the direct creative Power, a world of the kind we see now would be impossible; it would have been full of the divine Light from the beginning, there would be no involution in the inconscience of Matter, consequently no gradual striving evolution of consciousness in Matter. A line is therefore drawn between the higher half of the universe of consciousness, parardha , and the lower half, aparardha. The higher half is constituted of Sat, Chit, Ananda, Mahas (the supramental)—the lower half of mind, life, Matter. This line is the intermediary overmind which, though luminous itself, keeps from us the full indivisible supramental Light, depends on it indeed, but in receiving it, divides, distributes, breaks it up into separated aspects, powers, multiplicities of all kinds, each of which it is possible by a further diminution of consciousness, such as we reach in Mind, to regard as the sole or the chief Truth and all the rest as subordinate or contradictory to it.” Letters on Yoga
overseers ::: those who survey or watch, as from a higher position.
PARTS OF THE BEING. ::: In the yoga one becomes aware of the different parts and their proper action, and puts each in its place and to its proper action under the control of the higher
PATH. ::: Rising to a station above the mind and opening out of the cosmic consciousness ; psychic opening ; descent of a higher consciousness with its peace, light, force, knowledge, Ananda etc. into all the planes of the being down to the most physical. All this has to be done by the working of the Mother’s force aided by your aspiration, devotion and surrender.
perfection ::: “Perfection in the sense in which we use it in Yoga, means a growth out of a lower undivine into a higher divine nature. In terms of knowledge it is a putting on the being of the higher self and a casting away of the darker broken lower self or a transforming of our imperfect state into the rounded luminous fullness of our real and spiritual personality. In terms of devotion and adoration it is a growing into a likeness of the nature or the law of the being of the Divine, to be united with whom we aspire, …” The Synthesis of Yoga
perfection ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Perfection in the sense in which we use it in Yoga, means a growth out of a lower undivine into a higher divine nature. In terms of knowledge it is a putting on the being of the higher self and a casting away of the darker broken lower self or a transforming of our imperfect state into the rounded luminous fullness of our real and spiritual personality. In terms of devotion and adoration it is a growing into a likeness of the nature or the law of the being of the Divine, to be united with whom we aspire, . . . .” *The Synthesis of Yoga
plane :::higher or lower level, grade, degree. **planes.
PLANES. ::: If we regard the gmdatton of worlds or planes as a whole, we see them as a great connected complex move- ment ; the higher precipitate their influences on the lower, the lotver react to the higher and develop or manifest in themselves within their own formula something that corresponds to the superior power and its action. The material world has evolved life in obedience to a pressure from the vital plane, mind in obedience to a pressure from the mental plane. It is now trying to evolve supermind in obedica^ to a pressure from the supra- mental plane. In more detail, particular forces, movements, powers, beings of a higher world can throw themselves on the lower to establish appropriate and corresponding forms which will connect them with the material domain and, as it were, reproduce or project their action here. And each thing created here has, supporting it, subtler envelopes or forms of itself which make it subsist and connect it with forces acting from above. Man, for instance, has, besides his gross physical body, subtler sheaths or bodies by which he lives behind the s’eil in direct connection with suprapbysical planes of consciousness and can be influenced by their powers, movements and beings. What takes place in life has always behind it pie-existeni movements and forms in the occult vital planes ; what takes place in mind presupposes prc-cxistcnt movements and forms in the occult mental planes. That is an aspect of things which becomes more and more evident, insistent and important, the more we progress in a dynamic yoga.
poetry ::: “All poetry is an inspiration, a thing breathed into the thinking organ from above; it is recorded in the mind, but is born in the higher principle of direct knowledge or ideal vision which surpasses mind. It is in reality a revelation. The prophetic or revealing power sees the substance; the inspiration perceives the right expression. Neither is manufactured; nor is poetry really a poiesis or composition, nor even a creation, but rather the revelation of something that eternally exists. The ancients knew this truth and used the same word for poet and prophet, creator and seer, sophos, vates, kavi.” Essays Human and Divine
poetry ::: Sri Aurobindo: "All poetry is an inspiration, a thing breathed into the thinking organ from above; it is recorded in the mind, but is born in the higher principle of direct knowledge or ideal vision which surpasses mind. It is in reality a revelation. The prophetic or revealing power sees the substance; the inspiration perceives the right expression. Neither is manufactured; nor is poetry really a poiesis or composition, nor even a creation, but rather the revelation of something that eternally exists. The ancients knew this truth and used the same word for poet and prophet, creator and seer, sophos, vates, kavi.” Essays Human and Divine
Positive and negative sides of Yoga ; The positive side of experience of the descent is the more important thing. If one waits for the lower nature to be purified entirely and for all time before calling down the positive experience, one might have to wait for ever. It is true that the more the lower nature is purified the easier is the descent of the higher Nature, but it is also and more true that the more the higher Nature descends the more the lower is purified.
PRAYER. ::: The life of man is a life of wants and needs and therefore of desires, not only in his physical and vital, but in his mental and spiritual being. When he becomes conscious of a greater Power governing the world, he approaches it through prayer for the fulfilment of his needs, for help in his rough journey, for protection and aid in his struggle. Whatever crudi- ties there may be in the ordinary religious approach to God by prayer, and there are many, especially that attitude which ima- gines the Divine as if capable of being propitiated, bribed, flat- tered into acquiescence or indulgence by praise, entreaty and gifts and has often little te^td to the spirit in which he is approached, still this way of turning to the Divine is an essen- tial movement of our religious being and reposes on a universal truth.
The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and prayer itself supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. It is true that the universal will executes always its aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic propitiation and entreaty, it is true of the Transcendent who expresses himself in the universal order that, being omniscient, his larger knowledge must foresee the thing to be done and it does not need direction or stimulation by human thought and that the individual's desires are not and cannot be in any world-order the true determining factor. But neither is that order or the execution of the universal will altogether effected by mechanical Law, but by powers and forces of which for human life at least, human will, aspiration and faith are not among the least important. Prayer is only a particular form given to that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are very often crude and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but childish; but still it has a real power and significance. Its power and sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of man into touch with the divine Will as that of a conscious Being with whom we can enter into conscious and living relations. For our will and aspiration can act either by our own strength and endeavour, which can no doubt be made a thing great and effective whether for lower or higher purposes, -and there are plenty of disciplines which put it forward as the one force to be used, -- or it can act in dependence upon and with subordination to the divine or the universal Will. And this latter way, again, may either look upon that Will as responsive indeed to our aspiration, but almost mechanically, by a sort of law of energy, or at any rate quite impersonally, or else it may look upon it as responding consciously to the divine aspiration and faith of the human soul and consciously bringing to it the help, the guidance, the protection and fruition demanded, yogaksemam vahamyaham. ~ TSOY, SYN
Prayer helps to prepare this relation for us at first on the lower plane even while it is (here consistent with much that is mere egoism and self-delusion; but afterwards we can draw towards the spiritual truth which is behind it. It is not then the givinc of the thing asked for that matters, but the relation itself, the contact of man’s life with God, the conscious interchange.
In spiritual matters and in the seeking of spiritual gains, this conscious relation is a great power; it is a much greater power than our own entirely self-reliant struggle and effort and it brings a fuller spiritual growth and experience. Necessarily, in the end prayer either ceases in the greater thing for which it prepared us, -- in fact the form we call prayer is not itself essential so long as the faith, the will, the aspiration are there, -- or remains only for the joy of the relation. Also its objects, the artha or interest it seeks to realise, become higher and higher until we reach the highest motiveless devotion, which is that of divine love pure and simple without any other demand or longing.
Prayer for others ::: The fact of praying and the attitude it brings, especially unselfish prayer for others, itself opens you to the higher Power, even if there is no corresponding result in the person prayed for. 'Nothing can be positively said about that, for the result must necessarily depend on the persons, whe- ther they arc open or receptive or something in them can res- pond to any Force the prayer brings down.
Prayer must well up from the heart on a crest of emotion or aspiration.
Prayer {Ideal)'. Not prayer insisting on immediate fulfilment, but prayer that is itself a communion of the mind and heart with the Divine*and can have the joy and satisfaction of itself, trusting for fulfilment by the Divine in his own time.
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.
::: "Pressure, throbbing, electrical vibrations are all signs of the working of the Force. The places indicate the field of action — the top of the head is the summit of the thinking mind where it communicates with the higher consciousness; the neck or throat is the seat of the physical, externalising or expressive mind; the ear is the place of communication with the inner mind-centre by which thoughts etc. enter into the personal being from the general Nature.” Letters on Yoga
“Pressure, throbbing, electrical vibrations are all signs of the working of the Force. The places indicate the field of action—the top of the head is the summit of the thinking mind where it communicates with the higher consciousness; the neck or throat is the seat of the physical, externalising or expressive mind; the ear is the place of communication with the inner mind-centre by which thoughts etc. enter into the personal being from the general Nature.”
progress ::: n. 1. An advance towards a higher or better stage; steady improvement. v. 2. To grow or develop, as in complexity, scope, etc.; advance. progresses.
prophecy ::: “If this higher buddhi {{understanding in the profoundest sense] could act pure of the interference of these lower members, it would give pure forms of the truth; observation would be dominated or replaced by a vision which could see without subservient dependence on the testimony of the sense-mind and senses; imagination would give place to the self-assured inspiration of the truth, reasoning to the spontaneous discernment of relations and conclusion from reasoning to an intuition containing in itself those relations and not building laboriously upon them, judgment to a thought-vision in whose light the truth would stand revealed without the mask which it now wears and which our intellectual judgment has to penetrate; while memory too would take upon itself that larger sense given to it in Greek thought and be no longer a paltry selection from the store gained by the individual in his present life, but rather the all-recording knowledge which secretly holds and constantly gives from itself everything that we now seem painfully to acquire but really in this sense remember, a knowledge which includes the future(1) no less than the past.
Psychic contribution ::: The contribution of the psychic being to the sadhana is ; love and bhakti, a love not vital, demanding and egoistic but unconditioned and without claims, self-existent ; the contact or the presence of the Mother within ; the unerring guidance from within ; a quieting and purification of the mind, vital and physical consciousness by their subjection to the psychic influence and guidance ; the opening up of all this lower cons- ciousness to the higher spiritual consciousness above for its des- cent into a nature prepared to receive it with a complete recepti- vity and right attitude — for the psychic brings in everything, right thought, right perception, right feeling, right attitude.
Psychicisation is not enough, it is only a beginning ; spiritualisa- tion and the descent of the higher consciousness is not enough, it is only a middle term ; the ultimate achievement needs the action of the Supramental Consciousness and Force. Something less than that may very well be considered enough by (he mdivi- dual, but it is not enough for the earth-consciousness to take the definite stride forward it must take one time or other.
"Pulling comes usually from a desire to get things for oneself — in aspiration there is a self-giving for the higher consciousness to descend and take possession — the more intense the call the greater the self-giving.” Letters on Yoga
“Pulling comes usually from a desire to get things for oneself—in aspiration there is a self-giving for the higher consciousness to descend and take possession—the more intense the call the greater the self-giving.” Letters on Yoga
PURIFICATION. ::: Each time there is a purification of the outer nature, it becomes more possible for the inner being to reveal itself, to become free and to open to the higher conscious- ness above. ^Vhen this happens several other things happen at the same time. First, one becomes aware of the silent Self above
Radha’s colour. Usually the deeper blue is Higher Mind, a paler blue is Illumined Mind (or something of the Intuition), whitish blue is Sri Krishna’s light. Whitish blue like moonlight :::
Rain ::: Symbol of the descent of Grace or of the higher cons- ciousness which is the cause of the riches, the spiritual plenty. i?oinhou> ; Sign of peace and deliverance.
Rajayoga must cod. For its action is the stilling of the waves of consciousness, its manifold activities, cinovfUl, first, through a habitual replacing of the turbid rajaslc activities by the quiet and luminous sattwic, then, by the stilling of all activities, and its object is to enter into silent communion of soul and unity with the Divine. As a matter of fact we find that the system of Raja- yoga includes other objects, — such as the practice and use of occult powers, — some of which seem to be unconnected with and even inconsistent with its main purpose. These powers or siddhis arc indeed frequently condemned as dangers and dis- tractions wWch draw away the Yogin from his sole legitimate aim of divine union. On the way, therefore, it would naturally seem as if they ought to bfe* avoided; and once the goal is reached, it would seem that they are then frivolous and super- fluous. But Rajayoga is a psychic science and it includes the attainment of all the higher slates of consciousness and their powers by which the mental being rises towards the super- conscient as well as its ultimate and supreme possibility of union wnth the Highest. Moreover, the Yo^n, while in the body, is not always mentally inactive and sunk in Samadhi and an account of the powers and states which arc possible to him on the higher planes of his being is necessary to the completeness of the science.
RED. ::: The colour of the physical ; touched by the higher
RESISTANCE. ::: When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt — which may create mental and vital su/Tering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature ivhose principal characer is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffer- ing of the mind and vital parts. The pbj-sical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incom- prehension, an inability to respond to the higher consciousness, a habit of helplessly responding to the lower mechanically, even when it docs not want to do so ; both lital and physical suffer- ing may be the consequence. There is, moreover, the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence in the continuation of the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses, desires, feelings, responses continue even after they are thrown out and rejected, and can return like an invading army from outside, until the whole nature, given to (he
Right Force and wrong ::: If it works to purify or open the system, or brings with it light or peace, or prepares the change of the thought, ideas, feelings, character in the sense of turning towards a higher consciousness, then it is the right force. If it is dark or obscure or perturbs the being with rajasic or egoistic suggestions or excites the lower nature, then it is an adverse force.
Rishi ::: The spiritual man who can guide human life towards its perfection is typified in the ancient Indian idea of the Rishi, one who has lived fully the life of man and found the word of the supra-intellectual, supramental, spiritual truth. He has risen above these lower limitations and can view all things from above, but also he is in sympathy with their effort and can view them from within; he has the complete inner knowledge and the higher surpassing knowledge. Therefore he can guide the world humanly as God guides it divinely, because like the Divine he is in the life of the world and yet above it.” The Human Cycle
ROTATORY MOVEMENT. ::: The movement of the Force of the higher spiritual or divine consciousness when it is work- ing and forming something in tbe being.
SAFEGUARD. ::: An inner purity and sincerity, in which one is motivated only by the higher call, is one’s best safeguard against the lures of the intermediate stage. It keeps one on the right track and guards from deviation, until the psychic being is fully awake and in front and, once that happens, there is no further danger. If in addition to this purity and sincerity, there is a clear mind with a power of discrimination, that increases the safety in the earlier stages.
Samadhi and norma! sleep, between the dream*state of Yoga and the physical state of dream. The latter belongs to the physical mind ; in the former the mind proper and subtle is at work liberated from the immixture of the physical mentality. The dreams of the physical mind are an incoherent jumble made up partly of responses to vague touches from the physical world round which the lower mind*faculttes disconnected from the will and reason, the buddhi, weave a web of wandering phantasy, partly of disordered associations from the brain>memory, partly of refieclions from the soul travelling on the mental plane, reflec- tions which arc, ordinarily, received without intelligence or co- ordination, wildly distorted in the reception and mixed up confusedly with the other dream elements, with brain-memories and fantastic responses to any sensory touch from the physical world. In the Yogic dream-state, on the other hand, the mind is in clear possession of itself, though not of the physical world, works coherently and is able to use either its ordinary will and intelligence with a concentrated power or else the higher will and intelligence of the more exalted planes of mind. It withdraws from experience of the outer world, it puts its seals upon the physical senses and their doors of conununicatinn with maJerJal things ; but everything that is proper to itself, thought, reasoning, reflection, vision, it can continue to execute with an increased purity and power of sovereign concentration free from the dis- tractions and unsteadiness of the waking mind. It can use too its will and produce upon itself or upon its environment mental, moral and even physical effects which may continue and have
SECLUSION. ::: U is not advisable to cut oneself ol! from mixing with people altogether. You must remain in the higher consciousness even when with people.
self identification lost by uniting with something higher.
Self, reflecting the Divine, seeing and understanding the nature of the Self and its relations with the manifestation, living in that or in contact with it, calm, wide and awake to higher knowledge, noi'perturbcd by the play of the forces. When it gcu its full
SEX. ::: The sex-impulse is certainly the greatest force in the vital plane ; if it can be sublimated and turned upwards, ojas is created which is a great help to the attainment of higher
Shruti: “The agents in our layered consciousness which keeps us running towards something greater, higher, always dissatisfied with our present state of affairs in life and our mental consciousness.”
Silence of the ordinary rmnd-mechanism is necessary in order that the higher meiitahty nray mamifest, descend, occupy by degrees the place of the present im|«rfect mentality and trans- form the activities ot the latter into its own fuller movements.
Sky ::: A symbol of the mental consciousness (or the psychic) or other consciousnesses above the mind. The higher conscious- ness In any of its levels is seen usually us a sky or ether but when felt through the vital it is often p>erceived as a sea. In this yoga one sees many levels of consciousness which appear as skies or seas.
Sleep cannot be replaced, bm it can be changed ,* /or you can become conscious in sleep. If you are thus conscious, then the night can be utilised for a higher working — provided the body gets its due rest ; for the object of sleep is the body's rest and the renewal of the vital-physical force.
soaring ::: fig. Ascending to a level markedly higher than the usual.
Solitude of the self in the Divine has to be active as well as passive and static. None who has not arrived at the silence and motionless solitude of the eternal Self can have the free and integral activity of the higher divine Nature. For the action is based on the silence and by the silence it is free.
Space ::: “It is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension,—no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
Space. Sri Aurobindo: "It is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension, — no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
SPIRITUALISATION. ::: Spiritualisation means the descent of the jiigher peace, force, light, knowledge, purity, Ananda, etc. which belong to any of the higher planes from Higher Mind to
Spirituality can only come by opening of the mind, vital and physical to the inmost soul, to the higher Self, to the Divine, and their subordination to the spiritual forces and instrumentation as channels of the inner Light, the higher Knowledge and Power.
spiritual ::: “‘Spiritual’ has not a necessary connection with the Absolute. Of course the experience of the Absolute is spiritual. All contacts with self, the higher consciousness, the Divine above are spiritual.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be characterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the beginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material Nature.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: A symbol, as I understand it, is the form on one plane that represents a truth of another. For instance, a flag is the symbol of a nation…. But generally all forms are symbols. This body of ours is a symbol of our real being and everything is a symbol of some higher reality. There are, however, different kinds of symbols: 1. Conventional symbols, such as the Vedic Rishis formed with objects taken from their surroundings. The cow stood for light because the same word `go ‘ meant both ray and cow, and because the cow was their most precious possession which maintained their life and was constantly in danger of being robbed and concealed. But once created, such a symbol becomes alive. The Rishis vitalised it and it became a part of their realisation. It appeared in their visions as an image of spiritual light. The horse also was one of their favourite symbols, and a more easily adaptable one, since its force and energy were quite evident. 2. What we might call Life-symbols, such as are not artificially chosen or mentally interpreted in a conscious deliberate way, but derive naturally from our day-to-day life and grow out of the surroundings which condition our normal path of living. To the ancients the mountain was a symbol of the path of yoga, level above level, peak upon peak. A journey, involving the crossing of rivers and the facing of lurking enemies, both animal and human, conveyed a similar idea. Nowadays I dare say we would liken yoga to a motor-ride or a railway-trip. 3. Symbols that have an inherent appositeness and power of their own. Akasha or etheric space is a symbol of the infinite all-pervading eternal Brahman. In any nationality it would convey the same meaning. Also, the Sun stands universally for the supramental Light, the divine Gnosis. 4.* Mental symbols, instances of which are numbers or alphabets. Once they are accepted, they too become active and may be useful. Thus geometrical figures have been variously interpreted. In my experience the square symbolises the supermind. I cannot say how it came to do so. Somebody or some force may have built it before it came to my mind. Of the triangle, too, there are different explanations. In one position it can symbolise the three lower planes, in another the symbol is of the three higher ones: so both can be combined together in a single sign. The ancients liked to indulge in similar speculations concerning numbers, but their systems were mostly mental. It is no doubt true that supramental realities exist which we translate into mental formulas such as Karma, Psychic evolution, etc. But they are, so to speak, infinite realities which cannot be limited by these symbolic forms, though they may be somewhat expressed by them; they might be expressed as well by other symbols, and the same symbol may also express many different ideas. Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Destiny in the rigid sense applies only to the outer being so long as it lives in the Ignorance. What we call destiny is only in fact the result of the present condition of the being and the nature and energies it has accumulated in the past acting on each other and determining the present attempts and their future results. But as soon as one enters the path of spiritual life, this old predetermined destiny begins to recede. There comes in a new factor, the Divine Grace, the help of a higher Divine Force other than the force of Karma, which can lift the sadhak beyond the present possibilities of his nature. One"s spiritual destiny is then the divine election which ensures the future.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "If this higher buddhi {{understanding in the profoundest sense] could act pure of the interference of these lower members, it would give pure forms of the truth; observation would be dominated or replaced by a vision which could see without subservient dependence on the testimony of the sense-mind and senses; imagination would give place to the self-assured inspiration of the truth, reasoning to the spontaneous discernment of relations and conclusion from reasoning to an intuition containing in itself those relations and not building laboriously upon them, judgment to a thought-vision in whose light the truth would stand revealed without the mask which it now wears and which our intellectual judgment has to penetrate; while memory too would take upon itself that larger sense given to it in Greek thought and be no longer a paltry selection from the store gained by the individual in his present life, but rather the all-recording knowledge which secretly holds and constantly gives from itself everything that we now seem painfully to acquire but really in this sense remember, a knowledge which includes the future(1) no less than the past. ::: Footnote: In this sense the power of prophecy has been aptly called a memory of the future.]” *The Synthesis of Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "In other words, ethics is a stage in evolution. That which is common to all stages is the urge of Sachchidananda towards self-expression. This urge is at first non-ethical, then infra-ethical in the animal, then in the intelligent animal even anti-ethical for it permits us to approve hurt done to others which we disapprove when done to ourselves. In this respect man even now is only half-ethical. And just as all below us is infra-ethical, so there may be that above us whither we shall eventually arrive, which is supra-ethical, has no need of ethics. The ethical impulse and attitude, so all-important to humanity, is a means by which it struggles out of the lower harmony and universality based upon inconscience and broken up by Life into individual discords towards a higher harmony and universality based upon conscient oneness with all existences. Arriving at that goal, this means will no longer be necessary or even possible, since the qualities and oppositions on which it depends will naturally dissolve and disappear in the final reconciliation.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "It could be affirmed as a consequence that there is one all-pervading Life or dynamic energy — the material aspect being only its outermost movement — that creates all these forms of the physical universe, Life imperishable and eternal which, even if the whole figure of the universe were quite abolished, would itself still go on existing and be capable of producing a new universe in its place, must indeed, unless it be held back in a state of rest by some higher Power or hold itself back, inevitably go on creating. In that case Life is nothing else than the Force that builds and maintains and destroys forms in the world; it is Life that manifests itself in the form of the earth as much as in the plant that grows upon the earth and the animals that support their existence by devouring the life-force of the plant or of each other. All existence here is a universal Life that takes form of Matter. It might for that purpose hide life-process in physical process before it emerges as submental sensitivity and mentalised vitality, but still it would be throughout the same creative Life-principle.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: " Mental intelligence thinks out because it is merely a reflecting force of consciousness which does not know, but seeks to know; it follows in Time step by step the working of a knowledge higher than itself, a knowledge that exists always, one and whole, that holds Time in its grasp, that sees past, present and future in a single regard.: The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "‘Spiritual" has not a necessary connection with the Absolute. Of course the experience of the Absolute is spiritual. All contacts with self, the higher consciousness, the Divine above are spiritual.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The Divinity in man dwells veiled in his spiritual centre; there can be no such thing as self-exceeding for man or a higher issue for his existence if there is not in him the reality of an eternal Self and Spirit.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . thought in itself, in its origin on the higher levels of consciousness, is a perception, a cognitive seizing of the object or of some truth of things which is a powerful but still a minor and secondary result of spiritual vision, a comparatively external and superficial regard of the self upon the self, the subject upon itself or something of itself as object.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Vitality means life-force — wherever there is life, in plant or animal or man, there is life-force — without the vital there can be no life in matter and no living action. The vital is a necessary force and nothing can be done or created in the bodily existence, if the vital is not there as an instrument.” *Letters on Yoga
"The vital proper is the life-force acting in its own nature, impulses, emotions, feelings, desires, ambitions, etc., having as their highest centre what we may call the outer heart of emotion, while there is an inner heart where are the higher or psychic feelings and sensibilities, the emotions or intuitive yearnings and impulses of the soul. The vital part of us is, of course, necessary to our completeness, but it is a true instrument only when its feelings and tendencies have been purified by the psychic touch and taken up and governed by the spiritual light and power.” *Letters on Yoga
". . . the vital is the Life-nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire-soul in man and of all that play of possessive and other related instincts, anger, fear, greed, lust, etc., that belong to this field of the nature. Letters on Yoga
The Mother: "The vital is the dynamism of action. It is the seat of the will, of impulses, desires, revolts, etc.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15*.
Still what is important is to develop the psychic within and bring down the higher consciousness from above. The psychic, as it grows and manifests, detects immediately all wrong move- ments or elements and at the same lime supplies almost auto- matically the true element or movement which will replace them ; this process is much easier and more effective than that of a severe tapasy& of purification. The higher consciousness In des-
subconscience ::: “Matter, the medium of all this evolution, is seemingly inconscient and inanimate; but it so appears to us only because we are unable to sense consciousness outside a certain limited range, a fixed scale or gamut to which we have access. Below us there are lower ranges to which we are insensible and these we call subconscience or inconscience. Above us are higher ranges which are to our inferior nature an unseizable superconscience.” Essays Divine and Human
subconscience ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Matter, the medium of all this evolution, is seemingly inconscient and inanimate; but it so appears to us only because we are unable to sense consciousness outside a certain limited range, a fixed scale or gamut to which we have access. Below us there are lower ranges to which we are insensible and these we call subconscience or inconscience. Above us are higher ranges which are to our inferior nature an unseizable superconscience.” Essays Divine and Human
subconscient ::: Sri Aurobindo: "In our yoga we mean by the subconscient that quite submerged part of our being in which there is no wakingly conscious and coherent thought, will or feeling or organised reaction, but which yet receives obscurely the impressions of all things and stores them up in itself and from it too all sorts of stimuli, of persistent habitual movements, crudely repeated or disguised in strange forms can surge up into dream or into the waking nature. No, subliminal is a general term used for all parts of the being which are not on the waking surface. Subconscient is very often used in the same sense by European psychologists because they do not know the difference. But when I use the word, I mean always what is below the ordinary physical consciousness, not what is behind it. The inner mental, vital, physical, the psychic are not subconscious in this sense, but they can be spoken of as subliminal.” *The Synthesis of Yoga.
"The subconscient is a concealed and unexpressed inarticulate consciousness which works below all our conscious physical activities. Just as what we call the superconscient is really a higher consciousness above from which things descend into the being, so the subconscient is below the body-consciousness and things come up into the physical, the vital and the mind-nature from there.
Just as the higher consciousness is superconscient to us and supports all our spiritual possibilities and nature, so the subconscient is the basis of our material being and supports all that comes up in the physical nature.” Letters on Yoga
"That part of us which we can strictly call subconscient because it is below the level of mind and conscious life, inferior and obscure, covers the purely physical and vital elements of our constitution of bodily being, unmentalised, unobserved by the mind, uncontrolled by it in their action. It can be held to include the dumb occult consciousness, dynamic but not sensed by us, which operates in the cells and nerves and all the corporeal stuff and adjusts their life process and automatic responses. It covers also those lowest functionings of submerged sense-mind which are more operative in the animal and in plant life.” *The Life Divine
"The subconscient is a thing of habits and memories and repeats persistently or whenever it can old suppressed reactions, reflexes, mental, vital or physical responses. It must be trained by a still more persistent insistence of the higher parts of the being to give up its old responses and take on the new and true ones.” Letters on Yoga
"About the subconscient — it is the sub-mental base of the being and is made up of impressions, instincts, habitual movements that are stored there. Whatever movement is impressed in it, it keeps. If one impresses the right movement in it, it will keep and send up that. That is why it has to be cleared of old movements before there can be a permanent and total change in the nature. When the higher consciousness is once established in the waking parts, it goes down into the subconscient and changes that also, makes a bedrock of itself there also.” Letters on Yoga
"The sub-conscious is the evolutionary basis in us, it is not the whole of our hidden nature, nor is it the whole origin of what we are. But things can rise from the subconscient and take shape in the conscious parts and much of our smaller vital and physical instincts, movements, habits, character-forms has this source.” Letters on Yoga
"The subconscient is the support of habitual action — it can support good habits as well as bad.” Letters on Yoga
"For the subconscient is the Inconscient in the process of becoming conscious; it is a support and even a root of our inferior parts of being and their movements.” The Life Divine *subconscient"s.
superconscience ::: “But a third power or possibility of the Infinite Consciousness can be admitted, its power of self-absorption, of plunging into itself, into a state in which self-awareness exists but not as knowledge and not as all-knowledge; the all would then be involved in pure self-awareness, and knowledge and the inner consciousness itself would be lost in pure being. This is, luminously, the state which we call the Superconscience in an absolute sense,—although most of what we call superconscient is in reality not that but only a higher conscient, something that is conscious to itself and only superconscious to our own limited level of awareness.” The Life Divine
superconscience ::: Sri Aurobindo: "But a third power or possibility of the Infinite Consciousness can be admitted, its power of self-absorption, of plunging into itself, into a state in which self-awareness exists but not as knowledge and not as all-knowledge; the all would then be involved in pure self-awareness, and knowledge and the inner consciousness itself would be lost in pure being. This is, luminously, the state which we call the Superconscience in an absolute sense, — although most of what we call superconscient is in reality not that but only a higher conscient, something that is conscious to itself and only superconscious to our own limited level of awareness.” The Life Divine
superior ::: located higher than another; upper; being of a higher or celestial world.
supernal ::: 1. Belonging to the realm or state above this world or this present life; pertaining to a higher world or state of existence; coming from above; belonging to the heaven of divine beings; heavenly, celestial, or divine. 2. Lofty; of more than earthly or human excellence, powers, etc. **supernal"s.
Swan is the symbol of the soul on the higher plane.
symbol ::: A symbol, as I understand it, is the form on one plane that represents a truth of another. For instance, a flag is the symbol of a nation…. But generally all forms are symbols. This body of ours is a symbol of our real being and everything is a symbol of some higher reality. There are, however, different kinds of symbols: 1. Conventional symbols, such as the Vedic Rishis formed with objects taken from their surroundings. The cow stood for light because the same word `go ‘ meant both ray and cow, and because the cow was their most precious possession which maintained their life and was constantly in danger of being robbed and concealed. But once created, such a symbol becomes alive. The Rishis vitalised it and it became a part of their realisation. It appeared in their visions as an image of spiritual light. The horse also was one of their favourite symbols, and a more easily adaptable one, since its force and energy were quite evident. 2. What we might call Life-symbols, such as are not artificially chosen or mentally interpreted in a conscious deliberate way, but derive naturally from our day-to-day life and grow out of the surroundings which condition our normal path of living. To the ancients the mountain was a symbol of the path of yoga, level above level, peak upon peak. A journey, involving the crossing of rivers and the facing of lurking enemies, both animal and human, conveyed a similar idea. Nowadays I dare say we would liken yoga to a motor-ride or a railway-trip. 3. Symbols that have an inherent appositeness and power of their own. Akasha or etheric space is a symbol of the infinite all-pervading eternal Brahman. In any nationality it would convey the same meaning. Also, the Sun stands universally for the supramental Light, the divine Gnosis. 4. Mental symbols, instances of which are numbers or alphabets. Once they are accepted, they too become active and may be useful. Thus geometrical figures have been variously interpreted. In my experience the square symbolises the supermind. I cannot say how it came to do so. Somebody or some force may have built it before it came to my mind. Of the triangle, too, there are different explanations. In one position it can symbolise the three lower planes, in another the symbol is of the three higher ones: so both can be combined together in a single sign. The ancients liked to indulge in similar speculations concerning numbers, but their systems were mostly mental. It is no doubt true that supramental realities exist which we translate into mental formulas such as Karma, Psychic evolution, etc. But they are, so to speak, infinite realities which cannot be limited by these symbolic forms, though they may be somewhat expressed by them; they might be expressed as well by other symbols, and the same symbol may also express many different ideas. Letters on Yoga
SYMBOL. ::: A symbol is the form of one plane that represents a truth of another. Generally all forms are symbols. Everything is a symbol of some higher reality. There arc different kinds of symbols ::: ( 1 ) Conventional symbols, c.g. Vcdic cow for light.
TAPASYA. ::: When the will and energy are concentrated and used to control the mind, vital and physical and change them or bring down the higher consciousness or for any other yogic pur- pose or high purpose, that is called tapasya.
Tehmi: “This is the higher life plane.”
"That there is a divine force asleep or veiled by Inconscience in Matter and that the Higher Force has to descend and awaken it with the Light and Truth is a thing that is well known; it is at the very base of this yoga.” Letters on Yoga
“That there is a divine force asleep or veiled by Inconscience in Matter and that the Higher Force has to descend and awaken it with the Light and Truth is a thing that is well known; it is at the very base of this yoga.” Letters on Yoga
The action of the subconscient is irrational, mechanical, repetitive. It does not listen to reason or the mental will. It is only by bringing the higher light and force into it that it can change.
the act of rising to a higher level; ascent.
The higher ranges of spiritual mind have to open upon our being and consciousness and also that which is beyond even spiritual mind must appear in us if we are to fulfil the divine possibility of our birth into cosmic existence. …The Life Divine
the higher ranges of spiritual mind have to open upon our being and consciousness and also that which is beyond even spiritual mind must appear in us if we are to fulfil the divine possibility of our birth into cosmic existence. …The Life Divine
"The colours of the lotuses and the numbers of petals are respectively, from bottom to top: — (1) the Muladhara or physical consciousness centre, four petals, red; (2) the abdominal centre, six petals, deep purple red; (3) the navel centre, ten petals, violet; (4) the heart centre, twelve petals, golden pink; (5) the throat centre, sixteen petals, grey; (6) the forehead centre between the eye-brows, two petals, white; (7) the thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around. The functions are, according to our yoga, — (1) commanding the physical consciousness and the subconscient; (2) commanding the small vital movements, the little greeds, lusts, desires, the small sense-movements; (3) commanding the larger life-forces and the passions and larger desire-movements; (4) commanding the higher emotional being with the psychic deep behind it; (5) commanding expression and all externalisation of the mind movements and mental forces; (6) commanding thought, will, vision; (7) commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The seventh is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error — the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, sunya , either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.” Letters on Yoga*
“The colours of the lotuses and the numbers of petals are respectively, from bottom to top:—(1) the Muladhara or physical consciousness centre, four petals, red; (2) the abdominal centre, six petals, deep purple red; (3) the navel centre, ten petals, violet; (4) the heart centre, twelve petals, golden pink; (5) the throat centre, sixteen petals, grey; (6) the forehead centre between the eye-brows, two petals, white; (7) the thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around. The functions are, according to our yoga,—(1) commanding the physical consciousness and the subconscient; (2) commanding the small vital movements, the little greeds, lusts, desires, the small sense-movements; (3) commanding the larger life-forces and the passions and larger desire-movements; (4) commanding the higher emotional being with the psychic deep behind it; (5) commanding expression and all externalisation of the mind movements and mental forces; (6) commanding thought, will, vision; (7) commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The seventh is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error—the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, sunya , either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.” Letters on Yoga
The consciousness (higher) is alwa>’s there ; the body «s tamasic and obscure and the greater part of it Is subconscient.
“The cosmic consciousness has many levels—the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga
The crown centre open removes the difficulty of the lid bet- ween the ordinary mind and the higher consciousness above.
::: "The first condition of inner progress is to recognise whatever is or has been a wrong movement in any part of the nature, — wrong idea, wrong feeling, wrong speech, wrong action, — and by wrong is meant what departs from the truth, from the higher consciousness and higher self, from the way of the Divine. Once recognised it is admitted, not glossed over or defended, — and it is offered to the Divine for the Light and Grace to descend and substitute for it the right movement of the true Consciousness.” *Letters on Yoga
“The first condition of inner progress is to recognise whatever is or has been a wrong movement in any part of the nature,—wrong idea, wrong feeling, wrong speech, wrong action,—and by wrong is meant what departs from the truth, from the higher consciousness and higher self, from the way of the Divine. Once recognised it is admitted, not glossed over or defended,—and it is offered to the Divine for the Light and Grace to descend and substitute for it the right movement of the true Consciousness.” Letters on Yoga
The first thing is for the mind and also the higher vital to withdraw their consent altt^lher; if that is done, it becomes only a mechanical return from outside on the physical and final*
"The freedom of the Gita is that of the freeman, the true freedom of the birth into the higher nature, self-existent in its divinity. Whatever he does and however he lives, the free soul lives in the Divine; he is the privileged child of the mansion, bâlavat, who cannot err or fall because all he is and does is full of the Perfect, the All-blissful, the All-loving, the All-beautiful. The kingdom which he enjoys, râjyam samrddham, is a sweet and happy dominion of which it may be said, in the pregnant phrase of the Greek thinker, ``The kingdom is of the child."" Essays on the Gita
“The freedom of the Gita is that of the freeman, the true freedom of the birth into the higher nature, self-existent in its divinity. Whatever he does and however he lives, the free soul lives in the Divine; he is the privileged child of the mansion, bâlavat, who cannot err or fall because all he is and does is full of the Perfect, the All-blissful, the All-loving, the All-beautiful. The kingdom which he enjoys, râjyam samrddham, is a sweet and happy dominion of which it may be said, in the pregnant phrase of the Greek thinker, ``The kingdom is of the child.’’ Essays on the Gita
The Gods cannot be transformed, for they are typal and not evolutionary beings, they can come for conversion, that is to say, to ^ve up their own ideas and outlook on things and con- form themselves to the higher Will and Supramcntal Truth of the Divine.
The heart centre commanding the higher emotional being with the psychic deep behind it gov'ems the emotional being.
The impulse towards Itiya Is a creation of the mind, it is not the sole possible destiny of the soul. When the mind tries to abolish its own Ignorance, it finds no escape from it except by laya, because it supposes that there is no higher principle of cosmic experience beyond itself — beyond itself is only the pure
"The inner vision is an open door on higher planes of consciousness beyond the physical mind which gives room for a wider truth and experience to enter and act upon the mind. It is not the only or the most important door, but it is one which comes readiest to very many if not most and can be a very powerful help.” Letters on Yoga
“The inner vision is an open door on higher planes of consciousness beyond the physical mind which gives room for a wider truth and experience to enter and act upon the mind. It is not the only or the most important door, but it is one which comes readiest to very many if not most and can be a very powerful help.” Letters on Yoga
“The intermediate zone means simply a confused condition or passage in which one is getting out of the personal consciousness and opening into the cosmic (cosmic Mind, cosmic vital, cosmic physical, something perhaps of the cosmic higher Mind) without having yet transcended the human mind levels. One is not in possession of or direct contact with the divine Truth on its own levels , but one can receive something from them, even from the overmind, indirectly. Only, as one is still immersed in the cosmic Ignorance, all that comes from above can be mixed, perverted, taken hold of for their purposes by lower, even by hostile Powers.
The Lights one secs in concentration are the lights of various powers or forces and often lights that come down from the higher consciousness.
"The message of the Gita is the gospel of the Divinity in man who by force of an increasing union unfolds himself out of the veil of the lower Nature, reveals to the human soul his cosmic spirit, reveals his absolute transcendences, reveals himself in man and in all beings. The potential outcome here of this union, this divine Yoga, man growing towards the Godhead, the Godhead manifest in the human soul and to the inner human vision, is our liberation from limited ego and our elevation to the higher nature of a divine humanity.” Essays on the Gita ::: *Divinity"s.
“The message of the Gita is the gospel of the Divinity in man who by force of an increasing union unfolds himself out of the veil of the lower Nature, reveals to the human soul his cosmic spirit, reveals his absolute transcendences, reveals himself in man and in all beings. The potential outcome here of this union, this divine Yoga, man growing towards the Godhead, the Godhead manifest in the human soul and to the inner human vision, is our liberation from limited ego and our elevation to the higher nature of a divine humanity.” Essays on the Gita
The more intense the experiences that come, the higher the forces that descend, the greater become the possibilities of deviation and error. For the very intensity and the very height of the force excites and aggrandises the movements of the lower nature and raises up in it all opposing elements in their full force, but often in the dbguisc of truth, wearing a mask of plausible justification. There is needed a great patience, calm, sobriety, balance, an impersonal dciachmcnx and sincerity free from all taint of ego or personal human desire. There must be no attachment to any idea of one’s owm, to any experience, to any kind of imagination, mental building or vital demand ::: the light of discrimination must alx^i'ays play to detect those
The Mother: "And this Vibration (which I feel and see) gives the feeling of a fire. That"s probably what the Vedic Rishis translated as the "Flame” – in the human consciousness, in man, in Matter. They always spoke of a "Flame.” It is indeed a vibration with the intensity of a higher fire. Mother"s Agenda 25 March 1964.
The Mother: “And this Vibration (which I feel and see) gives the feeling of a fire. That’s probably what the Vedic Rishis translated as the”Flame”—in the human consciousness, in man, in Matter. They always spoke of a”Flame.” It is indeed a vibration with the intensity of a higher fire. Mother’s Agenda 25 March 1964.
The Mother: "In the physical world, of all things it is beauty that expresses best the Divine. the physical world is the world of form and the perfection of form is beauty. Beauty interprets, expresses, manifests the Eternal. Its role is to put all manifested nature in contact with the Eternal through the perfection of form, through harmony and a sense of the ideal which uplifts and leads towards something higher. On Education, MCW Vol. 12.
The Mother: “In the physical world, of all things it is beauty that expresses best the Divine. the physical world is the world of form and the perfection of form is beauty. Beauty interprets, expresses, manifests the Eternal. Its role is to put all manifested nature in contact with the Eternal through the perfection of form, through harmony and a sense of the ideal which uplifts and leads towards something higher. On Education, MCW Vol. 12.
The neck and throat and the lower part of the face belong to the externalising mind, the physical mental. The forehead to the inner Mind. Above the head are the higher planes of Mind.
Then there arc experiences that help or lead towards the realisation of things spiritual or divine or bring openings or progressions in the sadhana or arc supports on the way, — experiences of a symbolic character, visions, contacts of one kind or another with the Divine or with the workings of higher Truth, things like the waking of the Kundalini, the opening of the
“The Overmind is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis which is not limited by rules and canons, it sees a universal and an eternal beauty while it takes up and transforms all that is limited and particular. It is besides concerned with things other than beauty or aesthetics. It is concerned especially with truth and knowledge or rather with a wisdom that exceeds what we call knowledge; its truth goes beyond truth of fact and truth of thought, even the higher thought which is the first spiritual range of the thinker. It has the truth of spiritual thought, spiritual feeling, spiritual sense and at its highest the truth that comes by the most intimate spiritual touch or by identity. Ultimately, truth and beauty come together and coincide, but in between there is a difference. Overmind in all its dealings puts truth first; it brings out the essential truth (and truths) in things and also its infinite possibilities; it brings out even the truth that lies behind falsehood and error; it brings out the truth of the Inconscient and the truth of the Superconscient and all that lies in between. When it speaks through poetry, this remains its first essential quality; a limited aesthetical artistic aim is not its purpose.” Letters on Savitri
The overmind is the region of the gods, the beings of divine origin who have been charged with supervising, directing and organising the evolution of the universe; and more specifically, since the formation of the earth they have served as messengers and intermediaries to bring to the earth the aid of the higher regions and to preside over the formation of the mind and its progressive ascension. It is usually to the gods of the overmind that the prayers of the various religions are addressed. These religions most often choose, for various reasons, one of these gods and transform him for their personal use into the supreme God.
The physical mind is that which is fixed on physical objects and happenings, sees and understands these only, and deals with them according to their own nature, but can with difficulty respond to the higher forces. Left to itself, it Is skeptical of the existence of supra-physical things of which it has no direct experience and to which it can find no due ; even when it has spiritual experi- ences, it forgets them easily, loses (he impression and result and finds it difficult to believe. To enlighten the physical mind by the consciousness of the higher spiritual and Supramental planes is one object of this yoga, just as to enlighten it by the power of the higher vital and higher mental elements of the being is the greatest part of human self-development, civilisation and culture.
::: "The physical mind is that which is fixed on physical objects and happenings, sees and understands these only, and deals with them according to their own nature, but can with difficulty respond to the higher forces.” *Letters on Yoga
“The physical mind is that which is fixed on physical objects and happenings, sees and understands these only, and deals with them according to their own nature, but can with difficulty respond to the higher forces.” Letters on Yoga
The Prakrti b divided into the lower and the Ji/g/ter ::: the lower b the Prakrti of the Ignorance, the Prakrti of mind, life and matter separated in consdonsness from the Divine ; the higher b the Divine Prakrti of Sachchidananda with its mani-
The process of the Kundalini awakened rising through the centres as also the purification of the centres is a Taniric know- ledge. In our yoga there is no willed process of the punfication and opening of the centres, no raising up of the Kundalini by a set process either. Another method is used, but stiff there is the ascent of the consciousness from and through the different fc\cls to join the higher consciousness above ; there is the open- ing of the centres and of the planes (mental, vital, physical) which these centres command ; there is also the descent which is the main key of the spiritual transformation.
The process of yoga is a tumiog of the human soul from the egoistic state of consciousness absorbed in outer appearances and attractions of things to a higher state .in which the Trans- cendent and Universal can pour itself into the individual mould and transform it.
The psychic part oS us is something that comes direct from the Divine and is in touch with the Divine. In its origin Jt is the nucleus pregnant with divine possibilities that supports this lower triple ma^estation of mind, life and body. There is this divine element in all living beings, but it stands bidden behind the ordinary cemsdousness, is not at first developed and, even when developed, is not always or often in the front ; it expresses itself so far as the imperfection of the instruments anon’s, by their means and imdcr their limitations. It grows in the cons- ciousness by Godward experience, gaining strength every time there is a Wgher movement in us, and, finally, by the accumu- lation of these deeper and higher movements, there is developed a psychic individuality, — that which we call usually the psychic being, ft is afways tius p^-chic hem? ffcif £f c&e reaf, often the secret cause of man’s turning to the spiritual life and his greatest help in it.
". . . there are a series of subtler and subtler formulations of substance which escape from and go beyond the formula of the material universe. Without going deeply into matters which are too occult and difficult for our present inquiry, we may say, adhering to the system on which we have based ourselves, that these gradations of substance, in one important aspect of their formulation in series, can be seen to correspond to the ascending series of Matter, Life, Mind, Supermind and that other higher divine triplicity of Sachchidananda. In other words, we find that substance in its ascension bases itself upon each of these principles and makes itself successively a characteristic vehicle for the dominating cosmic self-expression of each in their ascending series.” The Life Divine
“… there are a series of subtler and subtler formulations of substance which escape from and go beyond the formula of the material universe. Without going deeply into matters which are too occult and difficult for our present inquiry, we may say, adhering to the system on which we have based ourselves, that these gradations of substance, in one important aspect of their formulation in series, can be seen to correspond to the ascending series of Matter, Life, Mind, Supermind and that other higher divine triplicity of Sachchidananda. In other words, we find that substance in its ascension bases itself upon each of these principles and makes itself successively a characteristic vehicle for the dominating cosmic self-expression of each in their ascending series.” The Life Divine
There are different Krishna lights — - pale diamond blue, lavender blue, deep blue etc. It depends on the plane in which it manifests. There is one blue that is the higher mind, a deeper blue belongs to the mind — Krishna’s ligh\ in the mind.
There are two classes of thmgs that happen in yoga, realisa- tions and experiences. Realisations are the reception in the cons- ciousness and the establishment there of the fundamental truths of the Divine, of the Higher or Divine Nature, of the world- consciousness and the play of its forces, of one’s own self and real nature and the inner nature of things, the power of these things growing in one till they arc part of one’s inner life and existence, — as for instance, the realisation of the Divine Pre- sence, the Descent and settling of the higher Peace, Light, Force,
::: **"There is no fear in the higher Nature. Fear is a creation of the vital plane, an instinct of the ignorance, a sense of danger with a violent vital reaction that replaces and usually prevents or distorts the intelligence of things.” Letters on Yoga
“There is no fear in the higher Nature. Fear is a creation of the vital plane, an instinct of the ignorance, a sense of danger with a violent vital reaction that replaces and usually prevents or distorts the intelligence of things.” Letters on Yoga
There is no sufTicient utility in fasting, since the higher energy and receptivity ought to come not by artificial or physical means but by intensity of the consciousness and strong will for the saclliana.
There is only one psychic being for each human being, but the beings of the higher planes, eg. the Gods of the Overmind can manifest in more than one human body at a time by send- ing different emanations into different bodies.
There must be a desceat of the light not merely into the mind or part of it but into all the being down to the physical and below before a real Iransformatioo can take place. A-ligbt in the mind may spiritualise or otherwise change .the mind or part of it in one way or another, but it need not change the vital nature ; a light in the vital may purify and enlarge the vital movements or else silence and immobilise the vital being, but leave the body and the physical consciousness as it was, or even leave it inert or shake its balance. And the descent of Light is not enough, it must be the descent of the whole higher conscious- ness, its Peace, Power, Knowledge, Love, Ananda. Moreover the descent may be enough to liberate, but not to perfect, or it may be enough to make a great change in the inner being, while the outer remains an imperfect instrument, clumsy, sick or inexpressive. Finaliy, transfonnation eflected by the sadhana cannot be complete unless it is a supramenfalisafion of the being.
"The Rishi. . . the man of a higher spiritual experience and knowledge, born in any of the classes, but exercising an authority by his spiritual personality over all.” The Foundations of Indian Culture
“The Rishi. . . the man of a higher spiritual experience and knowledge, born in any of the classes, but exercising an authority by his spiritual personality over all.” The Foundations of Indian Culture
"The sense of free will, illusion or not, is a necessary machinery of the action of Nature, necessary for man during his progress, and it would be disastrous for him to lose it before he is ready for a higher truth. If it be said, as it has been said, that Nature deludes man to fulfil her behests and that the idea of a free individual will is the most powerful of these delusions, then it must also be said that the delusion is for his good and without it he could not rise to his full possibilities.” Essays on the Gita
“The sense of free will, illusion or not, is a necessary machinery of the action of Nature, necessary for man during his progress, and it would be disastrous for him to lose it before he is ready for a higher truth. If it be said, as it has been said, that Nature deludes man to fulfil her behests and that the idea of a free individual will is the most powerful of these delusions, then it must also be said that the delusion is for his good and without it he could not rise to his full possibilities.” Essays on the Gita
"The serpent is the symbol of energy — especially of the Kundalini Shakti which is the divine Force coiled up in the lowest (physical) centre, Muladhara, and when it rises it goes up through the spine and joins the higher consciousness above.” Letters on Yoga
“The serpent is the symbol of energy—especially of the Kundalini Shakti which is the divine Force coiled up in the lowest (physical) centre, Muladhara, and when it rises it goes up through the spine and joins the higher consciousness above.” Letters on Yoga
These thought-waves, thought-seeds or thought-forms or what- ewr they axe, are of different values and come from different planes of consciousoess. The same tboughi-subsiancc can lake higher or lower vibrations according to the plane of conscious- ness through which the thoughts come in (c.g., thinking mind, vital mind, physical miad, subconscious mind) or the power of consciousness which catches them and pushes them into one man or another. Moreover, there is a stuS of mind in each mao and the incoming thought uses that for shaping itself or translating itself (transcribing we usually call it), but the stuff is finer or coarser, stronger or weaker etc., etc. in one mind than in another.
The sexual desires show that the subconscient still retains the old impressions, movements and impulses ; make the conscious parts of the being entirely free and aspire and will for the higher consciousness to come fully into the subconscient so that even in sleep and dream something in you may be aware and on guard and reject these things when they try to take form at that time.
The solid cool block of peace pressing on the body and making it immobile is the descent of the higher consciousness, A deep, intense or massive substance of peace and sfiilncss is very com- monly the first of its powers that descends and many experience it in that way. At first it comes and stays only during medita- tion or, without the sense of physical iDertne.ss or immobility, a little while longer and afterwards it is lost ; but if the sadbana follows its normal course, it comes more and more, lasting longer and in the cod as an enduring deep peace and inner stillness and release becomes a normal character of the consciousness, the foundation indeed of a new consciousness, calm and liberated.
The soul, on the contrary, is something. that comes down into birth and passes through death — although it does not itself die, for it is immortal — from one state to another, from the earth plane to other planes and back again to the earth'cxisteoce. ft goes on with this progression from life to life through an evolu- tion which leads it up to the human state and evolves through it all a being of itself which we call the psychic being that sup- ports the evolution and develops a physical, a vital, a mental human consciousness as its instruments of world-experience and of a disguised, imperfect, but growing self-expression. All this it does from behind a veil showing something of its divine self only in so far as the imperfection of the instrumental being will allow it. But a time comes when it is able to prepare to come out from behind the veil, take command and turn all the instru- mental nature towards a divine fulfilment. This is the beginning of the true spiritual life. The soul is able now to make itself ready for a higher evolution of manifested consciousness than the mental human — it can pass from the mental to the spiritual and through degrees of the spiritual to the supramental state. _ ,
"The spiritual change is the established descent of the peace, light, knowledge, power, bliss from above, the awareness of the Self and the Divine and of a higher cosmic consciousness and the change of the whole consciousness to that.” Letters on Yoga
“The spiritual change is the established descent of the peace, light, knowledge, power, bliss from above, the awareness of the Self and the Divine and of a higher cosmic consciousness and the change of the whole consciousness to that.” Letters on Yoga
The spiritual man who can guide human life towards its perfection is typified in the ancient Indian idea of the Rishi, one who has lived fully the life of man and found the word of the supra-intellectual, supramental, spiritual truth. He has risen above these lower limitations and can view all things from above, but also he is in sympathy with their effort and can view them from within; he has the complete inner knowledge and the higher surpassing knowledge. Therefore he can guide the world humanly as God guides it divinely, because like the Divine he is in the life of the world and yet above it.” The Human Cycle*
The spiritual man who can guide human life towards its perfection is typified in the ancient Indian idea of the Rishi, one who has lived fully the life of man and found the word of the supra-intellectual, supramental, spiritual truth. He has risen above these lower limitations and can view all things from above, but also he is in sympathy with their effort and can view them from within; he has the complete inner knowledge and the higher surpassing knowledge. Therefore he can guide the world humanly as God guides it divinely, because like the Divine he is in the life of the world and yet above it.” The Human Cycle
“The spiritual mind is a mind which, in its fullness, is aware of the Self, reflecting the Divine, seeing and understanding the nature of the Self and its relations with the manifestation, living in that or in contact with it, calm, wide and awake to higher knowledge, not perturbed by the play of the forces. When it gets its full liberated movement, its central station is very usually felt above the head, though its influence can extend downward through all the being and outward through space.” Letters on Yoga
The subconscient is a concealed and unexpected inarticulate consciousness which works below all our conscious physical activities. Just as what we call the superconscient is really a higher consciousness above from which things descend into the being, so the subconscient is below the body consciousness and things come up into the physical, the vital and the miod>oature from there. Just as the higher consciousness is superconscient to us and supports all our spiritual possibilities and nature, so the subconscient is the basis of our material being and supports all that comes up In (he physical nature..
“The subconscient is a concealed and unexpressed inarticulate consciousness which works below all our conscious physical activities. Just as what we call the superconscient is really a higher consciousness above from which things descend into the being, so the subconscient is below the body-consciousness and things come up into the physical, the vital and the mind-nature from there.
The subconscient is a thing of habits and memories and repeals persistently or whenever it can old repressed reactions, reflexes, mental, vital or physical responses. It must be trained by a still more persistent insistence of the higher parts of the being to give up its old responses and take on the new. and true ones.
“The subconscient is a thing of habits and memories and repeats persistently or whenever it can old suppressed reactions, reflexes, mental, vital or physical responses. It must be trained by a still more persistent insistence of the higher parts of the being to give up its old responses and take on the new and true ones.” Letters on Yoga
"The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges.” Letters on Yoga
“The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges.” Letters on Yoga
The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being. It is not enough that the psychic should respond and the higher mental accept or even the inner vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be in no part of the being,' even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges, anything that revolts or refuses.
"The Unknowable, — not absolutely unknowable, but beyond mental knowledge, — can only be a higher degree in the intensity of being of that Something, a degree beyond the loftiest summit attainable by mental beings, and, if it were known as it must be known to itself, that discovery would not destroy entirely what is given us by our supreme possible knowledge but rather carry it to a higher fulfilment and larger truth of what it has already gained by self-vision and self-experience.” The Life Divine
“The Unknowable,—not absolutely unknowable, but beyond mental knowledge,—can only be a higher degree in the intensity of being of that Something, a degree beyond the loftiest summit attainable by mental beings, and, if it were known as it must be known to itself, that discovery would not destroy entirely what is given us by our supreme possible knowledge but rather carry it to a higher fulfilment and larger truth of what it has already gained by self-vision and self-experience.” The Life Divine
“The vital proper is the life-force acting in its own nature, impulses, emotions, feelings, desires, ambitions, etc., having as their highest centre what we may call the outer heart of emotion, while there is an inner heart where are the higher or psychic feelings and sensibilities, the emotions or intuitive yearnings and impulses of the soul. The vital part of us is, of course, necessary to our completeness, but it is a true instrument only when its feelings and tendencies have been purified by the psychic touch and taken up and governed by the spiritual light and power.” Letters on Yoga
The way to do this and the way to call down the higher powers is the same. It is to remain quiet at the time of meditation, not fighting with the mind or making mental efforts to pall down the Power or the Silence, but keeping only a .silent will and aspiration for them. If the mind is active, one has to learn to look at it, drawn back and not giving any sanction from within, until its habitual or mechanical activities begin to fall quiet for want of support from within. If it is too persistent, a steady rejection without strain or st/uggJe is the one thing to be done.
::: "This conception of the Person and Personality, if accepted, must modify at the same time our current ideas about the immortality of the soul; for, normally, when we insist on the soul"s undying existence, what is meant is the survival after death of a definite unchanging personality which was and will always remain the same throughout eternity. It is the very imperfect superficial I'' of the moment, evidently regarded by Nature as a temporary form and not worth preservation, for which we demand this stupendous right to survival and immortality. But the demand is extravagant and cannot be conceded; theI"" of the moment can only merit survival if it consents to change, to be no longer itself but something else, greater, better, more luminous in knowledge, more moulded in the image of the eternal inner beauty, more and more progressive towards the divinity of the secret Spirit. It is that secret Spirit or divinity of Self in us which is imperishable, because it is unborn and eternal. The psychic entity within, its representative, the spiritual individual in us, is the Person that we are; but the I'' of this moment, theI"" of this life is only a formation, a temporary personality of this inner Person: it is one step of the many steps of our evolutionary change, and it serves its true purpose only when we pass beyond it to a farther step leading nearer to a higher degree of consciousness and being. It is the inner Person that survives death, even as it pre-exists before birth; for this constant survival is a rendering of the eternity of our timeless Spirit into the terms of Time.” The Life Divine
“This conception of the Person and Personality, if accepted, must modify at the same time our current ideas about the immortality of the soul; for, normally, when we insist on the soul’s undying existence, what is meant is the survival after death of a definite unchanging personality which was and will always remain the same throughout eternity. It is the very imperfect superficial I’’ of the moment, evidently regarded by Nature as a temporary form and not worth preservation, for which we demand this stupendous right to survival and immortality. But the demand is extravagant and cannot be conceded; theI’’ of the moment can only merit survival if it consents to change, to be no longer itself but something else, greater, better, more luminous in knowledge, more moulded in the image of the eternal inner beauty, more and more progressive towards the divinity of the secret Spirit. It is that secret Spirit or divinity of Self in us which is imperishable, because it is unborn and eternal. The psychic entity within, its representative, the spiritual individual in us, is the Person that we are; but the I’’ of this moment, theI’’ of this life is only a formation, a temporary personality of this inner Person: it is one step of the many steps of our evolutionary change, and it serves its true purpose only when we pass beyond it to a farther step leading nearer to a higher degree of consciousness and being. It is the inner Person that survives death, even as it pre-exists before birth; for this constant survival is a rendering of the eternity of our timeless Spirit into the terms of Time.” The Life Divine
This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless min d and its elevation to a higher plane through con- centration of mental force by the sucwrssivc stages which lead to
“This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge.” The Life Divine
This is the fint step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consdousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-masterj'.
This movement as it proceeds opens up the six centres of the subtle nervous system and by the opening one escapes from the limitations of the surface consciousness bound to the gross body and great ranges of experiences proper to the subliminal self, mental, vitalj subtle physical, are shown to the sadhaka. When the Kundalini meets the higher Consciousness as it ascends through the summit of the head, there is an opening of the higher superconscient reaches above the normal mind. It is by ascend- ing through these in our consciousness and receiring a descent of their energies that it is possible ultimately to reach the Super- mind. This is the method of the Tantra. In our Yoga it is not necessary to go through the sysiemaihed method. It takes place spontaneously according to the need by the force of the aspira- tion. As soon as (here is an openmg the Divine Power descends and conducts the necessary working, does what is needed, each thing in its time and the Consciousness begins to be bom
thought-Mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the Spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind, — but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin, — as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realising its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge. " *The Life Divine
thought ::: “… thought in itself, in its origin on the higher levels of consciousness, is a perception, a cognitive seizing of the object or of some truth of things which is a powerful but still a minor and secondary result of spiritual vision, a comparatively external and superficial regard of the self upon the self, the subject upon itself or something of itself as object.” The Life Divine
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.
To higher levels persuades his parents’ steps,
Transfonnaiion of inertia ::: Tamas is to be transformed into sama, the peace and the rest of the higher Prakrit!, and then filled with tapas and jyoti.^ But this can only be done com- pletely in the physical when the physical is fully transformed by the Supramental Power.
transformation ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Transformation means that the higher consciousness or nature is brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower. There is a higher consciousness of the true self, which is spiritual, but it is above; if one rises above into it, then one is free as long as one remains there, but if one comes down into or uses mind, vital or body — and if one keeps any connection with life, one has to do so, either to come down and act from the ordinary consciousness or else to be in the self but use mind, life and body, then the imperfections of these instruments have to be faced and mended — they can only be mended by transformation.” *Letters on Yoga
"‘Transformation" is a word that I have brought in myself (like ‘supermind") to express certain spiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral yoga. People are now taking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the significance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by the ‘influence" of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; purification is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change — the word besides has many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose.” *Letters on Yoga
"It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit. Here a slow and tardy change need no longer be the law or manner of our evolution; it will be only so to a greater or less extent so long as a mental ignorance clings and hampers our ascent; but once we have grown into the truth-consciousness its power of spiritual truth of being will determine all. Into that truth we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit. The obscurations of earth will not prevail against the supramental truth-consciousness, for even into the earth it can bring enough of the omniscient light and omnipotent force of the spirit conquer. All may not open to the fullness of its light and power, but whatever does open must that extent undergo the change. That will be the principle of transformation.” The Supramental Manifestation
The Mother: "Transformation. The change by which all the elements and all the movements of the being become ready to manifest the supramental Truth.”
"One thing you must know and never forget: in the work of transformation all that is true and sincere will always be kept; only what is false and insincere will disappear.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
transformation ::: “Transformation means that the higher consciousness or nature is brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower. There is a higher consciousness of the true self, which is spiritual, but it is above; if one rises above into it, then one is free as long as one remains there, but if one comes down into or uses mind, vital or body—and if one keeps any connection with life, one has to do so, either to come down and act from the ordinary consciousness or else to be in the self but use mind, life and body, then the imperfections of these instruments have to be faced and mended—they can only be mended by transformation.” Letters on Yoga
Triangle ::: In one position it can symbolise the three lo\ser planes, in another the symbol is of the three higher ones ::: so both can be combined together ia a single sign.
triple heavens ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Vishnu is the wide-moving one. He is that which has gone abroad — as it is put in the language of the Isha Upanishad, sa paryagât, — triply extending himself as Seer, Thinker and Former, in the superconscient Bliss, in the heaven of mind, in the earth of the physical consciousness, tredhâ vicakramânah. In those three strides he has measured out, he has formed in all their extension the earthly worlds; for in the Vedic idea the material world which we inhabit is only one of several steps leading to and supporting the vital and mental worlds beyond. In those strides he supports upon the earth and mid-world, — the earth the material, the mid-world the vital realms of Vayu, Lord of the dynamic Life-principle, — the triple heaven and its three luminous summits, trîni rocanâ. These heavens the Rishi describes as the higher seat of the fulfilling. Earth, the mid-world and heaven are the triple place of the conscious being"s progressive self-fulfilling, trishadhastha, earth the lower seat, the vital world the middle, heaven the higher. All these are contained in the threefold movement of Vishnu.” The Secret of the Veda
Triple transiormation ::: There must first be the psjchic change, the conversion of our whole present nature into a soul- instrumentation ; on that or along vnth that there must be the spiritual change, the descent of a higher Light, Knowledge,
Truth on the higher planes.
Two things render that culmination more facile than it would otherwise be. Overmind in the descent towards material creation has originated modifications of itself,—Intuition especially with its penetrative lightning flashes of truth lighting up local points and stretches of country in our consciousness,—which can bring the concealed truth of things nearer to our comprehension, and, by opening ourselves more widely first in the inner being and then as a result in the outer surface self also to the messages of these higher ranges of consciousness, by growing into them, we can become ourselves also intuitive and overmental beings, not limited by the intellect and sense, but capable of a more universal comprehension and a direct touch of truth in its very self and body. In fact flashes of enlightenment from these higher ranges already come to us, but this intervention is mostly fragmentary, casual or partial; we have still to begin to enlarge ourselves into their likeness and organise in us the greater Truth activities of which we are potentially capable. But, secondly, Overmind, Intuition, even Supermind not only must be, as we have seen, principles inherent and involved in the Inconscience from which we arise in the evolution and inevitably destined to evolve, but are secretly present, occult actively with flashes of intuitive emergence in the cosmic activity of Mind, Life and Matter. It is true that their action is concealed and, even when they emerge, it is modified by the medium, material, vital, mental in which they work and not easily recognisable. Supermind cannot manifest itself as the Creator Power in the universe from the beginning, for if it did, the Ignorance and Inconscience would be impossible or else the slow evolution necessary would change into a rapid transformation scene. Yet at every step of the material energy we can see the stamp of inevitability given by a supramental creator, in all the development of life and mind the play of the lines of possibility and their combination which is the stamp of Overmind intervention. As Life and Mind have been released in Matter, so too must in their time these greater powers of the concealed Godhead emerge from the involution and their supreme Light descend into us from above. …
VAIRACYA. ::: A liberating distaste. The vaimgya of one who has tasted the world’s gifts or prizes but found them insufficient or tasteless and turns away towards a higher ideal or the vaiVngya of one who has done his part in life’s battles but seen that some- thing greater is demanded of the soul, is perfectly helpful and a good gate to the yoga.
VIJNaNA. ::: Original comprehensive consciousness which holds an Image of things in its essence, totality. The higher knowledge,
“Vishnu is the wide-moving one. He is that which has gone abroad—as it is put in the language of the Isha Upanishad, sa paryagât,—triply extending himself as Seer, Thinker and Former, in the superconscient Bliss, in the heaven of mind, in the earth of the physical consciousness, tredhâ vicakramânah. In those three strides he has measured out, he has formed in all their extension the earthly worlds; for in the Vedic idea the material world which we inhabit is only one of several steps leading to and supporting the vital and mental worlds beyond. In those strides he supports upon the earth and mid-world,—the earth the material, the mid-world the vital realms of Vayu, Lord of the dynamic Life-principle,—the triple heaven and its three luminous summits, trîni rocanâ. These heavens the Rishi describes as the higher seat of the fulfilling. Earth, the mid-world and heaven are the triple place of the conscious being’s progressive self-fulfilling, trishadhastha, earth the lower seat, the vital world the middle, heaven the higher. All these are contained in the threefold movement of Vishnu.” The Secret of the Veda
—we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; for though we have applied that word for want of a better to any supra-intellectual direct way of knowing, yet what we actually know as intuition is only one special movement of self-existent knowledge. This new range is its origin; it imparts to our intuitions something of its own distinct character and is very clearly an intermediary of a greater Truth-Light with which our mind cannot directly communicate. At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance….
We realise also the consciousness Itself as moving upward, ascending through many planes, physical, vital, mental, over- mental to the supramental and Ananda planes. We become aware of a pouring do\vn of the posver of the higher Self, so that there comes in the possibility of a descent of the supramental
Whatever movement is impressed in it, it keeps. If one impresses the right movement in it, it will keep and send up that. That is why it has to be cleared of old movements, before there can be a permanent and total change in natuce. When the higher consciousness Is once established in the waking parts, it goes down into the subconsclent and changes that also, makes a bed- rock of itself there also. Then no further trouble from the subconsclent will be possible. But even before that one can minimise the trouble by putting the right will and the right habit of reaction in the subconsclent parts.
When it enters the psychic world, it begins to assimilate the essence of its experience and by that assimilation is formed the future psychic personality in accordance with the fixation already made. When this assimilation is over, it is ready for a new birth ; but' the less developed beings do not work out the whole thing for themselves, there are beings and forces of the higher world who have that svork.
When mind and vital fall quiet and their restless movements, thoughts and desires cease, then one feels empty. This is at first a neutral emptiness with nothing in it either good or bad, happy or unhappy, no impulse or movement. The neutral state is often or usually followed by the opening to inner experience. There is also an emptiness made of peace and silence, when the peace and silence come out from the psychic within or descend from the higher consciousness above. This is not neutral, for in it there is the sense of peace, often also of wideness and freedom.
"When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into the head and liberates the inner mind centres, then into the heart centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated, creating what has to be created. It integrates, harmonises, establishes a new rhythm in the nature. It can bring down too a higher and yet higher force and range of the higher nature until, if that be the aim of the sadhana, it becomes possible to bring down the supramental force and existence. All this is prepared, assisted, farthered by the work of the psychic being in the heart centre; the more it is open, in front, active, the quicker, safer, easier the working of the Force can be. The more love and bhakti and surrender grow in the heart, the more rapid and perfect becomes the evolution of the sadhana. For the descent and transformation imply at the same time an increasing contact and union with the Divine.” Letters on Yoga
“When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into the head and liberates the inner mind centres, then into the heart centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated, creating what has to be created. It integrates, harmonises, establishes a new rhythm in the nature. It can bring down too a higher and yet higher force and range of the higher nature until, if that be the aim of the sadhana, it becomes possible to bring down the supramental force and existence. All this is prepared, assisted, farthered by the work of the psychic being in the heart centre; the more it is open, in front, active, the quicker, safer, easier the working of the Force can be. The more love and bhakti and surrender grow in the heart, the more rapid and perfect becomes the evolution of the sadhana. For the descent and transformation imply at the same time an increasing contact and union with the Divine.” Letters on Yoga
"When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into the head and liberates the inner mind centres, then into the heart centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated, creating what has to be created.” Letters on Yoga
“When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into the head and liberates the inner mind centres, then into the heart centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated, creating what has to be created.” Letters on Yoga
White light IS the Mother s lighL Wherever Jt descends or enters, it brings peace, puniy, silence and the openness to the higher forces It is her own characteristic power, that of the
WRONG MOVEMENT. ::: The first condition of inner pro- gress is to recognise whatever is or has been a wrong movement in any part of the nature, — wrong idea, wrong feeling, wrong speech, wrong action, — and by wrong is meant what departs from truth, from the higher consciousness and higher self, from the way of the Divine. Once recognised it is admitted, not glossed over or defended, — and It is offered to the Divine for the Light and Grace to descend and substitute for it the right movement of the true consciousness.
Yeilow * charactensuc colour of the mind It is the light of the rmnd growmg bnghter as one goes higher till it meets the golden light of the Divine Truth
Yoga. This is usually done by those who want to make a clean cut, to live a purely religious or exclusively inner and spiritual life, to renounce the world entirely and to depart from the cosmic existence by cessation of the human birth and passing away into some higher stale or into (he transcendental Reality. Otherwise, it is only necessary when the pressure of the inner urge becomes so great that the pursuit of the ordinary life is no longer compa- tible with the pursuit of the dominant spiritual objective. Till then what is necessary is a power to practise an inner isolation, to be able to retire within oneself and concentrate at any time on the necessary spiritual purpose. There must also be a power to deal with the ordinary outer life from a new inner attitude and one can then make the happenings of that life itself a means for the inner change of nature and the growth m spiritual experience.
You must always try to keep the quietude, never allow dep- ressing or dbturbing thoughts or feelings to enter you or take hold of your mind or your speech. And if the mind keeps its quietude and receptivity to higher forces only, it can then easily pass on that quietude and receptivity to the body consciousness and even to the material cells of the body.
QUOTES [337 / 337 - 1500 / 9158]
KEYS (10k)
165 Sri Aurobindo
35 The Mother
8 Sri Ramana Maharshi
8 Sri Ramakrishna
5 Ken Wilber
5 Friedrich Nietzsche
5 Swami Vivekananda
5 Aleister Crowley
4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
4 Manly P Hall
2 The Mother
2 Swami Akhandananda
2 Sri Aurobindo
2 Osho
2 Nolini Kanta Gupta
2 Nietzsche
2 ken-wilber
2 James George Frazer
2 Essential Integral
2 Dion Fortune
2 Chamtrul Rinpoche
2 Alfred Korzybski
2 Rudolf Steiner
2 ?
1 Yamamoto Tsunetomo
1 Wikipedia
1 Vivekananda
1 Velimir Khlebnikov
1 Thomas Keating
1 The Hashish Eater
1 Swami Chinmayananda
1 SWAMI BRAHMANANDA
1 SWAMI ABHEDANANDA
1 Stephen LaBerge
1 Shankara
1 Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1 Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
1 Saint Dionysius the Areopagite
1 Rodney Collin
1 Robert Adams
1 Robert
1 Rene Guenon
1 R Buckminster Fuller
1 Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
1 Prayer to Tara
1 Plotinus
1 Peter J Carroll
1 Noam Chomsky
1 M P Pandit
1 Mother Mirra
1 MATA AMRITANANDAMAYI
1 Masaaki Hatsumi
1 M Alan Kazlev
1 losing yourself
1 Ken Wilber?
1 Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
1 J. Taulcr
1 Joseph Campbell
1 Jan Patocka
1 it is not as though I had invented it with my mind
1 Israel Regardie
1 Integral Yoga; Sri Aurobindo's Teaching and Method of Practice
1 Georg von Welling
1 George Gurdjieff
1 Galatians. V. 23
1 Friedrich Schiller
1 Fred Hosea
1 François Fénelon
1 Ernst Jünger
1 Elie Wiesel
1 Edgar Allan Poe
1 Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
1 Dietrich von Hildebrand
1 Devi Sukta
1 Bruce Lee
1 Boethius
1 Bhagavad Gita III. 36. 37. 39. 42. 43
1 Bernhard Guenther
1 Benjamin Disraeli
1 Baha-ullah "The Seven Valleys."
1 Baha-ullah
1 Arthur Conan Doyle
1 Angelus Silesius I.15
1 Alice A. Bailey
1 Albert Einstein
1 Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
1 Saint Augustine of Hippo
1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 A B Purani
45 Anonymous
23 Sri Aurobindo
21 Friedrich Nietzsche
19 Ralph Waldo Emerson
18 Frederick Lenz
17 Swami Vivekananda
12 Deepak Chopra
11 Mahatma Gandhi
10 Toba Beta
10 Amit Ray
8 Sri Ramana Maharshi
8 Robin S Sharma
8 Mehmet Murat ildan
8 Arthur Conan Doyle
7 Orison Swett Marden
7 Mark Twain
7 John C Maxwell
7 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
7 Israelmore Ayivor
6 Cassandra Clare
1:Think higher, feel deeper." ~ Elie Wiesel,
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2:Concentration is the root of all the higher abilities in man. ~ Bruce Lee,
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3:Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law. ~ Boethius,
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4:It is the duty of the steward to induce higher centers to be present. ~ Robert,
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5:Each Mass earns you a higher degree of glory in Heaven!" ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina,
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6:The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
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7:Transient emotions are lower emotions. Lasting emotions are higher emotions. ~ George Gurdjieff,
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8:The genuine priest always feels something higher than compassion. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel,
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9:Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think." ~ Benjamin Disraeli,
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10:There is no fear in the higher Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Fear,
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11:The Higher Power knows what to do and how to do it. Trust it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
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12:Always higher must I mount, higher must I see. ~ Angelus Silesius I.15, the Eternal Wisdom
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13:There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.
~ Albert Einstein,
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14:Soar ever higher, ever farther, without fear or hesitation! The hopes of today are the realizations of tomorrow. ~ Mother Mirra,
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15:It is only when you touch the higher that you realize how low we may be among the possibilities of creation. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
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16:What is the way out? I believe, to put oneself completely in the hands of higher powers, to be happy to be silent. ~ Rodney Collin,
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17:Bhava, the higher form of Bahkti, one becomes speechless and the breath is stilled. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
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18:Practice of Bahkti for a long time leads to the higher devotion of love, Raga-Bahkti. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
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19:We can rise only through humility. Obedience to the Guru elevates the disciple to a more expansive, higher plane. ~ MATA AMRITANANDAMAYI,
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20:A great physicist is always a metaphysicist as well; he has a higher concept of his knowledge and his task. ~ Ernst Jünger, The Glass Bees,
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21:The intellect itself realises after continuous practice that it is enabled by some Higher Power to function. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks, 502,
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22:When a person is left alone, he starts thinking of higher reality - about death, life, soul, God and the mystery of all. ~ Swami Chinmayananda,
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23:Few aspire for the higher things! They are attracted by physical beauty, money, honor, and titles. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
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24:One must realize that he is not the doer, but that he is only a tool of some Higher Power. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
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25:The lower is for us the first condition of the higher. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Knowledge and the Ignorance,
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26:There is a higher ideal, a higher stage of spirituality, the love of God as our own father or mother. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
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27:urage and jubilation. This is rising to a higher level. It is like the saying, "The more water there is, the higher the boat rises. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo,
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28:Self-surrender is the same as Self-knowledge. The ego submits only when it recognizes the Higher Power. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
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29:The sattwic quality is a first mediator between the higher and the lower nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Deva and Asura,
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30:The nation must exist before it can sacrifice its interests for a higher good. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, The Doctrine of Sacrifice,
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31:There is no quality higher than forbearance. With a firm determination, endure all that is said or done by others ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
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32:Thou must pass over thyself to mount beyond, ever higher till the stars themselves are below thee. ~ Nietzsche, the Eternal Wisdom
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33:Tranquillity is a sign of increasing self-mastery and purity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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34:A higher power is leading you. Be led by the same. The Higher Power knows what to do and how to do it. Trust it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
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35:It is in the silence of the mind that it is easiest for knowledge to come from within or above, or from higher consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
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36:Perfection comes by renunciation of desires and surrender to a higher Will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,
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37:Ask: "Who am I?" until well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us. That is firmness of faith. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
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38:Thoughts appear wending like the waves of an ocean. As meditation on the Self rises higher, thoughts get destroyed. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
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39:Ask: 'Who am I?' until well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us. That is firmness of faith.
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
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40:God is always God, but the views which people and nations may take of him vary. No higher view is known than that of love. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
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41:This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,
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42:The need for calling help diminishes as one gets higher and higher or rather fuller and fuller, being replaced more and more by the automatic action of the Force. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
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43:To be above the mind one must first realise the self above the mind and live there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Ascent to the Higher Planes,
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44:To live in the wideness of the Intuition is not possible with the limitation of the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Higher Planes of Mind,
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45:A man must be considered as a tool of a higher world-order, a vessel found worth to receive divine influence.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
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46:Siddhas or miraculous powers are to be avoided like filth. He who sets his mind on the Siddhis, remains stuck and cannot rise higher. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
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47:It is rather a wider than a higher consciousness that is necessary for the liberation from the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,
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48:The Divine holds our hand through all and if he seems to let us fall, it is only to raise us higher. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Faith and Shakti,
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49:Try to gain mastery over your sexual instincts. If one succeeds, the lower energies are transmuted to the higher Self by the Medha nerve. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
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50:A greater perfection can only be arrived at by a higher power entering in and taking up the whole action of the being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
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51:Humanity must die before divinity manifests itself. But divinity must, in turn, die before the higher manifestation of the blissful Mother. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
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52:Concentration should be all on the immediate step—whatever is being done at the time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences on the Higher Planes,
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53:It is this greater consciousness and higher existence which is the peculiar and appropriate object of Yogic discipline.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
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54:Ethics must eventually perceive that the law of good which it seeks is the law of God. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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55:And through the opening or clearing in your own awareness may come flashing higher truths, subtler revelations, profound connections. For a moment you might even touch eternity. ~ ken-wilber,
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56:It is only when the lower perversions are got rid of that the higher things in their truth can reign. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Sankhya-Yoga System,
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57:The higher the life, the less the sleep. The body must be strong. Rise early; meditate a little, for the mind then is naturally calm. Do every bit of work with a purpose. ~ Swami Akhandananda,
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58:The higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,
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59:Looking for the meaning of life, one man can discover the order of the universe. To discover the truth, to achieve. a higher spiritual state, that is the true meaning of ninja. ~ Masaaki Hatsumi,
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60:The higher we project our view and our aspiration, the greater the Truth that seeks to descend upon us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Sevenfold Chord of Being,
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61:A touch of realisation is enough to set the higher mind knowledge or the illumined mind knowledge flowing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,
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62:This body of ours is a symbol of our real being and everything is a symbol of some higher reality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Symbols and Symbolic Visions,
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63:The higher mind is a thing in itself above the intellect. It is only when something of its power comes down and is modified in the lower mind substance that it acts as part of the intellect.
~ ?,
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64:All warred against all, but with a common hate
Turned on the mind that sought some higher good; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Descent into Night,
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65:Do not sleep too long. How can a spiritual aspirant sleep away his life? He cannot. He must keep waking - who knows when God will come? The higher the life, the less the sleep. ~ Swami Akhandananda,
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66:There is a higher which is the spiritual and that is the nature of our spiritual personality, our true person. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Secret of Secrets,
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67:Mere force of language tacked on to the trick of the metrical beat does not answer the higher description of poetry. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Rhythm and Movement,
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68:A higher instrumental dynamis than mind is needed to transform totally a nature created by the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Evolution of the Spiritual Man,
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69:Mind unwitting serves a higher Power;
It is a channel, not the source of all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind,
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70:When once the higher consciousness begins to act, the difficulty diminishes and there is a clear progress from truth to greater truth.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,
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71:What is a change of consciousness?
A change of consciousness is equivalent to a new birth, a birth into a higher sphere of existence.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,
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72:Man separates from Nature only that Nature may be found again in a higher dignity in the Man. For as the Ideal is realized in Nature, so is the Real idealized in man. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Theory of Life,
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73:Every day should be regarded as a day when a descent may take place or a contact established with the higher consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Himself And The Ashram, [T5],
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74:The true nirvāṇa is the release of all that is bindingly characteristic of the lower into the larger being of the Higher. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Gnosis and Ananda,
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75:Philosophy dealing with the principles of things must come to perceive the Principle of all these principles. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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76:Yoga does not either in its path or in its attainment exclude and throw away the forms of the lower knowledge ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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77:Divinity is the end of all wisdom. What can there be greater than Divine wisdom, what higher, what nobler, and what truer? That Divine wisdom is the end. We must reach that end sooner or later. ~ SWAMI ABHEDANANDA,
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78:Still it is not impossible to raise oneself even higher than that, for love itself is a veil between the lover and the Beloved. ~ Baha-ullah "The Seven Valleys.", the Eternal Wisdom
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79:It is not enough that the natural language should be spoken by the people; it must be the expression of its higher life and thought. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, Diversity in Oneness,
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80:One has continually to leave behind his past selves and to see, act and live from an always higher and higher conscious level. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being,
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81:But the higher you raise yourself, the smaller you will seem to the eyes that are envious. He who ranges on the heights is the one whom men most detest. ~ Nietzsche, the Eternal Wisdom
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82:The struggle of Mind to elevate life is the promise and condition of the conquest of life by that which is higher even than Mind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Threefold Life,
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83:The object of meditation is to open to the Mother and grow through many progressive experiences into a higher consciousness in union with the Divine.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,
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84:To enter into a deeper or higher consciousness or for that deeper or higher consciousness to descend into you-that is the true success of meditation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,
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85:A perfect rhythm will often even give immortality to work which is slight in vision and very far from the higher intensities of style. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Rhythm and Movement,
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86:To ascend is easier than to bring down; the higher consciousness gets entangled and impeded in the physical and the mind and vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Ascent and Descent,
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87:In the quiet mind turned towards the Divine the intuition (higher mind) comes of the Divine's Will and the right way to do it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Becoming Conscious in Work,
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88:The higher Truth is all the time working in us but through the lower power - Aparashakti. It is when we become conscious of the play of this higher Power then only yoga begins. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
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89:A sharp mind will find a truth for itself.
A humble spirit will find a truth higher than itself.
Truth is not the property of intellectuals, but of those who know how to escape their own selves. ~ Rabbi Tzvi Freeman,
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90:If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher. ~ Rudolf Steiner,
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91:I aspire for the higher life from above the head; but I always feel strained in the middle part of the forehead. What should I do?
Do not strain yourself.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,
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92:All pursuit of knowledge, if not vitiated by a too earthward tendency, tends to refine, to subtilise, to purify the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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93:It is said that man is the only being that has a fourfold nature exactly corresponding in its levels to the cosmos. The angels lack the lower planes, and the animals lack the higher planes.
~ Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah,
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94:Zen is all inclusive. It never denies, it never says no to anything. It accepts everything and transforms it into a higher reality." ~ Osho, (1931 - 1990), Indian godman, Wikipedia. Quote from "Zen the Path of Paradox,", (2001).,
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95:An atavism of higher births is hers,
Her sleep is stirred by their buried memories
Recalling the lost spheres from which they fell. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,
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96:It is not by mental activity that you can quiet your miind, it is from a higher or deeper level that you can receive the help you need. And both can be reached in silence only.
~ The Mother, On Education,
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97:Fear belongs to the lower nature, to the lower self, and in approaching the higher Self must be put aside before we can enter into its presence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Godward Emotions,
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98:The whole method of Yoga is psychological; it might almost be termed the consummate practice of a perfect psychological knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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99:Every man's true teacher is his own Higher Self, and when the life is brought under the control of reason, this Higher Self is released from bondage to appetites and impulses, and becomes Priest, Sage and Illuminator.
~ Manly P Hall,
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100:On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human,
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101:By righteousness is the way to a higher region, but by unrighteousness to a lower region; by knowledge cometh freedom, but by ignorance the prolongation of bondage. ~ Galatians. V. 23, the Eternal Wisdom
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102:Our intention is not directed towards teaching any one how to make gold, but something much higher, namely how Nature may be seen and recognised as coming from God, and God in Nature. ~ Georg von Welling, Opus Mago-Cabbalisticum (1735),
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103:The worst thing you can do is to put yourself down. That's blasphemy because you're putting God down. Think of yourself as a higher person, love yourself, worship yourself, bow to yourself. You are greater than you think. ~ Robert Adams,
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104:Music, that is the science or the sense of proper modulation, is likewise given by God's generosity to mortals having rational souls in order to lead them to higher things. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo,
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105:The higher mentality cannot be complete or secure so long as the inferior intelligence is able to deform it or even to bring in any of its own intermixture. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Intuitive Mind,
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106:All would change if man could once consent to be spiritualised; but his nature mental and vital and physical is rebellious to the higher law. He loves his imperfections. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga,
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107:Always we must keep ourselves open to the higher Word from above that does not confine itself to its own sense and the light of the Thought that carries in it its own opposites
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
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108:This hidden foe lodged in the human breast
Man must overcome or miss his higher fate.
This is the inner war without escape. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain,
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109:Yoga is the conscious and perfect seeking of union with the Divine towards which all the rest was an ignorant and imperfect moving and seeking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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110:The present difficulty is that man thinks he is the doer. But it is a mistake. It is the higher power which does everything and man is only a tool. If he accepts that position he is free from troubles, otherwise he courts them. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
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111:The spiritual change begins by an influence of the inner being and the higher spiritual mind, an action felt and accepted on the surface. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Evolutionary Process - Ascent and Integration,
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112:Each defect of the nature of the Ignorance is a deformation of something in the higher nature—a deformation which amounts to a contradiction even. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Aspects of the Cosmic Consciousness,
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113:Progress consists not in rejecting beauty and delight, but in rising from the lower to the higher, the less complete to the more complete beauty and delight. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings, The National Value of Art,
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114:The present difficulty is that man thinks that he is the doer. But it is a mistake. It is the Higher Power which does everything and man is only a tool. If he accepts that position he is free from troubles; otherwise he courts them. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
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115:... they are structures that we build every time we engage in a thought that's just a little bit higher than a thought we had a moment before, or an activity that's just a little bit more noble than the activity we engaged in a moment before. ~ ken-wilber,
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116:The soul is the center mediating between principles and principiates, between what is absolutely eternal and what is close to nothingness... The soul is what is movable, but movable in the sense of lawful ordering and orientation to the higher. ~ Jan Patocka,
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117:To think that this world is the aim and end of life is brutal and degenerating. Any man who starts in life with that idea degenerates himself He will never rise higher, he will always be a slave to the senses. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
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118:Bhakti-Yoga is the science of higher love. Bhakti-Yoga does not say: "Give up"; it only says: "Love; love the Highest!" — and everything low naturally falls off from him, the object of whose love is the Highest. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
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119:How can a change of consciousness change the life upon earth?
A change in human consciousness will make possible the manifestation upon earth of a higher Force, a purer Light, a more total Truth.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,
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120:There are higher levels of the mind than any we now conceive and to these we must one day reach and rise beyond them to the heights of a greater, a spiritual existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Perfection of the Body,
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121:One of two things must be done, either surrender because you admit your inability and require a higher power to help you, or investigate the cause of misery by going to the source and merging into the Self. Either way you will be free from misery. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
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122:A man who does the lower work is not, for that reason only, a lower man than he who does the higher works; a man should not be judged by the nature of his duties, but by the manner in which he does them. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. V. 239),
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123:Once we have grasped the nature of morality, we understand it also implies a new & higher form of reasonability. This reasonability presupposes morality & not vice versa... In order to be reasonable in this sense, I have to act morally well. ~ Dietrich von Hildebrand, Ethics 194,
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124:Give up all desires & dedicate yourself solely to the Lord. You cannot have Divine bliss & worldly enjoyments at the same time. You cannot get the one without renouncing the other. You cannot give up the lower unless you come to possess a taste for the higher. ~ SWAMI BRAHMANANDA,
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125:For all beings a human birth is difficult to obtain, rarer is attachment to the path of Vedic religion; higher than this is erudition in the scriptures; next is discrimination between the Self and not-Self, Realisation and continuing in a state of identity with Brahman. ~ Shankara,
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126:Love is higher than the Highest. Love is greater than the Greatest. Yea, it is in a certain sense greater than God; while yet, in the highest sense of all, God is Love, and Love is God." ~ François Fénelon, (1651 - 1715), French Roman Catholic archbishop & theologian, Wikipedia.,
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127:Science at its limits, even physical Science, is compelled to perceive in the end the infinite, the universal, the spirit, the divine intelligence and will in the material universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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128:Philosophy not only purifies the reason and predisposes it to the contact of the universal and the infinite, but tends to stabilise the nature and create the tranquillity of the sage. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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129:We are to move inwardly towards a greater consciousness and a supreme existence, not by a total exclusion of our cosmic nature, but by a higher, a spiritual fulfilment of all that we now essentially are. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Supreme Divine,
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130:Artificer of Ideal and Idea,
Mind, child of Matter in the womb of Life,
To higher levels persuades his parents' steps:
Inapt, they follow ill the daring guide. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal,
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131:The purpose and law of the birth-series is for the soul in the body to rise from plane to plane and substitute always the rule of the higher for the rule of the lower play even down to the material field. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Gnosis and Ananda,
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132:It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a 'higher standard of living than any have ever known.' It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival.
~ R Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path, 1981, page xxv),
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133:When the will and energy are concentrated and used to control the mind, vital and physical and change them or to bring down the higher consciousness or for any other Yogic purpose or high purpose, that is called Tapasya.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 102?,
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134:I have created all worlds at my will, without being urged by any higher being, and I dwell within them. I permeate the earth and heaven, all created entities with my greatness, and dwell in them as eternal and infinite consciousness.
~ Devi Sukta, Rigveda 10.125.8, Translated by June McDaniel,
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135:The passion of pity with its impure elements of physical repulsion and emotional inability to bear the suffering of others has to be rejected and replaced by the higher divine compassion. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Heart and the Mind,
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136:All is coordinated in the universe. All things depend mutually on each other. All conspires to one sole end, not only in the individual whose parts are perfectly linked together, but anteriorly and to a higher degree in the universe. ~ Plotinus, the Eternal Wisdom
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137:Love men, love God. Fear not to love, O King,
Fear not to enjoy;
For Death's a passage, grief a fancied thing
Fools to annoy.
From self escape and find in love alone
A higher joy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Rishi,
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138:On the other hand, every energy or activity that we can convert from its allegiance to the lower and dedicate to the service of the higher is so much gained on our road, so much taken from the powers that oppose our progress. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T5],
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139:40. My adepts stand upright; their head above the heavens, their feet below the hells.
41. But since one is naturally attracted to the Angel, another to the Demon, let the first strengthen the lower link, the last attach more firmly to the higher. ~ Aleister Crowley,
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140:The psychic has its own more personal love, bhakti, surrender. Love in the higher or spiritual mind is more universal and impersonal. The two must join together to make the highest divine love. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Divine Love, Psychic Love and Human Love,
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141: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.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 59,
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142:The higher you go up the ladder, the more painful the fall. The lower you go down the ladder, the less painful the fall. If you are not on the ladder, you can not fall.
Likewise, big ego, big fall, big suffering. Less ego, less fall, less suffering. No ego, no fall, no suffering. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche,
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143:Never to cause pain by thought, word or act to any living being is what is meant by innocence. Than this there is no higher virtue. There is no greater happiness than that of the man who has reached this attitude of good will towards all creation. ~ Vivekananda, the Eternal Wisdom
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144:Augoeides is an obscure term meaning luminous body and thought to refer to the planets. Aleister Crowley considered the term to refer to the Holy Guardian Angel of Abramelin; the Atman of Hinduism the Daemon of the ancient Greeks. Robert Lomas associates the term with the Higher Self or soul of the individual
~ Wikipedia,
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145:the spiritual transformation :::
The spiritual change is the established descent of the peace, light, knowledge, power, bliss from above, the awareness of the Self and the Divine and of a higher cosmic consciousness and the change of the whole consciousness to that. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,
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146:It [the higher consciousness] may not come exactly according to the aspiration, but the aspiration is not ineffective. It keeps the consciousness open, prevents an inert state of acquiescence in all that comes and exercises a sort of pull on the sources of the higher consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,
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147:To be a man, discipline is indispensable.
Without discipline one is only an animal.
One begins to be a man only when one aspires to a higher and truer life and when one accepts a discipline of transformation. For this one must start by mastering one's lower nature and its desires. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,
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148:One of two things must be done. Either surrender because you admit your inability and require a higher power to help you, or investigate the cause of misery by going to the source and merging into the Self. Either way you will be free from misery. God never forsakes one who has surrendered. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Surpassing Love and Grace,
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149:It is necessary first to found the higher consciousness in the mind and heart. To deal with the lower nature before that means to fall into the struggle and confusion and disorder of the vital, for it all comes up. With the mind and heart prepared, one can deal with the vital without all that superfluous trouble.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,
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150:The Psychic's Choice at the Time of Death
The psychic being at the time of death chooses what it will work out in the next birth and determines the character and conditions of the new personality. Life is for the evolutionary growth by experience in the conditions of the Ignorance till one is ready for the higher light. ~ Sri Aurobindo, CWSA 28:532,
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151:Wilber discusses five of these tenets in his book The Eye of Spirit. These are: the dialectic of progress, the distinction between differentiation and dissociation, the difference between transcendence and repression, the difference between natural hierarchy and pathological hierarchy, and the fact that higher structures can be hijacked by lower impulses." ~ Ken Wilber, One Taste,
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152:The passage from the lower to the higher is the aim of Yoga; and this passage may effect itself by the rejection of the lower and escape into the higher, - the ordinary view-point, - or by the transformation of the lower and its elevation to the higher Nature. It is this, rather, that must be the aim of an integral Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
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153:Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance. ~ Osho,
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154:The main difficulty in the sadhana consists in the movements of the lower nature, ideas of the mind, desires and attractions of the vital, habits of the body consciousness that stand in the way of the growth of the higher consciousness - there are other difficulties, but these make the bulk of the opposition.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path,
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155:God & the World is my subject, ... the conditions in which the kingdom of heaven on earth can be converted from a dream into a possibility, - by the willed evolution in man of his higher nature, by a steady self-purification and a development in the light of this divine knowledge towards the fulfilment of his own supra-material, supra-intellectual nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad,
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156:As for those who have risen more high, they make no distinction between cause and effect, and those who, higher still in the eternal cities, dwell in the flowering gardens, know not cause nor effect, both are to them absolutely foreign, for, rapid as the lightning, they have passed the kingdom of Names and qualities and they dwell with the divine Essence. ~ Baha-ullah, the Eternal Wisdom
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157:To put it all very plainly, evolution can continue. It has already brought forth humans from amoebas- why on earth should we think that after that prodigious feat lasting billions of years, evolution just petered out and wound down? And if the ratio "amoeba to human" is repeated, the result could only be God. The mystics simply show us the stages of higher evolution leading to that Summit. ~ Ken Wilber, The Atman Project,
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158:Only those years that are passed uselessly make you grow old.
A year spent uselessly is a year during which no progress has been accomplished, no growth in consciousness has been achieved, no further step has been taken towards perfection.
Consecrate your life to the realisation of something higher and broader than yourself and you will never feel the weight of the passing years. ~ The Mother, Words of the Mother III
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159:All human beings are full of ego. If you want to change, you must be very quiet and always aspire for a higher consciousness to come down into you in which there is not the ego. When it comes down, the real change will come. But you must be quiet within, not worried and restless - you must open confidently to the Mother's Force and let it work in you.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, Ego and Its forms,
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160:The intellectual understanding is only the lower buddhi; there is another and a higher buddhi which is not intelligence but vision, is not understanding but rather an over-standings in knowledge, and does not seek knowledge and attain it in subjection to the data it observes but possesses already the truth and brings it out in the terms of a revelatory and intuitional thought.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
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161:God is, but man's conceptions of God are reflections in his own mentality, sometimes of the Divine, sometimes of other Beings and powers and they are what his mentality can make of the suggestions that come to him, generally very partial and imperfect so long as they are still mental, so long as he has not arrived at a higher and truer, a spiritual or mystic knowledge..
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, [T9],
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162:Dana, charity. There is no higher virtue than charity. The lowest man is he whose hand draws in, in receiving; and he is the highest man whose hand goes out in giving. The hand was made to give always. Give the last bit of bread you have even if you are starving. You will be free in a moment if you starve yourself to death by giving to another. Immediately you will be perfect, you will become God. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
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163:Self-knowledge
A man capable of self-sacrifice, whatever his other sins, has left the animal behind him; he has the stuff in him of a future and higher humanity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin: The Doctrine of Sacrifice
Self-Sacrifice
The pure action of sense is a spiritual action and pure sense is itself a power of the spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Sense,
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164:The Gita has laid it down from the beginning that the very first precondition of the divine birth, the higher existence is the slaying of rajasic desire and its children, and that means the exclusion of sin. Sin is the working of the lower nature for the crude satisfaction of its own ignorant, dull or violent rajasic and tamasic propensities in revolt against any high self-control and self-mastery of the nature by the spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays On The Gita,
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165:All knowledge is ultimately the knowledge of God, through himself, through Nature, through her works. Mankind has first to seek this knowledge through the external life; for until its mentality is sufficiently developed, spiritual knowledge is not really possible, and in proportion as it is developed, the possibilities of spiritual knowledge become richer and fuller.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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166:If you realize what the real problem is~losing yourself, giving yourself to some higher end, or to another~you realize that this itself is the ultimate trial. When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness. And what all the myths have to deal with is transformations of consciousness of one kind or another. You have been thinking one way, you now have to think a different way. ~ Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,
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167:But the true black magician does not work through the ethers which are the home of the etheric elementals. He works through the entities who dwell in the astral light or the animal magnetism of the lower astral plane. The true black magician can become (and usually is) clairvoyant, but he can never go any higher than the astral world. To this plane he is tied to his passions, hates, incantations, and the animal nature which is the basis of black magic. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
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168:The means of realisation is to be found in an integral Yoga, a union in all the parts of our being with the Divine and a consequent transmutation of all their now jarring elements into the harmony of a higher divine consciousness and existence; this yoga implies not only the realisation of God but the entire conseceration and change of the inner and outer life till it is fit to manifest a divine consciousness and become part of the divine work.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,
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169:I was speaking of your experiences of the higher consciousness, of your seeing the Mother in all things - these are what are called spiritual realisations, spiritual knowledge. Realisations are the essence of knowledge - thoughts about them, expression of them in words are a lesser knowledge and if the thoughts are merely mental without experience or realisation, they are not regarded as jnana in the spiritual sense at all.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, Transformation of the Mind,
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170:Just as in the body, eye and ear develop as organs of perception, as senses for bodily processes, so does a man develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception through which the soul and spiritual worlds are opened to him. For those who do not have such higher senses, these worlds are dark and silent, just as the bodily world is dark and silent for a being without eyes and ears. ~ Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos,
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171:The 'Intelligence of Will' denotes that this is the path where each individual 'created being' is 'prepared' for the spiritual quest by being made aware of the higher and divine 'will' of the creatoR By spiritual preparation (prayer, meditation, visualization, and aspiration), the student becomes aware of the higher will and ultimately attains oneness with the Divine Self-fully immersed in the knowledge of 'the existence of the Primordial Wisdom.'
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On The Tree Of Life,
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172:[Comedies], in the ancient world, were regarded as of a higher rank than tragedy, of a deeper truth, of a more difficult realization, of a sounder structure, and of a revelation more complete. The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man.... Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachments to the forms; comedy, the wild and careless, inexhaustible joy of life invincible. ~ Joseph Campbell,
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173:The higher we soar in contemplation, the more limited become our expressions of that which is purely intelligible; even as now, when plunging into the Darkness which is above the intellect, we pass not merely into brevity of speech, but even into absolute silence, of thoughts as well as of words ... and, according to the degree of transcendence, so our speech is restrained until, the entire ascent being accomplished, we become wholly voiceless, inasmuch as we are absorbed in Him who is totally ineffable. ~ Saint Dionysius the Areopagite,
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174:The sword, or more usually the dagger, is the weapon of analysis or scission, or in the most simple sense, destruction. Through the sword, the magical will and perception vitalize the imagination of the undoing of things. The sword is the reservoir of the power which disintegrates aetheric influences through which the material plane is affected. Both the sword and pentacle are aetheric weapons through which the higher-order powers of will, perception, and imagination execute mental commands on the planes of middle nature.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
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175:For strength of character in the race as in the individual consists mainly in the power of sacrificing the present for the future, of disregarding the immediate temptations of ephemeral pleasure for more distant and lasting sources of satisfaction. The more the power is exercised the higher and stronger becomes the character; till the height of heroism is reached in men who renounce the pleasures of life and even life itself for the sake of winning for others, perhaps in distant ages, the blessings of freedom and truth. ~ James George Frazer, The Golden Bough,
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176:The fundamental realisations of this yoga are: 1. The psychic change so that a compete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of the thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. 2. 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. 3. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,
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177:Never underestimate the long-term consequences of your actions. For as long as the mind has the obscurration of grasping at an inherently existing "me", then there will be karma. No matter how far on the path one is, no matter how realised one is, no matter how many miraculous powers one has attained, for as long as there is even a subtle trace of this obscurration, karma is there.
That is why Padmasambhava, an enlightened being not even affected by it, had skilfully told ordinary beings, "My realization is higher than the sky, but my observance of karma is finer than grains of flour." ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche,
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178:Has the subconscient accepted the Higher Consciousness?
If the subconscient were to accept the Consciousness, it would no longer be the subconscient, it would become consciousness. I think that you mean: has the subconscient submitted to the rule, to the law of the higher Consciousness? This is not done as a whole, for the subconscient is vast and complex; there is a mental subconscient, a vital subconscient, a physical subconscient, a bodily subconscient. We have to wrest the subconscient fragment by fragment from its ignorant and inert...
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,
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179:The other day I happened to be reading a careful, interesting account of the state of British higher education. The government is a kind of market-oriented government and they came out with an official paper, a 'White Paper' saying that it is not the responsibility of the state to support any institution that can't survive in the market. So, if Oxford is teaching philosophy, the arts, Greek history, medieval history, and so on, and they can't sell it on the market, why should they be supported? Because life consists only of what you can sell in the market and get back, nothing else. That is a real pathology. ~ Noam Chomsky,
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180:As a rule the only mantra used in this sadhana is that of the Mother or of my name and the Mother. The concentration in the heart and the concentration in the head can both be used - each has its own result. The first opens up the psychic being and brings bhakti, love and union with the Mother, her presence within the heart and the action of her Force in the nature. The other opens the mind to self-realisation, to the consciousness of what is above mind, to the ascent of the consciousness out of the body and the descent of the higher consciousness into the body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,
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181:Essentially, Yoga is a generic name for the processes and the result of processes by which we transcend or shred off our present modes of being and rise to a new, a higher, a wider mode of consciousness which is not that of the ordinary animal and intellectual man. Yoga is the exchange of an egoistic for a universal or cosmic consciousness lifted towards or informed by the supra-cosmic, transcendent Unnameable who is the source and support of all things. Yoga is the passage of the human thinking animal towards the God-consciousness from which he has descended. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga,
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182:Magic never in its wildest dreams thought that it would be trumped by mythic. And the mythic gods and goddesses never imagined that reason could and would destroy them. And here we sit, in our rational worldview, all smug and confident that nothing higher will sweep out of the heavens and completely explode our solid perceptions, undoing our very foundations. And yet surely, the transrational lies in wait. It is just around the corner, this new dawn. Every stage transcends and includes, and thus inescapably, unavoidably it seems, the sun will rise on a world tomorrow that in many ways transcends reason. ~ Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything,
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183:It is the same thing for the ego, the self. In order to pass on to a higher plane, one must first exist; and to exist one must become a conscious, separate individual, and to become a conscious separate individual, the ego is indispensable, otherwise one remains mingled with all that lies around us. But once the individuality is formed, if one wants to rise to a higher level and live a spiritual life, if one wants even to become simply a higher type of man, the limitations of the ego are the worst obstacles, and the ego must be surpassed in order to enter the true consciousness. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956, 367,
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184:What we call destiny is only in fact the result of the present condition of the being and the nature and energies it has accumulated in the past acting on each other and determining the present attempts and their future results. But as soon as one enters the path of spiritual life, this old predetermined destiny begins to recede. There comes in a new factor, the Divine Grace, the help of a higher Divine Force other than the force of Karma, which can lift the sadhak beyond the present possibilities of his nature. One's spiritual destiny is then the divine election which ensures the future.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, [T1],
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185:It may yet be said that a logical succession of the states of progress would be very much in this order. First, there is a large turning in which all the natural mental activities proper to the individual nature are taken up or referred to a higher standpoint and dedicated by the soul in us, the psychic being, the priest of the sacrifice, to the divine service; next, there is an attempt at an ascent of the being and a bringing down of the Light and Power proper to some new height of consciousness gained by its upward effort into the whole action of the knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent Of The Sacrifice - I, [T1],
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186:One can mount higher in a singular sort when the spirit soars above Time as high as eternity and there uniting itself with God becomes one thing with him and by that union knows and loves, not what is more or less noble, but all things in all things, considering them in that Object which is infinitely noble, all eminently reunited and in an equal degree of nobility. It is there that the spirit after it has raised itself above all that is, surpasses itself also and dwells imperturbable in an eternal repose, and the more it knows and loves, the more this eternity is affirmed and it becomes there itself eternal. ~ J. Taulcr, the Eternal Wisdom
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187:By what is man impelled to act sin, though not willing it, as if brought to it by force? It is desire it is wrath born of the principle of passion, a mighty and devouring and evil thing; know this for the enemy. Eternal enemy of the sage, in the form of desire it obscures his knowledge and is an insatiable fire. The senses are supreme in the body, above the senses is the mind, higher than the mind is the understanding and higher than the understanding the spiritual Self. Know then that which is higher than the understanding, by the self control thyself and slay this difficult enemy, desire. ~ Bhagavad Gita III. 36. 37. 39. 42. 43, the Eternal Wisdom
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188:There is a period, more or less prolonged, of internal effort and struggle in which the individual will has to reject the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right attitude or trained to admit and answer to the right influences. It is only then, only when this has been truly done, that the surrender of the lower to the higher can be effected, because the sacrifice has become acceptable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 61, [T0],
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189:This then is the first necessity, that the individual, each individual, shall discover the spirit, the divine reality within him and express that in all his being and living. A divine life must be first and foremost an inner life; for since the outward must be the expression of what is within, there can be no divinity in the outer existence if there is not the divinisation of the inner being.
The Divinity in man dwells veiled in his spiritual centre; there can be no such thing as self-exceeding for man or a higher issue for his existence if there is not in him the reality of an eternal self and spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.28 - The Divine Life,
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190:It is from the Overmind that all these different arrangements of the creative Truth of things originate. Out of the Overmind they come down to the Intuition and are transmitted from it to the Illumined and higher Mind to be arranged there for our intelligence. But they lose more and more of their power and certitude in the transmission as they come down to the lower levels. What energy of directly perceived Truth they have is lost in the human mind; for to the human intellect they present themselves only as speculative ideas, not as realised Truth, not as direct sight, a dynamic vision coupled with a concrete undeniable experience.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, 155,
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191:The ego cannot see where it is being led; it revolts against the leading, loses confidence, loses courage. These failings would not matter; for the divine Guide within is not offended by our revolt, not discouraged by our want of faith or repelled by our weakness; he has the entire love of the mother and the entire patience of the teacher. But by withdrawing our assent from the guidance we lose the consciousness, though not all the actuality-not, in any case, the eventuality -of its benefit. And we withdraw our assent because we fail to distinguish our higher Self from the lower through which he is preparing his self-revelation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 64,
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192:It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come, e.g. the writing of a book, poetry, inspired speech etc. When the mind is active it interferes with the inspiration, puts in its own small ideas which get mixed up with the inspiration or starts something from a lower level or simply stops the inspiration altogether by bubbling up with all sorts of mere mental suggestions. So also intuitions or action etc. can come more easily when the ordinary inferior movement of the mind is not there. It is also in the silence of the mind that it is easiest for knowledge to come from within or above, from the psychic or from the higher consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,
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193:The vital can rise to the head in two ways - one to cloud the mind with the vital impulses, the other to aspire and join with the higher Consciousness. If you noticed the aspiration, it was evidently the latter movement. It is true that for the external vital an outer discipline is necessary for the purification, otherwise it remains restless and fanciful and at the mercy of its own impulses - so that no basis can be built there for a quiet and abiding higher consciousness to remain firmly. The attitude you have taken for the work is of course the best one and, applying it steadily, the progress you feel was bound to come and is sure to increase.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, The Vital Being and Sadhana,
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194:[two grappling hooks for the Divine to lay hold upon one's nature]
As he can use his thinking mind and will to restrain and correct his life impulses, so too he can bring in the action of a still higher luminous mentality aided by the deeper soul in him, the psychic being, and supersede by these greater and purer motive-powers the domination of the vital and sensational force that we call desire. He can entirely master or persuade it and offer it up for transformation to its divine Master. This higher mentality and this deeper soul, the psychic element in mall, are the two grappling hooks by which the Divine can lay hold upon his nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 79, [T2],
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195:The contribution of the psychic being to the sadhana is: (1) love and bhakti, a love not vital, demanding and egoistic but unconditioned and without claims, self-existent; (2) the contact or the presence of the Mother within; (3) the unerring guidance from within; (4) a quieting and purification of the mind, vital and physical consciousness by their subjection to the psychic influence and guidance; (5) the opening up of all this lower consciousness to the higher spiritual consciousness above for its descent into a nature prepared to receive it with a complete receptivity and right attitude - for the psychic brings in everything, right thought, right perception, right feeling, right attitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,
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196:But the vijnana or gnosis is not only truth but truth power, it is the very working of the infinite and divine nature; it is the divine knowledge one with the divine will in the force and delight of a spontaneous and luminous and inevitable self-fulfilment. By the gnosis, then, we change our human into a divine nature. But even the intuitive reason is not the gnosis; it is only an edge of light of the supermind finding its way by flashes of illumination into the mentality like lightnings in dim and cloudy places. Its inspirations, revelations, intuitions, self-luminous discernings are messages from a higher knowledge-plane that make their way opportunely into our lower level of consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
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197:... All the works of mind and intllect must be first heightened and widened, then illumined, lifted into the domain of a higher Intelligence, afterwards translated into workings of a greater non-mental Intuition, these again transformed into the dynamic outpourings of the Overmind radiance, and those transfigured into the full light and sovereignty of the supramental Gnosis. It is this that the evolution of consciousness in the world carries prefigured but latent in its seed and in the straining tense intention of its process; nor can that process, that evolution cease till it has evolved the instruments of a perfect in place of its now imperfect manifestation of the Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 149,
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198:It depends on what is meant by the higher buddhi - whether you use the word to mean the higher part of the intellect or the higher Mind. The higher Mind in itself on its own level knows, but when it is involved in the ordinary human intelligence and works under limitations, it often does not know - or it has the idea merely that it must be so but has not the consciousness of its separate existence. The intellect can rise above its ordinary movements and feel itself as a separate power no longer working under the limitations of the vital and physical mind and the senses. It then begins to reflect something of the action of the higher mind but without the full freedom and greater light and truth of the higher mind.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,
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199:The theory of masturbation as a physiological necessity is a most extraordinary idea. It weakens the nervous force and nervous balance,-as is natural since it is an artificial and wholly uncompensated waste of the energy-and it disorganises the sex-centre. Those who indulge in it inordinately may even upset their nervous balance altogether and bring about neurasthenia or worse. It is not by disorganisation of the sex-centre and sex-functioning that one should avoid the consequences of the sex-action, but by control of the sex itself so that it may be turned into higher forms of Energy. It is perfectly possible to check the habit. There are any number of people who have had it for years and yet been able to stop it.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,
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200:But his most important capacity is that of developing the powers of the higher principles in himself, a greater power of life, a purer light of mind, the illumination of supermind, the infinite being, consciousness and delight of spirit. By an ascending movement he can develop his human imperfection towards that greater perfection. But whatever his aim, however exalted his aspiration, he has to begin from the law of his present imperfection, to take full account of it and see how it can be converted to the law of a possible perfection. This present law of his being starts from the inconscience of the material universe, an involution of the soul in form and subjection to material nature; and
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Psychology Of Perfection,
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201:Overmind is the highest source of the cosmic consciousness available to the embodied being in the Ignorance. It is part of the cosmic consciousness-but the human individual when he opens into the cosmic usually remains in the cosmic Mind-Life-Matter receiving only inspirations and influences from the higher planes of Intuition and Overmind. He receives through the spiritualised higher and illumined mind the fundamental experiences on which spiritual knowledge is based; he can become even full of intuitive mind movements, illuminations, various kinds of powers and illumined light, liberation, Ananda. But to rise fully into the Intuition is rare, to reach the Overmind still rarer- although influences and experiences can come down from there.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, 152,
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202:I mean by the Higher Mind a first plane of spiritual [consciousness] where one becomes constantly and closely aware of the Self, the One everywhere and knows and sees things habitually with that awareness; but it is still very much on the mind level although highly spiritual in its essential substance; and its instrumentation is through an elevated thought-power and comprehensive mental sight-not illumined by any of the intenser upper lights but as if in a large strong and clear daylight. It acts as an intermediate state between the Truth-Light above and the human mind; communicating the higher knowledge in a form that the Mind intensified, broadened, made spiritually supple, can receive without being blinded or dazzled by a Truth beyond it.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Poetry And Art, [9:342],
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203:Finally, in terms of overall spiritual intelligence-which we have been briefly tracking-on the other side of the leading edge of evolution we have 3 or 4 higher, at this point mostly potential, levels of development, including levels of spiritual intelligence. Individually, their basic strcture-rungs are referred to as para-mind, meta-mind, overmind, and supermind; collectively, they are called 3rd tier. What all 3rd-tier structures have in common is some degree of direct transpersonal identity and experience. Further, each 3rd-tier structure of consciousness is integrated, in some fashion, with a particular state of consciousness (often, para-mental with the gross, meta-mental with subtle, overmind with causal/Witnessing, and supermind with nondual, although this varies with each individual's actual history).
~ Ken Wilber?,
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204:Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind,-but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin,-as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of spirit-born conceptual knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,
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205:I have read your account of your sadhana. There is nothing to say, I think, - for it is all right - except that the most important thing for you is to develop the psychic fire in the heart and the aspiration for the psychic being to come forward as the leader of the sadhana. When the psychic does so, it will show you the 'undetected ego-knots' of which you speak and loosen them or burn them in the psychic fire. This psychic development and the psychic change of mind, vital and physical consciousness is of the utmost importance because it makes safe and easy the descent of the higher consciousness and the spiritual transformation without which the supramental must always remain far distant. Powers etc. have their place, but a very minor one so long as this is not done.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,
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206:THE TRUE STUDENT OF OCCULT SCIENCE
The White Magician uses none of the powers of the animal world in his work, but rather seeks to transmute the poles of the beast within himself into higher and finer qualities. The White Magician labors entirely with the finer forces of the elemental planes. He is a builder--not a destroyer--and seeks to liberate rather than to dominate his fellow creatures. The White Magician has dedicated his soul to the immortal light, while the Black Magician has sold his for mortal glory. The Grimores of the Middle Ages are filled with chants and charms for the invoking of spirits. History is filled with stories of Black Magicians but the true student of occult science must have nothing to do with these things other than to protect himself against them. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Natural Occultism, 28,
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207:You have spoken much today of my self-sacrifice and devotion to my country. I have heard that kind of speech ever since I came out of jail, but I hear it with embarrassment, with something of pain. For I know my weakness, I am a prey to my own faults and backslidings. I was not blind to them before and when they all rose up against me in seclusion, I felt them utterly. I knew them that I the man was a man of weakness, a faulty and imperfect instrument, strong only when a higher strength entered into me. Then I found myself among these young men and in many of them I discovered a mighty courage, a power of self-effacement in comparison with which I was simply nothing. I saw one or two who were not only superior to me in force and character, - very many were that, - but in the promise of that intellectual ability on which I prided myself. ~ ?,
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208:higher mind: (c. 1931, in the diagram on page 1360) a plane of consciousness with three levels: liberated intelligence, intuitive [higher mind] and illumined [higher mind] (in ascending order). The first level may correspond to vijnanabuddhi in the earlier terminology of the Record of Yoga. The intuitive and illumined levels may be what Sri Aurobindo soon after making the diagram began to refer to as higher mind (defined as a luminous thought-mind, a mind of spiritborn conceptual knowledge) and illumined mind (characterised by an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the spirit); cf. logistic ideality (also called luminous reason) and hermetic ideality or srauta vijnana(distinguished by a diviner splendour of light and blaze of fiery effulgence) in the terminology of 1919-20.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Record Of Yoga,
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209:All true Truth of love and of the works of love the psychic being accepts in their place: but its flame mounts always upward and it is eager to push the ascent from lesser to higher degrees of Truth, since it knows that only by the ascent to a highest Truth and the descent of that highest Truth can Love be delivered from the cross and placed upon the throne; for the cross is the sign of the Divine Descent barred and marred by the transversal line of a cosmic deformation which turns it into a stake of suffering and misfortune. Only by the ascent to the original Truth can the deformation be healed and all the works of love, as too all the works of knowledge and of life, be restored to a divine significance and become part of an integral spiritual existence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,
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210:Only, in all he sees God, sees the supreme reality, and his motive of work is to help mankind towards the knowledge of God and the possession of the supreme reality. He sees God through the data of science, God through the conclusions of philosophy, God through the forms of Beauty and the forms of Good, God in all the activities of life, God in the past of the world and its effects, in the present and its tendencies, in the future and its great progression. Into any or all of these he can bring his illumined vision and his liberated power of the spirit. The lower knowledge has been the step from which he has risen to the higher; the higher illumines for him the lower and makes it part of itself, even if only its lower fringe and most external radiation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
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211:Dare to be wise! Energy and spirit is needed to overcome the obstacles which indolence of nature as well as cowardice of heart oppose to our instruction. It is not without significance that the old myth makes the goddess of Wisdom emerge fully armed from the head of Jupiter; for her very first function is warlike. Even in her birth she has to maintain a hard struggle with the senses, which do not want to be dragged from their sweet repose. The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error. Content if they themselves escape the hard labor of thought, men gladly resign to others the guardianship of their ideas, and if it happens that higher needs are stirred in them, they embrace with a eager faith the formulas which State and priesthood hold in readiness for such an occasion. ~ Friedrich Schiller,
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212:The Yoga that we seek must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and a waste of time; for then our sole practical aim must be to find out one path out of the thousand that lead to God, one shortest possible of shortcuts, and not to linger exploring different paths that end in the same goal. But if our aim be a transformation of our integral being into the terms of God-existence, it is then that a synthesis becomes necessary.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Synthesis of the Systems, 45,
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213:But if in passing from one domain to another we renounce what has already been given us from eagerness for our new attainment, if in reaching the mental life we cast away or belittle the physical life which is our basis, or if we reject the mental and physical in our attraction to the spiritual, we do not fulfil God integrally, nor satisfy the conditions of His selfmanifestation. We do not become perfect, but only shift the field of our imperfection or atmost attain a limited altitude. However high we may climb, even though it be to the Non-Being itself, we climb ill if we forget our base. Not to abandon the lower to itself, but to transfigure it in the light of the higher to which we have attained, is true divinity of nature. Brahman is integral and unifies many states of consciousness at a time; we also, manifesting the nature of Brahman, should become integral and all-embracing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,
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214:Drugs are able to bring humans into the neighborhood of divine experience and can thus carry us up from our personal fate and the everyday circumstances of our life into a higher form of reality. It is, however, necessary to understand precisely what is meant by the use of drugs. We do not mean the purely physical craving...That of which we speak is something much higher, namely the knowledge of the possibility of the soul to enter into a lighter being, and to catch a glimpse of deeper insights and more magnificent visions of the beauty, truth, and the divine than we are normally able to spy through the cracks in our prison cell. But there are not many drugs which have the power of stilling such craving. The entire catalog, at least to the extent that research has thus far written it, may include only opium, hashish, and in rarer cases alcohol, which has enlightening effects only upon very particular characters. ~ The Hashish Eater, (1857) pg. 181
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215:Does this happen even if one has a great aspiration?
The aspiration must be very vigilant.
I have known people (many, not only a few, I mean among those who do yoga), I have known many who, every time they had a fine aspiration, and their aspiration was very strong and they received an answer to this aspiration, every time, the very same day or at the latest the next day, they had a complete setback of consciousness and were facing the exact opposite of their aspiration. Such things happen almost constantly. Well, these people have developed only the positive side. They make a kind of discipline of aspiration, they ask for help, they try to come into contact with higher forces, they succeed in this, they have experiences; but they have completely neglected cleaning their room; it has remained as dirty as ever, and so, naturally, when the experience has gone, this dirt becomes still more repulsive than before. ~ The Mother, 1950-1951, 26 April 1951,
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216:The greatest value of the dream-state of Samadhi lies, however, not in these more outward things, but in its power to open up easily higher ranges and powers of thought, emotion, will by which the soul grows in height, range and self-mastery. Especially, withdrawing from the distraction of sensible things, it can, in a perfect power of concentrated self-seclusion, prepare itself by a free reasoning, thought, discrimination or more intimately, more finally, by an ever deeper vision and identification, for access to the Divine, the supreme Self, the transcendent Truth, both in its principles and powers and manifestations and in its highest original Being. Or it can by an absorbed inner joy and emotion, as in a sealed and secluded chamber of the soul, prepare itself for the delight of union with the divine Beloved, the Master of all bliss, rapture and Ananda.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Part Two: The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Chapter 26, Samadhi, pg. 503,
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217:Now, on the other hand, there is an entirely different type of angel; and here we must be especially careful to remember that we include gods and devils, for there are such beings who are not by any means dependent on one particular element for their existence. They are microcosms in exactly the same sense as men and women are. They are individuals who have picked up the elements of their composition as possibility and convenience dictates, exactly as we do ourselves... I believe that the Holy Guardian Angel is a Being of this order. He is something more than a man, possibly a being who has already passed through the stage of humanity, and his peculiarly intimate relationship with his client is that of friendship, of community, of brotherhood, or Fatherhood. He is not, let me say with emphasis, a mere abstraction from yourself; and that is why I have insisted rather heavily that the term 'Higher Self' implies a damnable heresy and a dangerous delusion. ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears,
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218:The personal will of the sadhaka has first to seize on the egoistic energies and turn them towards the light and the right; once turned, he has still to train them to recognise that always, always to accept, always to follow that. Progressing, he learns, still using the personal will, personal effort, personal energies, to employ them as representatives of the higher Power and in conscious obedience to the higher Influence. Progressing yet farther, his will, effort, energy become no longer personal and separate, but activities of that higher Power and Influence at work in the individual. But there is still a sort of gulf or distance which necessitates an obscure process of transit, not always accurate, sometimes even very distorting, between the divine Origin and the emerging human current. At the end of the process, with the progressive disappearance of egoism and impurity and ignorance, this last separation is removed; all in the individual becomes the divine working. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
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219:The magic in a word remains magic even if it is not understood, and loses none of its power. Poems may be understandable or they may not, but they must be good, and they must be real.
From the examples of the algebraic signs on the walls of Kovalevskaia's nursery that had such a decisive influence on the child's fate, and from the example of spells, it is clear we cannot demand of all language: "be easy to understand, like the sign in the street." The speech of higher intelligence, even when it is not understandable, falls like seed into the fertile soil of the soul and only much later, in mysterious ways, does it bring forth its shoots. Does the earth understand the writing of the seeds a farmer scatters on its surface? No. But the grain still ripens in autumn, in response to those seeds. In any case, I certainly do not maintain that every incomprehensible piece of writing is beautiful. I mean only that we must not reject a piece of writing simply because it is incomprehensible to a particular group of readers. ~ Velimir Khlebnikov,
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220:When man's thoughts rise upon the wings of aspiration, when he pushes back the darkness with the strength of reason and logic, then indeed the builder is liberated from his dungeon and the light pours in, bathing him with life and power. This light enables us to seek more clearly the mystery of creation and to find with greater certainty our place in the Great Plan, for as man unfolds his bodies he gains talents with which he can explore the mysteries of Nature and search for the hidden workings of the Divine. Through these powers the Builder is liberated and his consciousness goes forth conquering and to conquer. These higher ideals, these spiritual concepts, these altruistic, philanthropic, educative applications of thought power glorify the Builder; for they give the power of expression and those who can express themselves are free. When man can mold his thoughts, his emotions, and his actions into faithful expressions of his highest ideals then liberty is his, for ignorance is the darkness of Chaos and knowledge is the light of Cosmos.
~ Manly P Hall,
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221:The fourth condition is study. One must cultivate the mind, know what others have thought, open the mental being to this impact of the higher vibrations of knowledge. A mental knowledge is not tantamount to realization, it is true, but still one must know mentally where one is going, what has happened to others, how they have achieved, what are the hindrances and the helping points. This education of oneself by study, study of spiritual writings, suddhydya as it is called, a disciplined reading and incorporation of the knowledge contained in scriptures and authentic texts - that is a very important part. Even when you don't understand a text, still if you persist at it, the force that is in that book creates certain new grooves in your brain and the second or the third time when you read it, it begins to make some meaning. This is the meaning of studying, of exposing your mind to the constant vibrations of higher levels of knowledge. Incidentally, the mind gets developed, a mental climate is created, a climate of spiritual culture.
~ M P Pandit, The Advent 1981, 30,
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222:But in whatever way it comes, there must be a decision of the mind and the will and, as its result, a complete and effective self-consecration. The acceptance of a new spiritual idea-force and upward orientation in the being, an illumination, a turning or conversion seized on by the will and the heart's aspiration, -this is the momentous act which contains as in a seed all the results that the Yoga has to give. The mere idea or intellectual seeking of something higher beyond, however strongly grasped by the mind's interest, is ineffective unless it is seized on by the heart as the one thing desirable and by the will as the one thing to be done. For truth of the Spirit has not to be merely thought but to be lived, and to live it demands a unified single-mindedness of the being; so great a change as is contemplated by the Yoga is not to be effected by a divided will or by a small portion of the energy or by a hesitating mind. He who seeks the Divine must consecrate himself to God and to God only.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,
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223:There are two Paths to the Innermost: the Way of the Mystic, which is the way of devotion and meditation, a solitary and subjective path; and the way of the occultist, which is the way of the intellect, of concentration, and of trained will; upon this path the co-operation of fellow workers is required, firstly for the exchange of knowledge, and secondly because ritual magic plays an important part in this work, and for this the assistance of several is needed in most of the greater operations. The mystic derives his knowledge through the direct communion of his higher self with the Higher Powers; to him the wisdom of the occultist is foolishness, for his mind does not work in that way; but, on the other hand, to a more intellectual and extrovert type, the method of the mystic is impossible until long training has enabled him to transcend the planes of form. We must therefore recognize these two distinct types among those who seek the Way of Initiation, and remember that there is a path for each. ~ Dion Fortune, Esoteric Orders and Their Work and The Training and Work of the Initiate,
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224:The path of seeking truth within and without is not an easy one. It goes literally against everything we've been told and taught by society and governments. The indoctrination of lies, the conditioning and programming is deep and far reaching. It has been going on for millennia. It takes tremendous effort to wake up from the hypnotic slumber, where most people dream to be awake. At this time of transition, as more and more knowledge is coming to the surface, there is the potential to create a new earth. However, this is also the age of deception for there are forces at work that do not want this to happen. They do their best to vector us away from truth and the most effective way to swallow a lie is to sandwich it between some truth with some emotional hooks. As mentioned many times before, lies are mixed with truth, hence discernment is essential. We need to engage our higher emotional center connecting us to divine intuition and also activate our higher intellect, engaging in sincere, open minded critical thinking, fusing the heart and the mind, mysticism and science. ~ Bernhard Guenther,
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225:It is a fact always known to all yogis and occultists since the beginning of time, in Europe and Africa as in India, that wherever yoga or Yajna is done, there the hostile Forces gather together to stop it by any means. It is known that there is a lower nature and a higher spiritual nature - it is known that they pull different ways and the lower is strongest at first and the higher afterwards. It is known that the hostile Forces take advantage of the movements of the lower nature and try to spoil through them, smash or retard the siddhi. It has been said as long ago as the Upanishads (hard is the path to tread, sharp like a razor's edge); it was said later by Christ 'hard is the way and narrow the gate by which one enters into the kingdom of heaven' and also 'many are called, few chosen' - because of these difficulties. But it has also always been known that those who are sincere and faithful in heart and remain so and those who rely on the Divine will arrive in spite of all difficulties, stumbles or falls.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, Opposition of the Hostile Forces - I,
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226:ALL YOGA is in its nature a new birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material life of man into a higher spiritual consciousness and a greater and diviner being. No Yoga can be successfully undertaken and followed unless there is a strong awakening to the necessity of that larger spiritual existence. The soul that is called to this deep and vast inward change, may arrive in different ways to the initial departure. It may come to it by its own natural development which has been leading it unconsciously towards the awakening; it may reach it through the influence of a religion or the attraction of a philosophy; it may approach it by a slow illumination or leap to it by a sudden touch or shock; it may be pushed or led to it by the pressure of outward circumstances or by an inward necessity, by a single word that breaks the seals of the mind or by long reflection, by the distant example of one who has trod the path or by contact and daily influence. According to the nature and the circumstances the call will come.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,
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227:To enlarge the sense-faculties without the knowledge that would give the old sense-values their right interpretation from the new standpoint might lead to serious disorders and incapacities, might unfit for practical life and for the orderly and disciplined use of the reason. Equally, an enlargement of our mental consciousness out of the experience of the egoistic dualities into an unregulated unity with some form of total consciousness might easily bring about a confusion and incapacity for the active life of humanity in the established order of the world's relativities. This, no doubt, is the root of the injunction imposed in the Gita on the man who has the knowledge not to disturb the life-basis and thought-basis of the ignorant; for, impelled by his example but unable to comprehend the principle of his action, they would lose their own system of values without arriving at a higher foundation.
Such a disorder and incapacity may be accepted personally and are accepted by many great souls as a temporary passage or as the price to be paid for the entry into a wider existence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,
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228:A word that rose to honor at the time of the Renaissance, and that summarized in advance the whole program of modern civilization is 'humanism'. Men were indeed concerned to reduce everything to purely human proportions, to eliminate every principle of a higher order, and, one might say, symbolically to turn away from the heavens under pretext of conquering the earth; the Greeks, whose example they claimed to follow, had never gone as far in this direction, even at the time of their greatest intellectual decadence, and with them utilitarian considerations had at least never claimed the first place, as they were very soon to do with the moderns. Humanism was form of what has subsequently become contemporary secularism; and, owing to its desire to reduce everything to the measure of man as an end in himself, modern civilization has sunk stage by stage until it has reached the level of the lowest elements in man and aims at little more than satisfying the needs inherent in the material side of his nature, an aim that is in any case quite illusory since it constantly creates more artificial needs than it can satisfy. ~ Rene Guenon, The Crisis of the Modern World
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229:In Hathayoga the instrument is the body and life. All the power of the body is stilled, collected, purified, heightened, concentrated to its utmost limits or beyond any limits by Asana and other physical processes; the power of the life too is similarly purified, heightened, concentrated by Asana and Pranayama. This concentration of powers is then directed towards that physical centre in which the divine consciousness sits concealed in the human body. The power of Life, Nature-power, coiled up with all its secret forces asleep in the lowest nervous plexus of the earth-being,-for only so much escapes into waking action in our normal operations as is sufficient for the limited uses of human life,-rises awakened through centre after centre and awakens, too, in its ascent and passage the forces of each successive nodus of our being, the nervous life, the heart of emotion and ordinary mentality, the speech, sight, will, the higher knowledge, till through and above the brain it meets with and it becomes one with the divine consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609,
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230:Prayer helps to prepare this relation for us at first on the lower plane even while it is there consistent with much that is mere egoism and self-delusion; but afterwards we can draw towards the spiritual truth which is behind it. It is not then the giving of the thing asked for that matters, but the relation itself, the contact of mans life with God, the conscious interchange. In spiritual matters and in the seeking of spiritual gains, this conscious relation is a great power; it is a much greater power than our own entirely self-reliant struggle and effort and it brings a fuller spiritual growth and experience. Necessarily, in the end prayer either ceases in the greater thing for which it prepared us, -- in fact the form we call prayer is not itself essential so long as the faith, the will, the aspiration are there, -- or remains only for the joy of the relation. Also its objects, the artha or interest it seeks to realise, become higher and higher until we reach the highest motiveless devotion, which is that of divine love pure and simple without any other demand or longing.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Love,
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231:ཨོཾ། འཇིགས་པ་བརྒྱད་སྐྱོབ་མ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ། །
OM, JIK PA GYÉ KYOB MA LA CHAK TSAL LO
"Om! Homage to you, who protects from the eight fears!
བཀྲ་ཤིས་དཔལ་འབར་མ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ། །
TASHI PAL BAR MA LA CHAK TSAL LO
Homage to you, who shines as a beacon of goodness!
ངན་སོང་སྒོ་འགེགས་མ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ། །
NGEN SONG GO GEK MA LA CHAK TSAL LO
Homage to you, who closes the gates to the lower realms!
མཐོ་རིས་ལམ་འདྲེན་མ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ། །
TORI LAM DREN MA LA CHAK TSAL LO
Homage to you, who leads the way to the higher realms!
རྟག་ཏུ་ཁྱེད་ཀྱིས་སྟོངས་པར་མཛད། །
TAK TU KYÉ KYI TONG PAR DZÉ
You are my constant companion.
ད་དུང་ཐུགས་རྗེས་བསྐྱབ་ཏུ་གསོལ། །
DA DUNG TUK JÉ KYAB TU SOL
Always protect me with compassion! ~ Prayer to Tara, H E Garchen Rinpoche?
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232:By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life. Thus defined, religion consists of two elements, a theoretical and a practical, namely, a belief in powers higher than man and an attempt to propitiate or please them. Of the two, belief clearly comes first, since we must believe in the existence of a divine being before we can attempt to please him. But unless the belief leads to a corresponding practice, it is not a religion but merely a theology; in the language of St. James, "faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." In other words, no man is religious who does not govern his conduct in some measure by the fear or love of God. On the other hand, mere practice, divested of all religious belief, is also not religion. Two men may behave in exactly the same way, and yet one of them may be religious and the other not. If the one acts from the love or fear of God, he is religious; if the other acts from the love or fear of man, he is moral or immoral according as his behaviour comports or conflicts with the general good. ~ James George Frazer, The Golden Bough,
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233:Meditation is a deliberate attempt to pierce into the higher states of consciousness and finally go beyond it. The art of meditation is the art of shifting the focus of attention to ever subtler levels, without losing one's grip on the levels left behind. In a way it is like having death under control. One begins with the lowest levels: social circumstances, customs and habits; physical surroundings, the posture and the breathing of the body, the senses, their sensation s and perceptions; the mind, its thoughts and feelings; until the entire mechanism of personality is grasped and firmly held. The final stage of meditation is reached when the sense of identity goes beyond the 'I-am-so-and-so', beyond 'so-l-am', beyond 'I-am-the-witness-only', beyond 'there-is', beyond all ideas into the impersonally personal pure being. But you must be energetic when you take to meditation. It is definitely not a part-time occupation. Limit your interests and activities to what is needed for you and your dependents' barest needs.
Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind had built around you. Believe me, you will not regret. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,
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234:Ishwara-Shakti is not quite the same as Purusha-Prakriti; for Purusha and Prakriti are separate powers, but Ishwara and Shakti contain each other. Ishwara is Purusha who contains Prakriti and rules by the power of the Shakti within him. Shakti is Prakriti ensouled by Purusha and acts by the will of the Ishwara which is her own will and whose presence in her movement she carries always with her. The Purusha-Prakriti realisation is of the first utility to the seeker on the Way of Works; for it is the separation of the conscient being and the Energy and the subjection of the being to the mechanism of the Energy that are the efficient cause of our ignorance and imperfection; by this realisation the being can liberate himself from the mechanical action of the nature and become free and arrive at a first spiritual control over the nature. Ishwara-Shakti stands behind the relation of Purusha-Prakriti and its ignorant action and turns it to an evolutionary purpose. The Ishwara-Shakti realisation can bring participation in a higher dynamism and a divine working and a total unity and harmony of the being in a spiritual nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 216,
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235:The Transcendent Mother and the Higher Hemisphere
"At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power."1 The Transcendent Mother thus stands above the Ananda plane.There are then four steps of the Divine Shakti:
(1) The Transcendent Mahashakti who stands above the Ananda plane and who bears the Supreme Divine in her eternal consciousness.
(2) The Mahashakti immanent in the worlds of SatChit-Ananda where all beings live and move in an ineffable completeness.
(3) The Supramental Mahashakti immanent in the worlds of Supermind.
(4) The Cosmic Mahashakti immanent in the lower hemisphere.
Yes; that is all right. One speaks often however of all above the lower hemisphere as part of the transcendence. This is because the Supermind and Ananda are not manifested in our universe at present, but are planes above it. For us the higher hemisphere is pr [para], the Supreme Transcendence is prA(pr [paratpara]. The Sanskrit terms are here clearer than the English.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, Three Aspects of the Mother, 52,
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236:From what we've seen in sci-fi movies and literature and generally xenophobic public behavior about Others (immigrants, apostates, and liberals, e.g.,), and the primordial urges to solve imagined or perceived threats with military force, I think the only possibly positive version of alien visitations would be if (a) they're sufficiently evolved to be able to understand the utter primitivity of human behavior as collectives, and (b) they're sufficiently caring to treat Earth as a planet of ill-bred children, mostly incapable of acting, as a collective -- on their higher natures. It seems far more likely that we would be perceived as a vastly inferior species of antlike primitives, warring uselessly amongst ourselves with robotic persistence over millennia.
If, based on their other cosmic travels and intergalactic species science, the extraterrestrials are able to have undeservedly benign interventions with humans without somehow provoking paranoid hysteria, religious panics and miitary holocaust, then we might have something to look forward to; but this, unfortunately, is placing a huge gamble on extraterrestrials to be the prevailingly benign moderators of our fate than we ourselves are ever likely to be as a species. ~ Fred Hosea,
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237:The whole principle of this Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody and to nothing else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother-Power all the transcendent light, force, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ananda of the supramental Divine. In this Yoga, therefore, there can be no place for vital relations or interchanges with others; any such relation or interchange immediately ties down the soul to the lower consciousness and its lower nature, prevents the true and full union with the Divine and hampers both the ascent to the supramental Truth consciousness and the descent of the supramental Ishwari Shakti. Still worse would it be if this interchange took the form of a sexual relation or a sexual enjoyment, even if kept free from any outward act; therefore these things are absolutely forbidden in the sadhana. It goes without saying that any physical act of the kind is not allowed, but also any subtler form is ruled out. It is only after becoming one with the supramental Divine that we can find our true spiritual relations with others in the Divine; in that higher unity this kind of gross lower vital movement can have no place. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV,
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238:And now what methods may be employed to safeguard the worker in the field of the world? What can be done to ensure his safety in the present strife, and in the greater strife of the coming centuries? 1. A realisation that purity of all the vehicles is the prime essential. If a Dark Brother gains control over any man, it but shows that that man has in his life some weak spot.... 2. The elimination of all fear. The forces of evolution vibrate more rapidly than those of involution, and in this fact lies a recognisable security. Fear causes weakness; weakness causes a disintegration; the weak spot breaks and a gap appears, and through that gap evil force may enter.... 3. A standing firm and unmoved, no matter what occurs. Your feet may be bathed in the mud of earth, but your head may be bathed in the sunshine of the higher regions... 4. A recognition of the use of common-sense, and the application of this common-sense to the matter in hand. Sleep much, and in sleeping, learn to render the body positive; keep busy on the emotional plane, and achieve the inner calm. Do naught to overtire the body physical, and play whenever possible. In hours of relaxation comes the adjustment that obviates later tension. ~ Alice A. Bailey, Letters on Occult Meditation p. 137/8, (1922)
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239:Philosophy, as defined by Fichte, is the "science of sciences." Its aim was to solve the problems of the world. In the past, when all exact sciences were in their infancy, philosophy had to be purely speculative, with little or no regard to realities. But if we regard philosophy as a Mother science, divided into many branches, we find that those branches have grown so large and various, that the Mother science looks like a hen with her little ducklings paddling in a pond, far beyond her reach; she is unable to follow her growing hatchlings. In the meantime, the progress of life and science goes on, irrespective of the cackling of metaphysics. Philosophy does not fulfill her initial aim to bring the results of experimental and exact sciences together and to solve world problems. Through endless, scientific specialization scientific branches multiply, and for want of coordination the great world-problems suffer. This failure of philosophy to fulfill her boasted mission of scientific coordination is responsible for the chaos in the world of general thought. The world has no collective or organized higher ideals and aims, nor even fixed general purposes. Life is an accidental game of private or collective ambitions and greeds. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity,
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240:In order to strengthen the higher knowledge-faculty in us we have to effect the same separation between the intuitive and intellectual elements of our thought as we have already effected between the understanding and the sense-mind; and this is no easy task, for not only do our intuitions come to us incrusted in the intellectual action, but there are a great number of mental workings which masquerade and ape the appearances of the higher faculty. The remedy is to train first the intellect to recognise the true intuilion, to distinguish it from the false and then to accustom it, when it arrives at an intellectual perception or conclusion, to attach no final value to it, but rather look upward, refer all to the divine principle and wait in as complete a silence as it can command for the light from above. In this way it is possible to transmute a great part of our intellectual thinking into the luminous truth-conscious vision, -- the ideal would be a complete transition, -- or at least to increase greatly the frequency, purity and conscious force of the ideal knowledge working behind the intellect. The latter must learn to be subject and passive to the ideal faculty.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, 316,
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241:all is the method of God's workings; all life is Yoga :::
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 recognize in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of the 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 self-conscious 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 there for right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Conditions of the Synthesis [47] [T1],
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242:Therefore the age of intuitive knowledge, represented by the early Vedantic thinking of the Upanishads, had to give place to the age of rational knowledge; inspired Scripture made room for metaphysical philosophy, even as afterwards metaphysical philosophy had to give place to experimental Science.
Intuitive thought which is a messenger from the superconscient and therefore our highest faculty, was supplanted by the pure reason which is only a sort of deputy and belongs to the middle heights of our being; pure reason in its turn was supplanted for a time by the mixed action of the reason which lives on our plains and lower elevations and does not in its view exceed the horizon of the experience that the physical mind and senses or such aids as we can invent for them can bring to us.
And this process which seems to be a descent, is really a circle of progress.
For in each case the lower faculty is compelled to take up as much as it can assimilate of what the higher had already given and to attempt to re-establish it by its own methods.
By the attempt it is itself enlarged in its scope and arrives eventually at a more supple and a more ample selfaccommodation to the higher faculties. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1.08-13,
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243:Our highest insights must - and should! - sound like stupidities, or possibly crimes, when they come without permission to people whose ears have no affinity for them and were not predestined for them. The distinction between the exoteric and the esoteric, once made by philosophers, was found among the Indians as well as among Greeks, Persians, and Muslims. Basically, it was found everywhere that people believed in an order of rank and not in equality and equal rights. The difference between these terms is not that the exoteric stands outside and sees, values, measures, and judges from this external position rather than from some internal one.What is more essential is that the exoteric sees things up from below - while the esoteric sees them down from above! There are heights of the soul from whose vantage point even tragedy stops having tragic effects; and who would dare to decide whether the collective sight of the world's many woes would necessarily compel and seduce us into a feeling of pity, a feeling that would only serve to double these woes?... What helps feed or nourish the higher type of man must be almost poisonous to a very different and lesser type. The virtues of a base man could indicate vices and weaknesses in a philosopher. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, The Free Spirit,
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244:The third operation in any magical ceremony is the oath or proclamation. The Magician, armed and ready, stands in the centre of the Circle, and strikes once upon the bell as if to call the attention of the Universe. He then declares who he is, reciting his magical history by the proclamation of the grades which he has attained, giving the signs and words of those grades. He then states the purpose of the ceremony, and proves that it is necessary to perform it and to succeed in its performance. He then takes an oath before the Lord of the Universe (not before the particular Lord whom he is invoking) as if to call Him to witness the act. He swears solemnly that he will perform it-that nothing shall prevent him from performing it-that he will not leave the operation until it is successfully performed-and once again he strikes upon the bell. Yet, having demonstrated himself in that position at once infinitely lofty and infinitely unimportant, the instrument of destiny, he balances this by the Confession, in which there is again an infinite exaltation harmonised with an infinite humility. He admits himself to be a weak human being humbly aspiring to something higher; a creature of circumstance utterly dependent-even for the breath of life-upon a series of fortunate accidents.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,
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245:The Twenty Tenets of Holons 1. Reality as a whole is not composed of things, or processes, but of holons. 2. Holons display four fundamental capacities: a. self-preservation, b. self-adaptation, c. self-transcendence. d. self-dissolution. 3. Holons emerge. 4. Holons emerge holarchically. 5. Each emergent holon transcends but includes its predecessor. 6. The lower sets the possibilities of the higer; the higher sets the probabilities of the lower. 7. "The number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is 'shallow' or 'deep'; and the number of holons on any given level we shall call its 'span'" (A. Koestler). 8. Each successive level of evolution produces greater depth and less span. 9. Destroy any type of holon, and you will destroy all of the holons above it and none of the holons below it. 10. Holarchies coevolve. 11. The micro is in relational exchange with the macro at all levels of its depth. 12. Evolution has directionality: a. Increasing complexity. b. Increasing differentiation/integration. c. Increasing organisation/structuration. d. Increasing relative autonomy. e. Increasing telos.
~ Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology Spirituality, 1995, p. 35-78.,
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246:All advance in thought is made by collecting the greatest possible number of facts, classifying them, and grouping them.
The philologist, though perhaps he only speaks one language, has a much higher type of mind than the linguist who speaks twenty.
This Tree of Thought is exactly paralleled by the tree of nervous structure.
Very many people go about nowadays who are exceedingly "well-informed," but who have not the slightest idea of the meaning of the facts they know. They have not developed the necessary higher part of the brain. Induction is impossible to them.
This capacity for storing away facts is compatible with actual imbecility. Some imbeciles have been able to store their memories with more knowledge than perhaps any sane man could hope to acquire.
This is the great fault of modern education - a child is stuffed with facts, and no attempt is made to explain their connection and bearing. The result is that even the facts themselves are soon forgotten.
Any first-rate mind is insulted and irritated by such treatment, and any first-rate memory is in danger of being spoilt by it.
No two ideas have any real meaning until they are harmonized in a third, and the operation is only perfect when these ideas are contradictory. This is the essence of the Hegelian logic.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, The Cup,
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247:the psychic transformation :::
The soul, the psychic being is in direct touch with the divine Truth, but it is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature. One may practise yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason; one may conquer power and luxuriate in all kinds of experiences in the vital; one may establish even surprising physical Siddhis; but if the true soul-power behind does not manifest, if the psychic nature does not come into the front, nothing genuine has been done. In this yoga the psychic being is that which opens the rest of the nature to the true supramental light and finally to the supreme Ananda. Mind can open by itself to its own higher reaches; it can still itself in some kind of static liberation or Nirvana; but the supramental cannot find a sufficient base in a spiritualised mind alone. If the inmost soul is awakened, if there is a new birth out of the mere mental, vital and physical into the psychic consciousness, then this yoga can be done; otherwise (by the sole power of the mind or any other part) it is impossible.... If there is a refusal of the psychic new birth, a refusal to become the child new born from the Mother, owing to attachment to intellectual knowledge or mental ideas or to some vital desire, then there will be a failure in the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,
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248:uniting life and Yoga :::
No synthesis of Yoga can be satisfying which does not, in its aim, reunite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life or, in its method, not only permit but favour the harmony of our inner and outer activities and experiences in the divine consummation of both. For man is precisely that term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the forms of the lower. To avoid the life which is given him for the realisation of that possibility, can never be either the indispensable condition or the whole and ultimate object of his supreme endeavour or of his most powerful means of self-fulfilment. It can only be a temporary necessity under certain conditions or a specialised extreme effort imposed on the individual so as to prepare a greater general possibility for the race. The true and full object and utility of Yoga can only be accomplished when the conscious Yoga in man becomes. like the subconscious Yoga in Nature, outwardly conterminous withlife itself and we can once more, looking out both on the path and the achievement, say in a more perfect and luminous sense: All life is Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, Life and Yoga,
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249:When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into the head and liberates the inner mind mind centres, then into the heart centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner vital, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated, creating what has to be created. It integrates, harmonises, establishes a new rhythm in the nature. It can bring down too a higher and yet higher force and range of the higher nature until, if that be the aim of the sadhana, it becomes possible to bring down the supramental force and existence. All this is prepared, assistance, farthered by the work of the psychic being in the heart centre; the more it is open, in front, active, the quicker, safer, easier the working of the Force can be. The more love and bhakti and surrender grow in the heart, the more rapid and perfect becomes the evolution of the sadhana. For the descent and transformation imply at the same time an increasing contact and union with the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,
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250:When I was a child of about thirteen, for nearly a year every night as soon as I had gone to bed it seemed to me that I went out of my body and rose straight up above the house, then above the city, very high above. Then I used to see myself clad in a magnificent golden robe, much longer than myself; and as I rose higher, the robe would stretch, spreading out in a circle around me to form a kind of immense roof over the city. Then I would see men, women, children, old men, the sick, the unfortunate coming out from every side; they would gather under the outspread robe, begging for help, telling of their miseries, their suffering, their hardships. In reply, the robe, supple and alive, would extend towards each one of them individually, and as soon as they had touched it, they were comforted or healed, and went back into their bodies happier and stronger than they had come out of them. Nothing seemed more beautiful to me, nothing could make me happier; and all the activities of the day seemed dull and colourless and without any real life, beside this activity of the night which was the true life for me. Often while I was rising up in this way, I used to see at my left an old man, silent and still, who looked at me with kindly affection and encouraged me by his presence. This old man, dressed in a long dark purple robe, was the personification-as I came to know later-of him who is called the Man of Sorrows. ~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations,
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251:In Rajayoga the chosen instrument is the mind. our ordinary mentality is first disciplined, purified and directed towards the divine Being, then by a summary process of Asana and Pranayama the physical force of our being is stilled and concentrated, the life-force released into a rhythmic movement capable of cessation and concentrated into a higher power of its upward action, the mind, supported and strengthened by this greater action and concentration of the body and life upon which it rests, is itself purified of all its unrest and emotion and its habitual thought-waves, liberated from distraction and dispersion, given its highest force of concentration, gathered up into a trance of absorption. Two objects, the one temporal, the other eternal,are gained by this discipline. Mind-power develops in another concentrated action abnormal capacities of knowledge, effective will, deep light of reception, powerful light of thought-radiation which are altogether beyond the narrow range of our normal mentality; it arrives at the Yogic or occult powers around which there has been woven so much quite dispensable and yet perhaps salutary mystery. But the one final end and the one all-important gain is that the mind, stilled and cast into a concentrated trance, can lose itself in the divine consciousness and the soul be made free to unite with the divine Being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609,
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252:I have written a short sentence which will appear in the Bulletin, the next Bulletin. It goes something like this (I dont remember the words exactly now): If you say to the Divine with conviction, I want only You, the Divine will arrange all the circumstances in such a way as to compel you to be sincere.1 Something in the being I want only You. the aspiration and then one wants a hundred odd things all the time, isnt that so? At times something comes, just usually to disturb everythingit stands in the way and prevents you from realising your aspiration. Well, the Divine will come without showing Himself, without your seeing Him, without your having any inkling of it, and He will arrange all the circumstances in such a way that everything that prevents you from belonging solely to the Divine will be removed from your path, inevitably. Then when all is removed, you begin to howl and complain; but later, if you are sincere and look at yourself straight in the eye you have said to the Lord, you have said, I want only You. He will remain close to you, all the rest will go away. This is indeed a higher Grace. Only, you must say this with conviction. I dont even mean that you must say it integrally, because if one says it integrally, the work is done. What is necessary is that one part of the being, indeed the central will, says it with conviction: I want only You. Even once, and it suffices: all that takes more or less long, sometimes it stretches over years, but one reaches the goal. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954, 1954-06-16,
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253:So too we can rise to a consciousness above and observe the various parts of our being, inner and outer, mental, vital and physical and the subconscient below all, and act upon one or other or the whole from that higher status. It is possible also to go down from that height or from any height into any of these lower states and take its limited light or its obscurity as our place of working while the rest that we are is either temporarily put away or put behind or else kept as a field of reference from which we can get support, sanction or light and influence or as a status into which we can ascend or recede and from it observe the inferior movements. Or we can plunge into trance, get within ourselves and be conscious there while all outward things are excluded; or we can go beyond even this inner awareness and lose ourselves in some deeper other consciousness or some high superconscience. There is also a pervading equal consciousness into which we can enter and see all ourselves with one enveloping glance or omnipresent awareness one and indivisible. All this which looks strange and abnormal or may seem fantastic to the surface reason acquainted only with our normal status of limited ignorance and its movements divided from our inner higher and total reality, becomes easily intelligible and admissible in the light of the larger reason and logic of the Infinite or by the admission of the greater illimitable powers of the Self, the Spirit in us which is of one essence with the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1.2.02
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254:[the value of sublimation:]
And since Yoga is in its essence a turning away from the ordinary material and animal life led by most men or from the more mental but still limited way of living followed by the few to a greater spiritual life, to the way divine, every part of our energies that is given to the lower existence in the spirit of that existence is a contradiction of our aim and our self-dedication. On the other hand, every energy or activity that we can convert from its allegiance to the lower and dedicate to the service of the higher is so much gained on our road, so much taken from the powers that oppose our progress. It is the difficulty of this wholesale conversion that is the source of all the stumblings in the path of Yoga. For our entire nature and its environment, all our personal and all our universal self, are full of habits and of influences that are opposed to our spiritual rebirth and work against the whole-heartedness of our endeavour.
In a certain sense we are nothing but a complex mass of mental, nervous and physical habits held together by a few ruling ideas, desires and associations, - an amalgam of many small self-repeating forces with a few major vibrations. What we propose in our Yoga is nothing less than to break up the whole formation of our past and present which makes up the ordinary material and mental man and to create a new centre of vision and a new universe of activities in ourselves which shall constitute a divine humanity or a superhuman nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, [71] [T1],
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255:the vital
the life-nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire-soul of man and of all that play of possessive and other related instincts, anger, greed, lust, etc., that belong to this field of nature. The vital part of man is a true instrument only when its feelings and tendencies have been purified by the psychic touch and governed by the spiritual light and power. The vital has three main parts:
higher vital
the mental vital and emotional vital taken together. The mental vital gives a mental expression by thought, speech or otherwise to the emotions, desires, passions, sensations or other movements of the vital being; the emotional vital is the seat of various feelings, such as love, joy, sorrow, hatred and the rest.
central vital or vital proper
dynamic, sensational and passionate, it is the seat of the stronger vital longings and reactions, such as ambition, pride, fear, love of fame, attractions and repulsions, desires and passion of various kinds and the field of many vital energies.
lower vital
made up of the smaller movements of human life-desire and life-reactions, it is occupied with small desires and feelings, such as food desire, sexual desire, small likings, dislikings, vanity, quarrels, love of praise, anger at blame, little wishes of all kinds, etc. The material vital is that part of the lower vital turned entirely upon physical things, full of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane. ~ Integral Yoga; Sri Aurobindo's Teaching and Method of Practice,
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256:I have spoken of Sri Aurobindo's life as a series of radical turns that changed the movement, the mode of life, almost radically every time the turn came. The turn meant a break with the past and a moving into the future. We have a word for this phenomenon of radical and unforeseen change. You know the word, it is intervention. Intervention means, as the Mother has explained to us more than once, the entry of a higher, a greater force from another world into the already existent world. Into the familiar established mode of existence that runs on the routine of some definite rules and regulations, the Law of the present, there drops all on a sudden another mode of being and consciousness and force, a Higher Law which obliterates or changes out of recognition the familiar mode of living; it is thus that one rises from level to level, moves out into wider ranges of being, otherwise one stands still, remains for ever what he is, stagnant, like an unchanging clod or at the most a repetitive animal. The higher the destiny, the higher also the source of intervention, that is to say, more radical - more destructive yet more creative - destructive of the past, creative of the future.
I have spoken of the passing away of Sri Aurobindo as a phenomenon of intervention, a great decisive event in view of the work to be done. Even so we may say that his birth too was an act of intervention, a deliberate divine intervention. The world needed it, the time was ripe and the intervention happened and that was his birth as an embodied human being - to which we offer our salutation and obeisance today. ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta,
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257:Concentrating the Attention:
Whatever you may want to do in life, one thing is absolutely indispensable and at the basis of everything, the capacity of concentrating the attention. If you are able to gather together the rays of attention and consciousness on one point and can maintain the concentration with a presistent will, nothing can resist it - whatever it may be, from the most material physical development to the highest spiritual one. But this discipline must be followed in a constant and, it may be said, imperturbable way; not that you should always be concentrated on the same thing - thats not what I mean, I mean learning to concentrate. And materially, for studies, sports, all physical or mental development, it is absolutely indispensble. And the value of an individual is proportionate to the value of his attention. And from the spiritual point of view it is still more important. There is no spiritual obstacle which can resist a penetrating power of concentration. For instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union with the inner Divine, opening to the higher spheres, all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power of concentration - but one must learn how to do it. There is nothing in the human or even in the superhuman field, to which the power of concentration is not the key. You can be the best athlete, you can be the best student, you can be an artistic, literary or scientific genius, you can be the greatest saint with that faculty. And everyone has in himself a tiny little beginning of it - it is given to everybody, but people do not cultivate it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,
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258:subtle ::: In Vedanta (Mandukya Upanishad and later teachings - e.g. Advaita - based on it) "subtle" is used to designate the "dream state" of consciousness, and in Advaita this also includes the Prana, Manas, and Vijnana koshas (= the vehicles of vital force, mind, and higher consciousness) re-interpreted from of the Taittiriya Upanishad.
In Tibetan and Tantric Buddhism it refers to an intermediate grade between the "gross" and "very subtle" "minds" and "winds" (vayu = prana).
The Sukshma Sthula or Subtle Body is one of the seven principles of man in Blavatskian Theosophy; it is also called the "astral body" (this has little similarity with the astral body of Out of Body experience, because it cannot move far from the gross physical vehicle, it seems to correspond to what Robert Monroe calls the "second body", and identified with the Double or Ka
In Sant Mat / Radhasoami cosmology - the Anda (Cosmic Egg) / Sahans-dal Kanwal (Crown Chakra) is sometimes called the Subtle; hence Subtle = Astral
The term Subtle Physical is used somewhat generically by Sri Aurobindo (in Letters on Yoga) to refer to a wider reality behind the external physical.
Ken Wilber uses the term Subtle to indicate the yogic and mystic holonic-evolutionary level intermediate between "Psychic" (in his series = Nature Mysticism) and "Causal" (=Realisation"); it includes many psychic and occult experiences and can be considered as pertaining to the Subtle as defined here (although it also includes other realities and experiences that might also be interpreted as "Inner Gross" - e.g. Kundalini as a classic example). ~ M Alan Kazlev, Kheper, planes/subtle,
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259:Instruction about Sadhana to a disciple:
Disciple: What is the nature of realisation in this yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: In this yoga we want to bring down the Truth-consciousness into the whole being - no part being left out. This can be done by the Higher Power itself. What you have to do is to open yourself to it.
Disciple: As the Higher Power is there why does it not work in all men - consciously?
Sri Aurobindo: Because man, at present, is shut up in his mental being, his vital nature and physical consciousness and their limitations. You have to open yourself. By an opening I mean an aspiration in the heart for the coming down of the Power that is above, and a will in the Mind, or above the Mind, open to it.
The first thing this working of the Higher Power does is to establish Shanti - peace - in all the parts of the being and an opening above. This peace is not mere mental Shanti, it is full of power and, whatever action takes place in it, Samata, equality, is its basis and the Shanti and Samata are never disturbed. What comes from Above is peace, power and joy. It also brings about changes in various parts of our nature so that they can bear the pressure of the Higher Power.
Knowledge also progressively develops showing all in our being that is to be thrown out and what is to be retained. In fact, knowledge and guidance both come and you have constantly to consent to the guidance. The progress may be more in one direction than in another. But it is the Higher Power that works. The rest is a matter of experience and the movement of the Shakti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, RECORDED BY A B PURANI (28-09-1923),
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260:You say that you feel you have returned to your old life and that you have fallen from that state of spiritual consciousness in which you remained for some time. And you ask whether it comes from the fact that Sri Aurobindo and myself have withdrawn our protection and our help because you had been unable to fulfil your promise.
It is a mistake to think that anything at all has been withdrawn by us. Our help and our protection are with you as always, but it would be more correct to say that both your inability to feel our help and your inability to keep your promise are the simultaneous effects of the same cause.
Remember what I wrote to you when you went to Calcutta to fetch your family: do not let any influence come in between you and the Divine. You did not pay sufficient attention to this warning: you have allowed an influence to interfere strongly between you and your spiritual life; your devotion and your faith have been seriously shaken by this. As a consequence, you became afraid and you did not find the same joy in your offering to the Divine Cause; and also, quite naturally, you fell back into your ordinary consciousness and your old life.
You are quite right, nevertheless, not to let yourself be discouraged. Whatever the fall, it is always possible not only to get up again but also to rise higher and to reach the goal. Only a strong aspiration and a constant will are needed.
You have to take a firm resolution to let nothing interfere with your ascent towards the Divine Realisation. And then the success is certain.
Be assured of our unfailing help and protection. 3 February 1931 ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother - I,
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261: How can one "learn of pure delight"?
First of all, to begin with, one must through an attentive observation grow aware that desires and the satisfaction of desires give only a vague, uncertain pleasure, mixed, fugitive and altogether unsatisfactory. That is usually the starting-point.
Then, if one is a reasonable being, one must learn to discern what is desire and refrain from doing anything that may satisfy one's desires. One must reject them without trying to satisfy them. And so the first result is exactly one of the first observations stated by the Buddha in his teaching: there is an infinitely greater delight in conquering and eliminating a desire than in satisfying it. Every sincere and steadfast seeker will realise after some time, sooner or later, at times very soon, that this is an absolute truth, and that the delight felt in overcoming a desire is incomparably higher than the small pleasure, so fleeting and mixed, which may be found in the satisfaction of his desires. That is the second step.
Naturally, with this continuous discipline, in a very short time the desires will keep their distance and will no longer bother you. So you will be free to enter a little more deeply into your being and open yourself in an aspiration to... the Giver of Delight, the divine Element, the divine Grace. And if this is done with a sincere self-giving - something that gives itself, offers itself and expects nothing in exchange for its offering - one will feel that kind of sweet warmth, comfortable, intimate, radiant, which fills the heart and is the herald of Delight.
After this, the path is easy.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,
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262:The Lord has veiled himself and his absolute wisdom and eternal consciousness in ignorant Nature-Force and suffers her to drive the individual being, with its complicity, as the ego; this lower action of Nature continues to prevail, often even in spite of man's half-lit imperfect efforts at a nobler motive and a purer self-knowledge. Our human effort at perfection fails, or progresses very incompletely, owing to the force of Nature's past actions in us, her past formations, her long-rooted associations; it turns towards a true and high-climbing success only when a greater Knowledge and Power than our own breaks through the lid of our ignorance and guides or takes up our personal will. For our human will is a misled and wandering ray that has parted from the supreme Puissance. The period of slow emergence out of this lower working into a higher light and purer force is the valley of the shadow of death for the striver after perfection; it is a dreadful passage full of trials, sufferings, sorrows, obscurations, stumblings, errors, pitfalls. To abridge and alleviate this ordeal or to penetrate it with the divine delight faith is necessary, an increasing surrender of the mind to the knowledge that imposes itself from within and, above all, a true aspiration and a right and unfaltering and sincere practice. "Practise unfalteringly," says the Gita, "with a heart free from despondency," the Yoga; for even though in the earlier stage of the path we drink deep of the bitter poison of internal discord and suffering, the last taste of this cup is the sweetness of the nectar of immortality and the honey-wine of an eternal Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 219,
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263:the second aid, the need for effort and aspiration, utsaha :::
The development of the experience in its rapidity, its amplitude, the intensity and power of its results, depends primarily, in the beginning of the path and long after, on the aspiration and personal effort of the sadhaka. The process of Yoga is a turning of the human soul from the egoistic state of consciousness absorbed in the outward appearances and attractions of things to a higher state in which the Transcendent and Universal can pour itself into the individiual mould and transform it. The first determining element in the siddhi is, therefore, the intensity of the turning, the force which directs the soul inward. The power of aspiration of the heart, the force of the will, the concentration of the mind, the perseverance and determination of the applied energy are the measure of that intensity. The ideal sadhaka should be able to say in the Biblical phrase, 'My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up.' It is this zeal for the Lord, -utsaha, the zeal of the whole nature for its divine results, vyakulata, the heart's eagerness for the attainment of the Divine, - that devours the ego and breaks up the petty limitations ...
So long as the contact with the Divine is not in some considerable degree established, so long as there is not some measure of sustained identity, sayujya, the element of personal effort must normally predominate. But in proportion as this contact establishes itself, the sadhaka must become conscious that a force other than his own, a force transcending his egoistic endeavour and capacity, is at work in him and to this Power he learns progressively to submit himself and delivers up to it the charge of his Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids,
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264:But this is only one side of the force that works for perfection. The process of the integral Yoga has three stages, not indeed sharply distinguished or separate, but in a certain measure successive. There must be, first, the effort towards at least an initial and enabling self-transcendence and contact with the Divine; next, the reception of that which transcends, that with which we have gained communion, into ourselves for the transformation of our whole conscious being; last, the utilisation of our transformed humanity as a divine centre in the world. So long as the contact with the Divine is not in some considerable degree established, so long as there is not some measure of sustained identity, sayujya, the element of personal effort must normally predominate. But in proportion as this contact establishes itself, the sadhaka must become conscious that a force other than his own, a force transcending his egoistic endeavour and capacity, is at work in him and to this Power he learns progressively to submit himself and delivers up to it the charge of his Yoga. In the end his own will and force become one with the higher Power; he merges them in the divineWill and its transcendent and universal Force. He finds it thenceforward presiding over the necessary transformation of his mental, vital and physical being with an impartial wisdom and provident effectivity of which the eager and interested ego is not capable. It is when this identification and this self-merging are complete that the divine centre in the world is ready. Purified, liberated, plastic, illumined, it can begin to serve as a means for the direct action of a supreme Power in the larger Yoga of humanity or superhumanity, of the earth's spiritual progression or its transformation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T2],
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265:The link between the spiritual and the lower planes of the mental being is that which is called in the old Vedantic phraseology the vijnana and which we may term the Truth-plane or the ideal mind or supermind where the One and the Many meet and our being is freely open to the revealing light of the divine Truth and the inspiration of the divine Will and Knowledge. If we can break down the veil of the intellectual, emotional, sensational mind which our ordinary existence has built between us and the Divine, we can then take up through the Truth-mind all our mental, vital and physical experience and offer it up to the spiritual -- this was the secret or mystic sense of the old Vedic "sacrifice" -- to be converted into the terms of the infinite truth of Sachchidananda, and we can receive the powers and illuminations of the infinite Existence in forms of a divine knowledge, will and delight to be imposed on our mentality, vitality, physical existence till the lower is transformed into the perfect vessel of the higher. This was the double Vedic movement of the descent and birth of the gods in the human creature and the ascent of the human powers that struggle towards the divine knowledge, power and delight and climb into the godheads, the result of which was the possession of the One, the Infinite, the beatific existence, the union with God, the Immortality. By possession of this ideal plane we break down entirely the opposition of the lower and the higher existence, the false gulf created by the Ignorance between the finite and the Infinite, God and Nature, the One and the Many, open the gates of the Divine, fulfil the individual in the complete harmony of the cosmic consciousness and realise in the cosmic being the epiphany of the transcendent Sachchidananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 2.15,
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266:There is, indeed, a higher form of the buddhi that can be called the intuitive mind or intuitive reason, and this by its intuitions, its inspirations, its swift revelatory vision, its luminous insight and discrimination can do the work of the reason with a higher power, a swifter action, a greater and spontaneous certitude. It acts in a self-light of the truth which does not depend upon the torch-flares of the sense-mind and its limited uncertain percepts; it proceeds not by intelligent but by visional concepts: It is a kind of truth-vision, truth-hearing, truth-memory, direct truth-discernment. This true and authentic intuition must be distinguished from a power of the ordinary mental reason which is too easily confused with it, that power of Involved reasoning that reaches its conclusion by a bound and does not need the ordinary steps of the logical mind. The logical reason proceeds pace after pace and tries the sureness of each step like a marl who is walking over unsafe ground and has to test by the hesitating touch of his foot each span of soil that he perceives with his eye. But this other supralogical process of the reason is a motion of rapid insight or swift discernment; it proceeds by a stride or leap, like a man who springs from one sure spot to another point of sure footing, -- or at least held by him to be sure. He sees this space he covers in one compact and flashing view, but he does not distinguish or measure either by eye or touch its successions, features and circumstances. This movement has something of the sense of power of the intuition, something of its velocity, some appearance of its light and certainty, arid we always are apt to take it for the intuition. But our assumption is an error and, if we trust to it, it may lead us into grievous blunders.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
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267:What is "the heavenly archetype of the lotus"? It means the primal idea of the lotus.
Each thing that is expressed physically was conceived somewhere before being realised materially.
There is an entire world which is the world of the fashioners, where all conceptions are made. And this world is very high, much higher than all the worlds of the mind; and from there these formations, these creations, these types which have been conceived by the fashioners come down and are expressed in physical realisations. And there is always a great distance between the perfection of the idea and what is materialised. Very often the materialised things are like caricatures in comparison with the primal idea. This is what he calls the archetype. This takes place in worlds... not always the same ones, it depends on the things; but for many things in the physical, the primal ideas, these archetypes, were in what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind.
But there is a still higher domain than this where the origins are still purer, and if one reaches this, attains this, one finds the absolutely pure types of what is manifested upon earth. And then it is very interesting to compare, to see to what an extent earthly creation is a frightful distortion. And moreover, it is only when one can reach these regions and see the reality of things in their essence that one can work with knowledge to transform them here; otherwise on what can we take our stand to conceive a better world, more perfect, more beautiful than the existing one? It can't be on our imagination which is itself something very poor and very material. But if one can enter that consciousness, rise right up to these higher worlds of creation, then with this in one's consciousness one can work at making material things take their real form. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, 121,
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268:Hence, it's obvious to see why in AA the community is so important; we are powerless over ourselves. Since we don't have immediate awareness of the Higher Power and how it works, we need to be constantly reminded of our commitment to freedom and liberation. The old patterns are so seductive that as they go off, they set off the association of ideas and the desire to give in to our addiction with an enormous force that we can't handle. The renewal of defeat often leads to despair. At the same time, it's a source of hope for those who have a spiritual view of the process. Because it reminds us that we have to renew once again our total dependence on the Higher Power. This is not just a notional acknowledgment of our need. We feel it from the very depths of our being. Something in us causes our whole being to cry out, "Help!" That's when the steps begin to work. And that, I might add, is when the spiritual journey begins to work. A lot of activities that people in that category regard as spiritual are not communicating to them experientially their profound dependence on the grace of God to go anywhere with their spiritual practices or observances. That's why religious practice can be so ineffective. The real spiritual journey depends on our acknowledging the unmanageability of our lives. The love of God or the Higher Power is what heals us. Nobody becomes a full human being without love. It brings to life people who are most damaged. The steps are really an engagement in an ever-deepening relationship with God. Divine love picks us up when we sincerely believe nobody else will. We then begin to experience freedom, peace, calm, equanimity, and liberation from cravings for what we have come to know are damaging-cravings that cannot bring happiness, but at best only momentary relief that makes the real problem worse. ~ Thomas Keating, Divine Therapy and Addiction,
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269:If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, - an image which in this experience becomes a reality, - we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; for though we have applied that word for want of a better to any supra-intellectual direct way of knowing, yet what we actually know as intuition is only one special movement of self-existent knowledge. This new range is its origin; it imparts to our intuitions something of its own distinct character and is very clearly an intermediary of a greater Truth-Light with which our mind cannot directly communicate. At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, - not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind Mind and the Overmind Maya, 293,
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270:the aim of our yoga :::
The aim set before our Yoga is nothing less than to hasten this supreme object of our existence here. Its process leaves behind the ordinary tardy method of slow and confused growth through the evolution of Nature. For the natural evolution is at its best an uncertain growth under cover, partly by the pressure of the environment, partly by a groping education and an ill-lighted purposeful effort, an only partially illumined and half-automatic use of opportunities with many blunders and lapses and relapses; a great portion of it is made up of apparent accidents and circumstances and vicissitudes, - though veiling a secret divine intervention and guidance. In Yoga we replace this confused crooked crab-motion by a rapid, conscious and self-directed evolution which is planned to carry us, as far as can be, in a straight line towards the goal set before us. In a certain sense it may be an error to speak of a goal anywhere in a progression which may well be infinite. Still we can conceive of an immediate goal, an ulterior objective beyond our present achievement towards which the soul in man can aspire. There lies before him the possibility of a new birth; there can be an ascent into a higher and wider plane of being and its descent to transform his members. An enlarged and illumined consciousness is possible that shall make of him a liberated spirit and a perfected force - and, if spread beyond the individual, it might even constitute a divine humanity or else a new, a supramental and therefore a superhuman race. It is this new birth that we make our aim: a growth into a divine consciousness is the whole meaning of our Yoga, an integral conversion to divinity not only of the soul but of all the parts of our nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, 89-90,
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271:There is the one door in us that sometimes swings open upon the splendour of a truth beyond and, before it shuts again, allows a ray to touch us, - a luminous intimation which, if we have the strength and firmness, we may hold to in our faith and make a starting-point for another play of consciousness than that of the sense-mind, for the play of Intuition. For if we examine carefully, we shall find that Intuition is our first teacher. Intuition always stands veiled behind our mental operations. Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the Unknown which are the beginning of his higher knowledge. Reason only comes in afterwards to see what profit it can have of the shining harvest. Intuition gives us that idea of something behind and beyond all that we know and seem to be which pursues man always in contradiction of his lower reason and all his normal experience and impels him to formulate that formless perception in the more positive ideas of God, Immortality, Heaven and the rest by which we strive to express it to the mind. For Intuition is as strong as Nature herself from whose very soul it has sprung and cares nothing for the contradictions of reason or the denials of experience. It knows what is because it is, because itself it is of that and has come from that, and will not yield it to the judgment of what merely becomes and appears. What the Intuition tells us of, is not so much Existence as the Existent, for it proceeds from that one point of light in us which gives it its advantage, that sometimes opened door in our own self-awareness. Ancient Vedanta seized this message of the Intuition and formulated it in the three great declarations of the Upanishads, I am He, Thou art That, O Swetaketu, All this is the Brahman; this Self is the Brahman.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge,
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272:19 - When I had the dividing reason, I shrank from many things; after I had lost it in sight, I hunted through the world for the ugly and the repellent, but I could no longer find them. - Sri Aurobindo
Is there really nothing ugly and repellent in the world? Is it our reason alone that sees things in that way?
To understand truly what Sri Aurobindo means here, you must yourself have had the experience of transcending reason and establishing your consciousness in a world higher than the mental intelligence. For from up there you can see, firstly, that everything that exists in the universe is an expression of Sachchidananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss) and therefore behind any appearance whatever, if you go deeply enough, you can perceive Sachchidananda, which is the principle of Supreme Beauty.
Secondly, you see that everything in the manifested universe is relative, so much so that there is no beauty which may not appear ugly in comparison with a greater beauty, no ugliness which may not appear beautiful in comparison with a yet uglier ugliness.
When you can see and feel in this way, you immediately become aware of the extreme relativity of these impressions and their unreality from the absolute point of view. However, so long as we dwell in the rational consciousness, it is, in a way, natural that everything that offends our aspiration for perfection, our will for progress, everything we seek to transcend and surmount, should seem ugly and repellent to us, since we are in search of a greater ideal and we want to rise higher.
And yet it is still only a half-wisdom which is very far from the true wisdom, a wisdom that appears wise only in the midst of ignorance and unconsciousness.
In the Truth everything is different, and the Divine shines in all things. 17 February 1960 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,
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273:Man's refusal of the Divine Grace has been depicted very beautifully and graphically in a perfect dramatic form by Sri Aurobindo in Savitri. The refusal comes one by one from the three constituent parts of the human being. First of all man is a material being, a bodily creature, as such he is a being of ignorance and misery, of brutish blindness . He does not know that there is something other than his present state of misfortune and dark fate. He is not even aware that there may be anything higher or nobler than the ugliness he is steeped in. He lives on earth-life with an earth-consciousness, moves mechanically and helplessly through vicissitudes over which he has no control. Even so the material life is not a mere despicable thing; behind its darkness, behind its sadness, behind all its infirmities, the Divine Mother is there upholding it and infusing into it her grace and beauty. Indeed, she is one with this world of sorrows, she has in effect become it in her infinite pity and love so that this material body of hers may become conscious of its divine substance and manifest her true form. But the human being individualised and separated in egoistic consciousness has lost the sense of its inner reality and is vocal only in regard to its outward formulation. It is natural for physical man therefore to reject and deny the physical Godhead in him, he even curses it and wants to continue as he is.
He yells therefore in ignorance and anguish:
I am the Man of Sorrows, I am he
Who is nailed on the wide cross of the Universe . . .
I toil like the animal, like the animal die.
I am man the rebel, man the helpless serf...
I know my fate will ever be the same.
It is my Nature' s work that cannot change . . .
I was made for evil, evil is my lot;
Evil I must be and by evil live;
Nought other can I do but be myself;
What Nature made, that I must remain.2' ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, On Savitri, 13,
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274:When, in last week's aphorism, Sri Aurobindo opposed - as one might say - "knowledge" to "Wisdom", he was speaking of knowledge as it is lived in the average human consciousness, the knowledge which is obtained through effort and mental development, whereas here, on the contrary, the knowledge he speaks of is the essential Knowledge, the supramental divine Knowledge, Knowledge by identity. And this is why he describes it here as "vast and eternal", which clearly indicates that it is not human knowledge as we normally understand it.
Many people have asked why Sri Aurobindo said that the river is "slender". This is an expressive image which creates a striking contrast between the immensity of the divine, supramental Knowledge - the origin of this inspiration, which is infinite - and what a human mind can perceive of it and receive from it.
Even when you are in contact with these domains, the portion, so to say, which you perceive, is minimal, slender. It is like a tiny little stream or a few falling drops and these drops are so pure, so brilliant, so complete in themselves, that they give you the sense of a marvellous inspiration, the impression that you have reached infinite domains and risen very high above the ordinary human condition. And yet this is nothing in comparison with what is still to be perceived.
I have also been asked if the psychic being or psychic consciousness is the medium through which the inspiration is perceived.
Generally, yes. The first contact you have with higher regions is a psychic one. Certainly, before an inner psychic opening is achieved, it is difficult to have these inspirations. It can happen as an exception and under exceptional conditions as a grace, but the true contact comes through the psychic; because the psychic consciousness is certainly the medium with the greatest affinity with the divine Truth. ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,
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275:The first cause of impurity in the understanding is the intermiscence of desire in the thinking functions, and desire itself is an impurity of the Will involved in the vital and emotional parts of our being. When the vital and emotional desires interfere with the pure Will-to-know, the thought-function becomes subservient to them, pursues ends other than those proper to itself and its perceptions are clogged and deranged. The understanding must lift itself beyond the siege of desire and emotion and, in order that it may have perfect immunity, it must get the vital parts and the emotions themselves purified. The will to enjoy is proper to the vital being but not the choice or the reaching after the enjoyment which must be determined and acquired by higher functions; therefore the vital being must be trained to accept whatever gain or enjoyment comes to it in the right functioning of the life in obedience to the working of the divine Will and to rid itself of craving and attachment. Similarly the heart must be freed from subjection to the cravings of the life-principle and the senses and thus rid itself of the false emotions of fear, wrath, hatred, lust, etc, which constitute the chief impurity of the heart. The will to love is proper to the heart, but here also the choice and reaching after love have to be foregone or tranquillised and the heart taught to love with depth and intensity indeed, but with a calm depth and a settled and equal, not a troubled and disordered intensity. The tranquillisation and mastery of these members is a first condition for the immunity of the understanding from error, ignorance and perversion. This purification spells an entire equality of the nervous being and the heart; equality, therefore, even as it was the first word of the path of works, so also is the first word of the path of knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding,
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276:One can concentrate in any of the three centres which is easiest to the sadhak or gives most result. The power of the concentration in the heart-centre is to open that centre and by the power of aspiration, love, bhakti, surrender remove the veil which covers and conceals the soul and bring forward the soul or psychic being to govern the mind, life and body and turn and open them all-fully-to the Divine, removing all that is opposed to that turning and opening.
This is what is called in this Yoga the psychic transformation. The power of concentration above the head is to bring peace, silence, liberation from the body sense, the identification with mind and life and open the way for the lower (mental vital-physical) consciousness to rise up to meet the higher Consciousness above and for the powers of the higher (spiritual or divine) Consciousness to descend into mind, life and body. This is what is called in this Yoga the spiritual transformation. If one begins with this movement, then the Power from above has in its descent to open all the centres (including the lowest centre) and to bring out the psychic being; for until that is done there is likely to be much difficulty and struggle of the lower consciousness obstructing, mixing with or even refusing the Divine Action from above. If the psychic being is once active this struggle and these difficulties can be greatly minimised. The power of concentration in the eyebrows is to open the centre there, liberate the inner mind and vision and the inner or Yogic consciousness and its experiences and powers. From here also one can open upwards and act also in the lower centres; but the danger of this process is that one may get shut up in one's mental spiritual formations and not come out of them into the free and integral spiritual experience and knowledge and integral change of the being and nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [where to concentrate?],
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277:The most outward psychological form of these things is the mould or trend of the nature towards certain dominant tendencies, capacities, characteristics, form of active power, quality of the mind and inner life, cultural personality or type. The turn is often towards the predominance of the intellectual element and the capacities which make for the seeking and finding of knowledge and an intellectual creation or formativeness and a preoccupation with ideas and the study of ideas or of life and the information and development of the reflective intelligence. According to the grade of the development there is produced successively the make and character of the man of active, open, inquiring intelligence, then the intellectual and, last, the thinker, sage, great mind of knowledge. The soul-powers which make their appearance by a considerable development of this temperament, personality, soul-type, are a mind of light more and more open to all ideas and knowledge and incomings of Truth; a hunger and passion for knowledge, for its growth in ourselves, for its communication to others, for its reign in the world, the reign of reason and right and truth and justice and, on a higher level of the harmony of our greater being, the reign of the spirit and its universal unity and light and love; a power of this light in the mind and will which makes all the life subject to reason and its right and truth or to the spirit and spiritual right and truth and subdues the lower members to their greater law; a poise in the temperament turned from the first to patience, steady musing and calm, to reflection, to meditation, which dominates and quiets the turmoil of the will and passions and makes for high thinking and pure living, founds the self-governed sattwic mind, grows into a more and more mild, lofty, impersonalised and universalised personality. This is the ideal character and soul-power of the Brahmana, the priest of knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 4:15 - Soul-Force and the Fourfold Personality
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278:Disciple: If the Asuras represent the dark side of God on the vital plane - does this dark side exist on every plane? If so, are there beings on the mental plane which correspond to the dark side?
Sri Aurobindo: The Asura is really the dark side of God on the mental plane. Mind is the very field of the Asura. His characteristic is egoistic strength, which refuses the Higher Law. The Asura has got Self-control, Tapas, intelligence, only, all that is for his ego.
On the vital plane the corresponding forces we call the Rakshashas which represent violent passions and impulses. There are other beings on the vital plane which we call pramatta and piśacha and these; manifest, more or less, on the physico-vital plane.
Distiple: What is the corresponding being on the higher plane?
Sri Aurobindo: On the higher plane there are no Asuras - there the Truth prevails. There are "Asuras" there in the Vedic sense,- "beings with divine powers". The mental Asura is only a deviation of that power.
The work of the Asura has all the characteristics of mind in it. It is mind refusing to submit to the Higher Law; it is the mind in revolt. It works on the basis of ego and ignorance.
Disciple: What are the forces that correspond to the dark side of God on the physical plane?
Sri Aurobindo: They are what may be called the "elemental beings", or rather, obscure elemental forces - they are more "forces" than "beings". It is these that the Theosophists call the "Elementals". They are not individualised beings like the Asura and the Rakshasas, they are ignorant forces working oh the subtle physical plane.
Disciple: What is the word for them in Sanskrit;?
Sri Aurobindo: What are called bhūtas seem most nearly to correspond to them.
Disciple: The term "Elemental" means that these work through the elements.
Sri Aurobindo: There are two kinds of "elementals": one mischievous and the other innocent. What the Europeans call the gnomes come under this category. ~ A B Purani, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, 15-06-1926,
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279:middle vision logic or paradigmatic ::: (1:25) Cognition is described as middle-vision logic, or paradigmatic in that it is capable of co-ordinating the relations between systems of systems, unifying them into principled frameworks or paradigms. This is an operation on meta-systems and allows for the view described above, a view of human development itself. Self-sense at teal is called Autonomous or Strategist and is characterized by the emergent capacity to acknowledge and cope with inner conflicts in needs, ... and values. All of which are part of a multifacted and complex world. Teal sees our need for autonomy and autonomy itself as limited because emotional interdependence is inevitable. The contradictory aspects of self are weaved into an identity that is whole, integrated and commited to generating a fulfilling life.
Additionally, Teal allows individuals to link theory and practice, perceive dynamic systems interactions, recognize and strive for higher principles, understand the social construction of reality, handle paradox and complexity, create positive-sum games and seek feedback from others as a vital source for growth. Values embrace magnificence of existence, flexibility, spontaneioty, functionality, the integration of differences into interdependent systems and complimenting natural egalitarianism with natural ranking. Needs shift to self-actualization, and morality is in both terms of universal ethical principles and recognition of the developmental relativity of those universals. Teal is the first wave that is truly able to see the limitations of orange and green morality, it is able to uphold the paradox of universalism and relativism. Teal in its decision making process is able to see ... deep and surface features of morality and is able to take into consideration both those values when engaging in moral action. Currently Teal is quite rare, embraced by 2-5% of the north american and european population according to sociological research. ~ Essential Integral, L4.1-53, Middle Vision Logic,
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280:Disciple : What part does breathing exercise - Pranayama - play in bringing about the higher consciousness?
Sri Aurobindo : It sets the Pranic - vital - currents free and removes dullness of the brain so that the higher consciousness can come down. Pranayama does not bring dullness in the brain. My own experience, on the contrary, is that brain becomes illumined. When I was practising Pranayama at Baroda, I used to do it for about five hours in the day, - three hours in the morning and two in the evening. I found that the mind began to work with great illumination and power. I used to write poetry in those days. Before the Pranayama practice, usually I wrote five to eight lines per day; and about two hundred lines in a month. After the practice I could write 200 lines within half an hour. That was not the only result. Formerly my memory was dull. But after this practice I found that when the inspiration came I could remember all the lines in their order and write them down correctly at any time. Along with these enhanced functionings I could see an electrical activity all round the brain, and I could feel that it was made up of a subtle substance. I could feel everything as the working of that substance. That was far from your carbon-dioxide!
Disciple : How is it that Pranayama develops mental capacities? What part does it play in bringing about the higher consciousness?
Sri Aurobindo : It is the Pranic - vital - currents which sustain mental activity. When these currents are changed by Pranayama, they bring about a change in the brain. The cause of dullness of the brain is some obstruction in it which does not allow the higher thought to be communicated to it. When this obstruction is removed the higher mental being is able to communicate its action easily to the brain. When the higher consciousness is attained the brain does not become dull. My experience is that it becomes illumined.
~ Sri Aurobindo, A B Purani, Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, 19-9-1926,
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281:Many men think and write through inspiration. From where does it come?
Many! That is indeed a wonderful thing. I did not think there have been so many.... So?
Poets, when they write poems...
Ah! Inspirations come from very many different places. There are inspirations that may be very material, there are inspirations that may be vital, there are inspirations that come from all kinds of mental planes, and there are very, very rare inspirations that come from the higher mind or from a still higher region. All inspirations do not come from the same place. Hence, to be inspired does not necessarily mean that one is a higher be- ing.... One may be inspired also to do and say many stupid things!
What does "inspired" mean?
It means receiving something which is beyond you, which was not within you; to open yourself to an influence which is outside your individual conscious being.
Indeed, one can have also an inspiration to commit a murder! In countries where they decapitate murderers, cut off their heads, this causes a very brutal death which throws out the vital being, not allowing it the time to decompose for coming out of the body; the vital being is violently thrown out of the body, with all its impulses; and generally it goes and lodges itself in one of those present there, men half horrified, half with a kind of unhealthy curiosity. That makes the opening and it enters within. Statistics have proved that most young murderers admit that the impulse came to them when they were present at the death of another murderer. It was an "inspiration", but of a detestable kind.
Fundamentally it is a moment of openness to something which was not within your personal consciousness, which comes from outside and rushes into you and makes you do something. This is the widest formula that can be given.
Now, generally, when people say: "Oh! he is an inspired poet", it means he has received something from high above and expressed it in a remarkable manneR But one should rather say that his inspiration is of a high quality. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,
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282:It is not very easy for the customary mind of man, always attached to its past and present associations, to conceive of an existence still human, yet radically changed in what are now our fixed circumstances.We are in respect to our possible higher evolution much in the position of the original Ape of the Darwinian theory. It would have been impossible for that Ape leading his instinctive arboreal life in primeval forests to conceive that there would be one day an animal on the earth who would use a new faculty called reason upon the materials of his inner and outer existence, who would dominate by that power his instincts and habits, change the circumstances of his physical life, build for himself houses of stone, manipulate Nature's forces, sail the seas, ride the air, develop codes of conduct, evolve conscious methods for his mental and spiritual development. And if such a conception had been possible for the Ape-mind, it would still have been difficult for him to imagine that by any progress of Nature or long effort of Will and tendency he himself could develop into that animal. Man, because he has acquired reason and still more because he has indulged his power of imagination and intuition, is able to conceive an existence higher than his own and even to envisage his personal elevation beyond his present state into that existence. His idea of the supreme state is an absolute of all that is positive to his own concepts and desirable to his own instinctive aspiration,-Knowledge without its negative shadow of error, Bliss without its negation in experience of suffering, Power without its constant denial by incapacity, purity and plenitude of being without the opposing sense of defect and limitation. It is so that he conceives his gods; it is so that he constructs his heavens. But it is not so that his reason conceives of a possible earth and a possible humanity. His dream of God and Heaven is really a dream of his own perfection; but he finds the same difficulty in accepting its practical realisation here for his ultimate aim as would the ancestral Ape if called upon to believe in himself as the future Man. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Ego and the Dualities,
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283:Accumulating Prostrations
Why Prostrate at All?
Why fling yourself full-length on an often filthy floor, then get up and do it again hundreds of thousands of times?
Prostrations are a very immediate method for taking refuge and one of the best available for destroying pride. They are an outer gesture of surrender to the truth of dharma, and an expression of our intention to give up and expose our pride.
So, as we take refuge, we prostrate to demonstrate our complete surrender by throwing ourselves at the feet of our guru and pressing the five points of our body — forehead, hands and knees — to the floor as many times as we can.
(In the Tibetan tradition there are two ways of doing prostrations: one is the full-length and the other the half-length prostration, and we usually accumulate the full-length version.)
Prostrations are said to bring a number of benefits, such as being reborn with an attractive appearance, or our words carry weight and are valued, or our influence over friends and colleagues is positive, or that we are able to manage those who work for us.
It is said that practitioners who accumulate prostrations will one day keep company with sublime beings and as a result become majestic, wealthy, attain a higher rebirth and eventually attain liberation.
For worldly beings, though, to contemplate all the spiritual benefits of prostrations and the amount of merit they accumulate is not necessarily the most effective way of motivating ourselves. The fact that prostrations are good for our health, on the other hand, is often just the incentive we need to get started.
It's true, doing prostrations for the sake of taking healthy exercise is a worldly motivation, but not one I would ever discourage.
In these degenerate times, absolutely anything that will inspire you to practise dharma has some value, so please go ahead and start your prostrations for the sake of the exercise. If you do, not only will you save money on your gym membership, you will build up muscle and a great deal of merit.
~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, Not for Happiness - A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practises, Shambhala Publications,
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284:I know perfectly well that pain and suffering and struggle and excesses of despair are natural - though not inevitable - on the way, - not because they are helps, but because they are imposed on us by the darkness of this human nature out of which we have to struggle into the Light. . . .
The dark path is there and there are many who make like the Christians a gospel of spiritual suffering; many hold it to be the unavoidable price of victory. It may be so under certain circumstances, as it has been in so many lives at least at the beginning, or one may choose to make it so. But then the price has to be paid with resignation, fortitude or a tenacious resilience. I admit that if borne in that way the attacks of the Dark Forces or the ordeals they impose have a meaning. After each victory gained over them, there is then a sensible advance; often they seem to show us the difficulties in ourselves which we have to overcome and to say, "Here you must conquer us and here."
But all the same it is a too dark and difficult way which nobody should follow on whom the necessity does not lie.
In any case one thing can never help and that is to despond always and say, "I am unfit; I am not meant for the Yoga." And worse still are these perilous mental formations such as you are always accepting that you must fare like X (one whose difficulty of exaggerated ambition was quite different from yours) and that you have only six years etc. These are clear formations of the Dark Forces seeking not only to sterilise your aspiration but to lead you away and so prevent your sharing in the fruit of the victory hereafter. I do not know what Krishnaprem has said but his injunction, if you have rightly understood it, is one that cannot stand as valid, since so many have done Yoga relying on tapasya or anything else but not confident of any Divine Grace. It is not that, but the soul's demand for a higher Truth or a higher life that is indispensable. Where that is, the Divine Grace whether believed in or not, will intervene. If you believe, that hastens and facilitates things; if you cannot yet believe, still the soul's aspiration will justify itself with whatever difficulty and struggle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,
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285:What is the ape to a human? A laughing stock or a painful embarrassment. And that is precisely what the human shall be to the overman: a laughing stock or a painful embarrassment.
You have made your way from worm to human, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now a human is still more ape than any ape.
But whoever is wisest among you is also just a conflict and a cross between plant and ghost. But do I implore you to become ghosts or plants?
Behold, I teach you the overman!
The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth!
I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth and do not believe those who speak to you of extraterrestrial hopes! They are mixers of poisons whether they know it or not.
They are despisers of life, dying off and self-poisoned, of whom the earth is weary: so let them fade away!
Once the sacrilege against God was the greatest sacrilege, but God died, and then all these desecrators died. Now to desecrate the earth is the most terrible thing, and to esteem the bowels of the unfathomable higher than the meaning of the earth!
Once the soul gazed contemptuously at the body, and then such contempt was the highest thing: it wanted the body gaunt, ghastly, starved.
Thus it intended to escape the body and the earth.
Oh this soul was gaunt, ghastly and starved, and cruelty was the lust of this soul!
But you, too, my brothers, tell me: what does your body proclaim about your soul? Is your soul not poverty and filth and a pitiful contentment?
Truly, mankind is a polluted stream. One has to be a sea to take in a polluted stream without becoming unclean.
Behold, I teach you the overman: he is this sea, in him your great contempt can go under.
What is the greatest thing that you can experience? It is the hour of your great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness turns to nausea and likewise your reason and your virtue.
The hour in which you say: 'What matters my happiness? It is poverty and filth, and a pitiful contentment. But my happiness ought to justify existence itself!' ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Fred Kaufmann,
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286:If we analyse the classes of life, we readily find that there are three cardinal classes which are radically distinct in function. A short analysis will disclose to us that, though minerals have various activities, they are not "living." The plants have a very definite and well known function-the transformation of solar energy into organic chemical energy. They are a class of life which appropriates one kind of energy, converts it into another kind and stores it up; in that sense they are a kind of storage battery for the solar energy; and so I define THE PLANTS AS THE CHEMISTRY-BINDING class of life.
The animals use the highly dynamic products of the chemistry-binding class-the plants-as food, and those products-the results of plant-transformation-undergo in animals a further transformation into yet higher forms; and the animals are correspondingly a more dynamic class of life; their energy is kinetic; they have a remarkable freedom and power which the plants do not possess-I mean the freedom and faculty to move about in space; and so I define ANIMALS AS THE SPACE-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE.
And now what shall we say of human beings? What is to be our definition of Man? Like the animals, human beings do indeed possess the space-binding capacity but, over and above that, human beings possess a most remarkable capacity which is entirely peculiar to them-I mean the capacity to summarise, digest and appropriate the labors and experiences of the past; I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past labors and experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital for developments in the present; I mean the capacity to employ as instruments of increasing power the accumulated achievements of the all-precious lives of the past generations spent in trial and error, trial and success; I mean the capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the ever increasing light of inherited wisdom; I mean the capacity in virtue of which man is at once the heritor of the by-gone ages and the trustee of posterity. And because humanity is just this magnificent natural agency by which the past lives in the present and the present for the future, I define HUMANITY, in the universal tongue of mathematics and mechanics, to be the TIME-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity,
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287:The guiding law of spiritual experience can only come by an opening of human consciousness to the Divine Consciousness; there must be the power to receive in us the working and command and dynamic presence of the Divine Shakti and surrender ourselves to her control; it is that surrender and that control which bring the guidance. But the surrender is not sure, there is no absolute certitude of the guidance so long as we are besieged by mind formations and life impulses and instigations of ego which may easily betray us into the hands of a false experience. This danger can only be countered by the opening of a now nine-tenths concealed inmost soul or psychic being that is already there but not commonly active within us. That is the inner light we must liberate; for the light of this inmost soul is our one sure illumination so long as we walk still amidst the siege of the Ignorance and the Truth-consciousness has not taken up the entire control of our Godward endeavour. The working of the Divine Force in us under the conditions of the transition and the light of the psychic being turning us always towards a conscious and seeing obedience to that higher impulsion and away from the demands and instigations of the Forces of the Ignorance, these between them create an ever progressive inner law of our action which continues till the spiritual and supramental can be established in our nature. In the transition there may well be a period in which we take up all life and action and offer them to the Divine for purification, change and deliverance of the truth within them, another period in which we draw back and build a spiritual wall around us admitting through its gates only such activities as consent to undergo the law of the spiritual transformation, a third in which a free and all-embracing action, but with new forms fit for the utter truth of the Spirit, can again be made possible. These things, however, will be decided by no mental rule but in the light of the soul within us and by the ordaining force and progressive guidance of the Divine Power that secretly or overtly first impels, then begins clearly to control and order and finally takes up the whole burden of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 138,
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288:This is the real sense and drive of what we see as evolution: the multiplication and variation of forms is only the means of its process. Each gradation contains the possibility and the certainty of the grades beyond it: the emergence of more and more developed forms and powers points to more perfected forms and greater powers beyond them, and each emergence of consciousness and the conscious beings proper to it enables the rise to a greater consciousness beyond and the greater order of beings up to the ultimate godheads of which Nature is striving and is destined to show herself capable. Matter developed its organised forms until it became capable of embodying living organisms; then life rose from the subconscience of the plant into conscious animal formations and through them to the thinking life of man. Mind founded in life developed intellect, developed its types of knowledge and ignorance, truth and error till it reached the spiritual perception and illumination and now can see as in a glass dimly the possibility of supermind and a truthconscious existence. In this inevitable ascent the mind of Light is a gradation, an inevitable stage. As an evolving principle it will mark a stage in the human ascent and evolve a new type of human being; this development must carry in it an ascending gradation of its own powers and types of an ascending humanity which will embody more and more the turn towards spirituality, capacity for Light, a climb towards a divinised manhood and the divine life.
In the birth of the mind of Light and its ascension into its own recognisable self and its true status and right province there must be, in the very nature of things as they are and very nature of the evolutionary process as it is at present, two stages. In the first, we can see the mind of Light gathering itself out of the Ignorance, assembling its constituent elements, building up its shapes and types, however imperfect at first, and pushing them towards perfection till it can cross the border of the Ignorance and appear in the Light, in its own Light. In the second stage we can see it developing itself in that greater natural light, taking its higher shapes and forms till it joins the supermind and lives as its subordinate portion or its delegate.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, Mind of Light, 587,
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289:I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I help believing it? I have seen the truth ~ it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul for ever. I have seen it in such full perfection that I cannot believe that it is impossible for people to have it. And so how can I go wrong? I shall make some slips no doubt, and shall perhaps talk in second-hand language, but not for long: the living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always correct and guide me. Oh, I am full of courage and freshness, and I will go on and on if it were for a thousand years! Do you know, at first I meant to conceal the fact that I corrupted them, but that was a mistake ~ that was my first mistake! But truth whispered to me that I was lying, and preserved me and corrected me. But how establish paradise ~ I don't know, because I do not know how to put it into words. After my dream I lost command of words. All the chief words, anyway, the most necessary ones. But never mind, I shall go and I shall keep talking, I won't leave off, for anyway I have seen it with my own eyes, though I cannot describe what I saw. But the scoffers do not understand that. It was a dream, they say, delirium, hallucination. Oh! As though that meant so much! And they are so proud! A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted ~ you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times ~ but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness ~ that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man,
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290:higher mind or late vision logic ::: Even more rare, found stably in less than 1% of the population and even more emergent is the turquoise altitude.
Cognition at Turquoise is called late vision-logic or cross-paradigmatic and features the ability to connect meta-systems or paradigms, with other meta-systems. This is the realm of coordinating principles. Which are unified systems of systems of abstraction to other principles. ... Aurobindo indian sage and philosopher offers a more first-person account of turquoise which he called higher-mind, a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamism capable of formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming of all of which a spontaneous inherient knowledge.
Self-sense at turquoise is called Construct-aware and is the first stage of Cook-Greuter's extension of Loveigers work on ego-development. The Construct-aware stage sees individuals for the first time as exploring more and more complex thought-structures with awareness of the automatic nature of human map making and absurdities which unbridaled complexity and logical argumentation can lead. Individuals at this stage begin to see their ego as a central point of reference and therefore a limit to growth. They also struggle to balance unique self-expressions and their concurrent sense of importance, the imperical and intuitive knowledge that there is no fundamental subject-object separation and the budding awareness of self-identity as temporary which leads to a decreased ego-desire to create a stable self-identity. Turquoise individuals are keenly aware of the interplay between awareness, thought, action and effects. They seek personal and spiritual transformation and hold a complex matrix of self-identifications, the adequecy of which they increasingly call into question. Much of this already points to Turquoise values which embrace holistic and intuitive thinking and alignment to universal order in a conscious fashion.
Faith at Turquoise is called Universalising and can generate faith compositions in which conceptions of Ultimate Reality start to include all beings. Individuals at Turquoise faith dedicate themselves to transformation of present reality in the direction of transcendent actuality. Both of these are preludes to the coming of Third Tier. ~ Essential Integral, L4.1-54, Higher Mind,
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291:The majority of Buddhists and Buddhist teachers in the West are green postmodern pluralists, and thus Buddhism is largely interpreted in terms of the green altitude and the pluralistic value set, whereas the greatest Buddhist texts are all 2nd tier, teal (Holistic) or higher (for example, Lankavatara Sutra, Kalachakra Tantra, Longchenpa's Kindly Bent to Ease Us, Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka treatises, and so forth).
This makes teal (Holistic), or Integral 2nd tier in general, the lowest deeply adequate level with which to interpret Buddhism, ultimate Reality, and Suchness itself. Thus, interpreting Suchness in pluralistic terms (or lower) would have to be viewed ultimately as a dysfunction, certainly a case of arrested development, and one requiring urgent attention in any Fourth Turning.
These are some of the problems with interpreting states (in this case, Suchness states) with a too-low structure (in short, a severe misinterpretation and thus misunderstanding of the Ultimate). As for interpreting them with dysfunctional structures (of any altitude), the problem more or less speaks for itself. Whether the structure in itself is high enough or not, any malformation of the structure will be included in the interpretation of any state (or any other experience), and hence will deform the interpretation itself, usually in the same basic ways as the structure itself is deformed. Thus, for example, if there is a major Fulcrum-3 (red altitude) repression of various bodily states (sex, aggression, power, feelings), those repressions will be interpreted as part of the higher state itself, and so the state will thus be viewed as devoid of (whereas this is actually a repression of) any sex, aggression, power, feelings, or whatever it is that is dis-owned and pushed into the repressed submergent unconscious. If there is an orange altitude problem with self-esteem (Fulcrum-5), that problem will be magnified by the state experience, and the more intense the state experience, the greater the magnification. Too little self-esteem, and even profound spiritual experiences can be interpreted as "I'm not worthy, so this state-which seems to love me unconditionally-must be confused." If too much self-esteem, higher experiences are misinterpreted, not as a transcendence of the self, but as a reward for being the amazing self I am-"the wonder of being me." ~ Ken Wilber, The Religion Of Tomorrow,
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292:the three stages of the ascent :::
There are three stages of the ascent, -at the bottom the bodily life enslaved to the pressure of necessity and desire, in the middle the mental, the higher emotional and psychic rule that feels after greater interests, aspirations, experiences, ideas, and at the summits first a deeper psychic and spiritual state and then a supramental eternal consciousness in which all our aspirations and seekings discover their own intimate significance.In the bodily life first desire and need and then the practical good of the individual and the society are the governing consideration, the dominant force. In the mental life ideas and ideals rule, ideas that are half-lights wearing the garb of Truth, ideals formed by the mind as a result of a growing but still imperfect intuition and experience. Whenever the mental life prevails and the bodily diminishes its brute insistence, man the mental being feels pushed by the urge of mental Nature to mould in the sense of the idea or the ideal the life of the individual, and in the end even the vaguer more complex life of the society is forced to undergo this subtle process.In the spiritual life, or when a higher power than Mind has manifested and taken possession of the nature, these limited motive-forces recede, dwindle, tend to disappear. The spiritual or supramental Self, the Divine Being, the supreme and immanent Reality, must be alone the Lord within us and shape freely our final development according to the highest, widest, most integral expression possible of the law of our nature. In the end that nature acts in the perfect Truth and its spontaneous freedom; for it obeys only the luminous power of the Eternal. The individual has nothing further to gain, no desire to fulfil; he has become a portion of the impersonality or the universal personality of the Eternal. No other object than the manifestation and play of the Divine Spirit in life and the maintenance and conduct of the world in its march towards the divine goal can move him to action. Mental ideas, opinions, constructions are his no more; for his mind has fallen into silence, it is only a channel for the Light and Truth of the divine knowledge. Ideals are too narrow for the vastness of his spirit; it is the ocean of the Infinite that flows through him and moves him for ever.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will,
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293:The object of spiritual knowledge is the Supreme, the Divine, the Infinite and the Absolute. This Supreme has its relations to our individual being and its relations to the universe and it transcends both the soul and the universe. Neither the universe nor the individual are what they seem to be, for the report of them which our mind and our senses give us, is, so long as they are unenlightened by a faculty of higher supramental and suprasensuous knowledge, a false report, an imperfect construction, an attenuated and erroneous figure. And yet that which the universe and the individual seem to be is still a figure of what they really are, a figure that points beyond itself to the reality behind it. Truth proceeds by a correction of the values our mind and senses give us, and first by the action of a higher intelligence that enlightens and sets right as far as may be the conclusions of the ignorant sense-mind and limited physical intelligence; that is the method of all human knowledge and science. But beyond it there is a knowledge, a Truth-Consciousness, that exceeds our intellect and brings us into the true light of which it is a refracted ray.
There the abstract terms of pure reason and the constructions .of the mind disappear or are converted into concrete soul-vision and the tremendous actuality of spiritual experience. This knowledge can turn away to the absolute Eternal and lose vision of the soul and the universe; but it can too see that existence from that Eternal. When that is done, we find that the ignorance of the mind and the senses and all the apparent futilities of human life were not an useless excursion of the conscious being, an otiose blunder. Here they were planned as a rough ground for the self-expression of the Soul that comes from the Infinite, a material foundation for its self-unfolding and self-possessing in the terms of the universe. It is true that in themselves they and all that is here have no significance, and to build separate significances for them is to live in an illusion, Maya; but they have a supreme significance in the Supreme, an absolute Power in the Absolute and it is that that assigns to them and refers to that Truth their present relative values. This is the all-uniting experience that is the foundation of the deepest integral and most intimate self-knowledge and world-knowledge
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, 293, 11457,
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294:But even before that highest approach to identity is achieved, something of the supreme Will can manifest in us as an imperative impulsion, a God-driven action; we then act by a spontaneous self-determining Force but a fuller knowledge of meaning and aim arises only afterwards. Or the impulse to action may come as an inspiration or intuition, but rather in the heart and body than in the mind; here an effective sight enters in but the complete and exact knowledge is still deferred and comes, if at all, lateR But the divine Will may descend too as a luminous single command or a total perception or a continuous current of perception of what is to be done into the will or into the thought or as a direction from above spontaneously fulfilled by the lower members. When the Yoga is imperfect, only some actions can be done in this way, or else a general action may so proceed but only during periods of exaltation and illumination. When the Yoga is perfect, all action becomes of this character. We may indeed distinguish three stages of a growing progress by which, first, the personal will is occasionally or frequently enlightened or moved by a supreme Will or conscious Force beyond it, then constantly replaced and, last, identified and merged in that divine Power-action. The first is the stage when we are still governed by the intellect, heart and senses; these have to seek or wait for the divine inspiration and guidance and do not always find or receive it. The second is the stage when human intelligence is more and more replaced by a high illumined or intuitive spiritualised mind, the external human heart by the inner psychic heart, the senses by a purified and selfless vital force. The third is the stage when we rise even above spiritualised mind to the supramental levels. In all three stages the fundamental character of the liberated action is the same, a spontaneous working of Prakriti no longer through or for the ego but at the will and for the enjoyment of the supreme Purusha. At a higher level this becomes the Truth of the absolute and universal Supreme expressed through the individual soul and worked out consciously through the nature, - no longer through a half-perception and a diminished or distorted effectuation by the stumbling, ignorant and all-deforming energy of lower nature in us but by the all-wise transcendent and universal Mother. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 218,
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295:requirements for the psychic :::
At a certain stage in the Yoga when the mind is sufficiently quieted and no longer supports itself at every step on the sufficiency of its mental certitudes, when the vital has been steadied and subdued and is no longer constantly insistent on its own rash will, demand and desire, when the physical has been sufficiently altered not to bury altogether the inner flame under the mass of its outwardness, obscurity or inertia, an inmost being hidden within and felt only in its rare influences is able to come forward and illumine the rest and take up the lead of the sadhana. Its character is a one-pointed orientation towards the Divine or the Highest, one-pointed and yet plastic in action and movement; it does not create a rigidity of direction like the one-pointed intellect or a bigotry of the regnant idea or impulse like the one-pointed vital force; it is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the Truth, automatically distinguishes the right step from the false, extricates the divine or Godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine. Its action is like a searchlight showing up all that has to be changed in the nature; it has in it a flame of will insistent on perfection, on an alchemic transmutation of all the inner and outer existence. It sees the divine essence everywhere but rejects the mere mask and the disguising figure. It insists on Truth, on will and strength and mastery, on Joy and Love and Beauty, but on a Truth of abiding Knowledge that surpasses the mere practical momentary truth of the Ignorance, on an inward joy and not on mere vital pleasure, -- for it prefers rather a purifying suffering and sorrow to degrading satisfactions, -- on love winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feet sunk in the mire, on beauty restored to its priesthood of interpretation of the Eternal, on strength and will and mastery as instruments not of the ego but of the Spirit. Its will is for the divinisation of life, the expression through it of a higher Truth, its dedication to the Divine and the Eternal.
But the most intimate character of the psychic is its pressure towards the Divine through a sacred love, joy and oneness. It is the divine Love that it seeks most, it is the love of the Divine that is its spur, its goal, its star of Truth shining over the luminous cave of the nascent or the still obscure cradle of the new-born godhead within us.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,
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296:Thus the eternal paradox and eternal truth of a divine life in an animal body, an immortal aspiration or reality inhabiting a mortal tenement, a single and universal consciousness representing itself in limited minds and divided egos, a transcendent, indefinable, timeless and spaceless Being who alone renders time and space and cosmos possible, and in all these the higher truth realisable by the lower term, justify themselves to the deliberate reason as well as to the persistent instinct or intuition of mankind. Attempts are sometimes made to have done finally with questionings which have so often been declared insoluble by logical thought and to persuade men to limit their mental activities to the practical and immediate problems of their material existence in the universe; but such evasions are never permanent in their effect. Mankind returns from them with a more vehement impulse of inquiry or a more violent hunger for an immediate solution. By that hunger mysticism profits and new religions arise to replace the old that have been destroyed or stripped of significance by a scepticism which itself could not satisfy because, although its business was inquiry, it was unwilling sufficiently to inquire. The attempt to deny or stifle a truth because it is yet obscure in its outward workings and too often represented by obscurantist superstition or a crude faith, is itself a kind of obscurantism. The will to escape from a cosmic necessity because it is arduous, difficult to justify by immediate tangible results, slow in regulating its operations, must turn out eventually to have been no acceptance of the truth of Nature but a revolt against the secret, mightier will of the great Mother. It is better and more rational to accept what she will not allow us as a race to reject and lift it from the sphere of blind instinct, obscure intuition and random aspiration into the light of reason and an instructed and consciously self-guiding will. And if there is any higher light of illumined intuition or self-revealing truth which is now in man either obstructed and inoperative or works with intermittent glancings as if from behind a veil or with occasional displays as of the northern lights in our material skies, then there also we need not fear to aspire. For it is likely that such is the next higher state of consciousness of which Mind is only a form and veil, and through the splendours of that light may lie the path of our progressive self-enlargement into whatever highest state is humanity's ultimate resting-place. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Human Aspiration,
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297:
When one is bored, Mother, does that mean one does not progress?
At that time, yes, certainly without a doubt; not only does one not progress, but one misses an opportunity for progressing. There was a concurrence of circumstances which seemed to you dull, boring, stupid and you were in their midst; well, if you get bored, it means that you yourself are as boring as the circumstances! And that is a clear proof that you are simply not in a state of progress. There is nothing more contrary to the very reason of existence than this passing wave of boredom. If you make a little effort within yourself at that time, if you tell yourself: "Wait a bit, what is it that I should learn? What does all that bring to me so that I may learn something? What progress should I make in overcoming myself? What is the weakness that I must overcome? What is the inertia that I must conquer?" If you say that to yourself, you will see the next minute you are no longer bored. You will immediately get interested and you will make progress! This is a commonplace of consciousness.
And then, you know, most people when they get bored, instead of trying to rise a step higher, descend a step lower, they become still worse than what they were, and they do all the stupid things that others do, go in for all the vulgarities, all the meannesses, everything, in order to amuse themselves. They get intoxicated, take poison, ruin their health, ruin their brain, they utter crudities. They do all that because they are bored. Well, if instead of going down, one had risen up, one would have profited by the circumstances. Instead of profiting, one falls a little lower yet than where one was. When people get a big blow in their life, some misfortune (what men call "misfortune", there are people who do have misfortunes), the first thing they try to do is to forget it - as though one did not forget quickly enough! And to forget, they do anything whatsoever. When there is something painful, they want to distract themselves - what they call distraction, that is, doing stupid things, that is to say, going down in their consciousness, going down a little instead of rising up.... Has something extremely painful happened to you, something very grievous? Do not become stupefied, do not seek forgetfulness, do not go down into the inconscience; you must go to the end and find the light that is behind, the truth, the force and the joy; and for that you must be strong and refuse to slide down. But that we shall see a little later, my children, when you will be a little older. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 50,
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298:Disciple: What are the conditions of success in this yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: I have often told of them. Those go through who have the central sincerity. It does not mean that the sincerity is there in all the parts of the being. In that sense no one is entirely ready. But if the central sincerity is there it is possible to establish it in all the parts of the being.
The second thing necessary is a certain receptivity in the being, what we call, the "opening" up of all the planes to the Higher Power.
The third thing required is the power of holding the higher Force, a certain ghanatwa - mass - that can hold the Power when it comes down.
And about the thing that pushes there are two things that generally push: One is the Central Being. The other is destiny. If the Central Being wants to do something it pushes the man. Even when the man goes off the line he is pushed back again to the path. Of course, the Central Being may push through the mind or any other part of the being. Also, if the man is destined he is pushed to the path either to go through or to get broken,
Disciple: There are some people who think they are destined or chosen and we see that they are not "chosen".
Sri Aurobindo: Of course, plenty of people think that they are specially "chosen" and that they are the first and the "elect" and so on. All that is nothing.
Disciple: Then, can you. say who is fit out of all those that have come?
Sri Aurobindo: It is very difficult to say. But this can be said that everyone of those who have come in has some chance to go through if he can hold on to it.
Disciple: There is also a chance of failure.
Sri Aurobindo: Of course, and besides, the whole universe is a play of forces and one can't always wait till all the conditions of success have been fulfilled. One has to take risks and take his chance.
Disciple: What is meant by "chance"? Does it mean that it is only one possibility out of many others, or does it mean that one would be able to succeed in yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: It means only that he can succeed if he takes his chance properly. For instance, X had his chance.
Disciple: Those who fall on the path or slip, do they go down in their evolution?
Sri Aurobindo: That depends. Ultimately, the Yoga may be lost to him.
Disciple: The Gita says: Na hi kalyānkṛt - nothing that is beneficial - comes to a bad end.
Sri Aurobindo: That is from another standpoint. You must note the word is kalyān kṛt - it is an important addition.
~ Sri Aurobindo, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, RECORDED BY A B PURANI (20-09-1926),
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299:The last sentence: "...in the Truth-Creation the law is that of a constant unfolding without any Pralaya." What is this constant unfolding?
The Truth-Creation... it is the last line? (Mother consults the book) I think we have already spoken about this several times. It has been said that in the process of creation, there is the movement of creation followed by a movement of preservation and ending in a movement of disintegration or destruction; and even it has been repeated very often: "All that begins must end", etc., etc.
In fact in the history of our universe there have been six consecutive periods which began by a creation, were prolonged by a force of preservation and ended by a disintegration, a destruction, a return to the Origin, which is called Pralaya; and that is why this tradition is there. But it has been said that the seventh creation would be a progressive creation, that is, after the starting-point of the creation, instead of its being simply followed by a preservation, it would be followed by a progressive manifestation which would express the Divine more and more completely, so that no disintegration and return to the Origin would be necessary. And it has been announced that the period we are in is precisely the seventh, that is, it would not end by a Pralaya, a return to the Origin, a destruction, a disappearance, but that it would be replaced by a constant progress, because it would be a more and more perfect unfolding of the divine Origin in its creation.
And this is what Sri Aurobindo says. He speaks of a constant unfolding, that is, the Divine manifests more and more completely; more and more perfectly, in a progressive creation. It is the nature of this progression which makes the return to the Origin, the destruction no longer necessary. All that does not progress disappears, and that is why physical bodies die, it's because they are not progressive; they are progressive up to a certain moment, then there they stop and most often they remain stable for a certain time, and then they begin to decline, and then disappear. It's because the physical body, physical matter as it is at present is not plastic enough to be able to progress constantly. But it is not impossible to make it sufficiently plastic for the perfecting of the physical body to be such that it no longer needs disintegration, that is, death.
Only, this cannot be realised except by the descent of the Supermind which is a force higher than all those which have so far manifested and which will give the body a plasticity that will allow it to progress constantly, that is, to follow the divine movement in its unfolding. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, 207-209,
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300:Has creation a definite aim? Is there something like a final end to which it is moving?
The Mother: No, the universe is a movement that is eternally unrolling itself. There is nothing which you can fix upon as the end and one aim. But for the sake of action we have to section the movement, which is itself unending, and to say that this or that is the goal, for in action we need something upon which we can fix our aim. In a picture you need a definite scheme of composition and colour; you have to set a limit, to put the whole thing within a fixed framework; but the limit is illusory, the frame is a mere convention. There is a constant continuation of the picture that stretches beyond any particular frame, and each continuation can be drawn in the same conditions in an unending series of frames. Our aim is this or that, we say, but we know that it is only the beginning of another aim beyond it, and that in its turn leads to yet another; the series develop always and never stop.
What is the proper function of the intellect? Is it a help or a hindrance to Sadhana?
Whether the intellect is a help or a hindrance depends upon the person and upon the way in which it is used. There is a true movement of the intellect and there is a wrong movement; one helps, the other hinders. The intellect that believes too much in its own importance and wants satisfaction for its own sake, is an obstacle to the higher realisation.
But this is true not in any special sense or for the intellect alone, but generally and of other faculties as well. For example, people do not regard an all-engrossing satisfaction of the vital desires or the animal appetites as a virtue; the moral sense is accepted as a mentor to tell one the bounds that one may not transgress. It is only in his intellectual activities that man thinks he can do without any such mentor or censor!
Any part of the being that keeps to its proper place and plays its appointed role is helpful; but directly it steps beyond its sphere, it becomes twisted and perverted and therefore false. A power has the right movement when it is set into activity for the divine's purpose; it has the wrong movement when it is set into activity for its own satisfaction.
The intellect, in its true nature, is an instrument of expression and action. It is something like an intermediary between the true knowledge, whose seat is in the higher regions above the mind, and realisation here below. The intellect or, generally speaking, the mind gives the form; the vital puts in the dynamism and life-power; the material comes in last and embodies. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 28th April 1931 and 5th May 1929,
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301:What is the difference between meditation and concentration?
Meditation is a purely mental activity, it interests only the mental being. One can concentrate while meditating but this is a mental concentration; one can get a silence but it is a purely mental silence, and the other parts of the being are kept immobile and inactive so as not to disturb the meditation. You may pass twenty hours of the day in meditation and for the remaining four hours you will be an altogether ordinary man because only the mind has been occupied-the rest of the being, the vital and the physical, is kept under pressure so that it may not disturb. In meditation nothing is directly done for the other parts of the being.
Certainly this indirect action can have an effect, but... I have known in my life people whose capacity for meditation was remarkable but who, when not in meditation, were quite ordinary men, even at times ill-natured people, who would become furious if their meditation was disturbed. For they had learnt to master only their mind, not the rest of their being.
Concentration is a more active state. You may concentrate mentally, you may concentrate vitally, psychically, physically, and you may concentrate integrally. Concentration or the capacity to gather oneself at one point is more difficult than meditation. You may gather together one portion of your being or consciousness or you may gather together the whole of your consciousness or even fragments of it, that is, the concentration may be partial, total or integral, and in each case the result will be different.
If you have the capacity to concentrate, your meditation will be more interesting and easieR But one can meditate without concentrating. Many follow a chain of ideas in their meditation - it is meditation, not concentration. Is it possible to distinguish the moment when one attains perfect concentration from the moment when, starting from this concentration, one opens oneself to the universal Energy?
Yes. You concentrate on something or simply you gather yourself together as much as is possible for you and when you attain a kind of perfection in concentration, if you can sustain this perfection for a sufficiently long time, then a door opens and you pass beyond the limit of your ordinary consciousness-you enter into a deeper and higher knowledge. Or you go within. Then you may experience a kind of dazzling light, an inner wonder, a beatitude, a complete knowledge, a total silence. There are, of course, many possibilities but the phenomenon is always the same.
To have this experience all depends upon your capacity to maintain your concentration sufficiently long at its highest point of perfection. ~ The Mother,
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302:The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, clear state of mind and heart is established.
This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pranayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalini, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga, 36,
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303:root of the falsification and withdrawl of divine love :::
At every moment they are moved to take egoistic advantage of the psychic and spiritual influences and can be detected using the power, joy or light these bring into us for a lower life-motive. Afterwards too, even when the seeker has opened to the Divine Love transcendental, universal or immanent, yet if he tries to pour it into life, he meets the power of obscuration and perversion of these lower Nature-forces. Always they draw away towards pitfalls, pour into that higher intensity their diminishing elements, seek to capture the descending Power for themselves and their interests and degrade it into an aggrandised mental, vital or physical instrumentation for desire and ego. Instead of a Divine Love creator of a new heaven and a new earth of Truth and Light, they would hold it here prisoner as a tremendous sanction and glorifying force of sublimation to gild the mud of the old earth and colour with its rose and sapphire the old turbid unreal skies of sentimentalising vital imagination and mental idealised chimera. If that falsification is permitted, the higher Light and Power and Bliss withdraw, there is a fall back to a lower status; or else the realisation remains tied to an insecure half-way and mixture or is covered and even submerged by an inferior exaltation that is not the true Ananda. It is for this reason that Divine Love which is at the heart of all creation and the most powerful of all redeeming and creative forces has yet been the least frontally present in earthly life, the least successfully redemptive, the least creative. Human nature has been unable to bear it in its purity for the very reason that it is the most powerful, pure, rare and intense of all the divine energies; what little could be seized has been corrupted at once into a vital pietistic ardour, a defenceless religious or ethical sentimentalism, a sensuous or even sensual erotic mysticism of the roseate coloured mind or passionately turbid life-impulse and with these simulations compensated its inability to house the Mystic Flame that could rebuild the world with its tongues of sacrifice. It is only the inmost psychic being unveiled and emerging in its full power that can lead the pilgrim sacrifice unscathed through these ambushes and pitfalls; at each moment it catches, exposes, repels the mind's and the life's falsehoods, seizes hold on the truth of the Divine Love and Ananda and separates it from the excitement of the mind's ardours and the blind enthusiasms of the misleading life-force. But all things that are true at their core in mind and life and the physical being it extricates and takes with it in the journey till they stand on the heights, new in spirit and sublime in figure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 166,
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304:the process of unification, the perfecting our one's instrumental being, the help one needs to reach the goal :::
If we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavor.
As you pursue this labor of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection. ... It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us [the psychic being], to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it.
In various times and places many methods have been prescribed for attaining this perfection and ultimately achieving this identification. Some methods are psychological, some religious, some even mechanical. In reality, everyone has to find the one which suits him best, and if one has an ardent and steadfast aspiration, a persistent and dynamic will, one is sure to meet, in one way or another - outwardly through reading and study, inwardly through concentration, meditation, revelation and experience - the help one needs to reach the goal. Only one thing is absolutely indispensable: the will to discover and to realize. This discovery and realization should be the primary preoccupation of our being, the pearl of great price which we must acquire at any cost. Whatever you do, whatever your occupations and activities, the will to find the truth of your being and to unite with it must be always living and present behind all that you do, all that you feel, all that you think.
~ The Mother, On Education, [T1],
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305:- for every well-made and significant poem, picture, statue or building is an act of creative knowledge, a living discovery of the consciousness, a figure of Truth, a dynamic form of mental and vital self-expression or world-expression, - all that seeks, all that finds, all that voices or figures is a realisation of something of the play of the Infinite and to that extent can be made a means of God-realisation or of divine formation. But the Yogin has to see that it is no longer done as part of an ignorant mental life; it can be accepted by him only if by the feeling, the remembrance, the dedication within it, it is turned into a movement of the spiritual consciousness and becomes a part of its vast grasp of comprehensive illuminating knowledge.
For all must be done as a sacrifice, all activities must have the One Divine for their object and the heart of their meaning. The Yogin's aim in the sciences that make for knowledge should be to discover and understand the workings of the Divine Consciousness-Puissance in man and creatures and things and forces, her creative significances, her execution of the mysteries, the symbols in which she arranges the manifestation. The Yogin's aim in the practical sciences, whether mental and physical or occult and psychic, should be to enter into the ways of the Divine and his processes, to know the materials and means for the work given to us so that we may use that knowledge for a conscious and faultless expression of the spirit's mastery, joy and self-fulfilment. The Yogin's aim in the Arts should not be a mere aesthetic, mental or vital gratification, but, seeing the Divine everywhere, worshipping it with a revelation of the meaning of its own works, to express that One Divine in ideal forms, the One Divine in principles and forces, the One Divine in gods and men and creatures and objects. The theory that sees an intimate connection between religious aspiration and the truest and greatest Art is in essence right; but we must substitute for the mixed and doubtful religious motive a spiritual aspiration, vision, interpreting experience. For the wider and more comprehensive the seeing, the more it contains in itself the sense of the hidden Divine in humanity and in all things and rises beyond a superficial religiosity into the spiritual life, the more luminous, flexible, deep and powerful will the Art be that springs from that high motive. The Yogin's distinction from other men is this that he lives in a higher and vaster spiritual consciousness; all his work of knowledge or creation must then spring from there: it must not be made in the mind, - for it is a greater truth and vision than mental man's that he has to express or rather that presses to express itself through him and mould his works, not for his personal satisfaction, but for a divine purpose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 142 [T4],
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306:The madman.-
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place. and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" -As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -Thus they yelled and laughed.
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him-you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward. forward. in all directions? be there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too. decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us-for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then: "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars-and yet they have done it themselves... It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his reqttiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Kaufmann,
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307:3. Conditions internal and external that are most essential for meditation. There are no essential external conditions, but solitude and seculsion at the time of meditation as well as stillness of the body are helpful, sometimes almost necessary to the beginning. But one should not be bound by external conditions. Once the habit of meditation is formed, it should be made possible to do it in all circumstances, lying, sitting, walking, alone, in company, in silence or in the midst of noise etc.
The first internal condition necessary is concentration of the will against the obstacles to meditation, i.e. wandering of the mind, forgetfulness, sleep, physical and nervous impatience and restlessness etc. If the difficulty in meditation is that thoughts of all kinds come in, that is not due to hostile forces but to the ordinary nature of the human mind. All sadhaks have this difficulty and with many it lasts for a very long time. There are several was of getting rid of it. One of them is to look at the thoughts and observe what is the nature of the human mind as they show it but not to give any sanction and to let them run down till they come to a standstill - this is a way recommended by Vivekananda in his Rajayoga. Another is to look at the thoughts as not one's own, to stand back as the witness Purusha and refuse the sanction - the thoughts are regarded as things coming from outside, from Prakriti, and they must be felt as if they were passers-by crossing the mind-space with whom one has no connection and in whom one takes no interest. In this way it usually happens that after the time the mind divides into two, a part which is the mental witness watching and perfectly undisturbed and quiet and a part in which the thoughts cross or wander. Afterwards one can proceed to silence or quiet the Prakriti part also. There is a third, an active method by which one looks to see where the thoughts come from and finds they come not from oneself, but from outside the head as it were; if one can detect them coming, then, before enter, they have to be thrown away altogether. This is perhaps the most difficult way and not all can do it, but if it can be done it is the shortest and most powerful road to silence. It is not easy to get into the Silence. That is only possible by throwing out all mental-vital activities. It is easier to let the Silence descend into you, i.e., to open yourself and let it descend. The way to do this and the way to call down the higher powers is the same. It is to remain quiet at the time of efforts to pull down the Power or the Silence but keeping only a silent will and aspiration for them. If the mind is active one has to learn to look at it, drawn back and not giving sanction from within, until its habitual or mechanical activities begin to fall quiet for want of support from within. if it is too persistent, a steady rejection without strain or struggle is the one thing to be done.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Autobiographical Notes,
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308:An integral Yoga includes as a vital and indispensable element in its total and ultimate aim the conversion of the whole being into a higher spiritual consciousness and a larger divine existence. Our parts of will and action, our parts of knowledge, our thinking being, our emotional being, our being of life, all our self and nature must seek the Divine, enter into the Infinite, unite with the Eternal. But mans present nature is limited, divided, unequal, -- it is easiest for him to concentrate in the strongest part of his being and follow a definite line of progress proper to his nature: only rare individuals have the strength to take a large immediate plunge straight into the sea of the Divine Infinity. Some therefore must choose as a starting-point a concentration in thought or contemplation or the minds one-pointedness to find the eternal reality of the Self in them; others can more easily withdraw into the heart to meet there the Divine, the Eternal: yet others are predominantly dynamic and active; for these it is best to centre themselves in the will and enlarge their being through works. United with the Self and source of all by their surrender of their will into its infinity, guided in their works by the secret Divinity within or surrendered to the Lord of the cosmic action as the master and mover of all their energies of thought, feeling, act, becoming by this enlargement of being selfless and universal, they can reach by works some first fullness of a spiritual status. But the path, whatever its point of starting, must debouch into a vaster dominion; it must proceed in the end through a totality of integrated knowledge, emotion, will of dynamic action, perfection of the being and the entire nature. In the supramental consciousness, on the level of the supramental existence this integration becomes consummate; there knowledge, will, emotion, the perfection of the self and the dynamic nature rise each to its absolute of itself and all to their perfect harmony and fusion with each other, to a divine integrality, a divine perfection. For the supermind is a Truth-Consciousness in which the Divine Reality, fully manifested, no longer works with the instrumentation of the Ignorance; a truth of status of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of energy and activity of the being which is self-existent and perfect. Every movement there is a movement of the self-aware truth of Divine Being and every part is in entire harmony with the whole. Even the most limited and finite action is in the Truth-Consciousness a movement of the Eternal and Infinite and partakes of the inherent absoluteness and perfection of the Eternal and Infinite. An ascent into the supramental Truth not only raises our spiritual and essential consciousness to that height but brings about a descent of this Light and Truth into all our being and all our parts of nature. All then becomes part of the Divine Truth, an element and means of the supreme union and oneness; this ascent and descent must be therefore an ultimate aim of this Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Supermind and the Yoga of Works [279-280],
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309:28 August 1957
Mother, Sri Aurobindo says here: "Whether the whole of humanity would be touched [by the Supramental influence] or only a part of it ready for the change would depend on what was intended or possible in the continued order of the universe."
The Supramental Manifestation, SABCL, Vol. 16, p. 56
What is meant by "what was intended or possible"? The two things are different. So far you have said that if humanity changes, if it wants to participate in the new birth...
It is the same thing. But when you look at an object on a certain plane, you see it horizontally, and when you look at the same object from another plane, you see it vertically. (Mother shows the cover and the back of her book.) So, if one looks from above, one says "intended"; if one looks from below, one says "possible".... But it is absolutely the same thing, only the point of view is different.
But in that case, it is not our incapacity or lack of will to change that makes any difference.
We have already said this many a time. If you remain in a consciousness which functions mentally, even if it is the highest mind, you have the notion of an absolute determinism of cause and effect and feel that things are what they are because they are what they are and cannot be otherwise.
It is only when you come out of the mental consciousness completely and enter a higher perception of things - which you may call spiritual or divine - that you suddenly find yourself in a state of perfect freedom where everything is possible.
(Silence)
Those who have contacted that state or lived in it, even if only for a moment, try to describe it as a feeling of an absolute Will in action, which immediately gives to the human mentality the feeling of being arbitrary. And because of that distortion there arises the idea - which I might call traditional - of a supreme and arbitrary God, which is something most unacceptable to every enlightened mind. I suppose that this experience badly expressed is at the origin of this notion. And in fact it is incorrect to express it as an absolute Will: it is very, very, very different. It is something else altogether. For, what man understands by "Will" is a decision that is taken and carried out. We are obliged to use the word "will", but in its truth the Will acting in the universe is neither a choice nor a decision that is taken. What seems to me the closest expression is "vision". Things are because they are seen. But of course "seen", not seen as we see with these eyes.
(Mother touches her eyes...) All the same, it is the nearest thing.
It is a vision - a vision unfolding itself.
The universe becomes objective as it is progressively seen.
And that is why Sri Aurobindo has said "intended or possible". It is neither one nor the other. All that can be said is a distortion.
(Silence)
Objectivisation - universal objectivisation - is something like a projection in space and time, like a living image of what is from all eternity. And as the image is gradually projected on the screen of time and space, it becomes objective:
The Supreme contemplating His own Image.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,
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310:What do you mean by these words: 'When you are in difficulty, widen yourself'?
I am speaking, of course, of difficulties on the path of yoga, incomprehension, limitations, things like obstacles, which prevent you from advancing. And when I say "widen yourself", I mean widen your consciousness.
Difficulties always arise from the ego, that is, from your more or less egoistic personal reaction to circumstances, events and people around you, to the conditions of your life. They also come from that feeling of being closed up in a sort of shell, which prevents your consciousness from uniting with higher and vaster realities.
One may very well think that one wants to be vast, wants to be universal, that all is the expression of the Divine, that one must have no egoism - one may think all sorts of things - but that is not necessarily a cure, for very often one knows what one ought to do, and yet one doesn't do it, for one reason or another.
But if, when you have to face anguish, suffering, revolt, pain or a feeling of helplessness - whatever it may be, all the things that come to you on the path and which precisely are your difficulties-if physically, that is to say, in your body- consciousness, you can have the feeling of widening yourself, one could say of unfolding yourself - you feel as it were all folded up, one fold on another like a piece of cloth which is folded and refolded and folded again - so if you have this feeling that what is holding and strangling you and making you suffer or paralysing your movement, is like a too closely, too tightly folded piece of cloth or like a parcel that is too well-tied, too well-packed, and that slowly, gradually, you undo all the folds and stretch yourself out exactly as one unfolds a piece of cloth or a sheet of paper and spreads it out flat, and you lie flat and make yourself very wide, as wide as possible, spreading yourself out as far as you can, opening yourself and stretching out in an attitude of complete passivity with what I could call "the face to the light": not curling back upon your difficulty, doubling up on it, shutting it in, so to say, into yourself, but, on the contrary, unfurling yourself as much as you can, as perfectly as you can, putting the difficulty before the Light - the Light which comes from above - if you do that in all the domains, and even if mentally you don't succeed in doing it - for it is sometimes difficult - if you can imagine yourself doing this physically, almost materially, well, when you have finished unfolding yourself and stretching yourself out, you will find that more than three-quarters of the difficulty is gone. And then just a little work of receptivity to the Light and the last quarter will disappear.
This is much easier than struggling against a difficulty with one's thought, for if you begin to discuss with yourself, you will find that there are arguments for and against which are so convincing that it is quite impossible to get out of it without a higher light. Here, you do not struggle against the difficulty, you do not try to convince yourself; ah! you simply stretch out in the Light as though you lay stretched on the sands in the sun. And you let the Light do its work. That's all. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers, Volume-8, page no.286-288),
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311:There is no invariable rule of such suffering. It is not the soul that suffers; the Self is calm and equal to all things and the only sorrow of the psychic being is the sorrow of the resistance of Nature to the Divine Will or the resistance of things and people to the call of the True, the Good and the Beautiful. What is affected by suffering is the vital nature and the body. When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt - which may create mental and vital suffering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature whose principal character is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffering of the mind and vital parts. The physical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incomprehension, an inability to respond to the higher consciousness, a habit of helplessly responding to the lower mechanically, even when it does not want to do so; both vital and physical suffering may be the consequence. There is moreover the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence on the continuation of the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses, desires, feelings, responses continue even after they are thrown out and rejected, and can return like an invading army from outside, until the whole nature, given to the Divine, refuses to admit them. This is the subjective form of the universal resistance, but it may also take an objective form - opposition, calumny, attacks, persecution, misfortunes of many kinds, adverse conditions and circumstances, pain, illness, assaults from men or forces. There too the possibility of suffering is evident. There are two ways to meet all that - first that of the Self, calm, equality, a spirit, a will, a mind, a vital, a physical consciousness that remain resolutely turned towards the Divine and unshaken by all suggestion of doubt, desire, attachment, depression, sorrow, pain, inertia. This is possible when the inner being awakens, when one becomes conscious of the Self, of the inner mind, the inner vital, the inner physical, for that can more easily attune itself to the divine Will, and then there is a division in the being as if there were two beings, one within, calm, strong, equal, unperturbed, a channel of the Divine Consciousness and Force, one without, still encroached on by the lower Nature; but then the disturbances of the latter become something superficial which are no more than an outer ripple, - until these under the inner pressure fade and sink away and the outer being too remains calm, concentrated, unattackable. There is also the way of the psychic, - when the psychic being comes out in its inherent power, its consecration, adoration, love of the Divine, self-giving, surrender and imposes these on the mind, vital and physical consciousness and compels them to turn all their movements Godward. If the psychic is strong and master...
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, Resistances, Sufferings and Falls, 669,
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312:Can it be said in justification of one's past that whatever has happened in one's life had to happen?
The Mother: Obviously, what has happened had to happen; it would not have been, if it had not been intended. Even the mistakes that we have committed and the adversities that fell upon us had to be, because there was some necessity in them, some utility for our lives. But in truth these things cannot be explained mentally and should not be. For all that happened was necessary, not for any mental reason, but to lead us to something beyond what the mind imagines. But is there any need to explain after all? The whole universe explains everything at every moment and a particular thing happens because the whole universe is what it is. But this does not mean that we are bound over to a blind acquiescence in Nature's inexorable law. You can accept the past as a settled fact and perceive the necessity in it, and still you can use the experience it gave you to build up the power consciously to guide and shape your present and your future.
Is the time also of an occurrence arranged in the Divine Plan of things?
The Mother: All depends upon the plane from which one sees and speaks. There is a plane of divine consciousness in which all is known absolutely, and the whole plan of things foreseen and predetermined. That way of seeing lives in the highest reaches of the Supramental; it is the Supreme's own vision. But when we do not possess that consciousness, it is useless to speak in terms that hold good only in that region and are not our present effective way of seeing things. For at a lower level of consciousness nothing is realised or fixed beforehand; all is in the process of making. Here there are no settled facts, there is only the play of possibilities; out of the clash of possibilities is realised the thing that has to happen. On this plane we can choose and select; we can refuse one possibility and accept another; we can follow one path, turn away from another. And that we can do, even though what is actually happening may have been foreseen and predetermined in a higher plane.
The Supreme Consciousness knows everything beforehand, because everything is realised there in her eternity. But for the sake of her play and in order to carry out actually on the physical plane what is foreordained in her own supreme self, she moves here upon earth as if she did not know the whole story; she works as if it was a new and untried thread that she was weaving. It is this apparent forgetfulness of her own foreknowledge in the higher consciousness that gives to the individual in the active life of the world his sense of freedom and independence and initiative. These things in him are her pragmatic tools or devices, and it is through this machinery that the movements and issues planned and foreseen elsewhere are realised here.
It may help you to understand if you take the example of an actor. An actor knows the whole part he has to play; he has in his mind the exact sequence of what is to happen on the stage. But when he is on the stage, he has to appear as if he did not know anything; he has to feel and act as if he were experiencing all these things for the first time, as if it was an entirely new world with all its chance events and surprises that was unrolling before his eyes. 28th April ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,
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313:In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration.
A certain kind of Agnosticism is the final truth of all knowledge. For when we come to the end of whatever path, the universe appears as only a symbol or an appearance of an unknowable Reality which translates itself here into different systems of values, physical values, vital and sensational values, intellectual, ideal and spiritual values. The more That becomes real to us, the more it is seen to be always beyond defining thought and beyond formulating expression. "Mind attains not there, nor speech."3 And yet as it is possible to exaggerate, with the Illusionists, the unreality of the appearance, so it is possible to exaggerate the unknowableness of the Unknowable. When we speak of It as unknowable, we mean, really, that It escapes the grasp of our thought and speech, instruments which proceed always by the sense of difference and express by the way of definition; but if not knowable by thought, It is attainable by a supreme effort of consciousness. There is even a kind of Knowledge which is one with Identity and by which, in a sense, It can be known. Certainly, that Knowledge cannot be reproduced successfully in the terms of thought and speech, but when we have attained to it, the result is a revaluation of That in the symbols of our cosmic consciousness, not only in one but in all the ranges of symbols, which results in a revolution of our internal being and, through the internal, of our external life. Moreover, there is also a kind of Knowledge through which That does reveal itself by all these names and forms of phenomenal existence which to the ordinary intelligence only conceal It. It is this higher but not highest process of Knowledge to which we can attain by passing the limits of the materialistic formula and scrutinising Life, Mind and Supermind in the phenomena that are characteristic of them and not merely in those subordinate movements by which they link themselves to Matter.
The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity. And since in man there is the inalienable impulse of Nature towards self-realisation, no struggle of the intellect to limit the action of our capacities within a determined area can for ever prevail. When we have proved Matter and realised its secret capacities, the very knowledge which has found its convenience in that temporary limitation, must cry to us, like the Vedic Restrainers, 'Forth now and push forward also in other fields.'
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,
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314:It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in the Yoga will proceed to its object; for liberation, perfection, mastery are dependent on this integralisation, since the little wave on the surface cannot control its own movement, much less have any true control over the vast life around it. The Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks up our present psychological formations, shatters every wall, widens, liberates, presents us with always newer and greater powers of vision, ideation, perception and newer and greater life-motives, enlarges and newmodels increasingly the soul and its instruments, confronts us with every imperfection in order to convict and destroy it, opens to a greater perfection, does in a brief period the work of many lives or ages so that new births and new vistas open constantly within us. Expansive in her action, she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, feeling the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe. It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. We begin to perceive the working of the forces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working, separate from within the truth and falsehood of our perceptions, enlarge their field, extend and illumine their significance, become master of our own minds and active to shape the movements of Mind in the world around us. We begin to perceive the flow and surge of the universal life-forces, detect the origin and law of our feelings, emotions, sensations, passions, are free to accept, reject, new-create, open to wider, rise to higher planes of Life-Power. We begin to perceive too the key to the enigma of Matter, follow the interplay of Mind and Life and Consciousness upon it, discover more and more its instrumental and resultant function and detect ultimately the last secret of Matter as a form not merely of Energy but of involved and arrested or unstably fixed and restricted consciousness and begin to see too the possibility of its liberation and plasticity of response to higher Powers, its possibilities for the conscious and no longer the more than half-inconscient incarnation and self-expression of the Spirit. All this and more becomes more and more possible as the working of the Divine Shakti increases in us and, against much resistance or labour to respond of our obscure consciousness, through much struggle and movement of progress and regression and renewed progress necessitated by the work of intensive transformation of a half-inconscient into a conscious substance, moves to a greater purity, truth, height, range. All depends on the psychic awakening in us, the completeness of our response to her and our growing surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 183,
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315:We have now completed our view of the path of Knowledge and seen to what it leads. First, the end of Yoga of Knowledge is God-possession, it is to possess God and be possessed by him through consciousness, through identification, through reflection of the divine Reality. But not merely in some abstraction away from our present existence, but here also; therefore to possess the Divine in himself, the Divine in the world, the Divine within, the Divine in all things and all beings. It is to possess oneness with God and through that to possess also oneness with the universal, with the cosmos and all existences; therefore to possess the infinite diversity also in the oneness, but on the basis of oneness and not on the basis of division. It is to possess God in his personality and his impersonality; in his purity free from qualities and in his infinite qualities; in time and beyond time; in his action and in his silence; in the finite and in the infinite. It is to possess him not only in pure self, but in all self; not only in self, but in Nature; not only in spirit, but in supermind, mind, life and body; to possess him with the spirit, with the mind, with the vital and the physical consciousness; and it is again for all these to be possessed by him, so that our whole being is one with him, full of him, governed and driven by him. It is, since God is oneness, for our physical consciousness to be one with the soul and the nature of the material universe; for our life, to be one with all life; for our mind, to be one with the universal mind; for our spirit, to be identified with the universal spirit. It is to merge in him in the absolute and find him in all relations. Secondly, it is to put on the divine being and the divine nature. And since God is Sachchidananda, it is to raise our being into the divine being, our consciousness into the divine consciousness, our energy into the divine energy, our delight of existence into the divine delight of being. And it is not only to lift ourselves into this higher consciousness, but to widen into it in all our being, because it is to be found on all the planes of our existence and in all our members, so that our mental, vital, physical existence shall become full of the divine nature. Our intelligent mentality is to become a play of the divine knowledge-will, our mental soul-life a play of the divine love and delight, our vitality a play of the divine life, our physical being a mould of the divine substance. This God-action in us is to be realised by an opening of ourselves to the divine gnosis and divine Ananda and, in its fullness, by an ascent into and a permanent dwelling in the gnosis and the Ananda. For though we live physically on the material plane and in normal outwardgoing life the mind and soul are preoccupied with material existence, this externality of our being is not a binding limitation. We can raise our internal consciousness from plane to plane of the relations of Purusha with prakriti, and even become, instead of the mental being dominated by the physical soul and nature, the gnostic being or the bliss-self and assume the gnostic or the bliss nature. And by this raising of the inner life we can transform our whole outward-going existence; instead of a life dominated by matter we shall then have a life dominated by spirit with all its circumstances moulded and determined by the purity of being, the consciousness infinite even in the finite, the divine energy, the divine joy and bliss of the spirit.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge [511] [T1],
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316:Wake-Initiated Lucid Dreams (WILDS)
In the last chapter we talked about strategies for inducing lucid dreams by carrying an idea from the waking world into the dream, such as an intention to comprehend the dream state, a habit of critical state testing, or the recognition of a dreamsign. These strategies are intended to stimulate a dreamer to become lucid within a dream.
This chapter presents a completely different set of approaches to the world of lucid dreaming based on the idea of falling asleep consciously. This involves retaining consciousness while wakefulness is lost and allows direct entry into the lucid dream state without any loss of reflective consciousness. The basic idea has many variations.
While falling asleep, you can focus on hypnagogic (sleep onset) imagery, deliberate visualizations, your breath or heartbeat, the sensations in your body, your sense of self, and so on. If you keep the mind sufficiently active while the tendency to enter REM sleep is strong, you feel your body fall asleep, but you, that is to say, your consciousness, remains awake. The next thing you know, you will find yourself in the dream world, fully lucid.
These two different strategies for inducing lucidity result in two distinct types of lucid dreams. Experiences in which people consciously enter dreaming sleep are referred to as wake-initiated lucid dreams (WILDs), in contrast to dream-initiated lucid dreams (DILDs), in which people become lucid after having fallen asleep unconsciously. 1 The two kinds of lucid dreams differ in a number of ways. WILDs always happen in association with brief awakenings (sometimes only one or two seconds long) from and immediate return to REM sleep. The sleeper has a subjective impression of having been awake. This is not true of DILDs. Although both kinds of lucid dream are more likely to occur later in the night, the proportion of WILDs also increases with time of night. In other words, WILDs are most likely to occur the late morning hours or in afternoon naps. This is strikingly evident in my own record of lucid dreams. Of thirty-three lucid dreams from the first REM period of the night, only one (3 percent) was a WILD, compared with thirteen out of thirty-two (41 percent) lucid dreams from afternoon naps. 2 Generally speaking, WILDs are less frequent than DILDs; in a laboratory study of seventy-six lucid dreams, 72 percent were DILDs compared with 28 percent WILDs. 3 The proportion of WILDs observed in the laboratory seems, by my experience, to be considerably higher than the proportion of WILDs reported at home.
To take a specific example, WILDs account for only 5 percent of my home record of lucid dreams, but for 40 percent of my first fifteen lucid dreams in the laboratory. 4 Ibelieve there are two reasons for this highly significant difference: whenever I spentthe night in the sleep laboratory, I was highly conscious of every time I awakened andI made extraordinary efforts not to move more than necessary in order to minimizeinterference with the physiological recordings.
Thus, my awakenings from REM in the lab were more likely to lead toconscious returns to REM than awakenings at home when I was sleeping with neitherheightened consciousness of my environment and self nor any particular intent not tomove. This suggests that WILD induction techniques might be highly effective underthe proper conditions.
Paul Tholey notes that, while techniques for direct entry to the dream staterequire considerable practice in the beginning, they offer correspondingly greatrewards. 5 When mastered, these techniques (like MILD) can confer the capacity toinduce lucid dreams virtually at will. ~ Stephen LaBerge, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, 4 - Falling Asleep Consciously,
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317:
Sometimes while reading a text one has ideas, then Sweet Mother, how can one distinguish between the other person's idea and one's own?
Oh! This, this doesn't exist, the other person's idea and one's own idea.
Nobody has ideas of his own: it is an immensity from which one draws according to his personal affinity; ideas are a collective possession, a collective wealth.
Only, there are different stages. So there is the most common level, the one where all our brains bathe; this indeed swarms here, it is the level of "Mr. Everybody". And then there is a level that's slightly higher for people who are called thinkers. And then there are higher levels still - many - some of them are beyond words but they are still domains of ideas. And then there are those capable of shooting right up, catching something which is like a light and making it come down with all its stock of ideas, all its stock of thoughts. An idea from a higher domain if pulled down organises itself and is crystallised in a large number of thoughts which can express that idea differently; and then if you are a writer or a poet or an artist, when you make it come lower down still, you can have all kinds of expressions, extremely varied and choice around a single little idea but one coming from very high above. And when you know how to do this, it teaches you to distinguish between the pure idea and the way of expressing it.
Some people cannot do it in their own head because they have no imagination or faculty for writing, but they can do it through study by reading what others have written. There are, you know, lots of poets, for instance, who have expressed the same idea - the same idea but with such different forms that when one reads many of them it becomes quite interesting to see (for people who love to read and read much). Ah, this idea, that one has said it like this, that other has expressed it like that, another has formulated it in this way, and so on. And so you have a whole stock of expressions which are expressions by different poets of the same single idea up there, above, high above. And you notice that there is an almost essential difference between the pure idea, the typal idea and its formulation in the mental world, even the speculative or artistic mental world. This is a very good thing to do when one loves gymnastics. It is mental gymnastics.
Well, if you want to be truly intelligent, you must know how to do mental gymnastics; as, you see, if you want really to have a fairly strong body you must know how to do physical gymnastics. It is the same thing. People who have never done mental gymnastics have a poor little brain, quite over-simple, and all their life they think like children. One must know how to do this - not take it seriously, in the sense that one shouldn't have convictions, saying, "This idea is true and that is false; this formulation is correct and that one is not and this religion is the true one and that religion is false", and so on and so forth... this, if you enter into it, you become absolutely stupid.
But if you can see all that and, for example, take all the religions, one after another and see how they have expressed the same aspiration of the human being for some Absolute, it becomes very interesting; and then you begin... yes, you begin to be able to juggle with all that. And then when you have mastered it all, you can rise above it and look at all the eternal human discussions with a smile. So there you are master of the thought and can no longer fly into a rage because someone else does not think as you, something that's unfortunately a very common malady here.
Now, there we are. Nobody has any questions, no?
That's enough? Finished! ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955,
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318:This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of inwardly visible Light very usually envelops this action; for it must be noted that, contrary to our ordinary conceptions, light is not primarily a material creation and the sense or vision of light accompanying the inner illumination is not merely a subjective visual image or a symbolic phenomenon: light is primarily a spiritual manifestation of the Divine Reality illuminative and creative; material light is a subsequent representation or conversion of it into Matter for the purposes of the material Energy. There is also in this descent the arrival of a greater dynamic, a golden drive, a luminous enthousiasmos of inner force and power which replaces the comparatively slow and deliberate process of the Higher Mind by a swift, sometimes a vehement, almost a violent impetus of rapid transformation.
But these two stages of the ascent enjoy their authority and can get their own united completeness only by a reference to a third level; for it is from the higher summits where dwells the intuitional being that they derive the knowledge which they turn into thought or sight and bring down to us for the mind's transmutation. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude. ... Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of stable lightnings.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,
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319:In the process of this change there must be by the very necessity of the effort two stages of its working. First, there will be the personal endeavour of the human being, as soon as he becomes aware by his soul, mind, heart of this divine possibility and turns towards it as the true object of life, to prepare himself for it and to get rid of all in him that belongs to a lower working, of all that stands in the way of his opening to the spiritual truth and its power, so as to possess by this liberation his spiritual being and turn all his natural movements into free means of its self-expression. It is by this turn that the self-conscious Yoga aware of its aim begins: there is a new awakening and an upward change of the life motive. So long as there is only an intellectual, ethical and other self-training for the now normal purposes of life which does not travel beyond the ordinary circle of working of mind, life and body, we are still only in the obscure and yet unillumined preparatory Yoga of Nature; we are still in pursuit of only an ordinary human perfection. A spiritual desire of the Divine and of the divine perfection, of a unity with him in all our being and a spiritual perfection in all our nature, is the effective sign of this change, the precursory power of a great integral conversion of our being and living. By personal effort a precursory change, a preliminary conversion can be effected; it amounts to a greater or less spiritualising of our mental motives, our character and temperament, and a mastery, stilling or changed action of the vital and physical life. This converted subjectivity can be made the base of some communion or unity of the soul in mind with the Divine and some partial reflection of the divine nature in the mentality of the human being. That is as far as man can go by his unaided or indirectly aided effort, because that is an effort of mind and mind cannot climb beyond itself permanently: at most it arises to a spiritualised and idealised mentality. If it shoots up beyond that border, it loses hold of itself, loses hold of life, and arrives either at a trance of absorption or a passivity. A greater perfection can only be arrived at by a higher power entering in and taking up the whole action of the being. The second stage of this Yoga will therefore be a persistent giving up of all the action of the nature into the hands of this greater Power, a substitution of its influence, possession and working for the personal effort, until the Divine to whom we aspire becomes the direct master of the Yoga and effects the entire spiritual and ideal conversion of the being. Two rules there are that will diminish the difficulty and obviate the danger. One must reject all that comes from the ego, from vital desire, from the mere mind and its presumptuous reasoning incompetence, all that ministers to these agents of the Ignorance. One must learn to hear and follow the voice of the inmost soul, the direction of the Guru, the command of the Master, the working of the Divine Mother. Whoever clings to the desires and weaknesses of the flesh, the cravings and passions of the vital in its turbulent ignorance, the dictates of his personal mind unsilenced and unillumined by a greater knowledge, cannot find the true inner law and is heaping obstacles in the way of the divine fulfilment. Whoever is able to detect and renounce those obscuring agencies and to discern and follow the true Guide within and without will discover the spiritual law and reach the goal of the Yoga. A radical and total change of consciousness is not only the whole meaning but, in an increasing force and by progressive stages, the whole method of the integral Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Integral Perfection [618],
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320::::
As an inner equality increases and with it the sense of the true vital being waiting for the greater direction it has to serve, as the psychic call too increases in all the members of our nature, That to which the call is addressed begins to reveal itself, descends to take possession of the life and its energies and fills them with the height, intimacy, vastness of its presence and its purpose. In many, if not most, it manifests something of itself even before the equality and the open psychic urge or guidance are there. A call of the veiled psychic element oppressed by the mass of the outer ignorance and crying for deliverance, a stress of eager meditation and seeking for knowledge, a longing of the heart, a passionate will ignorant yet but sincere may break the lid that shuts off that Higher from this Lower Nature and open the floodgates. A little of the Divine Person may reveal itself or some Light, Power, Bliss, Love out of the Infinite. This may be a momentary revelation, a flash or a brief-lived gleam that soon withdraws and waits for the preparation of the nature; but also it may repeat itself, grow, endure. A long and large and comprehensive working will then have begun, sometimes luminous or intense, sometimes slow and obscure. A Divine Power comes in front at times and leads and compels or instructs and enlightens; at others it withdraws into the background and seems to leave the being to its own resources. All that is ignorant, obscure, perverted or simply imperfect and inferior in the being is raised up, perhaps brought to its acme, dealt with, corrected, exhausted, shown its own disastrous results, compelled to call for its own cessation or transformation or expelled as worthless or incorrigible from the nature. This cannot be a smooth and even process; alternations there are of day and night, illumination and darkness, calm and construction or battle and upheaval, the presence of the growing Divine Consciousness and its absence, heights of hope and abysses of despair, the clasp of the Beloved and the anguish of its absence, the overwhelming invasion, the compelling deceit, the fierce opposition, the disabling mockery of hostile Powers or the help and comfort and communion of the Gods and the Divine Messengers. A great and long revolution and churning of the ocean of Life with strong emergences of its nectar and its poison is enforced till all is ready and the increasing Descent finds a being, a nature prepared and conditioned for its complete rule and its all-encompassing presence. But if the equality and the psychic light and will are already there, then this process, though it cannot be dispensed with, can still be much lightened and facilitated: it will be rid of its worst dangers; an inner calm, happiness, confidence will support the steps through all the difficulties and trials of the transformation and the growing Force profiting by the full assent of the nature will rapidly diminish and eliminate the power of the opposing forces. A sure guidance and protection will be present throughout, sometimes standing in front, sometimes working behind the veil, and the power of the end will be already there even in the beginning and in the long middle stages of the great endeavour. For at all times the seeker will be aware of the Divine Guide and Protector or the working of the supreme Mother-Force; he will know that all is done for the best, the progress assured, the victory inevitable. In either case the process is the same and unavoidable, a taking up of the whole nature, of the whole life, of the internal and of the external, to reveal and handle and transform its forces and their movements under the pressure of a diviner Life from above, until all here has been possessed by greater spiritual powers and made an instrumentation of a spiritual action and a divine purpose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 179,
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321:The principle of Yoga is the turning of one or of all powers of our human existence into a means of reaching the divine Being. In an ordinary Yoga one main power of being or one group of its powers is made the means, vehicle, path. In a synthetic Yoga all powers will be combined and included in the transmuting instrumentation.
In Hathayoga the instrument is the body and life. All the power of the body is stilled, collected, purified, heightened, concentrated to its utmost limits or beyond any limits by Asana and other physical processes; the power of the life too is similarly purified, heightened, concentrated by Asana and Pranayama. This concentration of powers is then directed towards that physical centre in which the divine consciousness sits concealed in the human body. The power of Life, Nature-power, coiled up with all its secret forces asleep in the lowest nervous plexus of the earth-being,-for only so much escapes into waking action in our normal operations as is sufficient for the limited uses of human life,-rises awakened through centre after centre and awakens, too, in its ascent and passage the forces of each successive nodus of our being, the nervous life, the heart of emotion and ordinary mentality, the speech, sight, will, the higher knowledge, till through and above the brain it meets with and it becomes one with the divine consciousness.
In Rajayoga the chosen instrument is the mind. our ordinary mentality is first disciplined, purified and directed towards the divine Being, then by a summary process of Asana and Pranayama the physical force of our being is stilled and concentrated, the life-force released into a rhythmic movement capable of cessation and concentrated into a higher power of its upward action, the mind, supported and strengthened by this greater action and concentration of the body and life upon which it rests, is itself purified of all its unrest and emotion and its habitual thought-waves, liberated from distraction and dispersion, given its highest force of concentration, gathered up into a trance of absorption. Two objects, the one temporal, the other eternal,are gained by this discipline. Mind-power develops in another concentrated action abnormal capacities of knowledge, effective will, deep light of reception, powerful light of thought-radiation which are altogether beyond the narrow range of our normal mentality; it arrives at the Yogic or occult powers around which there has been woven so much quite dispensable and yet perhaps salutary mystery. But the one final end and the one all-important gain is that the mind, stilled and cast into a concentrated trance, can lose itself in the divine consciousness and the soul be made free to unite with the divine Being.
The triple way takes for its chosen instruments the three main powers of the mental soul-life of the human being. Knowledge selects the reason and the mental vision and it makes them by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of a Goddirected seeking its means for the greatest knowledge and the greatest vision of all, God-knowledge and God-vision. Its aim is to see, know and be the Divine.Works, action selects for its instrument the will of the doer of works; it makes life an offering of sacrifice to the Godhead and by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of subjection to the divine Will a means for contact and increasing unity of the soul of man with the divine Master of the universe. Devotion selects the emotional and aesthetic powers of the soul and by turning them all Godward in a perfect purity, intensity, infinite passion of seeking makes them a means of God-possession in one or many relations of unity with the Divine Being. All aim in their own way at a union or unity of the human soul with the supreme Spirit.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609,
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322:There is a true movement of the intellect and there is a wrong movement: one helps, the other hinders." Questions and Answers 1929 - 1931 (5 May 1929)
What is the true movement of the intellect?
What exactly do you understand by intellect? Is it a function of the mind or is it a part of the human being? How do you understand it?
A function of the mind.
A function of the mind? Then it is that part of the mind which deals with ideas; is that what you mean?
Not ideas, Mother.
Not ideas? What else, then?
Ideas, but...
There is a part of the mind which receives ideas, ideas that are formed in a higher mind. Still, I don't know, it is a question of definition and one must know what exactly you mean to say.
It is intellect that puts ideas in the form of thoughts, gathering and organising the thoughts at the same time. There are great ideas which lie beyond the ordinary human mentality, which can put on all possible forms. These great ideas tend to descend, they want to manifest themselves in precise forms. These precise forms are the thoughts; and generally it is this, I believe, that is meant by intellect: it is this that gives thought-form to the ideas.
And then, there is also the organisation of the thoughts among themselves. All that has to be put in a certain order, otherwise one becomes incoherent. And after that, there is the putting of these thoughts to use for action; that is still another movement.
To be able to say what the true movement is, one must know first of all which movement is being spoken about. You have a body, well, you don't expect your body to walk on its head or its hands nor to crawl flat on its belly nor indeed that the head should be down and the legs up in the air. You give to each limb a particular occupation which is its own. This appears to you quite natural because that is the habit; otherwise, the very little ones do not know what to do, neither with their legs nor with their hands nor with their heads; it is only little by little that they learn that. Well, it is the same thing with the mind's functions. You must know which part of the mind you are speaking about, what its own function is, and then only can you say what its true movement is and what is not its true movement. For example, for the part which has to receive the master ideas and change them into thought, its true movement is to be open to the master ideas, receive them and change them into as exact, as precise, as expressive a thought as possible. For the part of the mind which has the charge of organising all these thoughts among themselves so that they might form a coherent and classified whole, not a chaos, the true movement is just to make the classification according to a higher logic and in a thoroughly clear, precise and expressive order which may be serviceable each time a thought is referred to, so that one may know where to look for it and not put quite contradictory things together. There are people whose mind does not work like that; all the ideas that come into it, without their being even aware of what the idea is, are translated into confused thoughts which remain in a kind of inner chaos. I have known people who, from the philosophical point of view - although there is nothing philosophical in it - could put side by side the most contradictory things, like ideas of hierarchic order and at the same time ideas of the absolute independence of the individual and of anarchism, and both were accepted with equal sympathy, knocked against each other in the head in the midst of a wild disorder, and these people were not even aware of it!... You know the saying: "A question well put is three-fourths solved." So now, put your question. What do you want to speak about? I am stretching out a helping hand, you have only to catch it. What is it you are speaking about, what is it that you call intellect? Do you know the difference between an idea and a thought?
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 107,
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323:The recurring beat that moments God in Time.
Only was missing the sole timeless Word
That carries eternity in its lonely sound,
The Idea self-luminous key to all ideas,
The integer of the Spirit's perfect sum
That equates the unequal All to the equal One,
The single sign interpreting every sign,
The absolute index to the Absolute.
There walled apart by its own innerness
In a mystical barrage of dynamic light
He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile
Erect like a mountain-chariot of the Gods
Motionless under an inscrutable sky.
As if from Matter's plinth and viewless base
To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds
Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme
Ascended towards breadths immeasurable;
It hoped to soar into the Ineffable's reign:
A hundred levels raised it to the Unknown.
So it towered up to heights intangible
And disappeared in the hushed conscious Vast
As climbs a storeyed temple-tower to heaven
Built by the aspiring soul of man to live
Near to his dream of the Invisible.
Infinity calls to it as it dreams and climbs;
Its spire touches the apex of the world;
Mounting into great voiceless stillnesses
It marries the earth to screened eternities.
Amid the many systems of the One
Made by an interpreting creative joy
Alone it points us to our journey back
Out of our long self-loss in Nature's deeps;
Planted on earth it holds in it all realms:
It is a brief compendium of the Vast.
This was the single stair to being's goal.
A summary of the stages of the spirit,
Its copy of the cosmic hierarchies
Refashioned in our secret air of self
A subtle pattern of the universe.
It is within, below, without, above.
Acting upon this visible Nature's scheme
It wakens our earth-matter's heavy doze
To think and feel and to react to joy;
It models in us our diviner parts,
Lifts mortal mind into a greater air,
Makes yearn this life of flesh to intangible aims,
Links the body's death with immortality's call:
Out of the swoon of the Inconscience
It labours towards a superconscient Light.
If earth were all and this were not in her,
Thought could not be nor life-delight's response:
Only material forms could then be her guests
Driven by an inanimate world-force.
Earth by this golden superfluity
Bore thinking man and more than man shall bear;
This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate;
It calls out of our dense mortality
The conscious spirit nursed in Matter's house.
The living symbol of these conscious planes,
Its influences and godheads of the unseen,
Its unthought logic of Reality's acts
Arisen from the unspoken truth in things,
Have fixed our inner life's slow-scaled degrees.
Its steps are paces of the soul's return
From the deep adventure of material birth,
A ladder of delivering ascent
And rungs that Nature climbs to deity.
Once in the vigil of a deathless gaze
These grades had marked her giant downward plunge,
The wide and prone leap of a godhead's fall.
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme.
The great World-Mother by her sacrifice
Has made her soul the body of our state;
Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness
Divinity's lapse from its own splendours wove
The many-patterned ground of all we are.
An idol of self is our mortality.
Our earth is a fragment and a residue;
Her power is packed with the stuff of greater worlds
And steeped in their colour-lustres dimmed by her drowse;
An atavism of higher births is hers,
Her sleep is stirred by their buried memories
Recalling the lost spheres from which they fell.
Unsatisfied forces in her bosom move;
They are partners of her greater growing fate
And her return to immortality;
They consent to share her doom of birth and death;
They kindle partial gleams of the All and drive
Her blind laborious spirit to compose
A meagre image of the mighty Whole.
The calm and luminous Intimacy within
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,
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324: What is the exact way of feeling that we belong to the Divine and that the Divine is acting in us?
You must not feel with your head (because you may think so, but that's something vague); you must feel with your sense-feeling. Naturally one begins by wanting it with the mind, because that is the first thing that understands. And then one has an aspiration here (pointing to the heart), with a flame which pushes you to realise it. But if you want it to be truly the thing, well, you must feel it.
You are doing something, suppose, for example, you are doing exercises, weight-lifting. Now suddenly without your knowing how it happened, suddenly you have the feeling that there is a force infinitely greater than you, greater, more powerful, a force that does the lifting for you. Your body becomes something almost non-existent and there is this Something that lifts. And then you will see; when that happens to you, you will no longer ask how it should be done, you will know. That does happen.
It depends upon people, depends upon what dominates in their being. Those who think have suddenly the feeling that it is no longer they who think, that there is something which knows much better, sees much more clearly, which is infinitely more luminous, more conscious in them, which organises the thoughts and words; and then they write. But if the experience is complete, it is even no longer they who write, it is that same Thing that takes hold of their hand and makes it write. Well, one knows at that moment that the little physical person is just a tiny insignificant tool trying to remain as quiet as possible in order not to disturb the experience.
Yes, at no cost must the experience be disturbed. If suddenly you say: "Oh, look, how strange it is!"...
How can we reach that state?
Aspire for it, want it. Try to be less and less selfish, but not in the sense of becoming nice to other people or forgetting yourself, not that: have less and less the feeling that you are a person, a separate entity, something existing in itself, isolated from the rest.
And then, above all, above all, it is that inner flame, that aspiration, that need for the light. It is a kind of - how to put it? - luminous enthusiasm that seizes you. It is an irresistible need to melt away, to give oneself, to exist only in the Divine.
At that moment you have the experience of your aspiration.
But that moment should be absolutely sincere and as integral as possible; and all this must occur not only in the head, not only here, but must take place everywhere, in all the cells of the body. The consciousness integrally must have this irresistible need.... The thing lasts for some time, then diminishes, gets extinguished. You cannot keep these things for very long. But then it so happens that a moment later or the next day or some time later, suddenly you have the opposite experience. Instead of feeling this ascent, and all that, this is no longer there and you have the feeling of the Descent, the Answer. And nothing but the Answer exists. Nothing but the divine thought, the divine will, the divine energy, the divine action exists any longer. And you too, you are no longer there.
That is to say, it is the answer to our aspiration. It may happen immediately afterwards - that is very rare but may happen. If you have both simultaneously, then the state is perfect; usually they alternate; they alternate more and more closely until the moment there is a total fusion. Then there is no more distinction. I heard a Sufi mystic, who was besides a great musician, an Indian, saying that for the Sufis there was a state higher than that of adoration and surrender to the Divine, than that of devotion, that this was not the last stage; the last stage of the progress is when there is no longer any distinction; you have no longer this kind of adoration or surrender or consecration; it is a very simple state in which one makes no distinction between the Divine and oneself. They know this. It is even written in their books. It is a commonly known condition in which everything becomes quite simple. There is no longer any difference. There is no longer that kind of ecstatic surrender to "Something" which is beyond you in every way, which you do not understand, which is merely the result of your aspiration, your devotion. There is no difference any longer. When the union is perfect, there is no longer any difference.
Is this the end of self-progress?
There is never any end to progress - never any end, you can never put a full stop there. ~ The Mother,
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325: In the lower planes can't one say what will happen at a particular moment?
That depends. On certain planes there are consciousnesses that form, that make formations and try to send them down to earth and manifest them. These are planes where the great forces are at play, forces struggling with each other to organise things in one way or another. On these planes all the possibilities are there, all the possibilities that present themselves but have not yet come to a decision as to which will come down.... Suppose a plane full of the imaginations of people who want certain things to be realised upon earth - they invent a novel, narrate stories, produce all kinds of phenomena; it amuses them very much. It is a plane of form-makers and they are there imagining all kinds of circumstances and events; they play with the forces; they are like the authors of a drama and they prepare everything there and see what is going to happen. All these formations are facing each other; and it is those which are the strongest, the most successful or the most persistent or those that have the advantage of a favourable set of circumstances which dominate. They meet and out of the conflict yet another thing results: you lose one thing and take up another, you make a new combination; and then all of a sudden, you find, pluff! it is coming down. Now, if it comes down with a sufficient force, it sets moving the earth atmosphere and things combine; as for instance, when with your fist you thump the saw-dust, you know surely what happens, don't you? You lift your hand, give a formidable blow: all the dust gets organised around your fist. Well, it is like that. These formations come down into matter with that force, and everything organises itself automatically, mechanically as around the striking fist. And there's your wished object about to be realised, sometimes with small deformations because of the resistance, but it will be realised finally, even as the person narrating the story up above wanted it more or less to be realised. If then you are for some reason or other in the secret of the person who has constructed the story and if you follow the way in which he creates his path to reach down to the earth and if you see how a blow with the fist acts on earthly matter, then you are able to tell what is going to happen, because you have seen it in the world above, and as it takes some time to make the whole journey, you see in advance. And the higher you rise, the more you foresee in advance what is going to happen. And if you pass far beyond, go still farther, then everything is possible.
It is an unfolding that follows a wide road which is for you unknowable; for all will be unfolded in the universe, but in what order and in what way? There are decisions that are taken up there which escape our ordinary consciousness, and so it is very difficult to foresee. But there also, if you enter consciously and if you can be present up there... How shall I explain that to you? All is there, absolute, static, eternal: but all that will be unfolded in the material world, naturally more or less one thing after another; for in the static existence all can be there, but in the becoming all becomes in time, that is, one thing after another. Well, what path will the unfolding follow? Up there is the domain of absolute freedom.... Who says that a sufficiently sincere aspiration, a sufficiently intense prayer is not capable of changing the path of the unfolding?
This means that all is possible.
Now, one must have a sufficient aspiration and a prayer that's sufficiently intense. But that has been given to human nature. It is one of the marvellous gifts of grace given to human nature; only, one does not know how to make use of it. This comes to saying that in spite of the most absolute determinisms in the horizontal line, if one knows how to cross all these horizontal lines and reach the highest Point of consciousness, one is able to make things change, things apparently absolutely determined. So you may call it by any name you like, but it is a kind of combination of an absolute determinism with an absolute freedom. You may pull yourself out of it in any way you like, but it is like that.
I forgot to say in that book (perhaps I did not forget but just felt that it was useless to say it) that all these theories are only theories, that is, mental conceptions which are merely more or less imaged representations of the reality; but it is not the reality at all. When you say "determinism" and when you say "freedom", you say only words and all that is only a very incomplete, very approximate and very weak description of what is in reality within you, around you and everywhere; and to be able to begin to understand what the universe is, you must come out of your mental formulas, otherwise you will never understand anything.
To tell the truth, if you live only a moment, just a tiny moment, of this absolutely sincere aspiration or this sufficiently intense prayer, you will know more things than by meditating for hours.
326:It is natural from the point of view of the Yoga to divide into two categories the activities of the human mind in its pursuit of knowledge. There is the supreme supra-intellectual knowledge which concentrates itself on the discovery of the One and Infinite in its transcendence or tries to penetrate by intuition, contemplation, direct inner contact into the ultimate truths behind the appearances of Nature; there is the lower science which diffuses itself in an outward knowledge of phenomena, the disguises of the One and Infinite as it appears to us in or through the more exterior forms of the world-manifestation around us. These two, an upper and a lower hemisphere, in the form of them constructed or conceived by men within the mind's ignorant limits, have even there separated themselves, as they developed, with some sharpness.... Philosophy, sometimes spiritual or at least intuitive, sometimes abstract and intellectual, sometimes intellectualising spiritual experience or supporting with a logical apparatus the discoveries of the spirit, has claimed always to take the fixation of ultimate Truth as its province. But even when it did not separate itself on rarefied metaphysical heights from the knowledge that belongs to the practical world and the pursuit of ephemeral objects, intellectual Philosophy by its habit of abstraction has seldom been a power for life. It has been sometimes powerful for high speculation, pursuing mental Truth for its own sake without any ulterior utility or object, sometimes for a subtle gymnastic of the mind in a mistily bright cloud-land of words and ideas, but it has walked or acrobatised far from the more tangible realities of existence. Ancient Philosophy in Europe was more dynamic, but only for the few; in India in its more spiritualised forms, it strongly influenced but without transforming the life of the race.... Religion did not attempt, like Philosophy, to live alone on the heights; its aim was rather to take hold of man's parts of life even more than his parts of mind and draw them Godwards; it professed to build a bridge between spiritual Truth and the vital and material human existence; it strove to subordinate and reconcile the lower to the higher, make life serviceable to God, Earth obedient to Heaven. It has to be admitted that too often this necessary effort had the opposite result of making Heaven a sanction for Earth's desires; for, continually, the religious idea has been turned into an excuse for the worship and service of the human ego. Religion, leaving constantly its little shining core of spiritual experience, has lost itself in the obscure mass of its ever extending ambiguous compromises with life: in attempting to satisfy the thinking mind, it more often succeeded in oppressing or fettering it with a mass of theological dogmas; while seeking to net the human heart, it fell itself into pits of pietistic emotionalism and sensationalism; in the act of annexing the vital nature of man to dominate it, it grew itself vitiated and fell a prey to all the fanaticism, homicidal fury, savage or harsh turn for oppression, pullulating falsehood, obstinate attachment to ignorance to which that vital nature is prone; its desire to draw the physical in man towards God betrayed it into chaining itself to ecclesiastic mechanism, hollow ceremony and lifeless ritual. The corruption of the best produced the worst by that strange chemistry of the power of life which generates evil out of good even as it can also generate good out of evil. At the same time in a vain effort at self-defence against this downward gravitation, Religion was driven to cut existence into two by a division of knowledge, works, art, life itself into two opposite categories, the spiritual and the worldly, religious and mundane, sacred and profane; but this defensive distinction itself became conventional and artificial and aggravated rather than healed the disease.... On their side Science and Art and the knowledge of Life, although at first they served or lived in the shadow of Religion, ended by emancipating themselves, became estranged or hostile, or have even recoiled with indifference, contempt or scepticism from what seem to them the cold, barren and distant or unsubstantial and illusory heights of unreality to which metaphysical Philosophy and Religion aspire. For a time the divorce has been as complete as the one-sided intolerance of the human mind could make it and threatened even to end in a complete extinction of all attempt at a higher or a more spiritual knowledge. Yet even in the earthward life a higher knowledge is indeed the one thing that is throughout needful, and without it the lower sciences and pursuits, however fruitful, however rich, free, miraculous in the abundance of their results, become easily a sacrifice offered without due order and to false gods; corrupting, hardening in the end the heart of man, limiting his mind's horizons, they confine in a stony material imprisonment or lead to a final baffling incertitude and disillusionment. A sterile agnosticism awaits us above the brilliant phosphorescence of a half-knowledge that is still the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,
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327:Chapter LXXXII: Epistola Penultima: The Two Ways to Reality
Cara Soror,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
How very sensible of you, though I admit somewhat exacting!
You write-Will you tell me exactly why I should devote so much of my valuable time to subjects like Magick and Yoga.
That is all very well. But you ask me to put it in syllogistic form. I have no doubt this can be done, though the task seems somewhat complicated. I think I will leave it to you to construct your series of syllogisms yourself from the arguments of this letter.
In your main question the operative word is "valuable. Why, I ask, in my turn, should you consider your time valuable? It certainly is not valuable unless the universe has a meaning, and what is more, unless you know what that meaning is-at least roughly-it is millions to one that you will find yourself barking up the wrong tree.
First of all let us consider this question of the meaning of the universe. It is its own evidence to design, and that design intelligent design. There is no question of any moral significance-"one man's meat is another man's poison" and so on. But there can be no possible doubt about the existence of some kind of intelligence, and that kind is far superior to anything of which we know as human.
How then are we to explore, and finally to interpret this intelligence?
It seems to me that there are two ways and only two. Imagine for a moment that you are an orphan in charge of a guardian, inconceivably learned from your point of view.
Suppose therefore that you are puzzled by some problem suitable to your childish nature, your obvious and most simple way is to approach your guardian and ask him to enlighten you. It is clearly part of his function as guardian to do his best to help you. Very good, that is the first method, and close parallel with what we understand by the word Magick.
We are bothered by some difficulty about one of the elements-say Fire-it is therefore natural to evoke a Salamander to instruct you on the difficult point. But you must remember that your Holy Guardian Angel is not only far more fully instructed than yourself on every point that you can conceive, but you may go so far as to say that it is definitely his work, or part of his work; remembering always that he inhabits a sphere or plane which is entirely different from anything of which you are normally aware.
To attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is consequently without doubt by far the simplest way by which you can yourself approach that higher order of being.
That, then, is a clearly intelligible method of procedure. We call it Magick.
It is of course possible to strengthen the link between him and yourself so that in course of time you became capable of moving and, generally speaking, operating on that plane which is his natural habitat.
There is however one other way, and one only, as far as I can see, of reaching this state.
It is at least theoretically possible to exalt the whole of your own consciousness until it becomes as free to move on that exalted plane as it is for him. You should note, by the way, that in this case the postulation of another being is not necessary. There is no way of refuting the solipsism if you feel like that. Personally I cannot accede to its axiom. The evidence for an external universe appears to me perfectly adequate.
Still there is no extra charge for thinking on those lines if you so wish.
I have paid a great deal of attention in the course of my life to the method of exalting the human consciousness in this way; and it is really quite legitimate to identify my teaching with that of the Yogis.
I must however point out that in the course of my instruction I have given continual warnings as to the dangers of this line of research. For one thing there is no means of checking your results in the ordinary scientific sense. It is always perfectly easy to find a subjective explanation of any phenomenon; and when one considers that the greatest of all the dangers in any line of research arise from egocentric vanity, I do not think I have exceeded my duty in anything that I have said to deter students from undertaking so dangerous a course as Yoga.
It is, of course, much safer if you are in a position to pursue in the Indian Jungles, provided that your health will stand the climate and also, I must say, unless you have a really sound teacher on whom you can safely rely. But then, if we once introduce a teacher, why not go to the Fountain-head and press towards the Knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel?
In any case your Indian teacher will ultimately direct you to seek guidance from that source, so it seems to me that you have gone to a great deal of extra trouble and incurred a great deal of unnecessary danger by not leaving yourself in the first place in the hands of the Holy Guardian Angel.
In any case there are the two methods which stand as alternatives. I do not know of any third one which can be of any use whatever. Logically, since you have asked me to be logical, there is certainly no third way; there is the external way of Magick, and the internal way of Yoga: there you have your alternatives, and there they cease.
328:summary of the entire process of psychic awakening :::
You have asked what is the discipline to be followed in order to convert the mental seeking into a living spiritual experience. The first necessity is the practice of concentration of your consciousness within yourself. The ordinary human mind has an activity on the surface which veils the real Self. But there is another, a hidden consciousness within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other then the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head.The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it an d all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way. That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward to all that is above mind. After a time one feels the consciousness rising upward and it the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it behind to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head is only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental consciousness is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable.
The other side of the discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is to offer all the activities to the Divine and call for the inner guidance and the taking up of one's nature by a Higher Power. If there is the inward soul-opening, if the psychic being comes forward, then there is no great difficulty - there comes with it a psychic discrimination, a constant intimation, finally a governance which discloses and quietly and patiently removes all imperfections, bring the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in this, becomes detached, sees mind and its activities as not oneself, life and its activities as not oneself, the body and its activities as not oneself, one becomes aware of an inner Being within us - inner mental, inner vital, inner physical - silent, calm, unbound, unattached which reflects the true Self above and can be its direct representative; from this inner silent Being proceeds a rejection of all that is to be rejected, an acceptance only of what can be kept and transformed, an inmost Will to perfection or a call to the Divine Power to do at each step what is necessary for the change of the Nature. It can also open mind, life and body to the inmost psychic entity and its guiding influence or its direct guidance. In most cases these two methods emerge and work together and finally fuse into one. But one can being with either, the one that one feels most natural and easy to follow.
Finally, in all difficulties where personal effort is hampered, the help of the Teacher can intervene and bring above what is needed for the realisation or for the immediate step that is necessary.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 6, {871},
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329:To what gods shall the sacrifice be offered? Who shall be invoked to manifest and protect in the human being this increasing godhead?
Agni first, for without him the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with Knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity.
Indra, the Puissant next, who is the power of pure Existence self-manifested as the Divine Mind. As Agni is one pole of Force instinct with knowledge that sends its current upward from earth to heaven, so Indra is the other pole of Light instinct with force which descends from heaven to earth. He comes down into our world as the Hero with the shining horses and slays darkness and division with his lightnings, pours down the life-giving heavenly waters, finds in the trace of the hound, Intuition, the lost or hidden illuminations, makes the Sun of Truth mount high in the heaven of our mentality.
Surya, the Sun, is the master of that supreme Truth, - truth of being, truth of knowledge, truth of process and act and movement and functioning. He is therefore the creator or rather the manifester of all things - for creation is out-bringing, expression by the Truth and Will - and the father, fosterer, enlightener of our souls. The illuminations we seek are the herds of this Sun who comes to us in the track of the divine Dawn and releases and reveals in us night-hidden world after world up to the highest Beatitude.
Of that beatitude Soma is the representative deity. The wine of his ecstasy is concealed in the growths of earth, in the waters of existence; even here in our physical being are his immortalising juices and they have to be pressed out and offered to all the gods; for in that strength these shall increase and conquer.
Each of these primary deities has others associated with him who fulfil functions that arise from his own. For if the truth of Surya is to be established firmly in our mortal nature, there are previous conditions that are indispensable; a vast purity and clear wideness destructive of all sin and crooked falsehood, - and this is Varuna; a luminous power of love and comprehension leading and forming into harmony all our thoughts, acts and impulses, - this is Mitra; an immortal puissance of clear-discerning aspiration and endeavour, - this is Aryaman; a happy spontaneity of the right enjoyment of all things dispelling the evil dream of sin and error and suffering, - this is Bhaga. These four are powers of the Truth of Surya. For the whole bliss of Soma to be established perfectly in our nature a happy and enlightened and unmaimed condition of mind, vitality and body are necessary. This condition is given to us by the twin Ashwins; wedded to the daughter of Light, drinkers of honey, bringers of perfect satisfactions, healers of maim and malady they occupy our parts of knowledge and parts of action and prepare our mental, vital and physical being for an easy and victorious ascension.
Indra, the Divine Mind, as the shaper of mental forms has for his assistants, his artisans, the Ribhus, human powers who by the work of sacrifice and their brilliant ascension to the high dwelling-place of the Sun have attained to immortality and help mankind to repeat their achievement. They shape by the mind Indra's horses, the chariot of the Ashwins, the weapons of the Gods, all the means of the journey and the battle. But as giver of the Light of Truth and as Vritra-slayer Indra is aided by the Maruts, who are powers of will and nervous or vital Force that have attained to the light of thought and the voice of self-expression. They are behind all thought and speech as its impellers and they battle towards the Light, Truth and Bliss of the supreme Consciousness.
There are also female energies; for the Deva is both Male and Female and the gods also are either activising souls or passively executive and methodising energies. Aditi, infinite Mother of the Gods, comes first; and there are besides five powers of the Truthconsciousness, - Mahi or Bharati, the vast Word that brings us all things out of the divine source; Ila, the strong primal word of the Truth who gives us its active vision; Saraswati, its streaming current and the word of its inspiration; Sarama, the Intuition, hound of heaven who descends into the cavern of the subconscient and finds there the concealed illuminations; Dakshina, whose function is to discern rightly, dispose the action and the offering and distribute in the sacrifice to each godhead its portion. Each god, too, has his female energy.
All this action and struggle and ascension is supported by Heaven our Father and Earth our Mother Parents of the Gods, who sustain respectively the purely mental and psychic and the physical consciousness. Their large and free scope is the condition of our achievement. Vayu, master of life, links them together by the mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities, - Parjanya, giver of the rain of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine war-horse, a power of Agni; the mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trita Aptya who on the third plane of existence consummates our triple being; and more besides.
The development of all these godheads is necessary to our perfection. And that perfection must be attained on all our levels, - in the wideness of earth, our physical being and consciousness; in the full force of vital speed and action and enjoyment and nervous vibration, typified as the Horse which must be brought forward to upbear our endeavour; in the perfect gladness of the heart of emotion and a brilliant heat and clarity of the mind throughout our intellectual and psychical being; in the coming of the supramental Light, the Dawn and the Sun and the shining Mother of the herds, to transform all our existence; for so comes to us the possession of the Truth, by the Truth the admirable surge of the Bliss, in the Bliss infinite Consciousness of absolute being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, The Doctrine of the Mystics,
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330:Intuition And The Value Of Concentration :::
Mother, how can the faculty of intuition be developed?
... There are different kinds of intuition, and we carry these capacities within us. They are always active to some extent but we don't notice them because we don't pay enough attention to what is going on in us. Behind the emotions, deep within the being, in a consciousness seated somewhere near the level of the solar plexus, there is a sort of prescience, a kind of capacity for foresight, but not in the form of ideas: rather in the form of feelings, almost a perception of sensations. For instance, when one is going to decide to do something, there is sometimes a kind of uneasiness or inner refusal, and usually, if one listens to this deeper indication, one realises that it was justified. In other cases there is something that urges, indicates, insists - I am not speaking of impulses, you understand, of all the movements which come from the vital and much lower still - indications which are behind the feelings, which come from the affective part of the being; there too one can receive a fairly sure indication of the thing to be done. These are forms of intuition or of a higher instinct which can be cultivated by observation and also by studying the results. Naturally, it must be done very sincerely, objectively, without prejudice. If one wants to see things in a particular way and at the same time practise this observation, it is all useless. One must do it as if one were looking at what is happening from outside oneself, in someone else. It is one form of intuition and perhaps the first one that usually manifests. There is also another form but that one is much more difficult to observe because for those who are accustomed to think, to act by reason - not by impulse but by reason - to reflect before doing anything, there is an extremely swift process from cause to effect in the half-conscious thought which prevents you from seeing the line, the whole line of reasoning and so you don't think that it is a chain of reasoning, and that is quite deceptive. You have the impression of an intuition but it is not an intuition, it is an extremely rapid subconscious reasoning, which takes up a problem and goes straight to the conclusions. This must not be mistaken for intuition. In the ordinary functioning of the brain, intuition is something which suddenly falls like a drop of light. If one has the faculty, the beginning of a faculty of mental vision, it gives the impression of something coming from outside or above, like a little impact of a drop of light in the brain, absolutely independent of all reasoning. This is perceived more easily when one is able to silence one's mind, hold it still and attentive, arresting its usual functioning, as if the mind were changed into a kind of mirror turned towards a higher faculty in a sustained and silent attention. That too one can learn to do. One must learn to do it, it is a necessary discipline.
When you have a question to solve, whatever it may be, usually you concentrate your attention here (pointing between the eyebrows), at the centre just above the eyes, the centre of the conscious will. But then if you do that, you cannot be in contact with intuition. You can be in contact with the source of the will, of effort, even of a certain kind of knowledge, but in the outer, almost material field; whereas, if you want to contact the intuition, you must keep this (Mother indicates the forehead) completely immobile. Active thought must be stopped as far as possible and the entire mental faculty must form - at the top of the head and a little further above if possible - a kind of mirror, very quiet, very still, turned upwards, in silent, very concentrated attention. If you succeed, you can - perhaps not immediately - but you can have the perception of the drops of light falling upon the mirror from a still unknown region and expressing themselves as a conscious thought which has no connection with all the rest of your thought since you have been able to keep it silent. That is the real beginning of the intellectual intuition.
It is a discipline to be followed. For a long time one may try and not succeed, but as soon as one succeeds in making a mirror, still and attentive, one always obtains a result, not necessarily with a precise form of thought but always with the sensations of a light coming from above. And then, if one can receive this light coming from above without entering immediately into a whirl of activity, receive it in calm and silence and let it penetrate deep into the being, then after a while it expresses itself either as a luminous thought or as a very precise indication here (Mother indicates the heart), in this other centre.
Naturally, first these two faculties must be developed; then, as soon as there is any result, one must observe the result, as I said, and see the connection with what is happening, the consequences: see, observe very attentively what has come in, what may have caused a distortion, what one has added by way of more or less conscious reasoning or the intervention of a lower will, also more or less conscious; and it is by a very deep study - indeed, almost of every moment, in any case daily and very frequent - that one succeeds in developing one's intuition. It takes a long time. It takes a long time and there are ambushes: one can deceive oneself, take for intuitions subconscious wills which try to manifest, indications given by impulses one has refused to receive openly, indeed all sorts of difficulties. One must be prepared for that. But if one persists, one is sure to succeed.
And there comes a time when one feels a kind of inner guidance, something which is leading one very perceptibly in all that one does. But then, for the guidance to have its maximum power, one must naturally add to it a conscious surrender: one must be sincerely determined to follow the indication given by the higher force. If one does that, then... one saves years of study, one can seize the result extremely rapidly. If one also does that, the result comes very rapidly. But for that, it must be done with sincerity and... a kind of inner spontaneity. If one wants to try without this surrender, one may succeed - as one can also succeed in developing one's personal will and making it into a very considerable power - but that takes a very long time and one meets many obstacles and the result is very precarious; one must be very persistent, obstinate, persevering, and one is sure to succeed, but only after a great labour.
Make your surrender with a sincere, complete self-giving, and you will go ahead at full speed, you will go much faster - but you must not do this calculatingly, for that spoils everything! (Silence) Moreover, whatever you may want to do in life, one thing is absolutely indispensable and at the basis of everything, the capacity of concentrating the attention. If you are able to gather together the rays of attention and consciousness on one point and can maintain this concentration with a persistent will, nothing can resist it - whatever it may be, from the most material physical development to the highest spiritual one. But this discipline must be followed in a constant and, it may be said, imperturbable way; not that you should always be concentrated on the same thing - that's not what I mean, I mean learning to concentrate.
And materially, for studies, sports, all physical or mental development, it is absolutely indispensable. And the value of an individual is proportionate to the value of his attention.
And from the spiritual point of view it is still more important.
There is no spiritual obstacle which can resist a penetrating power of concentration. For instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union with the inner Divine, opening to the higher spheres, all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power of concentration - but one must learn how to do it. There is nothing in the human or even in the superhuman field, to which the power of concentration is not the key. You can be the best athlete, you can be the best student, you can be an artistic, literary or scientific genius, you can be the greatest saint with that faculty. And everyone has in himself a tiny little beginning of it - it is given to everybody, but people do not cultivate it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,
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331:
Can a Yogi attain to a state of consciousness in which he can know all things, answer all questions, relating even to abstruse scientific problems, such as, for example, the theory of relativity?
Theoretically and in principle it is not impossible for a Yogi to know everything; all depends upon the Yogi.
But there is knowledge and knowledge. The Yogi does not know in the way of the mind. He does not know everything in the sense that he has access to all possible information or because he contains all the facts of the universe in his mind or because his consciousness is a sort of miraculous encyclopaedia. He knows by his capacity for a containing or dynamic identity with things and persons and forces. Or he knows because he lives in a plane of consciousness or is in contact with a consciousness in which there is the truth and the knowledge.
If you are in the true consciousness, the knowledge you have will also be of the truth. Then, too, you can know directly, by being one with what you know. If a problem is put before you, if you are asked what is to be done in a particular matter, you can then, by looking with enough attention and concentration, receive spontaneously the required knowledge and the true answer. It is not by any careful application of theory that you reach the knowledge or by working it out through a mental process. The scientific mind needs these methods to come to its conclusions. But the Yogi's knowledge is direct and immediate; it is not deductive. If an engineer has to find out the exact position for the building of an arch, the line of its curve and the size of its opening, he does it by calculation, collating and deducing from his information and data. But a Yogi needs none of these things; he looks, has the vision of the thing, sees that it is to be done in this way and not in another, and this seeing is his knowledge.
Although it may be true in a general way and in a certain sense that a Yogi can know all things and can answer all questions from his own field of vision and consciousness, yet it does not follow that there are no questions whatever of any kind to which he would not or could not answer. A Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could not or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusion of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge is not in the mind. If you put him some silly mental query of that character, he probably would not answer. The very common conception that you can put any ignorant question to him as to some super-schoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder.
Moreover, the term "Yogi" is very vague and wide. There are many types of Yogis, many lines or ranges of spiritual or occult endeavour and different heights of achievement, there are some whose powers do not extend beyond the mental level; there are others who have gone beyond it. Everything depends on the field or nature of their effort, the height to which they have arrived, the consciousness with which they have contact or into which they enter.
Do not scientists go sometimes beyond the mental plane? It is said that Einstein found his theory of relativity not through any process of reasoning, but through some kind of sudden inspiration. Has that inspiration anything to do with the Supermind?
The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane illumined by some other light still farther above. But all that has nothing to do with the action of Supermind and this higher mental level is far removed from the supramental plane. Men are too easily inclined to believe that they have climbed into regions quite divine when they have only gone above the average level. There are many stages between the ordinary human mind and the Supermind, many grades and many intervening planes. If an ordinary man were to get into direct contact even with one of these intermediate planes, he would be dazzled and blinded, would be crushed under the weight of the sense of immensity or would lose his balance; and yet it is not the Supermind.
Behind the common idea that a Yogi can know all things and answer all questions is the actual fact that there is a plane in the mind where the memory of everything is stored and remains always in existence. All mental movements that belong to the life of the earth are memorised and registered in this plane. Those who are capable of going there and care to take the trouble, can read in it and learn anything they choose. But this region must not be mistaken for the supramental levels. And yet to reach even there you must be able to silence the movements of the material or physical mind; you must be able to leave aside all your sensations and put a stop to your ordinary mental movements, whatever they are; you must get out of the vital; you must become free from the slavery of the body. Then only you can enter into that region and see. But if you are sufficiently interested to make this effort, you can arrive there and read what is written in the earth's memory.
Thus, if you go deep into silence, you can reach a level of consciousness on which it is not impossible for you to receive answers to all your questions. And if there is one who is consciously open to the plenary truth of the supermind, in constant contact with it, he can certainly answer any question that is worth an answer from the supramental Light. The queries put must come from some sense of the truth and reality behind things. There are many questions and much debated problems that are cobwebs woven of mere mental abstractions or move on the illusory surface of things. These do not pertain to real knowledge; they are a deformation of knowledge, their very substance is of the ignorance. Certainly the supramental knowledge may give an answer, its own answer, to the problems set by the mind's ignorance; but it is likely that it would not be at all satisfactory or perhaps even intelligible to those who ask from the mental level. You must not expect the supramental to work in the way of the mind or demand that the knowledge in truth should be capable of being pieced together with the half-knowledge in ignorance. The scheme of the mind is one thing, but Supermind is quite another and it would no longer be supramental if it adapted itself to the exigencies of the mental scheme. The two are incommensurable and cannot be put together.
When the consciousness has attained to supramental joys, does it no longer take interest in the things of the mind?
The supramental does not take interest in mental things in the same way as the mind. It takes its own interest in all the movements of the universe, but it is from a different point of view and with a different vision. The world presents to it an entirely different appearance; there is a reversal of outlook and everything is seen from there as other than what it seems to the mind and often even the opposite. Things have another meaning; their aspect, their motion and process, everything about them, are watched with other eyes. Everything here is followed by the supermind; the mind movements and not less the vital, the material movements, all the play of the universe have for it a very deep interest, but of another kind. It is about the same difference as that between the interest taken in a puppet-play by one who holds the strings and knows what the puppets are to do and the will that moves them and that they can do only what it moves them to do, and the interest taken by another who observes the play but sees only what is happening from moment to moment and knows nothing else. The one who follows the play and is outside its secret has a stronger, an eager and passionate interest in what will happen and he gives an excited attention to its unforeseen or dramatic events; the other, who holds the strings and moves the show, is unmoved and tranquil. There is a certain intensity of interest which comes from ignorance and is bound up with illusion, and that must disappear when you are out of the ignorance. The interest that human beings take in things founds itself on the illusion; if that were removed, they would have no interest at all in the play; they would find it dry and dull. That is why all this ignorance, all this illusion has lasted so long; it is because men like it, because they cling to it and its peculiar kind of appeal that it endures.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 93?
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#KEYS
332:[The Gods and Their Worlds]
[...] According to traditions and occult schools, all these zones of realities, these planes of realities have got different names; they have been classified in a different way, but there is an essential analogy, and if you go back far enough into the traditions, you see only the words changing according to the country and the language. Even now, the experiences of Western occultists and those of Eastern occultists offer great similarities. All who set out on the discovery of these invisible worlds and make a report of what they saw, give a very similar description, whether they be from here or there; they use different words, but the experience is very similar and the handling of forces is the same.
This knowledge of the occult worlds is based on the existence of subtle bodies and of subtle worlds corresponding to those bodies. They are what the psychological method calls "states of consciousness", but these states of consciousness really correspond to worlds. The occult procedure consists then in being aware of these various inner states of being or subtle bodies and in becoming sufficiently a master of them so as to be able to go out of them successively, one after another. There is indeed a whole scale of subtleties, increasing or decreasing according to the direction in which you go, and the occult procedure consists in going out of a denser body into a subtler body and so on again, up to the most ethereal regions. You go, by successive exteriorisations, into bodies or worlds more and more subtle. It is somewhat as if every time you passed into another dimension. The fourth dimension of the physicists is nothing but the scientific transcription of an occult knowledge. To give another image, one can say that the physical body is at the centre - it is the most material, the densest and also the smallest - and the inner bodies, more subtle, overflow more and more the central physical body; they pass through it, extending themselves farther and farther, like water evaporating from a porous vase and forming a kind of steam all around. And the greater the subtlety, the more the extension tends to unite with that of the universe: one ends by universalising oneself. And it is altogether a concrete process which gives an objective experience of invisible worlds and even enables one to act in these worlds.
There are, then, only a very small number of people in the West who know that these gods are not merely subjective and imaginary - more or less wildly imaginary - but that they correspond to a universal truth.
All these regions, all these domains are filled with beings who exist, each in its own domain, and if you are awake and conscious on a particular plane - for instance, if on going out of a more material body you awake on some higher plane, you have the same relation with the things and people of that plane as you had with the things and people of the material world. That is to say, there exists an entirely objective relation that has nothing to do with the idea you may have of these things. Naturally, the resemblance is greater and greater as you approach the physical world, the material world, and there even comes a time when the one region has a direct action upon the other. In any case, in what Sri Aurobindo calls the overmental worlds, you will find a concrete reality absolutely independent of your personal experience; you go back there and again find the same things, with the differences that have occurred during your absence. And you have relations with those beings that are identical with the relations you have with physical beings, with this difference that the relation is more plastic, supple and direct - for example, there is the capacity to change the external form, the visible form, according to the inner state you are in. But you can make an appointment with someone and be at the appointed place and find the same being again, with certain differences that have come about during your absence; it is entirely concrete with results entirely concrete.
One must have at least a little of this experience in order to understand these things. Otherwise, those who are convinced that all this is mere human imagination and mental formation, who believe that these gods have such and such a form because men have thought them to be like that, and that they have certain defects and certain qualities because men have thought them to be like that - all those who say that God is made in the image of man and that he exists only in human thought, all these will not understand; to them this will appear absolutely ridiculous, madness. One must have lived a little, touched the subject a little, to know how very concrete the thing is.
Naturally, children know a good deal if they have not been spoilt. There are so many children who return every night to the same place and continue to live the life they have begun there. When these faculties are not spoilt with age, you can keep them with you. At a time when I was especially interested in dreams, I could return exactly to a place and continue a work that I had begun: supervise something, for example, set something in order, a work of organisation or of discovery, of exploration. You go until you reach a certain spot, as you would go in life, then you take a rest, then you return and begin again - you begin the work at the place where you left off and you continue it. And you perceive that there are things which are quite independent of you, in the sense that changes of which you are not at all the author, have taken place automatically during your absence.
But for this, you must live these experiences yourself, you must see them yourself, live them with sufficient sincerity and spontaneity in order to see that they are independent of any mental formation. For you can do the opposite also, and deepen the study of the action of mental formation upon events. This is very interesting, but it is another domain. And this study makes you very careful, very prudent, because you become aware of how far you can delude yourself. So you must study both, the dream and the occult reality, in order to see what is the essential difference between the two. The one depends upon us; the other exists in itself; entirely independent of the thought that we have of it.
When you have worked in that domain, you recognise in fact that once a subject has been studied and something has been learnt mentally, it gives a special colour to the experience; the experience may be quite spontaneous and sincere, but the simple fact that the subject was known and studied lends a particular quality. Whereas if you had learnt nothing about the question, if you knew nothing at all, the transcription would be completely spontaneous and sincere when the experience came; it would be more or less adequate, but it would not be the outcome of a previous mental formation.
Naturally, this occult knowledge or this experience is not very frequent in the world, because in those who do not have a developed inner life, there are veritable gaps between the external consciousness and the inmost consciousness; the linking states of being are missing and they have to be constructed. So when people enter there for the first time, they are bewildered, they have the impression they have fallen into the night, into nothingness, into non-being!
I had a Danish friend, a painter, who was like that. He wanted me to teach him how to go out of the body; he used to have interesting dreams and thought that it would be worth the trouble to go there consciously. So I made him "go out" - but it was a frightful thing! When he was dreaming, a part of his mind still remained conscious, active, and a kind of link existed between this active part and his external being; then he remembered some of his dreams, but it was a very partial phenomenon. And to go out of one's body means to pass gradually through all the states of being, if one does the thing systematically. Well, already in the subtle physical, one is almost de-individualised, and when one goes farther, there remains nothing, for nothing is formed or individualised.
Thus, when people are asked to meditate or told to go within, to enter into themselves, they are in agony - naturally! They have the impression that they are vanishing. And with reason: there is nothing, no consciousness!
These things that appear to us quite natural and evident, are, for people who know nothing, wild imagination. If, for example, you transplant these experiences or this knowledge to the West, well, unless you have been frequenting the circles of occultists, they stare at you with open eyes. And when you have turned your back, they hasten to say, "These people are cranks!" Now to come back to the gods and conclude. It must be said that all those beings who have never had an earthly existence - gods or demons, invisible beings and powers - do not possess what the Divine has put into man: the psychic being. And this psychic being gives to man true love, charity, compassion, a deep kindness, which compensate for all his external defects.
In the gods there is no fault because they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint: as gods, it is their manner of being. But if you take a higher point of view, if you have a higher vision, a vision of the whole, you see that they lack certain qualities that are exclusively human. By his capacity of love and self-giving, man can have as much power as the gods and even more, when he is not egoistic, when he has surmounted his egoism.
If he fulfils the required condition, man is nearer to the Supreme than the gods are. He can be nearer. He is not so automatically, but he has the power to be so, the potentiality.
If human love manifested itself without mixture, it would be all-powerful. Unfortunately, in human love there is as much love of oneself as of the one loved; it is not a love that makes you forget yourself. - 4 November 1958
Every one of you should have an aim. But do not forget that on the quality of your aim will depend the quality of your life.
Your aim should be high and wide, generous and disinterested; this will make your life precious to yourself and to others.
But whatever your ideal, it cannot be perfectly realised unless you have realised perfection in yourself.
To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's nature, especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, that we can hope to form in ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour.
As you pursue this labour of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all the movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection.
All this can be realised by means of a fourfold discipline, the general outline of which is given here. The four aspects of the discipline do not exclude each other, and can be followed at the same time; indeed, this is preferable. The starting-point is what can be called the psychic discipline. We give the name "psychic" to the psychological centre of our being, the seat within us of the highest truth of our existence, that which can know this truth and set it in movement. It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us, to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it.
In various times and places many methods have been prescribed for attaining this perception and ultimately achieving this identification. Some methods are psychological, some religious, some even mechanical. In reality, everyone has to find the one which suits him best, and if one has an ardent and steadfast aspiration, a persistent and dynamic will, one is sure to meet, in one way or another - outwardly through reading and study, inwardly through concentration, meditation, revelation and experience - the help one needs to reach the goal. Only one thing is absolutely indispensable: the will to discover and to realise. This discovery and realisation should be the primary preoccupation of our being, the pearl of great price which we must acquire at any cost. Whatever you do, whatever your occupations and activities, the will to find the truth of your being and to unite with it must be always living and present behind all that you do, all that you feel, all that you think.
To complement this movement of inner discovery, it would be good not to neglect the development of the mind. For the mental instrument can equally be a great help or a great hindrance. In its natural state the human mind is always limited in its vision, narrow in its understanding, rigid in its conceptions, and a constant effort is therefore needed to widen it, to make it more supple and profound. So it is very necessary to consider everything from as many points of view as possible. Towards this end, there is an exercise which gives great suppleness and elevation to the thought. It is as follows: a clearly formulated thesis is set; against it is opposed its antithesis, formulated with the same precision. Then by careful reflection the problem must be widened or transcended until a synthesis is found which unites the two contraries in a larger, higher and more comprehensive idea.
Many other exercises of the same kind can be undertaken; some have a beneficial effect on the character and so possess a double advantage: that of educating the mind and that of establishing control over the feelings and their consequences. For example, you must never allow your mind to judge things and people, for the mind is not an instrument of knowledge; it is incapable of finding knowledge, but it must be moved by knowledge. Knowledge belongs to a much higher domain than that of the human mind, far above the region of pure ideas. The mind has to be silent and attentive to receive knowledge from above and manifest it. For it is an instrument of formation, of organisation and action, and it is in these functions that it attains its full value and real usefulness.
There is another practice which can be very helpful to the progress of the consciousness. Whenever there is a disagreement on any matter, such as a decision to be taken, or an action to be carried out, one must never remain closed up in one's own conception or point of view. On the contrary, one must make an effort to understand the other's point of view, to put oneself in his place and, instead of quarrelling or even fighting, find the solution which can reasonably satisfy both parties; there always is one for men of goodwill.
Here we must mention the discipline of the vital. The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depressions, of passions and revolts. It can set everything in motion, build and realise; but it can also destroy and mar everything. Thus it may be the most difficult part to discipline in the human being. It is a long and exacting labour requiring great patience and perfect sincerity, for without sincerity you will deceive yourself from the very outset, and all endeavour for progress will be in vain. With the collaboration of the vital no realisation seems impossible, no transformation impracticable. But the difficulty lies in securing this constant collaboration. The vital is a good worker, but most often it seeks its own satisfaction. If that is refused, totally or even partially, the vital gets vexed, sulks and goes on strike. Its energy disappears more or less completely and in its place leaves disgust for people and things, discouragement or revolt, depression and dissatisfaction. At such moments it is good to remain quiet and refuse to act; for these are the times when one does stupid things and in a few moments one can destroy or spoil the progress that has been made during months of regular effort. These crises are shorter and less dangerous for those who have established a contact with their psychic being which is sufficient to keep alive in them the flame of aspiration and the consciousness of the ideal to be realised. They can, with the help of this consciousness, deal with their vital as one deals with a rebellious child, with patience and perseverance, showing it the truth and light, endeavouring to convince it and awaken in it the goodwill which has been veiled for a time. By means of such patient intervention each crisis can be turned into a new progress, into one more step towards the goal. Progress may be slow, relapses may be frequent, but if a courageous will is maintained, one is sure to triumph one day and see all difficulties melt and vanish before the radiance of the truth-consciousness.
Lastly, by means of a rational and discerning physical education, we must make our body strong and supple enough to become a fit instrument in the material world for the truth-force which wants to manifest through us.
In fact, the body must not rule, it must obey. By its very nature it is a docile and faithful servant. Unfortunately, it rarely has the capacity of discernment it ought to have with regard to its masters, the mind and the vital. It obeys them blindly, at the cost of its own well-being. The mind with its dogmas, its rigid and arbitrary principles, the vital with its passions, its excesses and dissipations soon destroy the natural balance of the body and create in it fatigue, exhaustion and disease. It must be freed from this tyranny and this can be done only through a constant union with the psychic centre of the being. The body has a wonderful capacity of adaptation and endurance. It is able to do so many more things than one usually imagines. If, instead of the ignorant and despotic masters that now govern it, it is ruled by the central truth of the being, you will be amazed at what it is capable of doing. Calm and quiet, strong and poised, at every minute it will be able to put forth the effort that is demanded of it, for it will have learnt to find rest in action and to recuperate, through contact with the universal forces, the energies it expends consciously and usefully. In this sound and balanced life a new harmony will manifest in the body, reflecting the harmony of the higher regions, which will give it perfect proportions and ideal beauty of form. And this harmony will be progressive, for the truth of the being is never static; it is a perpetual unfolding of a growing perfection that is more and more total and comprehensive. As soon as the body has learnt to follow this movement of progressive harmony, it will be possible for it to escape, through a continuous process of transformation, from the necessity of disintegration and destruction. Thus the irrevocable law of death will no longer have any reason to exist.
When we reach this degree of perfection which is our goal, we shall perceive that the truth we seek is made up of four major aspects: Love, Knowledge, Power and Beauty. These four attributes of the Truth will express themselves spontaneously in our being. The psychic will be the vehicle of true and pure love, the mind will be the vehicle of infallible knowledge, the vital will manifest an invincible power and strength and the body will be the expression of a perfect beauty and harmony.
OF ALL lines of education, mental education is the most widely known and practised, yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient.
Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. And when a child has been made to undergo, for a number of years, a methodical training which is more like cramming than true schooling, it is considered that whatever is necessary for his mental development has been done. Nothing of the kind. Even conceding that the training is given with due measure and discrimination and does not permanently damage the brain, it cannot impart to the human mind the faculties it needs to become a good and useful instrument. The schooling that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a system of gymnastics to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulations given to these various branches each constitute a special and well-defined language.
A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five principal phases. Normally these phases follow one after another, but in exceptional individuals they may alternate or even proceed simultaneously. These five phases, in brief, are:
(1) Development of the power of concentration, the capacity of attention.
(2) Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness.
(3) Organisation of one's ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life.
(4) Thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants.
(5) Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.
It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations on points of detail can be given.
Undeniably, what most impedes mental progress in children is the constant dispersion of their thoughts. Their thoughts flutter hither and thither like butterflies and they have to make a great effort to fix them. Yet this capacity is latent in them, for when you succeed in arousing their interest, they are capable of a good deal of attention. By his ingenuity, therefore, the educator will gradually help the child to become capable of a sustained effort of attention and a faculty of more and more complete absorption in the work in hand. All methods that can develop this faculty of attention from games to rewards are good and can all be utilised according to the need and the circumstances. But it is the psychological action that is most important and the sovereign method is to arouse in the child an interest in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for learning more and always more.
For that, to attention and concentration should be added observation, precise recording and faithfulness of memory. This faculty of observation can be developed by varied and spontaneous exercises, making use of every opportunity that presents itself to keep the child's thought wakeful, alert and prompt. The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart, mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know.
This will bring us quite naturally to the second phase of development in which the mind should be widened and enriched.
You will gradually show the child that everything can become an interesting subject for study if it is approached in the right way. The life of every day, of every moment, is the best school of all, varied, complex, full of unexpected experiences, problems to be solved, clear and striking examples and obvious consequences. It is so easy to arouse healthy curiosity in children, if you answer with intelligence and clarity the numerous questions they ask. An interesting reply to one readily brings others in its train and so the attentive child learns without effort much more than he usually does in the classroom. By a choice made with care and insight, you should also teach him to enjoy good reading-matter which is both instructive and attractive. Do not be afraid of anything that awakens and pleases his imagination; imagination develops the creative mental faculty and through it study becomes living and the mind develops in joy.
In order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of his mind, one should see not only that he studies many varied topics, but above all that a single subject is approached in various ways, so that the child understands in a practical manner that there are many ways of facing the same intellectual problem, of considering it and solving it. This will remove all rigidity from his brain and at the same time it will make his thinking richer and more supple and prepare it for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis. In this way also the child will be imbued with the sense of the extreme relativity of mental learning and, little by little, an aspiration for a truer source of knowledge will awaken in him.
Indeed, as the child grows older and progresses in his studies, his mind too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid chaos in one's thoughts. All contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. It is always good to consider every problem from all possible standpoints so as to avoid partiality and exclusiveness; but if the thought is to be active and creative, it must, in every case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the points of view adopted. And if you want to make the totality of your thoughts into a dynamic and constructive force, you must also take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of this synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organise and harmonise.
It goes without saying that this work of organisation cannot be done once and for all. The mind, if it is to keep its vigour and youth, must progress constantly, revise its notions in the light of new knowledge, enlarge its frame-work to include fresh notions and constantly reclassify and reorganise its thoughts, so that each of them may find its true place in relation to the others and the whole remain harmonious and orderly.
All that has just been said concerns the speculative mind, the mind that learns. But learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, which is at least equally important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to form and thus prepare action. This very important part of mental activity has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing and disciplining this faculty of formation; and as soon as they try it, they have to face difficulties so great that they appear almost insurmountable.
And yet control over this formative activity of the mind is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can say that without it no mental mastery is possible. As far as study is concerned, all ideas are acceptable and should be included in the synthesis, whose very function is to become more and more rich and complex; but where action is concerned, it is just the opposite. The ideas that are accepted for translation into action should be strictly controlled and only those that agree with the general trend of the central idea forming the basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be set before the central idea; if it finds a logical place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be rejected so that it can have no influence on the action. This work of mental purification should be done very regularly in order to secure a complete control over one's actions.
For this purpose, it is good to set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order. Once the habit is acquired, you can maintain control over your thoughts even during work and action, allowing only those which are useful for what you are doing to come to the surface. Particularly, if you have continued to cultivate the power of concentration and attention, only the thoughts that are needed will be allowed to enter the active external consciousness and they then become all the more dynamic and effective. And if, in the intensity of concentration, it becomes necessary not to think at all, all mental vibration can be stilled and an almost total silence secured. In this silence one can gradually open to the higher regions of the mind and learn to record the inspirations that come from there.
But even before reaching this point, silence in itself is supremely useful, because in most people who have a somewhat developed and active mind, the mind is never at rest. During the day, its activity is kept under a certain control, but at night, during the sleep of the body, the control of the waking state is almost completely removed and the mind indulges in activities which are sometimes excessive and often incoherent. This creates a great stress which leads to fatigue and the diminution of the intellectual faculties.
The fact is that like all the other parts of the human being, the mind too needs rest and it will not have this rest unless we know how to provide it. The art of resting one's mind is something to be acquired. Changing one's mental activity is certainly one way of resting; but the greatest possible rest is silence. And as far as the mental faculties are concerned a few minutes passed in the calm of silence are a more effective rest than hours of sleep.
When one has learned to silence the mind at will and to concentrate it in receptive silence, then there will be no problem that cannot be solved, no mental difficulty whose solution cannot be found. When it is agitated, thought becomes confused and impotent; in an attentive tranquillity, the light can manifest itself and open up new horizons to man's capacity. Bulletin, November 1951
335:The Supreme Discovery
IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
The ancient traditions rightly said:
"Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
On this a sage has said:
"I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,
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336:It does not matter if you do not understand it - Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step.
But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.
Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.
*He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.
You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, *I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies and religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it gives out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. - 5 November 1967
~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, The Mother to Mona Sarkar, [T0],
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337:One little picture in this book, the Magic Locket, was drawn by 'Miss Alice Havers.' I did not state this on the title-page, since it seemed only due, to the artist of all these (to my mind) wonderful pictures, that his name should stand there alone.
The descriptions, of Sunday as spent by children of the last generation, are quoted verbatim from a speech made to me by a child-friend and a letter written to me by a lady-friend.
The Chapters, headed 'Fairy Sylvie' and 'Bruno's Revenge,' are a reprint, with a few alterations, of a little fairy-tale which I wrote in the year 1867, at the request of the late Mrs. Gatty, for 'Aunt Judy's Magazine,' which she was then editing.
It was in 1874, I believe, that the idea first occurred to me of making it the nucleus of a longer story.
As the years went on, I jotted down, at odd moments, all sorts of odd ideas, and fragments of dialogue, that occurred to me--who knows how?--with a transitory suddenness that left me no choice but either to record them then and there, or to abandon them to oblivion. Sometimes one could trace to their source these random flashes of thought--as being suggested by the book one was reading, or struck out from the 'flint' of one's own mind by the 'steel' of a friend's chance remark but they had also a way of their own, of occurring, a propos of nothing --specimens of that hopelessly illogical phenomenon, 'an effect without a cause.' Such, for example, was the last line of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' which came into my head (as I have already related in 'The Theatre' for April, 1887) quite suddenly, during a solitary walk: and such, again, have been passages which occurred in dreams, and which I cannot trace to any antecedent cause whatever. There are at least two instances of such dream-suggestions in this book--one, my Lady's remark, 'it often runs in families, just as a love for pastry does', the other, Eric Lindon's badinage about having been in domestic service.
And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature--if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling --which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write. Only! The task, at first, seemed absolutely hopeless, and gave me a far clearer idea, than I ever had before, of the meaning of the word 'chaos': and I think it must have been ten years, or more, before I had succeeded in classifying these odds-and-ends sufficiently to see what sort of a story they indicated: for the story had to grow out of the incidents, not the incidents out of the story I am telling all this, in no spirit of egoism, but because I really believe that some of my readers will be interested in these details of the 'genesis' of a book, which looks so simple and straight-forward a matter, when completed, that they might suppose it to have been written straight off, page by page, as one would write a letter, beginning at the beginning; and ending at the end.
It is, no doubt, possible to write a story in that way: and, if it be not vanity to say so, I believe that I could, myself,--if I were in the unfortunate position (for I do hold it to be a real misfortune) of being obliged to produce a given amount of fiction in a given time,--that I could 'fulfil my task,' and produce my 'tale of bricks,' as other slaves have done. One thing, at any rate, I could guarantee as to the story so produced--that it should be utterly commonplace, should contain no new ideas whatever, and should be very very weary reading!
This species of literature has received the very appropriate name of 'padding' which might fitly be defined as 'that which all can write and none can read.' That the present volume contains no such writing I dare not avow: sometimes, in order to bring a picture into its proper place, it has been necessary to eke out a page with two or three extra lines : but I can honestly say I have put in no more than I was absolutely compelled to do.
My readers may perhaps like to amuse themselves by trying to detect, in a given passage, the one piece of 'padding' it contains. While arranging the 'slips' into pages, I found that the passage was 3 lines too short. I supplied the deficiency, not by interpolating a word here and a word there, but by writing in 3 consecutive lines. Now can my readers guess which they are?
A harder puzzle if a harder be desired would be to determine, as to the Gardener's Song, in which cases (if any) the stanza was adapted to the surrounding text, and in which (if any) the text was adapted to the stanza.
Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature--at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it come's is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune. I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story--I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it--but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen storybooks have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'--is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.
Hence it is that, in 'Sylvie and Bruno,' I have striven with I know not what success to strike out yet another new path: be it bad or good, it is the best I can do. It is written, not for money, and not for fame, but in the hope of supplying, for the children whom I love, some thoughts that may suit those hours of innocent merriment which are the very life of Childhood; and also in the hope of suggesting, to them and to others, some thoughts that may prove, I would fain hope, not wholly out of harmony with the graver cadences of Life.
If I have not already exhausted the patience of my readers, I would like to seize this opportunity perhaps the last I shall have of addressing so many friends at once of putting on record some ideas that have occurred to me, as to books desirable to be written--which I should much like to attempt, but may not ever have the time or power to carry through--in the hope that, if I should fail (and the years are gliding away very fast) to finish the task I have set myself, other hands may take it up.
First, a Child's Bible. The only real essentials of this would be, carefully selected passages, suitable for a child's reading, and pictures. One principle of selection, which I would adopt, would be that Religion should be put before a child as a revelation of love--no need to pain and puzzle the young mind with the history of crime and punishment. (On such a principle I should, for example, omit the history of the Flood.) The supplying of the pictures would involve no great difficulty: no new ones would be needed : hundreds of excellent pictures already exist, the copyright of which has long ago expired, and which simply need photo-zincography, or some similar process, for their successful reproduction. The book should be handy in size with a pretty attractive looking cover--in a clear legible type--and, above all, with abundance of pictures, pictures, pictures!
Secondly, a book of pieces selected from the Bible--not single texts, but passages of from 10 to 20 verses each--to be committed to memory. Such passages would be found useful, to repeat to one's self and to ponder over, on many occasions when reading is difficult, if not impossible: for instance, when lying awake at night--on a railway-journey --when taking a solitary walk-in old age, when eyesight is failing or wholly lost--and, best of all, when illness, while incapacitating us for reading or any other occupation, condemns us to lie awake through many weary silent hours: at such a time how keenly one may realise the truth of David's rapturous cry "O how sweet are thy words unto my throat: yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth!"
I have said 'passages,' rather than single texts, because we have no means of recalling single texts: memory needs links, and here are none: one may have a hundred texts stored in the memory, and not be able to recall, at will, more than half-a-dozen--and those by mere chance: whereas, once get hold of any portion of a chapter that has been committed to memory, and the whole can be recovered: all hangs together.
Thirdly, a collection of passages, both prose and verse, from books other than the Bible. There is not perhaps much, in what is called 'un-inspired' literature (a misnomer, I hold: if Shakespeare was not inspired, one may well doubt if any man ever was), that will bear the process of being pondered over, a hundred times: still there are such passages--enough, I think, to make a goodly store for the memory.
These two books of sacred, and secular, passages for memory--will serve other good purposes besides merely occupying vacant hours: they will help to keep at bay many anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, uncharitable thoughts, unholy thoughts. Let me say this, in better words than my own, by copying a passage from that most interesting book, Robertson's Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, Lecture XLIX. "If a man finds himself haunted by evil desires and unholy images, which will generally be at periodical hours, let him commit to memory passages of Scripture, or passages from the best writers in verse or prose. Let him store his mind with these, as safeguards to repeat when he lies awake in some restless night, or when despairing imaginations, or gloomy, suicidal thoughts, beset him. Let these be to him the sword, turning everywhere to keep the way of the Garden of Life from the intrusion of profaner footsteps."
Fourthly, a "Shakespeare" for girls: that is, an edition in which everything, not suitable for the perusal of girls of (say) from 10 to 17, should be omitted. Few children under 10 would be likely to understand or enjoy the greatest of poets: and those, who have passed out of girlhood, may safely be left to read Shakespeare, in any edition, 'expurgated' or not, that they may prefer: but it seems a pity that so many children, in the intermediate stage, should be debarred from a great pleasure for want of an edition suitable to them. Neither Bowdler's, Chambers's, Brandram's, nor Cundell's 'Boudoir' Shakespeare, seems to me to meet the want: they are not sufficiently 'expurgated.' Bowdler's is the most extraordinary of all: looking through it, I am filled with a deep sense of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers. The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.
If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have taken in this story--by introducing, along with what will, I hope, prove to be acceptable nonsense for children, some of the graver thoughts of human life--it must be to one who has learned the Art of keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety--with the exception of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that 'convenient season', which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come before he has finished reading this page,' this night shalt thy soul be required of thee.'
The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages, 1 an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation--an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial 'bon vivant' Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to one's heart. It is the word 'exilium' in the well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.
Yes, to him this present life--spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow--was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?
And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
We go to entertainments, such as the theatre--I say 'we', for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know--dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis--to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, "Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)--how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?
And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive.
I don't say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever, I must see it this once! I'll begin a stricter life to-morrow." To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!
"Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,
'Sorrow for sin God's judgement stays!'
Against God's Spirit he lies; quite stops Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,
Like a scorch'd fly, that spins in vain
Upon the axis of its pain,
Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,
Blind and forgot, from fall to fall."
Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death--if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.
But, once realise what the true object is in life--that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds'--but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man--and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!
One other matter may perhaps seem to call for apology--that I should have treated with such entire want of sympathy the British passion for 'Sport', which no doubt has been in by-gone days, and is still, in some forms of it, an excellent school for hardihood and for coolness in moments of danger.
But I am not entirely without sympathy for genuine 'Sport': I can heartily admire the courage of the man who, with severe bodily toil, and at the risk of his life, hunts down some 'man-eating' tiger: and I can heartily sympathize with him when he exults in the glorious excitement of the chase and the hand-to-hand struggle with the monster brought to bay. But I can but look with deep wonder and sorrow on the hunter who, at his ease and in safety, can find pleasure in what involves, for some defenceless creature, wild terror and a death of agony: deeper, if the hunter be one who has pledged himself to preach to men the Religion of universal Love: deepest of all, if it be one of those 'tender and delicate' beings, whose very name serves as a symbol of Love--'thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women'--whose mission here is surely to help and comfort all that are in pain or sorrow!
'Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.' ~ Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno,
38:Yes, the cost is high, but the price of neglect would be infinitely higher. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
39:Ah, the souls of those that die Are but sunbeams lifted higher. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove
40:You can NEVER rise higher than your expectations of yourself. Expect the BEST! ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove
41:All is energy and there is no energy higher than right love, which has no object ~ barry-long, @wisdomtrove
42:As I lived up to the highest light I had, higher and higher light came to me. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove
43:If you aim higher than you expect, you could reach higher than you dreamed. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove
44:Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration. ~ abraham-lincoln, @wisdomtrove
45:The Pariahs, our fellow beings, ought to be educated by the higher castes. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
46:Trinity!! Higher than any being, any divinity, any goodness! ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove
47:Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
48:We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
49:If we want to end this lifetime higher than we began, we can expect an uphill road. ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove
50:To believe that mind is all, that thought is all is only a higher materialism. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
51:Even when it is not fully attained, we become better by striving for a higher goal. ~ viktor-frankl, @wisdomtrove
52:Everything that you see here, in other words, is a reflection of a higher reality. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
53:The essence of religion, in my view, is the thirst for an end higher than natural ends. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
54:Unless you have a great deal of purity, it's difficult to retain the higher light. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
55:Education doesn't change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove
56:One must envision the higher life and behave as if it were a fact before it can unfold. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove
57:There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove
58:The solution to low self-esteem is to get over yourself and get a higher purpose. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove
59:We can have no conception of God higher than man, so our God is man, and man is God. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
60:The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness. ~ lao-tzu, @wisdomtrove
61:The more low value tasks you outsource, the more time you have to do higher value stuff. ~ celestine-chua, @wisdomtrove
62:You must raise your aspirations, set higher goals, and make detailed plans to achieve them. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove
63:Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do... Try to be better than yourself. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove
64:Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove
65:Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove
66:This earth is higher than all the heavens; this is the greatest school in the universe. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
67:Many seek happiness higher than men; others beneath him. But happiness is the same height as man. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
68:Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove
69:The more people you contact, the higher your sales will be because of the law of probabilities. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove
70:We can become inspired to shape a higher, more ideal future, and when we do, miracles happen. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove
71:Art when inspired with love leads to higher realms, and that art will open for you the inner life. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove
72:Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove
73:A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove
74:I have seen gleams in the face and eyes of the man that have let you look into a higher country. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove
75:Small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos can shift the whole system to a higher order. ~ barbara-marx-hubbard, @wisdomtrove
76:The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove
77:There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammalsin their mental faculties ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
78:The best books are those which lift us to a higher plane where we breathe a purer atmosphere. ~ orison-swett-marden, @wisdomtrove
79:The capacities by which we can gain insights into higher worlds lie dormant within each one of us. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
80:In coming to Christ we don't bring our old life up to a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove
81:Until higher institutions have been evolved, any attempt to break the old ones will be disastrous. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
82:Cowardice encroaches fast upon such as spend their lives in company of persons higher than themselves. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove
83:I'm not dismissing the value of higher education; I'm simply saying it comes at the expense of experience. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove
84:It is a higher exhibition of Christian manliness to be able to bear trouble than to get rid of it. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
85:The mind has these four levels: physical, vital, buddhi, higher mind. The Supermind is far above these. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
86:The moral faculties are generally and justly esteemed as of higher value than the intellectual powers. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
87:Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
88:Books are men of higher stature, and the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear. ~ elizabeth-barrett-browning, @wisdomtrove
89:You can move beyond the ego's perspective and see reality from the perspective of a higher consciousness. ~ steve-pavlina, @wisdomtrove
90:A shady friend for torrid days Is easier to find Than one of higher temperature For frigid hour of mind. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove
91:Does not every true man feel that he is himself made higher by doing reverence to what is really above him? ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove
92:Power includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones. ~ stephen-r-covey, @wisdomtrove
93:To the Indian mind there is nothing higher than religious ideals, that this is the keynote of Indian life. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
94:A higher level of consciousness is awakened. I get in touch with the vast realm of intelligence beyond thought. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove
95:In every crisis, doubt or confusion, take the higher path - the path of compassion, courage, understanding and love. ~ amit-ray, @wisdomtrove
96:The etiquette is higher consciousness, sensitivity, gentleness, gracefulness, intensity, power, and knowledge. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
97:By learning to trust your intuition, miracles seem to happen. Intuitive thoughts are gifts from the higher self. ~ susan-jeffers, @wisdomtrove
98:There is no happiness higher than what a man obtains by this attitude of non-offensiveness, to all creation. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
99:Compassion is the signature of Higher Consciousness. Non-violence is the tool to evolve into the Higher Consciousness. ~ amit-ray, @wisdomtrove
100:Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends. ~ johann-wolfgang-von-goethe, @wisdomtrove
101:The happiness which God designs for his higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to him. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
102:It is possible to contact higher beings who are not in the body. But the being you really want to contact is you. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
103:Our children take our level of vibration and raise it even higher. This is how we, as humans, continue evolution. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove
104:Take the limits off of yourself. You will never rise higher than your thinking. Create a great vision for your life. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove
105:The development of the individual can be described as a succession of new births at consecutively higher levels. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove
106:We must never forget that higher knowledge has to do with revering truth and insight and not with revering people. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
107:There is in man a higher than love of happiness; he can do without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove
108:Your lower self sees you as the center of the universe- your higher self sees you as a cell in the body of humanity. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove
109:Blessed are they who translate every good thing they know into action - even higher truths shall be revealed to them. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove
110:Make every occasion a great occasion, for you can never tell who may be taking your measure for a higher place. ~ orison-swett-marden, @wisdomtrove
111:Embrace the higher truth that everything comes to pass exactly as it should. Find peace and wisdom by accepting what is. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove
112:Bent out of shape from society's pliers, cares not to come up any higher, but rather get you down in the hole that he's in. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove
113:Meditation is a deliberate attempt to pierce into the higher states of consciousness and finally go beyond it. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove
114:You can't have it both ways. You can't have both free will and a benevolent higher power who protects you from yourself. ~ arthur-c-carke, @wisdomtrove
115:I am tied down with single words. But you wander off; you slip away; you rise up higher, with words and words in phrases. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove
116:Just trusting the soul cannot lead you to higher consciousness. You have to pay attention for the beautification of your heart. ~ amit-ray, @wisdomtrove
117:He who is unwilling to trust to the power of thinking cannot, in fact, enlighten himself regarding higher spiritual facts. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
118:It is in the very structure of the universe, that the higher can be had only through the freedom from the lower. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove
119:I remain just one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician. ~ charlie-chaplan, @wisdomtrove
120:Money is a function of value creation. The more value you create for other people, the higher the sales of your organization. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove
121:The higher a man's conception of God, the better will he know Him. And the better he knows God, the nearer will he draw to Him. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove
122:For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
123:God is always God, but the views which people and nations may take of him vary. No higher view is known than that of love. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
124:I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove
125:The person of power uses their power to open up their mind to higher levels all the time, which creates tremendous happiness. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
126:We call dialectic the higher movement of reason in which utterly separate terms pass over into each other spontaneously. ~ arthur-schopenhauer, @wisdomtrove
127:Spirituality can not be separate from how we treat our bodies, construct our lifestyles, and keep our energy at higher levels. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove
128:The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove
129:Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove
130:Art is not an end in itself. It introduces the soul into a higher spiritual order, which it expresses and in some sense explains. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove
131:Can everybody contact the higher forces? No, not indeed; but they submit themselves to a discipline and this brings them success. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
132:A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship. ~ francis-crick, @wisdomtrove
133:A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man, by one lower than himself. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
134:Christ, being man, had to see impurity and denounced it; but God, infinitely higher, does not see iniquity and cannot be angry. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
135:To a father waxing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter; sons have spirits of a higher pitch, but less inclined to endearing fondness. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove
136:But when I see that I have a higher level to my individuality, all of these problems evaporate. Death is not the end of my individuality. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove
137:Silence, the great Empire of Silence: higher than all stars; deeper than the Kingdom of Death! It alone is great; all else is small. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove
138:We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove
139:Where'er a noble deed is wrought, Where'er is spoken a noble thought, Our hearts in glad surprise To higher levels rise. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove
140:Your dreams are not just the rearrangement of memory. They are the vibrations of your consciousness. Guide them and go for the higher one. ~ amit-ray, @wisdomtrove
141:If you are interested in developing some of the higher range occult powers, then I would suggest you not engage in sex too frequently. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
142:I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
143:Whatever God there is is slowly eliminating the guts and alimentary system from the human being, to evolve a higher, more spiritual being. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove
144:All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason. ~ immanuel-kant, @wisdomtrove
145:If we knock on the door until it opens, not taking no for an answer, our lives will be transformed as we step up into a higher awareness. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove
146:Plainly, the environment must be a living one, directed by a higher intelligence, arranged by an adult who is prepared for his mission. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove
147:The harder you fall, the heavier your heart; the heavier your heart, the stronger you climb; the stronger you climb, the higher your pedestal. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove
148:I think the rest of the country should be paying less, the 95 percent that [Barack] Obama talks about or maybe even a little higher than that. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove
149:Books are only made so that they may point the way to a higher life; but no good results unless the path is trodden with unflinching steps! ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
150:A blow that would kill a civilized man soon heals on a savage. The higher we go in the scale of life, the greater is the capacity for suffering. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove
151:A joyous person abounds with energy and feels buoyant, because he or she is running a higher frequency current of energy through his or her system. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove
152:The higher animals are in a sense drawn into Man when he loves them and makes them (as he does) much more nearly human than they would otherwise be. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
153:If workers struggle for higher wages, this is hailed as "social gains", if businessmen struggle for higher profits, this is damned as "selfish greed". ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove
154:To the average man, and those above average, it is possible to discourse on higher subjects; to those from the average downwards, it is not possible. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
155:Fantasy (in this sense) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove
156:Think, in mounting higher, the angels would press on us, and aspire to drop some golden orb of perfect song into our deep, dear silence. ~ elizabeth-barrett-browning, @wisdomtrove
157:A politician's goal is always to manipulate public debate. I think there are some politicians with higher goals. But all of them get corrupted by power. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove
158:Never imitate the eccentricities of genius, but toil after it in its truer flights. They are not so easy to follow, but they lead to higher regions. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
159:Not in the state of unconsciousness, but in full awareness when the higher Power will descend into and direct us, then only the yogic life will begin. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
160:There is nothing more practical than the preservation of beauty, than the preservation of anything that appeals to the higher emotions of mankind ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove
161:Even though human life may be the most precious thing on earth, we always behave as if there were something of higher value than human life. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove
162:Perhaps there's a higher state of consciousness that we wake up to after death, which is predicated on our also entering the life states from time to time? ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove
163:You must learn to perceive as your self that which lies outside you. Looking only within oneself leads to a hardening in oneself, to a higher egotism. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
164:Your genius will shine through, and happiness will fill your life, the instant you discover your higher purpose and direct all your energies towards it. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove
165:Human anger is a higher thing than what is called divine discontent. For you must be angry with something; but you can be discontented with everything. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove
166:I believe that higher wages to men who respect their employers and are happy and contented are a good investment, yielding, indeed, big dividends. The ~ andrew-carnegie, @wisdomtrove
167:The man form is higher than the angel form; of all forms it is the highest. Man is the highest being in creation, because he aspires to freedom. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove
168:We shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove
169:Go out into the world, do your best all day, try to think higher thoughts, try to be kind and compassionate, but don't let people take advantage of you. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
170:In our democracy every young person should have an equal opportunity to obtain a higher education, regardless of his station in life or financial means. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove
171:When we know deep down that we're acting with integrity despite impulses to do otherwise, we feel gates of higher energy and inspiration open inside of us. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove
172:If you really want to channel all of your energy towards higher mysticism, you should realize that sex does drain a certain amount of your occult energy. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
173:The clearer the rules and the limits enforced by parents, the higher the child's self-esteem. The more freedom the child had, the lower his self-esteem. ~ martin-seligman, @wisdomtrove
174:Explore this next great frontier where the boundaries between work and higher purpose are merging into one, where doing good really is good for business. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove
175:If the prudence of reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circumstances, in others prudence of a higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove
176:They kill people here who stand up for their rights The system's just too damned corrupt It's always the same, the name of the game Is who do you know higher up ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove
177:Consciously paying more for a stock than its calculated value - in the hope that it can soon be sold for a still-higher price - should be labelled speculation ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove
178:Compassion is like mother giving love to her children. Mother’s ways are higher than others, even when everyone rejects, mother accepts with her arms open and wide. ~ amit-ray, @wisdomtrove
179:If you go to a higher place of power, you can gain power there and you might even encounter some beings of knowledge and light that might aid you in some way. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
180:I fall, I stand still... I trudge on. I gain a little... I get more eager and climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove
181:The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours. ~ lao-tzu, @wisdomtrove
182:There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity. ~ nathaniel-branden, @wisdomtrove
183:Align yourself with people that you can learn from, people who want more out of life, people who are stretching and searching and seeking some higher ground in life. ~ les-brown, @wisdomtrove
184:Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove
185:Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove
186:We will not find the inner strength to evolve to a higher level if we do not inwardly develop this profound feeling that there is something higher than ourselves. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
187:When you operate from the Higher Self, you feel centered and abundant?in fact, overflowing. When you experience this abundance, your fears automatically disappear. ~ susan-jeffers, @wisdomtrove
188:Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove
189:Among the reasons marriages fail, sex ranks no higher than fourth, behind money, having only one bathroom, and an inability to communicate, reasons one, two and three. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove
190:Forgiveness takes the burden of hate, guilt, and bitterness off your back and, with a lighter load, you can climb higher and faster, and be much happier in the process. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove
191:I do not want to make teaching films. If I did, I would create a separate organization. It is not higher education that interests me so much as general mass education. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove
192:Through the study of Zen you can learn to move from lower to higher states of mind at will. Higher states of mind offer you a much more accurate picture of reality. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
193:I am inclined by nature to be optimistic about the capacity of a person to rise higher than he or she has thought possible once interest and ambition are aroused. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove
194:From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
195:Let us be those creative dissenters who will call our beloved nation to a higher destiny. To a new plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove
196:The way our world is set up, a higher economic priority is given to things that bespeak a greater refinement. It is just a determination that was made, to make money. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
197:We're told about a woman's right to control her own body. But doesn't the unborn child have a higher right, and that is to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
198:Outside and above the mind there is the play of a consciousness which is lighted by the higher Truth, but man is not conscious of it and of that he has to be conscious. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
199:The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole church of God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove
200:When flowers are full of heaven-descended dews, they always hang their heads; but men hold theirs the higher the more they receive, getting proud as they get full. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
201:Higher meditation is not taught through techniques or words. The real meditation experience is taught inwardly. You shift a person through different dimensional planes. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
202:Higher thought forms trump lower ones. In the presence of a high frequency of human consciousness, all lower thought forms ultimately drop of their own dead weight. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove
203:The true, or higher part of the self is always seeking the state that mystics talk about, the state in which we are filled with a universal love and a peaceful euphoria. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove
204:In December ring Every day the chimes; Loud the gleemen sing In the streets their merry rhymes. Let us by the fire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire! ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove
205:In regard to man's final end, all the higher religions are in complete agreement. The purpose of human life is the discovery of Truth, the unitive knowledge of the Godhead. ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove
206:Men met each other with erected look, The steps were higher that they took; Friends to congratulate their friends made haste, And long inveterate foes saluted as they pass'd. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove
207:But I want to motivate. I wanna motivate every person to leave here to be a better father, a better husband, to break addictions to come up higher in their walk with the Lord. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove
208:Everything that shows up in your life is supposed to; this includes the falls in your life, which provide you with the energy to propel yourself to a higher state of awareness. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove
209:The delights of this life are not its own, but our fear of the ascent into a higher life; the torments of this life are not its own, but our self-torment because of that fear. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove
210:The Truth-power must be brought down from above into that state of peace, and this higher power - Parashakti - will directly guide the vehicle - ādhāra - and transform it. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
211:And through the opening or clearing in your own awareness may come flashing higher truths, subtler revelations, profound connections. For a moment you might even touch eternity. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove
212:If you have more personal power and you are in higher states of mind, then naturally you can see things and adhere to them or avoid them. Personal power is really the issue. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
213:There is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and useful for life in later years than some good memory, especially a memory connected with childhood, with home. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove
214:You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove
215:When we come to Christ, weôre no longer the most important person in the world to us; Christ is. Instead of living only for ourselves, we have a higher goal: to live for Jesus. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove
216:Emphasis must be put on learning: there is no substitute to education. It can be briefly formulated in a few words: always, whatever you do in life, think higher and feel deeper. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove
217:Leadership is lifting a person's vision to high sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove
218:Maintain your physical, emotional, and spiritual harmony with the universe by meditating every day. Inhale the precious breath of life. It is your connection to your Higher power. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove
219:The higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove
220:The higher Truth is all the time working in us but through the lower power - Aparashakti. It is when we become conscious of the play of this higher Power then only yoga begins. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
221:There are the altars, but here is the greatest of altars, the living, conscious human body, and to worship at this altar is far higher than the worship of any dead symbols. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
222:Prayer power is real. By putting it into action, we will be able to stay more constantly in higher awareness than ever before. If we can do that, the world will quickly change. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove
223:When you connect with stillness, you also connect with a creative intelligence that is higher than analytical thinking. Very often, the right decision then arises spontaneously. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove
224:If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
225:No nobler feeling than this, of admiration for one higher than himself, dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influence in man's life. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove
226:Times of happiness, bliss, and sheer delight intensify as the higher levels of our minds are opened within us One our life on earth is over, these levels keep rising forever. ~ emanuel-swedenborg, @wisdomtrove
227:Emotional control is essential for attaining higher levels of mind. The thing that the teacher looks for in a student is the degree of self-control, not coldness that someone has. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
228:I was attracted to poetry, which is perhaps the purest of the art forms, where love is the medium of exchange and the nobility of love is considered. It's a land of higher ideals. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
229:One point of difference between Hinduism and other religions is that in Hinduism we pass from truth to truth-from a lower truth to a higher truth-and never from error to truth. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
230:Practice clarity of vision. What do you want to create? Ask yourself what you really want, why you really want it, and if manifesting it will serve a higher purpose for humanity. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove
231:To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove
232:the person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people—that person is headed for higher earning power. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove
233:If are in a situation with too many people in your life and you want to go into higher attention, look in the mirror. You are being blocked. Do something about it. It might be hard. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
234:Most people want to make maximum money for minimum work, and that does not result in a happy life. Work does not become an active force to advance your awareness into higher states. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
235:People love misery, they love to feel sorry for themselves, and they definitely don't want to be enlightened. That's the first thing they tell you at boot camp in the higher worlds. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
236:Self-denial does not belong to religion as characteristic of it; it belongs to human life; the lower nature must always be denied when you are trying to rise to a higher sphere. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
237:We may indeed in counsel point to the higher road, but we cannot compel any free creature to walk upon it. That leadeth to tyranny, which disfigureth good and maketh it seem hateful. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove
238:Can you control your anger, lust, frustrations, and jealousies? Those are the only people worthy of the higher teachings. By worthy, I mean that they are the only ones capable of it. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
239:In art, and in the higher ranges of science, there is a feeling of harmony which underlies all endeavour. There is no true greatness in art or science without that sense of harmony. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove
240:Something very beautiful happens to people when their world's fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove
241:Anger or bitterness toward those who have hurt you will block your path to higher ground. You can have anger toward people or you can have freedom from people, but you can't have both. ~ vernon-howard, @wisdomtrove
242:Arrange photographs of nature scenes, animals and expressions of joy and love in your environment and let their energy radiate into your heart and provide you with their higher frequency. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove
243:If you sincerely believe that God loves you, then you’re not a victim of anything anymore. It’s happening to open up opportunities for us to become more aligned with our higher purpose. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove
244:There is no man that lives who does not need to be drilled, disciplined, and developed into something higher and nobler and better than he is by nature. Life is one prolonged birth. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
245:There is something beyond power. The totality of one's being. Some call it nirvana. We have a higher destiny. Before you can scratch the surface, you have to bring your life into order. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
246:Suffering is not a curse if it encourages us to grow. Experiences that force us willingly or unwillingly to change are life’s invitations to expand our wings and fly to ever higher places. ~ aimee-davies, @wisdomtrove
247:The wisdom of samadhi is quite different. Higher level wisdom cannot be written down. It cannot be spoken. True wisdom is the knowledge of the universe that is beyond physical expression. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
248:A hero is someone who stands in the community and speaks their hopes and speaks their passion. That's almost an act of heroism nowadays because higher consciousness is so trivialized. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove
249:For perfect love casteth out fear, and fear can only be from the material things that soon must fade away. And thus hold to the higher thought of eternity. For life is a continual experience. ~ edgar-cayce, @wisdomtrove
250:If they're not sincere, then naturally I'll turn them down. But if what they want is to gain power and use it for a higher good, I'll help them. Then they merit some special consideration. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
251:Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove
252:And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God's language - it's better, it's finer, it's language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove
253:If you think you are a vile slime, that means that you aspire to something higher... It's because you have a sense of perfection, and you obviously want that, that you find something wrong. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
254:I know that we do not know enough. We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove
255:In the degree that we come into this realization, and connect ourselves with this Infinite Source, do we make it possible for the higher powers to play, to work, to manifest in us. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove
256:When you could get angry with someone and separate yourself from them, don't do that. If you have people who are difficult to deal with, be neither attracted nor repulsed. Go a step higher. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
257:&
258:Cruelty practiced as a matter of social principle or public policy, and presented to the community as a means to a higher goal is the most obscene and decadent phenomenon of any civilization. ~ vernon-howard, @wisdomtrove
259:It is music that speaks to the deepest reaches of your soul, and you are lifted higher, ever higher, by the adagio, in my opinion more so even than in any of the masses that Beethoven composed. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove
260:Unfortunately the student often feels guilt for not living the type of life that their Teacher suggested, or they feel that they are intrinsically bad and incapable of leading a higher life. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
261:But the very fact that this world is so challenging is exactly why you sometimes must reach out of its jurisdiction for help, appealing to a higher authority in order to find your comfort. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove
262:If you sincerely believe that God loves you, then you’re not a victim of anything anymore. It’s happening to open up opportunities for us to become more aligned with our higher purpose. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove
263:Be a great capitalist. Be a great socialist. Be a great whatever you want to be, but do it with style, clarity and precision. That is the hallmark of those who seek higher knowledge and truth. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
264:As the proportion of people reaching higher states of consciousness increases, this inertia will decrease, and at the same time a supportive momentum in the new direction will start building up. ~ peter-russell, @wisdomtrove
265:The mind generally takes up various objects, runs into all sorts of things. That is the lower state. There is a higher state of the mind, when it takes up one object and excludes all others. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
266:And when you live in complete acceptance of what is –which is the only sane way to live – there is no “good” or “bad” in your life anymore. There is only a higher good – which includes the “bad.” ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove
267:It's amazing what people will do when you see the best in them, when you honor them, when you respect them. It not only strengthens the relationship, but it will help that other person rise higher. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove
268:The higher type of man clings to virtue, the lower type of man clings to material comfort. The higher type of man cherishes justice, the lower type of man cherishes the hope of favors to be received. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
269:Do your actions in the world, without forgetting that your find goal in life is to break free from all bondage and limitations. Always &
270:The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually, he replaced them by robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to take the place of the last humans. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove
271:They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove
272:Gradually we come to admit that Shakespeare understands a greater extent and variety of human life than Dante; but that Dante understands deeper degrees of degradation and higher degrees of exaltation. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove
273:If I meet other people and criticize their weaknesses, I rob myself of higher cognitive power. But if I try to enter deeply and lovingly into another person's good qualities, I gather in that force. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
274:Painful for a person is rebellious independence, only in loving companionship with his associates does a person feel safe: Only in reverently bowing down before the higher does a person feel exalted. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove
275:The sky grew darker and the moon rose higher as the evening wore on. and without either or them being conscious of it, they began to regain the intimacy, the bond of familiarity, they had once shared. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove
276:To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove
277:The function of the machine is to liberate man from brute burdens, and release his energies to the building of his intellectual and spiritual powers for conquests in the fields of thought and higher action. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove
278:God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher. ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove
279:Each of us is here to discover our higher self or our spiritual self. We must find out for ourself that inside us is a god or goddess in embryo that wants to be born so that we can express our divinity. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove
280:If you go to a place of power, the beings are higher, magnificent beings of light. They are not from our world. They pass through it, the place where dimensions touch, where there are many worlds present. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
281:It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another... we consider those, where the intellectual faculties most developed as the highest. - A bee doubtless would [use] ... instincts as a criteria. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
282:Through the higher love the whole life of man is to be elevated from temporal selfishness to the spring of all love, to God: man will again be master over nature by abiding in God and lifting her up to God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
283:Feel the underlying meaning of the teachings that are espoused by me or anyone else. The word's don't mean much. Words are supposed to be catalysts for higher states of attention. That is where the action is. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
284:Make lists. Write down the things that give you power. Write down the things that take your power away also. Make lists of people close to you. Are you associations raising you to a higher level of attention? ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
285:I saw them; there is nothing beautiful about them, just that they are a little higher than the others. Referring to one of the oldest and loveliest groves of redwoods, showing insensitivity to their magnificence. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
286:The human soul has sojourned in lower and higher forms, migrating from one to another according to the samskaras or impressions, but it is only in the highest form as a human being that it attains to freedom. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
287:Activity equals results. If you want to increase your success, increase your activity. Increase contact with customers. The more people you contact, the higher your sales will be because of the law of probabilities. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove
288:At a simple level, good is that which helps people-evil is that which hurts people. At a higher level, good is that which is in harmony with divine purpose-evil is that which is out of harmony with divine purpose. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove
289:We're Americans, and we have a rendezvous with destiny . . . No people who have ever lived on this earth have fought harder, paid a higher price for freedom, or done more to advance the dignity of man than Americans. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
290:The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the greater the number of people he is connected with, the more power he has over other people, the more obvious is the predestination and inevitability of his every action. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove
291:When you realize that the real breakthroughs come from levels of higher consciousness, then you also realize that the achievement of maturity and wisdom is the most powerful generator of new beginnings possible. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove
292:There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties... The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
293:Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove
294:How can there be two selves in one body? The &
295:I was given the freedom to discover my own inclination and talents, to fashion my inmost pleasures and sorrows myself and to regard the future not as an alien higher power but as the hope and product of my own strength. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove
296:The Highest to which people can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes them wonder, let them be content; nothing higher can it give them, and nothing further should they seek for behind it; there is the limit. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove
297:Material success is a way of tightening up your life so that you can move into higher planes of attention. You should try to do well in every aspect of your life, because each aspect of your life affects your total being. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove
298:Surgery for early stage non-small cell lung cancer is standard treatment and is likely curative. Yet, fewer blacks than whites undergo surgery for the disease, leading to a higher mortality rate among blacks with lung cancer. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove
299:I have an unshakable belief that mankind's higher nature is on the whole still dormant. The greatest souls reveal excellencies of mind and heart which their lesser fellows possess-hidden, it is true, but there all the same. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove
300:My vision of the future is no longer of people taking exams and proceeding from secondary school to University but of passing from one stage of independence to a higher, by means of their own activity and effort of will. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove
301:Such growth will move humans into ever-higher energy states, ultimately transforming our bodies into spiritual form and uniting this dimension of existence with the afterlife dimension, ending the cycle of birth and death. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove
302:All higher motives, ideals, conceptions, sentiments in a man are of no account if they do not come forward to strengthen him for the better discharge of the duties which devolve upon him in the ordinary affairs of life. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
303:I am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove
304:Spirit is the essence of consciousness, the energy of the universe that creates all things. Each one of us is a part of that spirit - a divine entity. So the spirit is the higher self, the eternal being that lives within us. ~ shakti-gawain, @wisdomtrove
305:Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove
306:It is easy to specify the individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes; but it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
307:The man who perceives life only with his eye, his ear, his hand, and his tongue, is but little higher than the ox or an intelligent dog; but he who has imagination sees things around and above him, as the angels see them. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
308:Every good book should be entertaining. A good book will be more; it must not be less. Entertainment…is like a qualifying examination. If a fiction can’t provide that, we may be excused from inquiring into its higher qualities. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
309:If any man is rich and powerful he comes under the law of God by which the higher branches must take the burnings of the sun, and shade those that are lower; by which the tall trees must protect the weak plants beneath them. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
310:People have the most control over their affairs at the grass-roots level. Anything that can be fairly and efficiently handled at a grass-roots level should be thus handled, and only delegated to a higher authority when necessary. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove
311:What the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind of man can achieve with Positive Mental Attitude. It is a form of self-suggestion. It is a self-motivator to success. When it becomes a part of you, you dare to aim higher. ~ w-clement-stone, @wisdomtrove
312:He who is different from me does not impoverish me - he enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselves - in Man... For no man seeks to hear his own echo, or to find his reflection in the glass. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove
313:What is art but the life upon the larger scale, the higher. When, graduating up in a spiral line of still expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward the intense significance of all things, hungry for the infinite? ~ elizabeth-barrett-browning, @wisdomtrove
314:You need to associate with people who inspire you, people that challenge you to raise higher, people that make you better. Don't waste your valuable time with people that are not adding to your growth. Your destiny is too important. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove
315:The word which gives the key to the national vice is waste. And people who are wasteful are not wise, neither can they remain young and vigorous. In order to transmute energy to higher and more subtle levels one must first conserve it. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove
316:It is a society of laborers which is about to be liberated from the ferrets of labor, and this society does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won. ~ hannah-arendt, @wisdomtrove
317:Our goal is to go from bright to brighter to brightest, from high to higher to highest. And even in the highest, there is no end to our progress, for God Himself is inside each of us and God at every moment is transcending His own Reality. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove
318:A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
319:Classic economic theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of human motivation, could be revolutionized by accepting the reality of higher human needs, including the impulse to self-actualization and the love for the highest values. ~ abraham-maslow, @wisdomtrove
320:I am a great believer in high-priced people. If a thing cost a lot it may not be any better, but it adds a certain amount of class that the cheap thing can never approach; in the long run it's the higher-priced things that are the cheapest. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove
321:You will be competing against athletes from many nations. But, most important, you are competing against yourself. All we expect is for you to do your very best, to push yourself just one second faster, one notch higher, one inch further. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
322:Human nature has been sold short... humans have a higher nature which... includes the need for meaningful work, for responsibility, for creativeness, for being fair and just, for doing what is worthwhile and for preferring to do it well. ~ abraham-maslow, @wisdomtrove
323:When the higher officers are angry and insubordinate, and on meeting the enemy give battle on their own account from a feeling of resentment, before the commander-in-chief can tell whether or not he is in a position to fight, the result is ruin. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove
324:Meditation, you know, comes by a process imagination. You go through all these processes purification of the elements - making the one melt the other, that into the next higher, that into mind, that into spirit, and then you are spirit. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
325:... they are structures that we build every time we engage in a thought that's just a little bit higher than a thought we had a moment before, or an activity that's just a little bit more noble than the activity we engaged in a moment before. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove
326:Copying is slavery. The letter must never be followed, only the spirit is to be grasped. Higher affirmations live in the spirit. And where is the spirit? Seek it in your everyday experience, and therein lies abundance of proof for all you need. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove
327:Desire is what leads you through life until the time comes when you desire a higher life. So do not be ashamed that you want so much, yet at the same time do not fool yourself into thinking that what you want today will be enough tomorrow. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove
328:It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can explain gravity? No one now objects to following out the results consequent on this unknown element of attraction. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
329:Man can never come up to his ideal standard. It is the nature of the immortal spirit to raise that standard higher and higher as it goes from strength to strength, still upward and onward. The wisest and greatest men are ever the most modest. ~ margaret-fuller, @wisdomtrove
330:This is what I found out about religion: It gives you courage to make the decisions you must make in a crisis, and then the confidence to leave the result to a higher Power. Only by trust in God can a man carrying responsibility find repose. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove
331:If you're constantly pushing yourself higher, higher, the law of averages - not to mention the myth of Icarus - predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: There is no such thing as failure. ~ oprah-winfrey, @wisdomtrove
332:The higher worlds are around us. These worlds are not only heavenly worlds, not only worlds of happiness, though paradise and happiness are in them, but they are also worlds that could be terrible for the people, by dangerous facts and creatures. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
333:Muhammad has always been standing higher than the Christianity. He does not consider god as a human being and never makes himself equal to God. Muslims worship nothing except God and Muhammad is his Messenger. There is no any mystery and secret in it. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove
334:People love fast. When you're fast people think you're smart, think your products are of higher quality, think your management is of higher quality, think that you're worth more and they're willing to pay more money for it. So, I'm really big into speed. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove
335:The higher our self-esteem, the stronger the drive to express ourselves, reflecting the sense of richness within. The lower our self-esteem, the more urgent the need to "prove" ourselves or to forget ourselves by living mechanically and unconsciously. ~ nathaniel-branden, @wisdomtrove
336:The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body - to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transform your life. The more consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher its vibrational frequency becomes. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove
337:The higher nature in man always seeks for something which transcends itself and yet is its deepest truth; which claims all its sacrifice, yet makes this sacrifice its own recompense. This is man's dharma, man's religion, and man's self is the vessel. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove
338:Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being little. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. Modest humility is beauty's crown. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove
339:It is not the child as a physical but as a psychic being that can provide a strong impetus to the betterment of mankind. It is the spirit of the child that can determine the course of human progress and lead it perhaps even to a higher form of civilization. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove
340:Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea. And there is only one higher idea on earth, and it is the idea of the immortality of the human soul, for all other "higher" ideas of life by which humans might live derive from that idea alone. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove
341:A race or nation stands so much the higher, the more perfectly its members express the pure, ideal human type ... The evolution of man through the incarnations in ever higher national and racial forms is thus a process of liberation [leading to] an ideal future. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
342:God has not made this world to be a nest for us, and if we try to make it such for ourselves, he plants thorns in it, so that we may be compelled to mount and find our soul's true home somewhere else, in a higher and nobler sphere than this poor world can give. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove
343:To be forgiven is such sweetness that honey is tasteless in comparison with it. But yet there is one thing sweeter still, and that is to forgive. As it is more blessed to give than to receive, so to forgive rises a stage higher in experience than to be forgiven. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove
344:What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove
345:What matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he gets little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer? ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove
346:Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and a higher economy. Economy is a distinctive virtue, and consists not in saving, but in selection. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove
347:The one aim of [my] yoga is an inner self-development by which each one who follows it can in time discover the One Self in all and evolve a higher consciousness than the mental, a spiritual and supramental consciousness which will transform and divinize human nature. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
348:Every positive change - every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness - involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation. I have never found an exception. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove
349:So wie die Verruecktheit in einem hoeheren Sinn, der Anfang aller Weisheit ist, so ist die Schizophrenie der Anfang aller Kunst, aller Phantasie. (As insanity in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom, so is schizophrenia the beginning of all art, all fantasy.) ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove
350:Character is the direct result of mental attitude. I believe that character is higher than the intellect. I believe that leadership is in sacrifice, in self-denial, in humility and in the perfectly disciplined will. This is the distinction between great and little men. ~ vince-lombardi, @wisdomtrove
351:My daemon is dreaming itself to be &
352:The desire of your vital being is towards work. And the vital being won't find any interest in yoga so long as you do not have any experience of the higher and fuller life that is in yoga. As long as this experience is not there, the vital being will not find any interest. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
353:It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion-the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce the lower so that you may get the higher. Renounce! Renounce! Sacrifice! Give up! Not for zero. Not for nothing. But to get the higher. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
354:As I look back at the entire tapestry of my life, I can see from the perspective of the present moment that every aspect of my life was necessary and perfect. Each step eventually led to a higher place, even though these steps often felt like obstacles or painful experiences. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove
355:Once we know our own soul rising still higher, we sing the divinity of the Mind [which produced it], and above all these, the mighty King of that dominion (the Absolute), who, while remaining as He is, yet creates that multitude, all dependent on Him, existing by Him and from Him. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove
356:The faster you work and the more you get done, the better you feel. Most successful people work at a higher tempo of activity than unsuccessful people. They don't necessarily do different things, but they get things done more efficiently in a given time than the average person. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove
357:Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status. This is the result of an old and excellent religious civilization. This evolution to a higher spiritual state is possible only through discipline and education. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
358:We rejoice in God since he has taught us that every thing which is true in us, is but a faint expression of what is in him. And thus all our joys become to us the echo of higher joys, and our very life is as a dream of that nobler life, to which we shall awaken when we die. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
359:Whatever happens on the surface, it's leading us in a direction. That beautiful core within us that is our character will make choices that will inevitably leads us to a higher understanding of who we are and why we're here. And it's best to be aware of that while it's happening. ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove
360:Too early religious advancement of the Hindus and that superfineness in everything which made them cling to higher alternatives, have reduced them to what they are. The Hindus have to learn a little bit of materialism from the West and teach them a little bit of spirituality. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
361:Focus very clearly on a few small things. The purpose of a business is to give someone something that they want. Have a product or service that's really excellent. [... ] What can you offer that no one else can offer and will satisfy them at a higher level than what anyone else can? ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove
362:Often I have woken to myself out of the body, become detached from all else and entered into myself; and I have seen beauty of surpassing greatness, and have felt assured that then especially I belonged to the higher reality, engaged in the noblest life and identified with the Divine. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove
363:While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove
364:Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove
365:Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity own to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the of the inquiring constructive mind. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove
366:It is my mission as a pilgrim to act as a messenger expressing spiritual truths. It is a task which I accept joyfully, and I desire nothing in return, neither praise or glory, nor the glitter of silver and gold. I simply rejoice to be able to follow the whisperings of a Higher Will. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove
367:For a warrior, nothing is higher than a war against evil. The warrior confronted with such a war should be pleased, Arjuna, for it comes as an open gate to heaven. But if you do not participate in this battle against evil, you will incur sin, violating your dharma and your honor. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
368:Universal empire is the prerogative of a writer. His concerns are with all mankind, and though he cannot command their obedience,he can assign them their duty. The Republic of Letters is more ancient than monarchy, and of far higher character in the world than the vassal court of Britain. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove
369:The possibility of acquiring the art of writing may be withheld from someone through poverty, or through the conditions of civilization into which he is born; but for the attainment of knowledge and proficiency in the higher worlds, there is no obstacle for those who earnestly seek them. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
370:Think about all the good things of your life. Never think about your difficulties. Forget yourself, and concentrate on being of service as much as you can in this world, and then, having lost your lower self in a cause greater than yourself, you will find your higher self: your real self. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove
371:When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When government does it, it sends you the bill. And when government does it for 40 years, the bill comes in two ways: higher taxes and inflation. Make no mistake about it, inflation is a tax and not by accident. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
372:This is the real task before us: to reassert our commitment as a nation to a law higher than our own, to renew our spiritual strength. Only by building a wall of such spiritual resolve can we, as a free people, hope to protect our own heritage and make it someday the birthright of all men. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
373:What is required is faith. Man has body, life and mind but that is not all that constitutes man. He has risen to the mind as a result of evolution. Now a higher consciousness will be evolved - this I call Supermind. It is the instrument of the Divine Consciousness, the Truth-Consciousness. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
374:The inner master, when confronted with an obstacle, uses it as fuel, like a fire which consumes things that are thrown into it. A small lamp would be snuffed out, but a big fire will engulf what is thrown at it and burn hotter; it consumes the obstacle and uses it to reach a higher level. ~ marcus-aurelius, @wisdomtrove
375:If you're not feeling good and you want to change the way you feel, or if you want to lift good feelings higher, then take a minute or two and god through a mental list of everything you love and adore. You can do it while getting dressed in the morning, walking, driving or traveling anywhere. ~ rhonda-byrne, @wisdomtrove
376:When you make people angry, they act in accordance with their baser instincts, often violently and irrationally. When you inspire people, they act in accordance with their higher instincts, sensibly and rationally. Also, anger is transient, whereas inspiration sometimes has a life-long effect. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove
377:here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove
378:It is my personal conviction that almost any one of the newborn states of the world would far rather embrace Communism or any other form of dictatorship than acknowledge the political domination of another government, even though that brought to each citizen a far higher standard of living. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove
379:Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
380:Dying is not perpetual unconscious sleep. It's a further waking up to a higher state of consciousness, which is predicated on the lesser states of consciousness. Deep sleep is the ground from which consciousness expands, through the dreaming state to the waking state, and then to the after-death state. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove
381:God does not refuse to make himself known to man. He only will not do it by the symbolism of matter. He comes to us at once by the most natural course. We are in a transient state; our bodies are accidental, and God comes to us by that which is higher and truer&
382:The world of pure spirits stretches between the divine nature and the world of human beings; because divine wisdom has ordained that the higher should look after the lower, angels execute the divine plan for human salvation: they are our guardians, who free us when hindered and help to bring us home. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove
383:The world of pure spirits stretches between the divine nature and the world of human beings; because divine wisdom has ordained that the higher should look after the lower, angels execute the divine plan for human salvation: they are our guardians, who free us when hindered and help to bring us home. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove
384:There slumber in every human being faculties by means of which he can acquire for himself a knowledge of higher worlds. Mystics, Gnostics, Theosophists — all speak of a world of soul and spirit which for them is just as real as the world we see with our physical eyes and touch with our physical hands. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
385:The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
386:A recent survey stated that the average person's greatest fear is having to give a speech in public. Somehow this ranked even higher than death which was third on the list. So, you're telling me that at a funeral, most people would rather be the guy in the coffin than have to stand up and give a eulogy. ~ jerry-seinfeld, @wisdomtrove
387:Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities. ~ aristotle, @wisdomtrove
388:One who has drunk at the fountain of spiritual happiness says good-by of his own accord to the satisfactions that come from a higher professional status ... What is the greatest sign of success for a teacher thus transformed? It is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove
389:America is a melting pot, and education has been a mainspring for our democracy and freedom, a means of providing gifts of knowledge and opportunity to all citizens, no matter how humble their background, so they could climb higher, help build the American dream, and leave a better life for those who follow. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
390:The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated; as all high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work material progress of all kinds mainly depends, not to mention other and higher advantages. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
391:Human beings are born and begin their evolution through the great spiral of consciousness, moving from archaic to magic to mythic to rational to perhaps integral, and from there perhaps into genuinely transpersonal domains. But for every person that moves into integral or higher, dozens are born into the archaic. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove
392:The only thing that really matters now is whether man can climb up to a higher moral level, to a higher plane of consciousness, in order to be equal to the superhuman powers which the fallen angels have played into his hands. But he can make no progress until he becomes very much better acquainted with his own nature. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove
393:I find one vast garden spread out all over the universe. All plants, all human beings, all higher mind bodies are about in this garden in various ways, each has his own uniqueness and beauty. Their presence and variety give me great delight. Every one of you adds with his special feature to the glory of the garden. ~ anandamayi-ma, @wisdomtrove
394:Education is like a diamond with many facets: It includes the basic mastery of numbers and letters that give us access to the treasury of human knowledge, accumulated and refined through the ages; it includes technical and vocational training as well as instruction in science, higher mathematics, and humane letters. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
395:Experience teaches that for most people there is a limit beyond which their constitution cannot comply with the demands of civilization. All who wish to reach a higher standard than their constitution will allow, fall victims to neurosis. It would have been better for them if they could have remained less "perfect". ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove
396:Why does that pharmacist have to be two and a half feet higher than everybody else? Who the hell is this guy? "Clear out, everybody. I'm working with pills up here. I'm taking them from this big bottle and then I'm gonna put them in the little bottle. That's my whole job. I can't be down on the floor with you people." ~ jerry-seinfeld, @wisdomtrove
397:You can imagine thistle-down so light that when you run after it your running motion would drive it away from you, and that the more you tried to catch it the faster it would fly from your grasp. And it should be with every man, that, when he is chased by troubles, they, chasing, shall raise him higher and higher. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
398:Love is higher than opinion. If people love one another the most varied opinions can be reconciled - thus one of the most important tasks for humankind today and in the future is that we should learn to live together and understand one another. If this human fellowship is not achieved, all talk of development is empty. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
399:To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove
400:Surrender means accepting this moment, this body, and this life with open arms. Surrender involves getting out of your own way and living in accord with a higher will, expressed as the wisdom of the heart. Far more than passive acceptance, surrender uses every challenge as a means of spiritual growth and expanded awareness. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove
401:Well has it been said that man is the only animal that naturally looks upwards; every other animal naturally looks down. That looking upward and going upward and seeking perfection are what is called salvation; and the sooner a man begins to go higher, the sooner he raises himself towards this idea of truth as salvation. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
402:To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law - the law of grace and love - but that one must do so. The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty forms of legalism. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove
403:The whole trouble with the Republicans is their fear of an increase in income tax, especially on higher incomes. They speak of it almost like a national calamity. I really believe if it come to a vote whether to go to war with England, France and Germany combined, or raise the rate on incomes of over $100,000, they would vote war. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove
404:The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than the woman. Whether deep thought, reason, or imagination or merely the use of the senses and hands... ..We may also infer... ..The average mental power in man must be above that of woman. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
405:I know of no American who starts from a higher level of aspiration than the journalist. . . . He plans to be both an artist and a moralist - a master of lovely words and merchant of sound ideas. He ends, commonly, as the most depressing jackass of his community - that is, if his career goes on to what is called a success. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove
406:Those who grumble at the little thing that has fallen to their lot to do will grumble at everything. Always grumbling, they will lead a miserable life, and everything will be a failure. But those who do their duties as they go, putting their shoulders to the wheel, will see the light, and higher duties will fall to their share. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
407:Each of us is the next step in evolution along the lineage created by our two parents. Our higher purpose on earth can be found by recognizing what our parents accomplished and where they left off. By reconciling what they gave us with what they left us to resolve, we can get a clear picture of who we are and what we are meant to do. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove
408:The next time you feel unworthy, inadequate or inferior, remember that these experiences have nothing to do with humbleness, any more than lowering yourself to connect with another individual has to do with humbleness. There are no lower or higher individuals in the perception of a humble person. There are only souls. There is only love. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove
409:If you want to be happy, you have to let go of the part of you that wants to create melodrama. This is the part that thinks there’s a reason not to be happy. You have to transcend the personal, and as you do, you will naturally awaken to the higher aspects of your being. – Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself ~ michael-singer, @wisdomtrove
410:Sometimes, life seems to have a higher meaning. Events unfold in uncanny sequences. Long-forgotten acquaintances turn up with news that changes lives. A stranger appears and speaks a few words of wisdom, solving a previously insoluble problem, or something in a recent dream transpires in reality. Suddenly the existence of God seems confirmed. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove
411:Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man's supremacy over lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower, and that there should be mutual aid between the two as between man and man. They had also brought out the truth that man eats not for enjoyment but to live. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove
412:I define democracy as control by the people. Slaves are those who allow others to control their lives. Insofar as people succeed in solving their problems fairly and efficiently at a grassroots level, they retain control over their lives. Insofar as they delegate their problem solving to a higher authority, they lose control over their lives. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove
413:Men should soon make up their minds to be forgotten, and look about them, or within them, for some higher motive in what they do than the approbation of men, which is fame, namely, their duty; that they should be constantly and quietly at work, each in his sphere, regardless of effects, and leaving their fame to take care of itself. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove
414:I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove
415:The Goddess doesn't enter us from outside; she emerges from deep within. She is not held back by what happened in the past. She is conceived in consciousness, born in love, and nurtured by higher thinking. She is integrity and value, created and sustained by the hard work of personal growth and the discipline of a life lived actively in hope. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove
416:True self-love is having this level of trust in the universe, in your higher self. You know that even if you say no to an opportunity that seems great, because you don't feel like doing it right now, or maybe you're too tired or overbooked, you understand "if it's meant to be for me, it's going to come back when I'm ready". That is true self-love. ~ anita-moorjani, @wisdomtrove
417:If the purpose of life is just to live this life and then die, it's hard to answer the purpose of pain question; but if we can help people see from an eternal perspective - that all of this is working together to prepare us for something higher than we've ever imagined, more noble than we've ever dreamed - then we discover some hope that we can hold on to. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove
418:Stress is a hindrance thinking Stress leads to poor health, poor decision-making, poor thinking, and poor socialization. We now understand that higher-level thinking is more likely to occur in the brain of a student who is emotionally secure than in the brain of a student who is scared, upset, anxious, or stressed. Mawhinney and Sagan ~ marc-and-angel-chernoff, @wisdomtrove
419:My appointed work is to awaken the divine nature that is within. This is my calling, to open doors of truth and make people think, to arouse others from their apathetic and lethargic state, and get them to seek out for themselves the inner peace which dwells within. This is the extent of my undertaking, I can do no more. The rest I leave to a higher power. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove
420:So if your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution. First, you cannot achieve them without suffering, and second, insofar as you do achieve them, you are likely to be called on to serve in ways more painful to you, or at least demanding of you, than you can now imagine. ~ m-scott-peck, @wisdomtrove
421:What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or grow old, or become colorless. By its curiosity Sin increases the experience of the race. Through its intensified assertion of individualism it saves us from monotony of type. In its rejection of the current notions about morality, it is one with the higher ethics. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove
422:The magnitude of the punishment matches the magnitude of the sin. Now a sin that is against God is infinite; the higher the person against whom it is committed, the graver the sin-it is more criminal to strike a head of state than a private citizen-and God is of infinite greatness. Therefore an infinite punishment is deserved for a sin committed against Him. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove
423:The magnitude of the punishment matches the magnitude of the sin. Now a sin that is against God is infinite; the higher the person against whom it is committed, the graver the sin-it is more criminal to strike a head of state than a private citizen-and God is of infinite greatness. Therefore an infinite punishment is deserved for a sin committed against Him. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove
424:In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses-How to Value a Business, and How to Think about Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business who's earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove
425:There is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and he wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
426:It is too often believed that a person in his progress towards perfection passes from error to truth; that when he passes on from one thought to another, he must necessarily reject the first. But no error can lead to truth. The soul passing through its different stages goes from truth to truth, and each stage is true; it goes from lower truth to higher truth. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
427:Devotion gradually progresses to higher levels. . . . One type goes to God and asks Him to remove his suffering. Another one will ask for money or material things. A third will request liberation or release from his bondage. And the fourth will not ask for anything. He will just enjoy praying and praising his Lord. That is the highest form of prayer. ~ swami-satchidananda-saraswati, @wisdomtrove
428:A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget... .As the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues. Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income, we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our budget into balance. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove
429:Had (I) been a member of a more popular race, I should have been inclined to yield to the temptation of depending upon my ancestry and my colour to do that for me which I should do for myself. Years ago I resolved that because I had no ancestry myself I would leave a record of which my children would be proud, and which might encourage them to still higher effort ~ booker-t-washington, @wisdomtrove
430:No one can give a definition of the soul. But we know what it feels like. The soul is the sense of something higher than ourselves, something that stirs in us thoughts, hopes, and aspirations which go out to the world of goodness, truth and beauty. The soul is a burning desire to breathe in this world of light and never to lose it&
431:Hero-worship is the deepest root of all; the tap-root, from which in a great degree all the rest were nourished and grown . . . Worship of a Hero is transcendent admiration of a Great Man. I say great men are still admirable; I say there is, at bottom, nothing else admirable! No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of men. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove
432:The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove
433:The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others. In dangerous valleys and hazardous pathways, he will lift some bruised and beaten brother to a higher and more noble life. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove
434:Going around this country, I have found a great hunger in America for spiritual revival; for a belief that law must be based on a higher law; for a return to traditions and values that we once had. Our government, in its most sacred documents - the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and all - speak of man being created, of a Creator; that we're a nation under God. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
435:Hence, as Narcissus, by catching at the shadow, plunged himself in the stream and disappeared, so he who is captivated by beautiful bodies, and does not depart from their embrace, is precipitated, not with his body, but with his soul, into a darkness profound and repugnant to intellect (the higher soul), through which, remaining blind both here and in Hades, he associates with shadows. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove
436:Nonviolence seeks to ‘win’ not by destroying or even by humiliating the adversary, but by convincing [the adversary] that there is a higher and more certain common good than can be attained by bombs and blood. Nonviolence, ideally speaking, does not try to overcome the adversary by winning over [them], but to turn [them] from an adversary into a collaborator by winning [them] over. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove
437:Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove
438:The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in its own nature, but it lacks something that it can only receive from outside and above itself. But when the light shines in it, it becomes in a manner transformed into light and seems to lose its nature in the splendor of a higher nature, the nature of the light that is in it. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove
439:Just as in the body, eye and ear develop as organs of perception, as senses for bodily processes, so does a man develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception through which the soul and spiritual worlds are opened to him. For those who do not have such higher senses, these worlds are dark and silent, just as the bodily world is dark and silent for a being without eyes and ears. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
440:The greater the charity of the Saints in their heavenly home, the more they intercede for those who are still on their journey and the more they can help them by their prayers; the more they are united with God, the more effective those prayers are. This is in accordance with Divine order, which makes higher things react upon lower things, like the brightness of the sun filling the atmosphere. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove
441:I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it! I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
442:The greater the charity of the Saints in their heavenly home, the more they intercede for those who are still on their journey and the more they can help them by their prayers; the more they are united with God, the more effective those prayers are. This is in accordance with Divine order, which makes higher things react upon lower things, like the brightness of the sun filling the atmosphere. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove
443:[The masses] ... must turn their hopes toward a miracle. In the depths of their despair reason cannot be believed, truth must be false, and lies must be truth. "Higher bread prices," "lower bread prices," "unchanged bread prices" have all failed. The only hope lies in a kind of bread price which is none of these, which nobody has ever seen before, and which belies the evidence of one's reason. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove
444:It's becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory where sufficiently extreme conditions are ever achieved to test new ideas on particle physics. The energies in the Big Bang were far higher than we can ever achieve on Earth. So by looking at evidence for the Big Bang, and by studying things like neutron stars, we are in effect learning something about fundamental physics. ~ martin-rees, @wisdomtrove
445:Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too, as in certain combinations so words and in all kinds of music; for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of beauty in the conduct of life, in actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove
446:To work effectively you need uninterrupted blocks of time in which you can complete meaningful work. When you know for certain that you won't be interrupted, your productivity is much, much higher. When you sit down to work on a particularly intense task, dedicate blocks of time to the task during which you will not do anything else. I've found that a minimum of 90 minutes is ideal for a single block. ~ steve-pavlina, @wisdomtrove
447:What I mean by the Muse is that unimpeded clearness of the intuitive powers, which a perfectly truthful adherence to every admonition of the higher instincts would bring to a finely organized human being. It may appear as prophesy or as poesy... should these faculties have free play, I believe they will open up new, deeper and purer sources of joyous inspiration than have as yet refreshed the earth. ~ margaret-fuller, @wisdomtrove
448:D√¢na, charity. There is no higher virtue than charity. The lowest man is he whose hand draws in, in receiving; and he is the highest man whose hand goes out in giving. The hand was made to give always. Give the last bit of bread you have even if you are starving. You will be free in a moment if you starve yourself to death by giving to another. Immediately you will be perfect, you will become God. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
449:We may as well face it: the whole level of spirituality among us is low. We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone (We) have imitated the world, sought popular favor, manufactured delights to substitute for the joy of the Lord and produced a cheap and synthetic power to substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove
450:This is the ancient land, where wisdom made its home before it went into any other country... Here is the same India whose soil has been trodden by the feet of the greatest sages that ever lived... Look back, therefore, as far as you can, drink deep of the eternal fountains that are behind, and after that look forward, march forward, and make India brighter, greater, much higher, than she ever was. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
451:The moment we use the term &
452:The soul is presupposed as a ready-made agent, which displays such features as its acts and utterances, from which we can learn what it is, what sort of faculties and powers it possesses - all without being aware that the act and utterance of what the soul is really invests it with that character in our conception and makes it reach a higher stage of being than it explicitly had before. ~ georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel, @wisdomtrove
453:If a person opens his mouth to say affirmation or denial, he is lost. Zen is gone. But keeping silence does not go away. The stone on the ground is silent, the blossoming flower under the window is also silent, but they do not understand Zen. There must be some way to find the silence and the speech to be the same, ie. denial and affirmation to be unified in a higher form of utterance. We do that, so we have met Zen. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove
454:Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks, before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman empire. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove
455:The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This fact affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
456:Everyone must concede that there is in existence something wiser than himself. Now there is a challenge, there is a challenge which few even investigate. We're going to do that now. Let's see what we're talking about. All troubled people, which is all people, must if they are going to be delivered from themselves, must make the concession that there is a force, an entity, a power that is higher than their own present nature. ~ vernon-howard, @wisdomtrove
457:We are all youthful barbarians, and only our new toys bring us excitement. That has been the sole purpose of our flights. This one flies higher, that one faster. But now we will make ourselves at home. We will forget the machine, the tool. It is no longer complex; it does what it is supposed to do, unnoticed. And through this tool we will find again the old nature, the nature of the gardener, the navigator, the poet. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove
458:So we find that in almost every religion these are the three primary things which we have in the worship of God - forms or symbols, names, God-men. All religions have these, but you find that they want to fight with each other... These are the external forms of devotion, through which man has to pass; but if he is sincere, if he really wants to reach the truth, he goes higher than these, to a plane where forms are as nothing. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
459:[W]e think the very term &
460:If the positive innovations connect exponentially before the massive breakdowns reinforce one another, the system can re-pattern itself to a higher order of consciousness and freedom without the predicted economic, environmental, and social collapse... If the system could go either way, a slight intervention to assist the convergence of the positive can tip the scales of evolution in favor of the enhancement of life on Earth. ~ barbara-marx-hubbard, @wisdomtrove
461:On the theory of the soul's mortality, the inferiority of women's capacity is easily accounted for: Their domestic life requires no higher faculties either of mind or body. This circumstance vanishes and becomes absolutely insignificant, on the religious theory: The one sex has an equal task to perform as the other: Their powers of reason and resolution ought also to have been equal, and both of them infinitely greater than at present. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove
462:The revolution of ideas that will save us is a revolution of goodwill, of compassion, and of higher thinking. I believe that they outnumber the people who would choose fear. But they are not a particularly politicized force. If you look at the numbers of people buying books about revolutions from within and personal transformation as the key to global change, the numbers add up to a much greater audience than most people realize. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove
463:Our status as a free society and world power is not based on brute strength. When we've taken up arms, it has been for the defense of freedom for ourselves and for other peaceful nations who needed our help. But now, faced with the development of weapons with immense destructive power, we've no choice but to maintain ready defense forces that are second to none. Yes, the cost is high, but the price of neglect would be infinitely higher. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
464:Who knows if the moon's a balloon,coming out of a keen city in the sky&
465:I think we need to teach children the importance of others, and that they cannot grow in this world without taking in others. The more worlds they take in, these unique worlds, the more they can become. We need to teach them to trust others again, because we're all frightened to death of each other. We're building higher and higher walls, stronger and stronger locks. Tear down the walls! Every day I see how we're distrusting and it hurts. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove
466:Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done. The writer's only responsibility is to his art. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove
467:Acquisition of [higher] knowledge is not the end, but the means to the end; the end consists of the attainment, thanks to this knowledge of the higher worlds, of greater and truer self-confidence, a higher degree of courage, and a magnanimity and perseverance such as cannot, as a rule, be acquired in the lower world.For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
468:Have faith in man, whether he appears to you to be a very learned one or a most ignorant one. Have faith in man, whether he appears to be an angel or the very devil himself. Have faith in man first, and then having faith in him, believe that if there are defects in him, if he makes mistakes, if he embraces the crudest and the vilest doctrines, believe that it is not from his real nature that they come, but from the want of higher ideals. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
469:Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done. The writer's only responsibility is to his art. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove
470:All the greatest and most important problems in life are fundamentally insoluble … They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This “outgrowing” proves on further investigation to require a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the horizon and through this broadening of outlook, the insoluble lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms, but faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove
471:How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far &
472:Books are what you step on to take you to a higher shelf. The higher your stack of books, the higher the shelf you can reach. Want to reach higher? Stack some more books under your feet! Reading is what brings us to new knowledge. It opens new doors. It helps us understand mysteries. It lets us hear from successful people. Reading is what takes us down the road in our journey. Everything you need for a better future and success has already been written. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove
473:Something very beautiful happens to people when their world has fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor. Perhaps, in a way, that's where humanity is now: about to discover we're not as smart as we thought we were, will be forced by life to surrender our attacks and defenses which avail us of nothing, and finally break through into the collective beauty of who we really are. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove
474:But is it such a bad thing to live like this for just a little while? Just for a few months of one's life, is it so awful to travel through time with no greater ambition than to find the next lovely meal? Or to learn how to speak a language for no higher purpose than that it pleases your ear to hear it? Or to nap in a garden, in a patch of sunlight, in the middle of the day, right next to your favourite fountain? And then to do it again the next day? ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove
475:Jesus Christ was God - the Personal God become man. He has manifested Himself many times in different forms and these alone are what you can worship. God in His absolute nature is not to be worshipped. Worshipping such God would be nonsense. We have to worship Jesus Christ, the human manifestation, as God. You cannot worship anything higher than the manifestation of God. The sooner you give up the worship of God separate from Christ, the better for you. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
476:The highest form of praise you can offer to yourself, to God and to the world is to spend time each day expressing gratitude. It says to God that you are aware and appreciative of grace. It says to life that you are acknowledging its awesome presence in you. It says to yourself that you are worth the time it takes to be healed. Time spent in silence, contemplation and gratitude is time spent in devotion to a higher calling and a more loving state of being. ~ lyania-vanzant, @wisdomtrove
477:No matter how successful, beloved, influential her work was, when a woman author dies, nine times out of ten, she gets dropped from the lists, the courses, the anthologies, while the men get kept. ... If she had the nerve to have children, her chances of getting dropped are higher still. ... So if you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove
478:The true Christians are the true citizens, lofty of purpose, resolute in endeavor, ready for a hero's deeds, but never looking down on their task because it is cast in the day of small things; scornful of baseness, awake to their own duties as well as to their rights, following the higher law with reverence, and in this world doing all that in their power lies, so that when death comes they may feel that humanity is in some degree better because they lived. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove
479:Great art grabs you, against your will, and then suspends your will. You are ushered into a quiet clearing, free of desire, free of grasping, free of ego, free of the self-contraction. And through that opening or clearing in your own awareness may come flashing higher truths, subtler revelations, profound connections. For a moment you might even touch eternity; who can say otherwise, when time itself is supendend in the clearing that great art creates in your awareness? ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove
480:By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, There is no hurry. We shall get there some day. But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late. ~ a-a-milne, @wisdomtrove
481:The beginning of freedom is the realisation that you are not the "thinker." The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realise that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also begin to realise that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove
482:Allowing the pain of personal growth to be a crucible of your spirit-the alchemical grail through which the metal of your former self turns into gold-is one of the highest callings of life. Pain can burn you up and destroy you, or burn you up and redeem you. It can deliver you to an entrenched despair, or deliver you to your higher self. At midlife we decide, consciously or unconsciously, the path of the victim or the path of the phoenix when it is rising up at last. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove
483:A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget. Every taxpayer and his family will have more money left over after taxes for a new car, a new home, new conveniences, education and investment. Every businessman can keep a higher percentage of his profits in his cash register or put it to work expanding or improving his business, and as the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove
484:Take life as it comes and death as it comes. Death is really beautiful; if it were a bad thing, God would not let it happen to us. It is really freedom, an entry into another, higher life. We must utilize this life in order to realize the life beyond this one. Beyond this earth garden is the infinite land wherein we meet those whom we have thought lost. Although we must not seek death, when it comes we should know that it is the final examination for a great reward. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove
485:With the exception of very few who have gained higher spiritual tendencies in prior lives, Self-realization is not possible for anyone without the blessings of a guru. Think of the guru as the manifestation of God in this world. Take even the most insignificant word of the guru as an order and obey it. That is the real service to the guru. There is no greater austerity. The guru's blessings flow automatically to any obedient disciple. That is the real service to the guru. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove
486:I myself will perhaps cry out with all the rest, looking at the mother embracing her child's tormentor: &
487:Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness. They are more willing to follow their own vision, even when it takes them far from the mainland of the human community. Unexplored places do not frighten them- or not, at any rate, as much as they frighten those around them. This is one of the secrets of their power. That which we call genius has a great deal to do with courage and daring, a great deal to do with nerve. ~ nathaniel-branden, @wisdomtrove
488:The pursuit of science, the study of the great works, the value of free inquiry, in short, the very idea of living the life of the mind - yes, these formative and abiding principles of higher education in America had their first and firmest advocate, and their greatest embodiment, in a tall, fair-headed, friendly man who watched this university take form from the mountainside where he lived, the university whose founding he called a crowning achievement to along and well-spent life. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove
489:It is a special kind of enlightenment to have this feeling that the usual, the way things normally are, is odduncanny and highly improbable. G.K.Chesterton once said that it is one thing to be amazed at gorgon or a griffin, creatures which do not exist; but it is quite another and much higher thing to be amazed at a rhinoceros or a giraffe, creatures which do exist and look as if they don't. This feeling of universal oddity includes a basic and intense wondering about the sense of things. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove
490:There is no God separate from you, no God higher than you, the real "you." All the gods are little beings to you, all the ideas of God and Father in heaven are but your own reflection. God Himself is your image. “God created man after His own image." That is wrong. Man creates God after his own image. That is right. Throughout the universe we are creating gods after our own image. We create the god and fall down at his feet and worship him; and when this dream comes, we love it ! ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
491:Above all, it is imperative to extirpate the idea that any fantastic, mysterious practices are required for the attainment of higher knowledge. It must be clearly realized that a start has to be made with the thoughts and feelings with which we continually live, and that these feelings and thoughts must merely be given a new direction. Everyone must say to himself: In my own world of thought and feeling the deepest mysteries lie hidden, only hitherto I have been unable to perceive them. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove
492:Dear me! We Tooks and Brandybucks, we can't live long on the heights.' &
493:If you expect to be a net saver during the next 5 years, should you hope for a higher or lower stock market during that period? Many investors get this one wrong. Even though they are going to be net buyers of stocks for many years to come, they are elated when stock prices rise and depressed when they fall. This reaction makes no sense. Only those who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing stocks rise. Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove
494:It is (to describe it figuratively) as if an author were to make a slip of the pen, and as if this clerical error became conscious of being such. Perhaps this was no error but in a far higher sense was an essential part of the whole exposition. It is, then, as if this clerical error were to revolt against the author, out of hatred for him, were to forbid him to correct it, and were to say, "No, I will not be erased, I will stand as a witness against thee, that thou art a very poor writer." ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove
495:Student loans have been helpful to many. But they offer neither incentive nor assistance to those students who, by reason of family or other obligations, are unable or unwilling to go deeper into debt. ... It is, moreover, only prudent economic and social policy for the public to share part of the costs of the long period of higher education for those whose development is essential to our national economic and social well-being. All of us share in the benefits - all should share in the costs. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove
496:I cannot make myself believe that God wanted me to hate. I'm tired of violence, I've seen too much of it. I've seen such hate on the faces of too many sheriffs in the South. And I'm not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. Our oppressors have used violence. Our oppressors have used hatred. Our oppressors have used rifles and guns. I'm not going to stoop down to their level. I want to rise to a higher level. We have a power that can't be found in Molotov cocktails. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove
497:Things that are good are good, and if one is responding to that goodness one is in contact with a truth from which one is getting something. . . . The truth of the sunshine, the truth of the rain, the truth of the fresh air, the truth of the wind in the trees. . . and if we allow ourselves to be benefited by the forms of truth that are readily accessible to us instead of rejecting them as "merely natural," we will be in a better position to profit by higher forms of truth when they come our way. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove
498:Philosophers stretch the meaning of words until they retain scarcely anything of their original sense. They give the name of "God" to some vague abstraction which they have created for themselves; having done so they can pose before all the world as deists, as believers of God, and they can even boast that they have recognized a higher, purer concept of God, notwithstanding that their God is not nothing more than an insubstantial shadow and no longer the mighty personality of religious doctrines. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove
499:Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove
500:When the students were asked to identify their race on a pretest questionnaire, that simple act was sufficient to prime them with all the negative stereotypes associated with African Americans and academic achievement. If a white student from a prestigious private high school gets a higher SAT score than a black student from an inner-city school, is it because she’s truly a better student, or is it because to be white and to attend a prestigious high school is to be constantly primed with the idea of smart? ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove
*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:There can be no higher ~ J K Rowling,
#NFDB
2:Love is the higher law. ~ David Levithan,
#NFDB
3:Think higher, feel deeper. ~ Elie Wiesel,
#NFDB
4:higher and kicked him. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde,
#NFDB
5:shifted our fire higher, moving ~ Chris Kyle,
#NFDB
6:I stay higher than giraffe pussy ~ Gucci Mane,
#NFDB
7:It is higher and nobler to be kind. ~ Mark Twain,
#NFDB
8:Swifter, higher, stronger. ~ Pierre de Coubertin,
#NFDB
9:We ought to make the pie higher. ~ George W Bush,
#NFDB
10:The higher I get the lower I sink. ~ Oliver Sykes,
#NFDB
11:Laughter is higher than all pain. ~ Elbert Hubbard,
#NFDB
12:There's no God higher than truth. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
13:Character is higher than intellect ~ Robin S Sharma,
#NFDB
14:Faith is a higher faculty than reason. ~ H C Bailey,
#NFDB
15:Love is not a higher quality than truth. ~ Rajneesh,
#NFDB
16:There is no god higher than truth. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
17:Aim higher in case you fall short. ~ Suzanne Collins,
#NFDB
18:There is nothing higher than reason. ~ Immanuel Kant,
#NFDB
19:Resign your destiny to higher powers. ~ William James,
#NFDB
20:Mental energy from within keeps me higher, ~ Masta Ace,
#NFDB
21:The higher the hair, the closer to god. ~ Chris Colfer,
#NFDB
22:I definitely believe in a higher power. ~ Michael J Fox,
#NFDB
23:No religion is higher than humanity ~ Abdul Sattar Edhi,
#NFDB
24:Raise the bar higher than your opinion... ~ Gino Norris,
#NFDB
25:The higher up, the harder the fall. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick,
#NFDB
26:There is no God higher than the truth. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
27:There is no religion higher than Truth. ~ H P Blavatsky,
#NFDB
28:To see farther, you must climb higher. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
29:At its heart, music is all higher mathematics. ~ Mos Def,
#NFDB
30:God has a higher and better way for you. ~ Joseph Prince,
61:Generally, common sense is rare in the (higher) rank. ~ Juvenal,
#NFDB
62:Gratitude can't grow love higher than regret. ~ Shannon L Alder,
#NFDB
63:Hold your head high, and your middle finger higher. ~ Megan Fox,
#NFDB
64:The higher the hair, the closer to heaven. ~ Marie Avgeropoulos,
#NFDB
65:There is a higher law than the Constitution. ~ William H Seward,
#NFDB
66:Your bullshit quotient is higher than my husband ~ Stephen King,
#NFDB
67:A stream cannot rise higher than its source. ~ Anna Julia Cooper,
#NFDB
68:Set your sights on a place higher than your eyes can see. ~ Rumi,
#NFDB
69:There is no higher life form than a librarian. ~ Terry Pratchett,
#NFDB
70:Many things have fallen only to rise higher. ~ Seneca the Younger,
#NFDB
71:She might get high enough to crash—no higher. ~ Robert A Heinlein,
#NFDB
72:Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank. ~ Carl von Clausewitz,
#NFDB
73:Life has a higher end, than to be amused ~ William Ellery Channing,
#NFDB
74:The consciousness of life is higher than life. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky,
#NFDB
75:What power is higher than the power of purity? ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
76:I never wore flats: The higher the shoe, the better. ~ Patti Hansen,
#NFDB
77:Interdependence is a higher value than independence ~ Stephen Covey,
#NFDB
78:There is no higher religion than human service. ~ Albert Schweitzer,
#NFDB
79:He had other fires and these flamed higher than Love. ~ Pearl S Buck,
#NFDB
80:The rich live hand-to-mouth too-just on a higher level. ~ John Guare,
#NFDB
81:I would have graduated higher, but I flunked gravy. ~ Janet Evanovich,
#NFDB
82:A higher goal is always reached by overcoming fear. ~ Adriana Trigiani,
#NFDB
83:Always higher must I mount, higher must I see. ~ Angelus Silesius I.15,
#NFDB
84:As Emerson said: ‘Character is higher than intellect. ~ Robin S Sharma,
#NFDB
85:I believe in a higher power. I believe in inspiration. ~ Janet Jackson,
#NFDB
86:Surround yourself only with those who lift you higher. ~ Oprah Winfrey,
#NFDB
87:The higher the mountain, the deeper the valley. ~ Suzanne Woods Fisher,
#NFDB
88:the higher the step of advancement, the heavier is the fall. ~ Heloise,
#NFDB
89:The higher you climb, the further you have to fall. ~ Malorie Blackman,
#NFDB
90:The more flesh you show, the higher up the ladder you go. ~ Jerry Hall,
#NFDB
91:We must risk the journey to a higher ground where there ~ Debbie Ford,
#NFDB
92:Difference in unity is the law of higher manifestation. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
#NFDB
93:I could love you bigger than the stars, higher than the sun. ~ K L Donn,
#NFDB
94:Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard. ~ Aristotle,
#NFDB
95:The future, higher evolution will belong to those ~ Torkom Saraydarian,
#NFDB
96:The higher the Ape goes, the more he shewes his taile. ~ George Herbert,
#NFDB
97:The higher the moral tone, the more suspect the speaker. ~ Mason Cooley,
#NFDB
98:The higher you rise, the greater your need for advice. ~ Patrick W Carr,
#NFDB
99:There is no higher religion than the truth. ~ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky,
#NFDB
100:Higher energy costs are unavoidable in all future scenarios. ~ Van Jones,
#NFDB
101:It is my firm faith that man is by nature going higher. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
102:I’ve matured. I have a much higher tolerance for boredom. ~ Tom Perrotta,
#NFDB
103:Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,
#NFDB
104:Redeem the time. Redeem the unread vision of a higher dream. ~ T S Eliot,
#NFDB
105:The higher They Climb, The Harder They Fall " - Cole's Pa ~ Lisa Jackson,
#NFDB
106:The higher you go, the fewer women there are. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
#NFDB
107:The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. ~ Yann Martel,
#NFDB
108:Coincidence is your Higher Power acting with anonymity. ~ James Lee Burke,
#NFDB
109:Concentration is the root of all the higher abilities in man. ~ Bruce Lee,
#NFDB
110:Cooperation is a higher moral principle than competition. ~ Bryant McGill,
#NFDB
111:Inheritance and culture obscure people’s higher capacities. ~ Idries Shah,
#NFDB
112:In reality, a higher level of war always trumps a lower. ~ William S Lind,
#NFDB
113:Looking at Yourself Through the Eyes of Your Higher Power ~ John Bradshaw,
#NFDB
114:One day the price of gold will be higher than the Dow Jones. ~ Marc Faber,
#NFDB
115:Poetry has become the higher algebra of metaphors. ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset,
#NFDB
116:Whatever you think in life... think higher and feel deeper. ~ Elie Wiesel,
#NFDB
117:Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. ~ William Faulkner,
#NFDB
118:Concentration is the root of all the higher abilities in man. ~ Bruce Lee,
#NFDB
119:... he does pledge to reweave your pain for a higher purpose. ~ Max Lucado,
#NFDB
120:higher ground.” Mary grabbed her laptop bag. “Leave it, Mary. ~ A G Riddle,
#NFDB
121:I would say my determination is way higher than my smartness. ~ Kanye West,
#NFDB
122:madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom ~ Hermann Hesse,
#NFDB
123:There is no higher form of artistic expression then film ~ James Lee Burke,
#NFDB
124:There is no higher qualification than genuine inspiration. ~ Tama J Kieves,
#NFDB
125:We cannot rise higher than our thought of ourselves. ~ Orison Swett Marden,
#NFDB
126:Whoever is for higher taxes, feel free to pay higher taxes. ~ Adam Carolla,
#NFDB
127:Can we unite against ourselves for our own higher interest? ~ Aldous Huxley,
#NFDB
128:Difference in unity is the law of the higher manifestation. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
#NFDB
129:Everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
#NFDB
130:Genius declares itself to be a kind of higher masculinity. ~ Otto Weininger,
#NFDB
131:I believe we should appeal to people at the higher levels. ~ Burt Lancaster,
#NFDB
132:If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
133:Symbiosis is a much higher reflection of intelligent life. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
134:talk with people playing the game at a higher level than you, ~ Peter Voogd,
#NFDB
135:The law of self-preservation is higher than written law. ~ Thomas Jefferson,
#NFDB
136:Actions not dedicated to a higher purpose are meaningless, ~ Ian C Esslemont,
#NFDB
137:Keep on pushing the boundaries and reaching for higher heights. ~ Puff Daddy,
#NFDB
138:Law 11: “No” simply means begin again at one level higher. ~ Timothy Ferriss,
#NFDB
139:Leaders must live by higher standards than their followers. ~ John C Maxwell,
#NFDB
140:The higher its type, the more rarely a thing succeeds. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
141:There is no priority higher than the prevention of terrorism ~ John Ashcroft,
#NFDB
142:True coolness is the incidental by-product of higher pursuits. ~ J K Rowling,
#NFDB
143:Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law. ~ Boethius,
#NFDB
144:He who knows to be afraid has a higher chance of living! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
#NFDB
145:Run faster, jump higher, reach farther, and you'll always win! ~ Jerry Garcia,
#NFDB
146:stories that are good is deserving for a higher ranking ~ William Shakespeare,
#NFDB
147:The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of its behind. ~ Joseph Stilwell,
#NFDB
148:The lower the price of your love,
the higher its value. ~ Sahndra Fon Dufe,
#NFDB
149:5. Are you pursuing higher studies or employed? (Furnish details): ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
150:Death is the condition of higher and more fruitful life. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin,
#NFDB
151:Girls have got balls. They're just a little higher up, that's all. ~ Joan Jett,
#NFDB
152:Have a vision for increase. See yourself as a son rising higher. ~ Joel Osteen,
#NFDB
153:If you want to rise higher then see yourself as a winner... ~ Stephen Richards,
#NFDB
154:In essence, leadership is the sense of calling to a higher purpose. ~ Amit Ray,
#NFDB
155:Life isn't a race to win, it's a school for our higher education. ~ Guy Finley,
#NFDB
156:Music is on a higher plane than everything else in this world. ~ Jean Sibelius,
#NFDB
157:...the pile of personal problems in their inboxes grew higher. ~ Cecelia Ahern,
#NFDB
158:To know your life purpose is to connect with a higher power. ~ Shannon L Alder,
#NFDB
159:Truth is the highest virtue, but higher still is truthful living. ~ Guru Nanak,
#NFDB
160:All higher humor begins with ceasing to take oneself seriously. ~ Hermann Hesse,
#NFDB
161:Even when you’re at the top, there’s always something higher, ~ Keigo Higashino,
#NFDB
162:God's self-revelation is a higher authority than our feelings. ~ Edward T Welch,
#NFDB
163:Higher has always been the trajectory of intelligent evolution. ~ Timothy Leary,
#NFDB
164:Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship. ~ Samuel Johnson,
#NFDB
165:Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
#NFDB
166:self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
#NFDB
167:Vocalization of a promise has a higher success rate,” Ashley said. ~ Ken Lozito,
#NFDB
168:We never see ourselves as being on a higher level than our fans. ~ Kirk Hammett,
#NFDB
169:Wish' is the most powerful thing in the world. Higher than God. ~ G I Gurdjieff,
#NFDB
170:In Beverly Hills, the higher you climb, the farther you fall. ~ Brandi Glanville,
#NFDB
171:It is no longer higher education, it is higher 'indoctrination ' ~ Dennis Prager,
#NFDB
172:It's as if we're higher apes who had a language faculty inserted. ~ Noam Chomsky,
#NFDB
173:It's okay to lie as long as you reach a higher truth doing it. ~ Brian Helgeland,
#NFDB
174:Let’s set the bar for ideas a little higher than not terrible. ~ Adam Sternbergh,
#NFDB
175:Meat yields higher energy per gram eaten than does vegetation. ~ Edward O Wilson,
#NFDB
176:Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, ~ Caroline Mitchell,
#NFDB
177:People can fly. Some people fly higher than others, that's all. ~ Michael Jordan,
#NFDB
178:Sometimes the Lord brings us low before he can lift us higher. ~ Joseph Smith Jr,
#NFDB
179:The higher loyalty is to lasting values, most important the truth. ~ James Comey,
#NFDB
180:The higher you go up in rank, usually the longer you can dance. ~ Misty Copeland,
#NFDB
181:Why is it that looking down seems so much higher than looking up? ~ Nick Bantock,
#NFDB
182:Ah women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. ~ Susan Andersen,
#NFDB
183:Good problem-seekers are in higher demand than good problem-solvers. ~ John Maeda,
#NFDB
184:Higher dimensions of Awareness means Higher dimensions of energy. ~ Jaggi Vasudev,
#NFDB
185:Higher education is not necessarily a guarantee of higher virtue. ~ Aldous Huxley,
#NFDB
186:If you would lift me up, you've got to be on higher ground. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
187:Men rise on steppin'-stones of their dead selves to higher things!... ~ Zane Grey,
#NFDB
188:People of higher talent work, even if they seem to do nothing ~ Leonardo da Vinci,
#NFDB
189:Stages are getting higher and higher, and I'm getting older and older. ~ Iggy Pop,
#NFDB
190:The higher the stakes, the happier I am, the better I will be. ~ Robert Downey Jr,
#NFDB
191:The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero,
#NFDB
192:We would get high only for a higher purpose, Lacey had decreed. ~ Robin Wasserman,
#NFDB
193:As you get connection with the higher source, your creativity increases ~ Amit Ray,
#NFDB
194:Good games are productive. They’re producing a higher quality of life. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
195:I’m hardly just someone. I think I rate a little higher than that, ~ Alice Clayton,
#NFDB
196:No logic can be higher than love, and no mind can be higher than the heart. ~ Osho,
#NFDB
197:The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level. ~ Norman Mailer,
#NFDB
198:The higher the stakes, the greater the temptation to lose your temper. ~ C S Lewis,
#NFDB
199:The path to a higher power than ego is saying yes to the predicament ~ David Richo,
#NFDB
200:They were drunk on youth, fueled by greed, and higher than kites. ~ Jordan Belfort,
#NFDB
201:to remind ourselves of our intention, which is to get higher and ~ David R Hawkins,
#NFDB
202:When you feel life at crossroads,
you need higher perspective view. ~ Toba Beta,
#NFDB
203:An achievement is a bondage. It obliges one to a higher achievement. ~ Albert Camus,
#NFDB
204:A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees ~ Benjamin Franklin,
#NFDB
205:God is everything higher which I cannot understand but only believe. ~ Gitta Sereny,
#NFDB
206:Higher income people don't have to pay taxes if they don't want to. ~ Rick Santorum,
#NFDB
207:I just want to believe in a higher power. That's a good way to live. ~ Eva Longoria,
#NFDB
208:It’s like everything else. The price of Torahs is higher in Alaska. ~ Stanley Elkin,
#NFDB
209:Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. ~ Ludwig van Beethoven,
#NFDB
210:My success has allowed me to strike out with a higher class of women. ~ Woody Allen,
#NFDB
211:Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew. ~ John Greenleaf Whittier,
#NFDB
212:The higher my GPA gets the more I realize high school is useless ~ Megan McCafferty,
#NFDB
213:The higher our position the more modestly we should behave. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero,
#NFDB
214:The Higher Power knows what to do and how to do it. Trust it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
#NFDB
215:The histories of mankind are histories only of the higher classes. ~ Thomas Malthus,
#NFDB
216:There exists above the "productive" man a yet higher species. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
217:There is no fear in the higher Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Fear,
#NFDB
218:There's a new tribunal now higher than God's -The educated man's! ~ Robert Browning,
#NFDB
219:What you love is a sign from your higher self of what you are to do. ~ Sanaya Roman,
#NFDB
220:You could jump so much higher when you had somewhere safe to fall. ~ Liane Moriarty,
#NFDB
221:Any fulfillment is a bondage. It obliges one to a higher fulfillment. ~ Albert Camus,
#NFDB
222:A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees. ~ Benjamin Franklin,
#NFDB
223:A relationship with a higher power is often best practiced alone. ~ Emily M Danforth,
#NFDB
224:GTis not a tree in heaven higher than the tree of patience ~ Christopher Paul Curtis,
#NFDB
225:He had gone to the higher Sierras... [about Ralph Waldo Emerson's death] ~ John Muir,
#NFDB
226:I pray to be used in service to a greater purpose higher than my own ~ Oprah Winfrey,
#NFDB
227:Life itself suggests a higher good than life itself can yield. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin,
#NFDB
228:Make up your mind that you will become the seeker of your own higher self. ~ Ma Jaya,
#NFDB
229:No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
#NFDB
230:Surround yourself only with people who are going to take you higher. ~ Oprah Winfrey,
#NFDB
231:Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher. ~ Oprah Winfrey,
#NFDB
232:The ability to laugh at yourself is a sign of higher intelligence. ~ Valerie Frankel,
#NFDB
233:They began swinging high and higher as the sky opened its arms wide. ~ Beverly Lewis,
#NFDB
234:Tis not a tree in heaven higher than the tree of patience. ~ Christopher Paul Curtis,
#NFDB
235:Whatever you think in life… think higher and feel deeper, be positive. ~ Elie Wiesel,
#NFDB
236:When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
237:Work is done for work’s sake alone, forsaking any higher purpose, ~ Michael E Gerber,
#NFDB
238:You should get a better boyfriend. One with an IQ higher than a turnip. ~ Robyn Carr,
#NFDB
239:Challenges are solved by rising to a level higher than the challenge. ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
240:Everybody is seeking to reach higher self but hardly anyone reaches. ~ Santosh Kalwar,
#NFDB
241:How do you know they're growing up? Well, the bite marks are higher. ~ Phyllis Diller,
#NFDB
242:I land a higher percentage of punches than any boxer in boxing. ~ Floyd Mayweather Jr,
#NFDB
243:Prayer and meditation help us affirm that our Higher Power cares for ~ Melody Beattie,
#NFDB
244:There is a whole other world here as well, operating in higher vibration ~ Paul Selig,
#NFDB
245:This institution of higher education had no such concept as mercy. ~ Marina Dyachenko,
#NFDB
246:This is a service station, we offer service. There is no higher purpose. ~ Nick Nolte,
#NFDB
247:Today is a great day to make amazing things happen,’ or ‘Aspire Higher. ~ Dan Skinner,
#NFDB
248:A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees. ~ Orison Swett Marden,
#NFDB
249:Because dying for God is a higher pleasure... than living without Him. ~ Noah Weinberg,
#NFDB
250:Contrary to the norm, as my technique improved my voice became higher. ~ Renee Fleming,
#NFDB
251:I'm very close with my higher power. I have a very strong connection with it. ~ Fergie,
#NFDB
252:The constitutions of Maryland and New York are founded in higher wisdom. ~ Ezra Stiles,
#NFDB
253:The higher we go, the better we shall hear the voice of Christ ~ Pier Giorgio Frassati,
#NFDB
254:The higher you go in a company, the less oxygen there is, so supporting ~ Guy Kawasaki,
#NFDB
255:There's a higher form of happiness in commitment. I'm counting on it. ~ Claire Forlani,
#NFDB
256:We are the children of the Rastaman we are the children of the higher man ~ Bob Marley,
#NFDB
257:We need to get out of this fetid pusshole and get to some higher ground. ~ Cody Lundin,
#NFDB
258:Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
259:A lack of emotional engagement in the affair affirms higher credibility. ~ Pawan Mishra,
#NFDB
260:Every achievement is a servitude. It compels us to a higher achievement. ~ Albert Camus,
#NFDB
261:Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties. ~ Samuel Johnson,
#NFDB
262:Nothing should be valued higher than the value of the day. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
#NFDB
263:The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
264:The sky is the limit... for some people aim higher nothing is impossible. ~ Demi Lovato,
#NFDB
265:We now need to look beyond our immediate future and aim higher and farther. ~ Paul Biya,
#NFDB
266:We’re all like giraffes not using their necks to reach the higher leaves. ~ Delia Owens,
#NFDB
267:Aristrocracy is like cheese. The older it is the higher it becomes. ~ David Lloyd George,
#NFDB
268:But you're forgetting that my expectations are much higher than yours. ~ Candace Knoebel,
#NFDB
269:for the universe becomes transparent, and the light of higher laws ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
270:It was higher and shriller than Holly’s, so we knew that it was Kipps. ~ Jonathan Stroud,
#NFDB
271:Knowing is higher than believing. Knowing means that there is NO doubt. ~ Robert Anthony,
#NFDB
272:Music is ... A higher revelation than all Wisdom & Philosophy ~ Ludwig van Beethoven,
#NFDB
273:The higher a man is in grace, the lower he will be in his own esteem. ~ Charles Spurgeon,
#NFDB
274:The Internet will save higher education, but it may kill your alma mater. ~ John Katzman,
#NFDB
275:There is no higher or lower goal. There is only one goal, Self-Realization. ~ Meher Baba,
#NFDB
276:Walk through the mud in life, if you ever want to get to the higher ground” ~ Greg Plitt,
#NFDB
277:You always share a higher level of trust with someone who pops your cherry. ~ K F Breene,
#NFDB
278:Faith in a higher power helps us to control our mind and thoughts. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi,
#NFDB
279:Faith in God is like a kite—a contrary wind only raises it higher. ~ Suzanne Woods Fisher,
#NFDB
280:Higher education is a business that doesn’t know it’s going out of business. ~ Mark Cuban,
#NFDB
281:Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden. ~ Ford Madox Ford,
#NFDB
282:In my piano concerto I developed this polyphony to much higher complexity ~ Gyorgy Ligeti,
#NFDB
283:Lies need not be told....hold yourself to a higher level of accountability”. ~ Devin Blue,
#NFDB
284:Prayer and meditation help us affirm that our Higher Power cares for us. ~ Melody Beattie,
#NFDB
285:The higher one went here, the less funguses and hot bacterium there was. ~ Vaughn Heppner,
#NFDB
286:The higher President Trump’s approval rating, the more dangerous he is. ~ Steven Levitsky,
#NFDB
287:The only thing they valued higher than ammunition were Man United footballs. ~ Tahir Shah,
#NFDB
288:A fiery, good beginner always stands higher than a master in mediocrity. ~ Robert Schumann,
#NFDB
289:A leader should have higher endurance and ability to accept and embrace failure. ~ Jack Ma,
#NFDB
290:Humans have a soul which is their real higher self; a Divine, Mighty, Being. ~ Edward Bach,
#NFDB
291:In other words, the Church acknowledges Science as the higher authority. ~ Wilhelm Ostwald,
#NFDB
292:Strange enlightenments are vouchsafed to those who seek the higher places. ~ Flann O Brien,
#NFDB
293:The grass may be greener on the other side but the the water bill is higher. ~ Tyler Perry,
#NFDB
294:The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
295:The higher you get the more you realize how much bigger than you everything ~ Lev Grossman,
#NFDB
296:The Ministry places a rather higher value on my life than yours, I’m afraid. ~ J K Rowling,
#NFDB
297:The world never puts a price on you higher than the one you put on yourself. ~ Sonja Henie,
#NFDB
298:Those who were high go down low, and those who've been low go up higher. ~ Anzia Yezierska,
#NFDB
299:We owe to man higher succors than food and fire. We owe to man, man. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
300:When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. ~ Robert J Morgan,
#NFDB
301:Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices. ~ Laurence J Peter,
#NFDB
302:Higher still than love of humankind is the love of causes and ghosts. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
303:I don't think that theater is the higher medium, that it's better than film. ~ Rebecca Hall,
#NFDB
304:I love you more than there are fishes in the sea and higher than the moon ~ Nicholas Sparks,
#NFDB
305:I love you more than there are stars in the sky and higher than the moon. ~ Nicholas Sparks,
#NFDB
306:liberty is not a means to a higher end, it is itself the highest political end. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
307:Once the flames begin to catch the wind will blow it higher, oh Biko, Biko. ~ Peter Gabriel,
#NFDB
308:Realization of Truth is higher than all else. Higher still is truthful living. ~ Guru Nanak,
#NFDB
309:That punt was higher than Marion Berry on a fact-finding tour of Cartagena. ~ Dennis Miller,
#NFDB
310:The cost of loneliness is high, she knows, but the cost of loss is higher. ~ Chloe Benjamin,
#NFDB
311:The higher the classification of secrecy, the quicker you will report it. ~ George P Shultz,
#NFDB
312:There's no win or lose, nor higher or lower. Because there's only one truth. ~ Gosho Aoyama,
#NFDB
313:Things fall apart, so they can fall together at a higher level of order. ~ Marilyn Ferguson,
#NFDB
314:To do high fashion, you have to go into a little bit of a higher price point. ~ Kate Hudson,
#NFDB
315:When you become famous you get to torture a higher class of man than before. ~ Sharon Stone,
#NFDB
316:Wiggle 'til you're high, wiggle 'til you're higher, wiggle 'til you vomit fire. ~ Bob Dylan,
#NFDB
317:Yes, the cost is high, but the price of neglect would be infinitely higher. ~ Ronald Reagan,
#NFDB
318:Ah, the souls of those that die Are but sunbeams lifted higher. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
#NFDB
319:Freedom will feel good to you too. Please acknowledge our higher purpose. ~ Naomi Shihab Nye,
#NFDB
320:higher than at any other point in the last eight hundred thousand years. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert,
#NFDB
321:The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity. ~ Steven Chu,
#NFDB
322:The higher the wages the fewer the jobs; the lower the wages the more the jobs. ~ James Cook,
#NFDB
323:The whole order of nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher life. ~ H P Blavatsky,
#NFDB
324:Transient emotions are lower emotions. Lasting emotions are higher emotions. ~ G I Gurdjieff,
#NFDB
325:All is energy and there is no energy higher than right love, which has no object ~ Barry Long,
#NFDB
326:Fifty-dollar oil is just another stop on the road to much higher crude prices. ~ Peter Schiff,
#NFDB
327:Higher-order functions allow us to abstract over actions, not just values. ~ Marijn Haverbeke,
#NFDB
328:If you aim higher than you expect, you could reach higher than you dreamed. ~ Richard Branson,
#NFDB
329:I'm on a higher plane with brain with a flame, feel the fire, desire the same. ~ Kool Moe Dee,
#NFDB
330:I sing in a higher register, and you haven't heard that on the radio in years. ~ Gary Cherone,
#NFDB
331:Probability of human error is considerably higher than that of machine error. ~ Kenneth Appel,
#NFDB
332:that higher pay will lead to layoffs and business closings or business migration. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
333:The higher you go in the corporate structure, the smaller your balls become. ~ Santosh Kalwar,
#NFDB
334:There are times when you devote yourself to a higher cause than personal safety. ~ John Glenn,
#NFDB
335:Water cannot rise higher than its source, neither can human reason. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
#NFDB
336:A footstool is only needed when you need to get higher. Let your enemy lift you. ~ Tyler Perry,
#NFDB
337:Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. ~ Milan Kundera,
#NFDB
338:I don't think you should ever give up on trying to push the bar a little bit higher. ~ DJ Quik,
#NFDB
339:Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration ~ Abraham Lincoln,
#NFDB
340:Our God is greater … our God is stronger … God you are higher than any other ~ Karen Kingsbury,
#NFDB
341:The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him. ~ John Ruskin,
#NFDB
342:The last time Earth was 1°C warmer than today, sea levels were 20 feet higher. ~ Joseph J Romm,
#NFDB
343:The Pariahs, our fellow beings, ought to be educated by the higher castes. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
344:Tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar. ~ William Shakespeare,
#NFDB
345:Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
346:For faith is this paradox, that the particular is higher than the universal ~ S ren Kierkegaard,
#NFDB
347:God often uses our challenges as stepping stones to the higher purposes of God. ~ James Robison,
#NFDB
348:he knew that bad premonitions have a far higher accuracy rate than good ones. ~ Haruki Murakami,
#NFDB
349:In this life, you have winners and losers. the more you win, the higher you go. ~ Daniel Nayeri,
#NFDB
350:I want to inspire people to become their higher selves, their best selves. ~ Princess Superstar,
#NFDB
351:Must be nice to have that kind of unshakable belief in a merciful higher power. ~ Ellen Hopkins,
#NFDB
352:No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist. ~ Ananda Coomaraswamy,
#NFDB
353:Numerous studies have shown that your health risk is higher following a loss. ~ H Norman Wright,
#NFDB
354:The heart wants what the heart wants. Beyond common sense. Beyond higher reason. ~ Katy Regnery,
#NFDB
355:There is nothing more important than love. And no law higher." - Malcolm Fade ~ Cassandra Clare,
#NFDB
356:They say that life expectancy is higher for right-handed people than for left-handed. ~ Jo Nesb,
#NFDB
357:We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things. ~ Henry Ward Beecher,
#NFDB
358:We cannot expect to lift others unless we stand on higher ground ourselves. ~ Gordon B Hinckley,
#NFDB
359:When a man has written a role for you that you admire, the expectations are higher. ~ Luke Goss,
#NFDB
360:When reason and instinct are reconciled, there will be no higher appeal. ~ Jean Philippe Rameau,
#NFDB
361:The higher up the food chain the targeted individual was, the bigger a pussy he was. ~ Mark Owen,
#NFDB
362:The less Hillary Clinton speaks, the less she's seen, the higher her numbers go. ~ Rush Limbaugh,
#NFDB
363:The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher. ~ Rutherford B Hayes,
#NFDB
364:To agape,” we all echoed, raising our wineglasses and drinking to higher love. ~ Bill Konigsberg,
#NFDB
365:True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
#NFDB
366:We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own 'to do' list. ~ Michelle Obama,
#NFDB
367:Words of the jargon sound as if they said something higher than what they mean. ~ Theodor Adorno,
#NFDB
368:At the higher realms of rationality, even reason can begin to appear irrational. ~ Paul Strathern,
#NFDB
369:Believe me, I understand that most higher rate taxpayers are not the super-rich. ~ George Osborne,
#NFDB
370:bought seven and four, then Scorpio bought eight. His phone number is one higher than ~ Lee Child,
#NFDB
371:Every church that has a standard higher than human welfare is dangerous. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll,
#NFDB
372:Every man who would do anything well, must come to it from a higher ground. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
373:God created many races wilier than men.
But it doesn't mean angels higher than us. ~ Toba Beta,
#NFDB
374:How often had he wanted to believe that he was created for some higher purpose? ~ Karen Witemeyer,
#NFDB
375:I have found the missing link between the higher ape and civilized man: It is we. ~ Konrad Lorenz,
#NFDB
376:I have found the missing link between the higher ape and civilized man; it is we. ~ Konrad Lorenz,
#NFDB
377:I'm not Christian, but I'm religious. I believe in a higher God and beings and spirits. ~ Gunplay,
#NFDB
378:Man will never reach the higher wisdom,
If he can't yet accept the pain of change. ~ Toba Beta,
#NFDB
379:My parents regarded school teachers as higher beings, as did many immigrants. ~ Martin Lewis Perl,
#NFDB
380:Prayer for the Day Higher Power, help me find You in the people and events of my day. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
381:The Higher Self is whispering to you softly in the silence between your thoughts. ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
382:The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change. ~ William J Clinton,
#NFDB
383:They're the second best team in the world, and there's no higher praise than that. ~ Kevin Keegan,
#NFDB
384:To reach a higher level of being, you must assume a higher concept of yourself. ~ Neville Goddard,
#NFDB
385:You can never be upset with the people who forced you into your dream or up higher. ~ Tyler Perry,
#NFDB
386:Bigger the risk, bigger the reward. But the higher the climb the harder the fall. ~ Greyson Chance,
#NFDB
387:companies with high levels of workplace trust enjoy higher stock market returns. ~ Jeffrey Pfeffer,
#NFDB
388:I can see her on your arm like an empty dress, a kind of echo at a higher pitch. ~ Joe Abercrombie,
#NFDB
389:If we want to end this lifetime higher than we began, we can expect an uphill road. ~ Richard Bach,
#NFDB
390:knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius, and ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
#NFDB
391:No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
392:She put a higher value on independence than an asthmatic put on oxygen.’ Tzader ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,
#NFDB
393:To believe that mind is all, that thought is all is only a higher materialism. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
394:Everything that you see here, in other words, is a reflection of a higher reality. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
395:For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God? ~ J I Packer,
#NFDB
396:I don't know what London's coming to — the higher the buildings the lower the morals. ~ No l Coward,
#NFDB
397:I have never been one for putting my faith in odds. I put my faith in higher things. ~ R L LaFevers,
#NFDB
398:In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
399:In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
400:knows a higher law. One cannot turn back, and must put away "graven images. ~ Florence Scovel Shinn,
#NFDB
401:Marriage should be no prison, but a garden in which something higher is cultivated. ~ Irvin D Yalom,
#NFDB
402:Seeking higher ground is not a destination, but an elevation. Wings up, eyes shut open. ~ T F Hodge,
#NFDB
403:The essence of religion, in my view, is the thirst for an end higher than natural ends. ~ C S Lewis,
#NFDB
404:The genuine priest always feels something higher than compassion. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel,
#NFDB
405:The higher the love, the more demands will be made on us to conform to that ideal. ~ Fulton J Sheen,
#NFDB
406:Unless you have a great deal of purity, it's difficult to retain the higher light. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
407:You will never get any higher than your vision and your faith in that vision. ~ Orison Swett Marden,
#NFDB
408:any peace movement must have behind it a higher passion than the desire for war. ~ Mary Heaton Vorse,
#NFDB
409:Difference in unity is the law of the higher manifestation. ~ Sri Aurobindo[Gems from Sri Aurobindo],
#NFDB
410:Do more, give more, try harder, aim higher, and give thanks. The rewards will be yours. ~ Zig Ziglar,
#NFDB
411:Higher stages always empathetically include the lower, or they are not higher stages! ~ Richard Rohr,
#NFDB
412:I had higher math SATs than in English - yet I became an English major in college. ~ Christie Hefner,
#NFDB
413:In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
414:Life is so much bigger, grander, higher, and wider than we allow ourselves to think. ~ Queen Latifah,
#NFDB
415:Man can give no higher proof of his veracity, save to seal his testimony with his blood. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
416:Music is a bridge, it connects floks on a higher level, saying what words can't say. ~ Emily Murdoch,
#NFDB
417:Music is a bridge, it connects folks on a higher level, saying what words can't say. ~ Emily Murdoch,
#NFDB
418:On any given night, what allows me to get to that higher ground is the audience. ~ Bruce Springsteen,
#NFDB
419:Perhaps man will rise ever higher as soon as he ceases to flow out into a god. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
420:Products with higher user engagement have the potential to grow faster than their rivals. ~ Nir Eyal,
#NFDB
421:Sometimes the price of doing the right thing is higher than we realize when we do it. ~ Rachel Aaron,
#NFDB
422:The genuine priest always feels something higher than compassion. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel,
#NFDB
423:The more sophisticated an organism, the higher the percentage of junk DNA it contains. ~ Nessa Carey,
#NFDB
424:There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience. ~ Stokely Carmichael,
#NFDB
425:There's no higher honor, in my estimation, than being asked to serve in the White House. ~ Van Jones,
#NFDB
426:You would think there is a higher bar than having a Facebook page to run for president. ~ Bill Maher,
#NFDB
427:As the meditation evolves, you attention passes into higher realms of consciousness. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
428:Dogmatic religion is not open to people having direct access to those higher realms. ~ Eben Alexander,
#NFDB
429:Education doesn't change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard. ~ Robert Frost,
#NFDB
430:Even when it is not fully attained, we become better by striving for a higher goal. ~ Viktor E Frankl,
#NFDB
431:for the hand can never execute any thing higher than the character can inspire. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
432:I expected higher prices for some books, but [there would be] flexibility for other books. ~ Eddy Cue,
#NFDB
433:There's a magical layer of love that's laced, designed to take us to a higher place. ~ Bootsy Collins,
#NFDB
434:Be content to be servants, and nothing more; what need of higher culture for half-men? ~ W E B Du Bois,
#NFDB
435:Disorder can play a critical role in giving birth to new, higher forms of order. ~ Margaret J Wheatley,
#NFDB
436:In God's eyes all children are beautiful but here on earth we have higher standards. ~ Stephen Colbert,
#NFDB
437:It is not “higher” to be poor, for it often takes money to accomplish your life’s work. ~ Sanaya Roman,
#NFDB
438:It is right to submit to a higher authority whenever a command of God would be violated. ~ Saint Basil,
#NFDB
439:Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. ~ Lord Acton,
#NFDB
440:One must envision the higher life and behave as if it were a fact before it can unfold. ~ Helen Keller,
#NFDB
441:Reality is my drug. The more I have of it, the more power I get and the higher I feel ~ Curtis Jackson,
#NFDB
442:Secularism breeds narcissism. There is nothing higher to live for, so you live for you ~ Dennis Prager,
#NFDB
443:The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law, to the strength of the spirit. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
444:The falls of our life provide us with the energy to propel ourselves to a higher level. ~ Wayne W Dyer,
#NFDB
445:The less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. ~ Mark Twain,
#NFDB
446:The more extreme conservatives will embrace religion and nationalism to a higher degree. ~ Tyler Cowen,
#NFDB
447:The one thing we can do is invest in the quality of education, especially higher education. ~ Ron Kind,
#NFDB
448:There is this to be said about having money. You get rejected by a higher class of people. ~ Jean Kerr,
#NFDB
449:Beauty is a form of genius -- is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. ~ Oscar Wilde,
#NFDB
450:Capitalism has not proven to be a transitional form, a gateway to a higher human future. ~ Allen W Wood,
#NFDB
451:Celebrate what you've accomplished, but raise the bar a little higher each time you succeed. ~ Mia Hamm,
#NFDB
452:For women, the sexual act is a means to a higher end. For a man, it is an end in itself. ~ Edward Abbey,
#NFDB
453:I agree with Warren to keep it simple and not use higher mathematics in your analysis. ~ Walter Schloss,
#NFDB
454:I feel that as much as I enjoy loafing, there is something higher for which to live. ~ David McCullough,
#NFDB
455:. . . I should wish you to think more deeply, to look further, and aim higher than you do. ~ Anne Bront,
#NFDB
456:Julia Cameron’s bestselling The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (1992). ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
457:Mind doesn't work properly when taken into
a higher level where fear dominates the will. ~ Toba Beta,
#NFDB
458:Necessity is the constant scourge of the lower classes, ennui of the higher ones. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer,
#NFDB
459:Optimism invites us to reach higher and become the fullest expression of our intentions ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
460:Our betrayals, our jealousies, our fears, they rise no higher than the tops of our heads. ~ Rick Yancey,
#NFDB
461:The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness. ~ Laozi,
#NFDB
462:There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher. ~ Victor Hugo,
#NFDB
463:The solution to low self-esteem is to get over yourself and get a higher purpose. ~ Marianne Williamson,
#NFDB
464:Try to build bridges of understanding. Don’t build higher barriers of misunderstanding. ~ Dale Carnegie,
#NFDB
465:When higher beings allow us to see them, that's the very moment we begin to be one of them. ~ Toba Beta,
#NFDB
466:Why is it fair that I should be paying a higher percentage of taxes than anyone else? ~ Sheldon Adelson,
#NFDB
467:Woe be to the generation that lets any higher faculty in its midst go unemployed. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
#NFDB
468:102. "Scramble to reach higher ground. Order and sanity, something to comfort me. ~ Maynard James Keenan,
#NFDB
469:A leader should have higher grit and tenacity, and be able to endure what the employees can't. ~ Jack Ma,
#NFDB
470:Common sense, in this sense, is like oxygen: the higher you go, the thinner it gets. ~ John Lewis Gaddis,
#NFDB
471:Ethical leaders choose a higher loyalty to those core values over their own personal gain. ~ James Comey,
#NFDB
472:Faith is namely this paradox that the single individual is higher than the universal ~ S ren Kierkegaard,
#NFDB
473:Farmiga proves as fearless a director as she is an actress. She lights up Higher Ground. ~ Peter Travers,
#NFDB
474:Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think. ~ Robin S Sharma,
#NFDB
475:our deeds have no higher meaning than the context of the moment in which they occur. ~ Alastair Reynolds,
#NFDB
476:Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
477:The more time you spend talking on the phone, the higher chance you’ll say something damaging. ~ Roosh V,
#NFDB
478:There is no higher or lower knowledge, but one only, flowing out of experimentation. ~ Leonardo da Vinci,
#NFDB
479:We can have no conception of God higher than man, so our God is man, and man is God. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
480:Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do...Try to be better than yourself. ~ John Steinbeck,
#NFDB
481:And every time you step back from your own melodrama, the cosmic humor gets higher and higher. ~ Ram Dass,
#NFDB
482:As soon as I take down her book and open it...My skies rise higher and hang younger stars. ~ Eavan Boland,
#NFDB
483:But Nathan knew blood was blood. It didn’t drain any slower from a higher paid warrior. ~ Andrew Peterson,
#NFDB
484:Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things? ~ Henry Fielding,
#NFDB
485:Higher ceilings allow the use indirect lighting, which is much healthier and reduces glare. ~ Helmut Jahn,
#NFDB
486:I am being taken care of by a higher being than myself or my coaches or my training staff. ~ Rebecca Lobo,
#NFDB
487:I learned that a Higher Power—a faith that works under all conditions—is possible. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous,
#NFDB
488:Lifted up so high I disdained subjection, and thought one step higher would set me highest. ~ John Milton,
#NFDB
489:Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
#NFDB
490:Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius, ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
#NFDB
491:Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
#NFDB
492:No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have; and I think he's a dirty little beast. ~ W S Gilbert,
#NFDB
493:People assign much higher probability to the truth of their opinions than is warranted. ~ Daniel Kahneman,
#NFDB
494:So much the better. The higher the price you have to pay, the more you will cherish it. ~ Lloyd C Douglas,
#NFDB
495:The higher ones level of helpfulness to others, the greater wellbeing one will experience. ~ Les Parrott,
#NFDB
496:The nights I don't sleep it's because there's a higher calling telling me to stand guard. ~ Charlie Sheen,
#NFDB
497:There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil. ~ Walter Lippmann,
#NFDB
498:There is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source. ~ Thomas Frank,
#NFDB
499:The safety of the rescuer is of a higher priority than the safety of the victim. Always. • ~ Jodi Picoult,
#NFDB
500:Adolescence is a new birth, for the higher and more completely human traits are now born. ~ G Stanley Hall,
#NFDB
501:A man never rises higher than when he does not know whither his path can still lead him. ~ Oliver Cromwell,
#NFDB
502:higher income is associated with a reduced ability to enjoy the small pleasures of life. ~ Daniel Kahneman,
#NFDB
503:Higher projected corporate and personal income tax receipts and lower public debt charges. ~ Ralph Goodale,
#NFDB
504:In the quest for higher education and learning, we must never leave behind... common sense. ~ Jos N Harris,
#NFDB
505:Sometimes your higher self will guide you to make mistakes so you can learn lessons. ~ Gabrielle Bernstein,
#NFDB
506:The higher life begins for us ... when we renounce our own will to bow before a Divine law. ~ George Eliot,
#NFDB
507:The more friends you have, the higher your chance of taking a knife in your back. ~ Laurie Elizabeth Flynn,
#NFDB
508:They say life expectancy is higher for right-handed people than for left-handed. - Magnus Skarre ~ Jo Nesb,
#NFDB
509:Women were naturally pure souls, on so much higher a spiritual plane to begin with than men. ~ Naomi Ragen,
#NFDB
510:Above her were two vorcel-hawks, skydancing, courting, circling higher and higher into the sun. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
511:A higher power was never a crutch but a scaffold. Faith kept me steady when I needed it most. ~ Gregg Olsen,
#NFDB
512:Ancestors who had held themselves higher than God, and had been brought lower than man. ~ Diana Peterfreund,
#NFDB
513:Friends in high places definitely helped- especially if you had enemies in even higher spots. ~ Chloe Neill,
#NFDB
514:In mathematics the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it. ~ Georg Cantor,
#NFDB
515:Magnus had a hard-won high opinion of himself, and he had an even higher opinion of Alec. ~ Cassandra Clare,
#NFDB
516:Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think. ~ Benjamin Disraeli,
#NFDB
517:Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course. ~ Esa Pekka Salonen,
#NFDB
518:Seduction is always more singular and sublime than sex and it commands the higher price. ~ Jean Baudrillard,
#NFDB
519:The days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days. ~ Ray Wylie Hubbard,
#NFDB
520:The higher the income, the more the person paid for who they are, rather than what they do. ~ Dan S Kennedy,
#NFDB
521:The higher the social class of other students the higher any given student's achievement. ~ James S Coleman,
#NFDB
522:This earth is higher than all the heavens; this is the greatest school in the universe. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
523:Today, be a little bolder. Reach a little higher. Be a little kinder. Be a bigger dreamer. ~ Robin S Sharma,
#NFDB
524:With a higher moral nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior. ~ Herbert Spencer,
#NFDB
525:Angels are spirits, flames of fire; they are higher than man, they have wider connections. ~ Matthew Simpson,
#NFDB
526:executives must put the needs of the higher team ahead of the needs of their departments. ~ Patrick Lencioni,
#NFDB
527:How you correct your mistakes will define your character and commitment to a higher power. ~ Shannon L Alder,
#NFDB
528:It’s strange how other people can boost you to a higher, better place than you were before. ~ Krista Ritchie,
#NFDB
529:Laws are meaningless, child. There is nothing more important than love. And no law higher. ~ Cassandra Clare,
#NFDB
530:overconfident individuals achieved higher social status, respect, and influence in groups. ~ Jeffrey Pfeffer,
#NFDB
531:Stop.” I yank the covers higher. “Or I won’t invite you to the wedding.” “To the…? OH MY GOD! ~ Sarina Bowen,
#NFDB
532:The higher the better. It's more about an attitude. High heels empower women in a way. ~ Christian Louboutin,
#NFDB
533:The human race finds itself in a better situation when it has the higher level of freedom. ~ Dante Alighieri,
#NFDB
534:The more stars you have, the higher you climb the flagpole, the more of your ass is exposed, ~ Rick Atkinson,
#NFDB
535:You are grown so very great now, yet the higher a man climbs the farther he has to fall. ~ George R R Martin,
#NFDB
536:Your actions will follow you full circle round,the higher the leap, I said, the harder the ground! ~ Amy Ray,
#NFDB
537:Almost everything we call "higher culture" is based on the spiritualization of cruelty. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
538:A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels. ~ Albert Einstein,
#NFDB
539:Arleen saw school as a higher-order need, something to worry about after she found a house. ~ Matthew Desmond,
#NFDB
540:A world revolution to a higher social order, a world order, or utter downfall lies before us all. ~ H G Wells,
#NFDB
541:Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as to think. ~ Robin S Sharma,
#NFDB
542:God owns our relationships—we do not—and that he has a higher purpose for them than we do. ~ Paul David Tripp,
#NFDB
543:Hillary Clinton's negatives are higher than any Democrat who has ever been elected, ever run. ~ Rush Limbaugh,
#NFDB
544:It is easy to get to a higher number when you are not asking anything difficult from yourself. ~ Barack Obama,
#NFDB
545:Many seek happiness higher than men; others beneath him. But happiness is the same height as man. ~ Confucius,
#NFDB
546:Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius, and ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
#NFDB
547:My morale has never been higher than since I stopped asking for grants to keep my lab going. ~ Robert Pollack,
#NFDB
548:Nurture great thoughts, for you will never go higher than your thoughts.” —BENJAMIN DISRAELI ~ John C Maxwell,
#NFDB
549:Petty things become unimportant when people are impassioned about a purpose higher than self. ~ Stephen Covey,
#NFDB
550:Put a higher value on yourself. Being hyper-realistic about everything is too simple a get-out. ~ J G Ballard,
#NFDB
551:Right now in what I am about to say or do, do my desires stem from my lower or my higher self? ~ Wayne W Dyer,
#NFDB
552:Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement. ~ Theodore Roosevelt,
#NFDB
553:The higher your profile becomes, the more aware you are that people out there might hate you. ~ Graham Norton,
#NFDB
554:Thus the total Armistice Day casualties were nearly 10 percent higher than those on D-Day. ~ Joseph E Persico,
#NFDB
555:What shall I do when my enemy succeeds? Aim a little higher and be grateful for the lesson. ~ Jordan Peterson,
#NFDB
556:A higher power is leading you; be led by the same. It knows what to do and how to do it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
#NFDB
557:BS is just what it stands for, an MS is More of the Same, and a PhD is Piled Higher and Deeper. ~ Bobby Knight,
#NFDB
558:Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function; living is the functionary. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
559:Is it possible for anyone to teach a higher truth than the Unity or Oneness of all life? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
#NFDB
560:societal conditioning discourages telling the truth to those perceived to be in higher positions. ~ Ed Catmull,
#NFDB
561:Step by step, one by one, higher and higher. Step by step, rung by rung, climbing Jacob's ladder. ~ Huey Lewis,
#NFDB
562:the higher they reached toward heaven’s stars, the farther their feet lifted from God’s earth. ~ Alix Christie,
#NFDB
563:The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly. The farther you run, the more God wants you back. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,
#NFDB
564:There’s something about hitting rock bottom that makes two inches higher seem like Mount Diablo. ~ Julie Smith,
#NFDB
565:Thou must pass over thyself to mount beyond, ever higher till the stars themselves are below thee. ~ Nietzsche,
#NFDB
566:Trials help us detach ourselves from the earth; they make us look higher than this world. ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux,
#NFDB
567:User habits increase how long and how frequently customers use a product, resulting in higher CLTV. ~ Nir Eyal,
#NFDB
568:We can become inspired to shape a higher, more ideal future, and when we do, miracles happen. ~ James Redfield,
#NFDB
569:Art when inspired with love leads to higher realms, and that art will open for you the inner life. ~ Meher Baba,
#NFDB
570:Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
571:I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is the higher achievement. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold,
#NFDB
572:I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is…the higher achievement. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold,
#NFDB
573:If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, you can bet the water bill is higher. ~ Debbie Macomber,
#NFDB
574:It is more difficult, and it calls for higher energies of soul, to live a martyr than to die one. ~ Horace Mann,
#NFDB
575:MIT is governed by a second, even higher rule: the inalienable right of academic freedom. ~ Nicholas Negroponte,
#NFDB
576:the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher. ~ Theodore Roosevelt,
#NFDB
577:The deeper within that you are coming from, the higher the perspective you’ll be able to have. ~ John de Ruiter,
#NFDB
578:The dread that had been rising all morning rose higher in his throat as if by capillary action. ~ Anthony Doerr,
#NFDB
579:The less experienced a doctor is, the higher are his notions of professional dignity . . . ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
#NFDB
580:The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly. The farther your run, the more God wants you back. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,
#NFDB
581:The problem with anger against God is that it's impossible to go higher in the system to complain. ~ Peter H eg,
#NFDB
582:What shall I do when my enemy succeeds? Aim a little higher and be grateful for the lesson. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
#NFDB
583:What we Republicans should stand for is growth in the economy. We ought to make the pie higher. ~ George W Bush,
#NFDB
584:And still I'm not completely happy with my skating. I always feel I can do more and climb higher. ~ Oksana Baiul,
#NFDB
585:Aristocrats fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society. ~ Thomas Jefferson,
#NFDB
586:A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget. ~ John F Kennedy,
#NFDB
587:But what was wrong with that? They were drunk on youth, fueled by greed, and higher than kites. ~ Jordan Belfort,
#NFDB
588:First pressings of original commercial releases usually have higher values than later pressings. 45s ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
589:Hold onto the wings of angels that pass your way. They fly higher than any army that has none. ~ Shannon L Alder,
#NFDB
590:In terms of having high hopes that the level of consciousness will get higher and higher, yeah. ~ Anthony Kiedis,
#NFDB
591:One must realize that he is not the doer, but that he is only a tool of some Higher Power. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
#NFDB
592:One of the greatest obstacles to escaping poverty is the staggering cost of higher education. ~ Chris Van Hollen,
#NFDB
593:Sarah pinched him lightly. “He’s easier to get along with, though, so sometimes he ranks higher. ~ Ruth Cardello,
#NFDB
594:The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, and not to wander in mere lawlessness. ~ George Eliot,
#NFDB
595:Vinny, always darker, said, "There were more morons than crooks, but the crooks were higher up". ~ Michael Lewis,
#NFDB
596:As man's faculty attains higher level of development and sophistication, so do his wants in life ~ Haile Selassie,
#NFDB
597:Doubtless we cannot see that other higher Spaceland now, because we have no eye in our stomachs. ~ Edwin A Abbott,
#NFDB
598:Each time I think that the song is ended ... something higher and better begins for me. ~ Hans Christian Andersen,
#NFDB
599:...her arms folded and a bright smile that was maybe a little higher on one side than the other. ~ Thomas Pynchon,
#NFDB
600:I have always mocked greed which, in our society, takes the place of ambition. I was aiming higher ~ Albert Camus,
#NFDB
601:I have seen gleams in the face and eyes of the man that have let you look into a higher country. ~ Thomas Carlyle,
#NFDB
602:I think when you work out a lot, you can afford to eat more because your body's metabolism is higher. ~ Elsa Hosk,
#NFDB
603:Small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos can shift the whole system to a higher order. ~ Barbara Marx Hubbard,
#NFDB
604:The higher you climb, the more Satan will take notice. Keep climbing! Heaven's gate has a lock. ~ Shannon L Alder,
#NFDB
605:The imagination, give it the least license, dives deeper and soars higher than Nature goes. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
#NFDB
606:The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
#NFDB
607:The real warfare of mankind is eternal struggle
to earn higher rank in the pyramid of food chain. ~ Toba Beta,
#NFDB
608:Those who forgets their friends to follow those of a higher status are truly snobs. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray,
#NFDB
609:To fight against an equal is risky; against a higher-up, insane; against someone beneath you, degrading. ~ Seneca,
#NFDB
610:Virtually every spiritual tradition teaches that your higher self is the presence of God within you. ~ Wayne Dyer,
#NFDB
611:War is evitable if conditions are such that the costs of making war are higher than the benefits. ~ Frans de Waal,
#NFDB
612:When iniquity sits in the judgement seat, good men must take their appeals to a higher court. ~ Stephen R Lawhead,
#NFDB
613:when life shovels shit on you, shrug it off, tread it in, and you will always stand higher in life. ~ Ajahn Brahm,
#NFDB
614:When you start putting a higher value on works of art than people, you’re forfeiting your humanity. ~ Woody Allen,
#NFDB
615:And so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one rambles into higher and higher grass. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
#NFDB
616:Every act of genuine creativity means achieving a higher level of self-awareness and personal freedom. ~ Rollo May,
#NFDB
617:For Aristotle, politics is about something higher. It’s about learning how to live a good life. ~ Michael J Sandel,
#NFDB
618:I think a lot of young people don't realize the price of fame is a lot higher than they imagine. ~ Naturi Naughton,
#NFDB
619:Nature is an aeolian harp, a musical instrument whose tones are the re-echo of higher strings within us. ~ Novalis,
#NFDB
620:There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammalsin their mental faculties ~ Charles Darwin,
#NFDB
621:Wait. Was I really equating proof of a higher power with the existence of bacon? Yes. Yes, I was. ~ Hailey Edwards,
#NFDB
622:We all know the love you have for the truth should be higher than the love you have for popularity. ~ David Brooks,
#NFDB
623:we jumped off the swings when they could go no higher, jumped on to the roundabout when it would go no ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
624:We must reprogram ourselves to understand that cooperation is a higher principle than competition. ~ Bryant McGill,
#NFDB
625:But the cause for which we fought was higher; our thought wider... That thought was our power. ~ Joshua Chamberlain,
#NFDB
626:Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as to think.’ Your ~ Robin S Sharma,
#NFDB
627:I am not the president; instead, I hold an even higher office, that of citizen of the United States. ~ Martin Sheen,
#NFDB
628:If we tread our vices under our feet, we make of them a ladder by which to rise to higher things. ~ Saint Augustine,
#NFDB
629:...isn't it true some people who get hit on the head with a flashlight end up with a higher iq? ~ Patricia Cornwell,
#NFDB
630:I wish I could tell him I understand: the higher you raise your hopes, the farther you have to fall. ~ Jodi Picoult,
#NFDB
631:Narcissism levels are higher for Americans than for citizens of many other countries and regions, ~ Jeffrey Pfeffer,
#NFDB
632:One poll showed that Americans have a higher opinion of witches, the IRS and hemorrhoids than Congress ~ Tom Coburn,
#NFDB
633:The best books are those which lift us to a higher plane where we breathe a purer atmosphere. ~ Orison Swett Marden,
#NFDB
634:The higher culture an individual attains, the less field there is left for mockery and scorn. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
635:The higher the rank the less pretence, because there is less to pretend to. ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton 1st Baron Lytton,
#NFDB
636:The purpose of art is higher than art. What we are really interested in are masterpieces of humanity. ~ Alonzo King,
#NFDB
637:There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed. ~ Woodrow Wilson,
#NFDB
638:There's lower mystical kundalini and higher mystical kundalini. There are ranges within the range. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
639:GDP per capita is between two and four times higher for China than India, depending on how you measure ~ Clay Shirky,
#NFDB
640:Higher taxes still does not create prosperity for all. And, more government still does not grow jobs. ~ Bobby Jindal,
#NFDB
641:I was singing about six notes higher than I had to, in a range that kept me up in a bubblegum sound. ~ Nancy Sinatra,
#NFDB
642:My eyebrows couldn’t go any higher, so there was no way I could express the increase in my surprise. ~ Moira J Moore,
#NFDB
643:Paul reminds us that in the Gospel we are both brought lower and raised higher than we can imagine. ~ Timothy Keller,
#NFDB
644:Religion is consciousness-raising. It raises you higher than the problem, it gives you a bird's-eye view. ~ Rajneesh,
#NFDB
645:Star Anna is an American original. She sings from a place of beauty that takes me to a higher place. ~ Mike McCready,
#NFDB
646:The higher the level of knowledge and power, the greater must be our sense of moral responsibility. ~ Dalai Lama XIV,
#NFDB
647:The psychedelic mind is a higher dimensional mind, it is not fit for three dimensional space time. ~ Terence McKenna,
#NFDB
648:The United States has, overall, the most effective system of higher education the world has ever known. ~ Clark Kerr,
#NFDB
649:Trials help us detach ourselves from the earth; they make us look higher than this world. ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux,
#NFDB
650:We must judge ourselves by a higher standard than effectiveness, the standard called faithfulness. ~ Parker J Palmer,
#NFDB
651:We must reprogram ourselves to understand that cooperation is a higher principle than competition. ~ Bryant H McGill,
#NFDB
652:What higher approval could a person enjoy than to know that what he or she has done is pleasing to God? ~ R C Sproul,
#NFDB
653:Where people are using phones in rural areas their risk of brain cancer is higher than in urban areas. ~ Devra Davis,
#NFDB
654:You must learn to think one octave higher. Only then will you learn how implosion energy works. ~ Viktor Schauberger,
#NFDB
655:I believe that it is higher education's purpose and calling to keep open the door to the American dream. ~ Gordon Gee,
#NFDB
656:I don't mind paying higher taxes, because I've done quite well and I'm blessed to live in this country. ~ Jamie Dimon,
#NFDB
657:Look, whatever you do in life, remember, think higher and feel deeper. It cannot be bad if you do that. ~ Elie Wiesel,
#NFDB
658:Prayer for the Day Higher Power, help me to learn from my attitudes. Whatever the outcome, help me learn. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
659:Sometimes people who are Jewish are held to a higher standard which sometimes we take great pride in. ~ Gary Ackerman,
#NFDB
660:The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information but to face sacred moments. ~ Alison Pick,
#NFDB
661:The problems of today can only be solved at a higher level of thinking than that which created them ~ Albert Einstein,
#NFDB
662:Von Köckritz’s entire higher education was free. She considers that perfectly normal—and in Europe, it is. ~ T R Reid,
#NFDB
663:we’ve been indoctrinated to believe that the higher the IQ, the more likely one is to succeed in life. ~ Sean Patrick,
#NFDB
664:What is an oath? A promise to serve a lord, but to Christians there is always a higher allegiance. ~ Bernard Cornwell,
#NFDB
665:And if God has given you a lot of ability, I believe you should be held to a higher level of expectation. ~ Tony Dungy,
#NFDB
666:An imaginary perfection is automatically at the same level as I who imagine it neither higher nor lower. ~ Simone Weil,
#NFDB
667:Do you know the rate of military enlistment among Hispanics is higher than any demographic in this country? ~ Ted Cruz,
#NFDB
668:For me, success is, during this early pilgrimage, to leave the woodpile a little higher than I found it. ~ Paul Harvey,
#NFDB
669:Freedom is not to be destroyed in the name of love. Freedom is a far higher value than your so-called love. ~ Rajneesh,
#NFDB
670:Higher education holds itself out as a kind of universal church, outside of which there is no salvation. ~ Peter Thiel,
#NFDB
671:Higher than the perfect song For which love longeth, Is the tender fear of wrong, That never wrongeth. ~ Bayard Taylor,
#NFDB
672:Life is ever a complicated symphony of catastrophes. Ever seeking to lay us low and lift us higher. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,
#NFDB
673:lower tacit-knowledge depreciation when we have less work-in-progress, resulting in higher quality. ~ David J Anderson,
#NFDB
674:Many things made me become a vegetarian, among them the higher food yield as a solution to world hunger. ~ John Denver,
#NFDB
675:No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience. ~ George Eliot,
#NFDB
676:The lower you are in the hierarchy the worse your health, the higher you are, the better your health. ~ Michael Marmot,
#NFDB
677:The path to God is rarely a steady climb upward. We climb, we fall back, and we climb higher again. ~ Harold S Kushner,
#NFDB
678:The transformation in higher education is already here; the question is how learning institutions respond. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
679:Until higher institutions have been evolved, any attempt to break the old ones will be disastrous. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
680:Above all, put yourself in partnership with higher power and make love the center of your life. ~ Rosemary Ellen Guiley,
#NFDB
681:borrowing in a low-yielding currency (previously the yen) and parking in a currency that pays higher rates. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
682:But, alas! what poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband? ~ Mary Astell,
#NFDB
683:Countries keep on building higher and higher buildings, instead of building higher and higher men! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
#NFDB
684:Cowardice encroaches fast upon such as spend their lives in company of persons higher than themselves. ~ Samuel Johnson,
#NFDB
685:From that day on it was as if Ren freed me from gravity. I was floating in the sky. Higher. Higher. Higher. ~ Ai Yazawa,
#NFDB
686:imagine you already have whatever you want and thank your higher self in advance for bringing it to you. ~ Sanaya Roman,
#NFDB
687:I'm not dismissing the value of higher education; I'm simply saying it comes at the expense of experience. ~ Steve Jobs,
#NFDB
688:Individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. ~ Oscar Wilde,
#NFDB
689:It is a higher exhibition of Christian manliness to be able to bear trouble than to get rid of it. ~ Henry Ward Beecher,
#NFDB
690:Poorer students take out larger loans and will have to contribute more to the cost of higher education. ~ Anne Campbell,
#NFDB
691:Prayer for the Day Higher Power, help me to choose wisely. Help me remember I'm responsible for my choices. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
692:The higher purpose of the cross was that the Father would be glorified by the satisfaction of His justice. ~ R C Sproul,
#NFDB
693:The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
#NFDB
694:The mind has these four levels: physical, vital, buddhi, higher mind. The Supermind is far above these. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
#NFDB
695:The moral faculties are generally and justly esteemed as of higher value than the intellectual powers. ~ Charles Darwin,
#NFDB
696:the red sun of desire and decision (the two things that create a live world) rose higher and higher, ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
#NFDB
697:What I sell is the higher knowledge of knowing whats next and not following the trend of whats now. ~ Theophilus London,
#NFDB
698:After a while, you can't get any higher. It's like your head is in a wind tunnel - everything is vibrating. ~ Method Man,
#NFDB
699:But the higher a man mounts, the greater may be his fall; all genius is a conquering of chaos, mystery. ~ Otto Weininger,
#NFDB
700:Decisions. Where, what, why. Can't handle them. So I'm prolonging the indecision with higher education. ~ Kamila Shamsie,
#NFDB
701:Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself. ~ Henry Ward Beecher,
#NFDB
702:I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
703:I believe the American people are entitled to some straight talk when it comes to higher education funding. ~ Ric Keller,
#NFDB
704:It implies that we are all part of some grand tale, directed by some higher power for the whims of others. ~ Alec Hutson,
#NFDB
705:Making a movie requires 20 to 500 people to make and a lot of money and the stakes are a lot higher. ~ Alanis Morissette,
#NFDB
706:Mother's ways are higher than others, even when everyone rejects, mother accepts with her arms open and wide. ~ Amit Ray,
#NFDB
707:No need to speak with those who may rank higher than you by caste but are beneath you in your contribution. ~ Kiera Cass,
#NFDB
708:Now on Tines World, the Zone physics was still improving. What was it like thirty lightyears higher? Bili ~ Vernor Vinge,
#NFDB
709:on the higher levels of the spiritual path, celibacy is considered a most important aspect of the training. ~ Ayya Khema,
#NFDB
710:The added cost of higher wages is offset by savings from lower labor turnover and higher labor productivity. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
711:The greater the penalties laid on sellers in the black market... the higher the black market price. ~ Kenneth E Boulding,
#NFDB
712:The most effective way to transform into higher consciousness is to pay attention in the present moment. ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
713:We need to figure how to defend higher education as a public good. If we can't do that, we're in trouble. ~ Henry Giroux,
#NFDB
714:What seems today inconceivable will appear one day, from a higher stand point, quite simple and harmonious. ~ Max Planck,
#NFDB
715:When one sees that everything exists as an illusion, one can live in a higher sphere than ordinary man. ~ Gautama Buddha,
#NFDB
716:All the higher life forms scythed away, just like that. [ . . . ] Nothing but dust and fundamentalists. ~ Terry Pratchett,
#NFDB
717:Books are men of higher stature, and the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
#NFDB
718:I believe in a higher power and I believe in good and bad, right and wrong. You sleep in the bed you make. ~ Leif Garrett,
#NFDB
719:If it feels like you're choosing between the lesser of two evils, don't. There is always a higher choice. ~ Michael Neill,
#NFDB
720:If reason dominates in man, he rises higher than angels. If lust overpowers man, he descends lower than the beast. ~ Rumi,
#NFDB
721:I had been on cloud nine all day until that point. But the higher your cloud, the farther your rain falls. ~ Chris Colfer,
#NFDB
722:I'm an atheist how unfortunate it is to assign responsibility to the higher up for justice amongst people. ~ Ani DiFranco,
#NFDB
723:The lower is for us the first condition of the higher. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Knowledge and the Ignorance,
#NFDB
724:The myth is nothing but the reflection of a higher truth, which directs human thought in a perceptible course. ~ Plutarch,
#NFDB
725:Today, be a little bolder. Reach a little higher. Be a little kinder. Be a bigger dreamer.” Robin Sharma ~ Robin S Sharma,
#NFDB
726:"We liked it" or "I didn't like it" people say. As if it were nothing higher than to please the people! ~ Robert Schumann,
#NFDB
727:When teams are asked to work together to analyze problems and design solutions, the quality is higher. ~ David J Anderson,
#NFDB
728:When you contact the Higher Self, the source of power within, you tap into a reservoir of infinite power. ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
729:Your kisses lift me higher...like the sweet song of a choir. You light my morning sky, with burning love. ~ Elvis Presley,
#NFDB
730:A great physicist is always a metaphysicist as well; he has a higher concept of his knowledge and his task. ~ Ernst J nger,
#NFDB
731:A shady friend for torrid days Is easier to find Than one of higher temperature For frigid hour of mind. ~ Emily Dickinson,
#NFDB
732:Capitalism puts things (capital) higher than life (labor). Power follows from possession, not from activity. ~ Erich Fromm,
#NFDB
733:developing countries typically have higher inflation, and developing countries also have higher growth. ~ Raghuram G Rajan,
#NFDB
734:Here is the dirty little secret: the error rate in criminal verdicts is much higher than anyone imagines. ~ William Landay,
#NFDB
735:I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them. ~ Plato,
#NFDB
736:I'm a firm believer in my higher power havin' a plan, and he's never wrong, and he's not open to suggestions. ~ Joe Budden,
#NFDB
737:It's very easy to be number one: find the guy who is number one, and score one point higher than he does. ~ Paul Kalanithi,
#NFDB
738:It's very easy to be number one; find the guy who is number one, and score one point higher than he does. ~ Paul Kalanithi,
#NFDB
739:It’s very easy to be number one: find the guy who is number one, and score one point higher than he does. ~ Paul Kalanithi,
#NFDB
740:Love has had a lot of press-agenting from the oldest times; but there are higher, nobler things than love. ~ P G Wodehouse,
#NFDB
741:rise to a higher level of freedom. We are not being called to run away from danger but toward safety. ~ Gerald G Jampolsky,
#NFDB
742:Steve McManaman once described Zinedine Zidane as ridiculous. You can't get a higher compliment than that. ~ Jason McAteer,
#NFDB
743:The higher the hill, the stronger the wind: so the loftier the life, the stronger the enemy's temptations. ~ John Wycliffe,
#NFDB
744:There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there. ~ Albert Einstein,
#NFDB
745:To most humans, curiosity about higher things comes naturally, it’s indifference to them that must be learned ~ Mark Lilla,
#NFDB
746:[Donald Trump] gets a 19 percent higher approval rating than [Hillary Clinton] does ,among military members. ~ Eric Bolling,
#NFDB
747:falsifications may occasionally need to be committed in the service of a goal higher still than accuracy: ~ Alain de Botton,
#NFDB
748:If you are 'humble', it may help you in ordinary life. If you are not, you will get nowhere in higher things. ~ Idries Shah,
#NFDB
749:I've always liked dressing up. And I love a high heel - the higher the better. I just feel funny in flats. ~ Rachel McAdams,
#NFDB
750:Temporal landmarks slow our thinking, allowing us to deliberate at a higher level and make better decisions ~ Daniel H Pink,
#NFDB
751:Win-win is a belief in the Third Alternative. It's not your way or my way; it's a better way, a higher way. ~ Stephen Covey,
#NFDB
752:A selfish basis would not serve the purpose of taking a man higher and higher along the paths of evolution. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
753:As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. ~ Isaiah,
#NFDB
754:Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
755:Does not every true man feel that he is himself made higher by doing reverence to what is really above him? ~ Thomas Carlyle,
#NFDB
756:Existence is Appetite: the gnaw of being; the one attempt of all things to assimilate to some higher attempt. ~ Charles Fort,
#NFDB
757:I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't. ~ Mark Twain,
#NFDB
758:Love not only occupies the higher lobes of the brain, but crowds out the lower to make room for its expansion. ~ Horace Mann,
#NFDB
759:Second, the biblical principle of “ask, seek, and knock” is prudent advice for gaining a higher level of access. ~ T D Jakes,
#NFDB
760:The fact he was still furious about sleeping with a married woman spoke of higher morals than she possessed. ~ Toni Anderson,
#NFDB
761:the soul is not moved to abandon higher things and love inferior things unless it wills to do so. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo,
#NFDB
762:Thinking in its lower grades, is comparable to paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry. ~ Havelock Ellis,
#NFDB
763:We will kill in ourselves a world in order to build another, a higher one reaching to the heavens. ~ Corneliu Zelea Codreanu,
#NFDB
764:With age come the inner, the higher life. Who would be forever young, to dwell always in externals? ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
#NFDB
765:Women, I have long believed, are the more evolved of the species and have attained some higher level of being. ~ Paul Levine,
#NFDB
766:You must improve yourself on a higher level if you are to be able to help people, and not just weep over them. ~ Idries Shah,
#NFDB
767:All the higher life forms scythed away, just like that.” “Terrible.” “Nothing but dust and fundamentalists. ~ Terry Pratchett,
#NFDB
768:All this bringing of the mind into a higher state of vibration is included in one word in Yoga — Samadhi. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
769:An agent won't help you get drafted higher, won't make you win more games, and won't make you faster or stronger. ~ Lou Holtz,
#NFDB
770:A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels. —Albert Einstein Some ~ Dave Gray,
#NFDB
771:Guys warning girls not to fall in love with them is so truly douchey that it should have a higher success rate. ~ Lena Dunham,
#NFDB
772:I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them. ~ Socrates,
#NFDB
773:People in positions of power and privilege have a duty to perform at a higher level. If not them, then who? ~ Kathleen Parker,
#NFDB
774:Prayer for the Day Higher Power, help me to see the funny side of life. Allow me to see humor and fun in my life. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
775:Self-surrender is the same as Self-knowledge. The ego submits only when it recognizes the Higher Power. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
#NFDB
776:Soar ever higher, ever farther, without fear or hesitation! The hopes of today are the realisations of tomorrow. ~ The Mother,
#NFDB
777:So the Marine Corps really did teach me to conquer fear, and then to go for higher causes, higher purposes. ~ Robert Kiyosaki,
#NFDB
778:The good guys had to operate on a higher level than the killers--just for society to keep track of who was who. ~ Keith Ablow,
#NFDB
779:The guy who wins the Oscar for Best Actor has a much higher bar to clear than the woman who wins best actress. ~ Aaron Sorkin,
#NFDB
780:The lower the soul of a person, the higher the nose up. He stretches his nose to where the soul has not grown. ~ Omar Khayy m,
#NFDB
781:The purpose of art is to raise people to a higher level of awareness than they would otherwise attain on their own. ~ Brassai,
#NFDB
782:There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.
~ Albert Einstein,
#NFDB
783:There is one thing higher than Royalty: and that is religion, which causes us to leave the world, and seek God. ~ Elizabeth I,
#NFDB
784:The Republicans have chosen to neglect young Americans who need assistance with the costs of higher education. ~ John Conyers,
#NFDB
785:We spend our life building higher fences and stronger locks, when the gravest dangers are already inside ~ Richard Paul Evans,
#NFDB
786:you like babies, don't you? he asked...
I have a marginally higher opinion of them than Herod, she said. ~ Jill McGown,
#NFDB
787:Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than lower ones quite attained. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
#NFDB
788:Listening to your ego brings your vibration down; listening to your higher self brings your vibration up. ~ Caroline A Shearer,
#NFDB
789:Mental effort moves us into higher gear, activating more vigorous and more analytical brain machinery. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
#NFDB
790:My trust in a higher power that wants me to survive and have love in my life, is what keeps me moving forward. ~ Kenny Loggins,
#NFDB
791:To the Indian mind there is nothing higher than religious ideals, that this is the keynote of Indian life. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
792:Ultimately, I think, what the psychedelic experience may be is a higher topological manifold of temporality. ~ Terence McKenna,
#NFDB
793:Under President (George W.) Bush, prosecution of gun crimes was 30 percent higher than it is under President Obama. ~ Ted Cruz,
#NFDB
794:When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one. ~ Gustav Mahler,
#NFDB
795:[A.J. Muste] was - he - I don't know what he finally came out believing in, but it was some kind of higher being. ~ Nat Hentoff,
#NFDB
796:any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these acts will elicit Resistance. ~ Steven Pressfield,
#NFDB
797:As the heavens are higher than the earth,† so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
798:A trustee has a responsibility to guard the assets of others with a higher degree of care than he does his own. ~ John Ashcroft,
#NFDB
799:Consciousness is the highest word you will ever utter. There is nothing higher or deeper than consciousness. ~ Michael A Singer,
#NFDB
800:If we all raised others up instead of raising ourselves a little higher, there would be few needs left on earth. ~ Jen Hatmaker,
#NFDB
801:In every crisis, doubt or confusion, take the higher path - the path of compassion, courage, understanding and love. ~ Amit Ray,
#NFDB
802:I said to Life, I would hear Death speak. And Life raised her voice a little higher and said, You hear him now. ~ Khalil Gibran,
#NFDB
803:I've had some decent wins this year against higher ranked players but what I've failed to do is to build on those. ~ Tim Henman,
#NFDB
804:My finely honed political instincts tell me that almost nobody believes that they should be paying higher taxes. ~ Barack Obama,
#NFDB
805:politics can be an ugly game, and in a national election the stakes get higher while the tactics get lower. ~ Geraldine Ferraro,
#NFDB
806:Statistically, the more country music radio stations in a given area, the higher the suicide rate. ~ Bathroom Readers Institute,
#NFDB
807:The cost for the recipient of God’s grace is nothing, and no price could be higher for arrogant people to pay. ~ Dan B Allender,
#NFDB
808:The etiquette is higher consciousness, sensitivity, gentleness, gracefulness, intensity, power, and knowledge. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
809:The state of Indiana’s decision to discontinue higher education for inmates closed a door in many lives—including ~ Laura Bates,
#NFDB
810:This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,
#NFDB
811:Usually the space was dotted with people getting high, getting higher, or wondering why they werent high yet. ~ Hubert Selby Jr,
#NFDB
812:We can never understand this higher order through thinking about it because whatever we think about is content; ~ Eckhart Tolle,
#NFDB
813:What is it that stands higher than words? Action. What is it that stands higher than action? Silence. ~ Saint Francis of Assisi,
#NFDB
814:Which sideband is most commonly used for voice communications on frequencies of 14 MHz or higher? A. Upper sideband ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
815:As you move higher and higher in the world of success, more and more of your job becomes “people development. ~ David J Schwartz,
#NFDB
816:By learning to trust your intuition, miracles seem to happen. Intuitive thoughts are gifts from the higher self. ~ Susan Jeffers,
#NFDB
817:Evil, then consists essentially in the choice of what is lower in preference to what is higher. ~ Saint Athanasius of Alexandria,
#NFDB
818:If you are low income in the United States, you have a higher chance of going to jail than getting a 4-year degree. ~ Bill Gates,
#NFDB
819:It is no longer correct to regard higher education solely as a privilege. It is a basic right in today's world. ~ Norman Cousins,
#NFDB
820:Lao Tzu
"The key to growth is the introduction
of higher dimensions of consciousness
into our awareness. ~ Lao Tzu,
#NFDB
821:Me: am i allowed 2 be good and evil at the same time?
Higher self: look around, bb. that's all there is. ~ Melissa Broder,
#NFDB
822:Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
#NFDB
823:Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it. ~ Stephen Vizinczey,
#NFDB
824:The higher you ascend, the smaller you appear to the eye of envy. But most of all they hate those who fly. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
825:The promises of higher education and previously enviable credentials have turned into the swindle of fulfillment. ~ Henry Giroux,
#NFDB
826:The purer the golden vessel, the more readily is it bent; the higher worth of woman is sooner lost than that of man. ~ Jean Paul,
#NFDB
827:There is no happiness higher than what a man obtains by this attitude of non-offensiveness, to all creation. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
828:When parents have college savings accounts for their kids, their kids show higher social and cognitive performance. ~ Dan Ariely,
#NFDB
829:All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage. ~ Cormac McCarthy,
#NFDB
830:but the higher you climb, the smaller you appear to the eye of envy. And he who flies is hated most of all. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
831:Compassion is the signature of Higher Consciousness. Non-violence is the tool to evolve into the Higher Consciousness. ~ Amit Ray,
#NFDB
832:Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Higher Pantheism ~ Cassandra Clare,
#NFDB
833:Facts are, insurance ratings are really dependent on the notion that some people are higher risk than others. ~ Patrick J Kennedy,
#NFDB
834:For-profit higher education is today a booming industry, feeding on the student loans handed out to the desperate. ~ Thomas Frank,
#NFDB
835:I feel connected to a higher power when I'm making music or performing. There's a spiritual experience for me. ~ Laura Bell Bundy,
#NFDB
836:I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head. ~ Michel de Montaigne,
#NFDB
837:I regard Duryodhana and his party as the baser impulses in man, and Arjuna and his party as the higher impulses. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
838:I think many people have an illusion of success based on entering in at a level that's higher than their experiences. ~ T D Jakes,
#NFDB
839:It is only when you touch the higher that you realize how low we may be among the possibilities of creation. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
#NFDB
840:Leadership is producing a standard in someone that they will live by to produce higher level results consistently. ~ Tony Robbins,
#NFDB
841:LGBT youth face a much higher risk of violence and homelessness after being rejected by their family of origin. ~ Mallory Ortberg,
#NFDB
842:Neurons that fire together wire together. You can rewire your brain for higher consciousness by focusing on love. ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
843:Once we reach our goal, we immediately feel compelled to set a higher goal. We're left in a vacuum of unfulfillment. ~ Jen Lilley,
#NFDB
844:One does not hate so long as one continues to rate low, but only when one has come to rate equal or higher. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
845:The happiness which God designs for his higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to him. ~ C S Lewis,
#NFDB
846:The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel,
#NFDB
847:The process of achievement comes through repeated failures and the constant struggle to climb to a higher level. ~ John C Maxwell,
#NFDB
848:There is no better place for learning to work independently and to extend your horizon than in higher school. ~ Mikhail Botvinnik,
#NFDB
849:We all need someone higher, wiser, older to tell us we’re not crazy after all, that what we’re doing is all right. ~ Ray Bradbury,
#NFDB
850:We are all capable of greatness when we know without any doubt that we are directly connected to a higher purpose. ~ Andrew Cohen,
#NFDB
851:We must throw out the old, fear-based thought-forms and evolve, and begin to live as higher beings of compassion. ~ Bryant McGill,
#NFDB
852:When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it. ~ Idries Shah,
#NFDB
853:When you fly high people will throw stones at you. Don't look down. Just fly higher so the stones won't reach you ~ Chetan Bhagat,
#NFDB
854:2From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
855:All [tv] shows are like cigarettes. You watch two, you have a higher chance of watching three. They're all addictive. ~ Dan Harmon,
#NFDB
856:However tiny or ramshackle they may be, don't ever despise the stairs which take you up to the higher levels! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
#NFDB
857:I can see as clear as a daylight that the hour is coming when women will lead humanity to a higher evolution. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan,
#NFDB
858:Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness. ~ Nathaniel Branden,
#NFDB
859:I only wish to climb even higher during the rest of my career bc with the power of Team Grimmie, I won't stop. ~ Christina Grimmie,
#NFDB
860:I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world. ~ Mark Twain,
#NFDB
861:It is only when you touch the higher that you realize how low we may be among the possibilities of creation. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
#NFDB
862:It is possible to contact higher beings who are not in the body. But the being you really want to contact is you. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
863:Only animals have to satisfy instincts! Surely your aims are somewhat higher than theirs! Than monkeys! Pigs! ~ Tennessee Williams,
#NFDB
864:Our children take our level of vibration and raise it even higher. This is how we, as humans, continue evolution. ~ James Redfield,
#NFDB
865:Our culture is all about hard work and control but zilch about letting go and following the lead of a higher power. ~ Tosha Silver,
#NFDB
866:Taxes shouldn't be higher; they should be fairer. We must be a party that's disciplined. We must make tough choices. ~ Vince Cable,
#NFDB
867:The deeper your thoughts, the clearer your dreams. The clearer your dreams, the higher you fly. Decide to fly! ~ Israelmore Ayivor,
#NFDB
868:The higher up I hold it, the less painful the hot wax.”…“Try hanging off the ceiling and dropping it from there. ~ Barbara Elsborg,
#NFDB
869:There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts. ~ Louise Penny,
#NFDB
870:We should constantly be aspiring to reach higher and higher and higher. We should never be comfortable where we are. ~ Lauryn Hill,
#NFDB
871:You can be a model to the masses, but to go to the higher levels of influence, you have to work with individuals. ~ John C Maxwell,
#NFDB
872:Creating life is the job of a higher power. It’s our job, our duty and our joy, to nurture life, protect and respect it. ~ J D Robb,
#NFDB
873:Even when others don’t understand, masters recognize their allegiance is to a higher calling than pleasing the masses. ~ Jeff Goins,
#NFDB
874:Everything a politician promises at election time has to be paid for either by higher taxation or by borrowing. ~ Margaret Thatcher,
#NFDB
875:God says it, it is settled, whether we believe it or not. There is no higher court of appeal than the voice of God. So ~ R C Sproul,
#NFDB
876:I am convinced that in my own career I could usually have hit 30 points higher if I had made a specialty of hitting. ~ Johnny Evers,
#NFDB
877:I couldn't go any higher with three Michelin stars. I mastered my craft. I'm still learning and picking up ideas. ~ Chelsea Handler,
#NFDB
878:The development of the individual can be described as a succession of new births at consecutively higher levels. ~ Maria Montessori,
#NFDB
879:The goal of higher education should be to champion the airing of all honest viewpoints. Nothing less is acceptable. ~ Bill O Reilly,
#NFDB
880:The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
881:The higher the joy is not the light, it's the reflection. The greater pleasure is not climbing up; it's handing down ~ Bruce Feiler,
#NFDB
882:The lofty pine is most easily brought low by the force of the wind, and the higher the tower the greater the fall thereof. ~ Horace,
#NFDB
883:[The wall will be] ten feet taller. And every time they [Mexicans] protest, it`s going to go up a little bit higher. ~ Donald Trump,
#NFDB
884:Americans claimed to be following a higher law, even when this higher law only turned out to be a personal preference. ~ Mark A Noll,
#NFDB
885:But nobody had ever gone over the top shouting 'A Higher Standard of Living!' or 'Hot Showers and Electric Razors! ~ Jerry Pournelle,
#NFDB
886:Cornbread!” he screamed. “CHICKEN!” the crowd responded. “Rice!” “PEAS!” And then, all together: “WE GOT HIGHER S-A-Ts. ~ John Green,
#NFDB
887:Growing older is like climbing a mountain: the higher you get, the more strength you need, but the further you see. ~ Ingmar Bergman,
#NFDB
888:If large extra dimensions solve the hierarchy problem, higher-dimensional gravity would become strong at about a TeV. ~ Lisa Randall,
#NFDB
889:If you want to fly higher, first you have to spread your wings.. The world’s big and there are a lot of places you can fly^^ ~ Minzy,
#NFDB
890:I hate a man who swallows [his food], affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters. ~ Charles Lamb,
#NFDB
891:Krishna is the higher Self, or God. He sees through the argument at once. In this case [the motive] is weakness. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
892:The foreign resident among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink lower and lower. Deuteronomy 28:43 ~ Beth Moore,
#NFDB
893:The more keenly we are awake to the perils of life, the higher and grander is the possibility of being truly brave. ~ Henry Van Dyke,
#NFDB
894:The most common bad financial habit is living above your means—that’s when your spending is higher than your income. ~ Laura D Adams,
#NFDB
895:There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
896:There is in man a higher than love of happiness; he can do without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness. ~ Thomas Carlyle,
#NFDB
897:The third stage is no thought. No thought is not the end of meditation. It is the beginning of higher meditation. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
898:The universe does not reveal itself to undergraduates or fools: This is the entire premise of higher education. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich,
#NFDB
899:We face the question whether a still higher "standard of living" is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free. ~ Aldo Leopold,
#NFDB
900:As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. ~ Isaiah 55:9 KJV,
#NFDB
901:Capacity for love in its higher forms seems to be peculiarly human although even in humans it is still peculiar. ~ Jeanette Winterson,
#NFDB
902:Cello music swelled out from the house, rising higher and higher until it lifted off the earth, sailing toward Venus. ~ Sue Monk Kidd,
#NFDB
903:Courage not aligned with a higher good isn’t always positive—a burglar can be plenty courageous as he robs you blind. ~ Judith Orloff,
#NFDB
904:Higher than "thou shalt" stands "I will" (the heroes), and higher than "I will" stands "I am" (the Greek gods). ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
905:H.L. Mencken’s definition of a wealthy man: one whose income is $100 a year higher than his wife’s sister’s husband. ~ Dalai Lama XIV,
#NFDB
906:Humility means knowing and using your strength for the benefit of others, on behalf of a higher purpose.” —ALAN ROSS ~ John C Maxwell,
#NFDB
907:I do believe that leaders have to be held to a higher standard, especially Christian leaders. I put myself in that camp. ~ Max Lucado,
#NFDB
908:If higher unemployment is the price we have to pay in order to bring inflation down, then it is a price worth paying. ~ Norman Lamont,
#NFDB
909:I need you to say it again," he told me.
"Why?" I asked, my voice pitching higher.
"So I can say it back, Ace. ~ Kristen Ashley,
#NFDB
910:Let us not forget Colby and the liberating effects of higher education. Though it doesn’t liberate everyone, does it? ~ Richard Russo,
#NFDB
911:Make every occasion a great occasion, for you can never tell who may be taking your measure for a higher place. ~ Orison Swett Marden,
#NFDB
912:My God, my higher power. It's mine and mine alone. I create my connection and I decide how my connection is going to be. ~ Will Smith,
#NFDB
913:Playing the villain gets you higher ratings on reality TV and saying outrageous stuff on Twitter gets you more followers. ~ Van Jones,
#NFDB
914:Such is the inevitable fate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy the less are they free. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
#NFDB
915:The end product of the shorter
deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to greater
focus. ~ Timothy Ferriss,
#NFDB
916:The higher our self-esteem, the stronger the drive to express ourselves, reflecting the sense of richness within. ~ Nathaniel Branden,
#NFDB
917:The more excited the rooster gets, the higher his voice goes. He's got a little bit of a Barney Fife quality to him. ~ Jeff Foxworthy,
#NFDB
918:There is nothing higher and holier than the knowledge which comes to the soul transmitted by a spiritual teacher. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
919:There is nothing higher-class than real craftsmanship, diversity, originality and the service of skilled human hands. ~ Bryant McGill,
#NFDB
920:The sattwic quality is a first mediator between the higher and the lower nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Deva and Asura,
#NFDB
921:Those who are critical of my goals and dreams simply do not understand the higher purpose to which I have been called. ~ Andy Andrews,
#NFDB
922:White Motor Company’s plant struck for higher wages and a union shop, Robert F. Black, then president of the company, ~ Dale Carnegie,
#NFDB
923:And if you buy the new issue after it begins trading, usually at a higher price, you are even more certain to lose. ~ Burton G Malkiel,
#NFDB
924:Dorothea, he said to himself, was for ever enthroned in his soul: no other woman could sit higher than her footstool... ~ George Eliot,
#NFDB
925:Driving by my ambitions, desire higher positions, to see eternally and my mission, to be more than just a rap musician. ~ Tupac Shakur,
#NFDB
926:Given the difficulty of using wait and notify correctly, you should use the higher-level concurrency utilities instead. ~ Joshua Bloch,
#NFDB
927:One does not fire or sack higher-income personnel; in the interest of greater efficiency, they are only shed. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith,
#NFDB
928:The nation must exist before it can sacrifice its interests for a higher good. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, The Doctrine of Sacrifice,
#NFDB
929:There's no doomsday scheme made specifically for mankind,
only higher agenda and priority than human race preservation. ~ Toba Beta,
#NFDB
930:There's really no pain in the realm of the higher astral. A lot of spirits are playing mini-golf having a good time. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
931:Two out of every five people on Earth today owe their lives to the higher crop outputs that fertilizer has made possible. ~ Bill Gates,
#NFDB
932:And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice? ~ Plato,
#NFDB
933:An incalculable number of higher individuals now perish: but he who escapes their fate is as strong as the devil. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
934:Bent out of shape from society's pliers, cares not to come up any higher, but rather get you down in the hole that he's in. ~ Bob Dylan,
#NFDB
935:I find it a little stressful when you're in a really nice studio and you feel time ticking and the bill getting higher. ~ Yukimi Nagano,
#NFDB
936:If you have no shame, and it’s your goal to get people into bed, how much higher could your success rate possibly be? ~ Stephen Malkmus,
#NFDB
937:On a higher level we find fictions that men eagerly believe, regardless of the evidence, because they gratify some wish. ~ Martin Buber,
#NFDB
938:one might almost say that works of literature are like artesian wells, the deeper the suffering, the higher they rise.) ~ Marcel Proust,
#NFDB
939:Students coming from father-present families score higher in math and science even when they come from weaker schools. ~ Warren Farrell,
#NFDB
940:Summit of a mountain is not the upper end of that mountain because every mountain has a soul higher than his body! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
#NFDB
941:The higher purpose of the general institution is to guard and support particular souls in their relation to the divine. ~ George Lakoff,
#NFDB
942:The oppressed…have a higher moral right to challenge their oppressors than these have to maintain their rule by force.”6 ~ James H Cone,
#NFDB
943:There is no higher calling or greater privilege known to man than being involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission. ~ Bill Bright,
#NFDB
944:There is no higher “law” to be obeyed than the law of love. That, at the end of the day, is what it means to follow Jesus. ~ Peter Enns,
#NFDB
945:To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science. ~ Isaac Newton,
#NFDB
946:We are even higher than the heavens, we are greater than angels; Why should we not transcend both? Our lodging-place is Majesty. ~ Rumi,
#NFDB
947:You know, it's been proven that 35 to 40 hours a year with one-on-one attention, a student can get one grade level higher ~ Dave Eggers,
#NFDB
948:A nation will rise no higher than the strength of its homes. If you want to reform a nation you begin with families. ~ Gordon B Hinckley,
#NFDB
949:But hope rises like water trapped by a dam, higher and higher, in increments that mean nothing until you face the flood. ~ Leigh Bardugo,
#NFDB
950:Every day my anxiety is higher,
every day the grief more mortal.
Today more than yesterday terror exalts me… ~ Pier Paolo Pasolini,
#NFDB
951:Gabriel is a unique archangel in the sense that it is almost certain that she is the only female in the higher echelons. ~ James R Lewis,
#NFDB
952:He whose intellect overcomes his lust is higher than the angels; he whose lust overcomes his intelligence is less than an animal. ~ Rumi,
#NFDB
953:in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. —CHARLES DARWIN ~ David Duchovny,
#NFDB
954:Italian companies need to re-convert themselves, and such a re-conversion must be toward a better, higher standard. ~ Brunello Cucinelli,
#NFDB
955:It takes more courage to disturb the neighborhood than it takes to disturb the universe. And the price is often higher. ~ E L Konigsburg,
#NFDB
956:Like the air-invested heron, great persons should conduct themselves; and the higher they be, the less they should show. ~ Philip Sidney,
#NFDB
957:migrants bring economic benefits to a country, including for its workers in terms of more jobs and higher economic growth, ~ Jean Tirole,
#NFDB
958:Nobody can teach you love. Love you have to find yourself, within your being, by raising your consciousness to higher levels. ~ Rajneesh,
#NFDB
959:Prayer for the Day Higher Power, help me to really believe I'll be given what I need. This will free me to get on with life. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
960:The oldest rule in the book is that you can delegate authority, but never responsibility—not even to higher authority. ~ Taylor Anderson,
#NFDB
961:To live in despair because life is finite or because life has no higher purpose or embedded design is crass ingratitude. ~ Irvin D Yalom,
#NFDB
962:We hold those who are on the tightest of schedules in reverence; the busier you are, the higher your status as a human being. ~ Ruby Wax,
#NFDB
963:What is it about power, that it has to be higher up than everyone else? Can a man not be powerful on the ground floor? ~ Joe Abercrombie,
#NFDB
964:When we become hollow bones there is no limit to what the Higher Powers can do in and through us in spiritual things. ~ Frank Fools Crow,
#NFDB
965:You want to feel that you belong to something higher, to something even beyond this universe, then go to the opera! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
#NFDB
966:All states of mind have different views. On the higher plateau, opportunities will open to you because you can see them. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
967:Ask: “Who am I?” until well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us. That is firmness of faith. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
#NFDB
968:Her sweet smell drove my body higher as I nibbled on the edge of her earlobe. “I’m not stopping you. You plan. I’ll kiss. ~ Katie McGarry,
#NFDB
969:Higher purpose: Every cell in your body agrees to work for the welfare of the whole; its individual welfare comes second. ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
970:If you service low-impact activities, therefore, you’re taking away time you could be spending on higher-impact activities. ~ Cal Newport,
#NFDB
971:I'm not into organized religion. I'm into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we're all just part of nature. ~ Neil Young,
#NFDB
972:it is the nature of religions to put a higher premium on your proper attention to ritual than on your convenience. ~ George Alec Effinger,
#NFDB
973:My expression could make one of his sunflowers turn away, but Gil just meets it, eyebrows raised higher than my own. ~ Alaya Dawn Johnson,
#NFDB
974:Only art and science make us suspect the existence of life to a higher level, and maybe also instill hope thereof. ~ Ludwig van Beethoven,
#NFDB
975:Subject the material world to the higher ends by understanding it in all its relations to daily life and action. ~ Ellen Swallow Richards,
#NFDB
976:Television is teaching all the time. Does more educating than the schools and all the institutions of higher learning. ~ Marshall McLuhan,
#NFDB
977:the higher one’s intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold “beliefs” of any kind. ~ Richard Dawkins,
#NFDB
978:This is not to isolate Israel but rather to hold Israel to a higher standard that we also have to hold ourselves to as well. ~ Jill Stein,
#NFDB
979:This was a little house, with a ceiling that kept getting higher and higher, a hot place with no windows. This was anger. ~ Helen Oyeyemi,
#NFDB
980:Thoughts appear wending like the waves of an ocean. As meditation on the Self rises higher, thoughts get destroyed. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
#NFDB
981:Tranquillity is a sign of increasing self-mastery and purity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
#NFDB
982:Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge. ~ Matthew Arnold,
#NFDB
983:Annual per capita sugar consumption in the depth of the Great Depression was sixteen pounds higher than it had been in 1920. ~ Gary Taubes,
#NFDB
984:But there are higher stakes than youth or Latah, games where only two players in the world know what the stakes are. ~ William S Burroughs,
#NFDB
985:Grammar is like the air: someone higher up might try to set rules for its use, but people won't necessarily follow them. ~ Haruki Murakami,
#NFDB
986:Higher taxes never reduce the deficit. Governments spend whatever they take in and then whatever they can get away with. ~ Milton Friedman,
#NFDB
987:How many new discoveries does not a person make when on some high point he ascends but a single story higher. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
#NFDB
988:I am tied down with single words. But you wander off; you slip away; you rise up higher, with words and words in phrases. ~ Virginia Woolf,
#NFDB
989:I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician ~ Charlie Chaplin,
#NFDB
990:Just trusting the soul cannot lead you to higher consciousness. You have to pay attention for the beautification of your heart. ~ Amit Ray,
#NFDB
991:No parent at home is saying my gosh, if we can just get a higher minimum wage, all of our aspirations have been realized. ~ Chris Christie,
#NFDB
992:The Americans are completely stupid. The intellectual level in any single European country is higher than in America. ~ Michel Houellebecq,
#NFDB
993:The big question is whether the graduate premium is the consequence of higher productivity or of establishing a pecking order. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
994:the children who had shown more self-control as four-year-olds had substantially higher scores on tests of intelligence. ~ Daniel Kahneman,
#NFDB
995:The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn. They are worn very high, just at present. ~ Oscar Wilde,
#NFDB
996:There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher. ~ Henry Van Dyke,
#NFDB
997:The worshipper of energy is too physically energetic to see that he cannot explore certain higher fields until he is still. ~ Clarence Day,
#NFDB
998:We have the power to bend all men to our whim, but are forever pushing ourselves further, trying to fly higher… and falling. ~ Darren Shan,
#NFDB
999:You can't have it both ways. You can't have both free will and a benevolent higher power who protects you from yourself. ~ Arthur C Clarke,
#NFDB
1000:Darwinism is the story of humanity's liberation from the delusion that its destiny is controlled by a power higher than itself. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1001:Difference in unity is the law of the higher manifestation. ~ Sri Aurobindo[Gems from Sri Aurobindo] #themother #srimaa #sriaurobindoashram,
#NFDB
1002:Energy follows thought; no matter how hard we work or how much we know, we tend to rise to our assumed limits, and no higher. ~ Dan Millman,
#NFDB
1003:For Solomon, he lived at ease, and full Of honour, wealth, high fare, aimed not beyond Higher design than to enjoy his state. ~ John Milton,
#NFDB
1004:He who is unwilling to trust to the power of thinking cannot, in fact, enlighten himself regarding higher spiritual facts. ~ Rudolf Steiner,
#NFDB
1005:Humanity must have a speed of advance higher than the speed of advance of cosmic disasters or big global catastrophes! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
#NFDB
1006:If you have a higher reason ... than just to make money... it will bring you longer fulfillment. And it won't feel like work. ~ Sammy Hagar,
#NFDB
1007:ISA55.9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1008:Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting. ~ Anne Shirley,
#NFDB
1009:Like the aristocracy, you can tell a reporter’s status by his clothes and manners. The worse they are, the higher up they are, ~ Iain Pears,
#NFDB
1010:Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something. ~ Lord Chesterfield,
#NFDB
1011:Success is like death. The more successful you become, the higher the houses in the hills get and the higher the fences get. ~ Kevin Spacey,
#NFDB
1012:The higher purpose of # astrology is not to try to change one's destiny, but to fulfill it through growing in awareness ~ Stephen Arroyo,
#NFDB
1013:There’s only one higher power that decides these things. Believe it or not, you had nothing to do with his time being up. ~ Elizabeth Reyes,
#NFDB
1014:To return to higher standards of living we must abandon the false prophets and seek new leaders of our own choosing. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt,
#NFDB
1015:True meditation gives us, as it were, wings for flight to a higher realm and thus detaches us from terrestrial fetters. ~ Swami Paramananda,
#NFDB
1016:U.S. consumers report higher dissatisfaction with their health care system than do consumers in other developed nations. ~ Michael E Porter,
#NFDB
1017:Appreciating what shows up in your life changes your personal vibration. Gratitude elevates your life to a higher frequency. ~ Oprah Winfrey,
#NFDB
1018:Are we biology or God or something higher? I know my heart beats and I listen to it. The beat is biology, but what is the song? ~ James Frey,
#NFDB
1019:Ask: 'Who am I?' until well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us. That is firmness of faith.
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
#NFDB
1020:Because of what America is and what America has done, a firmer courage, a higher hope, inspires the heart of all humanity. ~ Calvin Coolidge,
#NFDB
1021:For certainly there cannot be a higher pleasure than to think that we love and are beloved by the most amiable and best Being. ~ Mary Astell,
#NFDB
1022:I don't know if we're cutting out, but a friend made a really fascinating suggestion to me; that maybe I could go higher. ~ Kellyanne Conway,
#NFDB
1023:I don't really do anything with the Internet except check my email. I have a much higher opinion of humanity because of that. ~ Ann Patchett,
#NFDB
1024:I remain just one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician. ~ Charlie Chaplin,
#NFDB
1025:Money is a function of value creation. The more value you create for other people, the higher the sales of your organization. ~ Robin Sharma,
#NFDB
1026:Passing into higher forms of desire, that which slumbered in the plant, and fitfully stirred in the beast, awakes in the man. ~ Henry George,
#NFDB
1027:Physics, owing to the simplicity of its subject matter, has reached a higher state of development than any other science. ~ Bertrand Russell,
#NFDB
1028:So the universe is constantly moving in the direction of higher evolutionary impulses, creativity, abstraction, and meaning. ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
1029:The human desire to know why is as powerful as the desire to know what happened next, and it is a desire of a higher order. ~ Janet Burroway,
#NFDB
1030:The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes. ~ Desiderius Erasmus,
#NFDB
1031:To whatever degree you listen and follow your intuition, you become a creative channel for the higher power of the universe. ~ Shakti Gawain,
#NFDB
1032:A man must be considered as a tool of a higher world-order, a vessel found worth to receive divine influence.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
#NFDB
1033:Are my personal standards with reference to the quantity and quality of my output higher now than three or six months ago? ~ David J Schwartz,
#NFDB
1034:Are we biology or God or something higher? I know my heart beats and I listen to it. The beat is biology, but what is the song? ~ James Frey,
#NFDB
1035:Countries with hot climates suffer higher murder rates and more political violence; more violent crimes occur in hot years; ~ Robert I Sutton,
#NFDB
1036:Earn by your efficiency and enthusiasm, The right to play higher and higher roles ,That is the meaning and purpose of life. ~ Sathya Sai Baba,
#NFDB
1037:every fall, even if it be very grave and repeated, serves us always and only as a little step towards a higher perfection. ~ Maximilian Kolbe,
#NFDB
1038:Executive compensation dipped during the financial crisis, but it has risen briskly since, and is now higher than it’s ever been. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1039:Fear of God is a beginning of knowledge.
The fear lessened on a higher knowledge.
Walk with God is on the top of knowledge. ~ Toba Beta,
#NFDB
1040:If your life and your work are aligned with the intentions of Higher Power, the same Force will give you all you need to succeed. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1041:I want to make as much of a contribution as I can, to Harvard, to higher education and hopefully, to education around the world. ~ Jim Breyer,
#NFDB
1042:I would sooner look for figs on thistles than for the higher attributes of art from one whose ruling motive... is money. ~ Asher Brown Durand,
#NFDB
1043:Poor people, people of color - especially are much more likely to be found in prison than in institutions of higher education. ~ Angela Davis,
#NFDB
1044:Real men don’t shit bricks when their wives gain higher education and the basic power to survive without them, pardon my language. ~ L J Shen,
#NFDB
1045:Society cannot do without cultivated men. As soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become imperative. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
1046:Subordinates may initiate contact more often, but the one with the higher rank gets to decide when and if to interact. ~ Patricia B McConnell,
#NFDB
1047:their official religious absolutes, the higher call was to ignore what the Bible said in favor of what they hoped it meant. ~ Frank Schaeffer,
#NFDB
1048:When we experience panic, it means that we’re about to cross a threshold. We’re poised on the doorstep of a higher plane. ~ Steven Pressfield,
#NFDB
1049:And that’s a problem. This excellent emphasis on the higher purpose of heaven often stifles the simple pleasures of earth. ~ Michael E Wittmer,
#NFDB
1050:Chinese students scored much higher on the cognitive aspect of wisdom compared with the reflective or affective aspects of wisdom. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1051:For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character ~ Rudolf Steiner,
#NFDB
1052:I believe that for peace a man may, even should, do everything in his power. Nothing in this world could rank higher than peace. ~ Anwar Sadat,
#NFDB
1053:Just because you put higher-octane gasoline in your car doesn't mean you can break the speed limit. The speed limit's still 65. ~ Neil Sheehan,
#NFDB
1054:Perfection comes by renunciation of desires and surrender to a higher Will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,
#NFDB
1055:The higher a man's conception of God, the better will he know Him. And the better he knows God, the nearer will he draw to Him. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
#NFDB
1056:The higher up the tree a cat climbs, the farther it will fall. It's the same for politicians, except politicians don't bounce. ~ Michael Dobbs,
#NFDB
1057:The person of power uses their power to open up their mind to higher levels all the time, which creates tremendous happiness. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
1058:This mountain is so formed that it is always wearisome when one begins the ascent, but becomes easier the higher one climbs. ~ Dante Alighieri,
#NFDB
1059:To me, that's where a lot of satire lies. News used to hold itself to a higher plane and slowly it has dissolved into, well, me. ~ Jon Stewart,
#NFDB
1060:When I see and feel the life beat of Spirit in every object, I evolve to a higher level of transformation called consciousness ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
1061:you have to experience a lot of failure to achieve success. And the more failure you go through, the higher your success." He ~ John C Maxwell,
#NFDB
1062:You stay in the surreal world of so-called higher learning. You are comfortable there. You have very little reason to leave it. ~ Harlan Coben,
#NFDB
1063:Zen is all-inclusive. It never denies, it never says no to anything; it accepts everything and transforms it into a higher reality. ~ Rajneesh,
#NFDB
1064:Believe it or not, when we were first married, our combined monthly student loan bills were actually higher than our mortgage. ~ Michelle Obama,
#NFDB
1065:Followers are the customers of the Higher Ground Leader, who strives to meet or exceed the outer and inner needs of followers. ~ Lance Secretan,
#NFDB
1066:God is always God, but the views which people and nations may take of him vary. No higher view is known than that of love. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
1067:Heaven is high and earth wide. If you ride three feet higher above the ground than other men, you will know what that means. ~ Rudolf G Binding,
#NFDB
1068:How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference to what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world’ (T ~ A C Grayling,
#NFDB
1069:I called gold the ultimate bubble, which means it may go higher. But it’s certainly not safe and it’s not going to last forever. ~ George Soros,
#NFDB
1070:Look around you at the people you spend the most time with and realize that your life can’t rise any higher than your friendships. ~ Mandy Hale,
#NFDB
1071:ROM13.1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1072:Spirituality can not be separate from how we treat our bodies, construct our lifestyles, and keep our energy at higher levels. ~ James Redfield,
#NFDB
1073:The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends. ~ Samuel Johnson,
#NFDB
1074:Annual per capita sugar consumption in the depth of the Great Depression was sixteen pounds higher than it had been in 1920. Candy ~ Gary Taubes,
#NFDB
1075:As countries embrace mass higher education, the cost of maintaining universities increases dramatically relative to an elite system. ~ Derek Bok,
#NFDB
1076:Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture I am still confused. But on a higher level. ~ Enrico Fermi,
#NFDB
1077:California is now close to spending more on prisons than it does on higher education - surely the death warrant of a civilization. ~ Molly Ivins,
#NFDB
1078:God is always God, but the views which people and nations may take of him vary. No higher view is known than that of love. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
1079:He [Newt Gingrich] is the most unpopular politician in America. His favorable rating is only four points higher than the Unabomber. ~ Al Franken,
#NFDB
1080:Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why. ~ Nadine Gordimer,
#NFDB
1081:If you find what you do each day seems to have no link to any higher purpose, you probably want to rethink what you're doing. ~ Ronald A Heifetz,
#NFDB
1082:I think faith can be anything. It can be believing in yourself, or if you believe there's a higher being that's watching over you. ~ Miley Cyrus,
#NFDB
1083:It’s time for companies to stop asking their employees to breathlessly chase ever-higher, ever-more-artificial targets set by ego. ~ Jason Fried,
#NFDB
1084:Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness. ~ Blaise Pascal,
#NFDB
1085:Our Higher Self is the most intimate thing we could possibly know; eternity is the most comfortable home we could possibly fine. ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
1086:Rightly did Darwin pin up a paper warning himself to be careful about using the words “higher” and “lower.” MARY MIDGLEY ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner,
#NFDB
1087:The heavier our bodies, the higher our will, our spirit, rises above them.' 'The wearier we are, the more splendid the training. ~ Ruth Benedict,
#NFDB
1088:The higher the intelligence, the more faith, and the less credulity; Gabriel rejects
more than we, but out-believes us all. ~ Herman Melville,
#NFDB
1089:The rights essential to happiness. . . . We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings and Lord of all the earth. ~ John Dickinson,
#NFDB
1090:The rising costs of higher education coupled with the stress of paying student loans are putting increasing pressure on students. ~ Hank Johnson,
#NFDB
1091:The sole purpose of marketing is to sell more to more people, more often and at higher prices. There is no other reason to do it. ~ Sergio Zyman,
#NFDB
1092:Two fat ladies, 88! Not that you'd find these ladies at a bingo hall, of course... they're altogether a higher class of fat lady. ~ Steve Coogan,
#NFDB
1093:You would think with all the genius and the brilliance of these times, we might find a higher purpose and a better use of mind. ~ Jackson Browne,
#NFDB
1094:Art is not an end in itself. It introduces the soul into a higher spiritual order, which it expresses and in some sense explains. ~ Thomas Merton,
#NFDB
1095:But this is the thing about struggling out of that hole you've put yourself in: the higher you climb, the farther you have to fall. ~ Tess Sharpe,
#NFDB
1096:Can everybody contact the higher forces? No, not indeed; but they submit themselves to a discipline and this brings them success. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
#NFDB
1097:Education in the West, particularly higher education in America, has lost the ability to see the universe from very far away. ~ Charles Van Doren,
#NFDB
1098:He who presides over a system which aims at nothing higher than formalism, is far more a servant of the devil than a minister of God. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1099:higher concentration of dopamine appears to lower skepticism and result in greater vulnerability to pattern detection; an ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
#NFDB
1100:higher-fidelity versions of CRISPR that are less prone to off-target gene editing than the version nature evolved on its own. ~ Jennifer A Doudna,
#NFDB
1101:How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos. ~ G K Chesterton,
#NFDB
1102:I am certainly convinced that it is one of the greatest impulses of mankind to arrive at something higher than a natural state. ~ James A Baldwin,
#NFDB
1103:I have a very high opinion of Steve King and his ability, so I would encourage him to consider any position for higher office. ~ Michele Bachmann,
#NFDB
1104:In the most innovative companies there is a significantly higher volume of thank yous than in companies of low innovation. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter,
#NFDB
1105:I pray I’ll get to remember this on the other side, that whatever higher being there is will allow me to hold tightly to this memory. ~ B N Toler,
#NFDB
1106:It is the nature of English society to do precisely that: to keep the lower classes low and raise the upper classes even higher. ~ Courtney Milan,
#NFDB
1107:I train my muscles, and I do a lot of stretching, and try to kick higher. But for me, practicing kung-fu is a way to relax myself. ~ Stephen Chow,
#NFDB
1108:No Marxist can deny that the interests of socialism are higher than the interests of the right of nations to self-determination. ~ Vladimir Lenin,
#NFDB
1109:Obviously, the greater the length of a war the higher is likely to be the number of casualties in it on either side. ~ Douglas Haig 1st Earl Haig,
#NFDB
1110:Our God is Greater, Our God is Stronger, God, you are Higher than any other, Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God,Our God. ~ Chris Tomlin,
#NFDB
1111:That's what Google taught me. Aim higher. Udacity is my playground - to radically experiment and find out. I've seen the light. ~ Sebastian Thrun,
#NFDB
1112:The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield. ~ Jean Baptiste Say,
#NFDB
1113:The human victims of WMDs, we’ll see time and again, are held to a far higher standard of evidence than the algorithms themselves. ~ Cathy O Neil,
#NFDB
1114:Wait just a minute,’ Tantalus said. But the campers took up the chant. ‘We need a quest! We need a quest!’ The flames rose higher. ~ Rick Riordan,
#NFDB
1115:Ye country comets, that portend No war, nor prince's funeral, Shining unto no higher end Than to presage the grasses fall. . . . ~ Andrew Marvell,
#NFDB
1116:You can then further enhance the process of writing by forming the clear intention that your Higher Self will influence your writing. ~ Genevieve,
#NFDB
1117:A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship. ~ Francis Crick,
#NFDB
1118:Ah—that’s the beauty of higher education, sergeant. Never use two simple words when one really complicated one will do.’ ‘What’s ~ Caroline Graham,
#NFDB
1119:American workers won't be able to compete fairly for jobs until companies have to pay higher wages in countries like China and India. ~ Andy Stern,
#NFDB
1120:America's highest economic need is higher ethical standards -- enforced by strict laws and upheld by responsible business leaders. ~ George W Bush,
#NFDB
1121:articulate,” to use the condescending praise word bestowed by elites on unexpectedly intelligent people who lack higher education ~ Stephanie Land,
#NFDB
1122:Both cream and scum can rise to the top, unfortunately. This lower-quality stuff that's going higher isn't doing it on fundamentals. ~ John Manley,
#NFDB
1123:Change your inner thoughts to the higher frequencies of love, harmony, kindness, peace, and joy, and you'll attract more of the same. ~ Wayne Dyer,
#NFDB
1124:Ever since we picked up a stick to reach a higher branch, we have used our tools to extend our reach, both physically and mentally. ~ Ray Kurzweil,
#NFDB
1125:For higher-level execs with greater public visibility, social networks need to become as good at filtering as they are at connecting. ~ danah boyd,
#NFDB
1126:Humanity is the higher meaning of our planet, the nerve that connects this part of it with the upper world, the eye it raises to heaven. ~ Novalis,
#NFDB
1127:I am totally in favor of trade. But I want trade deals for our country that create more jobs and higher wages for American workers. ~ Donald Trump,
#NFDB
1128:If you want to really know higher dimensions of life, there needs to be a constant sense of peacefulness and joyfulness within you ~ Jaggi Vasudev,
#NFDB
1129:I judge the people and the nations by their ideals; the higher the ideals, the profounder the person, the greater the nation. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
#NFDB
1130:I wonder about silence. Also about darkness. I love the idea that city lights are a "conspiracy" against higher thoughts. ~ Terry Tempest Williams,
#NFDB
1131:Let us all try to stand a little taller, rise a little higher, be a little better. Make the extra effort. You will be happier. ~ Gordon B Hinckley,
#NFDB
1132:Mimi was a human bulldozer, and when she met a seemingly immovable object, she just lowered her blade and revved her engine higher. ~ Stephen King,
#NFDB
1133:Some things were above my pay grade. Actually, there were things that slithered on their bellies that were higher than my pay grade. ~ Jodi Taylor,
#NFDB
1134:Spending longer thinking about the problem before you dive in is likely to lead to higher levels of creativity in the final product. ~ Jeremy Dean,
#NFDB
1135:The average woman loses a half million dollars over a lifetime, but women with higher degrees lose $2 million over a lifetime. ~ Patricia Arquette,
#NFDB
1136:The freer I get, the higher I go. The higher I go, the more I see. The more I see, the less I know. The less I know, the more I’m free. ~ Ram Dass,
#NFDB
1137:The higher the IQ the lower the EQ. The more intelligent you are, the lower your ability is to communicate emotionally with people. ~ Roberto Orci,
#NFDB
1138:The higher you climb on the ladder of success, the more people will dislike you. Climb high enough, and people might even hate you. ~ Darren Hardy,
#NFDB
1139:The misuse of creation begins when we no longer recognize any higher instance than ourselves, when we see nothing else but ourselves”. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1140:This feeling of guilt is your conscience calling your attention to the higher road, and your heart wishing you had taken it. ~ Richelle E Goodrich,
#NFDB
1141:We tend to get what we expect, and if we expect nothing we get nothing. The stream cannot rise higher than its fountainhead; ~ Orison Swett Marden,
#NFDB
1142:When you meditate, you are shifting your state of mind to a higher vibratory level that will give you a much more expansive view. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
1143:Women's fight for equal rights is essentially a humanist and peaceful struggle for true democracy, and a higher form of civilization. ~ Leyla Zana,
#NFDB
1144:You’re right not to talk. It’s a sort of higher honesty, I think. Once you start talking, there’s no telling what you’ll say. ~ Marilynne Robinson,
#NFDB
1145:You're right not to talk. It's sort of a higher honesty, I think. Once you start talking, there's no telling what you'll say. ~ Marilynne Robinson,
#NFDB
1146:A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man, by one lower than himself. ~ Henry Ward Beecher,
#NFDB
1147:At least for me personally, drugs aren't an essential part of having a surreal experience, or what you might call a higher experience. ~ Panda Bear,
#NFDB
1148:Christ, being man, had to see impurity and denounced it; but God, infinitely higher, does not see iniquity and cannot be angry. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
1149:Doubt in my tradition is something that is very helpful. Because of doubt, you can thirst more and you will get a higher kind of proof. ~ Nhat Hanh,
#NFDB
1150:For all of higher civilization's recorded history, becoming a man was defined overwhelmingly as taking responsibility for a family. ~ Dennis Prager,
#NFDB
1151:Hitler reacted primarily in a sadistic fashion toward people, but masochistically toward fate, history, the “higher power” of nature. ~ Erich Fromm,
#NFDB
1152:If theres something decent going in television, the mediums now are kind of equal. Television has become much higher quality. ~ Penelope Ann Miller,
#NFDB
1153:Life is an opportunity afforded to each not to eat and drink, but to achieve something nobler and higher to merge in the Reality. ~ Sathya Sai Baba,
#NFDB
1154:long; team ministry is the higher pathway. Are you in this for the long haul or just the short run? To judge a city or build one up? ~ James W Goll,
#NFDB
1155:Nothing sounds better than being away from this mess. Nothing sounds better right now than getting higher than the hole I'm in. ~ Walter Dean Myers,
#NFDB
1156:People exposed to emotional abuse as children have been found to be at higher risk of developing medical illnesses later in life, ~ Daniel J Siegel,
#NFDB
1157:So LEARN to laugh beyond yourselves! Lift up your hearts, ye good dancers, high! higher! And do not forget the good laughter! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
1158:Such indeed was her image, that neither could Shakespeare describe, nor Hogarth paint, nor Clive act, a fury in higher perfection. ~ Henry Fielding,
#NFDB
1159:The essence of higher instrumental music lays herein that one is able to express in tones that what one is unable to say in words. ~ Richard Wagner,
#NFDB
1160:There's a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior. ~ Derek Bok,
#NFDB
1161:according to the official International Comparison Program (ICP), European prices are about 10 percent higher than American prices, ~ Thomas Piketty,
#NFDB
1162:All warred against all, but with a common hate
Turned on the mind that sought some higher good; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Descent into Night,
#NFDB
1163:Consolidation in the skiing equipment industry cannot be allowed to lead to higher prices, lower quality or less innovative products. ~ Neelie Kroes,
#NFDB
1164:In higher samadhi, in absence of any support, the consciousness is absorbed within itself in perfect awareness, clarity and peacefulness. ~ Amit Ray,
#NFDB
1165:I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton,
#NFDB
1166:I think being really connected to a higher power, of having a spirituality to me, has been really good for me and I pray all the time. ~ Alicia Keys,
#NFDB
1167:It is a commonplace by now to say that the urban school systems of America contain a higher percentage of Negro children each year. ~ Jonathan Kozol,
#NFDB
1168:It is always possible to get into a higher state of mind. The way you get into a higher state of mind is by generating good karma. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
1169:I was a goner for this girl. Was gone when I started lusting over her ankles but this was some higher-level cosmic soul mate shit. ~ Kate Canterbary,
#NFDB
1170:Once you've recognized your own limits, you've raised yourself to a higher level of being, since you're closer to the real you... ~ Banana Yoshimoto,
#NFDB
1171:Stay to yourself, just listen. Do more listening than talking. The more you speak the higher the chances you sayin the wrong thing. ~ Curtis Jackson,
#NFDB
1172:The ECLS data do show, for instance, that a child with a lot of books in his home tends to test higher than a child with no books. ~ Steven D Levitt,
#NFDB
1173:The higher philosophical man has solitude not because he wishes to be alone, but because he is something that finds no equals. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
1174:The organization of ofices follows the principle of hierarchy ... each lower office is under the control and supervision of a higher one ~ Max Weber,
#NFDB
1175:the reward of feeling useful, of being someone, of having status, the reward of increased income and a higher standard of living. ~ David J Schwartz,
#NFDB
1176:The slicing technique from Flatland still remains one of the most powerful tools for dealing with aggregates in higher dimensions. ~ Thomas Banchoff,
#NFDB
1177:To a father waxing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter; sons have spirits of a higher pitch, but less inclined to endearing fondness. ~ Euripides,
#NFDB
1178:To be sure, American higher education is a diverse ecosystem, comprising institutions of all sizes, price tags, and mission statements. ~ Gordon Gee,
#NFDB
1179:You have to go to the Source from where you come from in order to feel what you are in your essence, and your higher potential. ~ Padma Aon Prakasha,
#NFDB
1180:And the Vatican, whatever anyone else might have thought on the subject, answered, like Hebrew National hot dogs, to "a higher authority. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1181:As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. ~ Charles Dickens,
#NFDB
1182:Between you and me, Plato was a hack. All that crap about higher forms and caves? He was drunk when he wrote it. I know. I was there. ~ Gene Doucette,
#NFDB
1183:By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
#NFDB
1184:Creatures...infinity...our minds have ceilings, Malorie...these things...they are beyond it...higher than it...out of reach...out of— ~ Josh Malerman,
#NFDB
1185:Fraulein Noether was the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began. ~ Albert Einstein,
#NFDB
1186:Hollywood is a place where if you abide by the rules and laws, you can get depressed. That's why faith and spirituality is a higher law. ~ Derek Luke,
#NFDB
1187:If we question God’s Word, we have set ourselves up as a higher tribunal than God and have declared ourselves judges of God and His Word. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1188:If you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could to-day. ~ Mark Twain,
#NFDB
1189:I really think that people have to think safety; taking risks for higher yield is a bad idea once you're in late or latish middle age. ~ Paul Krugman,
#NFDB
1190:nothing is higher than heaven; nothing is beyond the walls of the world; nothing is lower than hell, or more glorious than virtue.”48 ~ John D Barrow,
#NFDB
1191:Prayer for the Day Higher Power, show me how to live a simple life. I don't have to do everything the hard way if I listen better to You. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1192:Silence, the great Empire of Silence: higher than all stars; deeper than the Kingdom of Death! It alone is great; all else is small. ~ Thomas Carlyle,
#NFDB
1193:Some books were little stairways, different levels of the self telling the same stories at progressively higher levels of the ladder. ~ Tantra Bensko,
#NFDB
1194:There is too much distraction at the day-to-day, hour-to-hour level of commitments to allow for appropriate focus on the higher levels. ~ David Allen,
#NFDB
1195:Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much alike in them and in us. ~ Albert Einstein,
#NFDB
1196:We psychically influence each other at all times, and those of us who live in a higher way know this as fact and don’t question it. ~ Sonia Choquette,
#NFDB
1197:Where'er a noble deed is wrought, Where'er is spoken a noble thought, Our hearts in glad surprise To higher levels rise. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
#NFDB
1198:Your dreams are not just the rearrangement of memory. They are the vibrations of your consciousness. Guide them and go for the higher one. ~ Amit Ray,
#NFDB
1199:A good master leads you to the true master within. Only that master, who is your own higher self, can adequately answer all questions. ~ Ming Dao Deng,
#NFDB
1200:A job is how you make money. A career is how you make your mark. A calling is how you acknowledge a higher vision, whatever it may be. ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
1201:But dream not helm and harness
The sign of valor true;
Peace hath higher tests of manhood
Than battle ever knew. ~ John Greenleaf Whittier,
#NFDB
1202:Entrepreneurs, by definition, shift resources from areas of low productivity and yield to areas of higher productivity and yield. Of ~ Peter F Drucker,
#NFDB
1203:I don't think that any 'ism' is higher than literature or art. So I'm a formalist. I greatly honor and respect the form of a work. ~ Joyce Carol Oates,
#NFDB
1204:If you aim upward, you will at shoot higher things (future prospects). If you aim downwards, you may shoot your feet (foundation). ~ Israelmore Ayivor,
#NFDB
1205:Our Higher Self is perfect, Omniscient and Almighty. A fragment of God himself. A pure, transparent, luminous, Quintessence. ~ Omraam Mikha l A vanhov,
#NFDB
1206:Pay-for-performance will only raise costs if providers get higher pay for process compliance but do not have to compete on results. ~ Michael E Porter,
#NFDB
1207:Real sorrow is incompatible with hope. No matter how great that sorrow may be, hope raises it one hundred cubits higher. ~ Isidore Ducasse Lautreamont,
#NFDB
1208:The fancy that extraterrestrial life is by definition of a higher order than our own is one that soothes all children, and many writers. ~ Joan Didion,
#NFDB
1209:The higher you climb on the ladder of success, the more people will dislike you. Climb high enough, and people might even hate you. Let ~ Darren Hardy,
#NFDB
1210:The need for the creation of collective art and ritual on a nonclerical basis is at least as important as literacy and higher education. ~ Erich Fromm,
#NFDB
1211:The problem is that people basically dangle debt in front of us. And the cost for the poor of course is much higher than for the wealthy. ~ Dan Ariely,
#NFDB
1212:The risk of a fatal car crash with a driver who’s eighty-five or older is more than three times higher than it is with a teenage driver ~ Atul Gawande,
#NFDB
1213:Travelling, I worry about luggage, prices, and strange food. At home, I am free to broaden my mind by thinking about the higher things. ~ Mason Cooley,
#NFDB
1214:Truth gives no advantage. It gives no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and freedom from the false. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,
#NFDB
1215:understand how the brain might actually block our access to knowledge of the higher worlds, we need to accept—at least hypothetically ~ Eben Alexander,
#NFDB
1216:You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
#NFDB
1217:You wanna build your IQ higher in the next two years? Be uncomfortable. That means, learn something where you have a beginner's mind. ~ Nolan Bushnell,
#NFDB
1218:As is said in Buddhist religion: Only the empty glass can be filled; a glass already full can receive nothing new from the higher realms. ~ David Tacey,
#NFDB
1219:At the ballet, you really feel like you're in the presence of something outside the rest of your life. Higher than the rest of your life. ~ Robert Caro,
#NFDB
1220:Grain prices in France, for example, where the supply of coin was relatively scarce, were over seven times higher in 1600 than in 1500. ~ Norman Davies,
#NFDB
1221:How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton,
#NFDB
1222:If you are interested in developing some of the higher range occult powers, then I would suggest you not engage in sex too frequently. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
1223:If you focus on good, you will excel and reach higher planes. if you dwell on the negative aspects of life, you will get nowhere fast. ~ Robin S Sharma,
#NFDB
1224:I have found, unfortunately, that if I take on too many projects at one time, there is a higher probability of those projects sucking. ~ Damon Lindelof,
#NFDB
1225:In 50 years, there will be only 10 institutions in the world delivering higher education and Udacity has a shot at being one of them. ~ Sebastian Thrun,
#NFDB
1226:I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him. ~ C S Lewis,
#NFDB
1227:people with higher narcissism scores were more likely to emerge as leaders during four-person initially leaderless group discussions. ~ Jeffrey Pfeffer,
#NFDB
1228:Prayer for the Day Higher Power, remind me to pray to You often. Remind me to stop and listen to You. Remind me that You love me very much. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1229:The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. —CHARLES DARWIN ~ David Duchovny,
#NFDB
1230:The higher level of grand strategy [is] that of conducting war with a far-sighted regard to the state of the peace that will follow. ~ B H Liddell Hart,
#NFDB
1231:The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style. ~ Fred Astaire,
#NFDB
1232:there is a window of higher impressionability running from about age fourteen to twenty-four, with its peak right around age eighteen. ~ Greg Lukianoff,
#NFDB
1233:The risk of a fatal car crash with a driver who’s eighty-five or older is more than three times higher than it is with a teenage driver. ~ Atul Gawande,
#NFDB
1234:The work gets more difficult as you get older. You learn more and you gather more experiences, there is deeper pain and higher highs. ~ Gwyneth Paltrow,
#NFDB
1235:We're improving and taking our levels of customer satisfaction higher and higher....Our customers are happier than they were before. ~ Ralph de la Vega,
#NFDB
1236:A higher rate of urgency does not imply ever-present panic, anxiety, or fear. It means a state in which complacency is virtually absent. ~ John P Kotter,
#NFDB
1237:All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason. ~ Immanuel Kant,
#NFDB
1238:Character is higher than intellect...A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar (1837),
#NFDB
1239:Do you have a learning difficulty of some sort?” The old woman raised the rifle higher. “Because I’d hate to shoot a disabled person. If ~ Tamra Baumann,
#NFDB
1240:I believe the United States should make the protection of Syrian civilians from war crimes and crimes against humanity a higher priority. ~ Bob Casey Jr,
#NFDB
1241:If your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution. ~ M Scott Peck,
#NFDB
1242:In schools where parent involvement is greater, you do have higher achievement levels and better functioning, better performing schools. ~ Michelle Rhee,
#NFDB
1243:It now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one...the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals. ~ Mark Twain,
#NFDB
1244:I want to understand how best to create and preserve a form of higher education that we value but that is in jeopardy for many reasons. ~ Howard Gardner,
#NFDB
1245:(The fancy that extraterrestrial life is by definition of a higher order than our own is one that soothes all children, and many writers.) ~ Joan Didion,
#NFDB
1246:There were no rules where Blaire was concerned. She was on a higher plane, above any rules I had when it came to women. I just wanted her. ~ Abbi Glines,
#NFDB
1247:(Think of rising higher. Let it be your only thought. Even if your object be not attained, the thought itself will have raised you.) ~ A P J Abdul Kalam,
#NFDB
1248:To be above the mind one must first realise the self above the mind and live there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Ascent to the Higher Planes,
#NFDB
1249:To blaspheme the earth is now the most dreadful sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
1250:When families can afford the basics, they can reinvest in their communities, and higher wages means a broader consumer base for businesses. ~ David Rolf,
#NFDB
1251:When you make contact with your Higher Self, you'll have the support of Nature, which will allow for the manifestation of all you desire ~ Deepak Chopra,
#NFDB
1252:With profit now the driving force behind higher education, the validity of the degrees it bestowed on its graduates was seriously in doubt. ~ John Lyman,
#NFDB
1253:at least the higher animals have souls, and they are inevitably saved. Only man, who has the capacity for good and evil, can be damned. ~ Douglas Preston,
#NFDB
1254:Don't let the negatives of life control you. Rise above them. Use them as your stepping stones to go higher than you ever dreamed possible ~ Mary Kay Ash,
#NFDB
1255:If he is not supposed to be that, then he is a hypocrite, and the higher he climbs on this path, the more dreadful a hypocrite he is. ~ S ren Kierkegaard,
#NFDB
1256:In reality, we've had more spending, more bureaucracy, more waste and higher costs but without necessary reform nor rising productivity. ~ Andrew Lansley,
#NFDB
1257:It doesn't matter what you think about consciousness, higher truths, or different dimensions - it's what you do and what you are that counts. ~ Belsebuub,
#NFDB
1258:It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god. ~ Adolf Hitler,
#NFDB
1259:Japanese children were kept out of California classrooms as late as 1907 on the theory that they lacked the aptitude for higher learning. ~ Colin Woodard,
#NFDB
1260:Knowing is not enough. You must accept My blessings in order to attain a better life. You must embrace a higher level of consciousness. ~ Mary B Morrison,
#NFDB
1261:Love one another and help others to rise to the higher levels, simply by pouring out love. Love is infectious and the greatest healing energy. ~ Sai Baba,
#NFDB
1262:Maybe the standards should be higher to be an officer. People will say there area high standards, but clearly they're not high enough. ~ Brandon Marshall,
#NFDB
1263:Mind unwitting serves a higher Power;
It is a channel, not the source of all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind,
#NFDB
1264:Nearly everywhere Buddhism went, there had been a higher level of literacy, even in miserable Burma, not to mention Thailand and Sri Lanka. ~ Amartya Sen,
#NFDB
1265:pet owners have higher self-esteem, fewer feelings of loneliness, and are more physically fit and socially outgoing than people without pets. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1266:researchers from the University of Minnesota found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn’t. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1267:The best way to boost the economy is to redistribute wealth downward, as poorer people tend to spend a higher proportion of their income. ~ Ha Joon Chang,
#NFDB
1268:The higher someone's profile, the easier it is for a defendant to trade him up to the feds. Mr. Big is always a better catch than Mr. Small. ~ Howie Carr,
#NFDB
1269:The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
1270:The most empowering relationships are those in which each partner lifts the other to a higher possession of their own being. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
#NFDB
1271:The Purpose Effect results in a higher calling, where individuals and organizations seek to improve society to benefit all stakeholders. ~ Dan Pontefract,
#NFDB
1272:To live in the wideness of the Intuition is not possible with the limitation of the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Higher Planes of Mind,
#NFDB
1273:urage and jubilation. This is rising to a higher level. It is like the saying, “The more water there is, the higher the boat rises. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo,
#NFDB
1274:Whatever God there is is slowly eliminating the guts and alimentary system from the human being, to evolve a higher, more spiritual being. ~ D H Lawrence,
#NFDB
1275:Your suffering is something you choose. Experience it fully. Without it you will not achieve personal growth and higher consciousness. ~ Ernie J Zelinski,
#NFDB
1276:Americans like to make money; Canadians like to audit it. I know no other country where accountants have a higher social and moral status. ~ Northrop Frye,
#NFDB
1277:But in every constitution some large degree of animal vigor is necessary as material foundation for the higher qualities of the art. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
1278:But out of the mouth of the Mother of God I have seen the truth like fire, This---that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher. ~ G K Chesterton,
#NFDB
1279:Ever since economists revealed how much universities contribute to economic growth, politicians have paid close attention to higher education. ~ Derek Bok,
#NFDB
1280:Everybody's life has some mythical quality. You struggle against obstacles, you fight to get to a higher level and there are great loves. ~ Dolph Lundgren,
#NFDB
1281:Here we find further argument for Gotagga’s supposition that the world is round. How else could all men stand higher than their brothers? ~ R Scott Bakker,
#NFDB
1282:He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli,
#NFDB
1283:If we knock on the door until it opens, not taking no for an answer, our lives will be transformed as we step up into a higher awareness. ~ James Redfield,
#NFDB
1284:I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher. ~ G K Chesterton,
#NFDB
1285:It stands to reason: Higher wages means higher loyalty and morale, which means higher productivity, which means a more profitable business. ~ Thomas Perez,
#NFDB
1286:I've never been struck by lightning as far as I know, so the Higher Power is treating me as well as even those people who love him very much. ~ Dave Barry,
#NFDB
1287:I would prefer just to be an actor for hire rather than struggling with something like Higher Ground, that I had a lot of emotion attached to. ~ Joe Lando,
#NFDB
1288:Meekness is not weakness. Meekness simply means submitting your power to a higher Control—it means submitting yourself to God’s kingdom rule. ~ Tony Evans,
#NFDB
1289:Plainly, the environment must be a living one, directed by a higher intelligence, arranged by an adult who is prepared for his mission. ~ Maria Montessori,
#NFDB
1290:Success will come about because you are in a higher state of mind. If you create good karma, then you will go into higher states of mind. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
1291:that firms that use more IT tend to have higher levels of productivity and faster productivity growth than their industry competitors. ~ Erik Brynjolfsson,
#NFDB
1292:The faster you can sample sound when you are digitizing it, the higher the frequency, the less phase ambiguity at the higher frequencies. ~ Owsley Stanley,
#NFDB
1293:The only problem we really have is we think we're not supposed to have problems! Problems call us to higher level- - face & solve them now! ~ Tony Robbins,
#NFDB
1294:The price for freedom may be high, but the price that we pay for being imprisoned and cut off from the very root of our being is even higher. ~ Queen Afua,
#NFDB
1295:The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher. ~ Gary Keller,
#NFDB
1296:True happiness … is found in fulfilling our higher nature, shaping our lives and our circumstances to reflect the way we are hardwired. ~ Charles W Colson,
#NFDB
1297:until we courageously find a cheaper antidote to our ignorance, we shall courageously pay a higher price for our ignorance always ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah,
#NFDB
1298:What are the strategic groups in your industry? Why do customers trade up for the higher group, and why do they trade down for the lower one? ~ W Chan Kim,
#NFDB
1299:Which is why it’s not surprising that receipts with cross-sell opportunities show a higher click through rate, on average, than those without: ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1300:Who you spend time with is who you become! Change your life by consciously choosing to surround yourself with people with higher standards! ~ Tony Robbins,
#NFDB
1301:You're working not for the corporate interest, not for the government interest, not for your own self-interest. You have a higher calling. ~ Lynne Stewart,
#NFDB
1302:All hopes I had of a roommate who would help upgrade me to a higher social stratum snagged on the gleaming barnacles of Steven's orthodontia. ~ Teddy Wayne,
#NFDB
1303:I'm not completely against khakis. It's just the level that you have to wear them. The higher you pull them, then more excruciating it is. ~ George Clooney,
#NFDB
1304:In the 80's we had high, high, waisted pants, that if they came up any higher they'd have to go up another size, if you know what I mean. ~ Ellen DeGeneres,
#NFDB
1305:Stop trying, stop struggling; begin to be calm, to trust in the higher laws of life, even though you do not see them; they are still there. ~ Ernest Holmes,
#NFDB
1306:The great irony in the Christian life, you see, is that the way up is the way down. The lower we sink in ourselves, the higher we rise in him. ~ J D Greear,
#NFDB
1307:The harder you fall, the heavier your heart; the heavier your heart, the stronger you climb; the stronger you climb, the higher your pedestal. ~ Criss Jami,
#NFDB
1308:There can be no higher enjoyment found in this world that is found in pulling souls out of the fire and bringing them to Christ. ~ Charles Grandison Finney,
#NFDB
1309:The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
1310:until we courageously find a cheaper antidote to our ignorance, we shall always pay a higher price for our ignorance courageously. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah,
#NFDB
1311:We must wave our banners even higher and belt out our voices even stronger and be unified as people. We're going to make it through this! ~ Michael Jackson,
#NFDB
1312:When newspapers are the principal vehicles of the wit and wisdom of a people, the higher graces of composition can hardly be looked for. ~ Frances Trollope,
#NFDB
1313:All the great teachers have left a similar message: Go within, discover your invisible higher self and know God as the love that is within you. ~ Wayne Dyer,
#NFDB
1314:If language sealed off man from animal, then the Theory of Evolution applied only to animal studies and reached no higher than the hairy apes. M ~ Tom Wolfe,
#NFDB
1315:In one study of ten countries,14 a higher consumption of calcium was associated with a higher—not lower—risk of bone fracture (Chart 10.3 ~ T Colin Campbell,
#NFDB
1316:In the 1970s, I think that there was probably a higher degree of respect for science, of hope about the future, and the future-oriented vision. ~ Ann Druyan,
#NFDB
1317:Is civilization only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to baths, diet, exercise, and air? ~ Mary Baker Eddy,
#NFDB
1318:It is nonsense to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. To a hungry man it is, rightly, more important that he eat than that he philosophize. ~ W H Auden,
#NFDB
1319:Love is higher than existence, love is the crown of existence; and how is it possible that existence should not be under its dominance? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
#NFDB
1320:Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of an existing elite and transmitting them to new members. ~ Mary Catherine Bateson,
#NFDB
1321:No one praises happiness as one praises justice, but we call it a 'blessing,' deeming it something higher and more divine than things we praise. ~ Aristotle,
#NFDB
1322:Once you think bigger than yourself then the cause becomes the issue if you think on a higher plain you can come together to work on our problems. ~ Chuck D,
#NFDB
1323:Setting is preliminary to brighter rising; decay is a process of advancement; death is the condition of higher and more fruitful life. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin,
#NFDB
1324:The Christian law is that the higher we go, the lower we are to become. Our Blessed Lord said, “Let the greatest among you be as the least. ~ Fulton J Sheen,
#NFDB
1325:The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher. ~ Thomas Huxley,
#NFDB
1326:When you reduce taxes on higher earners it's vital to be reducing them on lower earning people as well so the nation shares in the approach. ~ William Hague,
#NFDB
1327:But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. ~ William H Seward,
#NFDB
1328:Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: "Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,
#NFDB
1329:Higher taxes is the road to ruin. We must and we will shrink our government, and that means making some tough choices, tightening our belts. ~ Chris Christie,
#NFDB
1330:It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower. ~ William O Neil,
#NFDB
1331:It is rather a wider than a higher consciousness that is necessary for the liberation from the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,
#NFDB
1332:My main source for faith-based stuff is mostly the Bible, and a childhood with a much, much higher-than-median exposure to theological thought. ~ Jim Butcher,
#NFDB
1333:No ethical person wants to be a king or a queen, because there is no ethics and honor in putting yourself in a place higher than others! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
#NFDB
1334:Pell Grants are, and have been, critically important tools in making higher education a possibility for lower- and middle-income students. ~ Christopher Dodd,
#NFDB
1335:People don't realise that to be free means to be firmly attached to a system, that discipline is the road to a higher freedom. ~ Chandrasekharendra Saraswati,
#NFDB
1336:Perhaps adjustment and stabilization, while good because it cuts your pain, is also bad because development towards a higher ideal ceases? ~ Abraham H Maslow,
#NFDB
1337:Protestations of indifference to higher office are hard to take seriously when the 'non-candidate' is busily engaged in testing the waters. ~ Jeff Greenfield,
#NFDB
1338:Study men following the law of their higher nature, the law of love, so that when you grow to manhood, you will have improved your heritage. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
#NFDB
1339:The higher you want to climb, the more you need leadership. The greater the impact you want to make, the greater your influence needs to be. ~ John C Maxwell,
#NFDB
1340:The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain. ~ George McGovern,
#NFDB
1341:There does seem to be a higher educational level in parents of autistic youngsters, and I guess that's something that we need to look into. ~ Darold Treffert,
#NFDB
1342:There is no second, or higher self to search for. You are the highest self, only give up the false ideas you have about your self. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,
#NFDB
1343:The wisdom obtained in the higher states of consciousness is different from that obtained by inference and testimony as it refers to particulars. ~ Patanjali,
#NFDB
1344:Trust is kind of this economic lubricant. When trust is high, morale is high. ... Higher trust environments produce individuals who are happier. ~ Paul J Zak,
#NFDB
1345:Try telling a Cuban: 'You should pay higher rent, or pay for your own healthcare' ... There is no serious opposition to the current government. ~ Saul Landau,
#NFDB
1346:Alas! Alas! Life is full of disappointments; as one reaches one ridge there is always another and a higher one beyond which blocks the view. ~ Fridtjof Nansen,
#NFDB
1347:And offering higher wages just means you get more applicants, not that you get better applicants or can better sift the great from the mediocre. ~ Laszlo Bock,
#NFDB
1348:A sincere attitude of gratitude is a beatitude for secured altitudes. Appreciate what you have been given and you will be promoted higher. ~ Israelmore Ayivor,
#NFDB
1349:Faith left to itself … exalts itself above the laws of natural morality. … [B]y so much higher are duties to God than duties towards man[.] ~ Ludwig Feuerbach,
#NFDB
1350:It should be noted that a recent publication has shown that the prevalence of autism in African Americans is nearly 25% higher than that of whites ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1351:Materialistic people, who think happiness comes from accumulating stuff and a superior status, had much higher levels of depression and anxiety. ~ Johann Hari,
#NFDB
1352:Methinks Sir Robert should have carried his Monarchical Power one step higher and satisfied the World, that Princes might eat their Subjects too. ~ John Locke,
#NFDB
1353:Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend. ~ Ludwig van Beethoven,
#NFDB
1354:My heart has no desire to stay Where doubts arise and fears dismay; Though some may dwell where these abound, My prayer, my aim, is higher ground. ~ A W Tozer,
#NFDB
1355:No need to be too hard on yourself. Hold yourself to a higher standard but not an impossible one. And forgive yourself if and when you slip up. ~ Ryan Holiday,
#NFDB
1356:Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. ~ Robert A Heinlein,
#NFDB
1357:Should we not create—should we not become—before we reproduce? Our responsibility to life is to create the higher, not to reproduce the lower. ~ Irvin D Yalom,
#NFDB
1358:The Divine holds our hand through all and if he seems to let us fall, it is only to raise us higher. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Faith and Shakti,
#NFDB
1359:What is the task of higher education? To make a man into a machine. What are the means employed? He is taught how to suffer being bored. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
1360:A beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of fine arts. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
#NFDB
1361:Be careful when rising to the top. Be more careful when you get there. The higher you go, the riskier it gets. Be careful. Be very careful. ~ Israelmore Ayivor,
#NFDB
1362:Books are only made so that they may point the way to a higher life; but no good results unless the path is trodden with unflinching steps! ~ Swami Vivekananda,
#NFDB
1363:Concentration should be all on the immediate step—whatever is being done at the time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences on the Higher Planes,
#NFDB
1364:From lower to the higher next, Not to the top, is Nature's text; And embryo Good, to reach full stature, Absorbs the Evil in its nature. ~ James Russell Lowell,
#NFDB
1365:Given the way creation unfolds, how it builds to ever higher and higher works of art, can there be any doubt that Eve is the crown of creation? ~ John Eldredge,
#NFDB
1366:He laughs and stares up at the ceiling, as though a higher power changed his life path. Maybe fate, luck—or him. His choice. He took the risk. ~ Krista Ritchie,
#NFDB
1367:I can get a script and go, "Well, I'd rather do stand-up." I don't hold movies in higher regard. I love making videos and posting. I love TV. ~ Sarah Silverman,
#NFDB
1368:If your intent is that athletics and sports are tools or devices to reach higher levels of mind, then your workout sessions become meditation. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
1369:If you service low-impact activities, therefore, you're taking away time you could be spending on higher-impact activities. It's a zero-sum game. ~ Cal Newport,
#NFDB
1370:In other words, we must distrust the rational, the logical, the sane, in an attempt to reach for something higher, for something more worthy. ~ Jeff VanderMeer,
#NFDB
1371:I think the rest of the country should be paying less, the 95 percent that [Barack] Obama talks about or maybe even a little higher than that. ~ Warren Buffett,
#NFDB
1372:It's much more effective to allow solutions to problems to emerge from the people close to the problem rather than to impose them from higher up. ~ Roger Lewin,
#NFDB
1373:Leaders are responsible for the design and operation of processes at a higher level of aggregation where others have less perspective and authority. ~ Gene Kim,
#NFDB
1374:Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents. ~ Ludwig van Beethoven,
#NFDB
1375:Some of you in this room support higher taxes. I welcome your enthusiasm and am glad to report that the IRS takes both money orders and checks. ~ George W Bush,
#NFDB
1376:The more you open yourself up to the possibility that good things will happen the higher probability is that good things will in fact happen. ~ Jordan Peterson,
#NFDB
1377:There is a higher more powerful part of you. Your higher self will come through your intuition, coincidences and synchronicity of all kinds. ~ James Van Praagh,
#NFDB
1378:The relationship between the student and teacher is ultimately important. In higher spirituality we don't study a subject as much as a person. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
1379:You go above and beyond them: but the higher you climb, the smaller you appear to the eye of envy. And he who flies is hated most of all. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
#NFDB
1380:A blow that would kill a civilized man soon heals on a savage. The higher we go in the scale of life, the greater is the capacity for suffering. ~ Dale Carnegie,
#NFDB
1381:A greater perfection can only be arrived at by a higher power entering in and taking up the whole action of the being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
#NFDB
1382:A joyous person abounds with energy and feels buoyant, because he or she is running a higher frequency current of energy through his or her system. ~ Gary Zukav,
#NFDB
1383:Be inspired, raising the bar of excellence in your life every day. Act better than before; grow higher than usual; think faster than normal. ~ Israelmore Ayivor,
#NFDB
1384:But the very voices that cry hail to this good work are, strange to relate, largely silent or antagonistic to the higher education of the Negro. ~ W E B Du Bois,
#NFDB
1385:College football: I do not see the relationship of those highly industrialized affairs on Saturday afternoons to higher learning in America. ~ Robert M Hutchins,
#NFDB
1386:I already enjoy cooking. I like different flavors and putting different things together and really like taking normal recipes to a higher level. ~ Queen Latifah,
#NFDB
1387:I am influenced at the present time by far higher considerations and by a nobler idea of duty than I ever was when I held the Evangelical belief. ~ George Eliot,
#NFDB
1388:If only we were all better educated. If then, higher education would at last be a journey for skill and knowledge rather than for power and status. ~ Criss Jami,
#NFDB
1389:I prefer reading e-books on a high resolution LCD screen - like the iPod Touch's - although the pixel density could and should be much higher. ~ Nicholson Baker,
#NFDB
1390:The emotional stakes a memoirist bets with could not be higher, and it's physically enervating. I nap on a daily basis like a cross-country trucker. ~ Mary Karr,
#NFDB
1391:The higher animals are in a sense drawn into Man when he loves them and makes them (as he does) much more nearly human than they would otherwise be. ~ C S Lewis,
#NFDB
1392:The lower the rank of managers, the more they know about fewer things. The higher the rank of managers, the less they know about many things. ~ Russell L Ackoff,
#NFDB
1393:the number of models per square foot here on South Beach was higher than anywhere else in the world and that commercial and film shoots were common. ~ Wendy Wax,
#NFDB
1394:There is no doubt in my mind that a higher power is at work here, and I smirk at the thought that I could very well have my dad to thank for this. ~ K L Grayson,
#NFDB
1395:What really helps a team be more productive is higher skill. This means that your investment in training and education will pay off in productivity. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1396:whether Ops used version control was a higher predictor for both IT performance and organizational performance than whether Dev used version control. ~ Gene Kim,
#NFDB
1397:A commitment to integrity and a higher loyalty to truth are what separate the ethical leader from those who just happen to occupy leadership roles. ~ James Comey,
#NFDB
1398:between the nucleus accumbens and higher, cortical structures of the brain involved in pattern recognition, musical memory, and emotional processing. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1399:But most of the leaks, certainly the juiciest ones, were coming from the higher-ups—not to mention from the person occupying the topmost echelon. ~ Michael Wolff,
#NFDB
1400:Design your belief for higher purpose and values. Articulate and communicate your belief energy. Belief energy is the core of leadership and success. ~ Amit Ray,
#NFDB
1401:Did you ever know that you're my hero, you're everything I wish I could be. I could fly higher than an eagle with you as the wind beneath my wings. ~ Gary Morris,
#NFDB
1402:Difference which exists between the lowest, so-called men, and the other higher races is greater than between the lowest men and the highest apes. ~ Adolf Hitler,
#NFDB
1403:Each thing lives according to its kind; the heart by love, the intellect by truth, the higher nature of man by intimate communion with God. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin,
#NFDB
1404:Follow your heart and listen to your intuition...your higher self knows what you really want...listen...follow and get to the place you want to be. ~ John Edward,
#NFDB
1405:Fortunately age does not affect literature. After a man is dead, he may continue in the business and often rank higher than his living competitors. ~ Myrtle Reed,
#NFDB
1406:If workers struggle for higher wages, this is hailed as "social gains", if businessmen struggle for higher profits, this is damned as "selfish greed". ~ Ayn Rand,
#NFDB
1407:It is this greater consciousness and higher existence which is the peculiar and appropriate object of Yogic discipline.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
#NFDB
1408:No loan is free. The costs are in your loan somewhere, maybe rolled into the amount to be refinanced or even coming at a higher interest rate. ~ Barbara Corcoran,
#NFDB
1409:People who have to fight for their living and are not afraid to die for it are higher persons than those who, stationed high, are too fat to dare to die. ~ Laozi,
#NFDB
1410:Seen from a higher perspective, conditions are always positive. To be more precise: they are neither positive nor negative. They are as they are. ~ Eckhart Tolle,
#NFDB
1411:Still it is not impossible to raise oneself even higher than that, for love itself is a veil between the lover and the Beloved. ~ Baha-ullah “The Seven Valleys.”,
#NFDB
1412:..still to have loved her without return would have lifted you higher than all those, be they who they may, that have ever known her to love. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell,
#NFDB
1413:The higher spiritual planes vibrate the fastest, and the lower material planes vibrate the slowest (which is why matter appears dense and solid). ~ Doreen Virtue,
#NFDB
1414:The judge speaks in the name of justice,' he said. 'The priest speaks in the name of pity, which is only a higher form of justice.' (Bishop Myriel) ~ Victor Hugo,
#NFDB
1415:The more you open yourself up to the possibility that good things will happen the higher probability is that good things will in fact happen. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
#NFDB
1416:The president's [Donald Trump] approval rating is much higher than the media's approval rating and Congress' approval rating, for that matter. ~ Kellyanne Conway,
#NFDB
1417:The priest Zadok looked stricken. He had hoped to bargain information for a higher price. Now I, as a prophet, had given it to David for free. ~ Geraldine Brooks,
#NFDB
1418:We found that American women spent about 19% of the time in an unpleasant state, somewhat higher than French women (16%) or Danish women (14%). ~ Daniel Kahneman,
#NFDB
1419:Whatever I receive from a higher power gets me pumped, which gets the crowd pumped, which gets me more pumped, and then we're just pumped up. ~ Theophilus London,
#NFDB
1420:When you get to a higher level of consciousness, though, when you get into a spiritual approach to life, you are not trying to get someplace else... ~ Wayne Dyer,
#NFDB
1421:Ethics must eventually perceive that the law of good which it seeks is the law of God. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,
#NFDB
1422:Everything is beautiful in this world…except that we think and do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the higher aims of our existence. ~ Anton Chekhov,
#NFDB
1423:Everything—the uncanny clarity of my vision, the clearness of my thoughts as pure conceptual flow—suggested higher, not lower, brain functioning. ~ Eben Alexander,
#NFDB
1424:If we are to do justice to the essence of the thing we call spirit, we should really speak of a “higher” consciousness rather than of the unconscious. ~ Carl Jung,
#NFDB
1425:I personally love to run outdoor fitness trails. I love the meditative value I get when out alone, challenging myself to run faster and higher. ~ Laurieann Gibson,
#NFDB
1426:Laws are meaningless, child. Malcom said in a low voice that somehow still carried. There is nothing more important than love. And no law higher ~ Cassandra Clare,
#NFDB
1427:My opponent Senator Menendez and his colleagues are pursuing what I consider a Jon Corzine economic policy. Higher taxes, more spending, more debt. ~ Joe Kyrillos,
#NFDB
1428:Prayer for the Day Higher Power, help me to know that it's You who is running my life. Help me to know that power comes from accepting I am powerless. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1429:She glided away towards the lift, which seemed hardly needed, with its earthly and mechanical paraphernalia, to bear her up to the higher levels. ~ Anthony Powell,
#NFDB
1430:The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard. ~ George S McGovern,
#NFDB
1431:The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley,
#NFDB
1432:The staircase was deserted—the higher up the building the more reluctant were the residents to use the stairs, as if this in some way demeaned them. ~ J G Ballard,
#NFDB
1433:You've got to be around people who encourage you, advice you and want to see you go even higher and higher than they themselves have attained! ~ Israelmore Ayivor,
#NFDB
1434:As a rule, indeed, grown-up people are fairly correct on matters of fact; it is in the higher gift of imagination that they are so sadly to seek. ~ Kenneth Grahame,
#NFDB
1435:Business is no more about making money than the human body is about making blood. Yes you need to make the stuff, but only to serve your higher aims. ~ Phil Knight,
#NFDB
1436:Chapter 6 showed that over holding periods of 20 years or longer, stocks have both a higher return and lower after-inflation risk than bonds. The ~ Jeremy J Siegel,
#NFDB
1437:Christ is the meat, the bread, the food of our souls. Nothing is in him of a higher spiritual nourishment than his love, which we should always desire. ~ John Owen,
#NFDB
1438:Every human feeling is greater and larger than its exciting cause-a proof, I think, that man is designed for a higher state of existence. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
#NFDB
1439:In 1930, the death rate for Milwaukee’s blacks was nearly 60 percent higher than the citywide rate, due in large part to poor housing conditions. ~ Matthew Desmond,
#NFDB
1440:Investments in immunization yield a rate of return on a par with educating our children - and higher than nearly any other development intervention. ~ Seth Berkley,
#NFDB
1441:Learn to overcome the imprinting that you now have and gain a new and higher imprinting that will lead you into the luminous spheres of awareness. ~ Frederick Lenz,
#NFDB
1442:The late Kenyan Nobel peace laureate Wangari Maathai put it simply and well when she said, the higher you go, the fewer women there are. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
#NFDB
1443:we found that women are less likely to nominate themselves for promotion, but that when they do, they are promoted at slightly higher rates than men. ~ Laszlo Bock,
#NFDB
1444:We're asking our Higher Power to help us to be our best. No wonder our lives are coming together! No wonder we feel more peace, harmony, and happiness! ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1445:When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer. ~ Roberto Bolano,
#NFDB
1446:When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer. ~ Roberto Bola o,
#NFDB
1447:You must consciously and deliberately counter the pull of the comfort zone as you move upward and onward toward ever higher levels of accomplishment. ~ Brian Tracy,
#NFDB
1448:all men were like this, their thoughts rose no higher, and they lived only to gratify on the bodies of women their brutal and humiliating needs. One ~ James Baldwin,
#NFDB
1449:Animals obviously ranked higher in Michaela's world view than humans. Having seen some of the things humans were capable of, Elena couldn't disagree. ~ Nalini Singh,
#NFDB
1450:British physician, West African Countries and Peoples Man's place is higher than the sky. Respect for man is the underlying spirit of civilization. ~ Muhammad Iqbal,
#NFDB
1451:But the higher you raise yourself, the smaller you will seem to the eyes that are envious. He who ranges on the heights is the one whom men most detest. ~ Nietzsche,
#NFDB
1452:Children born of married parents in America face a higher risk of seeing them break up than children born of unmarried parents in Sweden. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild,
#NFDB
1453:Even the lowest form of humor—maybe especially the lowest, the most basic form—suggests that we were intended to be something higher than ourselves. ~ Andrew Klavan,
#NFDB
1454:Every test successfully met is rewarded by some growth in intuitive knowledge, strengthening of character, or initiation into a higher consciousness. ~ Paul Brunton,
#NFDB
1455:Fantasy (in this sense) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent. ~ J R R Tolkien,
#NFDB
1456:For it is obvious to everybody, I think, that this study [of astronomy] compels the soul to look upward and leads it away from things here to higher things. ~ Plato,
#NFDB
1457:I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. ~ Barack Obama,
#NFDB
1458:It is only when the lower perversions are got rid of that the higher things in their truth can reign. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Sankhya-Yoga System,
#NFDB
1459:Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher than kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility to men. ~ Mark Twain,
#NFDB
1460:Ones to Threes gravitated to each other. If you were of my zone, only the foolish aimed higher than a Three. Higher than a Three equaled heartache. ~ Kristen Ashley,
#NFDB
1461:As we rise higher in the understanding of ourselves, the national and racial dissonances will be forgotten in the universal rhythms of Truth and Love ~ Ruth St Denis,
#NFDB
1462:Be sure that your praise songs are numbered higher than your sorrowful dirges and your utmost hope, firmer than your woeful regrets. Be positive. ~ Israelmore Ayivor,
#NFDB
1463:I guess the higher up on the food chain you go, the admiration isn’t just for the hungry, but for the ones that go the extra mile to take a bite. ~ Angela Richardson,
#NFDB
1464:I rank myself no higher in the scheme of things than a policeman - whose utility would disappear if there were no criminals. ~ Robert Cecil 3rd Marquess of Salisbury,
#NFDB
1465:I think every parent, every generation has wanted their children to do better and have a higher standard of living. But I think there's too much guilt. ~ Phil McGraw,
#NFDB
1466:It's important to me if I'm having a good time than I feel like the work is better. The quality of it is better and my level of interest is higher. ~ Martha Plimpton,
#NFDB
1467:Let the adverse breath of criticism be to you only what the blast of the storm wind is to the eagle,—a force against him that lifts him higher. ~ Orison Swett Marden,
#NFDB
1468:Mindfulness and compassion can give you the power, illumination, love, and wisdom to draw higher forms, thoughts, feelings, and situations into your life. ~ Amit Ray,
#NFDB
1469:On lower budget things you're still working collaboratively, but the investment and your level of creative importance is higher on something like this. ~ Andy Serkis,
#NFDB
1470:Think, in mounting higher, the angels would press on us, and aspire to drop some golden orb of perfect song into our deep, dear silence. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
#NFDB
1471:This tendency seems to support H. L. Mencken’s definition of a wealthy man: one whose income is $100 a year higher than his wife’s sister’s husband. ~ Dalai Lama XIV,
#NFDB
1472:US common stock has yielded a higher return than bonds. However, price earnings ratios are much higher than they were for much of the 20th century, so it ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1473:We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality. ~ Nhat Hanh,
#NFDB
1474:When I'm in touch with the idea that there is a higher power and that there is, you know, other factors at work, it - it kind of quells my narcissism. ~ Jim Gaffigan,
#NFDB
1475:Your people and mine are born as grubs, but we transform ourselves into a higher form before we reproduce. Human beings remain grubs all their lives.> ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1476:A politician's goal is always to manipulate public debate. I think there are some politicians with higher goals. But all of them get corrupted by power. ~ Dean Koontz,
#NFDB
1477:Both are profound acts of selflessness that distinguish us from all other mammals, including the higher primates that we are so closely related to. ~ Sebastian Junger,
#NFDB
1478:Does God guarantee the absence of struggle and the abundance of strength? Not in this life. But he does pledge to reweave your pain for a higher purpose. ~ Max Lucado,
#NFDB
1479:executives must cultivate a higher level of awareness about what truly matters, drawing on recent neuroscience research to demonstrate how they can do so. ~ Anonymous,
#NFDB
1480:I’d never cut you down. The only people who cut others down are those threatened by their height. The higher you get, the more lovely I think you are. ~ Adriana Locke,
#NFDB
1481:In general, higher education does not know how to speak for its interests. It offers a stance that is defensive, cowardly and likely to be ineffective. ~ Stanley Fish,
#NFDB
1482:it is not the oppositions a man face that determine his rise or fall in life but his tenacity to dare to soar and to pursue to higher heights ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah,
#NFDB
1483:Laws are meaningless, child,” Malcolm said in a low voice that somehow still carried. “There is nothing more important than love. And no law higher. ~ Cassandra Clare,
#NFDB
1484:Love Virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heav'n itself would stoop to her. ~ John Milton,
#NFDB
1485:Never imitate the eccentricities of genius, but toil after it in its truer flights. They are not so easy to follow, but they lead to higher regions. ~ Charles Dickens,
#NFDB
1486:Not in the state of unconsciousness, but in full awareness when the higher Power will descend into and direct us, then only the yogic life will begin. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
#NFDB
1487:Oh, when you get down to the licklog, just to be a good friend. To be consequent to those around me. I guess I can't see any virtue higher than that. ~ Forrest Gander,
#NFDB
1488:Shaucha, or living purely, involves maintaining a cleanliness in body, mind, and environment so that we can experience ourselves at a higher resolution. ~ Donna Farhi,
#NFDB
1489:The emotions do not deserve being put into opposition with “intelligence.” The emotions are themselves a higher order of intelligence. —O. Hobart Mowrer ~ Sue Johnson,
#NFDB
1490:The higher self knows there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, and accepts that both light and dark must exist to maintain the balance of the whole. ~ Heidi DuPree,
#NFDB
1491:The late Kenyan Nobel peace laureate Wangari Maathai put it simply and well when she said, the higher you go, the fewer women there are. In ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
#NFDB
1492:The main problem with the Democrats is their utter negativity. They're made up of schumucks and hypocrites. They also have higher levels of immorality. ~ Jackie Mason,
#NFDB
1493:There is nothing more practical than the preservation of beauty, than the preservation of anything that appeals to the higher emotions of mankind ~ Theodore Roosevelt,
#NFDB
1494:we hope that this will help reduce the chances of real-world outcomes, like heart attack and death, both of which occur at a higher rate in people with ~ Ben Goldacre,
#NFDB
1495:What happens in the heart, simply happens. But sometimes real love calls us to a higher duty. We have to do what’s right, and not always what we desire. ~ Glenn Meade,
#NFDB
1496:You really should be able to feel the higher power of music and be moved by it, rather than listening to me waffle on and having to explain it. ~ Maynard James Keenan,
#NFDB
1497:Your goal in life must be to always move higher and higher up the food chain, where you alone control the direction of your enterprise and depend on no one. ~ 50 Cent,
#NFDB
1498:energy and concentration. For most people with ADD, the right diet is a higher-protein, higher-healthy-fat, lower-simple-carbohydrate diet.” I was able ~ Daniel G Amen,
#NFDB
1499:Even though human life may be the most precious thing on earth, we always behave as if there were something of higher value than human life. ~ Antoine de Saint Exupery,
#NFDB
1500:Even though human life may be the most precious thing on earth, we always behave as if there were something of higher value than human life. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,
#NFDB
IN CHAPTERS [300/2182]
1161 Integral Yoga
122 Poetry
115 Christianity
112 Occultism
106 Philosophy
69 Yoga
47 Psychology
38 Fiction
31 Science
18 Theosophy
14 Education
13 Integral Theory
10 Hinduism
6 Kabbalah
5 Cybernetics
4 Mythology
3 Philsophy
3 Mysticism
2 Sufism
2 Islam
2 Buddhism
1 Thelema
1 Baha i Faith
1 Alchemy
719 Sri Aurobindo
563 The Mother
293 Satprem
281 Nolini Kanta Gupta
49 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
48 Carl Jung
41 Aleister Crowley
36 Plotinus
32 H P Lovecraft
32 Friedrich Nietzsche
28 William Wordsworth
28 Swami Vivekananda
26 Saint Augustine of Hippo
25 Swami Krishnananda
24 A B Purani
22 Rudolf Steiner
22 James George Frazer
21 Aldous Huxley
16 Sri Ramakrishna
12 Robert Browning
10 Plato
9 George Van Vrekhem
8 Walt Whitman
8 John Keats
8 Franz Bardon
6 Sri Ramana Maharshi
6 Saint Teresa of Avila
6 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
6 Percy Bysshe Shelley
6 Nirodbaran
6 Aristotle
6 Alice Bailey
5 Patanjali
5 Norbert Wiener
5 Jordan Peterson
5 Henry David Thoreau
4 Jorge Luis Borges
3 William Butler Yeats
3 Saint John of Climacus
3 Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 Ken Wilber
3 Friedrich Schiller
3 Edgar Allan Poe
3 Anonymous
2 Thubten Chodron
2 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
2 Saint John of the Cross
2 R Buckminster Fuller
2 Rainer Maria Rilke
2 Paul Richard
2 Ovid
2 Muhammad
2 Lucretius
2 Joseph Campbell
2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2 Bokar Rinpoche
2 Al-Ghazali
132 The Synthesis Of Yoga
126 Record of Yoga
70 Letters On Yoga III
65 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
64 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
54 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
53 The Life Divine
50 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
42 Letters On Yoga IV
41 Letters On Yoga II
41 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
36 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
36 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
34 Questions And Answers 1956
34 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
33 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
32 Lovecraft - Poems
30 Agenda Vol 03
28 Wordsworth - Poems
28 Questions And Answers 1953
27 Agenda Vol 08
26 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
26 Agenda Vol 01
25 The Study and Practice of Yoga
25 Questions And Answers 1955
25 Essays On The Gita
25 Agenda Vol 09
25 Agenda Vol 04
24 Magick Without Tears
24 Letters On Yoga I
24 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
24 Agenda Vol 02
22 The Golden Bough
22 Agenda Vol 07
21 The Perennial Philosophy
21 The Human Cycle
21 Questions And Answers 1954
21 Agenda Vol 10
20 Agenda Vol 05
19 Mysterium Coniunctionis
19 City of God
18 The Future of Man
18 Liber ABA
17 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
16 Prayers And Meditations
15 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
15 Savitri
15 On Education
15 Essays Divine And Human
15 Agenda Vol 11
14 Letters On Poetry And Art
14 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
14 Agenda Vol 06
13 The Practice of Psycho therapy
13 The Phenomenon of Man
13 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
13 Let Me Explain
13 Bhakti-Yoga
12 Theosophy
12 Some Answers From The Mother
12 Browning - Poems
11 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
11 On the Way to Supermanhood
11 Agenda Vol 13
10 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
10 Talks
10 Raja-Yoga
10 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
10 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
9 The Secret Of The Veda
9 Preparing for the Miraculous
9 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
9 Isha Upanishad
9 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
9 Agenda Vol 12
8 Whitman - Poems
8 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
8 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
8 Keats - Poems
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
8 Aion
7 Words Of The Mother II
6 Words Of The Mother III
6 Vedic and Philological Studies
6 Twilight of the Idols
6 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Practice of Magical Evocation
6 Shelley - Poems
6 Poetics
6 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
6 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
6 General Principles of Kabbalah
6 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
6 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
5 Words Of Long Ago
5 Walden
5 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
5 Maps of Meaning
5 Hymn of the Universe
5 Cybernetics
5 Collected Poems
4 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
4 The Integral Yoga
4 The Bible
3 Yeats - Poems
3 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
3 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Schiller - Poems
3 Kena and Other Upanishads
3 Emerson - Poems
3 Dark Night of the Soul
2 The Way of Perfection
2 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
2 The Alchemy of Happiness
2 Tara - The Feminine Divine
2 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
2 Rilke - Poems
2 Quran
2 Poe - Poems
2 Of The Nature Of Things
2 Metamorphoses
2 Labyrinths
2 Initiation Into Hermetics
2 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
2 Faust
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
2 5.1.01 - Ilion
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The mystic's knowledge is a part and a formation of his life. That is why it is a knowledge not abstract and remote but living and intimate and concrete. It is a knowledge that pulsates with delight: indeed it is the radiance that is shed by the purest and intensest joy. For this reason it may be that in approaching through the heart there is a chance of one's getting arrested there and not caring for the still higher, the solar lights; but this need not be so. In the heart there is a golden door leading to the deepest delights, but there is also a diamond door opening up into the skies of the brightest luminosities.
For it must be understood that the heart, the mystic heart, is not the external thing which is the seat of emotion or passion; it is the secret heart that is behind, the inner heartantarhdaya of the Upanishadwhich is the centre of the individual consciousness, where all the divergent lines of that consciousness meet and from where they take their rise. That is what the Upanishad means when it says that the heart has a hundred channels which feed the human vehicle. That is the source, the fount and origin, the very substance of the true personality. Mystic knowledge the true mystic knowledge which saves and fulfilsbegins with the awakening or the entrance into this real being. This being is pure and luminous and blissful and sovereignly real, because it is a portion, a spark of the Divine Consciousness and Nature: a contact and communion with it brings automatically into play the light and the truth that are its substance. At the same time it is an uprising flame that reaches out naturally to higher domains of consciousness and manifests them through its translucid dynamism.
The knowledge that is obtained without the heart's instrumentation or co-operation is liable to be what the Gita describes as Asuric. First of all, from the point of view of knowledge itself, it would be, as I have already said, egocentric, a product and agent of one's limited and isolated self, easily put at the service of desire and passion. This knowledge, whether rationalistic or occult, is, as it were, hard and dry in its constitution, and oftener than not, negative and destructivewi thering and blasting in its career like the desert simoom.
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen. My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days.What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere.For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Sun is the first and the most immediate source of light that man has and needs. He is the presiding deity of our waking consciousness and has his seat in the eyecakusa ditya, ditya caku bhtvakii prviat. The eye is the representative of the senses; it is the sense par excellence. In truth, sense-perception is the initial light with which we have to guide us, it is the light with which we start on the way. A developed stage comes when the Sun sets for us, that is to say, when we retire from the senses and rise into the mind, whose divinity is the Moon. It is the mental knowledge, the light of reason and intelligence, of reflection and imagination that govern our consciousness. We have to proceed farther and get beyond the mind, exceed the derivative light of the Moon. So when the Moon sets, the Fire is kindled. It is the light of the ardent and aspiring heart, the glow of an inner urge, the instincts and inspirations of our secret life-will. Here we come into touch with a source of knowledge and realization, a guidance more direct than the mind and much deeper than the sense-perception. Still this light partakes more of heat than of pure luminosity; it is, one may say, incandescent feeling, but not vision. We must probe deeper, mount higherreach heights and profundities that are serene and transparent. The Fire is to be quieted and silenced, says the Upanishad. Then we come nearer, to the immediate vicinity of the Truth: an inner hearing opens, the direct voice of Truth the Wordreaches us to lead and guide. Even so, however, we have not come to the end of our journey; the Word of revelation is not the ultimate Light. The Word too is clothing, though a luminous clothinghiramayam ptram When this last veil dissolves and disappears, when utter silence, absolute calm and quietude reign in the entire consciousness, when no other lights trouble or distract our attention, there appears the Atman in its own body; we stand face to face with the source of all lights, the self of the Light, the light of the Self. We are that Light and we become that Light.
II. The Four Oblations
--
The Gods are the formations or particularisations of the Truth-consciousness, the multiple individualisations of the One spirit. The Pitris are the Divine Fathers, that is to say, souls that once laboured and realised here below, and now have passed beyond. They dwell in another world, not too far removed from the earth, and from there, with the force of their Realisation, lend a more concrete help and guidance to the destiny that is being worked out upon earth. They are forces and formations of consciousness in an intermediate region between Here and There (antarika), and serve to bring men and gods nearer to each other, inasmuch as they belong to both the categories, being a divinised humanity or a humanised divinity. Each fixation of the Truth-consciousness in an earthly mould is a thing of joy to the Pitris; it is the Svadh or food by which they live and grow, for it is the consolidation and also the resultant of their own realisation. The achievements of the sons are more easily and securely reared and grounded upon those of the forefa thers, whose formative powers we have to invoke, so that we may pass on to the realisation, the firm embodiment of higher and greater destinies.
III. The Path of the Fathers and the Path of the Gods
--
Man has two aspects or natures; he dwells in two worlds. The first is the manifest world the world of the body, the life and the mind. The body has flowered into the mind through the life. The body gives the basis or the material, the life gives power and energy and the mind the directing knowledge. This triune world forms the humanity of man. But there is another aspect hidden behind this apparent nature, there is another world where man dwells in his submerged, larger and higher consciousness. To that his soul the Purusha in his heart only has access. It is the world where man's nature is transmuted into another triune realitySat, Chit and Ananda.
The one, however, is not completely divorced from the other. The apparent, the inferior nature is only a preparation for the real, the superior nature. The Path of the Fathers concerns itself with man as a mental being and seeks so to ordain and accomplish its duties and ideals as to lead him on to the Path of the Gods; the mind, the life, and the body consciousness should be so disciplined, educated, purified, they should develop along such a line and gradually rise to such a stage as to make them fit to receive the light which belongs to the higher level, so allowing the human soul imbedded in them to extricate itself and pass on to the Immortal Life.
And they who are thus lifted up into the higher Orbit are freed from the bondage to the cycle of rebirth. They enjoy the supreme Liberation that is of the Spirit; and even when they descend into the Inferior Path, it is to work out as free agents, as vehicles of the Divine, a special purpose, to bring down something of the substance and nature of the Solar reality into the lower world, enlighten and elevate the lower, as far as it is allowed, into the higher.
IV. The Triple Agni
--
Indeed, it was to this godhead that Nachiketas turned and he wanted to know of it and find it, when faith seized on his pure heart and he aspired for the higher spiritual life. The very opening hymn of the Rig Veda, too, is addressed to Agni, who is invoked as the vicar seated in the front of the sacrifice, the giver of the supreme gifts.
King Yama initiated Nachiketas into the mystery of Fire Worship and spoke of three fires that have to be kindled if one aspires to enter the heaven of immortality.
--
The central secret of the transfigured consciousness lies, as we have already indicated, in the mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, fundamental, universal Law that upholds and explains the cosmic movement, conformity to which brings to the thrice-bound human being release and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or processes: (i) The offering or self giving of the lower reality to the higher, and, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the descent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the higher means the lower sublimated and integrated into the higher; and the descent of the higher into the lower means the incarnation of the former and the fulfilment of the latter. The Gita elaborates the same idea when it says that by Sacrifice men increase the gods and the gods increase men and by so increasing each other they attain the supreme Good. Nothing is, nothing is done, for its own sake, for an egocentric satisfaction; all, even movements relating to food and to sex should be dedicated to the Cosmic BeingVisva Purusha and that alone received which comes from Him.
VII. The Cosmic and the Transcendental
--
Still the Upanishad says this is not the final end. There is yet a higher status of reality and consciousness to which one has to rise. For beyond the Cosmos lies the Transcendent. The Upanishad expresses this truth and experience in various symbols. The cosmic reality, we have seen, is often conceived as a septenary, a unity of seven elements, principles and worlds. Further to give it its full complex value, it is considered not as a simple septet, but a threefold heptad the whole gamut, as it were, consisting of 21 notes or syllables. The Upanishad says, this number does not exhaust the entire range; I for there is yet a 22nd place. This is the world beyond the Sun, griefless and deathless, the supreme Selfhood. The Veda I also sometimes speaks of the integral reality as being represented by the number 100 which is 99 + I; in other words, 99 represents the cosmic or universal, the unity being the reality beyond, the Transcendent.
Elsewhere the Upanishad describes more graphically this truth and the experience of it. It is said there that the sun has fivewe note the familiar fivemovements of rising and setting: (i) from East to West, (ii) from South to North, (iii) from West to East, (iv) from North to South and (v) from abovefrom the Zenithdownward. These are the five normal and apparent movements. But there is a sixth one; rather it is not a movement, but a status, where the sun neither rises nor sets, but is always visible fixed in the same position.
--
But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord of creation and the Inner Mastersarvabhtntartm, antarymis called brahmajam, born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the human consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the Pleasurable (reya and preya). The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness in the heart of all that is unstable and fleetingone has to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.
Man has two souls corresponding to his double status. In the inferior, the soul looks downward and is involved in the current of Impermanence and Ignorance, it tastes of grief and sorrow and suffers death and dissolution: in the higher it looks upward and communes and joins with the Eternal (the cosmic) and then with the Absolute (the transcendent). The lower is a reflection of the higher, the higher comes down in a diminished and hence tarnished light. The message is that of deliverance, the deliverance and reintegration of the lower soul out of its bondage of worldly ignorant life into the freedom and immortality first of its higher and then of its highest status. It is true, however, that the Upanishad does not make a trenchant distinction between the cosmic and the transcendent and often it speaks of both in the same breath, as it were. For in fact they are realities involved in each other and interwoven. Indeed the triple status, including the Individual, forms one single totality and the three do not exclude or cancel each other; on the contrary, they combine and may be said to enhance each other's reality. The Transcendence expresses or deploys itself in the cosmoshe goes abroad,sa paryagt: and the cosmic individualises, concretises itself in the particular and the personal. The one single spiritual reality holds itself, aspects itself in a threefold manner.
The teaching of Yama in brief may be said to be the gospel of immortality and it consists of the knowledge of triple immortality. And who else can be the best teacher of immortality than Death himself, as Nachiketas pointedly said? The first immortality is that of the physical existence and consciousness, the preservation of the personal identity, the individual name and formthis being in itself as expression and embodiment and instrument of the Inner Reality. This inner reality enshrines the second immortality the eternity and continuity of the soul's life through its incarnations in time, the divine Agni lit for ever and ever growing in flaming consciousness. And the third and final immortality is in the being and consciousness beyond time, beyond all relativities, the absolute and self-existent delight.
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attribute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty in heavenkavi kavitv divi rpam sajat.1Thus the essence of poetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly forms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and embodies? HeavenDyaushas a very definite connotation in the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind 2the mind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the external senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording faithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a perfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra is the lord of this world and he can be approached only with an enkindled intelligence, ddhay man,3a faultless understanding, sumedh. He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic power,Tash, the maker of perfect forms, surpa ktnum.4 All the gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets, attain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty.5 Indra is also the master of the senses, indriyas, who are his hosts. It is through this mind and the senses that the poetic creation has to be manifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet's weaving;6 the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right thinking in the sacrificial labour of creation.7 But that creation is made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses that are alive to the subtle formation of a vaster knowledge.8 The poet envisages the golden forms fashioned out of the very profundity of the consciousness.9 For the substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.10 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation-the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth.11The form of beauty is the body of the Truth.
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his,nigam, pracetas; his is the eye of the Sun,srya caku.13 He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.14 In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer; he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, ncak;15 he is the Seer-Will,kavikratu.16 He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-Iuminousness.17 The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, srya satyasava, satyya satyaprasavya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator,savit, he is also the builder or fashioner,ta, and he is the organiser,vedh is personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara, of the Truth.18 As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,19 the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;20 it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice.21 He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward;22 he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond 23into the world of felicity.
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The Qabalah has nothing to do with any of them. Attempts on the part of cultish-partisans to impart higher mystical meanings, through the Qabalah, etc., to their now sterile faiths is futile, and will be seen as such by the younger generation. They, the flower and love children, will have none of this nonsense.
I felt this a long time ago, as I still do, but even more so. The only way to explain the partisan Jewish attitude demonstrated in some small sections of the book can readily be explained. I had been reading some writings of Arthur Edward Waite, and some of his pomposity and turgidity stuck to my mantle. I disliked his patronising Christian attitude, and so swung all the way over to the other side of the pendulum. Actually, neither faith is particularly important in this day and age. I must be careful never to read Waite again before embarking upon literary work of my own.
Much knowledge obtained by the ancients through the use of the Qabalah has been supported by discoveries of modern scientists- anthropologists, astronomers, psychiatrists, et al. Learned Qabalists for hundreds of years have been aware of what the psychiatrist has only discovered in the last few decades-that man's concept of himself, his deities and the Universe is a constantly evolving process, changing as man himself evolves on a higher spiral. But the roots of his concepts are buried in a race-consciousness that antedated Neanderthal man by uncounted aeons of time.
What Jung calls archetypal images constantly rise to the surface of man's awareness from the vast unconscious that is the common heritage of all mankind.
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
millions of years of exclusive compressional supremacy. With far higher tensile
strength per weight than wood, steel made possible even more powerful watertight,
--
horizontal and ever more steeply aloft. With the advent of successively higher
strength-to-weight ratios of metal alloys and glass-reinforced plastic materials, ever
--
we can have all of humanity enjoying a sustainably higher standard of living-with
vastly increased degrees of freedom than has ever been enjoyed by anyone in all
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The anguish of the inner soul of India found expression through these passionate words of the young Gadadhar. For what did his unsophisticated eyes see around him in Calcutta, at that time the metropolis of India and the centre of modem culture and learning? Greed and lust held sway in the higher levels of society, and the occasional religious practices were merely outer forms from which the soul had long ago departed. Gadadhar had never seen anything like this at Kamarpukur among the simple and pious villagers. The sadhus and wandering monks whom he had served in his boyhood had revealed to him an altogether different India. He had been impressed by their devotion and purity, their self-control and renunciation. He had learnt from them and from his own intuition that the ideal of life as taught by the ancient sages of India was the realization of God.
When Ramkumar reprimanded Gadadhar for neglecting a "bread-winning education", the inner voice of the boy reminded him that the legacy of his ancestors — the legacy of Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Sankara, Ramanuja, Chaitanya — was not worldly security but the Knowledge of God. And these noble sages were the true representatives of Hindu society. Each of them was seated, as it were, on the crest of the wave that followed each successive trough in the tumultuous course of Indian national life. All demonstrated that the life current of India is spirituality. This truth was revealed to Gadadhar through that inner vision which scans past and future in one sweep, unobstructed by the barriers of time and space. But he was unaware of the history of the profound change that had taken place in the land of his birth during the previous one hundred years.
--
While practising the discipline of the madhur bhava, the male devotee often regards himself as a woman, in order to develop the most intense form of love for Sri Krishna, the only purusha, or man, in the universe. This assumption of the attitude of the opposite sex has a deep psychological significance. It is a matter of common experience that an idea may be cultivated to such an intense degree that every idea alien to it is driven from the mind. This peculiarity of the mind may be utilized for the subjugation of the lower desires and the development of the spiritual nature. Now, the idea which is the basis of all desires and passions in a man is the conviction of his indissoluble association with a male body. If he can inoculate himself thoroughly with the idea that he is a woman, he can get rid of the desires peculiar to his male body. Again, the idea that he is a woman may in turn be made to give way to another higher idea, namely, that he is neither man nor woman, but the Impersonal Spirit. The Impersonal Spirit alone can enjoy real communion with the Impersonal God. Hence the highest est realization of the Vaishnava draws close to the transcendental experience of the Vedantist.
A beautiful expression of the Vaishnava worship of God through love is to be found in the Vrindavan episode of the Bhagavata. The gopis, or milk-maids, of Vrindavan regarded the six-year-old Krishna as their Beloved. They sought no personal gain or happiness from this love. They surrendered to Krishna their bodies, minds, and souls. Of all the gopis, Radhika, or Radha, because of her intense love for Him, was the closest to Krishna. She manifested mahabhava and was united with her Beloved. This union represents, through sensuous language, a supersensuous experience.
--
Thus, after nirvikalpa samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized maya in an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from before his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that maya operates in the relative world in two ways, and he termed these "avidyamaya" and "vidyamaya". Avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the round of man's birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidyamaya is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion. Vidyamaya elevates man to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya the devotee rids himself of avidyamaya; he then becomes mayatita, free of maya. The two aspects of maya are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and She stands beyond them both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining through and standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes, conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.
The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain, in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness, the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. He was to keep himself at the "sixth centre" of Tantra, from which he could see not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the Kundalini in the lower centres. He gently oscillated back and forth across the dividing line. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of Reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the world.
--
Narendra, consumed with a terrific fever for realization, complained to the Master that all the others had attained peace and that he alone was dissatisfied. The Master asked what he wanted. Narendra begged for samadhi, so that he might altogether forget the world for three or four days at a time. "You are a fool", the Master rebuked him. "There is a state even higher than that. Isn't it you who sing, 'All that exists art Thou'? First of all settle your family affairs and then come to me. You will experience a state even higher than samadhi."
The Master did not hide the fact that he wished to make Narendra his spiritual heir. Narendra was to continue the work after Sri Ramakrishna's passing. Sri Ramakrishna said to him: "I leave these young men in your charge. See that they develop their spirituality and do not return home." One day he asked the boys, in preparation for a monastic life, to beg their food from door to door without thought of caste. They hailed the Master's order and went out with begging-bowls. A few days later he gave the ochre cloth of the sannyasi to each of them, including Girish, who was now second to none in his spirit of renunciation. Thus the Master himself laid the foundation of the future Ramakrishna Order of monks.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Compare the doctrine of the higher and lower Manas in
Theosophy.
--
contradiction upon contradiction, and thus a higher
degree of rapture, with ever sentence, until his armoury
--
IO is the cry of the lower as OI of the higher.
In figures they are 1001;(9) in letters they are Joy.(10)
--
13 (1 plus 3) is a higher form of 4. 4 is Amoun, the
God of generation, and 13 is 1, the Phallic unity.
--
The crab and the lobster are higher types of crustacae
than the crayfish.
-- higher life.
He then takes the Oath and becomes free-un
0.01 - Life and Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
God. Therefore we see in India that a sharp incompatibility has been created between life in the world and spiritual growth and perfection, and although the tradition and ideal of a victorious harmony between the inner attraction and the outer demand remains, it is little or else very imperfectly exemplified. In fact, when a man turns his vision and energy inward and enters on the path of Yoga, he is popularly supposed to be lost inevitably to the great stream of our collective existence and the secular effort of humanity. So strongly has the idea prevailed, so much has it been emphasised by prevalent philosophies and religions that to escape from life is now commonly considered as not only the necessary condition, but the general object of Yoga. No synthesis of Yoga can be satisfying which does not, in its aim, reunite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life or, in its method, not only permit but favour the harmony of our inner and outer activities and experiences in the divine consummation of both. For man is precisely that term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the forms of the lower. To avoid the life which is given him for the realisation of that possibility, can never be either the indispensable condition or the whole and ultimate object of his supreme endeavour or of his most powerful means of self-fulfilment. It can only be a temporary necessity under certain conditions or a specialised extreme effort imposed on the individual so as to prepare a greater general possibility for the race. The true and full object and utility of Yoga can only be accomplished when the conscious
Yoga in man becomes, like the subconscious Yoga in Nature, outwardly conterminous with life itself and we can once more, looking out both on the path and the achievement, say in a more perfect and luminous sense: "All life is Yoga."
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
consciousness, into a higher consciousness from which one can
see things from above, and thus see them more profoundly.
--
vessels used for cooking are very large, the top of the fireplaces should not be much higher than ground level. This must
be checked while the kitchen is being repaired. The top of
--
that both of you open yourselves to a higher consciousness. This
needs time and a continuous effort of sadhana from both of you.
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If, then, this inferior equilibrium is the basis and first means of the higher movements which the universal Power contemplates and if it constitutes the vehicle in which the Divine here seeks to reveal Itself, if the Indian saying is true that the body is the instrument provided for the fulfilment of the right law of our nature, then any final recoil from the physical life must be a turning away from the completeness of the divine Wisdom and a renunciation of its aim in earthly manifestation. Such a refusal may be, owing to some secret law of their development, the right attitude for certain individuals, but never the aim intended for mankind. It can be, therefore, no integral Yoga which ignores the body or makes its annulment or its rejection indispensable to a perfect spirituality. Rather, the perfecting of the body also should be the last triumph of the Spirit and to make the bodily life also divine must be God's final seal upon His work in the universe. The obstacle which the physical presents to the spiritual is no argument for the rejection of the physical; for in the unseen providence of things our greatest difficulties are our best opportunities. A supreme difficulty is Nature's indication to us of a supreme conquest to be won and an ultimate problem to be solved; it is not a warning of an inextricable snare to be shunned or of an enemy too strong for us from whom we must flee.
Equally, the vital and nervous energies in us are there for a great utility; they too demand the divine realisation of their possibilities in our ultimate fulfilment. The great part assigned to this element in the universal scheme is powerfully emphasised by the catholic wisdom of the Upanishads. "As the spokes of a wheel in its nave, so in the Life-Energy is all established, the triple knowledge and the Sacrifice and the power of the strong and the purity of the wise. Under the control of the LifeEnergy is all this that is established in the triple heaven."2 It is therefore no integral Yoga that kills these vital energies, forces them into a nerveless quiescence or roots them out as the source
--
She has harmonised the bodily life with the material mind, she is harmonising it with the play of the intellectual mentality; for that, although it tends to a depression of the full animal and vital vigour, need not produce active disturbances. And she is shooting yet beyond in the attempt to reach a still higher level.
Nor are the disturbances created by her process as great as is often represented. Some of them are the crude beginnings of new manifestations; others are an easily corrected movement of disintegration, often fruitful of fresh activities and always a small price to pay for the far-reaching results that she has in view.
--
towards ideal social and economic conditions, by the labour of Science towards an improved health, longevity and sound physique in civilised humanity, the sense and drift of this vast movement translates itself in easily intelligible signs. The right or at least the ultimate means may not always be employed, but their aim is the right preliminary aim, - a sound individual and social body and the satisfaction of the legitimate needs and demands of the material mind, sufficient ease, leisure, equal opportunity, so that the whole of mankind and no longer only the favoured race, class or individual may be free to develop the emotional and intellectual being to its full capacity. At present the material and economic aim may predominate, but always, behind, there works or there waits in reserve the higher and major impulse.
And when the preliminary conditions are satisfied, when the great endeavour has found its base, what will be the nature of that farther possibility which the activities of the intellectual life must serve? If Mind is indeed Nature's highest term, then the entire development of the rational and imaginative intellect and the harmonious satisfaction of the emotions and sensibilities must be to themselves sufficient. But if, on the contrary, man is more than a reasoning and emotional animal, if beyond that which is being evolved, there is something that has to be evolved, then it may well be that the fullness of the mental life, the suppleness, flexibility and wide capacity of the intellect, the ordered richness of emotion and sensibility may be only a passage towards the development of a higher life and of more powerful faculties which are yet to manifest and to take possession of the lower instrument, just as mind itself has so taken possession of the body that the physical being no longer lives only for its own satisfaction but provides the foundation and the materials for a superior activity.
The assertion of a higher than the mental life is the whole foundation of Indian philosophy and its acquisition and organisation is the veritable object served by the methods of Yoga.
Mind is not the last term of evolution, not an ultimate aim, but, like body, an instrument. It is even so termed in the language of
--
And if since then Nature has sunk back from her achievement, the reason must always be found in some unrealised harmony, some insufficiency of the intellectual and material basis to which she has now returned, some over-specialisation of the higher to the detriment of the lower existence.
But what then constitutes this higher or highest existence to which our evolution is tending? In order to answer the question we have to deal with a class of supreme experiences, a class of unusual conceptions which it is difficult to represent accurately in any other language than the ancient Sanskrit tongue in which alone they have been to some extent systematised.
The only approximate terms in the English language have other associations and their use may lead to many and even serious inaccuracies. The terminology of Yoga recognises besides the status of our physical and vital being, termed the gross body and doubly composed of the food sheath and the vital vehicle, besides the status of our mental being, termed the subtle body and singly composed of the mind sheath or mental vehicle,5 a third, supreme and divine status of supra-mental being, termed the causal body and composed of a fourth and a fifth vehicle6 which are described as those of knowledge and bliss. But this knowledge is not a systematised result of mental questionings and reasonings, not a temporary arrangement of conclusions and opinions in the terms of the highest probability, but rather a pure self-existent and self-luminous Truth. And this bliss is not a supreme pleasure of the heart and sensations with the experience of pain and sorrow as its background, but a delight also selfexistent and independent of objects and particular experiences, a self-delight which is the very nature, the very stuff, as it were, of a transcendent and infinite existence.
--
Do such psychological conceptions correspond to anything real and possible? All Yoga asserts them as its ultimate experience and supreme aim. They form the governing principles of our highest possible state of consciousness, our widest possible range of existence. There is, we say, a harmony of supreme faculties, corresponding roughly to the psychological faculties of revelation, inspiration and intuition, yet acting not in the intuitive reason or the divine mind, but on a still higher plane, which see Truth directly face to face, or rather live in the truth of things both universal and transcendent and are its formulation and luminous activity. And these faculties are the light of a conscious existence superseding the egoistic and itself both cosmic and transcendent, the nature of which is Bliss. These are obviously divine and, as man is at present apparently constituted, superhuman states of consciousness and activity. A trinity of transcendent existence, self-awareness and self-delight7 is, indeed, the metaphysical description of the supreme Atman, the self-formulation, to our awakened knowledge, of the Unknowable whether conceived as a pure Impersonality or as a cosmic Personality manifesting the universe. But in Yoga they are regarded also in their psychological aspects as states of subjective existence to which our waking consciousness is now alien, but which dwell in us in a superconscious plane and to which, therefore, we may always ascend.
For, as is indicated by the name, causal body (karan.a), as opposed to the two others which are instruments (karan.a), this crowning manifestation is also the source and effective power of all that in the actual evolution has preceded it. Our mental activities are, indeed, a derivation, selection and, so long as they are divided from the truth that is secretly their source, a deformation of the divine knowledge. Our sensations and emotions have the same relation to the Bliss, our vital forces and actions to the aspect of Will or Force assumed by the divine consciousness, our physical being to the pure essence of that Bliss and
--
We perceive, then, these three steps in Nature, a bodily life which is the basis of our existence here in the material world, a mental life into which we emerge and by which we raise the bodily to higher uses and enlarge it into a greater completeness, and a divine existence which is at once the goal of the other two and returns upon them to liberate them into their highest possibilities. Regarding none of them as either beyond our reach or below our nature and the destruction of none of them as essential to the ultimate attainment, we accept this liberation and fulfilment as part at least and a large and important part of the aim of Yoga.
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 amenable 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.
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
supramental beauty is something much higher and more perfect;
it is a beauty untainted by any ugliness and it does not need the
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But by that very utility such men and the life they lead are condemned to be limited, irrationally conservative and earthbound. The customary routine, the customary institutions, the inherited or habitual forms of thought, - these things are the life-breath of their nostrils. They admit and jealously defend the changes compelled by the progressive mind in the past, but combat with equal zeal the changes that are being made by it in the present. For to the material man the living progressive thinker is an ideologue, dreamer or madman. The old Semites who stoned the living prophets and adored their memories when dead, were the very incarnation of this instinctive and unintelligent principle in Nature. In the ancient Indian distinction between the once born and the twice born, it is to this material man that the former description can be applied. He does Nature's inferior works; he assures the basis for her higher activities; but not to him easily are opened the glories of her second birth.
Yet he admits so much of spirituality as has been enforced on his customary ideas by the great religious outbursts of the past and he makes in his scheme of society a place, venerable though not often effective, for the priest or the learned theologian who can be trusted to provide him with a safe and ordinary spiritual pabulum. But to the man who would assert for himself the liberty of spiritual experience and the spiritual life, he assigns, if he admits him at all, not the vestment of the priest but the robe of the Sannyasin. Outside society let him exercise his dangerous freedom. So he may even serve as a human lightning-rod receiving the electricity of the Spirit and turning it away from the social edifice.
Nevertheless it is possible to make the material man and his life moderately progressive by imprinting on the material mind the custom of progress, the habit of conscious change, the fixed idea of progression as a law of life. The creation by this means of progressive societies in Europe is one of the greatest triumphs of Mind over Matter. But the physical nature has its revenge; for the progress made tends to be of the grosser and more outward kind and its attempts at a higher or a more rapid movement bring about great wearinesses, swift exhaustions, startling recoils.
It is possible also to give the material man and his life a moderate spirituality by accustoming him to regard in a religious spirit all the institutions of life and its customary activities. The creation of such spiritualised communities in the East has been one of the greatest triumphs of Spirit over Matter. Yet here, too, there is a defect; for this often tends only to the creation of a religious temperament, the most outward form of spirituality.
Its higher manifestations, even the most splendid and puissant, either merely increase the number of souls drawn out of social life and so impoverish it or disturb the society for a while by a momentary elevation. The truth is that neither the mental effort nor the spiritual impulse can suffice, divorced from each other, to overcome the immense resistance of material Nature.
She demands their alliance in a complete effort before she will suffer a complete change in humanity. But, usually, these two great agents are unwilling to make to each other the necessary concessions.
--
This mixing with life may, however, be pursued for the sake of the individual mind and with an entire indifference to the forms of the material existence or the uplifting of the race. This indifference is seen at its highest in the Epicurean discipline and is not entirely absent from the Stoic; and even altruism does the works of compassion more often for its own sake than for the sake of the world it helps. But this too is a limited fulfilment. The progressive mind is seen at its noblest when it strives to elevate the whole race to its own level whether by sowing broadcast the image of its own thought and fulfilment or by changing the material life of the race into fresh forms, religious, intellectual, social or political, intended to represent more nearly that ideal of truth, beauty, justice, righteousness with which the man's own soul is illumined. Failure in such a field matters little; for the mere attempt is dynamic and creative. The struggle of Mind to elevate life is the promise and condition of the conquest of life by that which is higher even than Mind.
That highest thing, the spiritual existence, is concerned with what is eternal but not therefore entirely aloof from the transient. For the spiritual man the mind's dream of perfect beauty is realised in an eternal love, beauty and delight that has no dependence and is equal behind all objective appearances; its dream of perfect Truth in the supreme, self-existent, self-apparent and eternal Verity which never varies, but explains and is the secret of all variations and the goal of all progress; its dream of perfect action in the omnipotent and self-guiding Law that is inherent for ever in all things and translates itself here in the rhythm of the worlds. What is fugitive vision or constant effort of creation in the brilliant Self is an eternally existing Reality in the Self that knows2 and is the Lord.
--
But their aim is one in the end. The generalisation of Yoga in humanity must be the last victory of Nature over her own delays and concealments. Even as now by the progressive mind in Science she seeks to make all mankind fit for the full development of the mental life, so by Yoga must she inevitably seek to make all mankind fit for the higher evolution, the second birth, the spiritual existence. And as the mental life uses and perfects the material, so will the spiritual use and perfect the material and the mental existence as the instruments of a divine self-expression.
The ages when that is accomplished, are the legendary Satya or Krita3 Yugas, the ages of the Truth manifested in the symbol, of the great work done when Nature in mankind, illumined, satisfied and blissful, rests in the culmination of her endeavour.
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Rajayoga takes a higher flight. It aims at the liberation and perfection not of the bodily, but of the mental being, the control of the emotional and sensational life, the mastery of the whole apparatus of thought and consciousness. It fixes its eyes on the citta, that stuff of mental consciousness in which all these activities arise, and it seeks, even as Hathayoga with its physical material, first to purify and to tranquillise. The normal state of man is a condition of trouble and disorder, a kingdom either at war with itself or badly governed; for the lord, the Purusha, is subjected to his ministers, the faculties, subjected even to his subjects, the instruments of sensation, emotion, action, enjoyment. Swarajya, self-rule, must be substituted for this subjection.
First, therefore, the powers of order must be helped to overcome
--
This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery.
But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pran.ayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kun.d.alin, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on
The Systems of Yoga
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
at work and is it waiting for the descent of a higher
inspiration?
--
can prepare yourself for a higher inspiration. You were going
round and round in the same forms; something new had to
--
The only remedy lies in opening to the higher forces in
order to let them do in the vital their work of organisation and
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
- and Yoga is nothing but practical psychology, - is the conception of Nature from which we have to start. It is the selffulfilment of the Purusha through his Energy. But the movement of Nature is twofold, higher and lower, or, as we may choose to term it, divine and undivine. The distinction exists indeed for practical purposes only; for there is nothing that is not divine, and in a larger view it is as meaningless, verbally, as the distinction between natural and supernatural, for all things that are are natural. All things are in Nature and all things are in God.
But, for practical purposes, there is a real distinction. The lower
Nature, that which we know and are and must remain so long as the faith in us is not changed, acts through limitation and division, is of the nature of Ignorance and culminates in the life of the ego; but the higher Nature, that to which we aspire, acts by unification and transcendence of limitation, is of the nature of Knowledge and culminates in the life divine. The passage from the lower to the higher is the aim of Yoga; and this passage
The Synthesis of the Systems
may effect itself by the rejection of the lower and escape into the higher, - the ordinary view-point, - or by the transformation of the lower and its elevation to the higher Nature. It is this, rather, that must be the aim of an integral Yoga.
But in either case it is always through something in the lower that we must rise into the higher existence, and the schools of
Yoga each select their own point of departure or their own gate of escape. They specialise certain activities of the lower
--
Yoga that we seek must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and a waste of time; for then our sole practical aim must be to find out one path out of the thousand that lead to God, one shortest possible of short cuts, and not to linger exploring different paths that end in the same goal. But if our aim be a transformation of our integral being into the terms of God-existence, it is then that a synthesis becomes necessary.
The method we have to pursue, then, is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform our entire being into His. Thus in a sense
--
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sadhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine
Strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for our weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It "makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills." The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet, in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
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
--
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 self-conscious 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.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
at rest.' Both the higher and the lower 'portions of the soul' are now tranquillized
and prepared for the desired union with the Spouse, a union which is the subject
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Farther within or higher above, on the other side of the emotions,
beyond the mind.
--
be at your side; You will always be higher, and I shall
aspire to You; I shall follow You from plane to plane,
--
to meet on some other higher plane?
Certainly, this is quite possible. But one must awaken to the
--
hope to be reborn in a higher organism. All defection, on the
contrary, naturally brings in a diminution of being.
--
This also is false. The higher part of the vital being, like the higher part of the mental being, aspires for the Divine and suffers
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
one good jump to the higher consciousness where all problems
Series Seven - To a Sadhak
--
"Rise into the higher Consciousness, let its light control
and transform the nature." Some time back you wrote to
me, "One good jump to the higher consciousness where
all problems are solved and you will get rid of your difficulties." Now what exactly is this higher consciousness
and how may I rise or jump into it? And again you have
--
be conquered." Is this higher consciousness the same
thing as a state of pure love and, if so, how would it be
related to a state of higher knowledge?
The higher Consciousness is a state of pure love but it is also a
state of pure openness to divine knowledge. There is no opposition there between these two kindred things; it is the mind that
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
appearance, it is to this higher Reality that you must turn. The
physical being cannot become truly expressive of the eternal
--
and intermediaries to bring to the earth the aid of the higher
regions and to preside over the formation of the mind and its
--
he opens to the higher mind and overmind, and through those
Series Eight - To a Young Captain
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
which retires into the depths of the higher consciousness and
sometimes even cuts off all relation with the body, which is then
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not my purpose here to enter into details as to the exact meaning of the descent, how it happens and what are its lines of activity and the results brought about. For it is indeed an actual descent that happens: the Divine Light leans down first into the mind and begins its purificatory work therealthough it is always the inner heart which first recognises the Divine Presence and gives its assent to the Divine action for the mind, the higher mind that is to say, is the summit of the ordinary human consciousness and receives more easily and readily the Radiances that descend. From the Mind the Light filters into the denser regions of the emotions and desires, of life activity and vital dynamism; finally, it gets into brute Matter itself, the hard and obscure rock of the physical body, for that too has to be illumined and made the very form and figure of the Light supernal. The Divine in his descending Grace is the Master-Architect who is building slowly and surely the many-chambered and many-storeyed edifice that is human nature and human life into the mould of the Divine Truth in its perfect play and supreme expression. But this is a matter which can be closely considered when one is already well within the mystery of the path and has acquired the elementary essentials of an initiate.
Another question that troubles and perplexes the ordinary human mind is as to the time when the thing will be done. Is it now or a millennium hence or at some astronomical distance in future, like the cooling of the sun, as someone has suggested for an analogy. In view of the magnitude of the work one might with reason say that the whole eternity is there before us, and a century or even a millennium should not be grudged to such a labour for it is nothing less than an undoing of untold millenniums in the past and the building of a far-flung futurity. However, as we have said, since it is the Divine's own work and since Yoga means a concentrated and involved process of action, effectuating in a minute what would perhaps take years to accomplish in the natural course, one can expect the work to be done sooner rather than later. Indeed, the ideal is one of here and nowhere upon this earth of material existence and now in this life, in this very bodynot hereafter or elsewhere. How long exactly that will mean, depends on many factors, but a few decades on this side or the other do not matter very much.
01.01 - Sri Aurobindo - The Age of Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Well, the view expressed in these words is not a new revelation. It has been the cry of suffering humanity through the ages. Man has borne his cross since the beginning of his creation through want and privation, through disease and bereavement, through all manner of turmoil and tribulation, and yetmirabile dictuat the same time, in the very midst of those conditions, he has been aspiring and yearning for something else, ignoring the present, looking into the beyond. It is not the prosperous and the more happily placed in life who find it more easy to turn to the higher life, it is not the wealthiest who has the greatest opportunity to pursue a spiritual idea. On the contrary, spiritual leaders have thought and experienced otherwise.
Apart from the well-recognised fact that only in distress does the normal man think of God and non-worldly things, the real matter, however, is that the inner life is a thing apart and follows its own line of movement, does not depend upon, is not subservient to, the kind of outer life that one may happen to live under. The Bible says indeed, "Blessed are the poor, blessed are they that mourn"... But the Upanishad declares, on the other hand, that even as one lies happily on a royal couch, bathes and anoints himself with all the perfumes of the world, has attendants all around and always to serve him, even so, one can be full of the divine consciousness from the crown of the head to the tip of his toe-nail. In fact, a poor or a prosperous life is in no direct or even indirect ratio to a spiritual life. All the miseries and immediate needs of a physical life do not and cannot detain or delay one from following the path of the ideal; nor can all your riches be a burden to your soul and overwhelm it, if it chooses to walk onit can not only walk, but soar and fly with all that knapsack on its back.
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That Power, that Spirit has been growing and gathering its strength during all the millenniums that humanity has lived through. On the momentous day when man appeared on earth, the higher Man also took his birth. Since the hour the Spirit refused to be imprisoned in its animal sheath and came out as man, it approached by that very uplift a greater freedom and a vaster movement. It was the crest of that underground wave which peered over the surface from age to age, from clime to clime through the experiences of poets and prophets and sages the Head of the Sacrificial Horse galloping towards the Dawn.
And now the days of captivity or rather of inner preparation are at an end. The voice in the wilderness was necessary, for it was a call and a communion in the silence of the soul. Today the silence seeks utterance. Today the shell is ripe enough to break and to bring out the mature and full-grown being. The king that was in hiding comes in glory and triumph, in his complete regalia.
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Not that this sovereign power will have anything to do with aggression or over-bearingness. It will not be a power that feels itself only by creating an eternal opponentErbfeindby coming in constant clash with a rival that seeks to gain victory by subjugating. It will not be Nietzschean "will to power," which is, at best, a supreme Asuric power. It will rather be a Divine Power, for the strength it will exert and the victory it will achieve will not come from the egoit is the ego which requires an object outside and against to feel and affirm itself but it will come from a higher personal self which is one with the cosmic soul and therefore with other personal souls. The Asura, in spite of, or rather, because of his aggressive vehemence betrays a lack of the sovereign power that is calm and at ease and self-sufficient. The Devic power does not assert hut simply accomplishes; the forces of the world act not as its opponent but as its instrument. Thus the New Man shall affirm his individual sovereignty and do so to perfection by expressing through it his unity with the cosmic powers, with the infinite godhead. And by being Swarat, Self-Master, he will become Samrat, world-master.
This mastery will be effected not merely in will, but in mind and heart also. For the New Man will know not by the intellect which is egocentric and therefore limited, not by ratiocination which is an indirect and doubtful process, but by direct vision, an inner communion, a soul revelation. The new knowledge will be vast and profound and creative, based as it will be upon the reality of things and not upon their shadows. Truth will shine through every experience and every utterance"a truth shall have its seat on our speech and mind and hearing", so have the Vedas said. The mind and intellect will not be active and constructive agents but the luminous channel of a self-luminous knowledge. And the heart too which is now the field of passion and egoism will be cleared of its noise and obscurity; a serener sky will shed its pure warmth and translucent glow. The knot will be rent asunderbhidyate hridaya granthih and the vast and mighty streams of another ocean will flow through. We will love not merely those to whom we are akin but God's creatures, one and all; we will love not with the yearning and hunger of a mortal but with the wide and intense Rasa that lies in the divine identity of souls.
01.01 - The One Thing Needful, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
... the principle of this Yoga is not perfection of the human nature as it is but a psychic and spiritual transformation of all the parts of the being through the action of an inner consciousness and then of a higher consciousness which works on them, throws out the old movements or changes them into the image of its own and so transmutes lower into higher nature. It is not so much the perfection of the intellect as a transcendence of it, a transformation of the mind, the substitution of a larger greater principle of knowledge - and so with all the rest of the being.
This is a slow and difficult process; the road is long and it is hard to establish even the necessary basis. The old existing nature resists and obstructs and difficulties rise one after another and repeatedly till they are overcome. It is therefore necessary to be sure that this is the path to which one is called before one finally decides to tread it.
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is in the direct line of Nature's own Yoga. Nature has a Yoga, which she follows unfailingly, and inevitably for it is her innermost law of being. Yoga means, in essence, a change or transformation of consciousness, a heightening and broadening of consciousness, which is effected by communion or union or identification with a higher and vaster consciousness.
This process of a developing consciousness in Nature is precisely what is known as Evolution. It is the bringing out and fixing of a higher and higher principle of consciousness, hitherto involved and concealed behind the veil, in the earth consciousness as a dynamic factor in Nature's manifest working. Thus, the first stage of evolution is the status of inconscient Matter, of the lifeless physical elements; the second stage is that of the semi-conscious life in the plant, the third that of the conscious life in the animal, and finally the fourth stage, where we stand at present, is that of the embodied self-conscious life in man.
The course of evolution has not come to a stop with man and the next stage, Sri Aurobindo says, which Nature envisages and is labouring to bring out and establish is the life now superconscious to us, embodied in a still higher type of created being, that of the superman or god-man. The principle of consciousness which will determine the nature and build of this new, being is a spiritual principle beyond the mental principle which man now incarnates: it may be called the Supermind or Gnosis.
For, till now Mind has been the last term of the evolutionary consciousness Mind as developed in man is the highest instrument built up and organised by Nature through which the self-conscious being can express itself. That is why the Buddha said: Mind is the first of all principles, Mind is the highest of all principles: indeed Mind is the constituent of all principlesmana puvvangam dhamm1. The consciousness beyond mind has not yet been made a patent and dynamic element in the life upon earth; it has been glimpsed or entered into in varying degrees and modes by saints and seers; it has cast its derivative illuminations in the creative activities of poets and artists, in the finer and nobler urges of heroes and great men of action. But the utmost that has been achieved, the summit reached in that direction, as exampled in spiritual disciplines, involves a withdrawal from the evolutionary cycle, a merging and an absorption into the static status that is altogether beyond it, that lies, as it were, at the other extreme the Spirit in itself, Atman, Brahman, Sachchidananda, Nirvana, the One without a second, the Zero without a first.
The first contact that one has with this static supra-reality is through the higher ranges of the mind: a direct and closer communion is established through a plane which is just above the mind the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it. The Overmind dissolves or transcends the ego-consciousness which limits the being to its individualised formation bounded by an outward and narrow frame or sheath of mind, life and body; it reveals the universal Self and Spirit, the cosmic godhead and its myriad forces throwing up myriad forms; the world-existence there appears as a play of ever-shifting veils upon the face of one ineffable reality, as a mysterious cycle of perpetual creation and destructionit is the overwhelming vision given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita. At the same time, the initial and most intense experience which this cosmic consciousness brings is the extreme relativity, contingency and transitoriness of the whole flux, and a necessity seems logically and psychologically imperative to escape into the abiding substratum, the ineffable Absoluteness.
This has been the highest consummation, the supreme goal which the purest spiritual experience and the deepest aspiration of the human consciousness generally sought to attain. But in this view, the world or creation or Nature came in the end to be looked upon as fundamentally a product of Ignorance: ignorance and suffering and incapacity and death were declared to be the very hallmark of things terrestrial. The Light that dwells above and beyond can be made to shed for a while some kind of lustre upon the mortal darkness but never altogether to remove or change itto live in the full light, to be in and of the Light means to pass beyond. Not that there have not been other strands and types of spiritual experiences and aspirations, but the one we are considering has always struck the major chord and dominated and drowned all the rest.
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An organ in the human being has been especially developed to become the effective instrument of this accelerated Yogic process the self-consciousness which I referred to as being the distinctive characteristic of man is a function of this organ. It is his soul, his psychic being; originally it is the spark of the Divine Consciousness which came down and became involved in Matter and has been endeavouring ever since to release itself through the upward march of evolution. It is this which presses on continually as the stimulus to the evolutionary movement; and in man it has attained sufficient growth and power and has come so far to the front from behind the veil that it can now lead and mould his external consciousness. It is also the channel through which the Divine Consciousness can flow down into the inferior levels of human nature. It is the being no bigger than the thumb ever seated within the heart, spoken of in the Upanishads. It is likewise the basis of true individuality and personal identity. It is again the reflection or expression in evolutionary Nature of one's essential selfjivtman that is above, an eternal portion of the Divine, one with the Divine and yet not dissolved and lost in it. The psychic being is thus on the one hand in direct contact with the Divine and the higher consciousness, and on the other it is the secret upholder and controller' (bhart, antarymin) of the inferior consciousness, the hidden nucleus round which the body and the life and the mind of the individual are built up and organised.
The first decisive step in Yoga is taken when one becomes conscious of the psychic being, or, looked at from the other side, when the psychic being comes forward and takes possession of the external being, begins to initiate and influence the movements of the mind and life and body and gradually free them from the ordinary round of ignorant nature. The awakening of the psychic being means, as I have said, not only a deepening and heightening of the consciousness and its release from the obscurity and limitation of the inferior Prakriti, confined to the lower threefold status, into what is behind and beyond; it means also a return of the deeper and higher consciousness upon the lower hemisphere and a consequent purification and illumination and regeneration of the latter. Finally, when the psychic being is in full self-possession and power, it can be the vehicle of the direct supramental consciousness which will then be able to act freely and absolutely for the entire transformation of the external nature, its transfiguration into a perfect body of the Truth-consciousness in a word, its divinisation.
This then is the supreme secret, not the renunciation and annulment, but the transformation of the ordinary human nature : first of all, its psychicisation, that is to say, making it move and live and be in communion and identification with the light of the psychic being, and, secondly, through the soul and the ensouled mind and life and body, to open out into the supramental consciousness and let it come down here below and work and achieve.
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It is also to be noted that as mind is not the last limit of the march of evolution, even so the progress of evolution will not stop with the manifestation and embodiment of the Supermind. There are other still higher principles beyond and they too presumably await manifestation and embodiment on earth. Creation has no beginning in time (andi) nor has it an end (ananta). It is an eternal process of the unravelling of the mysteries of the Infinite. Only, it may be said that with the Supermind the creation here enters into a different order of existence. Before it there was the domain of Ignorance, after it will come the reign of Light and Knowledge. Mortality has been the governing principle of life on earth till now; it will be replaced by the consciousness of immortality. Evolution has proceeded through struggle and pain; hereafter it will be a spontaneous, harmonious and happy flowering.
Now, with regard to the time that the present stage of evolution is likely to take for its fulfilment, one can presume that since or if the specific urge and stress has manifested and come up to the front, this very fact would show that the problem has become a problem of actuality, and even that it can be dealt with as if it had to be solved now or never. We have said that in man, with man's self-consciousness or the consciousness of the psychic being as the instrument, evolution has attained the capacity of a swift and concentrated process, which is the process of Yoga; the process will become swifter and more concentrated, the more that instrument grows and gathers power and is infused with the divine afflatus. In fact, evolution has been such a process of gradual acceleration in tempo from the very beginning. The earliest stage, for example, the stage of dead Matter, of the play of the mere chemical forces was a very, very long one; it took millions and millions of years to come to the point when the manifestation of life became possible. But the period of elementary life, as manifested in the plant world that followed, although it too lasted a good many millions of years, was much briefer than the preceding periodit ended with the advent of the first animal form. The age of animal life, again, has been very much shorter than that of the plant life before man came upon earth. And man is already more than a million or two years oldit is fully time that a higher order of being should be created out of him.
The Dhammapada, I. 1
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To humanise the Divine, that is what we all wish to do; for the Divine is too lofty for us and we cannot look full into his face. We cry and supplicate to Rudra, "O dire Lord, show us that other form of thine that is benign and humane". All earthly imageries we lavish upon the Divine so that he may appear to us not as something far and distant and foreign, but, quite near, among us, as one of us. We take recourse to human symbolism often, because we wish to palliate or hide the rigours of a supreme experience, not because we have no adequate terms for it. The same human or earthly terms could be used differently if we had a different consciousness. Thus the Vedic Rishis sought not to humanise the Divine, their purpose was rather to divinise the human. And their allegorical language, although rich in terrestrial figures, does not carry the impress and atmosphere of mere humanity and earthliness. For in reality the symbol is not merely the symbol. It is mere symbol in regard to the truth so long as we take our stand on the lower plane when we have to look at the truth through the symbol; but if we view it from the higher plane, from truth itself, it is no longer mere symbol but the very truth bodied forth. Whatever there is of symbolism on earth and its beauties, in sense and its enjoyments, is then transfigured into the expression of the truth, of the divinity itself. We then no longer speak in human language but in the language of the gods.
We have been speaking of philosophy and the philosophic manner. But what are the exact implications of the words, let us ask again. They mean nothing more and nothing lessthan the force of thought and the mass of thought content. After all, that seems to be almost the whole difference between the past and the present human consciousness in so far at least as it has found expression in poetry. That element, we wish to point out, is precisely what the old-world poets lacked or did not care to possess or express or stress. A poet meant above all, if not all in all, emotion, passion, sensuousness, sensibility, nervous enthusiasm and imagination and fancy: remember the classic definition given by Shakespeare of the poet
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The heart and its urges, the vital and its surges, the physical impulsesit is these of which the poets sang in their infinite variations. But the mind proper, that is to say, the higher reflective ideative mind, was not given the right of citizenship in the domain of poetry. I am not forgetting the so-called Metaphysicals. The element of metaphysics among the Metaphysicals has already been called into question. There is here, no doubt, some theology, a good dose of mental cleverness or conceit, but a modern intellectual or rather rational intelligence is something other, something more than that. Even the metaphysics that was commandeered here had more or less a decorative value, it could not be taken into the pith and substance of poetic truth and beauty. It was a decoration, but not unoften a drag. I referred to the Upanishads, but these strike quite a different, almost an opposite line in this connection. They are in a sense truly metaphysical: they bypass the mind and the mental powers, get hold of a higher mode of consciousness, make a direct contact with truth and beauty and reality. It was Buddha's credit to have forged this missing link in man's spiritual consciousness, to have brought into play the power of the rational intellect and used it in support of the spiritual experience. That is not to say that he was the very first person, the originator who initiated the movement; but at least this seems to be true that in him and his au thentic followers the movement came to the forefront of human consciousness and attained the proportions of a major member of man's psychological constitution. We may remember here that Socrates, who started a similar movement of rationalisation in his own way in Europe, was almost a contemporary of the Buddha.
Poetry as an expression of thought-power, poetry weighted with intelligence and rationalised knowledge that seems to me to be the end and drive, the secret sense of all the mystery of modern technique. The combination is risky, but not impossible. In the spiritual domain the Gita achieved this miracle to a considerable degree. Still, the power of intelligence and reason shown by Vyasa is of a special order: it is a sublimated function of the faculty, something aloof and other-worldly"introvert", a modern mind would term it that is to say, something a priori, standing in its own au thenticity and self-sufficiency. A modern intelligence would be more scientific, let us use the word, more matter-of-fact and sense-based: the mental light should not be confined in its ivory tower, however high that may be, but brought down and placed at the service of our perception and appreciation and explanation of things human and terrestrial; made immanent in the mundane and the ephemeral, as they are commonly called. This is not an impossibility. Sri Aurobindo seems to have done the thing. In him we find the three terms of human consciousness arriving at an absolute fusion and his poetry is a wonderful example of that fusion. The three terms are the spiritual, the intellectual or philosophical and the physical or sensational. The intellectual, or more generally, the mental, is the intermediary, the Paraclete, as he himself will call it later on in a poem9 magnificently exemplifying the point we are trying to make out the agent who negotiates, bridges and harmonises the two other firmaments usually supposed to be antagonistic and incompatible.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man's consciousness is further to rise from the mental to over-mental regions. Accordingly, his life and activities and along with that his artistic creations too will take on a new tone and rhythm, a new mould and constitution even. For this transition, the higher mentalwhich is normally the field of philosophical and idealistic activitiesserves as the Paraclete, the Intercessor; it takes up the lower functionings of the consciousness, which are intense in their own way, but narrow and turbid, and gives, by purifying and enlarging, a wider frame, a more luminous pattern, a more subtly articulated , form for the higher, vaster and deeper realities, truths and harmonies to express and manifest. In the old-world spiritual and mystic poets, this intervening medium was overlooked for evident reasons, for human reason or even intelligence is a double-edged instrument, it can make as well as mar, it has a light that most often and naturally shuts off other higher lights beyond it. So it was bypassed, some kind of direct and immediate contact was sought to be established between the normal and the transcendental. The result was, as I have pointed out, a pure spiritual poetry, on the one hand, as in the Upanishads, or, on the other, religious poetry of various grades and denominations that spoke of the spiritual but in the terms and in the manner of the mundane, at least very much coloured and dominated by the latter. Vyasa was the great legendary figure in India who, as is shown in his Mahabharata, seems to have been one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer, to forge and build the missing link of Thought Power. The exemplar of the manner is the Gita. Valmiki's represented a more ancient and primary inspiration, of a vast vital sensibility, something of the kind that was at the basis of Homer's genius. In Greece it was Socrates who initiated the movement of speculative philosophy and the emphasis of intellectual power slowly began to find expression in the later poets, Sophocles and Euripides. But all these were very simple beginnings. The moderns go in for something more radical and totalitarian. The rationalising element instead of being an additional or subordinate or contri buting factor, must itself give its norm and form, its own substance and manner to the creative activity. Such is the present-day demand.
The earliest preoccupation of man was religious; even when he concerned himself with the world and worldly things, he referred all that to the other world, thought of gods and goddesses, of after-death and other where. That also will be his last and ultimate preoccupation though in a somewhat different way, when he has passed through a process of purification and growth, a "sea-change". For although religion is an aspiration towards the truth and reality beyond or behind the world, it is married too much to man's actual worldly nature and carries always with it the shadow of profanity.
The religious poet seeks to tone down or cover up the mundane taint, since he does not know how to transcend it totally, in two ways: (1) by a strong thought-element, the metaphysical way, as it may be called and (2) by a strong symbolism, the occult way. Donne takes to the first course, Blake the second. And it is the alchemy brought to bear in either of these processes that transforms the merely religious into the mystic poet. The truly spiritual, as I have said, is still a higher grade of consciousness: what I call Spirit's own poetry has its own matter and mannerswabhava and swadharma. A nearest approach to it is echoed in those famous lines of Blake:
To see a World in a grain of Sand,
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Here we have a pattern of thought-movement that does not seem to follow the lineaments of the normal brain-mind consciousness, although it too has a basis there: our customary line of reasoning receives a sudden shock, as it were, and then is shaken, moved, lifted up, transportedgradually or suddenly, according to the temperament of the listener. Besides, we have here the peculiar modern tone, which, for want of a better term, may be described as scientific. The impressimprimaturof Science is its rational coherence, justifying or justified by sense data, by physical experience, which gives us the pattern or model of an inexorable natural law. Here too we feel we are in the domain of such natural law but lifted on to a higher level.
This is what I was trying to make out as the distinguishing trait of the real spiritual consciousness that seems to be developing in the poetic creation of tomorrow, e.g., it has the same rationality, clarity, concreteness of perception as the scientific spirit has in its own domain and still it is rounded off with a halo of magic and miracle. That is the nature of the logic of the infinite proper to the spiritual consciousness. We can have a Science of the Spirit as well as a Science of Matter. This is the Thought element or what corresponds to it, of which I was speaking, the philosophical factor, that which gives form to the formless or definition to that which is vague, a nearness and familiarity to that which is far and alien. The fullness of the spiritual consciousness means such a thing, the presentation of a divine name and form. And this distinguishes it from the mystic consciousness which is not the supreme solar consciousness but the nearest approach to it. Or, perhaps, the mystic dwells in the domain of the Divine, he may even be suffused with a sense of unity but would not like to acquire the Divine's nature and function. Normally and generally he embodies all the aspiration and yearning moved by intimations and suggestions belonging to the human mentality, the divine urge retaining still the human flavour. We can say also, using a Vedantic terminology, that the mystic consciousness gives us the tatastha lakshana, the nearest approximative attribute of the attri buteless; or otherwise, it is the hiranyagarbha consciousness which englobes the multiple play, the coruscated possibilities of the Reality: while the spiritual proper may be considered as prajghana, the solid mass, the essential lineaments of revelatory knowledge, the typal "wave-particles" of the Reality. In the former there is a play of imagination, even of fancy, a decorative aesthesis, while in the latter it is vision pure and simple. If the spiritual poetry is solar in its nature, we can say, by extending the analogy, that mystic poetry is characteristically lunarMoon representing the delight and the magic that Mind and mental imagination, suffused, no doubt, with a light or a reflection of some light from beyond, is capable of (the Upanishad speaks of the Moon being born of the Mind).
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"Flyaway, far from these morbid miasmas, go and purify yourself in the higher air and drink, like a pure and divine liquor, the clear fire that fills the limpid spaces."18
That angelic poets should be inspired by the same ideal is, of course, quite natural: for they sing:
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Poetry, actually however, has been, by and large, a profane and mundane affair: for it expresses the normal man's perceptions and feelings and experiences, human loves and hates and desires and ambitions. True. And yet there has also always been an attempt, a tendency to deal with them in such a way as can bring calm and puritykatharsisnot trouble and confusion. That has been the purpose of all Art from the ancient days. Besides, there has been a growth and development in the historic process of this katharsis. As by the sublimation of his bodily and vital instincts and impulses., man is gradually growing into the mental, moral and finally spiritual consciousness, even so the artistic expression of his creative activity has followed a similar line of transformation. The first and original transformation happened with religious poetry. The religious, one may say, is the profane inside out; that is to say, the religious man has almost the same tone and temper, the same urges and passions, only turned Godward. Religious poetry too marks a new turn and development of human speech, in taking the name of God human tongue acquires a new plasticity and flavour that transform or give a new modulation even to things profane and mundane it speaks of. Religious means at bottom the colouring of mental and moral idealism. A parallel process of katharsis is found in another class of poetic creation, viz., the allegory. Allegory or parable is the stage when the higher and inner realities are expressed wholly in the modes and manner, in the form and character of the normal and external, when moral, religious or spiritual truths are expressed in the terms and figures of the profane life. The higher or the inner ideal is like a loose clothing upon the ordinary consciousness, it does not fit closely or fuse. In the religious, however, the first step is taken for a mingling and fusion. The mystic is the beginning of a real fusion and a considerable ascension of the lower into the higher. The philosopher poet follows another line for the same katharsisinstead of uplifting emotions and sensibility, he proceeds by thought-power, by the ideas and principles that lie behind all movements and give a pattern to all things existing. The mystic can be of either type, the religious mystic or the philosopher mystic, although often the two are welded together and cannot be very well separated. Let us illustrate a little:
The spacious firmament on high,
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The same religious spirit seems to climb a little higher still stretching towards the mystic vein in Donne,
My heart is by dejection, clay,
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Does this mean that real knowledge is irrational or against Reason? Not so necessarily. There is a super-rational power for knowledge and Reason may either be a channel or an obstacle. If we take our stand upon Reason and then proceed to know, if we take the forms and categories of Reason as the inviolable schemata of knowledge, then indeed Reason becomes an obstacle to that super-rational power. If, on the other hand, Reason does not offer any set-form from beforehand, does not insist upon its own conditions, is passive and simply receives and reflects what is given to it, then it becomes a luminous and sure channel for that higher and real knowledge.
The fact is that Reason is a lower manifestation of knowledge, it is an attempt to express on the mental level a power that exceeds it. It is the section of a vast and unitarian Consciousness-Power; the section may be necessary under certain conditions and circumstances, but unless it is viewed in its relation to the ensemble, unless it gives up its exclusive absolutism, it will be perforce arbitrary and misleading. It would still remain helpful and useful, but its help and use would be always limited in scope and temporary in effectivity.
01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A considerable amount of vague misunderstanding and misapprehension seems to exist in the minds of a certain section of our people as to what Sri Aurobindo is doing in his retirement at Pondicherry. On the other hand, a very precise exposition, an exact formula of what he is not doing has been curiously furnished by a well-known patriot in his indictment of what he chooses to call the Pondicherry School of contemplation. But he has arrived at this formula by openly and fearlessly affirming what does not exist; for the things that Sri Aurobindo is accused of doing are just the things that he is not doing. In the first place, Sri Aurobindo is not doing peaceful contemplation; in the second place, he is not doing active propaganda either; in the third place, he is not doing prnyma or even dhyna in the ordinary sense of the word; and, lastly, he is not proclaiming or following the maxim that although action may be tolerated as good, his particular brand of Yoga is something higher and better.
Evidently the eminent politician and his school of activism are labouring under a Himalayan confusion: when they speak of Sri Aurobindo, they really have in their mind some of the old schools of spiritual discipline. But one of the marked aspects of Sri Aurobindo's teaching and practice has been precisely his insistence on putting aside the inert and life-shunning quietism, illusionism, asceticism and monasticism of a latter-day and decadent India. These ideals are perhaps as much obstacles in his way as in the way of the activistic school. Only Sri Aurobindo has not had the temerity to say that it is a weakness to seek refuge in contemplation or to suggest that a Buddha was a weakling or a Shankara a poltroon.
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A vision came of higher realms than ours,
A consciousness of brighter fields and skies,
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All here must learn to obey a higher law,
Our body's cells must hold the Immortal's flame.
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A dwelling on a higher spirit plane;
The Light remained in him a longer space.
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Could raise the earthly parts towards higher things
And feel on it the breath of heavenlier air.
01.03 - Yoga and the Ordinary Life, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the Yoga practised here the aim is to rise to a higher consciousness and to live out of the higher consciousness alone, not with the ordinary motives. This means a change of life as well as a change of consciousness. But all are not so circumstanced that they can cut loose from the ordinary life; they accept it therefore as a field of experience and self-training in the earlier stages of the sadhana. But they must take care to look at it as a field of experience only and to get free from the ordinary desires, attachments and ideas which usually go with it; otherwise it becomes a drag and hindrance on their sadhana. When one is not compelled by circumstances there is no necessity to continue the ordinary life.
It is not helpful to abandon the ordinary life before the being is ready for the full spiritual life. To do so means to precipitate a struggle between the different elements and exasperate it to a point of intensity which the nature is not ready to bear. The vital elements in you have partly to be met by the discipline and experience of life, while keeping the spiritual aim in view and trying to govern life by it progressively in the spirit of Karmayoga.
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I may say briefly that there are two states of consciousness in either of which one can live. One is a higher consciousness which stands above the play of life and governs it; this is variously called the Self, the Spirit or the Divine. The other is the normal consciousness in which men live; it is something quite superficial, an instrument of the Spirit for the play of life. Those who live and act in the normal consciousness are governed entirely by the common movements of the mind and are naturally subject to grief and joy and anxiety and desire or to everything else that makes up the ordinary stuff of life.
Mental quiet and happiness they can get, but it can never be permanent or secure. But the spiritual consciousness is all light, peace, power and bliss. If one can live entirely in it, there is no question; these things become naturally and securely his.
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Morality is a question of man's mind and vital, it belongs to a lower plane of consciousness. A spiritual life therefore cannot be founded on a moral basis, it must be founded on a spiritual basis. This does not mean that the spiritual man must be immoral - as if there were no other law of conduct than the moral. The law of action of the spiritual consciousness is higher, not lower than the moral - it is founded on union with the Divine and living in the Divine Consciousness and its action is founded on obedience to the Divine Will.
01.04 - Sri Aurobindos Gita, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The higher secret of the Gita lies really in the later chapters, the earlier chapters being a preparation and passage to it orpartial and practical application. This has to be pointed out, since there is a notion current which seeks to limit the Gita's effective teaching to the earlier part, neglecting or even discarding the later portion.
The style and manner of Sri Aurobindo's interpretation1 is also supremely characteristic: it does not carry the impress of a mere metaphysical dissertation-although in matter it clothes throughout a profound philosophy; it is throbbing with the luminous life of a prophet's message, it is instinct with something of the Gita's own mantraakti.
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
However, we are concerned more with the immediate past, the mentality that laid its supreme stress upon the human rationality. What that epoch did not understand was that Reason could be overstepped, that there was something higher, something greater than Reason; Reason being the sovereign faculty, it was thought there could be nothing beyond, unless it were draison. The human attribute par excellence is Reason. Exactly so. But the fact is that man is not bound by his humanity and that reason can be transformed and sublimated into other more powerful faculties.
Now, the question is, what is the insufficiency of Reason? How does it limit man? And what is the Superman into which man is asked or is being impelled to grow?
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As a matter of fact, the superman is not, as Nietzsche thinks him to be, the highest embodiment of the biological force of Nature, not even as modified and refined by the aesthetic and aristocratic virtues of which the higher reaches of humanity seem capable. For that is after all humanity only accentuated in certain other fundamentally human modes of existence. It does not carry far enough the process of surmounting. In reality it is not a surmounting but a new channelling. Instead of the ethical and intellectual man, we get the vital and aesthetic man. It may be a change but not a transfiguration.
And the faculty of Intuition said to be the characteristic of the New Man does not mean all that it should, if we confine ourselves to Bergson's definition of it. Bergson says that Intuition is a sort of sympathy, a community of feeling or sensibility with the urge of the life-reality. The difference between the sympathy of Instinct and the sympathy of Intuition being that while the former is an unconscious or semi-conscious power, the latter is illumined and self-conscious. Now this view emphasises only the feeling-tone of Intuition, the vital sensibility that attends the direct communion with the life movement. But Intuition is not only purified feeling and sensibility, it is also purified vision and knowledge. It unites us not only with the movement of life, but also opens out to our sight the Truths, the fundamental realities behind that movement. Bergson does not, of course, point to any existence behind the continuous flux of life-power the elan vital. He seems to deny any static truth or truths to be seen and seized in any scheme of knowledge. To him the dynamic flow the Heraclitian panta reei is the ultimate reality. It is precisely to this view of things that Bergson owes his conception of Intuition. Since existence is a continuum of Mind-Energy, the only way to know it is to be in harmony or unison with it, to move along its current. The conception of knowledge as a fixing and delimiting of things is necessarily an anomaly in this scheme. But the question is, is matter the only static and separative reality? Is the flux of vital Mind-Energy the ultimate truth?
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When we say one is conscious, we usually mean that one is conscious with the mental consciousness, with the rational intelligence, with the light of the brain. But this need not be always so. For one can be conscious with other forms of consciousness or in other planes of consciousness. In the average or normal man the consciousness is linked to or identified with the brain function, the rational intelligence and so we conclude that without this wakeful brain activity there can be no consciousness. But the fact is otherwise. The experiences of the mystic prove the point. The mystic is conscious on a level which we describe as higher than the mind and reason, he has what may be called the overhead consciousness. (Apart from the normal consciousness, which is named jagrat, waking, the Upanishad speaks of three other increasingly subtler states of consciousness, swapna, sushupti and turiya.)And then one can be quite unconscious, as in samadhi that can be sushupti or turiyaorpartially consciousin swapna, for example, the external behaviour may be like that of a child or a lunatic or even a goblin. One can also remain normally conscious and still be in the superconscience. Not only so, the mystic the Yogican be conscious on infraconscious levels also; that is to say, he can enter into and identify with the consciousness involved in life and even in Matter; he can feel and realise his oneness with the animal world, the plant world and finally the world of dead earth, of "stocks and stones" too. For all these strands of existence have each its own type of consciousness and all different from the mode of mind which is normally known as consciousness. When St. Francis addresses himself to the brother Sun or the sister Moon, or when the Upanishad speaks of the tree silhouetted against the sky, as if stilled in trance, we feel there is something of this fusion and identification of consciousness with an infra-conscient existence.
I said that the supreme artist is superconscious: his consciousness withdraws from the normal mental consciousness and becomes awake and alive in another order of consciousness. To that superior consciousness the artist's mentalityhis ideas and dispositions, his judgments and valuations and acquisitions, in other words, his normal psychological make-upserves as a channel, an instrument, a medium for transcription. Now, there are two stages, or rather two lines of activity in the processus, for they may be overlapping and practically simultaneous. First, there is the withdrawal and the in-gathering of consciousness and then its reappearance into expression. The consciousness retires into a secret or subtle worldWords-worth's "recollected in tranquillity"and comes back with the riches gathered or transmuted there. But the purity of the gold thus garnered and stalled in the artistry of words and sounds or lines and colours depends altogether upon the purity of the channel through which it has to pass. The mental vehicle receives and records and it can do so to perfection if it is perfectly in tune with what it has to receive and record; otherwise the transcription becomes mixed and blurred, a faint or confused echo, a poor show. The supreme creators are precisely those in whom the receptacle, the instrumental faculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute fidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety in the recording mentality, suffuses it with its own glow and puissance, indeed resolves it into its own substance, as it were. And the difference between the two, the secret norm and the recording form, determines the scale of the artist's creative value. It happens often that the obstruction of a too critically observant and self-conscious brain-mind successfully blocks up the flow of something supremely beautiful that wanted to come down and waited for an opportunity.
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The absolute passivity is attainable, perhaps, only by the Yogi. And in this sense the supreme poet is a Yogi, for in his consciousness the higher, deeper, subtler or other modes of experiences pass through and are recorded with the minimum aberration or diffraction.
But the Yogi is a wholly conscious being; a perfect Yogi is he who possesses a conscious and willed control over his instruments, he silences them, as and when he likes, and makes them convey and express with as little deviation as possible truths and realities from the Beyond. Now the question is, is it possible for the poet also to do something like that, to consciously create and not to be a mere unconscious or helpless channel? Conscious artistry, as we have said, means to be conscious on two levels of consciousness at the same time, to be at home in both equally and simultaneously. The general experience, however, is that of "one at a time": if the artist dwells more in the one, the other retires into the background to the same measure. If he is in the over-consciousness, he is only half-conscious in his brain consciousness, or even not conscious at allhe does not know how he has created, the sources or process of his creative activity, he is quite oblivious of them" gone through them all as if per saltum. Such seems to have been the case with the primitives, as they are called, the elemental poetsShakespeare and Homer and Valmiki. In some others, who come very near to them in poetic genius, yet not quite on a par, the instrumental intelligence is strong and active, it helps in its own way but in helping circumscribes and limits the original impulsion. The art here becomes consciously artistic, but loses something of the initial freshness and spontaneity: it gains in correctness, polish and elegance and has now a style in lieu of Nature's own naturalness. I am thinking of Virgil and Milton and Kalidasa. Dante's place is perhaps somewhere in between. Lower in the rung where the mental medium occupies a still more preponderant place we have intellectual poetry, poetry of the later classical age whose representatives are Pope and Dryden. We can go farther down and land in the domain of versificationalthough here, too, there can be a good amount of beauty in shape of ingenuity, cleverness and conceit: Voltaire and Delille are of this order in French poetry.
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Such a stage in human evolution, the advent of Homo Faber, has been a necessity; it has to serve a purpose and it has done admirably its work. Only we have to put it in its proper place. The salvation of an extremely self-conscious age lies in an exceeding and not in a further enhancement or an exclusive concentration of the self-consciousness, nor, of course, in a falling back into the original unconsciousness. It is this shift in the poise of consciousness that has been presaged and prepared by the conscious, the scientific artists of today. Their task is to forge an instrument for a type of poetic or artistic creation completely new, unfamiliar, almost revolutionary which the older mould would find it impossible to render adequately. The yearning of the human consciousness was not to rest satisfied with the familiar and the ordinary, the pressure was for the discovery of other strands, secret stores of truth and reality and beauty. The first discovery was that of the great Unconscious, the dark and mysterious and all-powerful subconscient. Many of our poets and artists have been influenced by this power, some even sought to enter into that region and become its denizens. But artistic inspiration is an emanation of Light; whatever may be the field of its play, it can have its origin only in the higher spheres, if it is to be truly beautiful and not merely curious and scientific.
That is what is wanted at present in the artistic world the true inspiration, the breath from higher altitudes. And here comes the role of the mystic, the Yogi. The sense of evolution, the march of human consciousness demands and prophesies that the future poet has to be a mysticin him will be fulfilled the travail of man's conscious working. The self-conscious craftsman, the tireless experimenter with his adventurous analytic mind has sharpened his instrument, made it supple and elastic, tempered, refined and enriched it; that is comparable to what we call the aspiration or call from below. Now the Grace must descend and fulfil. And when one rises into this higher consciousness beyond the brain and mind, when one lives there habitually, one knows the why and the how of things, one becomes a perfectly conscious operator and still retains all spontaneity and freshness and wonder and magic that are usually associated with inconscience and irreflection. As there is a spontaneity of instinct, there is likewise also a spontaneity of vision: a child is spontaneous in its movements, even so a seer. Not only so, the higher spontaneity is more spontaneous, for the higher consciousness means not only awareness but the free and untrammelled activity and expression of the truth and reality it is.
Genius had to be generally more or less unconscious in the past, because the instrument was not ready, was clogged as it were with its own lower grade movements; the higher inspiration had very often to bypass it, or rob it of its serviceable materials without its knowledge, in an almost clandestine way. Wherever it was awake and vigilant, we have seen it causing a diminution in the poetic potential. And yet even so, it was being prepared for a greater role, a higher destiny it is to fulfil in the future. A conscious and full participation of a refined and transparent and enriched instrument in the delivery of superconscious truth and beauty will surely mean not only a new but the very acme of aesthetic creation. We thus foresee the age of spiritual art in which the sense of creative beauty in man will find its culmination. Such an art was only an exception, something secondary or even tertiary, kept in the background, suggested here and there as a novel strain, called "mystic" to express its unfamiliar nature-unless, of course, it was openly and obviously scriptural and religious.
I have spoken of the source of inspiration as essentially and originally being a super-consciousness or over-consciousness. But to be more precise and accurate I should add another source, an inner consciousness. As the super-consciousness is imaged as lying above the normal consciousness, so the inner consciousness may be described as lying behind or within it. The movement of the inner consciousness has found expression more often and more largely than that of over-consciousness in the artistic creation of the past : and that was in keeping with the nature of the old-world inspiration, for the inspiration that comes from the inner consciousness, which can be considered as the lyrical inspiration, tends to be naturally more "spontaneous", less conscious, since it does not at all go by the path of the head, it evades that as much as possible and goes by the path of the heart.
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Like the modern scientist the artist or craftsman too of today has become a philosopher, even a mystic philosopher. The subtler and higher ranges of consciousness are now the object of inquiry and investigation and expression and revelation for the scientist as well as for the artist. The external sense-objects, the phenomenal movements are symbols and signposts, graphs and pointer-readings of facts and realities that lie hidden, behind or beyond. The artist and the scientist are occult alchemists. What to make of this, for example:
Beyond the shapes of empire, the capes of Carbonek, over
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Well, it is sheer incantation. It is word-weaving, rhythm plaiting, thought-wringing in order to pass beyond these frail materials, to get into contact with, to give some sense of the mystery of existence that passeth understanding. We are very far indeed from the "natural" poets, Homer or Shakespeare, Milton, or Virgil. And this is from a profane, a mundane poet, not an ostensibly religious or spiritual poet. The level of the poetic inspiration, at least of the poetic view and aspiration has evidently shifted to a higher, a deeper degree. We may be speaking of tins and tinsel, bones and dust, filth and misery, of the underworld of ignorance and ugliness,
All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
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Ifso long the poet was more or less a passive, a half-conscious or unconscious intermediary between the higher and the lower lights and delights, his role in the future will be better fulfilled when he becomes fully aware of it and consciously moulds and directs his creative energies. The poet is and has to be the harbinger and minstrel of unheard-of melodies: he is the fashioner of the creative word that brings down and embodies the deepest aspirations and experiences of the human consciousness. The poet is a missionary: he is missioned by Divine Beauty to radiate upon earth something of her charm and wizardry. The fullness of his role he can only play up when he is fully conscious for it is under that condition that all obstructing and obscuring elements lying across the path of inspiration can be completely and wholly eradicated: the instrument purified and tempered and transmuted can hold and express golden truths and beauties and puissances that otherwise escape the too human mould.
"The Last Voyage" by Charles Williams-A Little Book of Modern Verse, (Faber and Faber).
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Tagore is a great poet: he will be remembered as one of the I greatest world-poets. But humanity owes him anotherperhaps a greaterdebt of gratitude: his name has a higher value, a more significant potency for the future.
In an age when Reason was considered as the highest light given to man, Tagore pointed to the Vision of the mystics as always the still greater light; when man was elated with undreamt-of worldly success, puffed up with incomparable material possessions and powers, Tagore's voice rang clear and emphatic in tune with the cry of the ancients: "What shall I do with all this mass of things, if I am not made immortal by that?" When men, in their individual as well as collective egoism, were scrambling for earthly gains and hoards, he held before them vaster and cleaner horizons, higher and deeper ways of being and living, maintained the sacred sense of human solidarity, the living consciousness of the Divine, one and indivisible. When the Gospel of Power had all but hypnotised men's minds, and Superman or God-man came to be equated with the Titan, Tagore saw through the falsehood and placed in front and above all the old-world eternal verities of love and self-giving, harmony and mutuality, sweetness and light. When pessimism, cynicism, agnosticism struck the major chord of human temperament, and grief and frustration and death and decay were taken as a matter of course to be the inevitable order of earthlylifebhasmantam idam shariramhe continued to sing the song of the Rishis that Ananda and Immortality are the breath of things, the birth right of human beings. When Modernism declared with a certitude never tobe contested that Matter is Brahman, Tagore said with the voice of one who knows that Spirit is Brahman.
Tagore is in direct line with those bards who have sung of the Spirit, who always soared high above the falsehoods and uglinesses of a merely mundane life and lived in the undecaying delights and beauties of a diviner consciousness. Spiritual reality was the central theme of his poetic creation: only and naturally he viewed it in a special way and endowed it with a special grace. We know of another God-intoxicated man, the Jewish philosopher Spinoza, who saw things sub specie aeternitatis, under the figure or mode of eternity. Well, Tagore can be said to see things, in their essential spiritual reality, under the figure or mode of beauty. Keats indeed spoke of truth being beauty and beauty truth. But there is a great difference in the outlook and inner experience. A worshipper of beauty, unless he rises to the Upanishadic norm, is prone to become sensuous and pagan. Keats was that, Kalidasa was that, even Shelley was not far different. The spiritual vein in all these poets remains secondary. In the old Indian master, it is part of his intellectual equipment, no doubt, but nothing much more than that. In the other two it comes in as strange flashes from an unknown country, as a sort of irruption or on the peak of the poetic afflatus or enthousiasmos.
01.05 - The Nietzschean Antichrist, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nietzsche as the apostle of force is a name now familiar to all the world. The hero, the warrior who never tamely accepts suffering and submission and defeat under any condition but fights always and fights to conquersuch is the ideal man, according to Nietzsche,the champion of strength, of greatness, of mightiness. The dominating personality infused with the supreme "will to power"he is Ubermensch, the Superman. Sentiment does not move the mountains, emotion diffuses itself only in vague aspiration. The motive power, the creative fiat does not dwell in the heart but somewhere higher. The way of the Cross, the path of love and charity and pity does not lead to the kingdom of Heaven. The world has tried it for the last twenty centuries of its Christian civilisation and the result is that we are still living in a luxuriant abundance of misery and sordidness and littleness. This is how Nietzsche thinks and feels. He finds no virtue in the old rgimes and he revolts from them. He wants a speedy and radical remedy and teaches that by violence only the Kingdom of Heaven can be seized. For, to Nietzsche the world is only a clash of forces and the Superman therefore is one who is the embodiment of the greatest force. Nietzsche does not care for the good, it is the great that moves him. The good, the moral is of man, conventional and has only a fictitious value. The great, the non-moral is, on the other hand, divine. That only has a value of its own. The good is nothing but a sort of makeshift arrangement which man makes for himself in order to live commodiously and which changes according to his temperament. But the great is one with the Supreme Wisdom and is absolute and imperative. The good cannot create the great; it is the great that makes for the good. This is what he really means when he says, "They say that a good cause sanctifies war but I tell thee it is a good war that sanctifies all cause." For the goodness of your cause you judge by your personal predilections, by your false conventionalities, by a standard that you set up in your ignoranceBut a good war, the output of strength in any cause is in itself a cause of salvation. For thereby you are the champion of that ultimate verity which conduces to the ultimate good. Do not shrink, he would say, to be even like the cyclone and the avalanche, destructive, indeed, but grand and puissant and therefore truer emblems of the BeyondJenseitsthan the weak, the little, the pitiful that do not dare to destroy and by that very fact cannot hope to create.
This is the Nietzsche we all know. But there is another aspect of his which the world has yet been slow to recognise. For, at bottom, Nietzsche is not all storm and fury. If his Superman is a Destroying Angel, he is none the less an angel. If he is endowed with a supreme sense of strength and power, there is also secreted in the core of his heart a sense of the beautiful that illumines his somewhat sombre aspect. For although Nietzsche is by birth a Slavo-Teuton, by culture and education he is pre-eminently Hellenic. His earliest works are on the subject of Greek tragedy and form what he describes as an "Apollonian dream." And to this dream, to this Greek aesthetic sense more than to any thing else he sacrifices justice and pity and charity. To him the weak and the miserable, the sick and the maimed are a sort of blot, a kind of ulcer on the beautiful face of humanity. The herd that wallow in suffering and relish suffering disfigure the aspect of the world and should therefore be relentlessly mowed out of existence. By being pitiful to them we give our tacit assent to their persistence. And it is precisely because of this that Nietzsche has a horror of Christianity. For compassion gives indulgence to all the ugliness of the world and thus renders that ugliness a necessary and indispensable element of existence. To protect the weak, to sympathise with the lowly brings about more of weakness and more of lowliness. Nietzsche has an aristocratic taste par excellencewhat he aims at is health and vigour and beauty. But above all it is an aristocracy of the spirit, an aristocracy endowed with all the richness and beauty of the soul that Nietzsche wants to establish. The beggar of the street is the symbol of ugliness, of the poverty of the spirit. And the so-called aristocrat, die millionaire of today is as poor and ugly as any helpless leper. The soul of either of them is made of the same dirty, sickly stuff. The tattered rags, the crouching heart, the effeminate nerve, the unenlightened soul are the standing ugliness of the world and they have no place in the ideal, the perfect humanity. Humanity, according to Nietzsche, is made in order to be beautiful, to conceive the beautiful, to create the beautiful. Nietzsche's Superman has its perfect image in a Grecian statue of Zeus cut out in white marble-Olympian grandeur shedding in every lineament Apollonian beauty and Dionysian vigour.
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, what such an uncompromising individualism fails to recognise is that individuality and ego are not the same thing, that the individual may have his individuality intact and entire and yet sacrifice his ego, that the soul of man is a much greater thing than his vital being. It is simply ignoring the fact and denying the truth to say that man is only a fighting animal and not a loving god, that the self within the individual realises itself only through competition and not co-operation. It is an error to conceive of society as a mere parallelogram of forces, to suppose that it has risen simply out of the struggle of individual interests and continues to remain by that struggle. Struggle is only one aspect of the thing, a particular form at a particular stage, a temporary manifestation due to a particular system and a particular habit and training. It would be nearer the truth to say that society came into being with the demand of the individual soul to unite with the individual soul, with the stress of an Over-soul to express itself in a multitude of forms, diverse yet linked together and organised in perfect harmony. Only, the stress for union manifested itself first on the material plane as struggle: but this is meant to be corrected and transcended and is being continually corrected and transcended by a secret harmony, a real commonality and brotherhood and unity. The individual is not so self-centred as the individualists make him to be, his individuality has a much vaster orbit and fulfils itself only by fulfilling others. The scientists have begun to discover other instincts in man than those of struggle and competition; they now place at the origin of social grouping an instinct which they name the herd-instinct: but this is only a formulation in lower terms, a translation on the vital plane of a higher truth and reality the fundamental oneness and accord of individuals and their spiritual impulsion to unite.
However, individualism has given us a truth and a formula which collectivism ignored. Self-determination is a thing which has come to stay. Each and every individual is free, absolutely free and shall freely follow his own line of growth and development and fulfilment. No extraneous power shall choose and fix what is good or evil for him, nor coerce and exploit him for its own benefit. But that does not necessarily mean that collectivism has no truth in it; collectivism also, as much as individualism, has a lesson for us and we should see whether we can harmonise the two. Collectivism signifies that the individual should not look to himself alone, should not be shut up in his freedom but expand himself and envelop others in a wider freedom, see other creatures in himself and himself in other creatures, as the Gita says. Collectivism demands that the individual need not and should not exhaust himself entirely in securing and enjoying his personal freedom, but that he can and should work for the salvation of others; the truth it upholds is this that the individual is from a certain point of view only a part of the group and by ignoring the latter it ignores itself in the end.
Now, a spiritual communism embraces individualism and collectivism, fuses them in a higher truth, establishes them in an intimate and absolute harmony. The individual is the centre, the group is the circumference and the two form one whore circle. The individual by fulfilling the truth of his real individuality fulfils also the truth of a commonality. There are no different laws for the two. The individuals do not stand apart from and against one another, the dharma of one does not clash with the dharma of the other. The ripples in the bosom of the sea, however distinct and discrete in appearance, form but a single mass, all follow the same law of hydrodynamics that the mother sea incarnates. Stars and planets and nebulae, each separate heavenly body has its characteristic form and nature and function and yet all fulfil the same law of gravitation and beat the measure of the silent symphony of spaces. Individualities are the freedoms of the collective being and collectivity the concentration of individual beings. The same soul looking inward appears as the individual being and looking outward appears as the collective being.
Communism takes man not as ego or the vital creature; it turns him upside downurdhomulo' vaksakhah and establishes him upon his soul, his inner godhead. Thus established the individual soul finds and fulfils the divine law that by increasing itself it increases others and by increasing others it increases itself and thus by increasing one another they attain the supreme good. Unless man goes beyond himself and reaches this self, this godhead above, he will not find any real poise, will always swing between individualism and collectivism, he will remain always boundbound either in his freedom or in his bondage.
01.06 - Vivekananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"Man is higher than all animals, than all angels: none is greater than man. Even the Devas will have to come down again and attain to salvation though a human body. Man alone attains to perfection, not even the Devas." Indeed, men are gods upon earth, come down here below to perfect themselves and perfect the worldonly, they have to be conscious of themselves. They do not know what they are, they have to be actually and sovereignly what they are really and potentially. This then is the life-work of everyone:
"First, let us be Gods, and then help others to be Gods.
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The path to this higher harmonious divine life is that of
hard labour, of scrupulously untiring, conscientious work:
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One is not sure if such reasoning is convincing to the intellect; but perhaps it is a necessary stage in conversion. At least we can conclude that Pascal had to pass through such a stage; and it indicates the difficulty his brain had to undergo, the tension or even the torture he made it pass through. It is true, from Reason Pascal went over to Faith, even while giving Reason its due. Still it seems the two were not perfectly synthetised or fused in him. There was a gap between that was not thoroughly bridged. Pascal did not possess the higher, intuitive, luminous mind that mediates successfully between the physical discursive ratiocinative brain-mind and the vision of faith: it is because deep in his consciousness there lay this chasm. Indeed,Pascal's abyss (l' abme de Pascal) is a well-known legend. Pascal, it appears, used to have very often the vision of an abyss about to open before him and he shuddered at the prospect of falling into it. It seems to us to be an experience of the Infinity the Infinity to which he was so much attracted and of which he wrote so beautifully (L'infiniment grand et l'infiniment petit)but into which he could not evidently jump overboard unreservedly. This produced a dichotomy, a lack of integration of personality, Jung would say. Pascal's brain was cold, firm, almost rigid; his heart was volcanic, the faith he had was a fire: it lacked something of the pure light and burned with a lurid glare.
And the reason is his metaphysics. It is the Jansenist conception of God and human nature that inspired and coloured all his experience and consciousness. According to it, as according to the Calvinist conception, man is a corrupt being, corroded to the core, original sin has branded his very soul. Only Grace saves him and releases him. The order of sin and the order of Grace are distinct and disparate worlds and yet they complement each other and need each other. Greatness and misery are intertwined, united, unified with each other in him. Here is an echo of the Manichean position which also involves an abyss. But even then God's grace is not a free agent, as Jesuits declare; there is a predestination that guides and controls it. This was one of the main subjects he treated in his famous open letters (Les Provinciales) that brought him renown almost overnight. Eternal hell is a possible prospect that faces the Jansenist. That was why a Night always over-shadowed the Day in Pascal's soul.
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is this persuasion which, has led many spiritual souls, siddhas, to declare that theirs is not the kingdom upon this earth, but that the kingdom of Heaven is within. And it is why great lovers of humanity have sought not to eradicate but only to mitigate, as far as possible, the ills of life. Earth and life, it is said, contain in their last analysis certain ugly and loathsome realities which are an inevitable and inexorable part of their substance and to eliminate one means to annihilate the other. What can be done is to throw a veil over the nether regions in human nature, to put a ban on their urges and velleities and to create opportunities to make social arrangements so that the higher impulses only find free play while the lower impulses, for want of scope and indulgence, may fall down to a harmless level. This is what the Reformists hope and want and no more. Life is based upon animality, the soul is encased in an earth-sheathman needs must procreate, man needs must seek food. But what human effort can achieve is to set up barriers and limitations and form channels and openings, which will restrain these impulses, allow them a necessary modicum of play and which for the greater part will serve to encourage and enhance the nobler urges in man. Of course, there will remain always the possibility of the whole scaffolding coming down with a crash and the aboriginal in man running riot in his nudity. But we have to accept the chance and make the best of what materials we have in hand.
No doubt this is a most dismal kind of pessimism. But it is the logical conclusion of all optimism that bases itself upon a particular view of human nature. If we question that pessimism, we have to question the very grounds of our optimism also. As a matter of fact, all our idealism has been so long infructuous and will be so in the future, if we do not shift our foundation and start from a different IntuitionWeltanschauung.
--
This is the meaning of the Reformist's pessimism. So long as we remain within the domain of the triple nexus, we must always take account of an original sin, an aboriginal irredeemability in human nature. And it, is this fact which a too hasty optimistic idealism is apt to ignore. The point, however, is that man need not be necessarily bound to this triple chord of life. He can go beyond, transcend himself and find a reality which is the basis of even this lower poise of the mental and vital and physical. Only in order to get into that higher poise we must really transcend the lower, that is to say, we must not be satisfied with experiencing or envisaging it through the mind and heart but must directly commune with it, be it. There is a higher law that rules there, a power that is the truth-substance of even the vital and hence can remould it with a sovereign inevitability, according to a pattern which may not and is not the pattern of mental and emotional idealism, but the pattern of a supreme spiritual realism.
What then is required is a complete spiritual regeneration in man, a new structure of his soul and substancenot merely the realisation of the highest and supreme Truth in mental and emotional consciousness, but the translation and application of the law of that truth in the power of the vital. It is here that failed all the great spiritual or rather religious movements of the past. They were content with evoking the divine in the mental being, but left the vital becoming to be governed by the habitual un-divine or at the most to be just illumined by a distant and faint glow which served, however, more to distort than express the Divine.
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thirdly, there is the line of Sublimationit is when the natural impulse is neither repressed nor diverted but lifted up into a higher modality. The thing is given a new sense and a new value which serve to remove the stigma usually attached to it and thus allow its free indulgence. Instances of carnal love sublimated into spiritual union, of passion transmuted into devotion (Bhakti) are common enough to illustrate the point.
The human mind naturally, without any effort on its part, takes to one or more of these devices to control and conceal the aboriginal impulses. But this spontaneous process can be organised and consciously regulated and made to serve better the purpose and urge of Nature. And this is the beginning of yoga the conscious fulfilment of Nature. The Psycho-analysts have given us the first and elementary stage of this process of yoga. It is, we may say, the fourth line of control. With this man enters a new level of being, develops a new mode of life. It is when the automatism of Nature is replaced by the power of Conscious Control. Man is not here, a blind instrument of forces, his activities (both indulging and controlling) are not guided according to an ignorant submission to the laws of almost subconscious impulsions. Conscious control means that the mind does not fight shy of or seek to elude the aboriginal insistences, but allows them to come up freely, meets them squarely, recognises them and establishes an easy mastery over them.
--
This is the real meaning and sense of the moral struggle in man, the continuous endeavour towards a transvaluation of the primary and aboriginal instincts and impulses. Looked at from one end, from below up the ascending line, man's ethical and spiritual ideals are a dissimulation and sublimation of the animal impulsions. But this is becauseas we see, if we look from the other end, from above down the descending lineman is not all instinct, he is not a mere blind instrument in the hands of Nature forces. He has in him another source, an opposite pole of being from which other impulsions flow and continually modify the structure of the lower levels. If the animal is the foundation of his nature, the divine is its summit. If the bodily demands form his manifest reality, the demands of the spirit enshrine his higher reality. And if as regards the former he is a slave, as regards the latter he is the Master. It is by the interaction of these double forces that his whole nature has been and is being fashioned. Man does not and cannot give carte blanche to his vital, inclinations, since there is a pressure upon them of higher forces coming down from his mental and spiritual levels. It is these latter which have deviated him from the direct line of the pure animal life.
Thus then we may distinguish three types of control on three levels. First, the natural control, secondly the conscious, i.e. to say the mental the ethical and religious control, and thirdly the spiritual or divine control. Now the spirit is the ultimate truth and reality, behind the forces that act in the mind and in the body, so that the natural control and the ethical control are mere attempts to establish and realise the spiritual control. The animal impulses feel the hidden stress of the divine urges that are their real essence and thus there rises first an unconscious conflict in the natural life and then a conscious conflict in the higher ethical life. But when both of these are transcended and the conflict is carried on to a still higher level, then do we find their real significance and arrive at the consummation to which they move. Yoga is the ultimate transvaluation of physical (and of moral) values, it is the trans-substantiation of life-power into its spiritual substance.
***
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The ultimate truth is that God is the sole doer and the best we can do is to let him do freely without let or hindrance. "He that through Grace may see Jhesu, how that He doth all and himself doth right nought but suffereth Jhesu work in him what him liketh, he is meek." And yet one does not arrive at that condition from the beginning or all at once. "The work is not of the hour nor of a day, but of many days and years." And for a long time one has to take up one's burden and work, co-operate with the Divine working. In the process there is this double movement necessary for the full achievement. "Neither Grace only without full working of a soul that in it is nor working done without grace bringeth a soul to reforming but that one joined to that other." Mysticism is not all eccentricity and irrationality: on the contrary, sanity seems to be the very character of the higher mysticism. And it is this sanity, and even a happy sense of humour accompanying it, that makes the genuine mystic teacher say: "It is no mastery to me for to say it, but for to do it there is mastery." Amen.
Ascendimus ascensiones in corde et cantamus canticum graduum." Confessions of St. Augustine XIII. 9.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So the humanity of man consists in his consciousness of the self or ego. Is there no other higher mode of consciousness? Or is self-consciousness the acme, the utmost limit to which consciousness can raise itself? If it is so, then we are bound to conclude that humanity will remain eternally human in its fundamental nature; the only progress, if progress at all we choose to call it, will consist perhaps in accentuating this consciousness of the self and in expressing it through a greater variety of stresses, through a richer combination of its colour and light and shade and rhythm. But also, this may not be sothere may be the possibility of a further step, a transcending of the consciousness of the self. It seems unnatural and improbable that having risen from un-consciousness to self-consciousness through a series of continuous marches, Nature should suddenly stop and consider what she had achieved to be her final end. Has Nature become bankrupt of her creative genius, exhausted of her upward drive? Has she to remain content with only a clever manipulation, a mere shuffling and re-arranging of the materials already produced?
As a matter of fact it is not so. The glimpses of a higher form of consciousness we can see even now present in self-consciousness. We have spoken of the different stages of evolution as if they were separate and distinct and incommensurate entities. They may be described as such for the purpose of a logical understanding, but in reality they form a single progressive continuum in which one level gradually fuses into another. And as the higher level takes up the law of the lower and evolves out of it a characteristic function, even so the law of the higher level with its characteristic function is already involved and envisaged in the law of the lower level and its characteristic function. It cannot be asserted positively that because man's special virtue is self-consciousness, animals cannot have that quality on any account. We do see, if we care to observe closely and dispassionately, that animals of the higher order, as they approach the level of humanity, show more and more evident signs of something which is very much akin to, if not identical with the human characteristic of self-consciousness.
So, in man also, especially of that order which forms the crown of humanityin poets and artists and seers and great men of actioncan be observed a certain characteristic form of consciousness, which is something other than, greater than the consciousness of the mere self. It is difficult as yet to characterise definitely what that thing is. It is the awakening of the self to something which is beyond itselfit is the cosmic self, the oversoul, the universal being; it is God, it is Turiya, it is sachchidanandain so many ways the thing has been sought to be envisaged and expressed. The consciousness of that level has also a great variety of names given to it Intuition, Revelation, cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness. It is to be noted here, however, that the thing we are referring to, is not the Absolute, the Infinite, the One without a second. It is not, that is to say, the supreme Reality the Brahmanin its static being, in its undivided and indivisible unity; it is the dynamic Brahman, that status of the supreme Reality where creation, the diversity of Becoming takes rise, it is the Truth-worldRitam the domain of typal realities. The distinction is necessary, as there does seem to be such a level of consciousness intermediary, again, between man and the Absolute, between self-consciousness and the supreme consciousness. The simplest thing would be to give that intermediate level of consciousness a negative namesince being as yet human we cannot foresee exactly its composition and function the super-consciousness.
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Touching the very core of the malady of our age he says that our modern enlightenment seeks to cancel altogether the higher values and install instead the lower alone as true. Thus, for example, Marx and Freud, its twin arch priests, are brothers. Both declare that it is the lower, the under layer alone that matters: to one "the masses", to the other "the instincts". Their wild imperative roars: "Sweep away this pseudo- higher; let the instincts rule, let the pro-letariat dictate!" But more characteristic, Monsieur Thibon has made another discovery which gives the whole value and speciality to his outlook. He says the moderns stress the lower, no doubt; but the old world stressed only the higher and neglected the lower. Therefore the revolt and wrath of the lower, the rage of Revanche in the heart of the dispossessed in the modern world. Enlightenment meant till now the cultivation and embellishment of the Mind, the conscious Mind, the rational and nobler faculties, the height and the depth: and mankind meant the princes and the great ones. In the individual, in the scheme of his culture and education, the senses were neglected, left to go their own way as they pleased; and in the collective field, the toiling masses in the same way lived and moved as best as they could under the economics of laissez-faire. So Monsieur Thibon concludes: "Salvation has never come from below. To look for it from above only is equally vain. No doubt salvation must come from the higher, but on condition that the higher completely adopts and protects the lower." Here is a vision luminous and revealing, full of great import, if we follow the right track, prophetic of man's true destiny. It is through this infiltration of the higher into the lower and the integration of the lower into the higher that mankind will reach the goal of its evolution, both individually and collectively.
But the process, Monsieur Thibon rightly asserts, must begin with the individual and within the individual. Man must "turn within, feel alive within himself", re-establish his living contact with God, the source and origin from which he has cut himself off. Man must learn to subordinate having to being. Each individual must be himself, a free and spontaneous expression. Upon such individual , upon individuals grouped naturally in smaller collectivities and not upon unformed or ill-formed wholesale masses can a perfect human society be raised and will be raised. Monsieur Thibon insistsand very rightlyupon the variety and diversity of individual and local growths in a unified humanity and not a dead uniformity of regimented oneness. He declares, as the reviewer of the London Times succinctly puts it: "Let us abolish our insensate worship of number. Let us repeal the law of majorities. Let us work for the unity that draws together instead of idolizing the multiplicity that disintegrates. Let us understand that it is not enough for each to have a place; what matters is that each should be in his right place. For the atomized society let us substitute an organic society, one in which every man will be free to do what he alone is qualified and able to do."
So far so good. For it is not far enough. The being or becoming that is demanded in fulfilment of the divine advent in humanity must go to the very roots of life and nature, must seize God in his highest and sovereign status. No prejudice of the past, no notion of our mental habits must seek to impose its law. Thus, for example, in the matter of redeeming the senses by the influx of the higher light, our author seems to consider that the senses will remain more or less as they are, only they will be controlled, guided, used by the higher light. And he seems to think that even the sex relation (even the institution of marriage) may continue to remain, but sublimated, submitted to the laws of the higher Order. This, according to us, is a dangerous compromise and is simply the imposition of the lower law upon the higher. Our view of the total transformation and divinisation of the Lower is altogether different. The Highest must come down wholly and inhabit in the Lowest, the Lowest must give up altogether its own norms and lift itself into the substance and form too of the Highest.
Viewed in this light, Blake's memorable mantra attains a deeper and more momentous significance. For it is not merely Earth the senses and life and Matter that are to be uplifted and affianced to Heaven, but all that remains hidden within the bowels of the Earth, the subterranean regions of man's consciousness, the slimy viscous undergrowths, the darkest horrors and monstrosities that man and nature hide in their subconscient and inconscient dungeons of material existence, all these have to be laid bare to the solar gaze of Heaven, burnt or transmuted as demanded by the law of that Supreme Will. That is the Hell that has to be recognised, not rejected and thrown away, but taken up purified and transubstantiated into the body of Heaven itself. The hand of the Highest Heaven must extend and touch the Lowest of the lowest elements, transmute it and set it in its rightful place of honour. A mortal body reconstituted into an immemorial fossil, a lump of coal revivified into a flashing carat of diamond-that shows something of the process underlying the nuptials of which we are speaking.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
cannot last for long and soon you must turn to higher things.
16 October 1961
--
To know oneself, one must look at oneself with a higher
and deeper consciousness which can discern the true causes of
--
to subdue the lower mind and establish a connection with higher
forces or with deities. These Japas must be given by the Guru,
--
is replaced by an intuitive activity of a much higher kind.
25 May 1966
--
something higher than what one is; if one is a philanthropist,
one has an aspiration that mankind should become better, or
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
They devoted themselves to study in their boyhood, in youth they pursued the objects of life; when old they took to spiritual austerities, and in the end they died united with the higher consciousness.
Only this process of integration was not done in a day, it took some centuries and had to pass through some unpleasant intermediary stages.
--
Nature, on the whole, has solved the problem of blood fusion and mental fusion of different peoples, although on a smaller scale. India today presents the problem on a larger scale and on a higher or deeper level. The demand is for a spiritual fusion and unity. Strange to say, although the Spirit is the true bed-rock of unitysince, at bottom, it means identityit is on this plane that mankind has not yet been able to really meet and coalesce. India's genius has been precisely working in the line of a perfect solution of this supreme problem.
Islam comes with a full-fledged spiritual soul and a mental and vital formation commensurable with that inner being and consciousness. It comes with a dynamic spirit, a warrior mood, that aims at conquering the physical world for the Lord, a temperament which Indian spirituality had not, or had lost long before, if she had anything of it. This was, perhaps, what Vivekananda meant when he spoke graphically of a Hindu soul with a Muslim body. The Islamic dispensation, however, brings with it not only something complementary, but also something contradictory, if not for anything else, at least for the strong individuality which does not easily yield to assimilation. Still, in spite of great odds, the process of assimilation was going on slowly and surely. But of late it appears to have come to a dead halt; difficulties have been presented which seem insuperable.
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One view considers Evil as coeval with Good: the Prince of Evil is God's peer, equal to him in all ways, absolutely separate, independent and self-existent. Light and Darkness are eternal principles living side by side, possessing equal reality. For, although it is permissible to the individual to pass out of the Darkness and enter into Light, the Darkness itself does not disappear: it remains and maintains its domain, and even it is said that some human beings are meant eternally for this domain. That is the Manichean principle and that also is fundamentally the dualistic conception of chit-achit in some Indian systems (although the principle of chit or light is usually given a higher position and priority of excellence).
The Christian too accepts the dual principle, but does not give equal status to the two. Satan is there, an eternal reality: it is anti-God, it seeks to oppose God, frustrate his work. It is the great tempter whose task it is to persuade, to inspire man to remain always an earthly creature and never turn to know or live in God. Now the crucial question that arises is, what is the necessity of this Antagonist in God's scheme of creation? What is the meaning of this struggle and battle? God could have created, if he had chosen, a world without Evil. The orthodox Christi an answer is that in that case one could not have fully appreciated the true value and glory of God's presence. It is to manifest and proclaim the great victory that the strife and combat has been arranged in which Man triumphs in the end and God's work stands vindicated. The place of Satan is always Hell, but he cannot drag down a soul into his pit to hold it there eternally (although according to one doctrine there are or may be certain eternally damned souls).
--
The angels weave the symphony that is creation. They represent the various notes and rhythmsin their higher and purer degrees that make up the grand harmony of the spheres. It is magnificent, this music that moves the cosmos, and wonderful the glory of God manifest therein. But is it absolutely perfect? Is there nowhere any flaw in it? There is a doubting voice that enters a dissenting note. That is Satan, the Antagonist, the Evil One. Man is the weakest link in the chain of the apparently all-perfect harmony. And Satan boldly proposes to snap it if God only let him do so. He can prove to God that the true nature of his creation is not cosmos but chaos not a harmony in peace and light, but a confusion, a Walpurgis Night. God acquiesces in the play of this apparent breach and proves in the end that it is part of a wider scheme, a vaster harmony. Evil is rounded off by Grace.
The total eradication of Evil from the world and human nature and the remoulding of a terrestrial life in the substance and pattern of the Highest Good that is beyond all dualities is a conception which it was not for Goe the to envisage. In the order of reality or existence, first there is the consciousness of division, of trenchant separation in which Good is equated with not-evil and evil with not-good. This is the outlook of individualised consciousness. Next, as the consciousness grows and envelops the whole existence, good and evil are both embraced and are found to form a secret and magic harmony. That is the universal or cosmic consciousness. And Goethe's genius seems to be an outflowering of something of this status of consciousness. But there is still a higher status, the status of transcendence in which evil is not simply embraced but dissolved and even transmuted into a supreme reality of which it is an aberration, a reflection or projection, a lower formulation. That is the mystery of a spiritual realisation to which Goe the aspired perhaps, but had not the necessary initiation to enter into.
***
01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is required is not therefore an external delimitation of frontiers between unit and unit, but an inner outlook of nature and a poise of character. And this can be cultivated and brought into action by learning to live by the sense of duty. Even then, even the sense of duty, we have to admit, is not enough. For if it leads or is capable of leading into an aberration, we must have something else to check and control it, some other higher and more potent principle. Indeed, both the conceptions of Duty and Right belong to the domain of mental ideal, although one is usually more aggressive and militant (Rajasic) and the other tends to be more tolerant and considerate (sattwic): neither can give an absolute certainty of poise, a clear guarantee of perfect harmony.
Indian wisdom has found this other, a fairer terma tertium quid,the mystic factor, sought for by so many philosophers on so many counts. That is the very well- known, the very familiar termDharma. What is Dharma then? How does it accomplish the miracle which to others seems to have proved an impossibility? Dharma is self-law, that is to say, the law of the Self; it is the rhythm and movement of our inner or inmost being, the spontaneous working out of our truth-conscious nature.
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There must be a beginning, an affirmation. The other side of nature is not merely transcended and excluded, it must be taken up too, given some place, its proper place in the totality, in the higher synthesis:
So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna
--
Now, a modern poet is modern, because he is doubly attracted and attached to things of this world and this mundane life, in spite of all his need and urge to go beyond for the larger truth and the higher reality. Apart from the natural link with which we are born, there is this other fascination which the poor miserable things, all the little superficialities, trivialities especially have for the modern mind in view of their possible sense and significance and right of existence. These too have a magic of their own, not merely a black magic:
..... our losses, the torn seine,
--
Nothing can be clearer with regard to the ultimate end the poet has in view. Listen once more to the hymn of the higher reconciliation:
The dance along the artery
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All teachers journeyed to the mountains. The higher knowledge, the most inspired songs, the most superb sounds and colours are created in the mountains. On the highest mountains there is the Supreme: the highest mountains stand as witnesses of Great Reality.
Indeed, Roerich considers the Himalayas as the very abode, the tabernacle itself thesanctum sanctorumof the Spirit, the Light Divine. Many of Roerich's paintings have mountain ranges, especially snow-bound mountain ranges, as their theme. There is a strange kinship between this yearning artistic soul, which seems solitary in spite of its ardent humanism, and the silent heights, rising white tier upon tier reflecting prism like the fiery glowing colours, the vast horizons, the wide vistas vanishing beyond.
Roerich is one of the prophets and seers who have ever been acclaiming and preparing the Golden Age, the dream that humanity has been dreaming continuously since its very childhood, that is to say, when there will be peace and harmony on earth, when racial, cultural or ideological egoism will no longer divide man and mana thing that seems today a chimera and a hallucinationwhen there will be one culture, one civilisation, one spiritual life welding all humanity into a single unit of life luminous and beautiful. Roerich believes that such a consummation can arrive only or chiefly through the growth of the sense of beauty, of the aesthetic temperament, of creative labour leading to a wider and higher consciousness. Beauty, Harmony, Light, Knowledge, Culture, Love, Delight are cardinal terms in his vision of the deeper and higher life of the future.
The stress of the inner urge to the heights and depths of spiritual values and realities found special and significant expression in his paintings. It is a difficult problem, a problem which artists and poets are tackling today with all their skill and talent. Man's consciousness is no longer satisfied with the customary and the ordinary actions and reactions of life (or thought), with the old-world and time-worn modes and manners. It is no more turned to the apparent and the obvious, to the surface forms and movements of things. It yearns to look behind and beyond, for the secret mechanism, the hidden agency that really drives things. Poets and artists are the vanguards of the age to come, prophets and pioneers preparing the way for the Lord.
--
A Russian artist (Monsieur Benois) has stressed upon the primitivealmost aboriginalelement in Roerich and was not happy over it. Well, as has been pointed out by other prophets and thinkers, man today happens to be so sophisticated, artificial, material, cerebral that a [all-back seems to be necessary for him to take a new leap forward on to a higher ground. The pure aesthete is a closed system, with a consciousness immured in an ivory tower; but man is something more. A curious paradox. Man can reach the highest, realise the integral truth when he takes his leap, not from the relatively higher levels of his consciousness his intellectual and aesthetic and even moral status but when he can do so from his lower levels, when the physico-vital element in him serves as the springing-board. The decent and the beautiful the classic grace and aristocracyform one aspect of man, the aspect of "light"; but the aspect of energy and power lies precisely in him where the aboriginal and the barbarian find also a lodging. Man as a mental being is naturally sattwic, but prone to passivity and weakness; his physico-vital reactions, on the other hand, are obscure and crude, simple and vehement, but they have life and energy and creative power, they are there to be trained and transfigured, made effective instruments of a higher illumination.
All elemental personalities have something of the unconventional and irrational in them. And Roerich is one such in his own way. The truths and realities that he envisages and seeks to realise on earth are elemental and fundamental, although apparently simple and commonplace.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"In the spiritual order of things, the higher we project our view and our aspiration,
the greater the Truth that seeks to descend upon us, because it is already there within us
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Knowledge and intelligence are precisely the higher mental qualities in man, those that differentiate him from the animal.
Series Twelve - To a Student
0.13 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
a far higher consciousness, the consciousness that will act fully
in the superman; and that is why this consciousness has come
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
contrary be sublimated and used for progress and higher development so as to prepare the coming of the new race. But first, the
vital and the physical have to be free of all desire - otherwise
0 1955-09-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother suddenly everything seems to have crystallizedall the little revolts, the little tensions, the ill will and petty vital demandsforming a single block of open, determined resistance. I have become conscious that from the beginning of my sadhana, the mind has led the gamewith the psychic behind and has held me in leash, helped muzzle all contrary movements, but at no time, or only rarely, has the vital submitted or opened to the higher influence. The rare times when the vital participated, I felt a great progress. But now, I find myself in front of this solid mass that says No and is not at all convinced of what the mind has been imposing upon it for almost two years now.
Mother, I am sufficiently awakened not to rebel against your Light and to understand that the vital is but one part of my being, but I have come to the conclusion that the only way of convincing this vital is not to force or stifle it, but to let it go through its own experience so it may understand by itself that it cannot be satisfied in this way. I feel the need to leave the Ashram for a while to see how I can get along away from here and to realize, no doubt, that one can really brea the only here.
0 1956-03-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But the age of Communism, too, will pass. For Communism as it is preached is not constructive, it is a weapon to combat plutocracy. But when the battle is over and the armies are disbanded for want of employment, then Communism, having no more utility, will be transformed into something else that will express a higher truth.
We know this truth, and we are working for it so that it may reign upon earth.
0 1956-05-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Those who are ready within, who are open and in touch with the higher forces, those who have had a more or less direct personal contact with the Supramental Light and Consciousness, are capable of feeling the difference in the earth atmosphere.
But for this only like can know like. Only the Supramental Consciousness in an individual can perceive the Supramental acting in the earth atmosphere. Those who, for whatever reason, have developed this perception can see it. But those who are not even remotely conscious of their inner beings, who would be quite at a loss to say what their souls look like, are certainly not ready to perceive the difference in the earth atmosphere. They still have quite a way to go for that. Because, for those whose consciousness is more or less exclusively centered in the outer beingmental, vital and physicalthings need to have an absurd or unexpected appearance to be noticeable. And then they call it a miracle.
0 1957-10-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
During the flu epidemic, for example, I spent every day in the midst of people who were germ carriers. And one day, I clearly felt that the body had decided not to catch this flu. It asserted its autonomy. You see, it was not a question of the higher Will deciding, no. It didnt take place in the highest consciousness: the body itself decided. When you are way above in your consciousness, you see things, you know things; but in actual fact, once you descend again into matter, it is like water running through sand. In this respect, things have changed, the body has a DIRECT power, independent of any outer intervention. Even though it is barely visible, I consider this to be a very important result.
And this new vibration in the body has allowed me to understand the mechanism of the transformation. It is not something that comes from a higher Will, not a higher consciousness that imposes itself upon the body: it is the body itself awakening in its cells, a freedom of the cells themselves, an absolutely new vibration that sets disorders righteven disorders that existed prior to the supramental manifestation.
Naturally, all this is a gradual process, but I am hopeful that little by little this new consciousness will grow, gain ground and victoriously resist the old forces of destruction and annihilation, and this Fatality we believed to be so inexorable.
0 1957-12-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Humility, a perfect humility, is the condition for all realization. The mind is so cocksure. It thinks it knows everything, understands everything. And if ever it acts through idealism to serve a cause that appears noble to it, it becomes even more arrogant more intransigent, and it is almost impossible to make it see that there might be something still higher beyond its noble conceptions and its great altruistic or other ideals. Humility is the only remedy. I am not speaking of humility as conceived by certain religions, with this God that belittles his creatures and only likes to see them down on their knees. When I was a child, this kind of humility revolted me, and I refused to believe in a God that wants to belittle his creatures. I dont mean that kind of humility, but rather the recognition that one does not know, that one knows nothing, and that there may be something beyond what presently appears to us as the truest, the most noble or disinterested. True humility consists in constantly referring oneself to the Lord, in placing all before Him. When I receive a blow (and there are quite a few of them in my sadhana), my immediate, spontaneous reaction, like a spring, is to throw myself before Him and to say, Thou, Lord. Without this humility, I would never have been able to realize anything. And I say I only to make myself understood, but in fact I means the Lord through this body, his instrument. When you begin living THIS kind of humility, it means you are drawing nearer to the realization. It is the condition, the starting point.
***
0 1958-02-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The only thing in the world that still appears intolerable to me now is all physical deterioration, physical suffering, the ugliness the powerlessness to express this capacity of beauty inherent in every being. But this, too, will be conquered one day. Here, too the power will come one day to shift the needle a little. Only, one has to climb higher in consciousness: the deeper into matter you want to descend, the higher must you ascend in consciousness.
It will take time. Sri Aurobindo was surely right when he spoke of a few centuries.
0 1958-03-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
On the way, I stopped at J and Es place. They are living like native fishermen, in loincloths, in a coconut grove by the sea. The place is exceedingly beautiful, and the sea full of rainbow-hued coral. And suddenly, within twenty-four hours, I realized an old dreamor rather, I purged myself of an old and tenacious dream: that of living on a Pacific island as a simple fisherman. And all at once, I saw, in a flash, that this kind of life totally lacks a center. You float in a nowhere. It plunges you into some kind of higher inertia, an illumined inertia, and you lose all true substance.
As for me, I am totally out of my element in this new life, as though I were uprooted from myself. I am living in the temple, in the midst of pujas,1 with white ashes on my forehead, barefoot dressed like a Hindu, sleeping on cement at night, eating impossible curries, with some good sunburns to complete the cooking. And there I am, clinging to you, for if you were not there I would collapse, so absurd would it all be. You are the only realityhow many times have I repeated this to myself, like a litany! Apart from this, I am holding up quite well physically. But inside and outside, nothing is left but you. I need you, thats all. Mother, this world is so horrifyingly empty. I really feel that I would evaporate if you werent there. Well, no doubt I had to go through this experience Perhaps I will be able to extract some book from it that will be of use to you. We are like children who need a lot of pictures in order to understand, and a few good kicks to realize our complete stupidity.
0 1958-05-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
but it is so deeply rooted: all the reactions of the body-consciousness are like that, with a kind of shrinking at the idea of allowing a higher power to intervene.
(silence)
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was in 1910 that I had this sort of reversal of consciousness about which I spoke the other evening that is, the first contact with the higher Divine and it completely changed my life.
From that moment on, I was conscious that all one does is the expression of the indwelling Divine Will. But it is the Divine Will AT THE VERY CENTER of oneself, although for a while there remained an activity in the physical mind. But this was stilled two or three days after I saw Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1914, and it never started up again. Silence settled. And the consciousness was established above the head.
0 1958-07-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But isnt a dog more conscious, more evolved than a tiger, or higher in the spiral that is, nearer the Divine?
Its not a question of being conscious. There is no doubt that man is more evolved than the tiger, but the tiger is more divine than man. One shouldnt confuse things. These are two entirely different things.
--
It is an ascending curve, but a curve that swerves away from the Divine. So naturally, one has to climb much higher to find a higher Divine, since it is a conscious Divine, whereas the others are divine spontaneously and instinctively, without being conscious of it. All our moral notions of good and evil, all of that, are what we have thrown over the creation with our distorted and perverted consciousness. It is we who have invented it.
We are the distorting intermediary between the purity of the animal and the divine purity of the gods.
0 1958-08-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The gods are faultless, for they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint; it is their godly way. But if one looks at it from a higher point of view, if one has a higher vision, a vision of the whole, they have fewer qualities than man. In this film, it was proved that through their capacity for love and self-giving, men can have as much power as the gods, and even morewhen they are not egoists, when they can overcome their egoism.
Certainly man is nearer the Supreme than the gods. Provided he fulfills the necessary conditions, he can be nearerhe isnt so automatically, but he can be, he has the power, the potentiality to be.
0 1958-09-16 - OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It rose up from here (Mother indicates the solar plexus), like this: Om Namo Bhagavateh OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH. It was formidable. For the entire quarter of an hour that the meditation lasted, everything was filled with Light! In the deeper tones it was of golden bronze (at the throat level it was almost red) and in the higher tones it was a kind of opaline white light: OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH.
The other day (I was in my bathroom upstairs), it came; it took hold of the entire body. It rose up in the same way, and all the cells were trembling. And with such a power! So I stopped everything, all movement, and I let the thing grow. The vibration went on expanding, ever widening, as the sound itself was expanding, expanding, and all the cells of the body were seized with an intensity of aspiration as if the entire body were swellingit became overwhelming. I felt that it would all burst.
--
Each time this music is played, it produces exactly the same effect upon the body. It is strange, as if all the cells were dilating, with a feeling that the body is growing larger It becomes all dilated, as if swollen with lightwith force, a lot of force. And this music seems to form spirals, like luminous ribbons of incense smoke, white (not transparent, literally white) and they rise up and up. I always see the same thing; it begins in the form of a vase, then swells like an amphora and converges higher up to blossom forth like a flower.
So for these mantras, everything depends upon what you want to do with them. I am in favor of a short mantra, especially if you want to make both numerous and spontaneous repetitionsone or two words, three at most. Because you must be able to use them in all cases, when an accident is about to happen, for example. It has to spring up without thinking, without calling: it should issue forth from the being spontaneously, like a reflex, exactly like a reflex. Then the mantra has its full force.
0 1958-10-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For example, this question of PowerTHE Powerover Matter. Those who perceive me as the eternal, universal Mother and Sri Aurobindo as the Avatar are surprised that our power is not absolute. They are surprised that we have not merely to say, Let it be thus for it to be thus. This is because, in the integral realization, the union of the two is essential: a union of the power that proceeds from the eternal position and the power that proceeds from the sadhana through evolutionary growth. Similarly, how is it that those who have reached even the summits of yogic knowledge (I was thinking of Swami) need to resort to beings like gods or demigods to be able to realize things?Because they have indeed united with certain higher forces and entities, but it was not decreed since the beginning of time that they were this particular being. They were not born as this or that, but through evolution they united with a latent possibility in themselves. Each one carries the Eternal within himself, but one can join Him only when one has realized the complete union of the latent Eternal with the eternal Eternal.
And this explains everything, absolutely everything: how it works, how it functions in the world.3 I was saying to myself, But I have no powers, I have no powers! Several days ago, I said, But after all, I KNOW WHO is there, I know, yet how is it that ? There, up to there (the level of the head), it is all-powerful, nothing can resist but here it is ineffective. So those who have faith, even an ignorant but real faith (it can be ignorant but nevertheless it is real), say, What! How can you have no powers? Because the sadhana is not yet over.
0 1958-10-25 - to go out of your body, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
They do pujas to all these forces or divinities, but it is not it is not the highest Truth. What Sri Aurobindo called the true surrender, the surrender to the Supreme, is a truth higher than that of relying solely upon oneself.
And that is what always brings in complications, conflicts. I was surprised that the atmosphere [of the Ashram] is filled with conflict when he is here but that is the reason.2
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
All these regions, all these realms are filled with beings who exist separately in their own realms, and if you are awake and conscious on a given plane for example, if while going out of a more material body you awaken on some higher planeyou can have the same relationship with the things and people of that plane as with the things and people of the material world. In other words, there exists an entirely objective relationship that has nothing to do with your own idea of things. Naturally, the resemblance becomes greater and greater as you draw nearer the physical world, the material world, and there is even a moment when one region can act directly upon the other. In any case, in what Sri Aurobindo calls the kingdoms of the overmind, you find a concrete reality entirely independent of your personal experience; whenever you come back to it, you again find the same things, with some differences that may have occurred DURING YOUR ABSENCE. And your relationships with the beings there are identical to those you have with physical beings, except that they are more flexible, more supple and more direct (for example, there is a capacity to change the outer form, the visible form, according to your inner state), but you can make an appointment with someone, come to the meeting and again find the same being, with only certain differences that may have occurred during your absence but it is absolutely concrete, with absolutely concrete results.
However, you must have at least a little experience of these things to understand them. Otherwise, if you are convinced that all this is just human fancy or mental formations, if you believe that these gods have such and such a form because men have imagined them to be like that, or that they have such and such defects or qualities because men have envisioned it that wayas with all those who say God is created in the image of man and exists only in human thoughtall such people wont understand, it will seem absolutely ridiculous to them, a kind of madness. You must live a little, touch the subject a little to know how concrete it is.
0 1958-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Yes, it was not a willed experience, for I had not decided I would do this. It did not correspond to an inner attitude. In a meditation, one can decide, I will meditate on this or on that or on something else I will do this or that. For meditations, I usually have a kind of inner (or higher) perception of what has to be done, and I do it. But it was not that way. I had decided: nothing, to decide nothing, to be like that (gesture of turning upwards).
And then it happened.
0 1958-11-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There is no preliminary thought, preliminary knowledge, preliminary will: all those things do not exist. I am only like a mirror receiving the experience, the simplicity of a little child learning life. It is like that. And it is the gift of the Grace, truly the Grace: in the face of the experience, the simplicity of a little child just born. And it is spontaneously so, but deliberately too; in other words, during the experience I am very careful not to watch myself having the experience so that no previous knowledge intervenes. Only afterwards do I see. It is not a mental construction, nor does it come from something higher than the mind (it is not even a knowledge by identity that makes me see things); no, the body (when the experience is in the body) is like that, what in English is called blank. As if it had just been born, as if just then it were being born with the experience.
And only little by little, little by little, is this experience put in the presence of any previous knowledge. Thus, its explanation and its evaluation come about progressively.
0 1958-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was said in the ancient traditions that one could not live for more than twenty days in this higher state without leaving ones body and returning to the supreme Origin. Now this is no longer true.
It is precisely this state of perfect Harmony beyond all attacks that will become possible with the supramental realization. It is what all those who are destined for the supramental transformation will realize. The hostile forces know it well; in the supramental world, they will automatically disappear. Having no more utility, they will be dissolved without our having to do anything, simply through the presence of the supramental force. So now they are being unleashed with a fury in a negation of everything, everything.
--
Not only in our state of adoration and surrender to the Supreme, but even in our state of identification, the QUALITY of the identification is different depending upon whether we are on this side, progressing in this hemisphere, or have passed to the other side and have emerged into the other world, the other hemisphere, the higher hemisphere.
The quality or the kind of relationship I had with the Supreme at that moment was entirely different from the one we have hereeven the identification had a different quality. One can very well understand that all the lower movements are different but this identification by which the Supreme governs and lives in us was the summit of our experience herewell, the way He governs and lives is different depending on whether we are in this hemisphere here or in the supramental life. And at that moment (the experience of November 13), what made the experience so intense was that I came to perceive vaguely both these states of consciousness at once. It was almost as if the Supreme Himself were different, or our experience of Him. And yet, in both cases, it was a contact with the Supreme. It is probably how we perceive Him or the way in which we translate it that differs, but the fact is that the quality of the experience is different.
--
The quality of the consciousness itself seems to change. It is not something higher than the summit we can attain here, it is not one MORE rung, not that. Here, we have reached the end, the summit, but its the quality that is different. The quality, in the sense that a fullness, a richness, a power is there (this is a translation, you see, in our way), but there is a something that that eludes us. It is truly a new reversal of consciousness.
When we begin living the spiritual life, a reversal of consciousness takes place which for us is the proof that we have entered the spiritual life; well, yet another occurs when we enter the supramental world.
--
But as long as this is not an accomplished fact, it will still be a progressiona progression, an ascension; you gain a little, you gain some ground, you rise higher and higher. But as long as the new reversal has not taken place, its as if everything had still to be done. It is a repetition of the experience below, reproduced above.
(silence)
0 1958-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As soon as you had left, and since I was following you, I saw that nothing of the kind was going to happen, but rather something very superficial which would not be of much use. And when I received your letters and saw that you were in difficulty, I did something. There are places that are favorable for occult experiences. Benares is one of these places, the atmosphere there is filled with vibrations of occult forces, and if one has the slightest capacity, it spontaneously develops there, in the same way that a spiritual aspiration develops very strongly and spontaneously as soon as one lands in India. These are Graces. Graces, because it is the destiny of the country, it has been so throughout its history, and because India has always been turned much more towards the heights and the inner depths than towards the outer world. Now, it is in the process of losing all that and wallowing in the mud, but thats another story it was like that and it is still like that. And in fact, when you returned from Rameswaram with your robes, I saw with much satisfaction that there was still a GREAT dignity and a GREAT sincerity in this endeavor of the Sannyasis towards the higher life and in the self-giving of a certain number of people to realize this higher life. When you returned, it had become a very concrete and a very real thing that immediately commanded respect. Before, I had seen only a copy, an imitation, an hypocrisy, a pretentionnothing that was really lived. But then, I saw that it was true, that it was lived, that it was real and that it was still Indias great heritage. I dont believe it is very prevalent now, but in any case, it is still there, and as I told you, it commands respect. And then, as I felt you in difficulty and as the outer conditions were not only veiling but spoiling the inner, well, on that day I wrote you a short note I no longer recall when it was exactly, but I wrote you just a word or two, which I put in an envelope and sent you I concentrated very strongly upon those few words and sent you something. I didnt note the date, I dont remember when it was, but its likely that it happened as I wished when you were in Benares; and then you had this experience.
But when you returned the second time, from the Himalayas, you didnt have the same flame as when you returned the first time. And I understood that this kind of difficult karma still clung to you, that it had not been dissolved. I had hoped that your contact with the mountains but in a true solitude (I dont mean that your body had to be all alone, but there should not have been all kinds of outer, superficial things) Anyway, it didnt happen. So it means that the time had not come.
0 1958-12-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But you have enough to do with the higher beasts of prey without still having to fight the little scorpions. I beg of you, Sweet Mother, accept the help that is being offered to you, preserve your strength for the higher struggle. I quite understand that your Love can even go to the scorpions that are attacking you, but it is not forbidden to protect yourself from their venom. You have enough to do on other planes.
X is at the summit of tantric initiation, and his power is not the fruit of a simple knowledge. He holds it directly from the Divine, and these things have been in his family traditionally from ten generations. No black magic can resist his power. His action is not brutal, he does not mechanically apply formulas, he holds this Science and knows how to apply it like an expert chemist, always in Light, Love and sweetness. If you agree that he come to see you, he will immediately know the source of these attacks upon you and will even be able to make the attacking force speak. He has this power. Of course, neither X nor Swami will divulge this to anyone, and everything will be kept secret. You have only to send word, or a telegram: No objection.
0 1960-03-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But what is surprising is that in a flash, no one was there any longer. No one, you understand I was gone. Perhaps I was everywhere (but in fact I am always everywhere, I am always conscious of being everywhere at the same time), though normally there is the sense of the body, a physical center, but that evening there was no more center! Nothing, no one, not even the sense that there was no onenothing. I was gone. There was indeed something handing out the medals which felt the joy of giving the medal, the joy of receiving it, the joy of mutually looking at each other. It was simply the joy of the action taking place, the joy of looking, this joy everywhere, but me?Nothing, no one, gone. Only later, afterwards, did I see what had happened, for everything had disappeared, even the higher mind that understands and organizes things (by understand I mean contain, which contains things). That also was gone. And this lasted the entire distribution. Only when that [the body] had gone back upstairs to the room did the consciousness of what is me return.
There is a line by Sri Aurobindo in Savitri which expresses this very well: to annul oneself so that only the Supreme Lord may be.
0 1960-05-24 - supramental flood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And of course, the whole ordinary and higher mind (as well as the physical mind, it goes without saying, for that must be abolished before going into trance), everything here in the head, above the head, around the headabsolutely immobile.
After all that, towards the end of the night, at two in the morning, only a kind of faint suggestion was left: How can this statewhich I knew in trance, in samadhi, and which necessitates lying downbecome constant in a physical body which moves about? There is something to discover there. And what form will it take? For in my consciousness, you see, it is constantly like that, this universal flood, but the problem is IN THE BODY: its the problem of the Force in its most material form.
0 1960-07-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Although it is still in a region of the physical mind, it is a mind striving towards a luminous organization and clearly aspiring to rise towards the higher realms.
And last night especially I had a very positive impression (a sort of feeling) that I can count on you.
0 1960-07-26 - Mothers vision - looking up words in the subconscient, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its very simple, actually; its a convention, a conventional construction somewhere in the subconscious brain, and you write automatically. But if you want to try to bring the light of a slightly higher reason into it, its terrible. It becomes meaningless, and you forget everything.
You have to be inside this automatic convention to remember; its very difficult (Mother laughs). So I make a lot of spelling mistakes (under her breath, in a mischievous tone) I think Ill ask him for his dictionary (laughter)!
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Especially at the beginning, Sri Aurobindo used to shatter to pieces all moral ideas (you know, as in the Aphorisms, for example). He shattered all those things, he shattered them, really shattered them to pieces. So theres a whole group of youngsters7 here who were brought up with this idea that we can do whatever we want, it doesnt matter in the least!that they need not bother about all those concepts of ordinary morality. Ive had a hard time making them understand that this morality can be abandoned only for a higher one So, one has to be careful not to give them the Power too soon.
Its an almost physical discipline. Moreover, I have seen that the japa has an organizing effect on the subconscient, on the inconscient, on matter, on the bodys cellsit takes time, but by persistently repeating it, in the long run it has an effect. It is the same principle as doing daily exercises on the piano, for example. You keep mechanically repeating them, and in the end your hands are filled with consciousness it fills the body with consciousness.
0 1961-01-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, I am disrupting their work I know perfectly well that I am disrupting their domination of the world! All these vital beings have taken possession of the whole of Matter (Mother touches her body)life and action and have made it their domain, this is evident. But they are beings of the lower vital, for they seemed artificial they didnt express any higher form, but an entire range of artificial mechanisms, artificial will, artificial organization, all deriving from their own imagination and not at all from a higher inspiration.1 The symbol was very clear.
And I saw my own domain through them and through it all; I saw my domain: I can see it!, I said. But no sooner would I start on my way than the path would be lost, I no longer saw it, I couldnt see anymore where I was going. It became almost impossible to get my bearings there: hundreds and thousands of people, thingsutter confusion. An incoherent immensity and violent, what violence!
0 1961-01-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I was above, as usual (Mother points above her head, indicating the higher consciousness), and I looked at that (Mother bends over, as if looking down at the earth), and said to myself, Hmm, this is getting dangerous. If it continues like this, it will result in in a war or a revolution or some catastrophea tidal wave or an earthquake. So I tried to counteract it by applying the highest consciousness to it, that of a perfect serenity. And I saw especially that this consciousness has been missioned to transform the earth through the Supermind and by the supramental Force, avoiding all catastrophes as far as possible: the Work is to be done as luminously and harmoniously as the earth would allow, even by going at a slower pace if need be. That was the idea. And I tried to counteract that whirlwind power with this consciousness.
(long silence)
0 1961-01-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I was perfectly conscious (now when I say I, it refers to my body, I am not speaking of the whole higher consciousness), the body was perfectly conscious of its suffering, the reason for its suffering, the cause of its suffering, everything and it did not suffer. You understand, the two perceptions were there together: the body saw the disorder, saw the suffering just as it would have felt it a few weeks earlier, it saw all that (saw, knew I dont know how to express itit was conscious, it was aware) and it did not suffer. The two awarenesses were absolutely simultaneous.
There is now a kind of VERY PRECISE knowledge of the whole inner mechanism for all thingsand what has to be done materially. This is developing, as a flower blossoms: you see one petal open and then another and then another; it is proceeding like that, slowly, taking its time. Its the same process for the Power.
0 1961-01-31, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At the moment of my coming out of the trance, I had a very concrete, positive perception (not a mental understanding, it didnt come from the beings intellectual part, the part that understands and explains everything and Is symbolized, I think, by Indra; it wasnt in any way conveyed through that higher intelligence, it wasnt mental). A kind of perception (not really a sensation, it was more than a sensation) of the almost total unimportance of the external, material expression of the bodys condition: the consciousness OF THE BODY was absolutely indifferent to external, physical signs, whether they were like this or like that (the BODYS consciousness was what had experienced the identity). And this body-consciousness had the perception of the EXTREME RELATIVITY of the most material expression.
I am translating it to make myself understoodit wasnt like that at the time of the experience. Suppose, for example, that there was a disorder here or there in the body, not actually an illness (because illness implies some important inner factor such as an attack or the necessity for some transformation, many different things), but the outer expression of a disorder, such as swollen legs or a malfunctioning liver not an illness, a disorder, a functional disorder. Well, it was all utterly unimportant: IT IN NO WAY CHANGES THE BODYS TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS. Although we are in the habit of thinking that the body is very disturbed when its ill, when something is going wrong, its not so. It isnt disturbed in the way we understand it.
0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The whole disorder evidently originates from the subconscient and inconscient; all the more so as it came with various indications (sent by the hostile forces but this can always be useful, provided you are careful) saying, Yes, everything is going well in your higher centers, but(because the different points of attack have clearly followed the order of the centers). Four or five days ago, or maybe a week, before this latest difficulty occurred, I saw little beings coming out of the subconscient and saying, Ah! Your legs havent had any trouble for a long time! Its the turn of the lower centers! I swept it all away, of course, but.
Taken this way, it could be an indication that all this needs a somewhat brutal preparation in order to be put in the necessary condition.
--
The most violent attack came immediately after that experience [of January 24]. But of all the experiences in my life, this was the most wonderful for the simple reason that it was NOT EVEN preceded by an aspiration, not even an aspiration from the body it came directly as the Supreme Will, bang! (Mother bangs down her hands in an irresistible gesture) And then there was nothing, nothing but THE thing, WITHOUT ANY PERSONAL PARTICIPATION WHATSOEVER: no will, no aspiration, not even the satisfaction of itnothing. It was. I was (in my higher consciousness) filled with wonder at the ABSOLUTENESS of the experience. It came, a thing DECREED and eternallike that (same irresistible gesture).
(silence)
0 1961-02-14, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo speaks here of the higher soul.1 Yet we cant translate it by me suprieure, as if there were an inferior soul, can we?
Sri Aurobindo wants to make the distinction between the progressive soul (the soul which has experiences and progresses from life to life), what can be called the lower soul, and the higher soul, that is, the eternal, immutable and divine soulessentially divine. He wrote this when he was in contact with certain Theosophical writings, before I introduced Theons vocabulary to him. For Theon, there is the divine center which is the eternal soul, and the psychic being; similarly, to avoid using the same word in both cases, Sri Aurobindo speaks in later writings of the psychic being and of the divine center or central being the essential soul.
What if we translate it la partie suprieure de lme, [the higher part of the soul], rather than me suprieure?
Then the soul would appear to be divided!
0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So well see how long this is going to last. I understand why people have never tried to change it: stir up that quagmire? No! It takes a lot (laughing), a lot of courage! Oh, its so easy to escape, so easy to say, None of that concerns me. I belong to higher spheres, it doesnt concern me.
Anyway, its obvious that nobody has succeeded, so far not a single person and I understand! I understand. When you find yourself face to face with it, you wonder, How could anything possibly withstand this!
--
If the experience remained permanently, it would be something very close to omnipotence. I felt at the time that there was no such thing as an impossibility: it was truly the sensation of omnipotence. It is not omnipotence, because there is always a greater Omnipotence (one knows this only in the higher realms). But in terms of the material world, it was clearly something very, very different from all that has ever been seen or heard or told by all extant traditionsit all seems like the babbling of a child in comparison. At that moment itself there was only the Something which sees, decidesand it is done.
(silence)
0 1961-03-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Listen, mon petit, you dont need to ask, I will tell you right away. Sri Aurobindo has written somewhere that the movement of world transformation is double: first, the individual who does sadhana6 and establishes contact with higher things; but at the same time, the world is a base and it must rise up a little and prepare itself for the realization to be achieved (this is putting it simply). Some people live merely on the surface they come alive only when they stir about restlessly. Whatever happens inside them (if anything does!) is immediately thrown out into movement. Such people always need an outer activity; take J. for example: he fastened onto Sri Aurobindos phrase, World Union, and came to tell me he wanted.
He has been like that since the beginning (gesture expressing agitation), and he had a go at a considerable number of things but none ever succeeded! He has no method, no sense of order and he doesnt know how to organize work. So World Union is simply to let him have his way, like letting a horse gallop.
0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A similar memory has recurred several times under different circumstancesnot exactly the same scene and the same images, because it wasnt something I was seeing but A LIFE I was living. During a certain period, at any time, night or day, I would experience a particular state of trance in which I was rediscovering a life I had lived. I was fully conscious that this life had to do with the first flowering of the human form upon earth, the first human forms able to incarnate the divine being from above. This was the first time I could manifest in a particular terrestrial form (not a general life but an individual form); that is, for the first time, through the mentalization of this material substance, the junction between the higher Being and the lower being was made. I have lived that several times, and always in a similar setting and with quite a similar feeling of such joyous simplicity, without complexity, without problems, without all these questions. It was the blossoming of a joy of lifenothing but that; love and harmony prevailed: flowers, minerals, animals all got along together perfectly.
Things began to go wrong only a LONG time afterwards, long after (but this is a personal impression), probably because certain mental crystallizations were necessary, inevitable, for the general evolution, so that the mind might prepare itself to move on to something else. That was when oh, it seems like a fall into a pitinto ugliness, darkness! Everything became so dark, so ugly, so difficult, so painful. Really really the sense of a fall.
--
In my view, all these old Scriptures and ancient traditions have a graduated content (gesture showing different levels of understanding), and according to the needs of the epoch and the people, one symbol or another was drawn upon. But a time comes when one goes beyond these things and sees them from what Sri Aurobindo calls the other hemisphere, where one realizes that they are only modes of expression to put one in contacta kind of bridge or link between the lower way of seeing and the higher way of knowing.
A time comes when all these disputesAh, no, this is like this, that is like thatseem so silly, so silly! And there is nothing more comical than this spontaneous reply so many people give: Oh, thats impossible! Because with even the most rudimentary intellectual development, you would know you couldnt even think of something if it werent possible!
0 1961-03-14, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then, from time to time, everything seems to be on the edge of a precipice; the body doesnt fall simply because it keeps its balance but without this higher state of perfect faith, one would surely fall!
All together, as a whole, its something so peculiar!1
0 1961-03-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We tend to apply the word natural to all spontaneous manifestation not resulting from a choice or a preconceived decision that is, with no intrusion of mental activity. Thats why a man with an only slightly mentalized vital spontaneity seems more natural to us in his simplicity. But this naturalness bears a close resemblance to the animals and is quite low on the human evolutionary scale. Man will not recapture this spontaneity free of mental intrusion until he attains the supramental level, until he goes beyond the mind and emerges into the higher Truth.
Up to that point, all his modes of being are naturally natural! But with the minds intrusion, evolution was, if not falsified, then deformed, because by its very nature the mind was open to perversion and it became perverted almost from the start (or to be more exact, it was perverted by the asuric forces). And what appears unnatural to us now is this state of perversion. At any rate, its a deformation.
0 1961-03-21, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Of course, there are certain symptoms which never appear with filariasis. And the doctor has been astounded at the control Ive had over it: it began in the feet, I checked it there; it went higher, I checked it there; then it went higher still and I continued to control it. Finally, the other day, it tried to get into the arms, but it couldnt hold outand last night there was a real riot! (Mother laughs) So perhaps its the deformation or transposition of some sort of mantric effort, like last time in 58 when there was an attempt to make me throw up all my blood but only food came out! Its probably something similar. My impression (Ive had it from the start) is that they have made a try at thrombosis (you know, when something blocks the circulation). Besides, it seems that X asked the doctor if blood-poisoning might be involved, so he must have seen this possibility. There has been absolutely nothing of the kind, but there has been an effort to block the circulation in the veins, probably an adaptation of the magic attack. And along with this have come all the usual things: all the usual suggestions, all the usual prophecies [about Mothers departure]. But for me, these are the normal facts of life, thats all. I am used to it. It has no importance.
Do you really believe Z could be behind this magician you saw?
0 1961-03-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It seemed made of transparent alabasterhard, harder than stone. It was the result of an individualization that was my impressionan individualization that has become very hardened. It has tried to become entirely transparent but has no tangible contact with thingsthings enter only through the higher regions, through intellectual perceptions (not intellectual, a sort of mental vision). And I began to bang on it!
It was mainly on your right side I banged on it. But strangely enough, it didnt break it became supple, but then it lost its beauty. (It was so beautiful, as though sculptured!) I tried to pass through it, but to do so (this is what I found interesting), instead of passing through at this level (the chest), the psychic plane the level of the souls vibration I had to climb up above and then descend; and finally, without even realizing it, I found myself inside I had entered through sheer force of concentration. There, at the vital level, the emotional vital (solar plexus), I put two flowers: one very large Endurance in the Most Material Vital [zinnia] and another flower like the one X just gave me [cosmos] but bigger and pure white (it concerns sexual movements, light in sexual movements). But curiously enough, I passed inside through a trance; I was quite busy trying to make it more fluid when all at once, poof! I found myself inside. But since I entered through a trance it became completely objective: no more thought, nothing. And I saw I had put these two flowers there (at the levels of the abdomen and chest), one more active, a very large, dark purple Endurance flower, and another much smaller, pure white, slightly lower down. While I was watching this I think the clock must have struck something pulled me and it all faded away.
0 1961-03-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What ruffles me is that someone like X, who has worked on himself, ought to have felt it. Why do I feel it? Because since I have been doing all this work on my body, it senses things and it is never mistaken. I have had repeated proof that it is never mistaken. When a higher vibration comes, it feels it right away! But I must say that this has only been the case since the body became very universalized. However, I was under the impression that X must have been somewhat universalized to have the powers he has, but now I dont know.
Its not that I was disappointed by his way of being, certainly not; but it has suddenly confronted me with a terrible problem: Is it impossible to live a truth in material consciousness? Is it really impossible? An absolute, I mean an absolute truthnot something entirely subjective and relative, each one living his own truth in his own manner. Will one person always be like this and the other like that and the third like something else? So that only by putting all the pieces together do we actually amount to anything and yet to what?! Is it completely impossible for absolute truth to manifest in the present state of Matter? This is the problem that has seized me.
0 1961-04-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But for this to come about, you must remain for a while on those higher reaches and not be constantly, constantly dragged down below where you have to fight each minute simply to LASTto last in all ways: not just personally, but collectively.2 Its a minute-to-minute bout, simply to last. And how long do we have to last for the thing to be done?
It is a difficult period.
0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the curious thing is that these vital beings are aware of what is happening. I knew nothing about any of it, neither the story, nor the being, nor the head sticking out of the ground and she wanted me to get her out of it. They feel the atmosphere. They are awarethey may not be conscious on higher planes, but they are conscious on vital planes, aware of vital power and the vital force it represents. Its like this asura from M.: when I came in he suddenly seemed to tremble on his pedestal; then he left his idol and came to seek my alliance.
But its strange.
0 1961-06-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I only knew about this vision later, but on my side, when he left, I saw his whole being gathered together, well united, thoroughly homogenous, in a great aspiration, and rising, rising without dispersing, without deviating, straight up to the frontier of what Sri Aurobindo has called the higher hemisphere, there where Sri Aurobindo in his supramental action presides over earth. And he melted into that light.
Some time before his heart attack he said to his children: the gown is old, it must be thrown away.
0 1961-07-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the trouble is that people will say: whats the need for a descent if all is involved and then evolves? Why a descent? Why should there be an intervention from a higher plane?
I beg your pardon, but what was built up through this involution had to be unbuilt. The CAUSE of this involution had to be undone.
--
Take the experience of Mind, for example: Mind, in the evolution of Nature, gradually emerging from its involution; well and this is a very concrete experience these initial mentalized forms, if we can call them that, were necessarily incomplete and imperfect, because Natures evolution is slow and hesitant and complicated. Thus these forms inevitably had an aspiration towards a sort of perfection and a truly perfect mental state, and this aspiration brought the descent of already fully conscious beings from the mental world who united with terrestrial formsthis is a very, very concrete experience. What emerges from the Inconscient in this way is an almost impersonal possibility (yes, an impersonal possibility, and perhaps not altogether universal, since its connected with the history of the earth); but anyway its a general possibility, not personal. And the Response from above is what makes it concrete, so to speak, bringing in a sort of perfection of the state and an individual mastery of the new creation. These beings in corresponding worlds (like the gods of the overmind,4 or the beings of higher regions) came upon earth as soon as the corresponding element began to evolve out of its involution. This accelerates the action, first of all, but also makes it more perfectmore perfect, more powerful, more conscious. It gives a sort of sanction to the realization. Sri Aurobindo writes of this in SavitriSavitri lives always on earth, with the soul of the earth, to make the whole earth progress as quickly as possible. Well, when the time comes and things on earth are ready, then the divine Mother incarnates with her full powerwhen things are ready. Then will come the perfection of the realization. A splendor of creation exceeding all logic! It brings in a fullness and a power completely beyond the petty shallow logic of human mentality.
People cant understand! To put oneself at the level of the general public may be all very well5 (personally I have never found it so, although its probably inevitable), but to hope that they will ever understand the splendor of the Thing. They have to live it first!
--
Lets take Savitri, which is very explicit on this: the universal Mother is universally present and at work in the universe, but the earth is where concrete form is given to all the work to be done to bring evolution to its perfection, its goal. Well, at first theres a sort of emanation representative of the universal Mother, which is always on earth to help it prepare itself; then, when the preparation is complete, the universal Mother herself will descend upon earth to finish her work. And this She does with SatyavanSatyavan is the soul of the earth. She lives in close union with the soul of the earth and together they do the work; She has chosen the soul of the earth for her work, saying, HERE is where I will do my work. Elsewhere (Mother indicates regions of higher Consciousness), its enough just to BE and things Simply ARE. Here on earth you have to work.
There are clearly universal repercussions and effects, of course, but the thing is WORKED OUT here, the place of work is HERE. So instead of living beatifically in Her universal state and beyond, in the extra-universal eternity outside of time, She says, No, I am going to do my work HERE, I choose to work HERE. The Supreme then tells her, What you have expressed is My Will.. I want to work HERE, and when all is ready, when the earth is ready, when humanity is ready (even if no one is aware of it), when the Great Moment comes, well I will descend to finish my work.
0 1961-08-08, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He has tried very hard to understand. But his spiritual conception has remained like this: one canone MUSTmaster life, and in life, to some extent, a certain adaptation to the higher forces can be achieved; but there is no question of transformation: the physical world remains the physical world. It can be a little better organized, more harmonious, but there is no question of something else, of divinizationno question at all.
And this is probably why there are things he cant make out in his contact with me, because he simply doesnt understand. For example, these physical disorders baffle him, they seem incompatible with my realization. As long as the question of transformation does not come into play, the realization I had was sufficient to establish a kind of very stable orderreaction against the transformative will is what causes these disorders. And this he does not understandto him something seems not to be functioning properly. He must feel a contradiction between certain things he perceives in my consciousness and my contact with the material world. This being this, he thinks, that ought to be like that; so why? He doesnt understand.1
X's astonishment raises an extremely important point, drawing the exact dividing line between all the traditional yogas and the new yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Mother. To a tantric, for example, it seems unthinkable that Mother, with a consciousness so powerful as to scoff at the laws of nature and comm and the elements (if she wishes), could be subjected to absurd head colds or an eye hemorrhage or even more serious disorders. For him, it is enough to simply lift a finger and emit a vibration which instantly muzzles the disorderyes, of course, but for Mother it is not a question of 'curing' a head cold by imposing a higher POWER on Matter, but of getting down to the cellular root and curing or transforming the source of the evil (which causes death as easily as head colds, for it is the same root of disorder). It is not a question of imposing oneself on Matter through a 'power,' but of transforming Matter. Such is the yoga of the cells.
***
0 1961-09-03, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You would like to carry thought into higher domains, beyond the province of thought itself! This is something practically impossible.
You understand, if I were British and writing in English, I could try to do a book on Sri Aurobindo using Savitri alone. With quotations from Savitri one can maintain a certain poetical rhythm, and this rhythm can generate an opening. But in French it isnt possiblehow could it be translated?
0 1961-10-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
After speaking of the descent of the Supermind, he said that an INTERMEDIARY must be prepared between our present mental state (even the most elevated higher mind) and the supramental region, because if one entered directly into Gnosis, well, it would produce such an abrupt change that our physical constitutions would be unable to support itan intermediary is needed. The experiences Ive had make me absolutely convinced of it; twice the supramental world took veritable possession of me and both times it was as if the bodytruly the physical bodywas going to completely disintegrate, due to what you could almost call the opposition of the two conditions.
And yesterday again I clearly saw (Mother touches this mass in her head). My eyes are full of it my eyes are full, you know, and I see that as it works to settle itself in here, it produces this little vibrationa twinkling of vibrationswhich seems to be indispensable for it to enter into this Matter.
--
Well, then take them out! Why not? It may be contrary to logic, even to higher logic, but what do we care!
I will try to see. If I catch the thread, it will be all right but I must catch it.
0 1961-11-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But naturally, you understand, once the border has been crossed, there is no more ascent and descent; you have the feeling of rising up only at the very start, while leaving the terrestrial consciousness and emerging into the higher mind. But once you have gone beyond that, theres no notion of rising; theres a sense, instead, of a sort of inner transformation.
And from there I would redescend, re-entering my bodies one after another there is a real feeling of re-entry; it actually produces friction.
--
One thing is certainas soon as one goes beyond the terrestrial atmosphere, beyond the higher minds highest region, the sensation of high and low totally vanishes. There are no longer movements of ascent and descent, but (Mother turns her hand over) something like inner reversals.
I think the problem arises only when you try to see and understand with the mental consciousness, even with the higher mind.
I am telling you this because, as soon as I got your letter, I replied with what Ill read to you now; then I was immediately faced with something I couldnt formulate, the kind of thing that gives you the feeling of the unknown (all I knew was my own experience). So I did the usual thingbecame blank, turned towards the Truth; and I questioned Sri Aurobindo and beyondasking, if there were something to be known, that it be told to me. Then I dropped it, I paid no more attention. And only as I was coming here today was I told I cant really use the word told, but anyway, what was communicated to me concerning your question was that the difference between the two processes [the Rishis and the present one] is purely subjective, depending upon the way the experience is registered. I dont know if I can make myself clear. There is something which is the experience and which will be the Realization; and what appears to be a different, if not opposite, process is simply a subjective mental notation of one SINGLE experience. Do you follow?
0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You understand, none of my certitudesnone, without exceptionhave EVER come through the mind. The intellectual comprehension of each of these experiences came much later. Little by little, little by little, came the higher understanding of the intellectual consciousness, long after the experience (I dont mean philosophical knowledge thats nothing but scholarly mumbo-jumbo and leaves me cold). Since my earliest childhood, experiences have come like that: something massive takes hold of you and you dont need to believe or disbelieve, know or not knowbam! Theres nothing to say; you are facing a fact.
Once, during those last difficult years, Sri Aurobindo told me that this was precisely what gave me my advantage and why (how to put it?) there were greater possibilities that I would go right to the end.
0 1961-12-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is something deeper. And within this deeper thing there was: quiet, quiet, quiet, we will wait; and the impression (but vague, distant and uncertain) of some attempt being made to introduce a very good possibility into the atmosphere. I never see on the purely physical plane, you know (its always on the subtle physical, the plane of possibilities thats more real to me; the purely physical generally eludes me, but I see the subtle physical clearly), and I was seeing I dont know, it was like something higher, from above, trying to make someone enter the field of possibilities, a brain that would suddenly be touched by the book and reverse the situation. I dont know who, I dont know what, I dont know how. Ah, you know that yellow rose I just gave you? Its fringed in pink. Well, what came was like a slender pink fringe winding through the atmosphere of this situation.
Its possibleall is possible!
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
--
For thought, its elementary, very simple. Its not difficult for the feelings either; for the heart, the emotional being, to expand to the dimensions of the Supreme is relatively easy. But this body! Its very difficult, very difficult to do without the body losing its center (how can I put it?) its center of coagulationwithout it dissolving into the surrounding mass. Although, if one were in a natural environment, with mountains and forests and rivers, with lots of space and lots of natural beauty, it could be rather pleasant! But its physically impossible to take a single step outside ones body without meeting unpleasant, painful things. At times you come in contact with a pleasant substance, something harmonious, warm, vibrating with a higher light; it happens. But its rare. Flowers, yes, sometimes flowers sometimes, not always. But this material world, oh! It batters you from all sides; it claws you, mauls youyou get clawed and scraped and battered by all sorts of things which which just dont blossom. How hard it all is! Oh, how closed human life is! How shriveled, hardened, without light, without warmth let alone joy.
While sometimes, when you see water flowing along, or a ray of sunlight in the treesoh, how it sings! The cells sing, they are happy.
0 1962-01-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners,is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges. If one wishes to purify and transform the nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being. Even this should be done with care, not prematurely or rashly, following a higher guidance, keeping always the right attitude; for otherwise the force that is drawn down may be too strong for an obscure and weak frame of nature. But to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of ones way to invite trouble. First, one should make the higher mind and vital strong and firm and full of light and peace from above; afterwards one can open up or even dive into the subconscious with more safety and some chance of a rapid and successful change.
The system of getting rid of things by anubhava [experience] can also be a dangerous one; for on this way one can easily become more entangled instead of arriving at freedom. This method has behind it two well-known psychological motives. One, the motive of purposeful exhaustion, is valid only in some cases, especially when some natural tendency has too strong a hold or too strong a drive in it to be got rid of by vicra [intellectual reflection] or by the process of rejection and the substitution of the true movement in its place; when that happens in excess, the sadhak has sometimes even to go back to the ordinary action of the ordinary life, get the true experience of it with a new mind and will behind and then return to the spiritual life with the obstacle eliminated or else ready for elimination. But this method of purposive indulgence is always dangerous, though sometimes inevitable. It succeeds only when there is a very strong will in the being towards realisation; for then indulgence brings a strong dissatisfaction and reaction, vairagya, and the will towards perfection can be carried down into the recalcitrant part of the nature.
The other motive for anubhava is of a more general applicability; for in order to reject anything from the being one has first to become conscious of it, to have the clear inner experience of its action and to discover its actual place in the workings of the nature. One can then work upon it to eliminate it, if it is an entirely wrong movement, or to transform it if it is only the degradation of a higher and true movement. It is this or something like it that is attempted crudely and improperly with a rudimentary and insufficient knowledge in the system of psycho-analysis. The process of raising up the lower movements into the full light of consciousness in order to know and deal with them is inevitable; for there can be no complete change without it. But it can truly succeed only when a higher light and force are sufficiently at work to overcome, sooner or later, the force of the tendency that is held up for change. Many, under the pretext of anubhava, not only raise up the adverse movement, but support it with their consent instead of rejecting it, find justifications for continuing or repeating it and so go on playing with it, indulging its return, eternising it; afterwards when they want to get rid of it, it has got such a hold that they find themselves helpless in its clutch and only a terrible struggle or an intervention of divine grace can liberate them.Some do this out of a vital twist or perversity, others out of sheer ignorance; but in yoga, as in life, ignorance is not accepted by Nature as a justifying excuse. This danger is there in all improper dealings with the ignorant parts of the nature; but none is more ignorant, more perilous, more unreasoning and obstinate in recurrence than the lower vital subconscious and its movements. To raise it up prematurely or improperly for anubhava is to risk suffusing the conscious parts also with its dark and dirty stuff and thus poisoning the whole vital and even the mental nature. Always therefore one should begin by a positive, not a negative experience, by bringing down something of the divine nature, calm, light, equanimity, purity, divine strength into the parts of the conscious being that have to be changed; only when that has been sufficiently done and there is a firm positive basis, is it safe to raise up the concealed subconscious adverse elements in order to destroy and eliminate them by the strength of the divine calm, light, force and knowledge. Even so, there will be enough of the lower stuff rising up of itself to give you as much of the anubhava as you will need for getting rid of the obstacles; but then they can be dealt with with much less danger and under a higher internal guidance.
***
I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam. The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above. The self-chosen field of these psychologists is besides poor, dark and limited; you must know the whole before you can know the part and the highest before you can truly understand the lowest. That is the promise of the greater psychology awaiting its hour before which these poor gropings will disappear and come to nothing.4
Questioned about the meaning of these words, Mother said, "The state I was in was like a memory."
0 1962-02-03, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This analogy is very apt down here on this plane, but for the higher realms it doesnt applyup there its just the opposite! As long as you remain the archer, touching one point, thats how it is; all intelligence below is like that, seeing all sorts of possibilities, so it cant make a choice and act. To see the whole target, the all-inclusive Truth, you must cross to the other side. And when you do, what you see is not the sum of countless truths, an innumerable quantity of truths added together and viewed one after another, making it impossible to grasp the whole at a glance; when you go above, its the whole you see first, AT A GLANCE, in its entirety, without division. So there is no longer any choice to be made; its a vision: THAT is to be done. The choice is no longer between this and that, it doesnt work that way any more. Things are no longer seen in succession, one after another; there is rather a simultaneous vision of a whole that exists as a unit. The choice is simply a vision.
As long as youre not in that state, you cant see the whole. The whole cant be seen successively, by adding one truth to another; this is precisely what the mind does, and why it is incapable of seeing the whole. It cant do it. The mind will always see things in succession, by addition, but thats not IT, something will always elude you the very sense of truth will elude you.
--
Thats what I have been studying these past two daysnot for you in particular, but the general effect of japa, the reason for it in the organization of ones life. I cant say I have made any discoveries (maybe for myself, I dont know); but my study is not on higher levels, its right here.
It would take too long to give the details; I can summarize, but I dont want to make a doctrine, and for it to be living its bound to be long.
0 1962-02-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At that time, I had the sense of a higher way of living: I used to make a distinction between different ways of life. Now this so-called higher way of living seems so miserable to meso petty, mean, narrow that I very often find myself in the same position as those who ask, But is there really something to it? And I understand them (even though I have a different will and vision of something to come that is not yet here), I understand the feeling of those who came into contact with spiritual life and asked, What good is itwhat good is it? Is there anything worth living in it? We are NECESSARILY hemmed in, bound to live in narrowness and pettiness simply to keep alive, for the sake of all the bodys needs.
It takes such an effort to bring Light into this poverty, to bring a Force, a Reality, a Power, something, good Lord, something TRUE! Through constant effort and will, constant tension, suddenly, ah! I get two or three seconds and then it all ebbs away again.
0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Meanwhile, there are all sorts of ways to receive indications. That exact, precise and (whats the word?) habitual vision certain people have may stem from various sources. It may be a vision through identity with circumstances and things when you have learned to expand your consciousness. It may be an indication from some chatterbox of the invisible world, who has got it into his head to let you know whats going to happenthis is often the case. Then everything depends on your harbingers morals: if he is having fun at your expense, he spins stories for youthis almost always happens to those who receive their information from entities. To bait you, they may repeatedly tell you how things are going to turn out (for they have a universal vision in some vital or mental realm); then, when they are sure you trust them, they may start telling you fibs and, as they say in English, you make a fool of yourself. This happens frequently! You have to be in a higher consciousness than these fellows, these entities (or these minor gods, as some call them) and able to check from above the value of their statements.
With a universal mental vision, you can see (and this is very interesting) how the mental world operates to get realized on the physical plane. You see the various mental formations, how they converge, conflict, combine and relate to one another, which ones get the upper hand, exert a stronger influence and achieve a more total realization. Now, if you really want a higher vision, you must get out of the mental world and see the original wills as they descend to take expression. In this case, you may not have all the details, but the central FACT, the fact in its central truth, is indisputable, undeniable, absolutely correct.
Some people also have the faculty of predicting things already existing on earth but at a distance, far from physical eyestheyre generally those who have the capacity to expand and extend their consciousness. Their vision is slightly more subtle than physical vision, and depends on an organ subtler than its purely material counterpart (what could be called the life of this organ). So, by projecting their consciousness, and having the will to see, they can clearly see things that already exist but are beyond our ordinary field of vision. Those who have this capacitysincere people who tell what they see, not blufferssee with perfect precision and exactness.
0 1962-05-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont think any single individual on earth (as it is now) no matter how great he may be, no matter how eternal his consciousness and origin, can all by himself change and realize. Change the world, change the creation as it is, and realize that higher Truth, the Truth that will be a new worlda truer, if not absolutely true, world. A certain number of individuals (until now they seem to have come in succession, in time, but they might also come as a collectivity, in space) would seem indispensable for this Truth to be concretized and realized.
On a practical level, I am sure of it.
0 1962-05-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This trip would not be an opening upwards, a flight towards a higher realization that, no. Categorically no.
But thats not what I was after!
--
But there are a certain number of beingsnot manywho have come back on earth ONLY to take part in a particular work, in a particular way. And outer things, personal and individual things, are virtually sacrificed to that. Certain faculties, for instance, whose source is the higher entity, faculties that in an ordinary life would result in a measure of power or fame or success or realization, are placed under conditions where their outer effect is subordinated to the needs of a particular work.
Let me put it to you more clearly: your physical body, for example, should have been either stronger or more supple or endowed with certain very strong vital compensations, so that you wouldnt suffer from your working conditions. Of course, for someone following a yogic ascent, whose soul is in the process of formation, the external conditions of life are normally what is best for inner development, whatever that may beeven if, on the surface, those conditions arent good. So the only advice you can give such a person is, Well, either renounce the spiritual life or else putup with it. But thats not your case. There is a Mission, a work, and a kind of gap between a certain physical formation and that Mission. So if you ask me plainly what I see, I can tell you plainly, instead of saying as I would to certain sadhaks or anyone sincerely wanting to do yoga, Take it or leave it; you must learn to transform yourself inwardly to the point where you can master the body and its needs. I cant tell you that, because thats not how it is for you.
0 1962-05-31, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One day I will certainly use the same method on those room changes, but for that it will have to become very clear and distinct, well defined in the consciousness. Because that change of room (intellectually you would call it a change of consciousness, but that means nothing at all; were dealing here with something very, very material) I have sometimes gone through it without experiencing ANY CHANGE OF EFFECT, which probably means I was centered not in the material consciousness but in a higher consciousness dwelling and looking on from elsewherea witness consciousness and I was in a state where everything flows flows like a river of tranquil peace. Truly, its marvelousall creation, all life, all movements, all things, and everything like a single mass, with the body in the midst of it all, blending homogeneously with the whole and it all flows on like a river of peace, peaceful and smiling, on to infinity. And then oops! You trip (gesture of inversion2) and once again find yourself SITUATEDyou ARE somewhere, at some specific moment of time; and then theres a pain here, a pain there, a pain. And sometimes I have seen, I have witnessed the change from the one to the other WITHOUT feeling the pains or experiencing the thing concretely, which means that I wasnt at all in the body, I wasnt BOUND to the body I was seeing, only seeing, just like a witness. And its always accompanied by the kind of observation an indulgent (but not blind) friend might make: But why? Why that again? Thats how it comes. Whats the use of that? And I cant catch hold of what makes it happen.
It will come.
--
Words that repeat themselves automatically, with no effort of will (but the body itself is quite aware that although these three particular Words happen to have been given to it, it might also have been something elseit was originally the choice of a higher Intelligence). This has become an automatic accompaniment. It is not so much the words in themselves as what they will represent and bring with them in their vibration. I mean it would be quite inaccurate to say, Only these Words are helpful, no, not that. But they provide an accompaniment, an accompaniment of subtle, physical vibrations, which has built up a certain state or experience, a sort of association between the presence of those words and this movement of eternal Life, that undulating vibration.
Obviously, another center of consciousness, another (how shall I put it?) another concretization, another amalgam, mightwould of coursehave another vibration.
0 1962-06-02, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then someone came. There are symbolic people in these dreams; they seem to be made up of various parts of the beings of those around me, people who have a particular relationship with me and bring a particular help to the Work. They are symbolic characters and always the same: one of them is tall and thin, some are small, there are young ones, old ones. I cant say its this person or that person, but rather that something IN this or that person is represented in these characters. And one of them is like a big brotherhe helps out in certain circumstances; if theres a boat, for instance, the big brother steers it. So he came up to me and said, Yes, I know the method, and began to try. Stop, for heavens sake! I said. Youll spoil everything; to make it work I have to say: I WANT TO GO THERE. When he began trying to bring me across with his own methods, the water grew muddy again and I started to sink! No no no! I protested. Dont do that, thats notit at all! THAT has to (although I wasnt formulating it to myself, what I meant was the sense of a certain higher Will) THAT has to say: I WANT TO GO THERE; then it works.
After that, the experience changed, other things happened. But what I have just related is certainly part and parcel of that experience the other day [the two rooms, one inside the other], because the two were coexistent.1
--
Material knowledge, I think I mean the higher use of the physical mind, which keeps you from entering the true room.2 Because I simply kept repeating, I have to say: I WANT TO GO THERE (in other words, it was a crystal clear, imperative will coming from the highest level) I have to say: I WANT TO GOnot that, not your methods! (Mother laughs.)
***
0 1962-06-30, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have experienced this hundreds and hundreds of times: one has a deep, true experience, but the mind, even the higher mind, immediately latches onto it (usually its the higher mind) and very actively makes its OWN thing out of the experience, thus bringing in its own distortion.
It comes merely as an addition, the distortion is not total, theres still something quite true behind it.
0 1962-07-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Some of the people concerned are here, others elsewhere that is, its the mental state (even the higher mind in some cases, not necessarily very down-to-earth) of this one or that one or. It comes individually (and the persons name along with it). And a kind of uneasiness takes hold of my body, as if I were in the presence of I dont know, in ordinary life I would say, Go away! (Mother brusquely shoos something away) But here it is presented for me to do a particular work (I know the people, some are here, others elsewhere; theyre people I am in touch with for the yoga). So I am faced with these mental formations and each one is HELD like this (Mother grips the thing with both hands) so that I dont simply brush it aside. Then (its certainly a good opportunity to go completely crazy!) I slowly bring in the divine Vibration, and I hold it like this, without moving (Mother holds this vibration tight and drives it in like a sword of light), without moving until everything fades away into silence.
I havent had the chance (laughing) to ask them what happened to them!
--
This has never happened before, its brand-new. Before, there was always that Power transmitted through the higher mind (what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind); it was up there, dissolving, dispersing, changing, doing a whole lot of work, without any difficulty, effortlessly (gesture above the head showing the tranquil, irresistible flowing of a stream), nothing to it. That was my constant, second-to-second action, everywhere, all the time, for everything that came to me. But THIS is completely, completely new. Its a sort of imposition, almost like an imposition on the PHYSICAL brain (I presume it must be for changing the brain cells). And I am allowed to do only one thing (Mother grips the mental construction presented to her); its right in front of me like this and wont leave me, it clings like a leech, stock-still. So I have to bring in the supreme, divine Vibration, the Vibration I experienced the other day [April 13], and hold it steadily (sometimes it takes quite a while) until all is hushed in a divine silence.
(silence)
0 1962-07-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its plain to see that, left to itself in its full power of transformation and progress, this flame of aspiration, this flame of Agni would have scant consideration for the result of the process the result of the process is that fire burns. And there could be mishaps in the functioning of the organs. All the organs must undergo a transformation, but were it too rapid and too sudden, well, everything would go out of whack. The machine would simply explode. But this Wisdom doesnt come from the universal consciousness (which I dont really think is so wise!), its infinitely higher: the Supreme Wisdom. Something so wonderful! It foresees things the universal forces in their universal play would overlooka wonder!
(silence)
0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The old way of yoga failed to bring about the harmony or unity of Spirit and life: it instead dismissed the world as Maya [Illusion] or a transient Play. The result has been loss of life-power and the degeneration of India. As was said in the Gita, These peoples would perish if I did not do worksthese peoples of India have truly gone down to ruin. A few sannyasins and bairagis [renunciants] to be saintly and perfect and liberated, a few bhaktas [lovers of God] to dance in a mad ecstasy of love and sweet emotion and Ananda [Bliss], and a whole race to become lifeless, void of intelligence, sunk in deep tamas [inertia]is this the effect of true spirituality? No, we must first attain all the partial experiences possible on the mental level and flood the mind with spiritual delight and illumine it with spiritual light, but afterwards we must rise above. If we cannot rise above, to the supramental level, that is, it is hardly possible to know the worlds final secret and the problem it raises remains unsolved. There, the ignorance which creates a duality of opposition between the Spirit and Matter, between truth of spirit and truth of life, disappears. There one need no longer call the world Maya. The world is the eternal Play of God, the eternal manifestation of the Self. Then it becomes possible to fully know and fully realize Godto do what is said in the Gita, To know Me integrally. The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the supermind and the Ananda these are the spirits five levels. The higher man rises on this ascent the nearer he comes to the state of that highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to the Supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. One attains a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and infinite Ananda, not only in the timeless Parabrahman [Absolute] but in the body, in life, in the world. The integral being, the integral consciousness, the integral Ananda blossoms out and takes form in life. This is the central clue of my yoga, its fundamental principle.
This is no easy change to make. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this siddhi will be complete, then I am absolutely certain that through me God will give to others the siddhi of the Supermind with less effort. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in Gods appointed time. I have no hasty or disorderly impulse to rush into the field of work in the strength of the little ego. Even if I did not succeed in my work I would not be shaken. This work is not mine but Gods. I will listen to no other call; when God moves me then I will move.
0 1962-07-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yours is more than a psychic being. As I have told you, your psychic being is accompanied by something which has come for a special purpose, with a particular intellectual powera luminous, conscious powerwhich has come from regions higher than the mind, regions Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind, to do a special work. It is here (gesture enveloping the chest and head) and, along with the psychic, its trying to organize everything. This, in your psychic, is what you are feeling. It must have great power. Dont you feel a kind of luminous force?
Oh, yes, I feel it!
--
Some thoughts. Are they thoughts? Its something much higher than thought, much higher than ideas. It is the VISION OF KNOWLEDGE in an extremely luminous region where vibrations are very precise and very strong; and this is obviously what, as it descends, translates into sounds and words (but this is much lower down). In the form closest to the Origin, they are luminous vibrations.
But the human mind latches on to everything and copies it!
0 1962-08-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The only possible solution is so perfect a union with the supreme Vibration that everything is automatically put under His influence; and in that case it is easier to feel wider, higher, vaster than the world (to take just the earth: the terrestrial world) than an individual.3 For it is easier to do this (embracing gesture), to take everything in, to embrace and change it from outside, than to change it from inside. At present, the two movements are simultaneous, and staying inside was4 the result of all those years of experience in drawing the Supreme Presence down into the most material world for that, you have to accept (how can I put it?) corporeal oneness.
Formerly (I mean before last April 13), the process was different; now it has totally changed. This body is nothing but a field of experience, its no longer an individualitynot at all, at all, at all. But its a very willing field of experience. And the experience is going on in a particular realm by day and in another by nightits beginning to clarify the whole subconscient. From this angle, there is a very rapid progress.
0 1962-08-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Satprem asks for an explanation of this sentence from August 4: "... it is easier to feel wider, higher, vaster than the world, THAN AN INDIVIDUAL. For it is easier to take everything in, to embrace and change it from outside, than to change it from inside.")
Yes, it is easier (for a Being or a Force or a Consciousness) to feel vaster than the earth than an individual.1
--
And the Light that descends. You see, its as though as though I am SEEING that eternal, universal, immense, wondrous Vibration from without, from within, from above, from below, from everywhere at the same time. And at a certain place theres something so fine, delicate, of a silver-gray (something thats spread all around the world, all around the creation), and THE Vibration passes through it and it becomes ideas. Not ideas, something higher than ideas the origin of ideas. Things take form. And the sieve is fine, fine, fine, so fine and tenuous, and its everywhere (gesture enveloping the earth).
And its there all the time! I saw it the other day, I am seeing it nowit seems to be a permanent feature. And its the origin of all intellectual formulations (those closest to the Truth, of course, with no distortion). Very interesting.
0 1962-08-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A few days later, Mother remarked with a kind of admiration: "It's almost a miracle for such people to admit that someone is doing something entirely new! That's the great problem with those who have attained some realization, they shut the door: 'Now we have realized what the Forefa thers said, and that's enough.' So to find a man who knows nothing outwardly and who FELT that we wanted to do something never done before ... I found that extremely interesting. It means he has an opening, an opening above, higher than the ordinary spiritual atmosphere."
***
0 1962-09-05, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the opening to the higher mind.
Its more like part of the kundalini method. Its not an exteriorization, but the mental opening to higher realms.
Sometimes it happens just when Im falling asleep.
--
I have already told you the reason (there are many reasons): one tiny undeveloped level in the being is enough. It obviously has to do with atavism, with the way the body was built, the milieu one was born in, ones education, the life one has led. But its mainly how much one has been drawn to higher things. It is clear that your energies have been far more concentrated on breaking through that lid and touching the Source of Truth than on having mediumistic experiencesfar more. And for what you have come to do, that was INFINITELY more important. Minor experiences such as exteriorizing and the like are just diversions along the way thats how I have always seen them.
Yes, Mother, thats all right. But theres no outer encouragement. I have the feeling that nothing is happening I wake up each morning and theres nothing. I meditate, theres nothing theres never anything! Just the certainty that its the only thing worth doing.
--
Not higher, not deeper within: elsewhere. Another way of seeing.1
This "elsewhere" which is neither " higher" nor "deeper within" seems to correspond to the displacement along a LEVEL path Mother was speaking of: the other Matter.
0 1962-09-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Somewhere in the overmind (beyond the higher mind and from the overmind onwards), things are luminous IN THEMSELVES. Light doesnt have to strike them: things themselves are luminous. And this makes a considerable difference in vision. Things are no longer lit from outside, they are luminous in themselves. This is the main difference in the quality of the light.
It has even come to the point where things lit from outside seem artificial to me. They have lost their light.
There may be a very dim and subdued lightnot bright, I mean but its self-luminous. And so the higher you rise, the more brilliant and uniform light becomes.
***
0 1962-09-26, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This region just overlooks the earth and the mind (including the very highest mind). But evolution I mean TERRESTRIAL evolution, with its particular rhythm which is more condensed, more concentrated and, you could say, more focused than universal evolution as a wholethis terrestrial evolution has, with the human species, created a kind of higher intellectuality capable of passing through the overmental region, the region of the gods, and reaching a higher Principle directly.
But this overmental region, this region of the gods with the power to govern the universe and, PARTIALLY, the earth, does have its own reality. You can come into contact with it and use it; the Vedic forefa thers used it, occultists use it, even Tantrics use it. But theres another path which, distrusting the gods, bypasses them through a kind of intellectual asceticism, as it were, wary of forms, of images, and differing expressions, which rises straight as an arrow, proud and pure, towards the supramental Light. That is a living experience.
0 1962-10-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is the higher Knowledge, Truth expressing itself, what he calls the true knowledge; and that knowledge transforms the whole creation. But He seems to let it rain down constantly, you see, and if you dont hurry up (laughing), you get left behind!
But have you never felt a sort of dazzling flash in your head? And then: Aha! Thats it! Sometimes its something that was known intellectually, but it was drab and lifeless; and then all at once it comes as a tremendous power, organizing everything in the consciousness around that Lightit doesnt last very long. Sometimes it lasts a few hours, sometimes a few days, but never longer, unless one is very slow in ones movement. And meanwhile, you know (laughing), the Source of Truth is moving on and on and on.
0 1962-10-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Many of these aphorisms were surely written at a time when the higher mind suddenly surged into the Supermind. It hasnt yet forgotten how things look in the ordinary way, but it now sees how they are in the supramental way. And as a result, theres this kind of thing, thats what gives this paradoxical form. Because the one is not forgotten and the other is already perceived.
(long silence)
0 1962-10-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I know it very well, I have been there frequently. Its at the very summit of human consciousness, on the borderline between what Sri Aurobindo calls the lower and the higher hemispheres. It is very high, very high.
I have studied this realm extensively.
-- higher up, there is a fourth zone, a zone of colored lights, plays of colored lights. Thats the order: first form, then sound, then ideas, then colored lights. But that zone is already more distant from humanity; it is a zone of forces, a zone which appears as colored lights. No formscolored lights representing forces. And one can combine these forces so that they work in the terrestrial atmosphere and bring about certain events. Its a zone of action, independent of form, sound and thought; it is above all that. A zone of active power and might you can use for a particular purposeif you have the capacity to do so.
Thats the highest zone.
--
Yes. But its the higher level of the musical zone. Each of these zones contains several levels, and the top of the musical zone is already starting to be waves, waves of vibration. But its still directly related to music, while those colored forces I am speaking of have to do with terrestrial transformations and actionsgreat actions. They are powers of action. This zone where you hear no sound eventually becomes sounds and music. It is the summit. Each zone contains several levels.
In short, when one rises to that Origin, one finds a single vibration, which can be expressed as music or thought or architectural or pictorial formsis that right?
--
But anyway, its right on the border of the higher hemisphere. Its the first expression of Consciousness as joy. I remember finding that same vibration of joy in Beethoven and Bach (in Mozart also, but to a lesser degree). The first time I heard Beethovens concerto in Din D major, for violin and orchestra suddenly the violin starts up (its not right at the beginningfirst theres an orchestral passage and then the violin takes it up), and with the first notes of the violin (Ysaye was playing, what a musician!2), with the very first notes my head suddenly seemed to burst open, and I was cast into such splendor. Oh, it was absolutely wonderful! For more than an hour I was in a state of bliss. Ysaye was a true musician!
And mind you, I knew nothing of all those worlds, I hadnt the slightest knowledge; but all my experiences came that wayunexpectedly, without my seeking anything. When I looked at a painting, same thing: something would suddenly open up inside my head and I would see the origin of the painting and such colors! One can get to that world directly from the vital, without going through all the mental gradations.
0 1962-11-10, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Some people found it interesting, mon petit! First of all, Sri Aurobindo was there it was like a large hall: a very large room with scarcely any walls, just enough so it didnt seem wide open to everything. And then there was a kind of musical instrument, like a grand piano, but much bigger and higher, playing its own music: nobody was playing it. And its own music was the music of what you have written. It was taking the form of something like luminous, colored sheets of paper, tinged with gold, with pink, which were scattering in the air and then very slowly falling onto a floor that was scarcely a floor, with an almost birdlike movement. They were falling, fallingalmost square sheets of paper falling one upon another like feathersnothing heavy about it. And then from the left a being like a god from the overmind entered the room; he was both like a Hindu deity with a tiara, and a kind of angel in a long robe (a combination of the two), and he moved so lightly, without touching the groundhe was all lightness. And with a very lovely and harmonious movement (everything was so harmonious!), he gathered up all the sheets: he took them in his arms and they stayed therethey were weightless, you see. He gathered them up, smiling all the while, with a young and very, very luminous and happy face something very lovely. Then, when he had gathered them all up, he turned towards me (I was here; you were over there, the music was there and Sri Aurobindo was there), and said as he was leaving, I am taking all this to give to them, as if he were returning to the overmental world where they were greatly interested in it! (Mother laughs.)
But it was all so lovely, so very lovely! There was a rhythm; it was all unfolding rhythmically, a rhythm of the falling sheets of paper; and a rhythm moving along very slowly, not in a straight line, and undulating.
0 1962-11-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because my impression was that the higher I rise, the more I notice things below. I wasnt making a doctrine or theory of it, of course I got rid of that habit a long time ago. But I was looking at it, merely taking note of the fact, without telling myself it was for this or that reason (as you explain here in your book). I observed the phenomenon and was able to say: the more I feel this constant, luminous Presence, the more I see those things. So it has become very clear to me that it is impossible to manifest THAT integrally without everything below being offered up to the Light.
My method is essentially very simple: for each thing that comes, I say, Here, Lord, its for You; change it, transform it. A work of offering and dedication (gesture of presenting something to the Light). And this morning there was a sort of replynot exactly to a question, but as though I were wondering How do I do it? (because the Lord tells me I am here for His work), How do I do His work? Whats the new way of doing the Work? We know all the old ways, but whats the new way? And the reply came, very concrete, without words: By bringing the two extremes together. Everything you see, everything that comes to you or that you discover is automatically put in the presence of the Most High, of the Supreme. You join the two extremes. Your whole work is to make the junction.
0 1962-11-17, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I know its the will of that Asura Ive mentioned to you several times, the Lord of Falsehood who was born the Lord of Truth, and who knows that his hour is at hand (at hand relative to that world there) and has declared he will cause as much havoc as he can before disappearing. Quite recently, just before the present conflict broke out, I went to a realm in the vital world which is right above the earth, like a platform (not a mountain top, but a spot where you get an overall view, like the bridge of a ship, for instance, where the captain stands; it was a place like that in the vital world, overlooking all terrestrial life). I went there it was rather dark, very dark in factand that tall being was there (hes quite tall, higher than this roomMo ther looks up at the ceilinghe likes to look tall). Hes very tall and all black. (Thats more or less his natural state; he appears to humans blazing with light, but that doesnt fool someone with inner vision: its an icy light. But some people are fooled and take him for the supreme God. Anyway, thats an aside.) So he was there and I went to himnot to him: I went to that place and found him there. He was gloating and told me to take a look around.
From there you had a panoramic view of everything. And no sooner did I arrive than a storm broke outa terrible storm. I kept watching, and then I saw in this direction (I dont know whether it was north, south or west, but it was this direction: Mother points to the north), I saw two nearly simultaneous flashes of lightning. The first one (I was looking north, I was quite conscious of facing north) the first one, a terrific bolt, came and fell from the east; and just a moment after, very soon after, another came from the west. The two didnt come together, but they fell on the same spotthey didnt meet but they fell on the same spot. It was pitch dark, the earth and everything was dark, you couldnt see a thing, and suddenly those two flashes of lightning lit up the area where they fell, making a dreadful din, and (my field of vision was confined to that area; all the rest was in darkness, you see) it burst into flames! Everything was set ablaze. In the lightning flashes you could distinguish the tops of monuments, houses, all sorts of things, and then everything burst into flames: a dreadful conflagration.
--
And with the consciousness here, I looked (of course I was asked how he could write or think such things), and I said that each realm has its own determinism, and if you see only that determinism, things seem absolutely decreed. Xs vision, I said, belongs to the vital-physical determinism of the earth (Life and Matter), in which the catastrophe seems inevitable; but there are higher realms whose intervention can change everything.
But one must see and live in those higher regions.
In Xs case, his personal contact rises to the heights, but its purely personal. While his overall vision (I am not saying universal: overall) stops at the vital-physical plane, with a touch of the mental, and THATS ALL. Theres a contradiction between his personal possibility, which reaches very high (although on quite a tenuous peak), and his overall vision. When his attention turns outward, it is very limited; it may be terrestrial, but its its crusted over, so to speak.
0 1962-11-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The qualifier5 we use depends on our limited individual vision, but the fact in itself is probably quite correct: there will be a serious upheaval. But this doesnt mean it will be catastrophic. You see, it may be precisely the opening to something higher, and a new birth to Truth. Personally, I am certain of a very rapid progress [for you], because I see it. But I dont see any personal catastrophes. I havent seen that at all.
Unless. Once, you know, when Sri Aurobindo was still here, I saw. But it was just a vision, and lots of visions come (this was especially true at that time) as possibilities formed in a given world and descending towards the terrestrial manifestation. They come for me to give them the support of my consent, if I find them interesting. So there are all kinds of things! And most of them get sorted out at that point. But anyway, I had a vision in which Pondicherry was completely engulfed by a bomb (in those days there werent such powerful bombsso the vision was partly premonitory). So if that happens! (Mother laughs) As a result of the bombing, I was trapped in a radioactive area (it had been buried underground but not flatteneda kind of cave had been formed), where I stayed for two thousand years.
0 1962-11-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When I came out of it, I drew only one conclusion: Why am I not in such states more often? I waste my time with a mountain of external things: reading and writing letters, seeing people, doing this and that, putting some order into matter (theres a very strong tendency to bring orderan order of a higher logicinto SMALL material things)why? Then the reply came, not in words but very clearly: Dont worry (Mother laughs). It has to be this way and its a time of transition.
A time will come when it will all be done automatically, but right now that would be impossible. As it is, the way the Force acts is already making people here a little disorientedits verging on being unintelligible to them. In other words, its beginning to obey another law. For instance, to know at the exact moment what needs to be done or said, whats going to happenif theres the slightest bit of concern or concentration to know, it doesnt come. But if I am just like that, simply in a kind of inner immobility, then for all the little details of life, I know at the exact moment. What needs to be said comes: you say this. And not like an order from outside: it just comes, there it is. What needs to be said is there, the reply that needs to be sent is there; the person who enters, entersyoure not forewarned. You do things in a kind of automatic way. In the mental world, you think of something before doing it (it may happen very fast, but both movements are distinct); here it isnt like that.
0 1962-12-19, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
After twenty minutes, something said, Thats enough. And I saw that it was enough for the body, that it shouldnt exert itself further the formation withdrew. I couldnt have played a single note more! It was very interesting. And I realized that, truly, the will that moves my body isnt at all the same as before. Previously, it was the will of the being that had been placed into and formed in this body (it wasnt personal but still very individual). While now its not that: its a Will somewhere (somewhere which is everywhere and in everything), a Will somewhere that decides, and when it says Do, the body does; when it says No, nothing in the world could make the body move. And so, that conscious something somewhere, which is like an intermediary between the higher Will and the body and its outer life, has to tell the body, This is necessary. The body never protests, because that which speaks knows VERY WELL. It says, This is necessary, all right, the body does it. But when it says, Thats enough, now, the body stops. Because (how can I express it?) FOR THE BODY, the Most High knows better than the intermediary. In regard to circumstances and the vision of the work to be done, its all one; but for taking care of and educating the body, That (gesture on high) knows best. The intermediary doesnt really care (!), but when That says do, its done; inished, and its finished. Its very interesting.
Naturally, the whole crowd and the people around me kept asking, Now that its all set up, when will there be balcony darshans again? (Because when I came back inside I said, So! Youve built a balcony, have you?). When are we going to have them again? So the intermediary said, I dont know, its not up to me. Consternation! Then I kept very quiet for a little while, listening on high, and from high, high up there came, very slowly (it comes practically drop by drop because you have to do it VERY quietlyit comes drop by drop), what That said I had to reply: Nothing definite. I was told, It depends. It all depends I clearly see that it all depends on the special work being done on my body and on the results of that work. And it isnt formulated: I am not told, I am not told whats going to happen; I am only told, Heres how it might be. (Mother laughs) All right. Thats fine, I said.
0 1962-12-28, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Evolution does not move higher and higher, into an ever more heavenly heaven, but deeper and deeper; and each cycle or evolutionary round comes to completion a little further down, a little nearer the Center where the Supreme High and Low, heaven and earth, will finally join. Thus for the two poles to actually meet, the pioneer must cleanse the mental, vital, and material middle ground. When the junction is made, not merely mentally and vitally but materially, Spirit will emerge in Matter, in a total supramental being and supramental body, and
All earth shall be the Spirits manifest home.1
0 1963-01-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Generally they are of a far higher quality than material influences. I have noticed (I dont know whether its a personal or a general thing) that the subtle physical I see is always of a somewhat higher quality than the physical proper. I mean somewhat more harmonious: things are smoother. All that comes from the vital is more often than not aggressive, quarrelsome and so on and difficult. But this realm is generally calmcalm, orderly, where things are more harmoniousGENERALLY (I cant say whether its the case with everybody, but in my own case its like that).
As I told you, Sri Aurobindo lives there permanently, as though in a house of his own: you can see him, you can stay with him, he is busy. It is very much like the physical, but a physical that would be less grating, you understand, where things are more harmonious and satisfying, less excited. There is less of that feeling of haste and uncertainty. In that house where Sri Aurobindo lives, life unfolds very, very harmoniously: people come and go, there are meals even. But all that obeys more general laws, and a sense of security and certainty not to be found in physical life. And the symbolism is more exact (I dont know how to express it), the symbolic transcription of things is less distorted, more exact.
0 1963-02-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In short, I was able to see the situation from above, a little higher than the creative Forcefrom the other side.
***
0 1963-03-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding an old Playground Talk of December 4, 1957, in which Mother asked: "Will there be a gradual transition from what we are now to what our inner spirit aspires to become, or will there be a break, will we have to leave our present human form behind until a new form emergesan emergence whose process we cannot foresee, of a new form without any connection to what we are today? Can we expect this body, our means of manifestation on earth until now, to be transformed progressively into something capable of expressing higher life, or will we have to abandon this form altogether in order to take on another one not yet born on earth?" Mother adds:)
Why not both?
--
The question we could ask is: Will the human species be like those species that met with extinction? Some species became extinct (though not species that lasted as long as the human species, as far as I know (?), and also not those which had in them the seed of progress, a possibility of progress). The impression is rather that evolution will follow a curve drawing nearer and nearer to a higher species, and maybe all that is still too close to the lower species will fall away, just as those species fell away in the past.
We always forget that not only is everything possibleeverything, even the most contradictory things but every possibility is given at least one moment of existence.
0 1963-03-09, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But flung like that! For a very long time the memory of the SENSATION remained: something that went like this (same gesture of a leaf falling) and simply set me down on the road. When I worked with Thon, the memory came back, and I saw it was an entity: what people in Europe call angels (what do they call it?) guardian angels, thats right. An entity. Thon had told me of certain worlds (worlds of the higher intellect I dont remember, he had named all the different planes), and in that world are winged beingswho have wings of their own free choice, because they find it pretty! And Madame Thon had always seen two such beings with me. Yet she knew me more than ten years later. And it appears they were always with me. So I took a look and, sure enough, there they were. One even tried to draw: he asked me to lend him my hand to do drawings. I lent my hand, but when I saw the drawing (he did one), I told him, The ones I do without you are much better! So that was the end of the matter!
What did it depict?
0 1963-04-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am conscious of the body, but it isnt the consciousness of this body (Mother touches her body): its the consciousness of THE Body it may be anyones body. I am conscious, for instance, of vibrations of disorder (most often they come in the form of suggestions of disorder) in order to see whether they are accepted and have an effect. Lets take the example of a suggestion of hemorrhage, or some such suggestion (I mention hemorrhage because it will soon come into the picture). Under the higher Influence, the body consciousness rejects it. Then begins the battle (all this takes place all the way down in the cells, in the material consciousness) between what we could call the will for hemorrhage, for example, and the reaction of the bodys cells. But its very like a real battle, a real confrontation. And all of a sudden, theres something like a general issuing a comm and and saying, Whats this! You understand, that general is conscious of the higher forces, the higher realities and the divine intervention in Matter; and after trying to use the will, this reaction, that feeling of peace and so on, suddenly he is SEIZED by a very strong determination and issues a commandin no time the effect begins to make itself felt, and little by little everything returns to order.
All this takes place in the material consciousness. Physically, the body has all the sensations but not the hemorrhage, you understand. But it does have the sensations, that is, the effects: all the sensory effects. It goes on for a while and then follows a whole curve. All right. Once the battle is over, I take a look and wonder (I observe the whole thing, I see my body, which has been fairly shaken, mind you), I say to myself, What in the world is all this? But just for a second, then I forget about it.
--
You see, its not a question of just these cells here: its a question of cells in, well, quite a lot of people, hundreds, maybe thousandsall that clings anywhere and in any way to the higher Consciousness. And since my mind is silent (I deliberately keep the mind absolutely still, trying not to react to all that constantly comes to it from outside, or trying to react almost subconsciously), nothing is there to think, Oh, its this ones body, its that ones body its THE Body! Thats what is so difficult for people to understand. It is THE bodythis (Mother touches her body) is not my body any more than other bodies (a bit more, in the sense that it is more directly the object of the concentration of the Force). So everything, all the sensations, the movements of consciousness, the battles, all of it is everywhere. And suddenly, with this little affair, oh, I understood a fantastic number of thingsand also the difficulty, mon petit! The difficulty because really, after this experience, the body was not ill but very tired. But then it is seized with such things all the time! All the time, all the time, all the time, you know, they spring up, brrm! pounce on it, brrm! from this side, that side, every which way. So I have to keep still (gesture of stopping, silent, in the midst of other activities), and then I start waging the battle.
(silence)
0 1963-05-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother means the perception of herself as a radiating center for the higher Forces. Mother commented on this passage later, on May 29 (see under that date).
In the next conversation, Mother clarified: "It isn't a movement or a vibration.... To put it accurately, one should say 'this something.'"
0 1963-05-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Of course, all these things are lights, so you cant reproduce them. But still, it must be a violet that is not dull and not dark (Mother starts from the most material Nature). What she has put is too red, but if its too blue, it wont be good eitheryou understand the difficulty? Then after violet there is blue, which must be truly blue, not too light, but it must be a bright blue. Not too light because there are three consecutive blues: there is the blue of the Mind, and then comes the higher Mind, which is paler, and then the Illumined Mind, which is the color of the flag [Mothers flag], a silver blue, but naturally paler than that. And after this comes yellow, a yellow that is the yellow of the Intuitive Mind; it must not be golden, it must be the color of cadmium. Then after this yellow, which is pale, we have the Overmind with all the colors they must all be bright colors, not dark: blue, red, green, violet, purple, yellow, all of them, all the colors. And after that, we then have all the golds of the Supermind, with its three layers. And then, after that, there is one layer of golden whiteit is white, but a golden white. After this golden white, there is silver whitesilver white: how can I explain that? (H. has sent me some ridiculous pictures of a sun shining on waterit has nothing to do with that.) If you put silver, silver gray (Mother shows a silver box nearby shining brilliantly in the sun), silver gray together with white that is, it is white, but if you put the four whites together you see the difference. There is a white white, then there is a white with a touch of pink, then a silvery white and a golden white. It makes four worlds.
I have explained this [to H.] as I am explaining it to you, but H. has not seen it so she cant understand. I want to show her on paper. It is twelve different things [or twelve worlds], one after another.1
0 1963-06-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I think their power comes from a higher layer [ higher than the cellular mind]. Because their action is very cerebral: its effect is always here (gesture at the forehead and temples), it takes you here (same gesture)its even painful!
Its cerebral.
--
Because its very material the brain is material! Its just a little less mechanical than the cellular mind. But it Is material; it isnt the higher mind, certainly: its a mind confined to the body (same gesture to the temples). But the mind I was speaking of, the body-mind, is EVERYWHERE, in every cell: every cell has it within it; whereas that power is specifically situated at the brain level. Its a very cerebral action, enveloping the forehead and the lower part of the face, not even down to the throat.
***
0 1963-06-12, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was a rather acute sensation that when the world, the earth, goes from one state to another, there is a sort of transition; it is always like a ridge between two mountains (gesture of a precarious balance), and there is a very perilous moment when the slightest thing can cause a catastrophewhich means a lot of things would have to be built anew. The same phenomenon exists too on a very small scale, for individuals, in the sense that when they go from one state of consciousnessa collection of states which constitutes their individualityto a higher state, or when they introduce into their state an element that will yield a higher synthesis, there is always a dangerous period when a catastrophe is possible. And the sensation I had last night was that the earth is now going through one such period of transition, and there isthere was or there isa possibility of catastrophe.
(silence)
0 1963-06-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then when there was that Cripps proposal,5 I believe it was Nehru (or Gandhi, I dont remember which of the two) who said, He has withdrawn from political life, why is he meddling! Its none of his business. They never forgave him. That is to say, completely obtuse, unable to understand that one can have a knowledge higher than practical knowledge.
There you are.
0 1963-06-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I was saying to myself, But whats the way to get out of here? I concentrated, became conscious again of the divine Presence, but there was something telling me, Nothing is responding, its not working. It was horrible. Nothing is responding, its not working; its not working, it cant change, nothing is responding; nothing is responding, its not working. I was there like that, with two or three people. I sat down (some rooms were higher than others and it made a difference in level between the terraces), I sat down on a ledge, questioning intensely within, What can I do? What can I do? Whats the way? What can I do? Wheres the lever? I was trying to find the lever for changing it all. But I was unable to find it. Suddenly, from the room at the end a little old man came out, very old, who gave the impression of an attachment to old things; just the same (he was all blue), just the same when he arrived (it must be the symbol of an old method or an old discipline), I told him, Ah, now that you are here, can you tell me the way out of this place? Whats the way to get free, the way out? That started him laughing: No, no! Theres no way, no way out, you must be content with what you have. Then he looked at that poor light above, which really didnt give much light at all, and he said (in a high-sounding tone): But in the first place, I came to tell you that you must put out that sun! I dont want that dazzling sun here. Ah! I thought, Thats what he calls a sun! I was so disgusted that finally I woke up. Something pulled me out abruptly. But with such a strong impressionso strong that I was gripped by anguish: What can be done to change that? The WAY, you see, the way was inadequateinadequate. That was the anguish: My own experience is inadequate, it has no effect THERE, so whats to be done? Whats to be done? What can be done? So thats how I was for hours this morning: Whats the way? Whats the way? Whats the way to change that darkness into light?
It wasnt very cheering.
--
Im not speaking of things of the higher mind, because there the key to the way out was found long ago, a long time ago: I mean down below, in the material world the material world. Thats why all those people, like the old man last night, go somewhere elseits all the same to them, why should they bother! Why do you want to change that? And dont try to give light here, its no use and in addition its a nuisance. Leave this Ignorance in peace.
It is very clearly symbolic. But its a frightful anguish, hard to bear.
--
It was very strange because I was in that state all the time, saying to myself, I must find something, I must find something, theres something to find. And I tried to call down the experiences of the higher beings,1 but it couldnt reach downit couldnt reach down, couldnt make contact. So when I saw that old man come (I knew perfectly well that he could do nothing whatsoever, but I thought, I must ask him, I must ask him just the same, I must ask him), I asked himalthough I knew perfectly well that he couldnt give me the key. There was that double thing: the knowledge that all that goes on there2 is useless, useless, that thats not where the solution lies; and yet you should neglect nothing, overlook nothing, leave no stone unturned. Give everything a try.
(silence)
--
The higher parts of Mother's being.
In that mental domain.
0 1963-07-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Not spiritual! Not spiritual: power. Powerwhich means a somewhat higher mental capacity along with a vital realization. Hes a man who, were he not the Pope, would have no scruples. But he happens (laughing) to be obliged at least to appear good!
I get a sense of hardness.
--
But maybe The very fact that I met him (he may have been already thinking of becoming Pope, I dont know), but anyway, long before anyone except him thought of it, the fact that I met him while seeing to certain terrestrial arrangements shows that, probably unconsciously (I told you right away: I dont think he is conscious in his body), he is nevertheless under the influence, if not the control, of the higher forces.
Why is my attention drawn all of a sudden in that direction? Generally, I am not interested in all those things. For the action, I am concerned only with the little field of experience I have been given, and my terrestrial action is of quite another nature; its on a higher plane, very independent of individuals.
I find there are three noteworthy points: First, this man was already concerning himself with terrestrial affairs when he was a mere cardinal in Milan (in Milan he was very involved in labor problems there are many workers in Milan and that interested him, he liked to solve workers problems). Then there is the continuation of the other ones work: the rapprochement, so to say, with Russia, which is truly interesting. Last, there is the fact that Kennedy is Catholic. And also, that all this is happening just now, I mean when AT LEAST (I dont say at best, I say at least) the foundation of the new world is being prepared.
--
If, out of the need to enlarge, the Pope accepts, for instance, all the different sects (theyve already started to accept the Protestants), if he accepts all those sects, (laughing) little by little they will either break apart or be drowned! You follow, if we look at it from above Lets even assume its an Asuric powerit isnt (Mother hesitates) it isnt clearly and distinctly an Asuric power, because by his very position, the Pope is OBLIGED to recognize a god higher than himself; that god may, of course, be an Asura, but I have a sort of memory the memory of a very ancient story no one ever told me in which the first Asura challenged the supreme Lord and told him, I am as great as You! And the answer was, I wish you would become greater than I, because then there will be no more Asura.
This memory is very living, somewhere. If you become the Whole, its finishedyou see, the Asuras ambition is to be greater than the supreme Lord: Become greater than I, then there will be no more Asura.
0 1963-07-10, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Basically, the gurus real power is to fill up the gaps! To bring you into contact: when you are in the higher planes, to bring you into contact with the Highest. Or to bring you into contact with your soul, your psychic being within, or to bring you into contact with the Supreme but that not many can do.
(silence)
0 1963-07-24, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The importance of the body is obvious; it is because he has developed or been given a body and brain capable of receiving and serving a progressive mental illumination that man has risen above the animal. Equally, it can only be by developing a body or at least a functioning of the physical instrument capable of receiving and serving a still higher illumination that he will rise above himself and realise, not merely in thought and in his internal being but in life, a perfectly divine manhood. Otherwise either the promise of Life is cancelled, its meaning annulled and earthly being can only realise Sachchidananda by abolishing itself, by shedding from it mind, life and body and returning to the pure Infinite, or else man is not the divine instrument, there is a destined limit to the consciously progressive power which distinguishes him from all other terrestrial existences and as he has replaced them in the front of things, so another must eventually replace him and assume his heritage.
(The Life Divine, XVIII.231)
0 1963-08-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And it seems to be reflected in circumstances: everyone seems to be, if not at the peak of his difficulties, at least a good way up (!) Disharmony, conflict, chaos appear to have reached their highest (I hope they wont rise any higher, because as it is its hardly bearable). From morning till night, without letup, quarrels, discontent, demands oh, dissatisfaction, grumblings, all the time, all the time, with a sort of simmeringa simmering of disorder and dissatisfaction. (Mother points to a stack of letters): see all thatwhich I am supposed to answer, naturally.
***
0 1963-08-17, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I never had much that experience of renunciation. To renounce something, you must be attached to it, while I always had the thirst, the need to go farther, to go higher, to progress, to do better, to know better and instead of having a sense of renunciation, you have rather a sense of good riddance! Something you get rid of that hampers you, weighs you down, hinders your advance.
In that light, its very interesting.
0 1963-08-21, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding an old "Playground Talk," of January 4, 1951, in which Mother said that one of the essential conditions for transformation is an awareness of the inner dimensions: "It's a total reversal of consciousness, which can be compared to what happens to light when it goes through a prism. Or else it's as if you turned a ball inside out, which can be done only in the fourth dimension. You emerge from the ordinary consciousness of the third dimension to enter the higher consciousness of the fourth dimension, and then an infinite number of dimensions. This is the indispensable starting point.")
Thats what I had told you already: the whole basis of the yogic effort is changed now. Formerly, the work was based precisely on that knowledge of inner dimensions I cant recapture that any more, I see it as completely outside me.1
0 1963-09-04, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
From the standpoint of a higher receptivity, it has a very, very considerable importance I mean receptivity to the new forces, a preparation to receive the new forces.
(silence)
0 1963-09-25, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Last night was less pleasant. There were again those things collapsing. I was below, you see, trying to go back up to my room, and every time I tried to go back up, all the means to do so disappeared or were done away with. Now Ive chased it all away because it was tiring. But one thing I do remember: I was climbing up a sort of not stairs or a ladder, it was a very queer thing, like blocks of dark red stone, and they were all crumbling and coming apart. It ended up annoying me, and I had a movement not of anger, but of self-assertive will and everything vanished. You feel its adverse formations trying to harass you, until I cant say I lose patience, but something gets angry (is it angry? Asserts itself, rather: Ah, no! Enough!) and instantly, pfft! it all goes away. But then I found myself on a road I knew very well, but there was such a crowd! A crowd, a crowd: all the schools of the world were coming there for their holidays. There were troops of kids led by matrons and teachers, myriads and myriads of them! And also children who stopped and played on the ground; but all those children knew me very well, and when I arrived, they would take their things out of the way to let me throughweeny little kids this high. Then I met a symbolic person (not a human person) whom I know very well, she was pale blue (that is to say, a being of the higher mind, a force of Nature in the higher mind), I know her very well, she is very often with me. She explained to me her difficulties and I explained to her what she should do; I told her, Ive already told you several times, its like this and like that. She stayed beside me a very long time, and she asked me, Why do I always have to leave you? I answered her, Dont worry; everything is fine now. It went on for a long time. But it was interesting, a very pleasant, very refined contact: a beautiful girl that is, a beautiful thought or a beautiful idea. A beautiful girl. And she had in her charge an innumerable amount of kids (Mother laughs), so she was somewhat worried at times, and I explained to her what she should do.
I feel a sort of tenderness towards that person.
0 1963-10-05, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I kept going up, but all the ways I knew stopped short. First I had started up a very large staircase, a magnificent staircase of pink marble, that was the way I had to go upstairs, but just as I turned on the landingplop! impossible to get through. (But how is it? Impossible to get through, yet I went up just the same?..) And I find myself on another landing, I try again to go up from thereplop! stopped, impossible to get through. I try again and find myself on the third landing (but in fact I was on a higher floor, because I had already climbed two flights before I was stopped), I reach the third landing and find myself on a squarea perfect squareedged with a parapet of pink marble, but with reddish veins, very beautiful: very beautiful, it was chiseledmagnificent. Then a door, a sort of bronze door behind me, which was closed. So I watched and saw the water rising and rising (it wasnt water, but it was liquid like water). And in front of me: an immensity. No limits. I seemed to be above all the other houses; there were no trees, no mountains, nothingan immensity, like a perfectly cloudless sky; and it wasnt white, but there was light in it. I was looking down and I saw the water rising and rising and risinglike the Flood. But it wasnt water.
It will come back until I understand.
0 1963-10-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its still there; even in those who have developed their higher mind, who are able to emerge from that darkness and ignorance, its still there its still there in a sort of mental or vital subconscient. And its so dark! Thoroughly stupid, you know: it can be given hundreds and thousands of proofs, it remains unaffecteda kind of incapacity to understand. And then it constantly rises to the surface, and I am constantly obliged (gesture of offering to the Heights) to present it: This is still there, that is still there, that And I see very well that the distinction between what goes on in this body and its atmosphere, and what goes on in all other bodies is I dont know if the distinction still exists, but its imperceptible. And the consciousness is aware of all those movements as if they were personal to the physical person. But the physical person (Mother touches her body) isnt just this body I am not yet sure whether the physical person isnt the whole earth (for certain things, it is the whole earth), or whether the physical person is the entirety of all the bodies of the people I am in contact with. During the last hours of the night, that is, between 2 and 4, I see precise forms; but those precise forms are themselves representative, meaning there are TYPES and those types take on the image of someone I am in contact with or was in personal contact with. But to me they are types: Oh, its such and such a type but that can be thousands of people. And the action (its always for an action), the action on the person-type has repercussions on all that he represents.
And thats a labor which seems infiniteendless, at any rate.
--
You see, what I do is this: the thing comes, its taken up, presented (gesture to the Heights) as though it were mine: But look, see how I am (but its the Ithe great I), its presented to the Lord, very humbly, with the sense and feeling of complete helplessness I simply say, Here, change it. The feeling that only He can do it, that everything that people have tried everywhere appears childisheverything appears to be childish. The most sublime intelligence seems to me childish. All the attempts that are made to enlighten, organize, educate mankind, to awaken it to a higher consciousness, to give it mastery over Nature and its forces, all of itall of it, which for a human vision is sometimes utterly sublime, seems absolutely like children playing and having fun in a nursery. And children who love dangerous games, who believe TERRIBLY in what they do (as do children, naturally). I have never met more serious and stern a justice than the justice children have in their games. They really take life seriously. Well, thats exactly the impression it makes on me: the impression of a mankind in infancy which takes what it does with ferocious seriousness. And which will never get out of itit will never get out of it, it lacks the little something (which may be really nothing at all), a very little something thanks to which ah, everything becomes clear and organizedall that comes from mankind always BORDERS on Truth.
So the only thing I can do is this (gesture of presenting): Look, Lord, see how ignorant and powerless we are, how utterly stupid we areits up to You to change it. How do you change it? You cant even imagine the change, you cant even do that. So all my time (same gesture)not from time to time: constantly, day and night, without letup, day and night without letup. If for an interval of one or two minutes this isnt done, there is something that catches up: Oh, all that time wasted! And if I take a close look at what happened, then I see; I see that for these few minutes, I was blissful in the Lord, letting myself live blissfully in the Lord; so I no longer presented things to Himit happens two or three times a day. A relaxation, you know, you let yourself flow blissfully in the Lord. And its so natural and spontaneous that I dont even notice it; I notice it when I resume my attitude (same gesture to the Heights) of transferring everything to the Lord every minute.
0 1963-10-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So I was looking at it and thinking, How come? I was neither angry nor upset nor anything at allwithin, there was always that same Love, unchanging, always, always there, for everything; even when I perceive things with a kind of discernment (not even an intuitive one, a discernment higher than intuitive, which is like a clear visionclear, precise, in the white Light), the discernment of all the stupidity, all the ill will, all the crookednessa very clear discernmentit is always with a Smile, there is always that same Vibration of an eternal Love. Then that Power comesit doesnt disturb anything, it doesnt take the place of anything: its an addition. Its an action: it does its action and then goes away. But while its there you know, the Force that made me bang my fist on the table could have smashed everything. But of course, a poor little hand, a poor little arm, could only shake the table! (Mother laughs) It could only make a lot of noise and shake the table. But the perception was tremendous.
That was the last time, but not the first.
--
You understand, I dont feel any haste I love stones, flowers, plants, animals so much, theyre all so wonderful! It begins to be less pleasant beyond the most unpleasant is human perversionperversion of cruelty, of wickedness, of hardness. You have to rise higher to be able to accept it, to be unaffected by it.
But that thing I saw yesterday, that bubbly formation of joie de vivre, I saw clearly that its one of the greatest obstaclesone of the greatest obstacles: a vital joy that knows only itself, that knows nothing other than its own vital joy and is PERFECTLY content. I saw it was a great obstacle, because it already contained a sort of reflection of the True Thing. And then, you can only laugh, but there are stern people who say, Youll see when you get sick, youll see when you get old. (All that came because there was a whole work, which represents a whole great drama on the earths scale, there was this and that and that.) What for? Why be stern? Let them be happy, they represent why, its like foam on fresh beer!
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 1963-11-27, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The intelligences that have emerged into a higher light are like stars scattered over a perfectly dark skyperfectly dark.
But this trigger you mention, Kennedys death, will it precipitate things in the sense of a shake-up?
0 1963-12-25, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It isnt a pleasant realm. Its the realm thats just like this (Mother places one hand over the other), immediately beyond (how can I put it? Its neither higher nor deeper inside) beyond the subtle physical, and its the realm in which formations of illness MATERIALIZE. I spent more than three hours of the night in it.
Its a kind of study a useful one, maybe. And I noticed, I remember having complained, Oh, it hurts! (Apparently I was sound asleep, but I was very conscious of my body.) So it interested me, and I turned to the Lord: It hurts quite a bit. So He extended his hand, took that thing away and presented it to me, saying, Oh, its only that! It wasnt pretty. But then, INSTANTLY, the pain went away. I had been feeling some pain in the evening before going to bed (the nerves ached, the neck muscles hurt, it was like something weighing down heavily and clinging to me painfully); I saw His hand take it and present that animal to me, and I heard the voice say, Oh, its only that (He speaks to me in English), its only thatgone!
0 1964-01-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I gave you your name because There are many people who are very, very different apparently and are in relation with very different aspects of the Mother, yet who all, for a reason which I know, will find the fullness of their being only when, Truth having been fulfilled on earth, divine Love will be able to manifest purely thats why I called you Satprem. And there are other people, whom I know very well, who appear to be at the other end (how can I put it?) of the realization of their character (they are entirely different in origin, entirely different in influence), and yet who have exactly the same character with regard to something else, which I will tell only when the time comes. And its only when divine Love can manifest in its absoluteness that they will have the fullness of their being. So that for the moment they have, like you, but for very different reasons, the feeling that things dont move, nothing gets done, nothing changes you know, that all your efforts are useless; or else, for a few who do not have a sufficiently developed higher mind, they dont have faith: they think, Oh, its all promises, but (vague gesture, up above).
You are saved from that difficulty by the fact that up above you understand fully. But thats very rareyou should be infinitely grateful! (Mother laughs)
0 1964-01-29, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Doubt, discouragement, diminution or loss of faith, waning of the vital enthusiasm for the ideal, perplexity and a baffling of the hope for the future are the common features of the difficulty. In the world outside there are much worse symptoms such as the general increase of cynicism, a refusal to believe in anything at all, a decrease of honesty, an immense corruption, a preoccupation with food, money, comfort, pleasure, to the exclusion of higher things, and a general expectation of worse and worse things awaiting the world. All that, however acute, is a temporary phenomenon for which those who know anything about the workings of the world-energy and the workings of the Spirit were prepared. I myself foresaw that this worst would come, the darkness of night before the dawn; therefore I am not discouraged. I know what is preparing behind the darkness and can see and feel the first signs of its coming. Those who seek for the Divine have to stand firm and persist in their seeking; after a time, the darkness will fade and begin to disappear and the Light will come.
(XXVI.169-170, April 9, 1947)
0 1964-02-22, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Several times in his letters, Sri Aurobindo wrote that if the higher Light were to descend abruptly, or if divine Love were to descend abruptly, without preparation the matter would be shattered. It appears to be quite true!
(silence)
0 1964-03-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Amidst all that that mass of experience there was, standing out from the rest, the impression of the gorilla, of the fantastic power of progress that would turn him into a man. It was very odd, it was an extraordinary physical power, with an intense joy of progress, of the thrust forward, and it made a kind of simian form moving forward towards man. And then it was like something repeating itself in the spiral of evolution: the same brute power, the same vital force (theres no comparison, of course, man has lost all that completely), the fantastic force of life thats found in those animals was coming back into the human consciousness and, probably, into the human form, BUT with all that has been brought by the evolution of Mind (a painful enough detour), and transformed into the light of a higher certitude and a higher peace.
And, you know, it wasnt a thing that came, diminished and came back again, it wasnt like that. It was an immensity, a full, solid, ESTABLISHED immensity. Not something that comes and presents itself to you to tell you, This is how it will be, it wasnt thatit was HERE.
0 1964-03-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And this Vibration (which I feel and see) gives the feeling of a fire. Thats probably what the Vedic Rishis translated as the Flamein the human consciousness, in man, in Matter. They always spoke of a Flame.1 It is indeed a vibration with the intensity of a higher fire.
The body even felt several times, when the Work was very concentrated or condensed, that it is the equivalent of a fever.
0 1964-03-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Whats very interesting is that all those experiences youve had in your inner and higher beings, in your every state of being, appear feeble, flimsy, like a dream in comparison with the same experiences in the body. There, it becomes so The Power and Intensity are so fantastic that, all of a sudden, you understand WHY there is a material world.
(silence)
0 1964-06-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There you are! Since my last letter, I have seen you several times, often, evenevery time that I go to the place where the moves of nations (their next move) are being worked out. It is a terrestrial mental region, open to the higher influences. It seems to interest you, especially in certain details.
Last night, it involved the countries of the Far East, particularly China and Japan. You were there with me. We were trying to do some good work and to bring about a rapprochement. The details were picturesque and interesting but too long to narrate.
0 1964-08-11, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I remember, the very day when Janina1 died (she died around 6 in the morning, I think), around 4 in the morning, something made me suddenly take interest in this question: What will the new form be like? What will it be? I was looking at man and at the animal, and then I saw that there would be a far greater difference between man and the new form than between man and the animal. I began to see certain things, and it so happened that Janina was there (in her thought, but a material enough and very concrete thought). It was very interesting (it lasted a long time, nearly two hours), because I saw all the timidity of human conceptions, while she had made contact with something: it wasnt an idea but a sort of contact [with a future reality]. And I had the sense of a more plastic Matter, more full of Light, much more directly responsive to the Will (the higher Will), and with such a plasticity that it could respond to the Will by taking on variable and changing forms. And I saw some of her own forms, forms that she conceived (rather like those beings who dont have a body as we do, but have hands and feet when they will it, a head when they will it, luminous clothes when they will itthings of that sort), I saw that, and I remember I was congratulating her; I told her, Yours was a partial but partially very clear perception of one of the forms the new Manifestation will take. And she was very happy; I told her, You see, you have fully worked for the future. And then, suddenly, I saw a sapphire blue light, pale, very luminous, with something like the shape of a flame (with a rather broad base), and there was a kind of flashpfft!and it was gone. She wasnt there anymore. I thought, Well, thats odd! An hour later (I saw that around 6 A.M.; all the rest had lasted about two hours), they told me she was dead. Which means she spent the last moments of her life with me, and then, from me, pfft! went off towards a life elsewhere.
It was very abrupt. She was so happy, you know, I told her, How well you have worked for the future! And all of a sudden, a sort of flash (a sapphire blue light, pale, very luminous, with the shape of a flame and a rather broad base), pfft! she was gone. And that was just the time when she died.
0 1964-08-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One thing is obvious, its that if everything had gone very well, with good results, the need for a higher Help would never have occurred to them; they would have become puffed up with statistics and with satisfaction with their capacities.
To mark August 15, several groups connected to the Ashram have been meeting in Pondicherry.
0 1964-08-26, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You see, for our consolation we are told in every possible way that the work done isnt lost and that all this action on the cells to make them conscious of the higher life isnt lost thats not true, its absolutely lost! Suppose I leave my body tomorrow; this body (not immediately, but after a time) reverts to dust; then all that Ive done for these cells is perfectly useless! Except that the consciousness will come out of the cells but it always does!
Its really during the Workers lifetime that the thing must be done.
--
There are ups and downs, moments when its more present and moments where its less so; to be exact: moments when its active and moments when it isnt. And whenever there is a period during which it isnt active, when it starts again it does so on a higher rung, that is, more intensely and clearly. The whole thing is obviously following a process of development. Its a sort of the word awareness might be the nearest; it isnt a perception, which still belongs to the mind, its a sort of phenomenon of vision. And it has an absolute character. For instance, from time to time, when I hear people speak of something or other and say, It will be like this and like that, instantly there comes a sort of tactile vision how can I explain this? It resembles touch and sight (yet its neither touch nor sight, but both together): its the thing as it is, thats IT; and they may say what they like, thats IT and it is irrefutable. And so far, there has never been any contradiction.
Its a consciousness in which the mental element is absent. It comes just on its own, and its so clear! Its like an immediate contact with the thing as it is.
0 1964-08-29, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have noted that whenever something occurred and I said to myself (at the time), Oh, I shouldnt have done this I should have done that or I shouldnt have felt this way I should have felt that way, afterwards, when I looked at it carefully with the higher knowledge and higher consciousness, I saw that it was EXACTLY what I should have done under the circumstances! But instead of doing it knowingly and consciously, I did it in the usual ignorant way of human beings. And if I had had Knowledge, I would have done exactly the same thing.
So, this whole story [with X], the meeting with this man, his coming into our life, I KNOW it was absolutely necessary and that it brought along a whole set of circumstances that have contri buted to the Work. Only, one starts with a certain illusion, and after a while one loses it but one doesnt alter the course of circumstances, which happen as they have to happen.
--
And as always, when there is nothing pleasant to say, its better to keep quiet. One has no right to give ones Knowledge, which stems from a higher Consciousness, to those who arent capable of having it; this is why, in fact, from the beginning I decided never to talk to X: I never tell him anything, I will never tell him anything, because there are things I know and see, and I have no right to reveal them to those who arent capable of seeing and feeling. Far more complications and disorders are created by an excess of words than by silence. So one shouldnt say anything, one should just let things follow their courseone knows, one KNOWS perfectly well, one isnt deceived, one knows whats what, but one does what one has to do, without comments.
In your case, I had known it from the beginning. From the beginning, I had seen the proportion between what agreed with the truth and what was the product (how should I put it?) of the mental hope you placed on X, but I didnt say anything. I knew that his passage through our life here, that contact of a moment, was necessary for certain things to be realized and I let him enter and exit.
0 1964-09-26, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its undeniably a preparation, but how long will it last? Its as if there was a will to give me a demonstrationa demonstration in detailof how absolutely closed the world is to the higher Influence: all that comes down to the world, the minute it touches it, is twisted. Twisted, distorted beyond recognition.
Almost as if I were made to touch the rock bottom of insanity, in the root sense of the word.
--
Obviously, there could be only one solution: to lose the mental consciousness that gives you the perception or sensation that you are telling a lie or a truth; and you can obtain that only when you get to the higher state in which our notion of falsehood and truth disappears. Because when we speak from the ordinary mental consciousness, even when we are convinced that we are telling the whole truth, we are not doing so; and even when we think we are telling a lie, sometimes it isnt one. We do not have the capacity to discern whats true and what isntbecause we live in a false consciousness.
But there is a state in which, first, you no longer make personal decisions, and then you are like a mirror reflecting the exact NEED, the true (spiritual, that is) need of the patient, for instance, and exactly what he needs to know so that the rest of his life (whatever time he has left to live) brings him the maximum possibilities of progress.
And when you perceive this, you also see that the human way (the human doctors way) of seeing the illness isnt in accord with the higher vision of the SAME condition of the body; and that in each and every case (not in a general way for all cases), in each case there is ONE thing to be told, which is the True Thing, even if it is, for example, giving the patient the sense of a duration of life. You can shift your consciousness and place it inside that part of the patients being that lasts. It is difficult to explain, but I am saying this from experience because its a problem I have encountered very often. Just now, there is a person here who has had several cancers, who was operated on and was made to last for years with operations and treatments; only, she is told the usual lies; but she asks me, she asks me what I see and what I know. So I had the opportunity to see the answer that should be given.
It is, so to speak, the practical means to compel the doctor to enter a higher consciousness. That must be the crisis that has come to your brother; he has come to a point when he is imperatively obligedprofessionally obligedto enter a higher consciousness. Because, in his present state, he must be lying very badlyhe says he is a very good liar, but with the perception he has now, the result must be that, along with his lie, doubt enters the patients consciousness. So he isnt doing whats considered to be the useful thing.
In my opinion, from a practical and external standpoint, I have more often seen cases in which the lie had a bad effect than cases in which the truth had a bad effect. But everything depends on the doctors consciousness.
--
For a long time, would you believe it, I have been in search of a doctor, a man with full medical knowledge, knowing all that they now know about the human body and the way to cure it, AND capable of having the contact with the higher consciousness. Because through such an instrument, one could do very, very interesting thingsvery interesting.1
(silence)
0 1964-09-30, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But if we look at it from another point of view, I had noticedor rather WE [Mother and Satprem] had noticed that Xs presence or contact always brought conflicts, difficulties, a sort of struggle with Nature (personal or surrounding Nature). But judging by the effect of his mantras, that would correspond to his line of action; and because of what he is himself, his line of action is located in a relatively very material domain: the physical, the immediate vital and the physical mindnot the higher, speculative or intellectual mind, no: the physical mind, the one that has an action on Matter, then the vital with all the vitals entities (he always mentions them, and he also gives the ways of mastering them, of overcoming them), and then the physical. And when people around him complained about headaches or difficulties, as he once said to me (he himself said it to me, it was downstairs, I remember), I put them in contact with the nonhabitual Nature. Therefore, its part of his mode of action. And it struck me, I remember, it struck me, because several times when I felt a pressure, a discomfort, something unpleasant, I asked myself, Is it because the bodys cells arent accustomed to the force thats acting? So I would do a work of opening, of broadening, and indeed it always succeeded: the discomfort always stopped.
Sri Aurobindo said that all the Tantrics start from below; they start right down below, and so right down below, thats how things must be, obviously. While with him, you went from above downward, so that you dominated the situation. But if you start right down below, its obvious that, right down below, thats how things are: anything thats a little stronger or a little vaster or a little truer or a little purer than ordinary Nature brings about a reaction, a revolt, a contradiction and a struggle.
0 1964-10-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Things (not from the ordinary point of view, but from the higher point of view) have clearly taken a turn for the better. But the material consequences are still there: all the difficulties seem to have worsened. Only, the power of the consciousness is greaterclearer, more precise. Also the action on those who have good-will: they are making rather considerable progress. But the material difficulties seem to have worsened, which means its to see whether we bear up!
From the standpoint of money, its serious, the situation is serious. From the standpoint of health, everybody is sick. And from the standpoint of quarrels (!), the quarrels are more bitter, but they are indicative, in the sense that those who quarrel realize that they have made a blunder, that its something serious.
--
I ask myself the question because you feel that that transparency is transparent indeed, but its a bit nothinga nothing thats full, but still is nothing: you dont know. You dont know if its a kind of higher tamas or
Above all, one should be trusting.
--
And then (Mother points to her own body), this seems to be the lesson for these aggregates (bodies, you know, seem to me to be simply aggregates). And as long as there is, behind, a will to keep this together for some reason or other, it stays together, but These last few days (yesterday or the day before), there was this: a sort of completely decentralized consciousness (I am always referring to the physical consciousness, of course, not at all to the higher consciousness), a decentralized consciousness that happened to be here, there, there, in this body, that body (in what people call this person and that person, but that notion doesnt quite exist anymore), and then there was a kind of intervention of a universal consciousness in the cells, as though it were asking these cells what their reason was for wanting to retain this combination (if we may say so) or this aggregate while in fact making them understand or feel the difficulties that come, for example, from the number of years, wear and tear, external difficultiesfrom all the deterioration caused by friction, wear and tear. But they seemed to be perfectly indifferent to that! The response of the cells was interesting enough, in the sense that they seemed to attach importance ONLY TO THE CAPACITY TO REMAIN IN CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH THE higher FORCE. It was like an aspiration (not formulated in words, naturally), and like a what in English they call yearning, a longing for that Contact with the divine Force, the Force of Harmony, the Force of Truth and the Force of Love, and [the cells response was] that because of that, they valued the present combination.
It was an altogether different point of view.
0 1964-10-10, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw it in my own case. It was interesting enough, because from my earliest childhood, I was in contact with the higher consciousness (gesture above the head) and in a real stupefaction at the state of the earth and peoplewhen I was very little. I was in a stunned amazement all the time. And the blows I received! Constantly. Each thing came to me as a stab or a punch or a hammer blow, and I would say to myself, What? How is this possible? You know, all the baseness, all the lies, all the hypocrisy, all that is crooked, all that distorts and undoes the flow of the Force. And I would see it in my parents, in circumstances, in friends, in everythinga stupefaction. It wasnt translated intellectually: it was translated by that stupefaction. And when I was very little, the Force was already there (gesture above the head); I have a clear memory from the age of five: I only had to sit down for a moment to feel it, that Force which would come. And I went through the whole of life, up to the age of twenty or twenty-one (when I began to encounter Knowledge and someone who explained to me what it all was) like that, in that stupefaction: Whatis this life? Whatis this what people are? What? And I was as though beaten black and blue, mon petit!
Then, from the age of twenty or twenty-five, that habit of pessimism began. It took all that time, all those blows, for it to come.
0 1964-10-30, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its in this problem that I have been living these past few days. And mark you, it isnt at all the speculation of a higher being or a being who belongs to other worlds: its the substance of physical life that wants to know its own inner, deeper law.
(silence)
--
And that wisdom! Its an almost cellular wisdom (its odd). For instance, I was looking at the relationship I had with all those great beings of the Overmind and higher, the perfectly objective and very familiar relationship I had with all those beings and the inner perception of being the eternal Motherall that is very well, but for me its almost ancient history! The me that exists now is HERE, its at ground level, in the body; its the body, its Matter; its at ground level; and to tell the truth, it doesnt care much about the intervention of all those beings who ultimately know nothing at all! They dont know the true problem: they live in a place where there are no problems. They dont know the true problem the true problem is here.
Its an amused way of looking at religions and all the gods the way you would look at they are like theater performances. Theyre pastimes; but thats not what can teach you to know yourself, not at all, not at all! You must go right down to the bottom.
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 phenomena 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 phenomena 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.
0 1964-11-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Immediately I set to work (it lasted for hours), and the night was spent counteracting it: I tried to find which higher vibration could counteract it, until I succeeded in clarifying the atmosphere. But the memory remained very precise. And very recently (maybe a day or two ago), they told me that the Chinese had chosen an Indian territory, in the North, to test a certain kind of atomic bomb, and that they had exploded a certain bomb there. When they told me this, the memory of my odor abruptly came back.1
Which means that those vibrations travel very far the physical vibrations stop at a certain distance (although they go much farther than is believed), but the vital vibrations that are behind (the nervous vibrations, if one can say so) must extend TREMENDOUSLY far.
0 1964-11-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont know if it is an answer to this question, but there came today a sort of film show: a long procession of all the stories telling how men destroy whats higher than they, cannot tolerate whats higher than they: the martyrs, the killings, the tragic ends of all those who represented a power or truth higher than mankind. As though that were the explanation the symbolic explanationof the reason for the almost infinite time it took for Matter to awakenawaken to the imperious need for the Truth.
It was as if I were told, You see, there was a time when they burned you at the stake, tortured you, memories from past lives. And those memories were associated with the recent story of a Protestant missionary who said, though not in so many words, We worship Christ only because he DIED for men, because he was crucified for men.
0 1964-12-02, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For some people, it takes years; for others, its done very quicklyit depends on the quality of the vital. If its a refined vital, of a higher quality, it goes quickly; if it is something very brutish, which goes like a bulldog or a buffalo, it takes a little more time.
Anyhow, theres a long way to go for a vital that had the habit of governing everything and thought it was in possession of the truth that what it felt was the truth, what it wanted was the truth and that truth had to dominate and govern others and lifewell when one was born with that illusion, it takes a long time. What saves is if the vital is somehow SEIZED inwardly, if it feels inwardly that there is something greater than it; then it goes much faster.
For those who run away from the necessary change, it may mean several more lives. Those who have learned to bear up (who generally have enough higher intelligence to govern), those who have endurance, who have learned to bear up and not to worry about the vitals lack of collaboration, for them, it can be done relatively quickly.
Thats what generally takes the greatest time.
--
Ive had some very precise memorieslived memoriesof a human life on earth, quite primitive (I mean outside any mental civilization), a human life on earth that wasnt an evolutionary life, but the manifestation of beings from another world. I lived in that way for a timea lived memory. I still see it, I still have the image of it in my memory. It had nothing to do with civilization and mental development: it was a blossoming of force, of beauty, in a NATURAL, spontaneous life, like animal life, but with a perfection of consciousness and power that far surpasses the one we have now; and indeed with a power over all surrounding Nature, animal nature and vegetable nature and mineral nature, a DIRECT handling of Matter, which men do not havethey need intermediaries, material instruments, whereas this was direct. And there were no thoughts or reasoning: it was spontaneous (gesture indicating the direct radiating action of will on Matter). I have the lived memory of this. It must have existed on earth because it wasnt premonitory: it wasnt a vision of the future, it was a past memory. So there must have been a moment It was limited to two beings: I dont have the feeling there were many. And there was no childbirth or anything animal, absolutely not; it was a life, yes, a truly higher life in a natural setting, but with an extraordinary beauty and harmony! And I dont have the feeling it was (how can I explain?) something known; the relationships with vegetable life and animal life were spontaneous ones, absolutely harmonious, and with the sensation of an undisputed power (you didnt even feel it was possible for it not to be), undisputed, but without any idea that there were other beings on earth and that it was necessary to look after them or make a demonstrationnothing of the sort, absolutely nothing of mental life, nothing. A life just like that, like a beautiful plant or a beautiful animal, but with an inner knowledge of things, perfectly spontaneous and effortlessan effortless life, perfectly spontaneous. I dont even have the feeling that there was any question of food, not that I remember; but there was the joy of Life, the joy of Beauty: there were flowers, there was water, there were trees, there were animals, and all that was friendly, but spontaneously so. And there were no problems! No problems to be solved, nothing at allone just lived!
An uncomplicated life, definitely.
--
He has a political attachment to the dogma. For instance, after one of my conversations (I had a good number of conversations with him, three or four, on the mental level, and perfectly objective because his reactions were unexpected; to me they were very spontaneous, in the sense that I received answers that werent at all those I might have expectedwhich proves it was genuine), but for example, before his election, I met him once (there is a part of his mental being, a higher intelligence, thats very well formed, conscious, individualized), and I had a spontaneous conversation that I hadnt sought and which was very interesting. But at one point, I replied to something he said, and I told him with the force I have there [on that higher plane], The Lord is everywhereeven in hell the Lord is there. And then it caused such a violent reaction in him that, pfft! he vanished. I found it very striking. I dont know the dogma, but it seems that in hell, according to the Catholics, whats worse than suffering, the fire and all that, is the absence of the Lord. It seems its a dogma that the Lord is absent from hell; and me, I was speaking of universal Oneness and I told him that.
There is another thing I remember very clearly, which struck me. It was after his election (but long before his trip to India was decided upon): he had come to India and he came to Pondicherry to meet me (not to meet me: he had come to Pondicherry, then he came and met me). Once in Pondicherry, he came and I saw him there, in the room where I receive people. We had a long conversation, a very long and interesting conversation, and suddenly (it was towards the end, it was time for him to go), when he rose, he was preoccupied by something. He told me, When you speak to your children about me, what will you tell them? You understand, the ego showing itself. So I looked at him (Mother smiles) and said, I will only tell them that we have been in communion in our love for the Supreme. Then he relaxed and left. It struck me. These things are very objective.
0 1965-01-12, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its only now and then, for a precise action (sometimes it comes like a flash, sometimes just for a few minutes), that the great Power of the past (which I used to feel constantly) comes, brrm! does its work, then goes away. But NEVER FOR THIS BODY. Never. It doesnt do anything for this body it isnt a higher intervention that will change it, its from within.
And because, first, of what you know, because of what you have seen, because of your contact with Sri Aurobindo, because of your contact with me, the same thing is happening to you, and thats what makes the difficulty. Thats why I am telling you, It doesnt matter, dont worry if you are preoccupied with your body: simply try to take ADVANTAGE of thisadvantage of this preoccupationto bring the Peace, the Peace into your body. I am constantly enveloping you, as it were, in a cocoon of peace. And then if in this mind, too, which vibrates and vibrates, fidgets all the time (really like a monkey), if you can bring into it its a Peace that doesnt come through the higher mind: its a Peace that acts DIRECTLY in this material vibrationa Peace in which everything relaxes.
Dont thinkdont think you have to transform this physical mind or oblige it to fall silent or abolish it: all that is still activity. Simply let it run, but bring the Peace, feel the Peace, live the Peace, know the Peace the Peace, the Peace, the Peace.
0 1965-02-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But there is something interesting here. I have noticed this: if you try EVERY SECOND to discern the impulse of your action, how difficult it is! To discern whether it comes from the ego, whether it comes from darkness, whether it comes from the Light. And when you want to express as purely as possible what exclusively comes from the Supreme, you have to work at it every second and it is there was a time (not so long ago) when I used to consider it was materially practically impossiblenot in the main lines or in the great movements that come from the higher parts of the being, but in all that is purely material, absolutely material. And all of a sudden, at the beginning of this year, with this Salute to the advent of the Truth5 there came a sort of very sharp inner sense, very sharp, very precise, and so QUIET, So quiet, which gave the power to clearly see the origin of a material impulse or a material reaction, EVEN IN VERY SMALL THINGS. It was very interesting. So I studied carefully, and it has become almost automatic.
Previously it took an inner discomfort, a feeling of some friction to make me aware that it wasnt the true thing; but now it isnt like that: it is seen BEFOREHAND in the space of half a second.
0 1965-03-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
After perfect stillness, there is the movement of inner aspiration (I am always referring to the aspiration of the cells I am using words to describe something wordless, but there is no other way to express oneself), the surrender, that is to say, the SPONTANEOUS AND TOTAL acceptance of the supreme Will (which is unknown to us). Does the total Will want things to go this way or that way, that is, towards the disintegration of certain elements or towards? And then again, there are endless nuances: there is the passage from one height to another (I am speaking of cellular realizations, of course, dont forget that), I mean that you have a certain inner equilibrium, an equilibrium of movement, of life, and its understood that in order to go from one movement to a higher movement, there is almost always a descent, then a new ascent there is a transition. So does the shock received impel you to go down in order to climb up again, or does it impel you do go down in order to abandon old movements? Because there are cellular ways of being that have to disappear in order to give way to others; there are others that climb down in order to climb up again with a higher harmony and organization. This is the second point. And you should wait and see WITHOUT POSTULATING IN ADVANCE what has to be. There is especially, of course, the desire: the desire to be comfortable, the desire to be in peace and all that that must cease absolutely and disappear. You must be absolutely without any reaction, like this (gesture of immobile offering Upward, palms open). And then, when you are like that (you, meaning the cells), after a while the perception comes of the category the movement belongs to, and you just have to follow the perception, whether it is that something must disappear and be replaced by something else (which one doesnt know yet), or whether it is that something must be transformed.
And so forth. And its like that all the time.
0 1965-04-21, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats how we began, and it began that way because there was a descent of the higher human mental consciousness into the form that existed. The phenomenon may recur in the same way, with the difference that it can be more conscious and willed there may be the intervention of a conscious will. It would, or it could happen through an occult processwell, I dont know, there are all sorts of possibilities, one of which could be the conscious passage of a being who has used the old human body for his development and his yoga, and who would leave that form once it became unnecessary in order to enter a form capable of adapting to the new growth.
Here, the two possibilities meet.
0 1965-05-08, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But what to people is unconscious, what they dont understand or call illness, is to me as clear as daylight; and its always a CHOICE, there is always a choice every minute (for the material nature), and if the will isnt unshakable, if you arent holding on to the higher Will with desperate and unrelenting eagerness, you let yourself go; and then the body becomes stupid: it faints, it has pains. That same day when I couldnt eat (after lunch I always rest for some time to well, those are the hours when I put the body in direct reception of the Forceit doesnt last very long, I dont have much time), but as soon as I lay down on the chaise longue, such pains! Howling pains that take hold of you (gesture to the waist) at those spots that are open to the adverse attacks. I was lying down, but I was fully conscious then and I said to myself, Oh, very well! You want to make a big scene. All right, I will bear everything and I wont make a sound and I wont budge, and youre going to keep still. Then I started repeating my mantra quietly, as though the body werent in any pain. And after a while, the pain went away. The body saw it was no use, so it went away!
And I KNOW its the same for everything, for all illnesses, without exception. I see, I know the origin of illnesses, of the various disorders, all that is now crystal clear (its a story that it could take hours and days to tell), and thats how it is. So when, in a more or less dogmatic or literary way, the sages say, Disorder occurs because the nature has decided to be in disorder, its not so silly.
0 1965-05-29, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw the other dayit was very interesting, the very day he was on his way here (I wasnt thinking of him I never think of people), suddenly I saw all that the knowledge of the pundits and those who profess to follow a spiritual life (the whole class of sannyasins, pundits, purohits,1 etc.), all that that represents. (I am not referring to religions in other countries: its specific to India.) And they are people who have a knowledge, a mental knowledge, of course, but very precise and very exact, of the movements in relation to the Overmind: all the gods and godheads and their ways of being and the relationships between men and gods; and they have tried to organize and formulate the relationships men have with gods so that, as was said in the past, men would not be the cattle of the godsthey have tried to change the human position with regard to deities. Its interesting, its a whole interesting field which to me does not represent the true thing. They on their part think that is spiritual lifeits not spiritual life, but it is a higher mental region which borders on the Overmind, which even enters into the Overmind, and which is completely organized; its a sort of legislation of the relationships between men and gods. From that point of view, its interesting.
I saw that very clearly: the place it has in the universal organization. And if its in its place, then its quite all rightwhen a thing is in its place it becomes very good.
--
It is really when you have the experience the experience and knowledge and identity with the higher forces that you see the relativity of external knowledge; but before that, no, you cannot see, you deny the other realities.
I think this is what Sri Aurobindo meant; its only once the other consciousness is developed that the scientist will smile; he will say, Yes, this is all very nice, but
0 1965-06-26, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the idea (not the ideaoh, you see, its impossible to speak, mon petit) what was seen was this: this man has never believed in a divine force or a reality higher than what is manifested in man or anything, and the idea was that he should feel an intervention (which he would call by any name he liked) higher than anything known on earth.
Did he recognize it? What does she say?
--
It was clearly a higher Command to the material Nature, and it has obeyed.
I dont know if he will be cured thats not certain. But the important thing was that he should regain understanding and speech.
0 1965-07-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know the play by Jules Romains in which the doctor declares that a healthy man is a man who doesnt know he is sick? Well, thats the feeling it gives; the disorder is constant, and just because we live in another consciousness we dont see it, but if we observe we are sure to find it. You know, if I observe from that angle, there is absolutely nothing anywhere that is normal, that works harmoniouslynothing. Everything is like this (same zigzag gesture) and its chaos, and it keeps on working simply because it isnt left to itself, because there is a higher Will that uses all that, making the best of a bad job. But it is a bad job.
I have looked at all the cases (because it interests me a lot), I have looked at your case, I have looked at her case, I have looked at every case, but there isnt one case in which one can say it is a true illness. The idea of illness is: a body (a physical being, anyway) that lives according to certain laws, till suddenly a disorder, something works its way into the body, establishes itself and upsets it; but its not that! Its not that: its something that isnt in order the body isnt in order; only, something predominates in the consciousness, something which is in contact with the disorder, but isnt bothered by it and keeps going. And I have done the same study with supposedly healthy people: its the same thing. So the conclusion is that the full power should be released, which means that all that sort of disorderly muddle must be made to be governed by a higher Will that imposes itselfit imposes itself. Then, if order isnt completely restored, at least its kept within certain limits and the body can go on being used as an instrument for the Will that seeks to manifest.
I see this very clearly, not only for this body for the others too; but for this body, it is seen in the minutest details, because the observation is more constant: it would already have had at least a hundred reasons to die, and if it hasnt died, its not to blame. Its not to blame, its because there was something (which fortunately isnt a personal will) that said, No, go on! Go on, carry on, dont pay attention to yourself. Otherwise, its falling to pieces.
--
Well, I am convinced thats how it is, thats all. But the physical mind doesnt believe in that. It believes that thats all very well in the higher realms, but when we are in Matter things follow a law of Matter and are material and mechanical, and there is a mechanism, and when the mechanism and so on and so forth (not with these words, but with this thought). And one has to keep forever working on that, forever saying, Oh, put a stop to all your difficulties, keep quiet!
Only, the Flame must be there the Flame within, the flame of aspiration and the flame of faith; and then the something that truly wants it to stop. You understand, whether things are this way or that, there is no need for me to present them to my thought and for my thought to accept them; because thats a very dangerous game: when you seek equanimity, you say to yourself, Well, if this and that happens, what will my reaction be? And you go on with the little game, till you say, Its all the same to me. It is a very dangerous game. Its still a way of circling around the goal instead of heading straight for it.
0 1965-07-17, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother had already spoken of this case in the conversation of 26 June 1965: the man who was cured of a cancer of the brain but still did not believe in the intervention of a higher force.
The letter excerpted above also announced the patient's relapse.
0 1965-08-04, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At any rate, it is quite certain (Sri Aurobindo wrote it somewhere, I read it again just two or three days ago), quite certain that the Lord doesnt want automatons that He has to push along. Thats not what He wants: He wants a conscious collaboration. Only, a point comes when the sense of the person truly disappears; you go on saying I, because how do you express yourself? But when you say I, you have the feeling (not the thought for the thought, it takes a long time), a sort of feeling of the higher Will manifesting here, in this spot, with these means.
It comes after years.
0 1965-09-22, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats an experience I had here long ago: the difference between wanting immediately to spread and use what one has learnt, and, by contrast, the contact with higher knowledge in which one remains as still as possible so it may have a transforming effect.
Well talk about it again another time.
0 1965-11-27, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Of course, all those things are known somewhere, intellectually, vaguely, in their principleall that is known, but its quite useless. In everyday practice, you live according to something else, a truer understanding. And there, you seemed to be touching thingsyou saw them, touched themin their higher ordinance.
It came after a vision of plants and the spontaneous beauty of plants (which is something so wonderful!), then of the animal with such a harmonious life (when men dont interfere), and all that was quite in its own place. Then true humanity seen as such, that is to say, the summit of what a balanced mind can produce in beauty, in harmony, in charm, in elegance in life, in taste for lifetaste to live in beautywhile eliminating, naturally, all that is ugly and low and vulgar. That was a lovely humanity. Humanity at its highest, but lovely. And perfectly satisfied as such, because it lives harmoniously. And it may also be like a promise of what almost the totality of humanity will become under the influence of the new creation: as I saw it, it was what the supramental consciousness can do with humanity. There was even a comparison with what humanity has done with animal kind (something extremely mixed, of course, but there have been improvements, betterments, more complete utilizations). Animality under the mental influence has become something else, which naturally has been mixed because the mind is incomplete; similarly there are examples of a harmonious humanity among the well-balanced people, and it appeared to be what humanity could become under the supramental influence.
--
I saw that, I have seen that so concretely.3 Besides those who are capable of preparing for the supramental transformation and the realization, whose number is necessarily very limited, there should be increasingly developed, in the midst of the ordinary human mass, a higher humanity that had towards the future or promised supramental being the same attitude as animality, for instance, has towards man. What is needed, besides those who work for the transformation and are ready for it, is a higher or intermediate humanity that would have found in itself or in life this harmony with lifethis HUMAN harmony and that would have the same sense of worship, of devotion, of faithful dedication to something that seems to it so superior that it doesnt even attempt to realize it, but which it worships and whose influence and protection it feels the need ofand the need to live in that influence and to have the joy of being under that protection. It was so clear. But not that anguish and agony of wanting something that eludes you becausebecause it isnt yet your destiny to have it, and because the amount of necessary transformation is premature for your existence, and so it creates a disorder and a suffering.
But I clearly see that when the work is done as I am made to do it, it becomes that way very spontaneously. For instance, one of the very concrete things, which shows the problem clearly: humanity has the sex impulse quite naturally, spontaneously and, I may say, legitimately. This impulse will naturally and spontaneously disappear along with animality (a lot of other things will disappear, such as for instance the need to eat, perhaps also the need to sleep the way we do), but the most conscious impulse in a higher humanity, and which has remained as a source of bliss is a big word, but of joy, of delight, is certainly the sexual activity, which will have absolutely no more reason to exist in the functions of nature when the need to create in that way no longer exists. Therefore the capacity to come into contact with the joy in life will go up one rung or will orient itself differently. But what the spiritual aspirants of old had attempted on principlesexual negationis an absurd thing, because it must exist only in those who have gone beyond that stage and no longer have any animality in them. And it must fall off naturally, effortlessly, without struggle, just like that. Making it a focus of conflict, struggle and effort is ridiculous. To be sure, my experience with the Ashram has absolutely proved that to me, because I have seen all the stages and that all the ideas and prohibitions are absolutely useless, that its only when the consciousness stops being human that it falls off quite naturally. There is a transition there that may be somewhat difficult because transitional beings are always in a precarious balance, but inside oneself there is a sort of flame or need thanks to which the transition isnt painfulits not a painful effort, its something that can be done with a smile. But to want to impose that on those who arent ready for that transition is absurd. I have been much reproached for encouraging certain people to marry; there are lots of these children to whom I say, Get married, get married! I am told, What! You encourage them?its common sense.
Its common sense. They are human, but let them not pretend they arent.
--
Only, the body isnt ready. The body isnt ready and it deteriorates, which means that it eats itself up. So that shows that the time hadnt come and it was just an experimentan experiment which teaches you something, which teaches you that there mustnt be a blunt refusal to come in contact with the corresponding matter, there mustnt be isolation (you cant isolate yourself, thats impossible), but a communion on a higher or deeper level.
(silence)
--
Those who have touched the higher regions of intelligence but havent mastered in themselves the mental faculties have an ingenuous need for everyone to think as they do and to be able to understand as they understand, and when they realize that others cannot, dont understand, their first reflex is to be horribly shocked; they say, What a fool! But fool isnt the point at allthey are different, they live in another region. You dont go and tell an animal, Youre a fool, you say, Its an animal. Well, you say, Its a man. Its a man. Only, there are those who arent men anymore and arent gods yet, and those are in a very in English they say, a very awkward position.
But it was so soothing, so sweet, so marvelous, that visioneach thing expressing its own kind, quite naturally.
--
Mother asked Satprem to alter the following passage in which she was first referring to the Ashram. It is interesting to note what she saw for the Ashram, interesting too to note that she asked Satprem to cut and alter this passage, the original version of which we are giving here: "For a group such as the Ashram, for instance, in order for it to function really well, members of that higher humanity would have to be formed who had towards the future or promised supramental being the same attitude as animality (like the dog, for instance) has towards man. For the Ashram to function well, there should be people who had found in themselves or in their life this harmony with lifethis human harmony and who had the same sense of worship, of devotion [as have animals] towards 'something' that seems to them so superior that they don't even attempt to realize it, but which they worship, and whose influence and protection they feel the need ofand the need to live in that influence and to have the joy of being under that protection."
"It is certainly a mistake to bring down the light by forceto pull it down. The Supramental cannot be taken by storm. When the time is ready it will open of itself but first there is a great deal to be done and that must be done patiently and without haste."
0 1965-12-04, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am made to learn that all the time. You see, its a long time since that blissful contentment stopped existing (I never had it much, if it did exist at a given time, its a very long time since it stopped holding on), but I am taught to pass on to a higher stage in which one is sufficiently free from all external vibrations to be able to live in the true, harmonious Vibration. But for the body its difficult, because every time you eat, you absorb disorder; every time you breathe, you absorb disorderyou live in disorder. So its a work of clarification, organization, harmonization, and everything becomes very still, absolutely still: there (gesture to the forehead), absolute silence and light the light of an unmoving light; and then, to make that come down here (the body). Very still Yet the blood is constantly moving along, isnt it? But I think it must be moving at a slower pace. Then its fine.
I think external science says its in sleep that toxins are burnt; well, thats the point: its the stillness that illuminates dark vibrations.
0 1965-12-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday evening, I gave him a little over twenty minutes of concentration. He was sitting and I was standing, holding his hands. Never pull down on yourself, it is said, but you can pull down on someone else I pulled the Force all out. It was so powerful that his hand kept trembling2 while mine was still! Afterwards, once it was over, I wondered how it could be, I didnt understand: my hand, which was holding his, stayed still, but his was shaking; I felt his tremor in my hand. Then I stopped, when, all of a sudden, everything came to a halt: he stopped moving. And relaxation came, a relaxation. I was concentrating there, on his headrelaxation. Then I stopped. Time was up, anyway. Therefore IT CAN BE DONE. But this lack of faith based on the higher intelligence, the higher reason, prevents it from staying: it brings back the difficulty instantly. But I saw I saw it: it did stop. For me that was an obvious proof.
And I did it deliberately. Its true that it is dangerous to pull down because if the resistance is too great, something gets demolished, but there was nothing to risk anymore since he himself was ready to go to Madras to be sent to another world. I did it.
0 1966-01-22, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Only, I have noticed that in this bodys life, Ive never had the same experience twice I may have the same type of experience to a higher degree or to a much vaster degree, but never identically the same. And I dont retain the experience: I am constantly, constantly (gesture forward), constantly forging ahead; you know, the work of transformation of the consciousness is so rapid, it must be done so fast that you dont have time to enjoy or dwell upon an experience or draw long-lasting satisfaction from it, its impossible. It comes powerfully, very powerfully, it changes everything, then something else comes. Its the same thing with the transformation of the cells: all kinds of little disorders come, but to the consciousness they are clearly disorders related to the transformation, so you see to that particular point, you want order to be restored; at the same time, something knows full well that the disorder came to make the transition from the ordinary automatic functioning to the conscious functioning under the direct Direction and the direct Influence of the Supreme. And the body itself knows this (still, its no fun to have a pain here or a pain there, or this or that being disorganized, but it KNOWS). And when that point has reached a certain stage of transformation, you move on to another point, then on to another, and on to another again. So nothing is done, no work is definitively done until everything is ready. So you have to do the same work again, but on a higher or a vaster level, or with more intensity or in greater detail (it depends on the case), until EVERYTHING has been brought to a homogeneous point and is ready in the same way.
According to what I see, its going as fast as it can go. But it takes a great deal of time. And everything is a question of changing the habit. The whole automatic habit of millennia must be changed into a conscious action, directly guided by the supreme Consciousness.
0 1966-01-31, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It has a drawback, but it will have that advantage. I am not referring to external drawbacks, that cant be helped, well have to manage.1 I mean for yourself: it concentrates you in an almost hypnotic way on that part of your being which is almost imprisoned in the form, in the form of expression, that is to say, the author, the writer. Yet I know, and its very clear, that your external being was formed in large part for that, but from a higher standpoint: more as a means than as an end.
You see, your book on Sri Aurobindo is exceptional in all respects and it was a sort of summit in expression. There was also the fact that Sri Aurobindo was always there while you were writing it. When it came, I had the sense of a summit that cannot be exceeded. Thats why I no longer thought about other books: my consciousness used this book on Sri Aurobindo as a starting point towards something else, something more complete. But when I read your letter yesterday, I thought, Maybe, after all, there is indeed something that has to be expressed; maybe it will be the right way to get rid of a past thats lingering on.
--
Just two days ago, I wrote to someone (someone who is a bit under the influence of ascetic ideas), and I told that person, Those thoughtsthose thoughts and that type of actionbelong, from the spiritual standpoint, to the ascetic belief, but it-is-no-longer-true. And I said it with terrible force: IT-IS-NO-LONGER-TRUE. And I saw that at one point in the history of the earth it was necessary to obtain a certain result, but now ITS NO LONGER TRUE. Voil. It has given way to a higher and more complete truth. From that point of view, your book can obviously be the expression of this new force.
Its possible, its by no means impossible.
--
The question is more of a subtle order: its to know whether the thing is really there, in the inner or higher worlds, and I have to do it, or whether its a decision of my writers ego that wants to write.
The thing is there (how can I explain?).
--
But there is one thing Even as a writer (you in your present form and as a writer) you can, AS A WRITER, give many different expressions to that thing which you want to attract upon earth and express: you can express it in many different forms. We are now concerned with one particular form that you had conceived; well, what makes this form useful is that, to me (what I am going to tell you may be a bit commonplace), it can be used as a pickaxe, you understand, to root out the things you want to reject from your consciousness: a certain way of being of your consciousness thats receding into the past. And then, afterwards, you will rise to expressions of a higher order.
And, mind you, if we look at the problem from the terrestrial and human standpoint, its fully part of the things that can be very useful to mankind; if you were humanitarian, I would tell you: Without a shadow of doubt, it can be very useful.
--
Mind you, its very good, very useful to lots of people who lack that consciousness.4 Nothing in the world is useless, but things must be in their place. When one lingers on in a consciousness that must be exceeded, it becomes a failingone just has not to linger! One just has to reject it and use it as a springboard to jump higher, thats all. Thats how I see it. Thats how I see all the incapacities, all the failings, all the failures, I see them like that: All right, its a springboardhop! lets jump, now lets go beyond that.
When one does the work I am doing and is in contact with all the petty reactions of the physical body, of the most material consciousness mon petit, it would be absolutely disheartening and sickening to anyone having an ideal. But that thats how it is, so thats how it is: it must changewe are here so that it will become different. And as long as we arent conscious of it, it will never change. Therefore one must rejoice when one is conscious, thats all.
0 1966-02-11, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Just last night, I must have been going about for some time among all human constructions, but those of a higher quality, not the ordinary constructions (those Sri Aurobindo refers to here: the philosophical, religious, spiritual constructions ). And they were symbolized by huge buildingshuge that were so high as if men were as tall as the edge of this stool, quite tiny, in comparison with those huge thingshuge, huge. I was going about, and each person came (I saw now one come, now another), each person came saying, Mine is the true path. So I would go with him to an open door through which an immense landscape could be seen, and just when we came to the door, it would close!
It was really very interesting. With all sorts of diverse details, each one with his own habits. I have forgotten the details now, but when I came out of that place last night, in the middle of the night, I was quite amused, I said to myself, Its quite amusing! You know, when they spoke you could see through a door vast expanses before you, in full light, it was superb; then I would go with that person towards the door and the door was closed. It was really interesting.
0 1966-03-04, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the interesting point subjectively is that the problem loses its acuteness as you look at it from a higher and higher standpoint (or a more central point, to tell the truth).
The principlenot principle, its not a principle the law seems to be the same for the individual, worlds, and universes.
0 1966-03-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For a very long time, more than two years, I saw the world like this (ascending gesture, from one level to a higher level), and now I see it like this (descending gesture). I dont know how to explain it because theres nothing mentalized about it, and non-mentalized sensations have a certain haziness thats hard to define. But words and thought were a certain distance away (gesture around the head), like something that watches and appreciates, in other words, that tells what it sees something around. And today, it has been extremely strong two or three times (I mean that that state dominated the whole consciousness): a sort of impression (or sensation or perception, but its nothing like all that) of, I am a dead person living on earth.
How can I explain that?
--
It corresponds to the experience of absolute freedom one has in the higher parts of the being when one has become completely independent of the body. But the remarkable point (I lay great stress on this) is that its the consciousness OF THE BODY that has those experiences and its a body thats still visibly here (!)
Of course, there is nothing left of what gives human beings trust of life. There doesnt seem to be any support from the outward world left; there is only the supreme Will. To put it into ordinary words, well, the body feels it lives only because the supreme Lord wants it to live, otherwise it wouldnt be able to live.
0 1966-03-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
With everything, everything. Sometimes for an hour I follow what goes on: there is a minute work of subtle observation of what goes on here [in Mother] and of what goes on in the thought or consciousness of one or two other persons, with a whole detailed observation showing the difference between the fact as it should normally be (which is simply something direct, a movement taking place), and the complication brought in by thoughtnot higher thought: the physical thought, that is, the observation and all sorts of deductions, along with the memories of similar events and things heard or seen and all sorts of instances of similar occurrences, of possible hazardsa mishmash, mon petit! Something frightening which spoils everything and complicates everything: the slightest thing becomes complicated.
These last few days I have had examples of all the possible complications of the physical world, including practices of hypnotism and so-called black magic and all the phenomena that take place in the invisible realm, but just adjoining the physicallike certain materializations, certain disappearances (incidents I saw and was obliged to note; I was obliged to note that they werent imaginings but things that really took place), but then, with the secret revealed: how they can take place. Its very, very interesting. How it can happen, how the contact with certain distorting vibrations makes certain things possible.
0 1966-04-30, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ultimately, this taste for Nothingness is the most harmonious way to put an end to the ego. Its the ego coming to an end. Its, yes, the most harmonious way, the higher way to put an end to the ego. Its the ego coming to an end.
It is tired of being. Instead of feeling killed and crushed (Mother makes a gesture of self-abandon), phew! A phew of relief: Enough, enough of this battle to exist. We could say: Falsehood, tired of being, gives up.
0 1966-05-22, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
People who dont know (there are many of them, almost all of them dont know) feel they are ill. But its not an illness: its a change of balance, which takes on all kinds of forms depending on each ones character and nature. So when you dont pay attention and there is a loss of balance, something happens which results in what doctors call an illness, but if I had the time to have fun and ask them questions, they would be forced to tell me that each case is differenteach case: there arent two identical cases. They say, Yes, it looks like this or it looks like that or it looks like this. And its nothing but the transition from the old millennial equilibrium to a new equilibrium which isnt yet established, and in the transition between the two, well one must be careful, thats all. And cling very, very firmly to the higher Harmony.
***
0 1966-05-25, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding the conversation of May 18 in which Mother said that ninety percent of the visions and dreams in the vital, or even on the other, higher planes, are subjective.)
All the same, there is something disturbing about that almost total subjectivity.
0 1966-06-02, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Have you heard of dolphins speech? Havent you seen those articles? They have discovered that dolphins speak an articulate speech, but with a much more extensive range than ours: it rises much higher and goes much lower. And its far more varied. And they frequently talk (it seems it can be recorded), they talk but people dont understand what they say. And then, they were given our speech to listen tothey imitate it and make fun of it! They laugh! (Mother looks very amused)
I saw some photos, they look nice, but the photos arent enough. They have, as porpoises do, rows of small teeth (it seems they arent ferocious at all, they never fly into a fury). They talk and talk! And they know how to listen. And then, they imitate and laugh, as if they found us extremely ridiculous.
0 1966-06-11, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its because when one starts writing, one enters the mental atmosphere, the human mental atmosphere. And the passage is almost imperceptible, theres such a habit of thinking, of expressing oneself, of feeling within a human mental atmosphere which is nevertheless, in comparison with the human individual, something very vast, very complex, very supple (and those who move about in it already have the sense of a higher intelligence, an exceptional understanding and so on), but from the standpoint of the Truth, its so artificial and CONVENTIONAL! Its a very durable convention, which undergoes slight changes, alterations according to the times, the ages, but which has some sort of permanence. I feel it as (Mother makes a circular gesture around her head) a globe one is inside, luminous but so artificial!
This morning, I had, for instance, a whole series of experiences regarding the notion of selfishness. I remember that the first time someone said to Sri Aurobindo in my presence (many years ago) about someone else, Oh, he is selfish, Sri Aurobindo smiled and answered, Selfish? But the most selfish of all is the Divine, since everything belongs to Him and He sees everything in relation to Himself! I found it rather daring! And this morning (strangely, just this morning; its not the first time, either), I suddenly felt how false that notion of selfishness is and that sort of reprobation of the selfish, with, at the same time, all the shades of leniency, understanding, how false all that is, that whole world, how rigid and outside the Truth. Outside the Truth, not that its opposite would be true, no, thats not the point! Its that sort of moral-mental notion, which is such a self-evident affair that nobody questions ithow far, far away it is from the Truth.
0 1966-06-18, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He is forced to become so narrow in order to make himself understood. You feel you could be sitting in front of a genius and have no means to communicate, except like this (gesture above the head of a communication on a higher plane).
They are wondering how to communicate with other solar systems. But our very way of thinking stems from our form, its because we count one-two-three-four-five with our fingers, so we say one-two-three-four-five. Others use other words, but if five objects are put together they understand. But can dolphins count, for instance? They have no hands, no feet(laughing) they only have one-two-three-four-five dolphins!
0 1966-08-03, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then, what discoveries I make! Extraordinary discoveries: how every experience always has an obverse and a reverse. For instance, the calm of a vision thats vast enough not to be disturbed by tiny infinitesimal points and is (I was about to say seems to be, but it doesnt seem to be: it IS) the result of a growth of consciousness and of an identification with the higher regions, and at the same time that apparent insensitiveness that looks like the negation of divine compassion; there comes a point when you see both as having become true and being able to exist not simultaneously but as ONE thing. As recently as the day before yesterday, I had the perfectly concrete experience of an extremely intense wave of divine Compassion [in the face of one of those psychological contagions], and I had the opportunity to observe how, if this Compassion is allowed to manifest on a certain plane, it becomes an emotion that may disturb or trouble the imperturbable calm; but if it manifests (they arent the same planes: there are imperceptible nuances), if it manifests in its essential truth, it retains all its power of action, of effective help, and it in no way changes the imperturbable calm of the eternal vision.
All those are experiences of nuances (or nuances of experiences, I dont know how to put it) that become necessary and concrete only in the physical consciousness. And then, it results in a perfection of realizationa perfection in the minutest detailwhich none of those realizations have in the higher realms. I am learning what the physical realization contri butes in terms of concreteness, accuracy and perfection in the Realization; and how all those experiences interpenetrate, combine with each other, complement each otherits wonderful.
At the same time, I am little by little learning from demonstration the true use that must be made of mental activity. Its purpose is easy to understand: it has been used to educate, awaken and so on; but its not something that after having done its duty and fulfilled its purpose will disappear. It will be used in its own manner, but in its true manner and true place. And it becomes wonderfully interesting. For instance, the idea that you are what you think, that your knowledge is your power, well, it seems to be a necessity of the transition, of the passage from one state of consciousness to another, but its not, as I said, something that will disappear when something else is reached: it will be used, but in its own place. Because when you experience union, the mind appears unnecessary: the direct contact, the direct action, do without it. But in its true place, acting in the true way, sticking to its place (a place not of necessity or even usefulness, but of refinement in action), it becomes quite interesting. When you see the Whole as a growing self-awareness, the mind enrichesit enriches the Whole. And when each thing is in its own place, it all becomes so harmonious and simple, but with such full and complete and perfect simplicity that everything is used.
0 1966-08-27, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, one cant think without words, but one can know without words. The phenomena of consciousness that arent expressed in words are ALWAYS of a much higher quality, much higher.
Yes, but to convey them to others, you have to use words.
0 1966-09-14, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But as long as you dont have the higher light, in order to act you need to use opinions.
It would be better to have wisdom than an opinion. That is to say, to consider all the possibilities, all the aspects of the question, and then to try and be as unegoistic as possible, and for an action, for instance, to see which one may be useful to the largest number of people or may demolish the fewest things, which one is the most constructive. Anyway, even looking at it from a nonspiritual viewpoint, from a merely utilitarian and nonegoistic viewpoint, its better to act according to wisdom than according to ones opinion.
0 1966-09-24, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, humans, yes, certainlycertainly, without any doubt, a very pronounced answer, strangely pronounced, from everywhere, just everywhere. A need for something, a dissatisfaction with what is, and the need for something higher. Its very, very pronounced, everywhere. I cant say the number is very large, I dont think it is, but its everywhere.
So there is progress?
0 1966-09-28, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But then, when that true Compassion of divine Love comes and you see all those things that look so horrible, so abnormal, so absurd, that great pain over all beings and even over things Then there was born in this physical being the aspiration to relieve, to cure, to make all that disappear. There is something in Love in its Origin that is constantly expressed by the intervention of the Grace; a force, a sweetness, something like a vibration of solace, spread everywhere, but which an enlightened consciousness can direct, concentrate on certain points. And thats just where I saw the true use one could make of thought: thought is used as a channel to carry the vibration from place to place, wherever its necessary. This force, this vibration of sweetness is there over the world in a static way, pressing to be received, but its an impersonal action, and thoughtenlightened thought, surrendered thought, the thought that is nothing more than an instrument, that no longer tries to set things in motion, that is satisfied with being moved by the higher Consciousness thought is used as an intermediary to make contact, to build a connection and allow this impersonal Force to act wherever its necessary, on precise points.
(silence)
0 1966-09-30, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Obviously, unless something happens (which we are forced to call a miracle because we cant understand how it could happen), how can a body like ours become a body entirely built and driven by a higher force, and without a material support? How can this (Mother pinches the skin of her hands), how can this change into that other thing? It appears impossible.
It seems miraculous, but
0 1966-10-08, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All this is going on up above. And then, whats very amusing is that when I see, I dont see like that (gesture from below upward), I see like this (gesture from above downward), and I see up above. Its a little higher than this (gesture above the head), and I see from above.
But I saw those curves, I began seeing them. I know them, I have seen them since the beginning of the month and they are growing more precise. And they are quite prettyvery pretty, very elegant. And this one [the new one] is like a magnificent spout of watermuch lovelier than that! And it keeps rising, it doesnt fall back, but it sprays a golden rain on the earth.
--
I dont know. Belief in the Divine? You thirst for a certain perfection, perhaps even to surpass yourself, to reach something higher than what is; when you are a philanthropist, you have an aspiration for mankind to be better, less unhappy and miserable, all kinds of things like thatyou can practice a yoga for that, but thats not believing. To believe is to have the faith that there cannot be a world without the Divine, thats what it is; the faith that the very existence of the world is proof of the Divine. And precisely not a belief, not something you thought over or were taught, none of all that: a faith. The faith which is a lived knowledge (not a learned knowledge) that the existence of the world is sufficient proof of the Divinewithout the Divine, no world. And its so obvious, of course, that you feel one has to be a bit stupid to think otherwise! And the Divine, not in the sense of raison dtre, goal, culmination, not all that: the world as it is is proof of the Divine. Because it IS the Divine in a certain aspect (a distorted enough aspect, but still).
To me its even stronger than that: when I look at a rose like the one I gave you, this thing which holds such a concentration of spontaneous beauty (not fabricated: a spontaneous beauty, a blossoming), you only have to see that and youre sure the Divine exists, its a certitude. You cant disbelieve, its impossible. Its like those peopleits fantastic!those people who have studied Nature, studied really in depth how everything works and occurs and exists: how can they study sincerely, carefully and painstakingly without being absolutely convinced that the Divine is there? We call it the Divine the Divine is quite tiny! (Mother laughs) To me, the existence is undeniable proof that there is nothing but THAT something we cannot name, cannot define, cannot describe, but which we can feel and BECOME more and more. A something which is more perfect than all perfections, more beautiful than all beauties, more wonderful than all wonders, which even a totality of all that is cannot expressand only THAT exists. And its not a something floating in nothingness: there is nothing but That.
0 1966-11-03, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The number of memories of this kind Ive had is almost incalculable. But it doesnt have the same character as the memories of the higher consciousness (then its not a memory: its a sort of vision the higher beings2 have of life; but thats something else). The memories I speak of are memories of the psychic being, they have a different character: a rather personal character, I mean there is the sense of a PERSON remembering something. While the others, the visions from above, are memories of an acting consciousness. But the memories of the psychic being arent mentalized, that is, if for instance at the time of the recollection you werent paying attention to the way you were dressed or the surroundings, you dont remember them. You only remember what took place and especially what took place from the point of view of the consciousness and the feelings and the inner movements.
Its generally fragmentsfragments of life that were individualized, and when in the present life you follow a normal development with the [various beings] gathering around the central consciousness, all those elements come back to gather together. They come back, each with its own memories. For instance, I had a memory like that (I tell you, Ive had hundreds of them) when I was very young (I must have been twenty or so). It wasnt at night, but I was lying down, resting: suddenly I felt myself riding a horse, with tremendous warlike power and the sense a will for victory and the POWER of victory. And I felt as if I was riding a horse: I saw a white horse, I saw my legs, with riding breeches, you understand, and a red velvet costume. And there I was, at a gallop. I couldnt tell what the head was like or anything, naturally! And also, the crowd, the armies, and the rising sun. It was so strong, the sense that it was the sense of the will for victory and the POWER of victory. It came just like that. Then, sometime later, I read somewhere the story of Murat (I forget I think his victory was Magenta3 I no longer remember all that), and I immediately understood that my vision was at the moment of launching the battle: he had an inner call to a Power, so there was an identification [with Mothers power], and thats what I remembered and what came back. If I said (as the Theosophists tell you), I was Murat, it would be stupid. But it was a consciousness coming back. It was so strong! The impression lasted long enough, with the sense of the battle but above all the sense of that POWER making you invincible. It was interesting, because at the time (it was just in the beginning, I was beginning to take interest in these things and I had just come across the Cosmic teaching), I was convinced that a womans psychic being was always reincarnated in a woman and a mans psychic being was always reincarnated in a man (many schools teach that; Thon too believed so, he insisted on it). So it came as a surprise, because it wasnt in conformity with what I thought (!). Afterwards (long afterwards), I realized that naturally all those dogmas were nonsense, but
--
Mother does not refer to a category of so-called higher "beings," but to higher levels of being or states of being.
If it is the battle of Magenta, it is not Murat but MacMahon. It seems more likely to be Murat and another battle.
0 1966-11-30, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is clearly a great movement. Yesterday again I saw a man who was governor of Madras for a while. He came here (he was passing through Pondicherry but wanted to stop here), and the man asked me, Is there a solution? And he added, We are all praying that you may give it. I answered (Mother smiles) that I had nothing to do with politics. But he represents a whole category of people in India who now think that there is indeed only one solution, which is precisely an attempt to realize a higher life.
There is a great movement.
0 1966-12-07, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I understand what you mean. You want to know if its something ready-made, ready-prepared, which you pull down as it is. (Mother remains silent). That exists in a realm far higher than words. For example, I have often received something like that (gesture from above), direct, then I translate it; I dont try to find it (the more silent I am, the more powerful and concrete it growspowerfully concrete), but I often see, as coming from Sri Aurobindo, something that adds a correction, a precision (rarely an addition, its not that: its only in the form, especially in the line of precision); the first expression is a little hazy, then it becomes more precise. And I dont try to find it, I dont strive, there isnt any mental activity: its always like this (even, still gesture to the forehead), and its always in this [stillness] that it comes: suddenly it comesplop! plop! I say, Oh! and note it down.
This is my experience.
--
Basically, when we have reached the end (the end which is the beginning of something else), the end of this work of transformation, when it really is the transformation and we are settled in it, maybe well remember and derive a special pleasure from remembering having gone through this? In the higher spheres it has always been said that those who have the courage to come for the preparation will have, when its done, superior assets and of a more intimate and deeper quality than those who will have quietly waited for others to do the work for them.
It may be so.
0 1967-01-31, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Astrologers say its the opposition between planets; at certain times planets are in opposition or conjunction and it results in certain currents. Thats how they explain the trend of events. So the secret would be to make this law obey the higher Influence, the higher harmonizing law.
Then we would find the secret of many things.1
0 1967-02-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We could arrange guided tours, just like Cooks tours (!) We would have a tour of religions, with all the statues and monuments. The explanations could be read out by some guide or other, but they would be prepared by someone with a slightly higher vision (oh, not a supramental vision, just a slightly higher one), and who would show human creeds and how men have shed blood in the name of God.
The most bloodthirsty god is the most popular, I think. All the slaughters, all the horrors, all the tortures that have been committed in the name of God
--
Yet outwardly, its apparent chaos. You know, an equilibrium is made up of a multitude of interlockings which hold together creating stability. But when you want to move on to a higher equilibrium, all that must be disintegrated, so to speak (gesture of a pyramid being flattened), then encompassed in a broader way, and all the interlockings must be formed again on a higher level. Its the transition from one to the other thats difficult. The disequilibrium is what prepares a new equilibrium.
We are in the middle of the chaos.
And the only solution at such a time is to draw back, as it were (gesture of drawing within), and hang on unshakeably to something higher, fasten on to it while the hurricane passes by. Then you can go through.
***
0 1967-02-18, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
These new thoughts and new experiences, this new logic and new mathematics, are now taught in higher studies, but all the primary and secondary studies have remained in the old formula, so I have been very seriously thinking of opening primary and secondary schools in Auroville, based on the new systemas a trial.
But how is it done? Its a problem that interests me very much: how do you catch this new expression?
--
Well, I think it should be the same thing with language. One should be tuned in to someone in that way, or through that someone to something still higher: the Origin. And then, very, very passive. But not inertly passive: vibrantly passive, receptive, like that, attentive, letting that come in and be expressed. The result would be there to see. As I said, we are limited by what we know, but that may be because were still too much of a person; if we could be perfectly plastic it might be different: there have been instances of people speaking in a language they didnt know, consequently
Its interesting.
0 1967-03-04, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then there is the higher intellectual approach, which is the projection of a surpassing scientific mind and takes up the problem from below. It has its importance too. From the standpoint of the detail of the operation, it reduces approximation, it gives a more direct and precise action.
If one can combine all three, then obviously the thing will go faster.
0 1967-04-12, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now, we may ask if its necessary for mankind to fall into general imbalance in order to reach a higher equilibrium?
But its perfectly clear that one doesnt need drugs in order to have experiences I didnt take drugs!
0 1967-04-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That it upsets the beings equilibrium there is absolutely no doubt. And of course, upsetting ones equilibrium may lead you to a higher equilibrium. But there is a risk.
(silence)
0 1967-04-27, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told you about that experience (which has been growing increasingly concrete and constant) of the Vibration of Harmony (a higher harmony expressing the essential Consciousness in its aspect of love and harmony and, as it draws nearer to the manifestation, of order and organization), and of the nearly constant and general vibration of disorder, disharmony, conflictin reality, Matters resistance to this Action. The two vibrations are like this (Mother slips the fingers of her right hand between those of the left), as if they interpenetrated each other and a simple movement of consciousness sent you to one side or the other, or rather, the aspiration, the will for realization, put you into contact with the Vibration of Harmony, and the SLIGHTEST slackening made you lapse into the other. It has become constant. And then, on the 24th, right from morning there was a constant aspiration, a constant will for the triumph of the Vibration of Harmony. Then I sat down at my table as I always do, about five or ten minutes before it began. And instantly, with a puissancea puissance capable of crushing an elephantthis Vibration of Harmony came down like that, massive to the point that the body lost the sense of its existence altogether: it became That, it was conscious of nothing but That. And the first quarter of an hour literally flashed by in a second. Then, there were three people in the room; one of the three, or maybe all three, felt a malaise (nothing surprising!), and that woke me up: I saw the light (I burn a candle on my table) and I saw the time, but it wasnt me something saw. Then there was a sort of pacifying action on the place, and thengone again. And one second later, the call of the end!1
Its the first time that has happened to my body. It always used to remain conscious. Sri Aurobindo, too, told me the same thing, that he never, ever, had samadhi in his body. Neither did I: I always, always, always used to remain conscious. While that only the Force remained, there was nothing left but the Force at work: there was a concentration here, a concentration on the whole country, and a concentration on the whole earth. And all that was conscious, like that (vast gesture above the head), at work. But something massive, as powerful as an elephantenough to crush you.
0 1967-05-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. My feeling (because Ive studied your problem a good deal I seem as if I couldnt care less, but thats not true! Ive studied your problem a great deal), my feeling is that in your higher mind, the faculty of expression is developedhighly developedso that as soon as the Light touches, it is transformed into ideas, words, concepts, like that. It DOESNT HAVE THE TIME to be visualized. Its not outwardly, but right up above that it is (how can I put it?) particularly and exceptionally active and expressive (something quite rare, because generally, in everyone, its nebulous up above). And because it has developed in that way (which is a higher condition), you are lacking the primary condition which is the vision, the shock of the Light.
So there is only one solution. To me, there is a solution: its the sudden contact with a higher light in the Supermind. Sri Aurobindo said (thats obvious, its always like that) that there are several layers (its not quite like layers, but never mind), several layers of supramental light. The first (the one that has manifested), that one you immediately transformed into conceptions, ideas and words. That is, something a large number of intellectuals are praying and imploring to haveyou had it spontaneously, lets say. So the first contact, the dazzling contact of the Light, that you havent had. But when a higher light comes, you will have it.
I am waiting for that moment.
I dont know if your mind is critical or if To make myself clear, I mean whether your critical mind OR your faith, which of the two is stronger I hope its the faith. So to the faith (not to the critical mind, I dont speak to it), to the faith I say that since the 23rd weve been working hard. And I have asked a great deal that you may, tomorrow, be put into contact with that higher light, that you may have the bedazzlement of the vision of the Light.
If you have faith, you will have it. If the critical mind is stronger, it will be slightly delayed, maybe.
--
You understand, I dont want to say anything that encourages the vanity of the ego, if there is any. But your contact with the Light is unusual; for you it has become something quite natural. But the truth is, its exceptional. So you see people who dont have this realization at all but who enjoy the contact with the Light, precisely because for them its something marvellous and new And so you are deprived (its Sri Aurobindo speaking to me), deprived of the pleasures they have. But you should know that its because you have been given a much higher realization. Only, with aspiration, with opening, with self-giving, can you contact something really new. And then you will have the shock of the new.
This is his answer.
0 1967-05-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It reminded me of Thon who said that the world had been put forth and reabsorbed six times; in other words, that there had been six creations and six pralayas.2 And that now we were in the seventh creation, the last. The world would find a new, higher equilibrium, not static but progressive, which means there would be unending progress in equilibrium and harmony, without pralaya.
(April 24, 1967)
0 1967-05-20, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And certainly, between the state of consciousness now trying to manifest and the higher state of consciousness that will manifest after some time, there will again be the same difference.
These experiences always start from the small circle of the individual as being the best known and most easily observable point, then they begin to spread out, finally extending all over the earth. Its been like that each time. But then, the sense, the perception of the difference between what is and whats trying to be is so huge Its only because the surrender is there (and has always been there! It wasnt denied at that time, far from it! It was there), that alone helps to go through.
0 1967-05-24, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I know it is the Russian explanation of the recent trend to spirituality and mysticism that it is a phenomenon of capitalist society in its decadence. But to read an economic cause, conscious or unconscious, into all phenomena of mans history is part of the Bolshevik gospel born of the fallacy of Karl Marx. Mans nature is not so simple and one-chorded as all thatit has many lines and each line produces a need of his life. The spiritual or mystic line is one of them and man tries to satisfy it in various ways, by superstitions of all kinds, by ignorant religionism, by spiritism, demonism and what not, in his more enlightened parts by spiritual philosophy, the higher occultism and the rest, at his highest by the union with the All, the Eternal or the Divine. The tendency towards the search of spirituality began in Europe with a recoil from the nineteenth centurys scientific materialism, a dissatisfaction with the pretended all-sufficiency of the reason and the intellect and a feeling out for something deeper. That was a pre-war [of 1914] phenomenon, and began when there was no menace of Communism and the capitalistic world was at its height of insolent success and triumph, and it came rather as a revolt against the materialistic bourgeois life and its ideals, not as an attempt to serve or sanctify it. It has been at once served and opposed by the post-war disillusionmentopposed because the post-war world has fallen back either on cynicism and the life of the senses or on movements like Fascism and Communism; served because with the deeper minds the dissatisfaction with the ideals of the past or the present, with all mental or vital or material solutions of the problem of life has increased and only the spiritual path is left. It is true that the European mind having little light on these things dallies with vital will-o-the-wisps like spiritism or theosophy or falls back upon the old religionism; but the deeper minds of which I speak either pass by them or pass through them in search of a greater Light. I have had contact with many and the above tendencies are very clear. They come from all countries and it was only a minority who hailed from England or America. Russia is differentunlike the others it has lingered in mediaeval religionism and not passed through any period of revoltso when the revolt came it was naturally anti-religious and atheistic. It is only when this phase is exhausted that Russian mysticism can revive and take not a narrow religious but the spiritual direction. It is true that mysticism revers, turned upside down, has made Bolshevism and its endeavour a creed rather than a political theme and a search for the paradisal secret millennium on earth rather than the building of a purely social structure. But for the most part Russia is trying to do on the communistic basis all that nineteenth-century idealism hoped to get atand failedin the midst of or against an industrial competitive environment. Whether it will really succeed any better is for the future to decide for at present it only keeps what it has got by a tension and violent control which is not over.
Sri Aurobindo
0 1967-06-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, I have something much more interesting. K. is giving a class (of sociology, I think), but based on what Sri Aurobindo has written. And then, you know that at the School I have AT LAST got them to agree that examinations should not be indispensable; that if a student shows interest and attention during the classes, he can move up to the higher class without needing a certificate or having to take exams.1 I have obtained that at last, after so many years! So the students have been told, Its as you like; if you want to take exams, there are exams and you can take them; but if you dont feel the need for exams, you need not take them and can just as well move up to the next class. But K., who has a simple heart, thought all those boys and girls had understood Sri Aurobindos teaching and had a total contempt for exams and the old ways. And he expected his students to tell him, Oh, then we wont take exams. And each and every one of them, with a single exception, said they preferred to take the exams so as to get a certificate.
He was very disappointed. He said to me, How is it that after all this Well, I thought they had understood. And after having studied Sri Aurobindo, here they are following the old ideas! Then he said, I have found in a letter of Sri Aurobindo a passage that perhaps provides an explanation, and I would like to ask you if I should take notice. I told him he should.
--
Mother sent the following note to the School on April 14, 1967: "Henceforth the existing rules concerning the higher Course will stand modified as follows: (I) Students who wish to obtain a certificate of having successfully completed the higher Course as 'full students' will naturally have to take all the prescribed tests and satisfy the regulations governing the full-studentship. (2) Other students will have the option either to take the tests or not to take them. There will be no compulsion with regard to tests for these students in order to pass from one year to the next. (3) All the students will, however, be treated equally in so far as the pursuit of knowledge is concerned."
***
0 1967-06-07, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Of course, they will start arguing: BUT at that time, things were like that; at that time they were like this; and in the past this was ours; in the past Endless arguments. So there should be a higher vision, which is a balanced and just and deep vision of things, that can say, This is how it is. Otherwise there would be an indefinite source of arguments.
For the moment, in any case, all diplomatic relations are based on falsehood and the crudest falsehood at that: its recognized as a necessity and the only way out. Thats how they consider it. So thats what must be abolished to begin with.
0 1967-06-14, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then the body suddenly remembered (that was rather interesting; its more recent, it was yesterday or the day before), the body suddenly remembered that it had once been brought back to life. It said, But you knew at that time, you knew since you brought me back to life.4 Then I recollected what I used to know (and had stopped knowing because the knowledge was quite incompleteit was entirely external and lacked the higher knowledge), I recollected the experience, and the two things came together (the old knowledge and the new). Now, I said, this is interesting!
You know, the story of the soul leaving the body, is childishness! Because I had that experience too, of leaving (not the soul! Its entirely independent, always and in everyone), of leaving the psychic being, the individual psychic being. When I left here in 1915, I left my psychic being here deliberately. I left it here, I didnt take it with me. Consequently, the body can live without the psychic being (it was rather sick, by the way, but that wasnt the reasonits again the taste for drama! Oh, always the taste for drama!).
--
There was also, in relation to those possibilities of magic and also to adverse forces, a vision of it all as being a part of the great Play (gesture from below), but This Immensity, luminous and smiling, an immensity (immensity is a wordinfinite too is a word), something absolutely limitless, which simply goes like this (gesture of descent) in a movement of manifestation; then, at a certain point, It encounters a sort of movement from below that seizes hold of That and turns That into what we see. In the higher part, its a mixture of perverted mind and extremely powerful vital, which obviously takes pleasure in the distortion; and as That becomes more concrete it becomes all those human reactions; and when That draws near the earth, then ah, you have the fine mess men have made of the earths atmosphere. So this Thing, this smiling, luminous, marvellous Immensity, sowhich is a living and conscious bliss That is what it becomes.
And if by chance, by miracle, one drop falls without getting completely distorted, it becomes a miracle!
0 1967-06-24, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The importance of the body is obvious; it is because he has developed or been given a body and brain capable of receiving and serving a progressive mental illumination that man has risen above the animal. Equally, it can only be by developing a body or at least a functioning of the physical instrument capable of receiving and serving a still higher illumination that he will rise above himself and realise, not merely in thought and in his internal being but in life, a perfectly divine manhood. Otherwise either the promise of Life is cancelled, its meaning annulled and earthly being can only realise Sachchidananda by abolishing itself, by shedding from it mind, life and body and returning to the pure Infinite, or else man is not the divine instrument, there is a destined limit to the consciously progressive power which distinguishes him from all other terrestrial existences and as he has replaced them in the front of things, so another must eventually replace him and assume his heritage.
(The Life Divine, XVIII.231)
0 1967-07-05, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In my vision, his two feet were me. But in my vision, his feet had white tabis on, to make me clearly understand that it was me. And in my vision, he walked on the edge of a path strewn with bare flint stones, so it was very hard and sharp-edged, and he said, No, this is not the way it should be, lets walk higher up on the road where its smoother, and he came back to the middle of the road. So if its like that, if its the same symbol carrying on, it would mean something concerning mepossibly.
The shoes are a covering. A covering Pinkish cream, did you say?
--
Obviously, that doesnt quite conform to a higher Harmony (!) Human beings are like that: if the god they worship or the divine they want to manifest isnt willing to do, to execute whatever comes into their heads in a totally incoherent and arbitrary way, he isnt all-powerful!
I am exaggerating it to make it more perceptible; its not like that: they deceive themselves (if you tell them that, they protest), but they deceive themselves, and it comes down to what Ive just said.
0 1967-07-12, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And the condition of all the cells (the vibrations that make up this body) is undeniably what makes the thing (the cure) possible or not; that is, depending on the bodys condition, it serves either as a transmitter, or on the contrary as an obstruction. Because its not a higher force acting in others THROUGH Matter: its a direct action (horizontal gesture, on the same level) from matter to matter.
What people generally call healing power is a very great mental or vital power that imposes itself through the resistance of Matter but this isnt that at all! Its the contagion of a vibration. And then its irrevocable.
0 1967-08-02, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
De Gaulle has an embryo of inner life, he knows that there is a force higher than the physical and mental forcesand that is why he is more receptive than many others.
But he has ideas, principles, preferences and so on, and as such, he can make gross errors as any other human being.
0 1967-08-12, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Islam was a return towards sensation, beauty, harmony in the form, and the legitimization of sensations and joy in beauty. From a higher viewpoint, it wasnt of a very superior quality, but from a vital viewpoint, it was extremely powerful, and thats what gave them so much power to spread, to appropriate, to seize, to dominate. But what they did is very beautifulall their art is magnificent, magnificent! It was a flowering of beauty. Then there were othersit all came one after the other. And every religion came as a stage in the development and the relationship with the Divine, to lead the consciousness towards a union which is a totality and not a removal from a whole reality so as to obtain another. The need for totality, completeness, is what caused those religions to come like that, one after another.
Seen in that light, its very interesting.
0 1967-09-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Then Mother turns to the first Playground Talk1 intended for the next Bulletin. In that Talk of April 29, 1953, Mother, coincidentally, was speaking about religions. She said this, in particular: Otherwise, there would be no religions; there would be masters and disciples, people who have a higher teaching and an exceptional experience. That would be a very good thing. But as soon as the master is gone, what happens is that the knowledge he gave is changed into a religion. Rigid dogmas are established, religious rules come into being, and one cannot but bow down before the Tables of the Law. Yet at the beginning it was not like that. You are told, This is true, this is false, the Master has said Some time later, the master becomes a god, and you are told, God has said this.)
Should I let this pass? It will cause an uproar! (Its good anyway.)
0 1967-09-13, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(After a silence) No, he went back, he didnt stay. He doesnt have a glorified body, he left. He went back to the higher regions, he doesnt have a glorified body. He may be glorified up there, thats his business (laughing), but here He went back. Of course, Sri Aurobindo himself said Christ was an Avatar. An avatar in the line of Krishna, the line that represented yes, goodness, charity, love, harmony. He belongs to that line.
***
0 1967-10-07, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And he continues to tell me new things, its very interesting. This morning again, for a long time, it was as if everything established were swept away: Ah, no! A little farther, a little higher, a little truer.
(silence)
0 1967-10-21, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The vision was so clear (not vision: lived, the experience), it was so clear that it contained in itself the purpose of the creation. You could see the work of the consciousness to permeate the inconscient and make it progressively more capable of manifesting the consciousness (gesture like a flower rising out of the earth), with increasing complications, but the complications are the result of the inability of the inconscientof inconscient matterwhich adds one device to another in the hope of reconstructing the supreme Possibility. Then, through all those complications, and as the substance becomes increasingly permeated with consciousness, the need for devices will diminish, and we will be able to return to the higher Simplicity.
But all that was lived, seenseen, and so clear!
0 1967-11-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But anything higher than him man has been used to thinking of as divine beings; that is to say, bodiless beings, appearing in the light, anyway all the gods in human conception but its not that at all!
(long silence)
0 1967-12-20, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the interesting part is that formulating it in words makes it sound artificialits much more sincere, much truer, much more spontaneous than anything expressed or expressible by the mind. No formula can render the sinceritysimplicity, sincerity, spontaneity, something uncalculatingof the material movement. There was a time when expressing or formulating caused a very unpleasant sensation, like putting something artificial on something spontaneously true; and that unpleasantness was cured only, to begin with, by a higher knowledge that all that is formulated must be surpassed. For instance, every experience expressed or described CALLS FOR a new progress, a new experience. In other words, it hastens the movement. That has been a consolation, because in fact, with the old sensation of something very stable and solid and immobile because of inertia (a past inertia, which is now being transformed but has left marks), because of that inertia there is a tendency to prefer things to be solid; so there is a thrill at being forced to No, no! No rest, no halt, go on!farther and farther and farther on When an experience has been very fruitful and highly pleasant, let us say, when its had a great force and a great effect, the first movement is to say, We wont talk about that, well keep it. Then after comes, Well say it in order to go farther onto go farther on, ever farther, ever farther.
There is a stability in the resolve and in the aspiration, a stability that can be found nowhere as much as here (Mother strikes the ground). Thats a characteristic of Matter. And you know, when it has given itself and has faith, it becomes so stable, so constant, and the joy, that sort of widening, of luminous expansionit becomes such a perpetual need that in no other part of the being has it ever been like that. Its something ESTABLISHED. And established effortlessly, established spontaneously, naturally, normally. So we can foresee that when this Matter will become truly divinetruly divineits manifestation will be infinitely more complete, more perfect in the details, and more stable than anywhere else.
0 1967-12-27, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have a strong feeling that theyve received orders from higher up. It makes me feel a great change in the atmosphere.
***
--
Its perfectly obvious that the higher-ups are the ones responsible, because theyre not genuine: they have neither the knowledge nor the vision nor the wisdom necessary to govern. For example, Indira, it seems, was complaining; one of her friends (her close friends), who is a very good disciple of mine, told her one day when she was complaining (she said the people and the government were in a dreadful state), she told her, But why dont you go and consult Mother? She will give you wisdom. Then Indira replied, I dare not.1
You understand, all this confusion, all this disorder seems to be intended to prepare people for one thing, which, obviously, has not so far even been imagined as being possible the recourse to a disinterested wisdom in order to govern. Theyre all caught up in If I do this, these people will be against me; if I do that, those people
0 1967-12-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And in every field things of that sort could be found. Basically, it would be a town for studiesstudies and research on how to live in a simplified way, and where the higher qualities have MORE TIME to develop. There.
Its only a small beginning.
--
Yes, thats right. Those who have a higher knowledge wont have to work with their hands, thats what I mean.
There will be no taxes as such but each will contri bute to the collective welfare in work, kind or money.
0 1968-01-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the physical ego that has been destroyed and is now like this (gesture with arms open upward). So it finds it odd! I dont know how to explain. This way of putting oneself in the center of things and seeing them in relation to that center of consciousness seems so You understand, the consciousness is spread out; its as much there or there as here, and it sees everything in relation to a higher, central Consciousness (Mother brings her two arms together, joining the tips of her hands above her head in a triangle pointing towards the Supreme), which is like a kind of Beaconan immutable, all-powerful beacon throwing the same light on all things, without the least personal reaction of any sort.
And the last vestigesyesterday they seemed to be the last ones, because of this text they had asked me to read Naturally, when I speak I say I because its the body that speaks, but it has no sense of I, it Its very hard to explain. Anyway, because of this affair, I said, Ah, but how, how can that be said when its not me?Theres no me, its not me! And at the same time, there was this Consciousness above, saying, No personal reactions theres no more me, and if this must be done, let it be done. And for hours and hours, there was such a peculiar state in which everything It was like kinds of vestiges, or pieces of bark, I dont know; pieces of something a bit hard or shriveled, which had crumbled and were turning into dust, and nothing, nothing but this Great Vibration (gesture like two great wings beating in the infinite), so powerful, so calm the whole day. A sort of perception that life in a seemingly personal form like this one is only for actiononly for action, for the requirements of action; and there must be no reactions, only the instrument actingacting on the supreme Impulse, without reactions. And the perception was so clear that all, but all memories have been abolished, and are being increasingly abolished, so there may only remain a sort of mass of vibrations organized so as to make you do what needs to be done in the whole for everything to be prepared and (gesture of ascent) for everything to grow, to strive more and more towards the transformation.
0 1968-01-12, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a key in the relationship between man and woman, but not in their sexual relations. The so-called left-hand Tantrics (of the Vama Marga) are to true Tantrism what Boccaccios tales are to Christianity, or what the sodden Roman Bacchus is to Dionysos of the Greek mysteries. I know Tantrism, to say the least. As for the Cathars, whom I hold in the highest esteem, it would be doing them little honor to believe that they followed a sort of yoga of sexuality. Through my own experience I have often had the feeling of reliving the Cathars experience, and I see plainly that if some of them attempted to mix sexual relations into the true relationship between man and woman, they soon realized their error. It is a dead-end road, or rather its only end is to show you that it leads you nowhere forward. The Cathars were too sincere and conscious men to persist in a burdening experience. For ultimately, and that is the crux of the matter, the sexual experience in its very nature (whether or not there is backward flow or whatever its mode) automatically fastens you again to the old animal vibrations there is nothing you can do about it: however much love you may put into it, the very function is tied to millennia of animality. It is as if you wanted to plunge into a swamp without stirring up any mudit cannot be done, the milieu is like that. And when one knows how much transparency, clarification and inner stillness it takes to slowly rise to a higher consciousness, or to allow a higher light to enter our waters without being instantly darkened, one fails to see how sexual activity can help you attain that still limpidity in which things can start happening??? The union, the oneness of two beings, the true and complete meeting of two beings does not take place at that level or through those means. That is all I can say. But I have seen that in the silent tranquillity of two beings who have the same aspiration, who have overcome the difficult transition, something quite unique slowly takes place, of which one can have no inkling as long as one is still stuck in the struggles of the flesh, to use a preachers language! I think the Cathars experience begins after that transition. After it, the man-woman couple assumes its true meaning, its effectiveness, if I may say so. Sex is only a first mode of meeting, the first device invented by Nature to break the shell of individual egosafterwards, one grows and discovers something else, not through inhibition or repression, but because something different and infinitely richer takes over. Those who are so eager to preserve sex and to mystify it in order to move on to the second stage of evolution are very much like children clinging to their scootersit isnt more serious than that. There is nothing in it to do a yoga with, nothing also to be indignant about or raise ones eyebrows at. So I have nothing to criticize, I am merely observing and putting things in their place. All depends on the stage one has reached. As for those who want to use sex for such and such a sublime or not-so-sublime reason, well, let them have their experience. As Mother told me on the very same subject no later than yesterday, To tell the truth, the Lord makes use of everything. One is always on the way towards something. One is always on the way, through any means, but what is necessary is, as much as possible, to keep ones lucidity and not to deceive oneself.
I will try to find one or two passages from Sri Aurobindo to give you his point of view.
0 1968-02-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
India will be the land of its resurrection the resurrection to a higher and truer life.
And the clear vision: the same thing which in the history of the universe made the earth the symbolic representation of the universe so as to concentrate the work on one point, the same phenomenon is now taking place: India is the representation of all human difficulties on earth, and it is in India that the cure will be found. And then, that is whyTHAT IS WHY I was made to start Auroville.
0 1968-02-28, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Are invited to Auroville all those who thirst for progress and aspire to a higher and truer life.
(Then Mother reads out the Charter)
0 1968-03-02, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the relationship with the whole, there are roughly three we might call them means of defense, or attitudes one can take. The attitude of isolation, which cant be total unless you withdraw, and which is only very relatively effective. The attitude of attack: a power fighting and repulsing adversaries (that has a big drawback which is that if you use forces on the same plane, they are ineffective, or very relatively effective; and if its supreme forces, then the effect is rather catastrophic: it would amount to destroying in order to conquer, which is certainly not the Supremes intention). And finally, there is the way of the contagion of the higher Force, but that implies what expresses itself here as time. That is the attitude which has been adopted. But it implies timewhich is why ages go by.
The result is certain, with the least amount of damage. But that least amount is still quite considerable.
And for the human consciousness, it takes long. But as you remarked just before, its pretty. It feels like something going like this (gesture like a tide spreading out), very slowly for the human consciousness, certainly, but quite implacable towards resistances, and so sov-er-eign-ly sure of its victory. Thats pretty. And with the least amount of damage, undeniably. Not to mention that what looks like damage may only be, seen in the whole, a means of higher realization.
"To live in Auroville one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness."
0 1968-03-09, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am trying to express it, but it was a concrete experience: the relativity of the mental clothing on the action of the higher Consciousness.
So then, the experience came to this: being as passive and translucent as possible so as to let the vibration of the Consciousness express itself with the least possible distortion in its clothing. And that was the attempt
0 1968-04-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And no perception of a personal thing: individualities [e.g., P.L.] are just like pawns that have been used for starting, thats all. The movement, the origin of the movement is infinitely higher and vaster than any physical personality.
Truly the perception that everyone and everything are nothing but pawns, like that (gesture as on a chessboard), which are set in motion, but
0 1968-04-10, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The first thing to be accepted and recognized by all is that the invisible, higher power ( higher in the sense that it belongs to a plane of consciousness which, although veiled to most, one can gain, a consciousness one may call as one likes, any name that doesnt matter but which is integral and pure in the sense that its not mendacious, its based on the Truth), that this power is capable of governing material things for everyone in a MUCH TRUER, happier and more beneficial way than any material power. Thats the first point. Once everyone agrees on it
And its not something you can pretend to have; a being cant pretend to have it: either he has it or he doesnt, because (laughing) if its a pretense, life will use the slightest opportunity to make it obvious! And moreover, it wont give you any material powerhere also, Thon said something in this regard, he said, Those who are all the way up (he was referring to the TRUE hierarchy, the hierarchy based precisely on each ones power of consciousness), one who is all the way up (one or those) necessarily has the least amount of needs; his material needs decrease as his capacity of material vision increases. And its perfectly true. Its automatic and spontaneous; its not the result of an effort: the vaster the consciousness and the more things and realities it embraces, the smaller the material needs becomeautomatically sobecause they lose all their importance and value. Its reduced to a minimal need of material necessities, which will itself change with the progressive development of Matter.
--
As soon as you come down from that supreme Height, you find the whole play of diverse influences (gesture of mixture and conflict), and thats in fact a sure sign: if you come down ever so slightly (even into a region of higher mentality, higher intelligence), the WHOLE conflict of influences starts. Only whats truly all the way up, with perfect purity, has this power of spontaneous conviction. All substitutes you may try are therefore an approximation, and not a much better one than democracyby democracy, I mean the system that wants to rule through the greatest number and lowest masses (I am referring to social democracy, the latest trend).
If there is no representative of the supreme Consciousness (which can happen, of course), if there isnt any, we could perhaps (this would be worth trying) replace him with the government by a small numberwe would have to choose between four and eight, something like that: four, seven or eighta small number having an INTUITIVE intelligence. Intuitive is more important than intelligence: they should have an intuition that manifests intellectually. (From a practical standpoint it would have some drawbacks, but it might be nearer the truth than the lowest rung: socialism or communism.) All the intermediaries have proved incompetent: theocracy, aristocracy, democracy, plutocracyall that is a complete failure. The other one too is now giving proof of its failure, the government of what can we call it? Democracy?4 (But democracy always implies the idea of educated, rich people.) That has given proof of its complete incompetence.
--
Yes, thats right! But I am referring to the system all the way down, socialistic or communistic, which represents material needs. Basically, it corresponds to a sort of absence of government, because they dont have the power to govern others: they are forced to transfer their power to someone who exercises it, like a Lenin, for instance, because he was a brain. But all that all that has been tried out and has given proof of its incompetence. The only thing that could be competent is the Truth-Consciousness choosing instruments and expressing itself through a certain number of instruments, if one cant be found (just one isnt enough, either, that one would necessarily need to choose a whole collectivity). Those possessing this consciousness may belong to any class of society: its not a privilege arising from birth, but the result of personal effort and development. In fact, that would be an external sign, an evident sign of change on the political level: no question anymore of classes or categories or birth (all that is outdated), but those individualities that have reached a higher consciousness would have the right to govern, whatever class they belong toand no others.
That would be the true vision.
But all those participating in the experience would have to be absolutely convinced that the highest consciousness is the best judge of the MOST MATERIAL THINGS. You see, what has ruined India is this idea that the higher consciousness has to do with higher things, while its not interested in lower things and knows nothing about them! Thats what has caused the ruin of India. Well, this error must be completely abolished. Its the highest consciousness that sees the most clearly the most clearly and the most trulywhat the needs of the most material thing should be.
With this, we could try out a new kind of government.
0 1968-04-23, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All that is going on in the bodyperhaps in different parts of the body, I dont know. There are GRADATIONS of consciousness, or more or less complete identifications, according to certain bodily functions I dont know. And beneath, there are still old undercurrents of mental influence, from what we are used to calling the higher mind (intuitive mind and so on). And then, all around, a whole play of forces, suggestions, formations, which comes from outside. I say from outside, but theres no sense of outside; theres no such sense, no longer any sense of these people here and those people there its not like that, no longer at all, even for the body.
(Mother abruptly goes into a long contemplation that lasts till the end)
0 1968-04-24, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the spiritual order of things, the higher we project our view and our aspiration, the greater the Truth that seeks to descend upon us, because it is already there within us and calls for its release from the covering that conceals it in manifested Nature.
Sri Aurobindo
0 1968-05-22, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They themselves would rather have no violenceit seems its not the students who started the violence, but the police. And thats very interesting, because the police stand for the defense of the past. When I read those childrens letters, and when later I was given the news, then there came in me (it was said very, very clearly, a very clear vision): the future. Its the higher Power COMPELLING people to do what they must do. Between now and that (which is a long way ahead), there must be the power of an IMMOBILE number. And the vision was very clear: if millionsnot thousands, millionsof people assemble together and occupy the place absolutely peacefully (simply assemble and occupy the place, naturally with representatives who will say what they like), then it will have power. But there must be no violence; as soon as one indulges in violence, its the return to the past and the open door to all conflicts. At the time, I didnt know it was the police that had started the violence; I didnt know, I wasnt aware of the details of the events. But it was a very clear vision: an occupation by the mass, but a mass all-powerful in its immobility, imposing its will through sheer numbers, with intellectual representatives for negotiations.
I dont know. De Gaulle5 is open to something more than the purely material force. Is he capable? I dont know. At any rate, he is among the best instruments.
0 1968-06-08, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but the Divine is also what makes one desire a more beautiful or higher realization?
Of course.
0 1968-06-29, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its like a studya really accelerated study, you cant imagine, one minute after another, like this (snowballing gesture)from the standpoint of the work, that is, the purpose of physical existence in a body, and the usefulness of physical presence. And the absolutely clear, precise vision, in minutes detail, of whats real and whats illusory, whats truly necessary and whats only imagination (that of others, but also, at times, ones own). But I would need hours to tell it all. With (is it a basis?) the perception in the consciousness (but a detailed perception I dont mean ideas, it has nothing to do with ideas or principles, etc.: theres no mental translation), the perception of what, in the work, demands or depends on the bodily presence (I am purposely not saying physical presence, because theres a subtle physical presence thats independent of the body), the bodily presence. And then, at the same time, such a clear, precise, detailed vision of the relationship each one has with this body (a relationship which is thought, feelings and physical reactions all at once), and thats what gives the impression of the necessity of bodily presencegives its measure also. So there is, at the same time, the perception of the TRUE usefulness of physical presence and the perception of the reaction in individuals. Its a world! A world, because of the fantastic amount of details. A world unfolding every second. And accompanied by an inner perception, first, of the effect it has on the cells, and then that the cohesion has now really become, I may say, the result of a supreme Will, to the extent that its necessary for lets say for the experience, or the work (anythingwe can call it what we like). In other words, there is the aspect of progress of the cells as an aggregate. There is hardlyhardly, very weakly the sense of a personality or a physical individuality, its hardly that; neither is it a habit of being together, because its very fluid in there: its truly held together by a higher Will with a definite aim in view, but that too is fluidnothing is fixed.
(silence)
--
At any rate, the inner (or higher) organization of circumstances, feelings, sensations, reactions in the totality of what thinks it is individuals, is certainly growing more precise towards a definite aim in its orientation, an aim we might define as the progress of the content of consciousness, that is to say, the broadening and enlightening of consciousnesses. But I am putting it the wrong way round (that is, I am putting it the way its understood); the truth is this: its the Consciousness doing a special work (gesture of kneading) on the instruments of its manifestation, so as to make them clearer, more precise, transparent and complete. When the Consciousness expresses itself, it does so in instruments who darken, muddle, mix up and diminish its power of expression to a tremendous degree; well, thats the work: making them more limpidmore transparent and limpidmore direct, less muddled, and broader, ever broader and at the same time more and more transparent: removing the obstructing fogtransparent, limpid, and also very vast.
Its a movement of acceleration: its the great work of the whole creation to consciously return (return is another silly wordturn to would be better), to become again, to identify again, not by abolishing the whole work of development and ascent, but Its like a multiplication of the facets of Consciousness, and that multiplication is growing increasingly coherent, organized and conscious of itself.
--
Thats what we might call the individual work. Only, to what extent can this transformation be integral? Thats the question. Ive said its a much accelerated work, obviously, but in spite of that, you feel the amount of experiences necessary for the transformation is so tremendous that the limits of a lifetime are too short. But then Ive already told you several times that this aggregate has not an impression, but a very clear perception that a certain disequilibrium or disorder (which may apparently be very slight, a mere nothing) is enough to cause dissolution. It feels that the slightest thing is enough, and that only the higher Will to keep it together is preventing things from reaching that stage. Like that. It depends on That. I lived the first thirty years of my life (nearly thirty, twenty-five to thirty) with the sensation that NOTHING could bring about dissolution; that if disorder came, order would quite naturally be restored to allow the body to go on. Very strong, it was very strong. Then there was a period when there was nothing, neither on one side nor on the other; and then, slowly, slowly, there has now come the perception that the LEAST thing is enough, and that its only the SUPREME Will (not even higher: the supreme Will) that is preventing dissolution. It exclusively depends on That.
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.
0 1968-07-10, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
My whole life long, I complained that my visions werent more material than vital visions: they started from the vital and went up higher and higher, but below the vital, there was nothing. And now, its a continual vision of the subtle physicalconstant, I see both together: the physical and the subtle physical. Only, the physical, purely physical vision is much disturbed by the other vision. You understand, its more a CONSCIOUSNESS of things than purely and merely a vision. And Ive noticed, when I have someone in front of me, for instance, with some, when I look at them they grow more and more precise and clear; others become more and more blurred TO MY PHYSICAL VISION. It must depend on their state of consciousness. Some grow extremely precise, especially the eyes, and in their eyes I see the consciousness the eyes are perfectly visible. Others, on the contrary, become blurred like that; with some, even, in place of their eyes Ive seen two black plates. As if they wanted to put a veil. Its very interesting.
Oh, physically I see clearly enough to do everything, but I cant read. Even my vision of pictures is a little I dont know if its deteriorated or transformed: what I see isnt the picture as it is exactly, but maybe as it wanted to be. A slight difference.
0 1968-07-17, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats just what the bodys transformation is about! Its when the physical cells become not only conscious, but RECEPTIVE to the true Consciousness-Force, that is, when they allow the working of that higher Consciousness. Thats the work of transformation. Not so easy!
The other question: How does the central Will and Light, which is nonmaterial, act on the gross matter of the cells?
0 1968-07-20, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In other words, that experience one generally has in the higher mind, in the psychic, is now the bodysits the body in its cellular constitution that has it. It had that experience this morning: That alone was permanent, That which, through innumerable changes, remains (immutable, unshakeable gesture with the edge of the hand).
It was such a concrete experienceso concrete for the body that it wondered how it still remained in a form?
0 1968-07-24, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday afternoon, it left all of a sudden. I wrote to you the day before yesterday, then the fever went on, even rose higher
But mon petit, I didnt know you had written, I knew it yesterday evening.
0 1968-07-27, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Supermind is not merely a step higher than Overmindit is beyond the line, that is a different consciousness and power beyond the mental limit.
(then a question:)
0 1968-08-28, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, Mother. I saw something before August 15, one night around August 11. I saw a huge, fantastic wave of white foam, but a wave higher than a house, fantastic; and propelled by that wave, an immense, completely black steamship, which seemed to go rolling on the rocks, but it wasnt crushed. It was propelled by that wave. And another ship, much smaller, which seemed to be light gray and was going even faster. And that fantastic wave of white foam.
Many things are stirring over there. You know the events in Czechoslovakia.1
--
Let the higher intelligences putter along in their own sweet way, which will go on for millennia, and let them leave simple and goodwilled people, those who believe in the Divine Grace, free to move on quietly on their path of light.
Then, here, I have several notes, I dont know what it is.
0 1968-09-25, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I say that because there is confusion in many peoples minds. When, from the standpoint of progress, for instance, I speak of progress, I mean going from the mental consciousness to a higher consciousness, but people generally understand to make progress materially or mentally or So when they are told of transformation, all kinds of queer things come to their minds. As for us, when we speak of transformation, we mean the supramental transformation.
Thats why.
--
Yes, when we regard the higher part of our mind as the judge of our action, thats how we can deceive ourselves in good faith. In other words, the mind is incapable of seeing the truth and it judges according to its own limited capacitynot only limited but unconscious of the truth; so then, as far as its concerned, the mind is in good faith, it does the best it can. Its like that.
Naturally, those who are fully conscious of their psychic cannot possibly deceive themselves, because if they refer their problem to the psychic, they can find the divine answer there. But even for those who are in contact with their psychic, the answer doesnt have the same character as the mental answer, which is precise, categorical, absolute, and imposes itself the psychic answer is more a TENDENCY than an assertion. Its something that can still have different interpretations in the mind.
Which brings me back to my experience of yesterday. After looking at the problem, I reached the conclusion that its impossible to reproach a human being who does the best he can according to his consciousness, because how can he go beyond his own consciousness? Thats precisely the error most people make: they judge someone else according to their own consciousness, but the other person doesnt have their consciousness! Therefore they cant judge (I am only talking about people of goodwill, of course). To the vision of a more complete or higher consciousness, someone else is in error, but to the person himself, hes doing as best as he can what he thinks he has to do.
Which amounts to saying that its absolutely impossible to blame someone who acts sincerely according to his own limited consciousness. And in fact, seen from that standpoint, everyone has a limited consciousness, except THE Consciousness. Its only THE Consciousness that isnt limited. But all manifestations are necessarily limited, unless they emerge from themselves and unite with the supreme Consciousness then In what conditions can that happen?
--
You understand, the psychic beings direct contact with the bodily substance, without intermediary, gives the sensation (is it sensation? I dont know; its neither sensation nor perception), its a sort of felt vision and that vision is very precise, very preciseof the value of the vibrations in comparison with a higher vibration which is (this is as much as I can say) more directly expressive of the supreme Vibration.
Its difficult to express, but the body is now living an experience it had never had, like going from an imprecision to a precision, from a sort of fluidity to its not something concrete, but from something fluidfluid and impreciseto something precise. Any event (any small event that happens to the body) is an occasion for a new perception. Previously, everything was fluid and imprecise; now its beginning to grow more precisemore precise, more accurate. But it loses a little of its fluidity.
0 1968-09-28, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a state of being (a state of being or way of being) in which these (what should we call them? Its higher magic), these practices of higher magic have no effect. There is a state of consciousness in which they cannot act, its beyond their field of action.
For it to be active, that state of consciousness must be sufficiently material, that is to say, in the most material part of the psychic. Its a field of consciousness that belongs to the psychic world. But it must be in the psychic TURNED TOWARDS MATTER. And not just a thought: it must be a spontaneous way of being.
0 1968-10-11, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats all that image came to me: a condensation of you. Somewhat like, you know, that story (on quite a lower level) of the stones that consensed in the courtyard of the Guest-House, when stones were thrown into the Guest-House.1 But instead of a lower magic, it would be a higher magic, if I may say so: a luminous condensation of Truth.
(Mother remains in contemplation till the end, not saying anything)
0 1968-10-30, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its precisely the experience Ive had these last few days (yesterday, I think), just before writing the card. We always set an end to things but there isnt any. There isnt any. The truth is, one rises like this (Mother draws a curve that reaches a point in space), but its in order to go like this (gesture of a new curve rising higher from that point on), and again like this for ever and ever.
It may be an individual consciousness, not necessarily an impersonal one; for the individual consciousness, too, its like this: a great curve (Mother draws a trajectory up to a point), and like a springboard to go farther. So it was a vision like that, of something developingdeveloping while it expands and grows illumined.
0 1968-12-21, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Certainly it acts! Its ALREADY been acting, for a long time. Its because the body is used (was used) to obeying the vital and especially the mind, so its to change its habit, to make it obey the higher Consciousness alone. Thats why. Its to make things go faster. In people, That acts through the mind and vital and as I said, its safer that way. As an experience its rather risky, but it makes things move considerably faster, because normally you must act on the body through those two, whereas in that way, with them absent, That acts directly. Thats all.
As questions go, this one is innocent.
0 1968-12-28, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All that still seems to be in a limited field, but I am not sure its not far more general. All the time (almost all the time), there seems to be an intervention of the psychic, as if the psychic made the body remember (I dont know how to put it), made the body remember its universality, and as if it werent only for itself that the body is expressing movements of consciousness the movements of the higher Consciousness that it expresses: the effect is general.
Well know that. Well know all that later, in
But the body has a strange sensation, really strange, of being as vast as the earth, even vaster (it cant be expressed, because thats not the true way of saying it), but theres something like this: a sort of inner identity expressing itself in the plane (Mother searches for words) In the higher Consciousness, it has an effect. I dont know how to put it.
And in that consciousness, the strange thing is the importance of one minute, which to our consciousness is nothing there it has an importance. In one minute, something general can be done. Naturally, all words are stupid, but thats how it is. One minute.
0 1969-02-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because there are no words. Music is fine. I had a vision like that of an auditorium in Auroville, with a grand organ, and someone (whom I am trying to prepare, who can play the organ very well and whom I am trying to prepare inwardly) was playing (I SAW that, I saw it), playing the music of the higher Consciousness. It was a place where all those who wanted to come and listen could do so; some people came from far away, they came in, sat down, listened, and then went away And this music was like a Consciousness coming down and exerting a Pressure on people to make itself understood. It was very beautiful I hope it will be like that! Much better than words; as soon as one starts speaking (gesture at ground level), its no longer that. So there.
Voil, mon petit, now its time.
--
Organization is a discipline of action, but for Auroville we aspire to go beyond organizations, which are arbitrary and artificial. We want an organization that is the expression of a higher consciousness working for the manifestation of the Truth of the Future.
3) Until we have a common consciousness and the true and correct way of working collectively is in operation, what should we do?
0 1969-02-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the ordinary functioning of life, there is the sense of things are fine, which in people is expressed by a sensation of good health, and on the other hand, disequilibrium, disorganization; well, now that opposition appears WHOLLY artificial: theres only a continuous movement, with transitions from one type of vibration to another type of vibration whose origin is (what should I say? Its not deeper, not higher, and truer gives only one side, its not that), anyway, superior in some waywords are idiotic, quite idiotic. Thats how it is, how it is all the time [this continuous movement]. So then, you are drawn to one place or another: its simply the play of our consciousness. But to an all-seeing consciousness, its a continuous and overall movement towards yes, thats it, its for this inert Inconscient to become the absolute Conscient. I dont know, I have a vague impression that theyve discovered that a certain intensity of movement (that is, what we call speed) results in a sense of immobility I have a vague impression that Ive been told that. But it corresponds to something. What Ive called peace in the message, that peace (I hesitate to speak because words are stupid), that peace, whats felt as peace, is a paroxysm of movement, but a general movementharmonious, general.
As soon as one speaks, it becomes a caricature.
0 1969-04-02, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We could say this: if you compare the consciousness, not of ordinary humanity but the higher consciousness of humanity, the consciousness one has when one is a man and endeavors to come into contact with the higher consciousness (the contact one has with it), if you compare that with this Consciousness, you feel that as soon as the human consciousness tried to contact higher things, to purify lower movements, to widen, it used to become fluid, transparent, ethereal, whereas this Consciousness, with a vision, a perception INFINITELY SUPERIOR to the other, is solid and concrete. And the impression is its so strong! I said at the beginning that I felt as if surrounded by a protection [the rampart], something solid; well, its remained like that, with this solidity, and at the same time infinitely vaster, loftier, more understanding. And, yes, this solidity. And in this something I must call benevolence for lack of a better word, theres such an extraordinary Power of Compassion! Something like almost an intolerance of sufferingof PHYSICAL suffering (its not much interested in the moral suffering that stems from a moral distortion, it finds it idiotic), the wholly material suffering that comes from the structure and working of the material world: it finds that unacceptable. I dont know how to express it, theres a sort of refusal to accept that. I am observing (were still in a phase of observation), and from the experiences I have, it seems to me that this Power can, at least to some extent, transform physical suffering, cancel it. In some cases its obvious, but its not a constant fact. I dont know. Thats why, for instance, I was hoping, from what I had seen and what took place, that your nights would get better, but Naturally, I am an extremely imperfect instrument.
Theyre much better.
0 1969-05-24, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its easy to see that its getting disorganized TOWARDS a higher organization, that is, a broadening, a liberation thats true but nothing, nothing at all is working in the ordinary way any longer. So the body can no longer eat, can no longer Sleep, of course, for a long time there hasnt been any ordinary sleep (I dont regret it), but everything, just everything is like this (gesture of upheaval).
(long silence)
0 1969-06-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But you know, this little S.U. (Ive never said this; I forget when it wasyears ago, she was big as a boot), when your famous Sannyasin3 came here, he wanted to do a worship to the Mother,4 and he did one thing which isnt regarded as very charitable (that individual had a certain capacity): he put into this child an emanation of a higher spirit (which he thought was an emanation of the Mother), he carried out the ceremony, and afterwards (it was infinitely too powerful for the child), he came to me and told me, Ill send her to you for you to take out the emanation, we cant keep that!
So he sent me the child.
0 1969-06-28, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It means that in the West (especially in France), the intellectual development has prevailed over the spiritual development and the contact with higher regions, while in India, the inner knowledge has remained more developed than the intellectual field.
We could put the sentence thus:
0 1969-07-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That place where I used to see you was an experience of the higher mind, just above the mind, and since the mind left I have stopped having that experience. But this, here [the physical level] is fully active, fully. Ill try.
(Sujata comes back with cardboard boxes full of old things which Mother starts examining)
--
Oh, I see lots and lots of people, I do lots and lots of things. And then I can check:6 afterwards, without trying, without questioning, I can check; the next day I am told this or that So Ill try. I wasnt trying because I thought you were still going in the mind at night, in that higher region above (its just above the mind), and I no longer go there: I go (gesture all the way up). But I constantly work there, in this subtle physical. And its becoming increasingly conscious and clear. So Ill try.
Sri Aurobindo is therehe can be seen all the time; he is all the time doing one thing or another, he is VERY active, very active. You would meet him, that would be fine. You never see him at night?
0 1969-07-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Asram is not a religious association. Those who are here come from all religions and some are of no religion. There is no creed or set of dogmas, no governing religious body; there are only the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and certain psychological practices of concentration and meditation, etc., for the enlarging of the consciousness, receptivity to the Truth, mastery over the desires, the discovery of the divine self and consciousness concealed within each human being, a higher evolution of the nature.8
Sri Aurobindo
0 1969-08-06, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But in itself this would change nothing in the creation here, the evasion of a liberated soul from the world makes to that world no difference. But this crossing of the line if turned not only to an ascending but to a descending purpose would mean the transformation of the line from what it now is, a lid, a barrier, into a passage for the higher powers of consciousness of the Being now above it.
Ooh! It seems to be that.
--
And at the end, he says that if this line, this barrier could be turned into a passage for the higher powers, It would mean a new creation on earth, a bringing in of the ultimate powers which would reverse the conditions here.1
Yes, its obviously that. Its obviously that.
0 1969-09-20, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You apply your hand and concentrate on what you conceive to be a higher forceor a Force of Harmony, or a Force of Order. Like that. You apply your hand, and you feel it flow through, like that, and enter.
I think every human being has it in potentiality. At any rate, I always found it a perfectly natural thing. And when you develop it, it develops as anything else. Of course, when it takes on miraculous proportions, its different.
0 1969-10-01, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what is remarkable in the physical, its that when the physical has learned something, it never forgets. Once the cells have learned that, learned this self-giving, this offering to the Divine, and this NEED to offer themselves, its learned, and it DOESNT BUDGE ANYMORE. Its constant, twenty-four hours a day, ceaselessly, day after day, changelessly; even when something goes wrong (you have a pain or something), the first movement is this: its to offer it, to give itspontaneously. The higher consciousness doesnt intervene, its spontaneous: its the consciousness contained in the cells.
Its the vital and the mind that are like this (zigzagging gesture), unsteady Especially the vital, which is interested in all kinds of things.
0 1969-10-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When the body is aware of that, then its fine. Its far from having reached perfectionto begin with, its I dont know if its being transformed, thats not visible, but at any rate its functioning depends on the higher Consciousness, it no longer depends on the ordinary mechanism (thats taking place gradually). Well, even in the middle of that, theres a sort of smiling trust as a result of which, even when theres some pain, some discomfort, it doesnt matterit doesnt matter. There is the sense of this Divine Presence, always, everywhere, every moment. That doesnt go away.
(silence)
0 1969-10-15, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They see things like this (Mother makes a twisting gesture), never straight. But when one isnt constantly ledexclusively ledby the higher Consciousness, one does it almost automatically: a slight this way (same gesture of twisting), without knowing it, without premeditation.
That [the twist], I saw it in the past. It became impossible only when nothing came either from here (gesture to the head) or from here (the throat), or here (the heart), or here (the solar plexus), or It comes like this (gesture from above), then its impossible but only then.
0 1969-10-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
According to what he says, and according to what Ive seen so far, he has the impression of a Harmony higher than the creation, which hasnt yet fully manifested, and which would manifest through him. Theres something true there, except that instead of manifesting through a person, this Harmony is trying to descend on earth. I saw that; I think that where he is childish is when he takes it as something personal thats all. Thats my impression. But that this Harmony is trying to descend and would certainly make it easier for the new creation seems to me correct.
Success in the world always depends on a (how should I put it?) a diminishing and a personifying of things. For instance, for me there would be nothing surprising to his working miracles, because something which, to a consciousnessan enlightened consciousness, the Truth-Consciousness is a logical consequence, becomes miraculous to an unenlightened consciousness. So for him to make a name for himself as a miracle-worker wouldnt be surprising in the least. He may be destined to become
0 1969-11-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told you last time that when I was at the piano, I noticed that my hands were very conscious, that is to say, extremely receptive, they found it perfectly natural there was no connection with the body consciousness, they were moved by the higher Consciousness. The hands have had a special education. But you understand
And there is a part, the part of the body most in contact with outside (Mother touches the region of the mouth and throat), this part, this center which is in contact with outside, all this oh, its difficult, very difficult. Now and then with an aspiration, there is a beginning of change, and then it causes a sort of catastrophe! Choking and coughing and horrible. Then I am obliged to calm things down and wait. It has to take time. The organism wouldnt have the power to withstand the disorder that creates.
0 1969-11-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then (laughing) its surely that! Its collective evolution, as it is according to the laws of ordinary nature, and what you represented there was the higher knowledge wanting to change the pace, change the course of the ship. Its very clear. And of course (laughing), you know the ways of the world: it doesnt want to be troubled! So you had to hide.
Oh, yes, I was chased, I ran from one cabin to another, looking for some corner or the other to take refuge.
0 1969-11-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Trust, you know: being aware that its a higher interventiontrust first of all. Then, perfect surrender: What You willlet the body, in full sincerity, be ready for anything. And then, that sort of perfect peace that comes from surrender: one is like this (Mother opens her arms). Those are the best conditions.
One should avoid emotions and all those things.
0 1969-11-29, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I think the world is moving fast, because at the start of the century, the union of religions (that is to say, the perception and understanding that all religions are an aspect and expression of a higher truth), that was an almost new thing to get accepted; now its old, its past. Now its an extra- and supra-religious perception that imposes itself as being indispensable. The religious spirit is below; at that time, it was still above. Which means things are moving fast.
For instance, I am quite certain that if Sri Aurobindo wrote those Aphorisms now, he wouldnt put the word God where he used it (he used the word God almost everywhere). He wouldnt use THAT word. God, for man, really means religion . I dont know how to explain, its a sort of sensitivity somewhere that rebels the word is false, as it were. It has almost become the symbol of an incomprehension.
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
I keep receiving almost daily some Aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo, which I had completely forgotten. There are really quite interesting things . Some of them give me the exact impression of a clothing (we might say an intellectual clothing, but its not that, its from a higher mind, but its mentalized, that is to say, accessible to thought), a clothing of the experience I had of the supramental Consciousness, in which the difference between good and evil and all that looked like childishness, and Sri Aurobindo expresses it in those Aphorisms in a manner accessible to intelligence. Only those who understand dont understand right! Because they understand below.
Do you remember those Aphorisms? In one he says, If I cant be Rama, then I want to be Ravana and he explains why Its that series.1
--
Ah, yes, thats the general rule. Whats needed is the opposite! Instead of repelling it, to offer it. Its to put the thing, the movement itself, to CAST it into the Light . Generally, it squirms and refuses! But (laughing) its the only way. Thats why this Consciousness is so precious . You understand, what caused the repression is the idea of good and evila sort of contempt or shame at whats regarded as evil and so one goes like this (gesture of repelling), one doesnt want to see it, doesnt want to let it be. Whats needed The first thing the first thing to be realized is that the infirmity of our consciousness is what creates this division, and that there is a Consciousness (I am sure of it now), there is a Consciousness in which that doesnt exist, in which what we call evil is as necessary as what we call good, and if we could cast our sensationor our activity or perceptioncast it into this Light, thats what cures.2 Instead of repressing or repelling it as something one wants to destroy (it cant be destroyed!), one must cast it into the Light. I had in fact several days of an experience which for that reason was very interesting; instead of trying to drive far away from yourself certain things (which you dont accept or which cause a disequilibrium in the being), instead of that, accept them, take them as a part of yourself, and (Mother opens her hands) offer themthey dont want to be offered, but theres a way to compel them. A way to compel them: the resistance is lessened to the extent that we can lessen in us the sense of disapproval. If we can replace that sense of disapproval with a higher understanding, then we can do it. Its much easier.
I had a whole baggage which remained like that, of things I did when I was young; it remained like that (gesture on the side), and in fact, after that supramental experience, I was able to gather all of it, and all of a sudden, it got entirely clarified, I understood everything, and it evaporated. Things I had been dragging along for a very long time I didnt want to know, you understand, didnt want to have anything to do with them anymore and then it was all over. It melted, it was clarified like Well, it was in its place.
I think thats it. All, all the movements that pull downward, we must put them in contact with the higher understanding.
Only, its obviously beyond the mind. Because I said just before that those Aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo were an expression intelligible to the intellect, but it still diminishes; it diminishes, its no longer that dazzling light of a wordless understandingTHAT is where, that is where things can be arranged.
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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!
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Its the only solution, theres no other. All the rest is aspirations, conceptions, hopes its still the superman, but not the supramental. Its a higher humanity that tries to lift its whole humanity upward, but its useless. Its useless.
The image is very clear of all this humanity clinging and climbing, striving to catch like that, but actually not giving itselfit wants to take! And that wont do. It has to nullify itself. Then something else can come, can take its place.
0 1969-12-27, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Intelligence at its higher level very easily understands that it knows nothing and is very easily in the attitude required to progress, but even those who have that intelligence, when they deal with material things, they instinctively feel all that is quite well known and based on established experiences. So there, one is vulnerable. Thats just what is being taught to the body: the inanity of this present way of seeing and understanding things based on the good and the bad, good and evil, the luminous and the dark all those contradictions; and the whole judgment, the whole conception of life (material life) is based on thatits to teach you the inanity of this base. I see that. The work has become very acute, very persistent, as if with a will to go fast.
Even the practical part which thought it knew how to live and knew what needs to be done and how it should be done, even it must understand that this isnt true knowledge, it isnt the true way of using external things.
0 1970-01-03, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Either the walls or the roof will have to have a slopewhatever will be easier. The walls can be straight with the roof sloping. And the higher part of the roof resting on the twelve columns. And on top, the device for the sun.
Inside, nothing. Nothing but the columns. The columns I dont know, well have to see if they will be with facets (like the whole thing), twelve facets, or simply round.
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You know, now, when I am put in contact with all the things I said in the past (yet I did my best) I so much feel its like words of ignoranceall of them based on choice and opposition: this and not that, this and not that, you approve and disapprove. Thats it. And now it looks so stupid! And so narrowso narrow. Whats admired in people who have been regarded as saints (saints, especially saints) is refusal: refusal of almost everything, except of God (Mother holds a single finger erect heavenward). And everything, from the highest thingones approach to the Divinefrom that down to the most material the bodys functionseverything from top to bottom is just the same stupidity: this but not that; this but not that; this in contradiction to that; this in opposition to that. All morality, all social rules, the whole material organization of the world is based on division. And it seems more and more evident that that will be the FIRST thing the firstwhich the higher being (which Sri Aurobindo called the supramental being), the first thing that being will want to abolish.
Now I understand why he said supramental; instead of saying superman he said supramental because superman is Whereas for that being, the very basis of his existence is different; instead of being based on division, its based on union. Man talks a lot about union, but he doesnt have the least idea what it is.
0 1970-01-17, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Satprem unrolls a plan) So you see, this is the outside, which would simply be like a shell. The inside is exactly as you saw it: that big bare carpet, and the ball at the center. What determined Paolos inspiration is that you said one would have to go underground and then to reemerge inside. So he had the idea of going deep down through a spiral staircase here, which would climb back up, and once here, there would be a series of staircases fanning out in every direction (in the lower part of the shell) and ending inside the temple itself. Then, the whole lower part would be in black marble while the higher part would be in simple white marble. The whole thing is like a big bud, you see, as if growing out of the earth.
Image 3
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Straight, and higher up, rounded.
From what I had seen, the columns were higher than the walls, and thats why the roof was sloping. And it was on top of the columns that the electric lighting was placed.
And the widest point of the egg would be here (Mother draws a line at the level of the carpet).
0 1970-03-14, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I remembered the time when Sri Aurobindo was here. You see, the inner part of the being used to enter into a consciousness that felt and saw things according to the higher consciousness they were quite different; then, when Sri Aurobindo fell ill, in fact, when there were all those things, first that accident (he broke his leg2) then the body, the BODY used to say constantly, Those are dreams, those are dreams, its not for us; for us bodies, this is how it is. (gesture underground) It was frightful. Then all that left. It left completely after so many yearsall those years of effortit left: the body itself would feel the divine Presence, and its impression was that everything necessarily had to change. So then, these last few days, that formation which had left (a terrestrial formation, of all mankind, which means that those who have the vision or perception of, or even just the aspiration to, that higher Truth, when they come back into the [material] Fact, they are in front of this dreadfully painful thing, this perpetual negation by all circumstances), that formation, from which the body had completely freed itself, came back. It came back, but when it came back, when the body saw it, it saw it AS ONE SEES A FALSEHOOD. And I understood how much it had changed, because when it saw the formation, its impression it looked at it with a smile and the impression: ah, an old formation now devoid of truth. It was an extraordinary experience: that thing, its time is over. Its time is over. And this Pressure of the Consciousness is a pressure for things as they wereso miserable and so petty and so obscure and so apparently inescapable at the same timeall of it was (Mother gestures above her shoulder) behind, like an antiquated past. So then, I really sawsaw, understood that the work of this Consciousness (which is PITILESS, its not concerned whether its difficult or not, probably not even much concerned about apparent damage) is for the normal state to cease to be this thing which is so heavy, so obscure, so uglyso lowand for the dawn to come you know, something dawning on the horizon: a new Consciousness. That something truer and more luminous.
What Sri Aurobindo says here about diseases is just the point: the power of habit, of all constructions, of what appears inescapable and irrevocable in diseases. With all that, experiences seem to multiply in order to show in order for one to learn that its simply a question of attitude the attitude of going beyond beyond this mental prison humanity has locked itself in, and of breathing up above.
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)
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All the experiences others had had of making contact with the higher worlds, used to leave the physical here as it is. (How should I put it?) From the very beginning of existence up to Sri Aurobindos departure, I lived in the awareness that one may rise, one may know, one may have all experiences (and one did have them), but when one came back into this body it was those for-mid-able old laws of the mind that ruled everything. So then, all these years have been years spent preparing and preparingfreeing oneself and preparing and these last few days, it was ah! the body PHYSICALLY noting that things had changed.
It has to be worked out, as they say, realized in every detail, but the change IS DONEthe change is done.
Which means that the material conditions, which were elaborated by the mind, FIXED by it (Mother clenches her fist tight), and which appeared so inescapable, to such a point that those who had a living experience of the higher worlds thought one had to flee this world, abandon this material world if one really wanted to live in the Truth (thats the cause of all those theories and beliefs), now things are no longer like that. Now things are no longer like that. The physical is CAPABLE of receiving the higher Light, the Truth, the true Consciousness, and of man-i-fest-ing it.
Its not easy, it calls for endurance and will, but a day will come when it will be quite natural. Its only just the open door thats all, now we have to go on.
0 1970-03-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its in the direction of Matters perfect obedience to the Consciousness (the higher Consciousness); to the present experience, its the divine consciousness, but its very probably what Sri Aurobindo called the supramental consciousness. Because there must be (gesture in gradations) an indefinite ascent.
Its a consciousness in which the sense of ego completely disappears, it does not exist. There isnt a person in front of others, you understand, receiving and sending influencesits no longer like that at all. Its a general play of forces (Mother makes a vast, fluid gesture) in which everyone spontaneously plays his part.
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Its not quite that, but somewhat: all the cells seem to be attunedattuned to something higher than they, even in space, but which they feel as being their center. But a center not like this (Mother gestures onto herself) and not (whats the word?) localized; its neither here [the body] nor above, nor Its not localized. Yet the cells impression is that the Force the impelling force or will-forceemanating from that spreads out (gesture fanning out downward) to enter into the body And (this is interesting) the body feels its more DIRECTLY in relationship with that and, through it, that acts on others, on those around but its not others, its The body has sometimes even had the impression that some of those things [others, those around] are closer to it than others. Its very hard to explain. But its spontaneous. You see, the difficulty is that in order to express it, I have to start thinking it, while its spontaneous: its a sensation, not a thought.
For instance, at night when I am alone, at times theres the impression of a disorder or an anguish somewhere [in those around], and then, the bodys remedy (it clearly feels it comes from outside towards it but outside isnt the word, its a distance I dont know how to explain), its sole movement of remedy is to rush into this luminous centerits not to attract something to it, its to rush into that.
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Its a being who has done a very intensive yoga. Its a relationship with the higher consciousnesses. But very he must have been very highly ascetic. This [matter] wasnt what preoccupied him: he was wholly in the relationship with the Consciousness very, very concentrated.
My difficulty in distinguishing forces or influences is that its always translated as an intensity of force in me, so I dont know how to untangle: its always force, you understand, intensity.
0 1970-03-25, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres something very interesting on a psychological level: its that material needs decrease in proportion to the spiritual growth. Not (as Sri Aurobindo said), not through asceticism, but because the focus of attention and concentration of the being moves to a different domain. The purely material being, quite conceivably, finds only material things pleasing; with all those who live in the emotive being and the outer mind, the interest of the being is turned to for instance, things of beauty, as with those who want to live surrounded by beautiful things, who want to use nice things. Now that appears to be the human summit, but its quite what we might call a central region (gesture hardly above ground level), its not at all a higher region. But the way the world is organized, people without aesthetic needs go back to a very primitive lifewhich is wrong. We need a place where life where the very setting of life would be, not an individual thing, but a beauty that would be like the surroundings natural to a certain degree of development.
Now, as things are organized, to be surrounded by beautiful things you need to be rich, and thats a source of imbalance, because wealth usually goes with quite an average degree of consciousness, even mediocre at times. So theres everywhere an imbalance and a disorder. We would need a place of beautya place of beauty in which people can live only if they have reached a certain degree of consciousness. And let it not be decided by other people, but quite spontaneously and naturally. So how to do that?
0 1970-04-11, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The physical Nature does not mean the body alone but the phrase includes the transformation of the whole physical mind, vital, material naturenot by imposing Siddhis [occult powers] on them, but by creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the supramental being in a new evolution. I am not aware that this has been done by any Hathayogic or other process. Mental or vital occult power can only bring Siddhis of the higher plane into the individual lifelike the Sannyasi who could take any poison without harm, but he died of a poison after all when he forgot to observe the conditions of the Siddhi. The working of the supramental power envisaged is not an influence on the physical giving it abnormal faculties but an entrance and permeation changing it wholly into a supramentalised physical. I did not learn the idea from Veda or Upanishad, and I do not know if there is anything of the kind there. What I received about the Supermind was a direct, not a derived knowledge given to me; it was only afterwards that I found certain confirmatory revelations in the Upanishad and Veda.
11 September 1936
0 1970-04-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a Force acting At least I think, I feel its the Force, because it acts through the will (but its deeper or truer or higher or whatever than the will). For instance, if I am not supposed to say something, instead of its going through the thought, Mustnt speak, you mustnt speak I just cant speak anymore! All sorts of things like that. The functioning is direct.
And the body is taught to learn how it should be. The way it eats has completely changed. For speaking too, its the same, completely changed.
0 1970-05-09, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And it was my BODY that had it, not the psychic being or the higher beings (there, those things have been quite familiar for a long time), but the BODY, the very body, THIS, this, this.
That gave it such a peace!
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.
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I feel that a work is taking place there, below (Mother touches her body), and a work is taking place in this way (gesture a little higher with the right hand, and below with the left hand, both hands parallel with a space between them), and then between the two, its its not yet. So then, whats going to happen between the two? This (the right hand, above) is the subtle physical, and this (the left hand, below) is the material physical, and then, between the two, there is a confusion or something thats not ready or
(long silence)
0 1970-05-27, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But one may conceive that a higher consciousness would aestheticize, harmonize this material substance.
Yes.
WORDNET
--- Overview of adj higher
The adj higher has 2 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
1. (10) higher ::: (advanced in complexity or elaboration; "higher finance"; "higher mathematics") 2. (1) higher ::: (of education beyond the secondary level; "higher education"; "higher learning")
--- Overview of adj high
The adj high has 7 senses (first 5 from tagged texts)
1. (134) high ::: (greater than normal in degree or intensity or amount; "a high temperature"; "a high price"; "the high point of his career"; "high risks"; "has high hopes"; "the river is high"; "he has a high opinion of himself") 2. (51) high ::: ((literal meaning) being at or having a relatively great or specific elevation or upward extension (sometimes used in combinations like `knee-high'); "a high mountain"; "high ceilings"; "high buildings"; "a high forehead"; "a high incline"; "a foot high") 3. (10) eminent, high ::: (standing above others in quality or position; "people in high places"; "the high priest"; "eminent members of the community") 4. (7) high, high-pitched ::: (used of sounds and voices; high in pitch or frequency) 5. (2) high, in high spirits ::: (happy and excited and energetic) 6. gamey, gamy, high ::: ((used of the smell of meat) smelling spoiled or tainted) 7. high, mellow ::: (slightly and pleasantly intoxicated from alcohol or a drug (especially marijuana))
Sense 1
high (vs. low)
RELATED TO->(noun) highness#3
=> highness
Sense 2
high (vs. low)
RELATED TO->(noun) high#5
=> high, heights
RELATED TO->(noun) high#1
=> high
RELATED TO->(noun) highness#2
=> highness, loftiness
Sense 3
eminent, high
RELATED TO->(noun) highness#3
=> highness
Sense 5
high, in high spirits
RELATED TO->(noun) high#3
=> high
Sense 7
high, mellow
RELATED TO->(noun) high#4
=> high
--- Grep of noun higher
higher-up
higher cognitive process
higher criticism
higher education
higher law
higher national diploma
higher rank
higher status
IN WEBGEN [10000/1183]
Wikipedia - 3D XPoint -- Novel computer memory type meant to offer higher speeds than flash memory and lower prices than DRAM
Wikipedia - Factor of safety -- Factor by which an engineered system's capacity is higher than the expected load to ensure safety in case of error or uncertainty
Wikipedia - Higher-order logic -- Form of predicate logic that is distinguished from first-order logic by additional quantifiers and, sometimes, stronger semantics
Wikipedia - High-functioning autism -- People with autism who are deemed to be cognitively "higher functioning" (with an IQ of 70 or greater) than other people with autism
Wikipedia - High-heeled shoe -- Footwear that raises the heel of the wearer's foot significantly higher than the toes
Wikipedia - High-pass filter -- Filter that passes signals with a frequency higher than a certain cutoff frequency, and attenuates signals with lower frequencies
Wikipedia - Linguistic purism -- The practice of defining or recognizing one variety of a language as being purer or of intrinsically higher quality than others
Wikipedia - Robbins Report -- Report commissioned by the British government to the Committee on Higher Education, chaired by Lord Lionel Robbins, published in 1963
Wikipedia - Shandong Normal University -- Institutions of higher learning established in Shandong Province since thI founding of the People's Republic of China.
Wikipedia - Topographic prominence -- Characterizes the height of a mountain or hill's summit by the vertical distance between it and the lowest contour line encircling it but containing no higher summit within it; it is a measure of the independence of a summit
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Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Romance School Super Power -- Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu -- Fumizuki Academy isn't a typical Japanese high school. This unique institution has implemented a new and innovative system to sort its students. At the end of their freshman year, students take a test that divides up the student body. The highest scorers are placed into A class, all the way down until F class, for the lowest of the low. -- -- Unfortunately for Akihisa Yoshii, his supposedly "great" intellect wasn't quite enough for such a test, and he's now stuck at the bottom of F class. Naturally, F class has the worst facilities: not only rotten tatami mats and broken tables, but also outdated equipment and worn out furniture. On the bright side, his friend Yuuji Sakamoto is in the same class, and to everyone's surprise, the genius girl Mizuki Himeji has also ended up in the same class due to an unforeseen fever on the day of the test. -- -- Unsatisfied with their perquisites, F class rallies behind Yuuji, determined to take on the higher-tiered classes in order to seize their perks by using the school's Examinations Summon Battle system. The participants can summon fantasy characters—whose power levels are equal to their student's test scores—in an all-out battle. Will F class be able to rise to the top, or will they live up to everyone's expectations and fail? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 542,160 7.58
Chainsaw Man -- -- MAPPA -- ? eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Demons Shounen -- Chainsaw Man Chainsaw Man -- Denji has a simple dream—to live a happy and peaceful life, spending time with a girl he likes. This is a far cry from reality, however, as Denji is forced by the yakuza into killing devils in order to pay off his crushing debts. Using his pet devil Pochita as a weapon, he is ready to do anything for a bit of cash. -- -- Unfortunately, he has outlived his usefulness and is murdered by a devil in contract with the yakuza. However, in an unexpected turn of events, Pochita merges with Denji's dead body and grants him the powers of a chainsaw devil. Now able to transform parts of his body into chainsaws, a revived Denji uses his new abilities to quickly and brutally dispatch his enemies. Catching the eye of the official devil hunters who arrive at the scene, he is offered work at the Public Safety Bureau as one of them. Now with the means to face even the toughest of enemies, Denji will stop at nothing to achieve his simple teenage dreams. -- -- TV - ??? ??, ???? -- 67,759 N/A -- -- Naruto Narutimate Hero 3: Tsuini Gekitotsu! Jounin vs. Genin!! Musabetsu Dairansen Taikai Kaisai!! -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 1 ep -- Game -- Game Adventure Comedy Shounen -- Naruto Narutimate Hero 3: Tsuini Gekitotsu! Jounin vs. Genin!! Musabetsu Dairansen Taikai Kaisai!! Naruto Narutimate Hero 3: Tsuini Gekitotsu! Jounin vs. Genin!! Musabetsu Dairansen Taikai Kaisai!! -- A contest is made by the Fifth Hokage called Jonin vs Genin. The point is to collect crystals for points, with the higher-ranked Chunin and Jonin holding crystals worth more points. The Genin have blue crystals, while the Chunin and Jonin have red crystals. -- -- The video shows various fights between the Genin and Jonin, which each instance ending in the Jonin unknowingly losing their crystal (or discarding it). -- -- (Source: Wikipedia) -- OVA - Dec 22, 2005 -- 67,031 6.77
Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly -- -- ufotable -- 1 ep -- Visual novel -- Action Fantasy Magic Supernatural -- Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly -- The Fifth Holy Grail War continues, and the ensuing chaos results in higher stakes for all participants. Shirou Emiya continues to participate in the war, aspiring to be a hero of justice who saves everyone. He sets out in search of the truth behind a mysterious dark shadow and its murder spree, determined to defeat it. -- -- Meanwhile, Shinji Matou sets his own plans into motion, threatening Shirou through his sister Sakura Matou. Shirou and Rin Toosaka battle Shinji, hoping to relieve Sakura from the abuses of her brother. But the ugly truth of the Matou siblings begins to surface, and many dark secrets are exposed. -- -- Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly continues to focus on the remaining Masters and Servants as they fight each other in the hopes of obtaining the Holy Grail. However, as darkness arises within Fuyuki City, even the state of their sacred war could be in danger. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- Movie - Jan 12, 2019 -- 224,860 8.59
Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly -- -- ufotable -- 1 ep -- Visual novel -- Action Fantasy Magic Supernatural -- Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly -- The Fifth Holy Grail War continues, and the ensuing chaos results in higher stakes for all participants. Shirou Emiya continues to participate in the war, aspiring to be a hero of justice who saves everyone. He sets out in search of the truth behind a mysterious dark shadow and its murder spree, determined to defeat it. -- -- Meanwhile, Shinji Matou sets his own plans into motion, threatening Shirou through his sister Sakura Matou. Shirou and Rin Toosaka battle Shinji, hoping to relieve Sakura from the abuses of her brother. But the ugly truth of the Matou siblings begins to surface, and many dark secrets are exposed. -- -- Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly continues to focus on the remaining Masters and Servants as they fight each other in the hopes of obtaining the Holy Grail. However, as darkness arises within Fuyuki City, even the state of their sacred war could be in danger. -- -- Movie - Jan 12, 2019 -- 224,860 8.59
Free!: Dive to the Future -- -- Animation Do, Kyoto Animation -- 12 eps -- Original -- Comedy Drama School Slice of Life Sports -- Free!: Dive to the Future Free!: Dive to the Future -- With the seniors having graduated from high school, the determined swimmers eagerly take on their futures with a dream to fulfill. -- -- Now attending Hidaka University in Tokyo, Haruka Nanase unexpectedly runs into Shiina Asahi, an old teammate and friend from his middle school days. Consequently, the troubling memories regarding his middle school swim team resurface, as it was a time when Haruka's views on swimming became negative and led him to quit the team. Haruka later reconnects with his other middle school classmates; all except for Ikuya Kirishima, who still resents Haruka for quitting the team, resulting in its disbandment. Aware of the issues between them, Haruka resolves to improve his friendship with Ikuya. However, he quickly realizes that making amends with an old friend isn't his only obstacle. -- -- Facing the reality and challenges of encountering higher calibre swimmers, Haruka must work hard to establish himself if he dreams of competing on an international level. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 123,137 7.58
Ga no Iru Tokoro -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Original -- Dementia -- Ga no Iru Tokoro Ga no Iru Tokoro -- A Place Where There Are Moths depicts the conflict between drab concrete block apartment living and the natural environment in Japanese cities. The forces of nature are represented by the motif of a tree whose leaves metamorphose into orange moths and take over a middle-aged woman's apartment, pushing her room higher and higher within the building. -- -- (Source: Midnight Eye) -- Movie - ??? ??, 2001 -- 831 4.44
Godzilla 3: Hoshi wo Kuu Mono -- -- Polygon Pictures -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Adventure Sci-Fi -- Godzilla 3: Hoshi wo Kuu Mono Godzilla 3: Hoshi wo Kuu Mono -- A door opens, and a golden seal shatters a star. -- -- It is the early 21st century. Mankind has lost the battle for planet Earth to Godzilla, and has taken to the stars in search of a new home. But the search ends in vain, forcing them and their alien allies back to Earth. But 20,000 years have passed in their absence, and the Earth is a wholly different place. -- -- The planet's flora and fauna now embody and serve Godzilla. Earth is a monster's planet, ruled by the largest Godzilla ever at 300 meters in height. Godzilla Earth. -- -- Human protagonist, Captain Haruo, yearns to defeat Godzilla and retake the planet for mankind. There, he meets aboriginal descendants of the human race, the Houtua tribe. The Houtua twin sisters, Maina and Miana, lead him to the skeletal remains of Mecha-Godzilla, an old anti-Godzilla weapon, which to everyone's surprise is still alive in the form of self-generating nanometal. Taken from the Mecha-Godzilla carcass, the nanometals have gradually been rebuilding a "Mecha-Godzilla City," a potential weapon capable of destroying Godzilla Earth. -- -- As the strategy develops, a rift forms between the humans and the Bilusaludo, one of several alien races that had joined the humans on their exodus from Earth. Their leader, Galu-gu, believes that the secret to defeating Godzilla lies in the use of superhuman powers – namely, the nanometal integration – but Haruo resists, fearing that in defeating monsters, they must not become monsters themselves. Haruo ultimately uses his means for defeating Godzilla Earth to destroy the Mecha-Godzilla city so as to prevent nanometal assimilation, killing Galu-gu. However, his childhood friend, Yuuko, has been absorbed by the nanometal integration and has fallen into a brain dead coma. -- -- The human race, once again, is lost. Metphies, commander of the priestly alien race, Exif, marvels at the miraculous survival of Haruo, he begins to attract a following. The Exif has secretly harbored this outcome as their "ultimate goal." Miana and Maina issue warnings against Metphies, while Haruo begins to question mankind's next move. -- -- With no means for defeating Godzilla Earth, mankind watches as King Ghidorah, clad in a golden light, descends on the planet. The earth shakes once again with as war moves to a higher dimension. -- -- What is Godzilla exactly? Does mankind stand a chance? Is there a future vision in Haruo's eyes? Find out in the finale. -- -- (Source: Official site) -- Movie - Nov 9, 2018 -- 23,950 6.26
Kaleido Star -- -- Gonzo, Production I.G -- 51 eps -- Original -- Comedy Sports Drama Fantasy Shoujo -- Kaleido Star Kaleido Star -- The Kaleido Stage is known throughout the world for captivating audiences with its amazing acrobatics, innovative routines, and extravagant costumes and sets. It is a place for guests to believe in magic, and Sora Naegino wants nothing more than to be a part of that magic—by becoming an acrobat for the famed circus herself. -- -- To realize her dream, she travels from Japan to California to audition for a place in the group. However, Sora learns that she needs much more than her natural talent to bring joy to the faces in the crowd. She quickly discovers just how difficult it is to be a professional performer where the stakes—and the stunts—are higher and mistakes spell danger! To put on performances worthy of the Kaleido Stage, she will need to endure rigorous training, unconventional assignments, fierce competition, and the antics of a mischievous spirit named Fool. -- -- Can Sora reach new heights, make new friends, conquer her fears, and surpass her limits to become a Kaleido Star? -- -- 70,745 7.94
Kaleido Star -- -- Gonzo, Production I.G -- 51 eps -- Original -- Comedy Sports Drama Fantasy Shoujo -- Kaleido Star Kaleido Star -- The Kaleido Stage is known throughout the world for captivating audiences with its amazing acrobatics, innovative routines, and extravagant costumes and sets. It is a place for guests to believe in magic, and Sora Naegino wants nothing more than to be a part of that magic—by becoming an acrobat for the famed circus herself. -- -- To realize her dream, she travels from Japan to California to audition for a place in the group. However, Sora learns that she needs much more than her natural talent to bring joy to the faces in the crowd. She quickly discovers just how difficult it is to be a professional performer where the stakes—and the stunts—are higher and mistakes spell danger! To put on performances worthy of the Kaleido Stage, she will need to endure rigorous training, unconventional assignments, fierce competition, and the antics of a mischievous spirit named Fool. -- -- Can Sora reach new heights, make new friends, conquer her fears, and surpass her limits to become a Kaleido Star? -- -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Funimation -- 70,745 7.94
Kingdom 2nd Season -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 39 eps -- Manga -- Action Military Historical Seinen -- Kingdom 2nd Season Kingdom 2nd Season -- A year after the devastating battle against the formidable Zhao, the State of Qin has returned its focus to pursuing King Ying Zheng's ambition of conquering the other six states and unifying China. Their next target is Wei, a smaller state which stands as a geographic stepping stone for the sake of conquest. -- -- Li Xin, now a three hundred man commander of the swiftly rising Fei Xin Unit, continues to seek out lofty achievements in order to garner recognition for himself and his soldiers, motivated by those previously lost in battle. In the preliminary battles ahead of Qin's invasion of Wei, Xin finds competition in other young commanders who are of a higher social status than him. Back in Qin, the royal palace faces turmoil as opposing factions begin to make their move against Ying Zheng's regime. -- -- With their hands full both abroad and at home, Zheng and Xin must lead the way in this era of unending war, resolved to etch their names in history by creating a unified China. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 82,402 8.38
Kono Oto Tomare! 2nd Season -- -- Platinum Vision -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Drama Music Romance School Shounen -- Kono Oto Tomare! 2nd Season Kono Oto Tomare! 2nd Season -- The Tokise High School Koto Club has courageously pushed through their fractured and unsynchronized performance at the Kanto Region Traditional Japanese Music Festival. Clubmembers Chika Kudou, Satowa Houzuki, Takezou Kurata, Hiro Kurusu, Kouta Mizuhara, Saneyasu Adachi, and Michitaka Sakai are devastated to learn the negative results of their performance, leaving them crushed. Nonetheless, the group recognizes their potential and enthusiastically agree to collectively sharpen their skills, improve their flaws, and develop higher caliber playing to succeed in the upcoming national qualifiers in winter. -- -- With the help of their now willing club advisor Suzuka Takinami, the group's goal gradually becomes achievable as they begin to grasp the foundations of good music and refine their koto-playing abilities, with the suggestion of performing more often to gain what they lack most—experience. -- -- However, as their journey to nationals is underway, the koto club members face challenges that obstruct their focus and progress. Not only does the threat of other powerhouse schools and musicians remain, but the high school issues of budding romance and soon-to-be-graduating seniors also begin to push the limits of the determined group of teenagers and the future of the koto club. -- -- 90,539 8.42
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season -- -- Sunrise -- 25 eps -- Original -- Action Drama Mecha Sci-Fi Space -- Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season -- Tekkadan has now become a direct affiliate of Teiwaz after procuring a new trade agreement with Arbrau. With its newfound funds and prestige, Tekkadan finds both its list of allies and enemies growing. Meanwhile, the flames of the Gjallarhorn power struggle continue to rage in full force. As a part of her efforts to make Mars financially independent from Earth, Kudelia Aina Bernstein founds the Admoss Company and enlists Tekkadan as her business partner. -- -- The stakes are getting higher as the Tekkadan family continues to grow. Will Orga, Mikazuki, and the rest of the Tekkadan faction be able to keep up, or will Kudelia's dream of Martian independence die out? -- -- 102,471 8.23
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season -- -- Sunrise -- 25 eps -- Original -- Action Drama Mecha Sci-Fi Space -- Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season -- Tekkadan has now become a direct affiliate of Teiwaz after procuring a new trade agreement with Arbrau. With its newfound funds and prestige, Tekkadan finds both its list of allies and enemies growing. Meanwhile, the flames of the Gjallarhorn power struggle continue to rage in full force. As a part of her efforts to make Mars financially independent from Earth, Kudelia Aina Bernstein founds the Admoss Company and enlists Tekkadan as her business partner. -- -- The stakes are getting higher as the Tekkadan family continues to grow. Will Orga, Mikazuki, and the rest of the Tekkadan faction be able to keep up, or will Kudelia's dream of Martian independence die out? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 102,471 8.23
Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse -- -- ixtl, Satelight -- 24 eps -- Visual novel -- Action Military Sci-Fi Mecha -- Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse -- Since 1973, an invasion of aliens upon Earth known as BETA has driven human civilization to destruction. In order to defend themselves from this enormous mass of enemy force, mankind has developed large humanoid arms called Tactical Surface Fighters and deployed them to its defense lines through out the world. However, its efforts could only slow down the impending defeat, and mankind has been forced to abandon the major areas of the Eurasian Continent. For 30 years, they have been caught in an endless war against BETA without any hopes of victory. -- -- Now in 2001, Imperial Japan faces difficulties in the development of the next-generation of Tactical Surface Fighters (TSF) as it defends the front lines of the Far East. The UN has proposed a joint development program between Imperial Japan and the United States as a part of its TSF international mutual development unit, the Prominence Project. -- -- Yui Takamura (a surface pilot of the Imperial Royal Guards of Japan) is given the responsibility of the project and sets off to Alaska. Meanwhile, Yuya Bridges, also a surface pilot of the US Army, heads to the same destination. -- -- They never had any idea just how drastically their encounter would change their fates. -- -- This story of internal dilemma takes place during the development of the new Tactical Surface Fighters, the most crucial and effective weapons against BETA. And this time, the stakes are much higher than a handful of lives and our sanity. -- -- All we can do is fight. -- -- (Source: Muv-Luv Total Eclipse Official English Website, edited) -- 81,759 7.11
Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse -- -- ixtl, Satelight -- 24 eps -- Visual novel -- Action Military Sci-Fi Mecha -- Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse -- Since 1973, an invasion of aliens upon Earth known as BETA has driven human civilization to destruction. In order to defend themselves from this enormous mass of enemy force, mankind has developed large humanoid arms called Tactical Surface Fighters and deployed them to its defense lines through out the world. However, its efforts could only slow down the impending defeat, and mankind has been forced to abandon the major areas of the Eurasian Continent. For 30 years, they have been caught in an endless war against BETA without any hopes of victory. -- -- Now in 2001, Imperial Japan faces difficulties in the development of the next-generation of Tactical Surface Fighters (TSF) as it defends the front lines of the Far East. The UN has proposed a joint development program between Imperial Japan and the United States as a part of its TSF international mutual development unit, the Prominence Project. -- -- Yui Takamura (a surface pilot of the Imperial Royal Guards of Japan) is given the responsibility of the project and sets off to Alaska. Meanwhile, Yuya Bridges, also a surface pilot of the US Army, heads to the same destination. -- -- They never had any idea just how drastically their encounter would change their fates. -- -- This story of internal dilemma takes place during the development of the new Tactical Surface Fighters, the most crucial and effective weapons against BETA. And this time, the stakes are much higher than a handful of lives and our sanity. -- -- All we can do is fight. -- -- (Source: Muv-Luv Total Eclipse Official English Website, edited) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 81,759 7.11
Naruto Narutimate Hero 3: Tsuini Gekitotsu! Jounin vs. Genin!! Musabetsu Dairansen Taikai Kaisai!! -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 1 ep -- Game -- Game Adventure Comedy Shounen -- Naruto Narutimate Hero 3: Tsuini Gekitotsu! Jounin vs. Genin!! Musabetsu Dairansen Taikai Kaisai!! Naruto Narutimate Hero 3: Tsuini Gekitotsu! Jounin vs. Genin!! Musabetsu Dairansen Taikai Kaisai!! -- A contest is made by the Fifth Hokage called Jonin vs Genin. The point is to collect crystals for points, with the higher-ranked Chunin and Jonin holding crystals worth more points. The Genin have blue crystals, while the Chunin and Jonin have red crystals. -- -- The video shows various fights between the Genin and Jonin, which each instance ending in the Jonin unknowingly losing their crystal (or discarding it). -- -- (Source: Wikipedia) -- OVA - Dec 22, 2005 -- 67,031 6.77
Piano no Mori (TV) 2nd Season -- -- Gaina -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Music School Seinen -- Piano no Mori (TV) 2nd Season Piano no Mori (TV) 2nd Season -- With the start of the Chopin piano competition, Kai Ichinose, Shuuhei Amamiya, and many other hopeful musicians from around the world strive to reach the top. The stakes have never been higher, and the judges are rigorous when it comes to selecting the winner out of the plethora of talented pianists. This competition is so harsh that even famous prodigies can be easily eliminated. -- -- Some play for the money, some play to fulfill their duty to their families, and yet others play for their music to be heard. However, the only one who can reach the top is the one who embodies the spirit of the music Frédéric Chopin crafted for future generations. With the stakes higher than ever before, rivalries, friendships, and family ties will be tested, and each pianist will find their own sound. -- -- 34,359 7.39
Seikaisuru Kado -- -- Toei Animation -- 12 eps -- Original -- Sci-Fi -- Seikaisuru Kado Seikaisuru Kado -- Cool-headed and rational, Koujirou Shindou is a government official and master negotiator with a well-earned reputation. While departing on a business trip, a giant cube materializes and his plane is taken undamaged into the mysterious, indestructible structure. -- -- As Japanese authorities attempt to identify the cube's properties and origins, Shindou encounters an otherworldly entity known as Yaha-kui zaShunina, who materializes in the form of a human man. He assures Shindou that the passengers are not in any danger and requests help in negotiations with the human world. -- -- Hailing from a higher dimensional universe known as Novo, Yaha-kui zaShunina is able to transfer information between Novo and Shindou's universe through a cube called Kado. Despite having these unfathomable abilities, he does not appear hostile. Instead, he announces that he has come to this world with only one intention: to "advance" humanity—starting with Japan. -- -- 95,698 6.80
Sol Bianca -- -- AIC -- 2 eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Space -- Sol Bianca Sol Bianca -- Five female pirates pilot the Sol Bianca, a starship with a higher level of technology than any other known. With it, they seek out riches, such as the Gnosis, an legendary item of power, and pasha, the most valuable mineral in the galaxy. Along the way, they must consider a stowaway's quest to save the one he loves, and seek revenge against those that have wronged them. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films -- OVA - Mar 21, 1990 -- 4,975 6.34