TERMS STARTING WITH
lower ::: a. --> Compar. of Low, a.
To let descend by its own weight, as something suspended; to let down; as, to lower a bucket into a well; to lower a sail or a boat; sometimes, to pull down; as, to lower a flag.
To reduce the height of; as, to lower a fence or wall; to lower a chimney or turret.
To depress as to direction; as, to lower the aim of a gun; to make less elevated as to object; as, to lower one&
lower bound: A value which is less than all elements of a given set.
lower-case ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or kept in, the lower case; -- used to denote the small letters, in distinction from capitals and small capitals. See the Note under 1st Case, n., 3.
lowered ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Lower
of Lower
lowering ::: bringing down the voice to a lower level.
loweringly ::: adv. --> In a lowering manner; with cloudiness or threatening gloom.
lowering ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Lower
of Lower ::: a. --> Dark and threatening; gloomy; sullen; as, lowering clouds or sky.
lower limit: One of the limits of integration in the evaluation of a definite integral that is used as the argument in the indefinite integral that is used as the subtrahend (i.e. the number to be subtracted, not the number to subtract from).
lowermost ::: superl. --> Lowest.
lower motor neuron ::: Spinal motor neuron; directly innervates muscle (also referred to as α or primary motor neuron).
lower motor neuron syndrome ::: Signs and symptoms arising from damage to α motor neurons; these include paralysis or paresis, muscle atrophy, areflexia, and fibrillations.
lower regions who requires of all the deceased that
lower representative ::: in October 1920, equivalent to what representative had meant earlier in that year, when it referred to a form of intuitive revelatory logistis; this came to be described as "lower representative" when representative vijñana came to mean highest representative ideality.
lower revelatory ::: (in 1920) a term used for a form or forms of logistic ideality other than the highest kinds of revelatory logistis, but containing an element of revelation, such as revelatory intuition, revelatory inspired logistis or the lower forms of intuitive revelatory logistis.
lower revelatory representative ::: pertaining to a form of intuitive revelatory logistis that combines lower revelatory and representative elements.
lower set "mathematics" A {finite} non-empty {downward closed} subset of a {partial order}. (1999-03-17)
lower set ::: (mathematics) A finite non-empty downward closed subset of a partial order. (1999-03-17)
lower triangular matrix: A square matrix where all values on or above the leading diagonal is zero. (i.e. a matrix M where mi,j = 0 for i ≥ j )
lower vital ::: see vital.
lower waters at the time of Creation, and again
lower waters at the time of Creation; and was
lowery ::: a. --> Cloudy; gloomy; lowering; as, a lowery sky; lowery weather.
Lower Confidence Limit ::: The lower limit of a confidence interval. If prediction states that the true score falls between 80 and 90, then the lower confidence level is 80.
Lower Dantian ::: Also "Lower Dantien." See Svasthithana Chakra.
Lower Face or Lower Countenance. See MICROPROSOPUS
Lower Layer Protocol "networking, protocol" (LLP, or lower-layer protocol) Any {protocol} residing in {OSI} layers one to four. These protocols package, {route}, verify and transmit {datagrams}. A prime example would be {TCP/IP}. Lower layer protocols support the {upper layer protocols}. (1999-02-17)
Lower Layer Protocol ::: (networking, protocol) (LLP, or lower-layer protocol) Any protocol residing in OSI layers one to four.These protocols package, route, verify and transmit datagrams. A prime example would be TCP/IP. Lower layer protocols support the upper layer protocols. (1999-02-17)
Lower Nature, Lower Self The dual human nature arises from the fact that manas (mind), the field and substance of human thought and reasoning, is the scene of interaction between the spiritual soul (buddhi-manas) and the animal soul (kama-manas). Thus there is a threefold division, so that lower self may be considered as either the kama-manas as opposed to buddhi-manas, or else the dual human consciousness or false ego, consisting of both selfish and unselfish elements. The term lower nature, however, refers to the animal and selfish side of human nature, that part which tends downwards and which has to be regenerated and raised.
Lower Principles, Lower Quaternary According to the septenary division of human nature, the septenate is divided into a triad above and a quaternary below, four being a number in this case corresponding to matter, and three corresponding to spirit and intellect. Theosophical teachings enumerate the seven principles in several different ways which tends to keep the student’s ideas fluid and thus prevent dogmatic orthodoxy.
Lower quaternary: In occult terminology, the physical body, the etheric double, the astral body, and the mental body (q.v.).
Lower spirits: The elementals (q.v.).
Lower vital ::: Anger, fear, jealousy, touch the heart no doubt just as they touch the mind but they rise from the navel region and entrails (i.e., the lower or at highest the middle vital).
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. A sweet yellowish or brownish viscid fluid produced by various bees from the nectar of flowers and used as food. 2. Something sweet, delicious or delightful. 3.* Fig. Sweetness. *honey-buds, honey-drunk, honey-fire, honey-packed, honey-sweet, honey-wine.
"1. ‘The Golden Embryo" in Hindu cosmology; the name given to the golden-hued Egg which floated on the surface of the primeval waters. In time the egg divided into two parts, the golden top half of the shell becoming the heavens and the silver lower half the earth. 2. ‘God imaginative and therefore creative"; the ‘Spirit in the middle or Dream State"; Lord of Dream-Life who takes from the ocean of subconsciously intelligent spiritual being the conscious psychic forces which He materializes or encases in various forms of gross living matter. (Enc. Br.; A)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works.
“1. ‘The Golden Embryo’ in Hindu cosmology; the name given to the golden-hued Egg which floated on the surface of the primeval waters. In time the egg divided into two parts, the golden top half of the shell becoming the heavens and the silver lower half the earth. 2. ‘God imaginative and therefore creative’; the ‘Spirit in the middle or Dream State’; Lord of Dream-Life who takes from the ocean of subconsciously intelligent spiritual being the conscious psychic forces which He materializes or encases in various forms of gross living matter. (Enc. Br.; A)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works.
(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.
abase ::: a. --> To lower or depress; to throw or cast down; as, to abase the eye.
To cast down or reduce low or lower, as in rank, office, condition in life, or estimation of worthiness; to depress; to humble; to degrade.
abased ::: lowered, humbled, degraded in condition, character, feelings, etc.
abased ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Abase ::: a. --> Lowered; humbled.
Borne lower than usual, as a fess; also, having the ends of the wings turned downward towards the point of the shield.
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;
abbreviate ::: v. t. --> To make briefer; to shorten; to abridge; to reduce by contraction or omission, especially of words written or spoken.
To reduce to lower terms, as a fraction. ::: a. --> Abbreviated; abridged; shortened.
Having one part relatively shorter than another or than
A being of the lower vital planes who has assumed the discarded vital sheath of a departed human being or a fragment of his vital personality and appears and acts in the form and perhaps with the surface thoughts and memories of that person.
A being of the lower vital plane who by the medium of a living human being or by some other means or agency is able to materialise itself sufficiently so as to appear and act in a visible form or speak with an audible voice or, without so appearing, to move about material things, e.g., furniture or to materialise objects or to shift them from place to place. This accounts for what are called poltergeists , phenomena of stone-throwing, tree-inhabiting Bhutas, and other well-known phenomena.
abject ::: a. --> Cast down; low-lying.
Sunk to a law condition; down in spirit or hope; degraded; servile; groveling; despicable; as, abject posture, fortune, thoughts.
To cast off or down; hence, to abase; to degrade; to lower; to debase. ::: n.
abyss ::: 1. The great deep, the primal chaos; the ‘bowels of the earth", the supposed cavity of the lower world; the ‘infernal pit". 2. A bottomless gulf; any unfathomable or apparently unfathomable cavity or void space; a profound gulf, chasm, or void extending beneath. Abyss, abyss"s, abysses.
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
accrescent ::: a. --> Growing; increasing.
Growing larger after flowering.
acephalocyst ::: n. --> A larval entozoon in the form of a subglobular or oval vesicle, or hydatid, filled with fluid, sometimes found in the tissues of man and the lower animals; -- so called from the absence of a head or visible organs on the vesicle. These cysts are the immature stages of certain tapeworms. Also applied to similar cysts of different origin.
acolyte ::: an attendant or junior assistant in any ceremony or operation; a novice; follower. acolytes.
acotyledon ::: n. --> A plant which has no cotyledons, as the dodder and all flowerless plants.
actinia ::: n. --> An animal of the class Anthozoa, and family Actinidae. From a resemblance to flowers in form and color, they are often called animal flowers and sea anemones. [See Polyp.].
A genus in the family Actinidae.
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.
adelaster ::: n. --> A provisional name for a plant which has not had its flowers botanically examined, and therefore has not been referred to its proper genus.
adolescence ::: n. --> The state of growing up from childhood to manhood or womanhood; youth, or the period of life between puberty and maturity, generally considered to be, in the male sex, from fourteen to twenty-one. Sometimes used with reference to the lower animals.
adonis ::: n. --> A youth beloved by Venus for his beauty. He was killed in the chase by a wild boar.
A preeminently beautiful young man; a dandy.
A genus of plants of the family Ranunculaceae, containing the pheasant&
adown ::: adv. --> From a higher to a lower situation; downward; down, to or on the ground. ::: prep. --> Down.
ADVAITA. :::One Existence; the One without a second; non-dual, absolute and indivisible unity; Monism.
People are apt to speak of the Advaita as if it were identical with Mayavada monism, just as they speak of Vedanta as if it were identical with Advaita only; that is not the case. There are several forms of Indian philosophy which base themselves upon the One Reality, but they admit also the reality of the world, the reality of the Many, the reality of the differences of the Many as well as the sameness of the One (bhedābheda). But the Many exist in the One and by the One, the differences are variations in manifestation of that which is fundamentally ever the same. This we actually see in the universal law of existence where oneness is always the basis with an endless multiplicity and difference in the oneness; as for instance there is one mankind but many kinds of man, one thing called leaf or flower, but many forms, patterns, colours of leaf and flower. Through this we can look back into one of the fundamental secrets of existence, the secret which is contained in the one reality itself. The oneness of the Infinite is not something limited, fettered to its unity; it is capable of an infinite multiplicity. The Supreme Reality is an Absolute not limited by either oneness or multiplicity but simultaneously capable of both; for both are its aspects, although the oneness is fundamental and the multiplicity depends upon the oneness.
Wide Realistic Advaita.
Adversary ::: “When there is some lowering or diminution of the consciousness or some impairing of it at one place or another, the Adversary—or the Censor—who is always on the watch presses with all his might wherever there is a weak point lying covered from your own view, and suddenly a wrong movement leaps up with unexpected force. Become conscious and cast out the possibility of its renewal, that is all that is to be done.” Letters on Yoga
aestivation ::: n. --> The state of torpidity induced by the heat and dryness of summer, as in certain snails; -- opposed to hibernation.
The arrangement of the petals in a flower bud, as to folding, overlapping, etc.; prefloration.
"A fabulous tribe of wild, beastlike monsters, having the upper part of a human being and the lower part of a horse. They live in the woods or mountains of Elis, Arcadia, and Thessaly. They are representative of wild life, animal desires and barbarism. (M.I.) Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works.*
“A fabulous tribe of wild, beastlike monsters, having the upper part of a human being and the lower part of a horse. They live in the woods or mountains of Elis, Arcadia, and Thessaly. They are representative of wild life, animal desires and barbarism. (M.I.) Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works.
agamic ::: a. --> Produced without sexual union; as, agamic or unfertilized eggs.
Not having visible organs of reproduction, as flowerless plants; agamous.
agave ::: n. --> A genus of plants (order Amaryllidaceae) of which the chief species is the maguey or century plant (A. Americana), wrongly called Aloe. It is from ten to seventy years, according to climate, in attaining maturity, when it produces a gigantic flower stem, sometimes forty feet in height, and perishes. The fermented juice is the pulque of the Mexicans; distilled, it yields mescal. A strong thread and a tough paper are made from the leaves, and the wood has many uses.
ageratum ::: n. --> A genus of plants, one species of which (A. Mexicanum) has lavender-blue flowers in dense clusters.
agglomerated ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Agglomerate ::: a. --> Collected into a ball, heap, or mass.
Collected into a rounded head of flowers.
agiotage ::: n. --> Exchange business; also, stockjobbing; the maneuvers of speculators to raise or lower the price of stocks or public funds.
alabastrum ::: n. --> A flower bud.
a large group of rather pretty birds, chiefly of Australasia, popularly called Honey-eaters, having a bill and tongue adapted for extracting the sweet juices of many flowers.
albino ::: n. --> A person, whether negro, Indian, or white, in whom by some defect of organization the substance which gives color to the skin, hair, and eyes is deficient or in a morbid state. An albino has a skin of a milky hue, with hair of the same color, and eyes with deep red pupil and pink or blue iris. The term is also used of the lower animals, as white mice, elephants, etc.; and of plants in a whitish condition from the absence of chlorophyll.
allower ::: n. --> An approver or abettor.
One who allows or permits.
alcyonium ::: n. --> A genus of fleshy Alcyonaria, its polyps somewhat resembling flowers with eight fringed rays. The term was also formerly used for certain species of sponges.
alligator ::: n. --> A large carnivorous reptile of the Crocodile family, peculiar to America. It has a shorter and broader snout than the crocodile, and the large teeth of the lower jaw shut into pits in the upper jaw, which has no marginal notches. Besides the common species of the southern United States, there are allied species in South America.
Any machine with strong jaws, one of which opens like the movable jaw of an alligator
a form of squeezer for the puddle ball
All lights are indications of a Force or Power. It is the work of the Lights and Forces they represent to act in their descent on the lower nature and change it. Light clatifics the conscious- ness and works as a force and makes knowledge possible.
alow ::: adv. --> Below; in a lower part.
alsike ::: n. --> A species of clover with pinkish or white flowers; Trifolium hybridum.
Although the noun when capitalized refers to an officer of the British judiciary or one of several officials of the Exchequer, formally titled the Queen’s or the King’s Remembrancer, who has the responsibility of collecting debts that are owed to the Crown or an official representing the City of London, especially on various ceremonial occasions, or to represents the inters of Parliament, when defined in lower case the first definition given is person who reminds.
"Always keep in touch with the Divine Force. The best thing for you is to do that simply and allow it to do its own work; wherever necessary, it will take hold of the inferior energies and purify them; at other times it will empty you of them and fill you with itself. But if you let your mind take the lead and discuss and decide what is to be done, you will lose touch with the Divine Force and the lower energies will begin to act for themselves and all go into confusion and a wrong movement.” Letters on Yoga
“Always keep in touch with the Divine Force. The best thing for you is to do that simply and allow it to do its own work; wherever necessary, it will take hold of the inferior energies and purify them; at other times it will empty you of them and fill you with itself. But if you let your mind take the lead and discuss and decide what is to be done, you will lose touch with the Divine Force and the lower energies will begin to act for themselves and all go into confusion and a wrong movement.” Letters on Yoga
alyssum ::: n. --> A genus of cruciferous plants; madwort. The sweet alyssum (A. maritimum), cultivated for bouquets, bears small, white, sweet-scented flowers.
amain ::: n. --> With might; with full force; vigorously; violently; exceedingly.
At full speed; in great haste; also, at once. ::: v. t. --> To lower, as a sail, a yard, etc.
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 Animal browses in the sacred fence’ connotes the defilement of the psycho-spiritual nature by one’s lower vital being.”
Amal: “There appears to be an allusion to the Greek concept or semi-vision of a heaven beyond death where the unfading flower called asphodel bloomed.”
amaracus ::: n. --> A fragrant flower.
amaranth ::: n. --> An imaginary flower supposed never to fade.
A genus of ornamental annual plants (Amaranthus) of many species, with green, purplish, or crimson flowers.
A color inclining to purple.
ambiparous ::: a. --> Characterized by containing the rudiments of both flowers and leaves; -- applied to a bud.
amentaceous ::: a. --> Resembling, or consisting of, an ament or aments; as, the chestnut has an amentaceous inflorescence.
Bearing aments; having flowers arranged in aments; as, amentaceous plants.
amorpha ::: n. --> A genus of leguminous shrubs, having long clusters of purple flowers; false or bastard indigo.
anallantoidea ::: n. pl. --> The division of Vertebrata in which no allantois is developed. It includes amphibians, fishes, and lower forms.
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.
Ananda in the consciousness, their workings there, the realisation of the divine or spiritual love, the perception of on€’s own psy- chic being, the discovery of one’s own true mental being, true wtal being, true physical being, the realisation of the overmind or the Supramental consciousness, the clear perception of the relation of all these things to our present inferior nature and their action on it to change that lower nature. These things also are often called experiences when they only come in flashes, snatches or rare visitations ; they are spoken of as full realisa- tions only when they become very positive or frequent or con- tinuous or normal.
anandrous ::: a. --> Destitute of stamens, as certain female flowers.
ananthous ::: a. --> Destitute of flowers; flowerless.
.and active tendencies of the vital and throws them into mental forms (the pure imaginations or dreams of greatness, happiness, etc. in which men indulge are one peculiar form of the vital-min activity). There is still a lower range of the mental in the vita
andante ::: a. --> Moving moderately slow, but distinct and flowing; quicker than larghetto, and slower than allegretto. ::: n. --> A movement or piece in andante time.
androecium ::: n. --> The stamens of a flower taken collectively.
androgynal ::: a. --> Uniting both sexes in one, or having the characteristics of both; being in nature both male and female; hermaphroditic.
Bearing both staminiferous and pistilliferous flowers in the same cluster.
andromeda ::: n. --> A northern constellation, supposed to represent the mythical Andromeda.
A genus of ericaceous flowering plants of northern climates, of which the original species was found growing on a rock surrounded by water.
andron ::: n. --> The apartment appropriated for the males. This was in the lower part of the house.
andropetalous ::: a. --> Produced by the conversion of the stamens into petals, as double flowers, like the garden ranunculus.
— and this is inevitable in some degree until this lower mortal has learned something of the way of that greater immortal nature,
And until the transfer is complete which always takes time, there must always be as personal contribution, a constant consent to the true Force, a constant rejection of any lower mixture.
anemone ::: n. --> A genus of plants of the Ranunculus or Crowfoot family; windflower. Some of the species are cultivated in gardens.
The sea anemone. See Actinia, and Sea anemone.
angles ::: n. pl. --> An ancient Low German tribe, that settled in Britain, which came to be called Engla-land (Angleland or England). The Angles probably came from the district of Angeln (now within the limits of Schleswig), and the country now Lower Hanover, etc.
animalize ::: v. t. --> To endow with the properties of an animal; to represent in animal form.
To convert into animal matter by the processes of assimilation.
To render animal or sentient; to reduce to the state of a lower animal; to sensualize.
animal ::: n. --> An organized living being endowed with sensation and the power of voluntary motion, and also characterized by taking its food into an internal cavity or stomach for digestion; by giving carbonic acid to the air and taking oxygen in the process of respiration; and by increasing in motive power or active aggressive force with progress to maturity.
One of the lower animals; a brute or beast, as distinguished from man; as, men and animals.
anomaloflorous ::: a. --> Having anomalous flowers.
anomia ::: n. --> A genus of bivalve shells, allied to the oyster, so called from their unequal valves, of which the lower is perforated for attachment.
Another cause of these alternations, when one is receiving, is the nature's need of closing *up to assimilate. It can take per- haps a great deal, but while the experience is going on it cannot absorb properly what h brings, so it closes do^vn for assimila- tion. A third cause comes in the period of transformation, — one part of the nature changes and one feels for a time as if there had been a complete and permanent change. But one is disappointed to find it cease and a period of barrenness or lowered consciousness follow. This is because another part of the cons- ciousness comes up for change and a period of preparation and veiled working follows which seems to he one of uoeolightenment or worse. These things alarm, disappoint or perplex the eager- ness and impatience of the sadhaka ; but if one takes them quietly and knows how to use them or adopt the right attitude, one can make these unenlightened periods also a part of the conscious sadhana.
Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense of grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or rankling as long as possible. Ir\ that case one has to discover
antheridium ::: n. --> The male reproductive apparatus in the lower, consisting of a cell or other cavity in which spermatozoids are produced; -- called also spermary.
antheriferous ::: a. --> Producing anthers, as plants.
Supporting anthers, as a part of a flower.
antherogenous ::: a. --> Transformed from anthers, as the petals of a double flower.
anthesis ::: n. --> The period or state of full expansion in a flower.
anthobian ::: n. --> A beetle which feeds on flowers.
anthodium ::: n. --> The inflorescence of a compound flower in which many florets are gathered into a involucrate head.
anthography ::: n. --> A description of flowers.
anthoid ::: a. --> Resembling a flower; flowerlike.
anthokyan ::: n. --> The blue coloring matter of certain flowers. Same as Cyanin.
antholite ::: n. --> A fossil plant, like a petrified flower.
anthology ::: n. --> A discourse on flowers.
A collection of flowers; a garland.
A collection of flowers of literature, that is, beautiful passages from authors; a collection of poems or epigrams; -- particularly applied to a collection of ancient Greek epigrams.
A service book containing a selection of pieces for the festival services.
anthomania ::: n. --> A extravagant fondness for flowers. html{color:
anthophagous ::: a. --> Eating flowers; -- said of certain insects.
anthophorous ::: a. --> Flower bearing; supporting the flower.
anthotaxy ::: n. --> The arrangement of flowers in a cluster; the science of the relative position of flowers; inflorescence.
anticous ::: a. --> Facing toward the axis of the flower, as in the introrse anthers of the water lily.
antimonious ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or derived from, antimony; -- said of those compounds of antimony in which this element has an equivalence next lower than the highest; as, antimonious acid.
antitragus ::: n. --> A prominence on the lower posterior portion of the concha of the external ear, opposite the tragus. See Ear.
antrustion ::: n. --> A vassal or voluntary follower of Frankish princes in their enterprises
APARARDHA. ::: Lower half of world-existence ::: Mind, Life, Matter.
a person holding an inferior relation to a superior; a subject, subordinate, servant, follower, or retainer.
apetalous ::: a. --> Having no petals, or flower leaves. [See Illust. under Anther].
apollinarian ::: a. --> In honor of Apollo; as, the Apollinarian games. ::: n. --> A follower of Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea in the fourth century, who denied the proper humanity of Christ.
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.
arabesques ::: 1. Any ornaments or ornamental objects such as rugs or mosaics, in which flowers, foliage, fruits, vases, animals, and figures are represented in a fancifully combined pattern. 2. *Fine Arts.* A sinuous, spiraling, undulating, or serpentine line or linear motif.
archaean ::: a. --> Ancient; pertaining to the earliest period in geological history. ::: n. --> The earliest period in geological period, extending up to the Lower Silurian. It includes an Azoic age, previous to the appearance of life, and an Eozoic age, including the earliest forms of
archegonium ::: n. --> The pistillidium or female organ in the higher cryptogamic plants, corresponding to the pistil in flowering plants.
architrave ::: n. --> The lower division of an entablature, or that part which rests immediately on the column, esp. in classical architecture. See Column.
The group of moldings, or other architectural member, above and on both sides of a door or other opening, especially if square in form.
areolated ::: a. --> Divided into small spaces or areolations, as the wings of insects, the leaves of plants, or the receptacle of compound flowers.
arise ::: v. i. --> To come up from a lower to a higher position; to come above the horizon; to come up from one&
aristotelian ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher (384-322 b. c.). ::: n. --> A follower of Aristotle; a Peripatetic. See Peripatetic.
arming ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Arm ::: n. --> The act of furnishing with, or taking, arms.
A piece of tallow placed in a cavity at the lower end of a sounding lead, to bring up the sand, shells, etc., of the sea bottom.
Red dress cloths formerly hung fore and aft outside of a
arminian ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Arminius of his followers, or to their doctrines. See note under Arminian, n. ::: n. --> One who holds the tenets of Arminius, a Dutch divine (b. 1560, d. 1609).
arsenious ::: a. --> Pertaining to, consisting of, or containing, arsenic; as, arsenious powder or glass.
Pertaining to, or derived from, arsenic, when having an equivalence next lower than the highest; as, arsenious acid.
articulary ::: n. --> A bone in the base of the lower jaw of many birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes.
artificial ::: a. --> Made or contrived by art; produced or modified by human skill and labor, in opposition to natural; as, artificial heat or light, gems, salts, minerals, fountains, flowers.
Feigned; fictitious; assumed; affected; not genuine.
Artful; cunning; crafty.
Cultivated; not indigenous; not of spontaneous growth; as, artificial grasses.
artist ::: 1. One who practises the creative arts; one who seeks to express the beautiful in visible form. 2. A follower of a manual art; an artificer, mechanic, craftsman, artisan. artists. (Sri Aurobindo often employs the word as an adj.)
arum ::: n. --> A genus of plants found in central Europe and about the Mediterranean, having flowers on a spadix inclosed in a spathe. The cuckoopint of the English is an example.
asaphus ::: n. --> A genus of trilobites found in the Lower Silurian formation. See Illust. in Append.
asoca ::: Bot.: Saracaindica , Asoka, Sorrowless tree. A small flowering tree native to India with glowing clusters of orange and yellow flowers. asocas.
asoca ::: bot.: Saraca indica , Asoka, Sorrowless tree. A small flowering tree native to India with glowing clusters of orange and yellow flowers. asocas.
asparagus ::: n. --> A genus of perennial plants belonging to the natural order Liliaceae, and having erect much branched stems, and very slender branchlets which are sometimes mistaken for leaves. Asparagus racemosus is a shrubby climbing plant with fragrant flowers. Specifically: The Asparagus officinalis, a species cultivated in gardens.
The young and tender shoots of A. officinalis, which form a valuable and well-known article of food.
asphodel ::: a genus of liliaceous plants with very attractive white, pink or yellow flowers, mostly natives of the south of Europe; by the poets made an immortal flower, and said to cover the Elysian (heavenly, paradisal) fields.
asphodel ::: n. --> A general name for a plant of the genus Asphodelus. The asphodels are hardy perennial plants, several species of which are cultivated for the beauty of their flowers.
assemblyman ::: n. --> A member of an assembly, especially of the lower branch of a state legislature.
As Sri Aurobindo once wrote to Dilip Kumar Roy, (I paraphrase) ‘ The earth is a conscious being and the world is only the form it takes to manifest.’ This statement of the Avatar, predating the GAIA theory by many years and far surpassing it in its infinite scope, promises an earth returned to beauty to manifest, unknown to man, an inconceivable perfection. I once wrote to Mother with a question about what would happen to plants and flowers in the New Creation. Her reply filled me with joy and gratitude for She said that the flowers would be among the first to change (be transformed) because their entire life is an aspiration for light. Imagine the beauty to come with flowers brilliant with the Divine Light, colours such as never seen before, fragrances that can transofrm suffering and sorrow into a life free of pain and filled with joy.
aster ::: n. --> A genus of herbs with compound white or bluish flowers; starwort; Michaelmas daisy.
A plant of the genus Callistephus. Many varieties (called China asters, German asters, etc.) are cultivated for their handsome compound flowers.
"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
aura ::: n. --> Any subtile, invisible emanation, effluvium, or exhalation from a substance, as the aroma of flowers, the odor of the blood, a supposed fertilizing emanation from the pollen of flowers, etc.
The peculiar sensation, as of a light vapor, or cold air, rising from the trunk or limbs towards the head, a premonitory symptom of epilepsy or hysterics.
aurous ::: a. --> Containing gold.
Pertaining to, or derived from, gold; -- said of those compounds of gold in which this element has its lower valence; as, aurous oxide.
autumnal ::: a. --> Of, belonging to, or peculiar to, autumn; as, an autumnal tint; produced or gathered in autumn; as, autumnal fruits; flowering in autumn; as, an autumnal plant.
Past the middle of life; in the third stage.
avale ::: v. t. & i. --> To cause to descend; to lower; to let fall; to doff.
To bring low; to abase.
To descend; to fall; to dismount.
azalea ::: n. --> A genus of showy flowering shrubs, mostly natives of China or of North America; false honeysuckle. The genus is scarcely distinct from Rhododendron.
baggager ::: n. --> One who takes care of baggage; a camp follower.
bagreef ::: n. --> The lower reef of fore and aft sails; also, the upper reef of topsails.
balaustine ::: n. --> The pomegranate tree (Punica granatum). The bark of the root, the rind of the fruit, and the flowers are used medicinally.
baldrib ::: n. --> A piece of pork cut lower down than the sparerib, and destitute of fat.
ball-flower ::: n. --> An ornament resembling a ball placed in a circular flower, the petals of which form a cup round it, -- usually inserted in a hollow molding.
balsam ::: n. --> A resin containing more or less of an essential or volatile oil.
A species of tree (Abies balsamea).
An annual garden plant (Impatiens balsamina) with beautiful flowers; balsamine.
Anything that heals, soothes, or restores. ::: v. t.
bandy ::: n. --> A carriage or cart used in India, esp. one drawn by bullocks.
A club bent at the lower part for striking a ball at play; a hockey stick.
The game played with such a club; hockey; shinney; bandy ball. ::: v. t.
barrowist ::: n. --> A follower of Henry Barrowe, one of the founders of Independency or Congregationalism in England. Barrowe was executed for nonconformity in 1953.
base-burner ::: n. --> A furnace or stove in which the fuel is contained in a hopper or chamber, and is fed to the fire as the lower stratum is consumed.
basigynium ::: n. --> The pedicel on which the ovary of certain flowers, as the passion flower, is seated; a carpophore or thecaphore.
basilary ::: n. --> Relating to, or situated at, the base.
Lower; inferior; applied to impulses or springs of action.
bated ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Bate ::: a. --> Reduced; lowered; restrained; as, to speak with bated breath.
blower ::: n. --> One who, or that which, blows.
A device for producing a current of air; as: (a) A metal plate temporarily placed before the upper part of a grate or open fire. (b) A machine for producing an artificial blast or current of air by pressure, as for increasing the draft of a furnace, ventilating a building or shaft, cleansing gram, etc.
A blowing out or excessive discharge of gas from a hole or fissure in a mine.
bean caper ::: --> A deciduous plant of warm climates, generally with fleshy leaves and flowers of a yellow or whitish yellow color, of the genus Zygophyllum.
beaver ::: n. --> An amphibious rodent, of the genus Castor.
The fur of the beaver.
A hat, formerly made of the fur of the beaver, but now usually of silk.
Beaver cloth, a heavy felted woolen cloth, used chiefly for making overcoats.
That piece of armor which protected the lower part of the face, whether forming a part of the helmet or fixed to the breastplate.
bedstraw ::: n. --> Straw put into a bed.
A genus of slender herbs, usually with square stems, whorled leaves, and small white flowers.
beebread ::: n. --> A brown, bitter substance found in some of the cells of honeycomb. It is made chiefly from the pollen of flowers, which is collected by bees as food for their young.
beetle-browed ::: --> Having prominent, overhanging brows; hence, lowering or sullen.
beflower ::: v. t. --> To besprinkle or scatter over with, or as with, flowers.
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.
belamour ::: n. --> A lover.
A flower, but of what kind is unknown.
bellower ::: n. --> One who, or that which, bellows.
belemnite ::: n. --> A conical calcareous fossil, tapering to a point at the lower extremity, with a conical cavity at the other end, where it is ordinarily broken; but when perfect it contains a small chambered cone, called the phragmocone, prolonged, on one side, into a delicate concave blade; the thunderstone. It is the internal shell of a cephalopod related to the sepia, and belonging to an extinct family. The belemnites are found in rocks of the Jurassic and Cretaceous ages.
belladonna ::: n. --> An herbaceous European plant (Atropa belladonna) with reddish bell-shaped flowers and shining black berries. The whole plant and its fruit are very poisonous, and the root and leaves are used as powerful medicinal agents. Its properties are largely due to the alkaloid atropine which it contains. Called also deadly nightshade.
A species of Amaryllis (A. belladonna); the belladonna lily.
bellflower ::: n. --> A plant of the genus Campanula; -- so named from its bell-shaped flowers.
A kind of apple. The yellow bellflower is a large, yellow winter apple.
bell ::: n. --> A hollow metallic vessel, usually shaped somewhat like a cup with a flaring mouth, containing a clapper or tongue, and giving forth a ringing sound on being struck.
A hollow perforated sphere of metal containing a loose ball which causes it to sound when moved.
Anything in the form of a bell, as the cup or corol of a flower.
That part of the capital of a column included between the
bellwort ::: n. --> A genus of plants (Uvularia) with yellowish bell-shaped flowers.
Below navel — lower vital.
Below navel—lower vital.
below ::: prep. --> Under, or lower in place; beneath not so high; as, below the moon; below the knee.
Inferior to in rank, excellence, dignity, value, amount, price, etc.; lower in quality.
Unworthy of; unbefitting; beneath. ::: adv.
bemean ::: v. t. --> To make mean; to lower.
beneath ::: prep. --> Lower in place, with something directly over or on; under; underneath; hence, at the foot of.
Under, in relation to something that is superior, or that oppresses or burdens.
Lower in rank, dignity, or excellence than; as, brutes are beneath man; man is beneath angels in the scale of beings. Hence: Unworthy of; unbecoming.
bennet ::: a. --> The common yellow-flowered avens of Europe (Geum urbanum); herb bennet. The name is sometimes given to other plants, as the hemlock, valerian, etc.
biflorous ::: a. --> Bearing two flowers; two-flowered.
bignoniaceous ::: a. --> Of pertaining to, or resembling, the family of plants of which the trumpet flower is an example.
bignonia ::: n. --> A large genus of American, mostly tropical, climbing shrubs, having compound leaves and showy somewhat tubular flowers. B. capreolata is the cross vine of the Southern United States. The trumpet creeper was formerly considered to be of this genus.
bilabiate ::: a. --> Having two lips, as the corols of certain flowers.
bilamellated ::: a. --> Formed of two plates, as the stigma of the Mimulus; also, having two elevated ridges, as in the lip of certain flowers.
bisexual ::: a. --> Of both sexes; hermaphrodite; as a flower with stamens and pistil, or an animal having ovaries and testes.
bismuthous ::: a. --> Of, or containing, bismuth, when this element has its lower valence.
blackguard ::: n. --> The scullions and lower menials of a court, or of a nobleman&
blockhouse ::: n. --> An edifice or structure of heavy timbers or logs for military defense, having its sides loopholed for musketry, and often an upper story projecting over the lower, or so placed upon it as to have its sides make an angle wit the sides of the lower story, thus enabling the defenders to fire downward, and in all directions; -- formerly much used in America and Germany.
A house of squared logs.
bloodflower ::: n. --> A genus of bulbous plants, natives of Southern Africa, named Haemanthus, of the Amaryllis family. The juice of H. toxicarius is used by the Hottentots to poison their arrows.
bloodroot ::: n. --> A plant (Sanguinaria Canadensis), with a red root and red sap, and bearing a pretty, white flower in early spring; -- called also puccoon, redroot, bloodwort, tetterwort, turmeric, and Indian paint. It has acrid emetic properties, and the rootstock is used as a stimulant expectorant. See Sanguinaria.
bloomless ::: a. --> Without bloom or flowers.
bloom ::: n. **1. The flower of a plant. 2. Fig. A condition or time of vigour, freshness, and beauty; prime. 3. Fig. Glowing charm; delicate beauty. blooms. v. 4. To bear flowers; to blossom. Also fig. 5. To be in a healthy, glowing, or flourishing condition. 6. To flourish or grow. 7. To cause to flourish or grow; to flourish. Chiefly fig. blooms, bloomed.**
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
bloomy ::: a. --> Full of bloom; flowery; flourishing with the vigor of youth; as, a bloomy spray.
Covered with bloom, as fruit.
blossom ::: n. --> The flower of a plant, or the essential organs of reproduction, with their appendages; florescence; bloom; the flowers of a plant, collectively; as, the blossoms and fruit of a tree; an apple tree in blossom.
A blooming period or stage of development; something lovely that gives rich promise.
The color of a horse that has white hairs intermixed with sorrel and bay hairs; -- otherwise called peach color.
blossom ::: v. 1. To produce or yield flowers. 2. To flourish; develop. blossomed.* *n. 3. The flower of a plant. mango-blossoms.**
blossomy ::: a. --> Full of blossoms; flowery.
lowering ::: bringing down the voice to a lower level.
blow ::: v. i. --> To flower; to blossom; to bloom.
To produce a current of air; to move, as air, esp. to move rapidly or with power; as, the wind blows.
To send forth a forcible current of air, as from the mouth or from a pair of bellows.
To breathe hard or quick; to pant; to puff.
To sound on being blown into, as a trumpet.
To spout water, etc., from the blowholes, as a whale.
bluebell ::: n. --> A plant of the genus Campanula, especially the Campanula rotundifolia, which bears blue bell-shaped flowers; the harebell.
A plant of the genus Scilla (Scilla nutans).
bluebottle ::: n. --> A plant (Centaurea cyanus) which grows in grain fields. It receives its name from its blue bottle-shaped flowers.
A large and troublesome species of blowfly (Musca vomitoria). Its body is steel blue.
blue-eyed grass ::: --> a grasslike plant (Sisyrinchium anceps), with small flowers of a delicate blue color.
bluets ::: a. --> A name given to several different species of plants having blue flowers, as the Houstonia coerulea, the Centaurea cyanus or bluebottle, and the Vaccinium angustifolium.
blushing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Blush ::: a. --> Showing blushes; rosy red; having a warm and delicate color like some roses and other flowers; blooming; ruddy; roseate. ::: n.
blush ::: v. i. --> To become suffused with red in the cheeks, as from a sense of shame, modesty, or confusion; to become red from such cause, as the cheeks or face.
To grow red; to have a red or rosy color.
To have a warm and delicate color, as some roses and other flowers. ::: v. t.
boot ::: n. --> Remedy; relief; amends; reparation; hence, one who brings relief.
That which is given to make an exchange equal, or to make up for the deficiency of value in one of the things exchanged.
Profit; gain; advantage; use.
A covering for the foot and lower part of the leg, ordinarily made of leather.
An instrument of torture for the leg, formerly used to extort
border ::: n. --> The outer part or edge of anything, as of a garment, a garden, etc.; margin; verge; brink.
A boundary; a frontier of a state or of the settled part of a country; a frontier district.
A strip or stripe arranged along or near the edge of something, as an ornament or finish.
A narrow flower bed.
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,
bosh ::: n. --> Figure; outline; show.
Empty talk; contemptible nonsense; trash; humbug.
One of the sloping sides of the lower part of a blast furnace; also, one of the hollow iron or brick sides of the bed of a puddling or boiling furnace.
The lower part of a blast furnace, which slopes inward, or the widest space at the top of this part.
In forging and smelting, a trough in which tools and ingots
bottine ::: n. --> A small boot; a lady&
bottom ::: n. --> The lowest part of anything; the foot; as, the bottom of a tree or well; the bottom of a hill, a lane, or a page.
The part of anything which is beneath the contents and supports them, as the part of a chair on which a person sits, the circular base or lower head of a cask or tub, or the plank floor of a ship&
bougainvillaea ::: n. --> A genus of plants of the order Nyctoginaceae, from tropical South America, having the flowers surrounded by large bracts.
bouquet ::: n. --> A nosegay; a bunch of flowers.
A perfume; an aroma; as, the bouquet of wine.
bractlet ::: n. --> A bract on the stalk of a single flower, which is itself on a main stalk that support several flowers.
bract ::: n. --> A leaf, usually smaller than the true leaves of a plant, from the axil of which a flower stalk arises.
Any modified leaf, or scale, on a flower stalk or at the base of a flower.
brassica ::: n. --> A genus of plants embracing several species and varieties differing much in appearance and qualities: such as the common cabbage (B. oleracea), broccoli, cauliflowers, etc.; the wild turnip (B. campestris); the common turnip (B. rapa); the rape or coleseed (B. napus), etc.
breech ::: n. --> The lower part of the body behind; the buttocks.
Breeches.
The hinder part of anything; esp., the part of a cannon, or other firearm, behind the chamber.
The external angle of knee timber, the inside of which is called the throat. ::: v. t.
brocaded ::: a. --> Woven or worked, as brocade, with gold and silver, or with raised flowers, etc.
Dressed in brocade.
brocade ::: n. --> Silk stuff, woven with gold and silver threads, or ornamented with raised flowers, foliage, etc.; -- also applied to other stuffs thus wrought and enriched.
broccoli ::: n. --> A plant of the Cabbage species (Brassica oleracea) of many varieties, resembling the cauliflower. The "curd," or flowering head, is the part used for food.
brooklime ::: n. --> A plant (Veronica Beccabunga), with flowers, usually blue, in axillary racemes. The American species is V. Americana.
brookweed ::: n. --> A small white-flowered herb (Samolus Valerandi) found usually in wet places; water pimpernel.
broom ::: n. --> A plant having twigs suitable for making brooms to sweep with when bound together; esp., the Cytisus scoparius of Western Europe, which is a low shrub with long, straight, green, angular branches, minute leaves, and large yellow flowers.
An implement for sweeping floors, etc., commonly made of the panicles or tops of broom corn, bound together or attached to a long wooden handle; -- so called because originally made of the twigs of the broom.
broom rape ::: --> A genus (Orobanche) of parasitic plants of Europe and Asia. They are destitute of chlorophyll, have scales instead of leaves, and spiked flowers, and grow attached to the roots of other plants, as furze, clover, flax, wild carrot, etc. The name is sometimes applied to other plants related to this genus, as Aphyllon uniflorumand A. Ludovicianum.
brownist ::: n. --> A follower of Robert Brown, of England, in the 16th century, who taught that every church is complete and independent in itself when organized, and consists of members meeting in one place, having full power to elect and depose its officers.
One who advocates the Brunonian system of medicine.
brownwort ::: n. --> A species of figwort or Scrophularia (S. vernalis), and other species of the same genus, mostly perennials with inconspicuous coarse flowers.
brute ::: n. **1. Any animal except man; a beast; a lower animal. brute"s. adj. 2. Animal, not human. 3. Lacking or showing a lack of reason or intelligence. 4. Wholly instinctive; senseless; coarse; brutish; dull. 5. Resembling a beast; showing lack of human sensibility; cruel or savage. brute-sensed.**
buck bean ::: --> A plant (Menyanthes trifoliata) which grows in moist and boggy places, having racemes of white or reddish flowers and intensely bitter leaves, sometimes used in medicine; marsh trefoil; -- called also bog bean.
bud ::: 1. A rudimentary inflorescence, i.e. flower bud. 2. *Fig. Something in an undeveloped or immature condition. *buds, honey-buds, lotus-bud.
bud ::: n. --> A small protuberance on the stem or branches of a plant, containing the rudiments of future leaves, flowers, or stems; an undeveloped branch or flower.
A small protuberance on certain low forms of animals and vegetables which develops into a new organism, either free or attached. See Hydra. ::: v. i.
bugbane ::: n. --> A perennial white-flowered herb of the order Ranunculaceae and genus Cimiciguga; bugwort. There are several species.
bulbel ::: n. --> A separable bulb formed on some flowering plants.
bulblet ::: n. --> A small bulb, either produced on a larger bulb, or on some aerial part of a plant, as in the axils of leaves in the tiger lily, or replacing the flowers in some kinds of onion.
buttercup ::: n. --> A plant of the genus Ranunculus, or crowfoot, particularly R. bulbosus, with bright yellow flowers; -- called also butterflower, golden cup, and kingcup. It is the cuckoobud of Shakespeare.
"But the Titan will have nothing of all this; it is too great and subtle for his comprehension. His instincts call for a visible, tangible mastery and a sensational domination. How shall he feel sure of his empire unless he can feel something writhing helpless under his heel, — if in agony, so much the better? What is exploitation to him, unless it diminishes the exploited? To be able to coerce, exact, slay, overtly, irresistibly, — it is this that fills him with the sense of glory and dominion. For he is the son of division and the strong flowering of the Ego. To feel the comparative limitation of others is necessary to him that he may imagine himself immeasurable; for he has not the real, self-existent sense of infinity which no outward circumstance can abrogate. Contrast, division, negation of the wills and lives of others are essential to his self-development and self-assertion. The Titan would unify by devouring, not by harmonising; he must conquer and trample what is not himself either out of existence or into subservience so that his own image may stand out stamped upon all things and dominating all his environment.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
buttonbush ::: n. --> A shrub (Cephalanthus occidentalis) growing by the waterside; -- so called from its globular head of flowers. See Capitulum.
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
cabbage ::: n. --> An esculent vegetable of many varieties, derived from the wild Brassica oleracea of Europe. The common cabbage has a compact head of leaves. The cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, etc., are sometimes classed as cabbages.
The terminal bud of certain palm trees, used, like, cabbage, for food. See Cabbage tree, below.
The cabbage palmetto. See below.
Cloth or clippings cabbaged or purloined by one who cuts
cachepot ::: n. --> An ornamental casing for a flowerpot, of porcelain, metal, paper, etc.
calash ::: n. --> A light carriage with low wheels, having a top or hood that can be raised or lowered, seats for inside, a separate seat for the driver, and often a movable front, so that it can be used as either an open or a close carriage.
In Canada, a two-wheeled, one-seated vehicle, with a calash top, and the driver&
calcarated ::: a. --> Having a spur, as the flower of the toadflax and larkspur; spurred.
Armed with a spur.
calceolaria ::: n. --> A genus of showy herbaceous or shrubby plants, brought from South America; slipperwort. It has a yellow or purple flower, often spotted or striped, the shape of which suggests its name.
calipee ::: n. --> A part of a turtle which is attached to the lower shell. It contains a fatty and gelatinous substance of a light yellowish color, much esteemed as a delicacy.
calk ::: v. t. --> To drive tarred oakum into the seams between the planks of (a ship, boat, etc.), to prevent leaking. The calking is completed by smearing the seams with melted pitch.
To make an indentation in the edge of a metal plate, as along a seam in a steam boiler or an iron ship, to force the edge of the upper plate hard against the lower and so fill the crevice.
To copy, as a drawing, by rubbing the back of it with red or black chalk, and then passing a blunt style or needle over the
calvinism ::: n. --> The theological tenets or doctrines of John Calvin (a French theologian and reformer of the 16th century) and his followers, or of the so-called calvinistic churches.
calvinist ::: n. --> A follower of Calvin; a believer in Calvinism.
calypso ::: n. --> A small and beautiful species of orchid, having a flower variegated with purple, pink, and yellow. It grows in cold and wet localities in the northern part of the United States. The Calypso borealis is the only orchid which reaches 68¡ N.
calyx ::: n. --> The covering of a flower. See Flower.
A cuplike division of the pelvis of the kidney, which surrounds one or more of the renal papillae.
calyx ::: the outermost group of floral parts enclosing the bud and surrounding the base of a flower; the sepals.
camass ::: n. --> A blue-flowered liliaceous plant (Camassia esculenta) of northwestern America, the bulbs of which are collected for food by the Indians.
camellia ::: n. --> An Asiatic genus of small shrubs, often with shining leaves and showy flowers. Camellia Japonica is much cultivated for ornament, and C. Sassanqua and C. oleifera are grown in China for the oil which is pressed from their seeds. The tea plant is now referred to this genus under the name of Camellia Thea.
cameronian ::: n. --> A follower of the Rev. Richard Cameron, a Scotch Covenanter of the time of Charles II.
campana ::: n. --> A church bell.
The pasque flower.
Same as Gutta.
campanula ::: n. --> A large genus of plants bearing bell-shaped flowers, often of great beauty; -- also called bellflower.
canna ::: n. --> A measure of length in Italy, varying from six to seven feet. See Cane, 4.
A genus of tropical plants, with large leaves and often with showy flowers. The Indian shot (C. Indica) is found in gardens of the northern United States.
capillaire ::: n. --> A sirup prepared from the maiden-hair, formerly supposed to have medicinal properties.
Any simple sirup flavored with orange flowers.
capitate ::: a. --> Headlike in form; also, having the distal end enlarged and rounded, as the stigmas of certain flowers.
Having the flowers gathered into a head.
capitulum ::: n. --> A thick head of flowers on a very short axis, as a clover top, or a dandelion; a composite flower. A capitulum may be either globular or flat.
A knoblike protuberance of any part, esp. at the end of a bone or cartilage. [See Illust. of Artiodactyla.]
cardamine ::: n. --> A genus of cruciferous plants, containing the lady&
carina ::: n. --> A keel
That part of a papilionaceous flower, consisting of two petals, commonly united, which incloses the organs of fructification
A longitudinal ridge or projection like the keel of a boat.
The keel of the breastbone of birds.
carnation ::: n. --> The natural color of flesh; rosy pink.
Those parts of a picture in which the human body or any part of it is represented in full color; the flesh tints.
A species of Dianthus (D. Caryophyllus) or pink, having very beautiful flowers of various colors, esp. white and usually a rich, spicy scent.
carpophyte ::: n. --> A flowerless plant which forms a true fruit as the result of fertilization, as the red seaweeds, the Ascomycetes, etc.
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.
chill ::: adj. 1. Cold, often unpleasantly so; numbing. 2. Discouraging; dispiriting. 3. Unduly formal; unfriendly; unfeeling. v. 4. To lower in temperature; cool; make cold. 5. Fig. To depress (enthusiasm, etc.); discourage. chilled, chilling.
CHOICE. ::: Every man is free at every moment to consent to the Divine call or not to consent, to follow the lower nature or to follow his soul.
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.
Concentration of the will to get the results of sadhani and to conquer the lower nature.
Consciousness and bring its Truth down into the lower mem- bers. With the Truth all the necessary powers will come, not as one’s own, but as the Divine’s.
Consciousness and detachment ::: Consciousness is not by its nature detached from the mental and other acUvities. It can be detached, it can be involved. In the human consdousness, it Is as a rule always involved, but it has developed the pow'er of detaching itself — a thing which the lower creation seems unable to do. As the consciousness develops, this power of detachment also develops.
CONVERSION. ::: A tuiuing of the being away from lower things towards the Divine.
Co-ordination and harmonisation of parts is absent in many ; it is a thing that has to be attained to or built up. Moreover at a certain stage in sSdhana there is almost always a disparity or opposition between the parts that are already turned towards the Truth and are capable of experience and others that are not and pull one down to a lower level. The opposition is not equally acute in all cases, but in one degree or another it is almost uni- versal. Co-ordinadon and univeisaUsation can be satisfactorily done only when this is overcome. Till then oscillations are inevitable.
cosmic mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes, — towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” *The Life Divine
"If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, — not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
"There is one cosmic Mind, one cosmic Life, one cosmic Body. All the attempt of man to arrive at universal sympathy, universal love and the understanding and knowledge of the inner soul of other existences is an attempt to beat thin, breach and eventually break down by the power of the enlarging mind and heart the walls of the ego and arrive nearer to a cosmic oneness.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"[The results of the opening to the cosmic Mind:] One is aware of the cosmic Mind and the mental forces that move there and how they work on one"s mind and that of others and one is able to deal with one"s own mind with a greater knowledge and effective power. There are many other results, but this is the fundamental one.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness has many levels — the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga*
degraded ::: lowered or reduced in character, quality or value; debased; vulgarized.
descend ::: to move or pass from a higher to a lower place; come down. Also fig. descends, descended.
designs or pictures transferred from engraved plates, wood blocks, lithographic stones or other media. flower-prints.
"Destruction is always a simultaneous or alternate element which keeps pace with creation and it is by destroying and renewing that the Master of Life does his long work of preservation. More, destruction is the first condition of progress. Inwardly, the man who does not destroy his lower self-formations, cannot rise to a greater existence. Outwardly also, the nation or community or race which shrinks too long from destroying and replacing its past forms of life, is itself destroyed, rots and perishes and out of its debris other nations, communities and races are formed. By destruction of the old giant occupants man made himself a place upon earth. By destruction of the Titans the gods maintain the continuity of the divine Law in the cosmos. Whoever prematurely attempts to get rid of this law of battle and destruction, strives vainly against the greater will of the World-Spirit.” Essays on the Gita
“Destruction is always a simultaneous or alternate element which keeps pace with creation and it is by destroying and renewing that the Master of Life does his long work of preservation. More, destruction is the first condition of progress. Inwardly, the man who does not destroy his lower self-formations, cannot rise to a greater existence. Outwardly also, the nation or community or race which shrinks too long from destroying and replacing its past forms of life, is itself destroyed, rots and perishes and out of its debris other nations, communities and races are formed. By destruction of the old giant occupants man made himself a place upon earth. By destruction of the Titans the gods maintain the continuity of the divine Law in the cosmos. Whoever prematurely attempts to get rid of this law of battle and destruction, strives vainly against the greater will of the World-Spirit.” Essays on the Gita
disciples ::: those who are pupils or adherents of the doctrines of another; followers.
Divine and surrender more and more one’s ordinary persona! ideas, desires, attachments, urges to action or habits of actions so that the Divine may lake up cveiything. Surrender means that, to give up our little mind and its mental ideas and prefe- rences into a divine Light and a greater knowledge, our petty persona] troubled blind stumbling will into a great calm, tran- quil, luminous Will and Force, our little, restless, tormented feel- ings into a wide intense divine Love and Ananda, our small suffering personality into the one Person of which it is an obs- cure outcome. If one insists on one's own ideas and reasonfogs, the greater Light and Knowledge cannot come or else is marked and obstructed in the coming at every step by a lower inter- ference ,* if one insists on one’s desires and fancies, that great luminous Will and Force cannot act in its own true power— for you ask it to be the servant of your desires ; if one refuses to give up one’s petty ways of feeling, eternal Love and supreme
Divine Love is of two kinds — the divine love for the creation and the souls that are part of itself, and the love of the seeker and love for the Divine Beloved ; it has both a personal and impersonal element, but the personal b free here from all lower elements or bondage to the vital and physical instincts.
"Divine Love is of two kinds — the divine Love for the creation and the souls that are part of itself, and the love of the seeker and love for the Divine Beloved; it has both a personal and impersonal element, but the personal is free here from all lower elements or bondage to the vital and physical instincts.” Letters on Yoga
“Divine Love is of two kinds—the divine Love for the creation and the souls that are part of itself, and the love of the seeker and love for the Divine Beloved; it has both a personal and impersonal element, but the personal is free here from all lower elements or bondage to the vital and physical instincts.” Letters on Yoga
Divine — that a few can really do, because in practice it turns out that you surrender to the lower nature under pretext of sur- rendering to (he Divine.
Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jlva in the lower nature.
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.
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.
dynamic realisation. In order to get the dynamic realisation it is not enough to rescue the Purusha from subjection to Prakriti ; one must transfer the allegiance of the Purusha from the lower Prakriti with its play of ignorant Forces to the Supreme
Earth cannot flower if lonely I return.”
Ecstasy ::: “It has been held that ecstasy is a lower and transient passage, the peace of the Supreme is the supreme realisation, the consummate abiding experience. This may be true on the spiritual-mind plane: there the first ecstasy felt is indeed a spiritual rapture, but it can be and is very usually mingled with a supreme happiness of the vital parts taken up by the Spirit; there is an exaltation, exultation, excitement, a highest intensity of the joy of the heart and the pure inner soul-sensation that can be a splendid passage or an uplifting force but is not the ultimate permanent foundation. But in the highest ascents of the spiritual bliss there is not this vehement exaltation and excitement; there is instead an illimitable intensity of participation in an eternal ecstasy which is founded on the eternal Existence and therefore on a beatific tranquillity of eternal peace. Peace and ecstasy cease to be different and become one. The Supermind, reconciling and fusing all differences as well as all contradictions, brings out this unity; a wide calm and a deep delight of all-existence are among its first steps of self-realisation, but this calm and this delight rise together, as one state, into an increasing intensity and culminate in the eternal ecstasy, the bliss that is the Infinite.” The Life Divine
estuaries ::: arms or inlets of the sea at the lower end of a river.
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
Even in jest falsehood should be avoided, because it tends to lower the consciousness.
FAULT-FINDING. ::: The lower vital takes a mean and petty pleasure in picking out the faults of others and thereby one hampers both one’s own progress and that of the subject of the criticism.
flowered ::: flower 1. Blossomed or bloomed. Also fig. 2. Decorated with flowers. 3. Came into full development; matured; blossomed.
Flowers ::: A blossoming in the consciousness, sometimes with
flower-symbol ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Flowers are the moment"s representations of things that are in themselves eternal.” On Himself
FLOWERS, vide Symbol.
follower ::: 1. Someone who travels behind or pursues another. 2. One who subscribes to the teachings or methods of another; an adherent. followers.
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 aud sink away and the outer being too remains calm, concentrated, unattackable.
For it often happens that the forces of the lower nature are stimulated and excited by the descent and want to mix with it and turn it to their profit. It often happens too that some Power or Powers undivine in their nature present themselves as the
" 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 they arc pot men devc/oping upwards /roni (he animal (o the divine and struggling against their lower natures, but beings already fulfilled and satisfied with themselves.
FREUD’S PSYCHO-ANALYSIS. ::: The last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealtbiest part of the nature, the lower vital sub-consctous layer. Isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in 'the nature.
garland ::: a wreath or festoon, especially one of plaited flowers or leaves, worn on the body or draped as a decoration.
hang ::: 1. To fasten or attach (pictures, etc.) to a wall. 2. To suspend (something) around or in front of anything. 3.* Fig. To remain unresolved or uncertain. 4. To make (an idea, form, etc.) dependent on the situation, structure, concept, or the like, usually derived from another source. 5. To fasten or be fastened from above, esp. by a cord, chain, etc.; suspend. 6. To be suspended or poised; hover. 7. To bend forward or downward; to lean over. *hangs, hung, hanging, flower-hung, shadow-hung. ::: hung on: Remained clinging, usually implying expectation or unwillingness to sever one"s connection.
Hathayoga with its physical material, first to purify and to tran- quillisc. 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 facul- ties, subjected even to his subjects, the instruments of sensation, emotion, action, enjoyment. Suarajya. self-rule, must be sub- stituted for this subjection. Fits!, therefore, the powers of ordei must be helped to overcome the powers of disorder. The pre- liminary movement of Rajayoga is a careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless move- ments that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of
herbs ::: a flowering plant whose stem above ground does not become woody.
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.
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.
"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 there is the predisposition one may have all kinds of attacks from vital or other forces or from one’s own movements of the lower nature, as violent as possible, but there will be no madness.
“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
\’ihat is the Divine Force, what is the element of personal effort, and what is brought in as a mixture from the lower cosmic forces.
immortality ::: “By immortality we mean the absolute life of the soul as opposed to the transient and mutable life in the body which it assumes by birth and death and rebirth and superior also to its life as the mere mental being who dwells in the world subjected helplessly to this law of death and birth or seems at least by his ignorance to be subjected to this and to other laws of the lower Nature.” The Upanishads
IMPURITY. ::: The Anaoda descending cannot be held if there is too much sexual impurity creating an intoxicant or degrading mixture ; the Power recedes, if there is ambition, vanity or other aggressive form of lower self, the Oght if there is an attachment to obscurity or to any form of the Ignorance, the Presence if the chamber of the heart has not been made pure.
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.
• individual being is subjected to Nature which acts here as the lower Prakriti, a force of Ignorance, Avidya. The Purusha in itself is divine, but exteriorised in the ignorance of Nature it is the individual apparent being imperfect with her imperfection.
inferior ::: 1. Lower in rank, position, importance or status; subordinate. 2. Low or lower in quality, value, or estimation.
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.
INSTRUMENT. ::: To be able to receive the Divine Power and let it act through you in the things of the outward life, there are three necessary conditions ::: (I) Quietude, equality — not to be disturbed by anything that happens, to keep the mind still and firm, seeing the play of forces, but itself tranquil. (2) Absolute faith — faith that what is for the best will happen, but also that if one can make oneself a true instrument, the fruit will be that which one's will guided by the Divine Light sees as the thing to be done. (3) Receptivity — the power to receive the Divine Force and to feel its presence and the presence of the Mother in it and allow it to work, guiding one’s sight and will and action.
If this power and presence can be felt and this plasticity made the habit of the consciousness in action, — but plasticity to the Divine Force alone without bringing in any foreign clement, — the eventual result is sure.
Conditions to become an instrument of the Divine ::: A receptive silence of the mind, an effacemenl of the mental ego and the reduction of the mental being to the position of a witness, a close find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity ; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasya needed too constant and intense.
INTEGRAL 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.
intermediate zone ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The intermediate zone means simply a confused condition or passage in which one is getting out of the personal consciousness and opening into the cosmic (cosmic Mind, cosmic vital, cosmic physical, something perhaps of the cosmic higher Mind) without having yet transcended the human mind levels. One is not in possession of or direct contact with the divine Truth on its own levels , but one can receive something from them, even from the overmind, indirectly. Only, as one is still immersed in the cosmic Ignorance, all that comes from above can be mixed, perverted, taken hold of for their purposes by lower, even by hostile Powers. ::: It is not necessary for everyone to struggle through the intermediate zone. If one has purified oneself, if there is no abnormal vanity, egoism, ambition or other strong misleading element, or if one is vigilant and on one"s guard, or if the psychic is in front, one can either pass rapidly and directly or with a minimum of trouble into the higher zones of consciousness where one is in direct contact with the Divine Truth.
In this joga the consciousness (after the lower field has been prepared by a certain amount of psycho-spiritual-occult experi- ence) is drawn upwards above the Brahmarandhra to ranges above belonging to the spiritual consciousness proper and instead of merely receiving from there has to live there and from there change the lower consciousness altogether. For there is a dyna- mism proper to the spiritual consciousness whose nature is Light,
In this yoga the position is that one must overcome sex, other- wise there can be no transformation of the lower vital and phjsi- cal nature. All physical sexual connections should cease, other- wise one exposes oneself to serious dangers. The sex-push must also be overcome but it is not a fact that there can be no sadhana or no experience before it is entirely overcome, only without that conquest one cannot go to the end and it must be clearly recog- nised as one of the more serious obstacles and indulgence of it as a cause of considerable disturbance.
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 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
— 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 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.” 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.” 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 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 the lower vital {not the mind only) could permanently make up its mind that all desire and demand are contrary to the Truth and no longer call for them, these things would lose very soow iheit ot reUwo.
jasmine (s) ::: intensely fragrant white (or yellow) flowers of the genus Jasminum. **jasmine"s.**
JEALOUSY. ::: A common movement of the human egoistic lower vital with its grasping instinct.
Jhumur: “Law is capital, it has to be! It is a very powerful dominating force, a force of resistance, a force of refusal, whatever in us denies the acceptance of light. If this law were not there then there would be an immediate rising into the light and there would be perhaps no play of the manifestation. For a long time there was a kind of a backward pull for each forward attempt so that you would have to work your way up from below and these lower levels have their very strong demands or pulls to resist. Slowly you have to take up all these movements and rise, otherwise the spirit would have risen really without any restriction and that would not have been what the divine intention was, to manifest here in the inconscient, the Divine.”
Jhumur: “These are the forces of the underworld. They are in comparison to the divine really very small and represent the lower powers.”
jowl ::: a jaw, esp. the lower jaw.
lapse ::: 1. An accidental or temporary decline or deviation from an expected or accepted condition or state; a temporary falling or slipping from a previous standard. 2. A gradual decline or a drop to a lower degree, condition, or state. 3. A gradual deterioration or decline; regression. 4. The act of falling, slipping, sliding, etc. slowly or by degrees. lapsed, lapsing, far-lapsing.
Let your faith be pure, candid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke-obs- cured flame that cannot bum upwards to heaven.
LIFE. ::: Life in man seeks expression mainly through the vital being. Desire, attachment, ambition, greed, lust etc. constitute its ordinary movements. But it is not necessary that the action of the vital should always remain bound to the lower conscious- ness.
Light. False lights exist and misleading lustres, lower lights too that belong to the being's inferior teaches. One must therefore be on one’s guard and distinguish ; the true discrimination has to come by growth of the psychic feeling and a purified mind and experience.
Light. Lotus flower indicates open consciousness.
ll'oj'S' to remove jear ::: By bringing down strength and calm into the lower vital (region below the navel). Also by will and imposing calm on the system when the fear arises. It can be done in either way or both together.
lotus ::: any aquatic plant of the genus Nelumbo, of the water lily family, having shieldlike leaves and showy, solitary flowers usually projecting above the water. lotuses, lotus-bud, lotus-cup, lotus-heart, lotus-leaf, lotus-pools, lotus-throne.
Lower vital ::: Anger, fear, jealousy, touch the heart no doubt just as they touch the mind but they rise from the navel region and entrails (i.e., the lower or at highest the middle vital).
Madhav: “The Animal represents the lower rajasic nature; the sacred fence is the human being with all its scaffolding.” 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
Madhav: “Triple-plated gloom is the darkness with three successive layers: the material-physical, the vital and the mental. This is the Shadow that infests the three lower orders of existence.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Main support of all habitual movements, especially the physi- cal and lower vital movements.
mass ::: n. 1. A body of coherent matter, usually of indefinite shape and often of considerable size. 2. A large amount or number, such as a great body of people. masses, flower-masses. 3. Bulk, size, expanse, or massiveness. 4. The main body, bulk, or greater part of anything. 5. Physics. A measure of the amount of matter contained in or constituting a physical body. adj. 6. Of, involving, composed of masses of people (or things) or the majority of people (or a society, group, etc.); done, made, etc., on a large scale. v. 7. To gather into or dispose in a mass or masses; assemble. massed.
mastodon ::: a massive elephant-like mammal that flourished worldwide from the Myocene through the Pleistocene epochs having long, curved upper tusks and, in the male, short lower tusks.
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.
Materialistic psychology calls this hidden part the Inconscient, although practically admitting that it is far greater, more power- ful and profound than the surface coasclous self, — very much as the Upanishads called the superconsclent in us the Sleep-self, although this Sleep-self is said to be an iniuiitely greater Intelli- gence, omniscient, omnipotent, Prajna, the Ishwara. Psychic science calls this hidden consciousness the subliminal self, and here loo it is seen that this subliminal self has more powers, more knowledge, a freer field of movement than the smaller self that is on the surface. But the truth is that all this that is behind, this sea of which our waking consciousness is only a wave or series of waves, cannot be described by any one term, for it is very complex. Part of it is subconscient, lower than our waking consciousness, part of it is on a level with it but behind and much larger than it ; part is above and superconscient to us.
Matter, and, as mind, life and Matter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable course of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind Is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power ; if it acts it is through these Werior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet recognisable. It is only by the approach and arri- val of the descendiag Supermind that it can be liberated upon earth and reveal Itself in the action of our material, vital and mental parts so that these lower powers can become portions of a total divinised activity of our whole being ::: it is that that will bring to us a completely realised divinity or the divine life. It is indeed so that life and mind involved In Matter have realised themselves here ; for only what is involved can evolve, otherwise there could be no emergence. ■■
Maya, are extraordinarily skilful ; the reason is an insufficient guide and often turns traitor ; vital desire is always with us tempting to follow any alluring call. This is the reason why in this yoga we insist so much on what we call samarpaifa — rather inadequately rendered by the English word surrender. If the heart centre is fully opened and the psychic is always in control, then there is no question ; all is safe. But the psychic can at any moment be veiled by a lower upsurge. It is only a few who are exempt from these dangers and it is precisely those to whom surrender is easily possible. The guidance of one who is himself, by identity or represents the Divine is in this difficult endeavour imperative and indispensable.
MENTAL BEING. ::: The true mental being is not the same as the inner mental ; true mental, true vital, true physical being means the Purusha of that level freed from the error and ignorant thought and will of the lower Prakriti and directly open to the knowledge and guidance above.
mind, Ideal Mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The link between the spiritual and the lower planes of the being is that which is called in the old Vedantic phraseology the vijñâna and which we may describe in our modern turn of language as the Truth-plane or the ideal mind or supermind. There 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.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
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.
MONEY. ::: Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force m its manifestation on earth woris an the vitaf and physical planes and Is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and true action it belongs lo the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose.
Morality is a question of man’s mind and vital, it belongs to a lower plane of consciousness.
n. 1. The lower interior part of a ship or airplane where cargo is stored. 2. The act or a means of grasping. v. 3. To have or keep in the hand; keep fast; grasp. 4. To bear, sustain, or support, as with the hands or arms, or by any other means. 5. To contain or be capable of containing. 6. To keep from departing or getting away. 7. To withstand stress, pressure, or opposition; to maintain occupation of by force or coercion. 8. To have in its power, possess, affect, occupy. 9. To engage in; preside over; carry on. 10. To have or keep in the mind; think or believe. 11. To regard or consider. 12. To keep or maintain a grasp on something. 13. To maintain one"s position against opposition; continue in resistance. 14. To agree or side (usually followed by with). holds, holding. ::: hold back. 15. a. To retain possession of; keep back. b. To refrain from revealing; withhold. c. To refrain from participating or engaging in some activity.
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.**
(navel) and in the lower vital, but it moves the emotion and the vital mind.
NAVEL CENTRE. ::: The Nabbipadma commanding the larger life-forces and passions and larger desire-movements is the main seat of the centralised «tal consciousness (dynamic centre) which ranges from the heart level (emotional) to the centre below the navel (lower vital, sensational desire centre).
nether ::: 1. Dwelling beneath the surface of the earth. 2. Lower or under.
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.
Nolini: “Griffin-Golden Hawk + Winged Lion—The piercing eye of soaring aspiration + Upsurging energy of the pure vital—Remember Vishnu’s Garuda + Durga’s lion—With these twin powers you cross safely the borderland between the lower and the upper hemisphere—the twilight world (Night and Day)—Griffin is the guardian God of this passage—dvarapalaka. Mother India—Nolini’s reply to a question from Huta.
Nolini: “The river known as the Ganges actually has three different names corresponding to the different worlds in which it exists—Heaven = Alacananda, Earth = Ganges, Lower world = Bogavati (river of enjoyment).”
OBSTRUCTION. ::: The obstruction of the lower Nature or the pressure of the adverse forces can often act successfully for a time, even for a long time, against the necessary change. One has then to persist, to put always the will on the side of the
of the loucr \ilal planes who has aisumetl the discarded \1ial sheath of a departed human being or a fracmcnl of his vital personality and appears and acts in the form'and perhaps with the surface thoughts and memories of that person. (4) A being of the lower vita! plane who by tUe medium of a living human being or by some other means or agency 1$ able to materialise itself sufficiently so as to appear and act in a visible form or speech with an audible vtrfcc or, without so appearing, to move about material things, c.g.. furniture or to materialise objects or to shift them from place to place. This accounts for what arc called poltergeists, phenomena of stone-throwing, ircc-inliabiting
OLD NATURE. ::: The lower forces seldom yield the ground without a protracted and often repeated struggle. What is gained can be covered over, but it is never lost.
One who practises the creative arts; one who seeks to express the beautiful in visible form. 2. A follower of a manual art; an artificer, mechanic, craftsman, artisan. artists. (Sri Aurobindo often employs the word as an adj.)
orchid ::: any terrestrial or epiphytic plant of the family Orchidaceae, of temperate and tropical regions, having usually showy flowers.
Or else the lower vital mind can try to disturb ; that brings up the ego and passions and their play.
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
passion-flower ::: any of various climbing, tendril-bearing, chiefly tropical American vines of the genus Passiflora, having large showy flowers with a fringelike crown and a conspicuous stalk that bears the stamens and pistil, with some varieties yielding a delicious fruit. [From the resemblance of its parts to the instruments of the Passion.]
passion flower
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
PISaCA. ::: Demon ; beings of Ihc lower vital planes, who arc in opposition to the Gods.
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.
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.
powers ::: Sri Aurobindo: "These are the forces and beings that are interested in maintaining the falsehoods they have created in the world of the Ignorance and in putting them forward as the Truth which men must follow. In India they are termed Asuras, Rakshasas, Pishachas (beings respectively of the mentalised vital, middle vital and lower vital planes) who are in opposition to the Gods, the Powers of Light. These too are Powers, for they too have their cosmic field in which they exercise their function and authority and some of them were once divine Powers (the former gods, purve devah , as they are called somewhere in the Mahabharata) who have fallen towards the darkness by revolt against the divine Will behind the cosmos.” Letters on Yoga
powers ::: “These are the forces and beings that are interested in maintaining the falsehoods they have created in the world of the Ignorance and in putting them forward as the Truth which men must follow. In India they are termed Asuras, Rakshasas, Pishachas (beings respectively of the mentalised vital, middle vital and lower vital planes) who are in opposition to the Gods, the Powers of Light. These too are Powers, for they too have their cosmic field in which they exercise their function and authority and some of them were once divine Powers (the former gods, purve devah , as they are called somewhere in the Mahabharata) who have fallen towards the darkness by revolt against the divine Will behind the cosmos.” Letters on Yoga
Powers undivine in their nature present themselves as the Sup- reme Lord or as the Divine Mother and claim the being’s service and surrender. 1C these (hiags are accepted, there will be an extremely disastrous consequence. If indeed there is the assent of the sSdhaka to the Divine working alone and the submission or surrender to that guidance, then all can go smoothly. This assent and a rejection of all egoistic force or forces that appeal to the ego are the safeguard throughout the sadhana. But the ways of nature are full of snares, the disguises of the ego are innumerable, the ilfusions of the Powers of Darkness, Rakshasi Maya, are e.ttraordinariIy skilful ; the reason is an insulBdent guide and often turns traitor; vital desire is ahvays with us tempting to follow any alluring call. This is the reason why in this Yoga we insist so much on what we call samarpana — rather inade- quately rendered by the Engikh word surrender. If the heart centre is fully opened and the psychic is always in control, then there is no question ; all fe Safe. But the psychic can at any moment be veiled by a lower upsurge. It is only a few who arc exempt from these dangers and it is precisely those to whom surrender is easily possible. The guidance of one who is himself
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.
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. ::: Change of the lower nature bringing right vision into the mind, right impulse and feeling into the vital, ri^t movement and habit into the physical — all turned towards the Divine, all based on love, adoration, bhakti — finally the vision and sense of the Mother everywhere in all as w’ell as in the heart, her Force working in the being, faith, con- secration, surrender.
Purani: “The Red-Wolf is the symbol of the powers that tear the ‘being’, that suddenly fall upon it to destroy it. They are persistent, destructive, cruel, unscrupulous powers of the lower Darkness. Sri Aurobindo in his expression has made the symbol more effective, improving spontaneously upon the original in the alchemy of his poetical process by the image of ‘fordless steam’. In the original hymn there is only ‘path’. The ‘fordless stream’ brings in the needed element of danger and difficulty of the path of the aspirant when he has to cross this dangerous region.”“Savitri”—An Approach and a Study
"Purity means freedom from soil or mixture. The divine Purity is that in which there is no mixture of the turbid ignorant movements of the lower nature. Ordinarily, purity is used to mean (in the common language) freedom from sexual passion and impulse.” *Letters on Yoga
“Purity means freedom from soil or mixture. The divine Purity is that in which there is no mixture of the turbid ignorant movements of the lower nature. Ordinarily, purity is used to mean (in the common language) freedom from sexual passion and impulse.” Letters on Yoga
QUIET FLOW. ::: The quiet flow is necessary for permeating the lower parts. The big descents open the way and bring con- stant remforceraent and the culminaiinc force at the end ; but the quiet flow is also needed.
RADHA-KRISHNA. ::: The true symbol for it would not be the human sex-attraction, but the soul, the psychic, hearing the call of the Divine and flowering into the complete love and sur- render that brings the supreme Ananda.
rapture ::: the state of being transported by a lofty emotion; ecstasy. rapture"s, rapture", rapture-drink, rapture-flowers, rapture-offering, rapture-thrill, world-rapture, heaven-rapture"s.
Red flowers ordinarily indicate an opening of the consciousness either in the physical or some part of the vital according to the shade.
refusing to regard its desires and clamours as one’s own, and cultivates an entire equality and equanimity in the consciousness with respect to them that the lower vital itself becomes gradually purified and itself also calm and equal. Each wave of desire as it comes must be observed, as quietly and with as much unmoved detachment as you would observe something going on outside you, and must be allowed to pass, rejected from the cons- ciousness, and the true movement, the true consciousness steadily put in its place.
REJECTION. ::: The jjersonal effort required is a itficdon of the movements of the lower nature — rejection of the mind’s ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind ; rejection of
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
rose ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The rose is among the first of flowers because of the richness of its colour, the intensity of sweetness of its scent and the grace and magnificence of its form.”
rose ::: “The rose is not the only beautiful flower, there are hundreds of others; most flowers are beautiful. There are degrees and kinds of beauty, that is all. The rose is among the first of flowers because of the richness of its colour, the intensity of sweetness of its scent and the grace and magnificence of its form.” Letters on Yoga , Volume—22 , SABCL
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
seer ::: “The seer does not need the aid of thought in its process as a means of knowledge, but only as a means of representation and expression,—thought is to him a lesser power and used for a secondary purpose. If a further extension of knowledge is required, he can come at it by new seeing without the slower thought processes that are the staff of support of the mental search and its feeling out for truth,—even as we scrutinise with the eye to find what escaped our first observation” The Synthesis of Yoga
SENSATION. ::: Sensation is much nearer the physical than emotion. The rising of sensation is lower than the emotion.
Sex-tendency will be more easily overcome if instead of being upset by its presence you detach the inner being, rise up above it and view it as a weakness of the lower nature. If you can detach yourself from it with a complete indifference in the inner being, it will seem more and more something alien to yourself, put upon you by the outer forces of Nature. Then It will be easier to remove.
"Silence means freedom from thoughts and vital movements —- when the whole consciousness is quite still.” The Mother - Flowers and Their Messages, Glossary Of Philosophical And Psychological Terms.
“Silence means freedom from thoughts and vital movements—when the whole consciousness is quite still.” The Mother—Flowers and Their Messages, Glossary Of Philosophical And Psychological Terms.
"Sincerity means more than mere honesty. It means that you mean what you say, feel what you profess, are earnest in your will.” The Mother - The Spiritual Significance of Flowers
“Sincerity means more than mere honesty. It means that you mean what you say, feel what you profess, are earnest in your will.” The Mother—The Spiritual Significance of Flowers
SINKING OF CONSCIOUSNESS. ::: An occasional sinking of the consciousness happens to everybody. The causes are various, some touch from outside, something not yet changed or not sufficiently changed In the vital, especially the lower vital, some inertia or obscurity rising up from the physical parts of nature. \Vhen it comes, remain quiet, open yourself to the
sink ::: n. 1. A cesspool; a covered cistern into which waste water and sewage flow. Also fig. 2. An area of ground that slopes below the level of the surrounding land. v. 3. To descend to the bottom; submerge. 4. To fall, drop, or descend gradually to a lower level. 5. To decline or cause to decline in moral value, pass into a lower state or condition. etc. 6. To fall or drop to a lower level, especially to go down slowly or in stages; subside, as land. 7. To diminish or appear to move downward, as the sun or moon in setting. 8. To become lower in volume or pitch; gradually become fainter. sunk.
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.” Essays on the Gita
Sleep and the subconscient ::: Sleep because of its subconscient basis usually brings a falling do\vn to a lower level, unless it is a conscious sleep ; to make it more and more conscious is the one permanent remedy ::: but also until that is done, one should always react against this sinking tendency when one wakes and not allow the effect of dull nights to accumulate.
soil ::: “I think you said in a letter that in the line light falling upon the lower levels of the earth, not on the soul. No doubt, the whole thing is symbolic, but the symbol has to be kept in the front and the thing symbolised has to be concealed or only peep out from behind, it cannot come openly into the front and push aside the symbol.” Letters on Savitri—1946
‘soil" was an error for ‘soul". But ‘soil" is correct; for I am describing the revealing light falling upon the lower levels of the earth, not on the soul. No doubt, the whole thing is symbolic, but the symbol has to be kept in the front and the thing symbolised has to be concealed or only peep out from behind, it cannot come openly into the front and push aside the symbol.” Letters on Savitri — 1946
sombre ::: 1. Dim, gloomy, shadowy. 2. Extremely serious; grave. 3. Of a colour, sober, dull, or dark. 3. Gloomy, depressing, melancholy, dismal. 4. Of persons, their appearance, etc., gloomy, lowering, dark and sullen or dejected.
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: "By attaining to the Unborn beyond all becoming we are liberated from this lower birth and death; by accepting the Becoming freely as the Divine, we invade mortality with the immortal beatitude and become luminous centres of its conscious self-expression in humanity.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "By immortality we mean the absolute life of the soul as opposed to the transient and mutable life in the body which it assumes by birth and death and rebirth and superior also to its life as the mere mental being who dwells in the world subjected helplessly to this law of death and birth or seems at least by his ignorance to be subjected to this and to other laws of the lower Nature.” *The Upanishads
Sri Aurobindo: "His [the Titan"s] instincts call for a visible, tangible mastery and a sensational domination. How shall he feel sure of his empire unless he can feel something writhing helpless under his heel, — if in agony, so much the better? What is exploitation to him, unless it diminishes the exploited? To be able to coerce, exact, slay, overtly, irresistibly, — it is this that fills him with the sense of glory and dominion. For he is the son of division and the strong flowering of the Ego. To feel the comparative limitation of others is necessary to him that he may imagine himself immeasurable; for he has not the real, self-existent sense of infinity which no outward circumstance can abrogate. Contrast, division, negation of the wills and lives of others are essential to his self-development and self-assertion. The Titan would unify by devouring, not by harmonising; he must conquer and trample what is not himself either out of existence or into subservience so that his own image may stand out stamped upon all things and dominating all his environment.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: “His [the Titan’s] instincts call for a visible, tangible mastery and a sensational domination. How shall he feel sure of his empire unless he can feel something writhing helpless under his heel,—if in agony, so much the better? What is exploitation to him, unless it diminishes the exploited? To be able to coerce, exact, slay, overtly, irresistibly,—it is this that fills him with the sense of glory and dominion. For he is the son of division and the strong flowering of the Ego. To feel the comparative limitation of others is necessary to him that he may imagine himself immeasurable; for he has not the real, self-existent sense of infinity which no outward circumstance can abrogate. Contrast, division, negation of the wills and lives of others are essential to his self-development and self-assertion. The Titan would unify by devouring, not by harmonising; he must conquer and trample what is not himself either out of existence or into subservience so that his own image may stand out stamped upon all things and dominating all his environment.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "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 has been held that ecstasy is a lower and transient passage, the peace of the Supreme is the supreme realisation, the consummate abiding experience. This may be true on the spiritual-mind plane: there the first ecstasy felt is indeed a spiritual rapture, but it can be and is very usually mingled with a supreme happiness of the vital parts taken up by the Spirit; there is an exaltation, exultation, excitement, a highest intensity of the joy of the heart and the pure inner soul-sensation that can be a splendid passage or an uplifting force but is not the ultimate permanent foundation. But in the highest ascents of the spiritual bliss there is not this vehement exaltation and excitement; there is instead an illimitable intensity of participation in an eternal ecstasy which is founded on the eternal Existence and therefore on a beatific tranquillity of eternal peace. Peace and ecstasy cease to be different and become one. The Supermind, reconciling and fusing all differences as well as all contradictions, brings out this unity; a wide calm and a deep delight of all-existence are among its first steps of self-realisation, but this calm and this delight rise together, as one state, into an increasing intensity and culminate in the eternal ecstasy, the bliss that is the Infinite.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "[‘Its passive flower of love and doom it gave."] Good Heavens! how did Gandhi come in there? Passion-flower, sir — passion, not passive.” Letters on Savitri [in reference to a typographical error]
Sri Aurobindo: “[‘Its passive flower of love and doom it gave.’] Good Heavens! how did Gandhi come in there? Passion-flower, sir—passion, not passive.” Letters on Savitri [in reference to a typographical error]
Sri Aurobindo: " 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.” *Essays on the Gita
Sri Aurobindo: "The lower nature is ignorant and undivine, not in itself hostile but shut to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are anti-divine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess or at least entirely control him.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: “The link between the spiritual and the lower planes of the being is that which is called in the old Vedantic phraseology the vijñâna and which we may describe in our modern turn of language as the Truth-plane or the ideal mind or supermind. There 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.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: *"The seer does not need the aid of thought in its process as a means of knowledge, but only as a means of representation and expression, — thought is to him a lesser power and used for a secondary purpose. If a further extension of knowledge is required, he can come at it by new seeing without the slower thought processes that are the staff of support of the mental search and its feeling out for truth, — even as we scrutinise with the eye to find what escaped our first observation” The Synthesis of Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "When there is some lowering or diminution of the consciousness or some impairing of it at one place or another, the Adversary — or the Censor — who is always on the watch presses with all his might wherever there is a weak point lying covered from your own view, and suddenly a wrong movement leaps up with unexpected force. Become conscious and cast out the possibility of its renewal, that is all that is to be done.” Letters on Yoga
SSdharmya-mukii ; liberation by the acquisition of the divine nature, by the transformation of this lower being info the human
stoop ::: 1. To bend the head and shoulders, or the body generally, forward and downward from an erect position. 2. To carry the head and shoulders habitually bowed forward. 3. To descend from a height or superior position. 4. To swoop down, like a hawk at prey. Also fig. **5. To submit; yield. 6. To lower or debase oneself. Stoops, stooped, stooping.**
Strength and purity in the lower vital and wideness in the heart are the best condition for meeting others, especially women, and if that could always be there sex could hardly have a look in.
STRUGGLE. ::: 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.
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
sunken ::: situated at a lower level than the surrounding area.
"Supermind is the grade of existence beyond mind, life and Matter and, as mind, life and Matter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable course of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts, it is through these inferior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet recognisable. It is only by the approach and arrival of the descending Supermind that it can be liberated upon earth and reveal itself in the action of our material, vital and mental parts so that these lower powers can become portions of a total divinised activity of our whole being: it is that that will bring to us a completely realised divinity or the divine life.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“Supermind is the grade of existence beyond mind, life and Matter and, as mind, life and Matter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable course of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts, it is through these inferior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet recognisable. It is only by the approach and arrival of the descending Supermind that it can be liberated upon earth and reveal itself in the action of our material, vital and mental parts so that these lower powers can become portions of a total divinised activity of our whole being: it is that that will bring to us a completely realised divinity or the divine life.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
SUPERMIND. ::: The supermind is between the Sachchidananda and the lower creation. It alone contains the sclf-detennining
SUPPRESSION. ::: In our path the altitude is not one of force- ful suppression, but of detachment and equality with regard to the objects of desire. Forreful suppression (lasting comes under the head) stands on the same level as free indulgence ; in both cases, the desire remains ; in the one it is fed by indulgence, in the other it lies latent and exasperated by suppression. It only when one stands back, separates oneself from the lower vital.
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
taliscd vita], middle vital and lower vital planes) who arc in opposition to the Gods, the Powers of Light. These too arc
TESTS. ::: The idea of tests is not a healthy idea and ou^t not to be pushed too far. Tests are applied not by the Divine but by the forces of the lower planes — mental, vital, physical
The abdominal centre, svadhijihana, commanding the small vital movements, the little creeds, lusts, desires, the small sense- movements, governs the lower vital. (Colour ::: deep purple red ; petals ::: six.)
The ascent is necessarily an effort, a working of Nature, an urge or nisus on her side to raise her lower parts by an evolu- tionary or revolutionary change, conversion or transformation into the divine reality and it may happen by a process and pro- gress or by a rapid miracle. The descent or self-revelalion of the
the lower movements have definitely gone — it has then to com- plete the work of displacing them.
::: "The lower nature is ignorant and undivine, not in itself hostile but shut to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are anti-divine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess or at least entirely control him.” *Letters on Yoga
“The lower nature is ignorant and undivine, not in itself hostile but shut to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are anti-divine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess or at least entirely control him.” Letters on Yoga
The lower vital is not a part that listens to reason, **
— the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender. Let your faith be pure, cancfid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by arabidoo, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for petty satisfaction of the lower nature is a low and smokc-obscurcd flame that cannot bum upwards to heaven. Regard your life as given you only for the divine work and to help in the dirine manifestation.
the horny sheath covering the toes or lower part of the foot of a mammal, such as a horse, ox, or deer. hoof-mark.
“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 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 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.
The opening is the same for all. U begins with an opening of mind and heart, then of the vital proper — when it reaches the lower vital and the physical the opening is complete.
The personal effort required Is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender ; an aspiration vigilant, constant, un- ceasing — the mind’s will, the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature ; rejection of the movements of the lower nature — rejection of the mind’s ideas, opinions, prefer- ences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find room in a silent mind, — rejection of the vital nature’s desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arro- gance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being, — rejection of the physical nature’s stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine ; surrender of oneself and all one is and has and every plane of the consciousness and every movement to the Divine and the ShaUi.
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 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.
::: "The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind — to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms — runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
“The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind—to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms—runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
There is a vital plane (self-existent) above the material uni- verse which we see ; there is a mental plane (self-existent) above the vital and material. These three together, — mental, vital, physical — arc called the triple universe of the lower hemisphere.
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 spiritual element is the need of the being for contact, merging, union wth its own highest and uhole sell and source of being and consciousness and bliss, the Ditinc. These two are two sides of the same thing. The mind, vital, physical can be the supports and recipients of this lose, but they can be fully that only when they become remoulded in harmony with the psychic and spiritual elements of the being and no longer bring in the lower insistences of the ego.
The 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 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 supermind contains all its knowledge in itself, is in its highest divine wisdom in eternal possession of all truth and even in its lower, limited or individualised forms has only to bring the latent truth out of itself, — the perception which the old thinkers tried to express when they said that all knowing was in its real origin and nature only a memory of inwardly existing knowledge.” The Synthesis of Yoga ::: *knowledge-bales, knowledge-scrap, half-knowledge, self-knowledge, world-knowledge.
“The supermind contains all its knowledge in itself, is in its highest divine wisdom in eternal possession of all truth and even in its lower, limited or individualised forms has only to bring the latent truth out of itself,—the perception which the old thinkers tried to express when they said that all knowing was in its real origin and nature only a memory of inwardly existing knowledge.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while the supreme energy is there, asleep; it is said to be coiled up and slumbering like a snake, — therefore it is called the kundalinî sakti, — in the lowest of the chakras, in the mûlâdhâra. When by Pranayama the division between the upper and lower prana currents in the body is dissolved, this Kundalini is struck and awakened, it uncoils itself and begins to rise upward like a fiery serpent breaking open each lotus as it ascends until the Shakti meets the Purusha in the brahmarandhra in a deep samadhi of union.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while the supreme energy is there, asleep; it is said to be coiled up and slumbering like a snake,—therefore it is called the kundalinî sakti,—in the lowest of the chakras, in the mûlâdhâra. When by Pranayama the division between the upper and lower prana currents in the body is dissolved, this Kundalini is struck and awakened, it uncoils itself and begins to rise upward like a fiery serpent breaking open each lotus as it ascends until the Shakti meets the Purusha in the brahmarandhra in a deep samadhi of union.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"This Godhead is one in all things that are, the self who lives in all and the self in whom all live and move; therefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures, to see all in the self and the self in all beings, even to see all things and creatures as himself, âtmaupamyena sarvatra, and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and living. This Godhead is the origin of all that is here or elsewhere and by his Nature he has become all these innumerable existences, abhût sarvâni bhûtâni; therefore man has to see and adore the One in all things animate and inanimate, to worship the manifestation in sun and star and flower, in man and every living creature, in the forms and forces, qualities and powers of Nature, vâsudevah sarvam iti.” Essays on the Gita ::: *godhead, godheads, godhead"s.
“This Godhead is one in all things that are, the self who lives in all and the self in whom all live and move; therefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures, to see all in the self and the self in all beings, even to see all things and creatures as himself, âtmaupamyena sarvatra, and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and living. This Godhead is the origin of all that is here or elsewhere and by his Nature he has become all these innumerable existences, abhût sarvâni bhûtâni; therefore man has to see and adore the One in all things animate and inanimate, to worship the manifestation in sun and star and flower, in man and every living creature, in the forms and forces, qualities and powers of Nature, vâsudevah sarvam iti.” Essays on the Gita
::: **"This sraddhâ — the English word faith is inadequate to express it — is in reality an influence from the supreme Spirit and its light a message from our supramental being which is calling the lower nature to rise out of its petty present to a great self-becoming and self-exceeding.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“This sraddhâ—the English word faith is inadequate to express it—is in reality an influence from the supreme Spirit and its light a message from our supramental being which is calling the lower nature to rise out of its petty present to a great self-becoming and self-exceeding.” The Synthesis of Yoga
thyrsus ::: greek myth. A staff, usually one tipped with a pine cone, borne by Dionysus (Bacchus) and his followers.
Titan ::: : “His [the Titan’s] instincts call for a visible, tangible mastery and a sensational domination. How shall he feel sure of his empire unless he can feel something writhing helpless under his heel,—if in agony, so much the better? What is exploitation to him, unless it diminishes the exploited? To be able to coerce, exact, slay, overtly, irresistibly,—it is this that fills him with the sense of glory and dominion. For he is the son of division and the strong flowering of the Ego. To feel the comparative limitation of others is necessary to him that he may imagine himself immeasurable; for he has not the real, self-existent sense of infinity which no outward circumstance can abrogate. Contrast, division, negation of the wills and lives of others are essential to his self-development and self-assertion. The Titan would unify by devouring, not by harmonising; he must conquer and trample what is not himself either out of existence or into subservience so that his own image may stand out stamped upon all things and dominating all his environment.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
tract ::: an expanse of land or water. tracts, tract-memories, flower-tracts.
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
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
unborn ::: “By attaining to the Unborn beyond all becoming we are liberated from this lower birth and death; by accepting the Becoming freely as the Divine, we invade mortality with the immortal beatitude and become luminous centres of its conscious self-expression in humanity.” The Life Divine
undivine ::: “The lower nature is ignorant and undivine, not in itself hostile but shut to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are anti-divine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess or at least entirely control him.” Letters on Yoga
Vilal being — its four parts ::: There arc four parts of the vital being— first, the menial vital which gives a mental expres- sion by thought, speech or olher^vise to the emotions, desires, passions, sensations and other movements of the vital being ; the emotional vital which is the seat of various feelings such as love, joy, sorrow, hatred, and the rest ; the central vital which is the seat of the stronger vital longings and reactions, e.g. ambi- tion, pride, fear, love of fame, attractions and repulsions, desires and passions of various kinds and the field of many vital ener- gies ; last, the lower vital which is occupied with small desires and feelings, such as make the greater part of daily life, e.g. food desire, sexual desire, small likings, dislikings, vanity, quarrels, love of praise, anger at blame, litfle wishes of all kinds — and a numberless host of other things. Their respective seats are
Vile, in a kind of strong and sVrti spontaneous Binna. TIvstc a feeling of n-aves surging up, mounting to the head, "'h'^n brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the iidhara to meet the greater consciousness above.
“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
Vital being — its four parts: There arc four parts of the vital being — first, the mental vital which gives a mental expres- sion by thought, speech or otherwise to the emotions, desires, passions, sensations and other movements of the vital being ; the emotional vital which is the scat of various feelings such as love, Joy, sorrow, hatred, and the rest ; the central vital which is the seat of the stronger rilal longings and reactions, e.g. ambi- tion, pride, fear, love of fame, attractions and repulsions, desires and passions of various kinds and the held of many vital ener- gies ; last, the lower vital which is occupied with small desires and feelings, such as make the greater part of daily life, e.g. food desire, sexual desire, small likings, dislikings, vanity, quarrels, love of praise, anger at blame, little wishes of all kinds — and a numberless host of other tlungs. Their respective seats are
"We arrive then necessarily at this conclusion that human birth is a term at which the soul must arrive in a long succession of rebirths and that it has had for its previous and preparatory terms in the succession the lower forms of life upon earth; it has passed through the whole chain that life has strung in the physical universe on the basis of the body, the physical principle.” The Life Divine
“We arrive then necessarily at this conclusion that human birth is a term at which the soul must arrive in a long succession of rebirths and that it has had for its previous and preparatory terms in the succession the lower forms of life upon earth; it has passed through the whole chain that life has strung in the physical universe on the basis of the body, the physical principle.” The Life Divine
—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….
When there is some lowering or dlroinulion of the conscious- ness or some impairing of it at one place or another, the Adver- sary— or the CcMor — who is always on the watch presses with all his might wherever there is a weak point lying covered from your own view and suddenly a wrong movement leaps up with unexpected force.
"Within us, there are two centres of the Purusha, the inner Soul through which he touches us to our awakening; there is the Purusha in the lotus of the heart which opens upward all our powers and the Purusha in the thousand-petalled lotus whence descend through the thought and will, opening the third eye in us, the lightnings of vision and the fire of the divine energy. The bliss existence may come to us through either one of these centres. When the lotus of the heart breaks open, we feel a divine joy, love and peace expanding in us like a flower of light which irradiates the whole being.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“Within us, there are two centres of the Purusha, the inner Soul through which he touches us to our awakening; there is the Purusha in the lotus of the heart which opens upward all our powers and the Purusha in the thousand-petalled lotus whence descend through the thought and will, opening the third eye in us, the lightnings of vision and the fire of the divine energy. The bliss existence may come to us through either one of these centres. When the lotus of the heart breaks open, we feel a divine joy, love and peace expanding in us like a flower of light which irradiates the whole being.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Without saniatS peace is liable to be attacked by the waves of the lower nature.
wonder ::: n. 1. An event inexplicable by the laws of nature; a miracle; something strange and surprising brought about by a supernatural force. 2. A miraculous deed or event; remarkable phenomenon. 3. The emotion excited by what is strange and surprising; a feeling of surprised or puzzled interest, sometimes tinged with admiration. 4. Something strange, unexpected, or extraordinary. Wonder, wonder"s, Wonder"s, wonders, wonder-book, wonder-couch, wonder-dance, wonder-flecks, wonder-flowers, wonder-hues, wonder-plastics, wonder-rounds, wonder-rush, wonder-tree, wonder-web, wonder-weft, Wonder-worker, Wonder-worker"s, wonder-works, wonder-world, wonder-worlds. *adj. 5. Arousing awe or admiration; wonderful. v. 6. To be filled with admiration, amazement or awe; marvel (often followed by at); to think or speculate curiously (at or about); be curious to know. *wonders, wondered, wondering.
KEYS (10k)
43 Sri Aurobindo
19 Matsuo Basho
10 Buson
9 Kobayashi Issa
5 Jalaluddin Rumi
5 Sri Ramakrishna
5 Ogawa
4 Saint Thomas Aquinas
3 Taigu Ryokan
2 Shunryu Suzuki
2 Ikkyu
2 Hans Christian Andersen
2 Dhammapada
2 The Mother
2 ?
1 Zen Proverb
1 Yosa Buson
1 William Butler Yeats
1 William Blake
1 Walter Hagen
1 Virgil
1 Vincent van Gogh
1 Third Dzogchen Rinpoche
1 Thich Nhat Hanh
1 "Ten Thousand Flowers in Spring" by Wu-Men
1 Swami Saradananda
1 Stephen Chbosky
1 Sri Ramakrishna
1 SONG from GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA
1 Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
1 Saint Faustina Kowalska
1 Robert E. Burton
1 Rabindranath Tagore
1 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
1 Our Lady Fatima (June 13
1 Native American Proverb
1 Minamoo Sanemoto
1 Mehmet Murat ildan
1 Matsuo Basho?
1 Matsuo Basho
1 Mark Twain
1 Mao Zedong
1 Luther Burbank
1 Li Bai
1 Lao-Tse
1 Khalil Gibran
1 Joseph Campbell
1 Jonathan Nolan & Lisa Joy
1 John Lennon
1 John Harrigan
1 Jatakamala
1 id
1 Hokusai
1 Hildegard
1 Henry Ward Beecher
1 George Gurdjieff
1 Georg C Lichtenberg
1 Galatians. V. 23
1 Dion Fortune
1 Dante
1 Chiyo-ni
1 Carl Jung
1 Buddhacharita
1 Buddha
1 Book of Golden Precepts
1 Baha-ullah
1 Anonymous
1 Angelns Silesius
1 Al-Jilani
1 Swami Vivekananda
1 Santoka Taneda
1 Saint Augustine of Hippo
1 Jetsun Milarepa
1 Aleister Crowley
1 Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
21 Anonymous
16 Rumi
13 William Shakespeare
13 Mehmet Murat ildan
11 Ralph Waldo Emerson
9 Rabindranath Tagore
9 Amit Ray
8 Victor Hugo
8 Thich Nhat Hanh
8 Matsuo Basho
8 Henry David Thoreau
7 Khalil Gibran
7 John C Maxwell
7 Gautama Buddha
7 Antoine de Saint Exup ry
7 Alfred Lord Tennyson
6 Toba Beta
6 Neil Gaiman
6 Claude Monet
6 Alexandre Dumas
1:Transient emotions are lower emotions. Lasting emotions are higher emotions. ~ George Gurdjieff, #KEYS
2:Do not forget the covenant. Struggle with your lower self. Either you ride it, or it will ride you. ~ Al-Jilani, #KEYS
3:and the LOWER FACULTIES are ordered to REASON ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 3.121)., #KEYS
4:Control by thy divine self thy lower being. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
5:After I had rested my wearied body for a little, I took my way over the steep slope, keeping always my lower foot firmest. ~ Dante, #KEYS
6:One must test oneself from time to time to see whether one has conquered the lower self. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
7:Easy is the decent to the Lower World; but, to retrace your steps and to escape to the uppear air-this is the task, this is the toil.
~ Virgil,#KEYS
8:The lower is for us the first condition of the higher. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Knowledge and the Ignorance, #KEYS
9:The root cause of the lower realms is anger, therefore practice patience, even at the cost of your life. ~ Jetsun Milarepa, #KEYS
10:One step firmly taken makes easier all the others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #KEYS
11:The sattwic quality is a first mediator between the higher and the lower nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Deva and Asura, #KEYS
12:Desire is the root of all sorrow, disappointment, affliction. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #KEYS
13:Tranquillity is a sign of increasing self-mastery and purity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge, #KEYS
14:To see things as parts, as incomplete elements is a lower analytic knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Soul and Nature, #KEYS
15:Do not lower your goals to the level of your abilities. Instead, raise your abilities to the height of your goals. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
16:One must lose one's little lower self to find the greater self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supermind and the Yoga of Works, #KEYS
17:When one says to a man, "Know thyself," it is not only to lower his pride, but to make him sensible of his own value. ~ id, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
18:Mechanical Nature is only a lower truth; it is the formula of an inferior phenomenal action. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Secret of Secrets, #KEYS
19:The least insight that one can obtain into sublime things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge of lower things. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
20: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, #KEYS
21:Some people look upon the sense of sin as the whole of religion. They forget that it marks only the earliest, lower stage of spirituality. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
22:In the lower actions of the mind the soul suffers Nature rather than possesses her. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - Intelligence and Will, #KEYS
23:The root of desire is the vital craving to seize upon that which we feel we have not. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #KEYS
24: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, #KEYS
25: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, #KEYS
26:Even as the hard K us ha-grass tears the hand which knows not how to size it, so a misplaced asceticism leads to the lower life. ~ Dhammapada, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
27:O Lower self, which is better, the Garden of eternity or a glimpse of this world's unlawful bounty and its wretched, fleeting rubbish? ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #KEYS
28:Control over the lower impulsions is the first step towards realisation.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Weaknesses, DESIRES, IMPULSES AND SELF-CONTROL, [253] [T7],#KEYS
29: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.
~ ?,#KEYS
30:Perversion comes by a conversion into lower forms—by transmission through the ego and the gunas. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Action of the Divine Shakti, #KEYS
31:The Creator desired that the Light be veiled in order to grant existence to the lower beings, which could not otherwise survive in its full presence. ~ Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, General Principles of Kabbalah, #KEYS
32:Science gives us the objective truth of existence and the superficial knowledge of our physical and vital being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Lower Triple Purusha, #KEYS
33: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, #KEYS
34:Behind every exoteric religion there is an esoteric Yoga, an intuitive knowledge to which its faith is the first step. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Lower Triple Purusha, #KEYS
35:Religion is the first attempt of man to get beyond himself and beyond the obvious and material facts of his existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Lower Triple Purusha, #KEYS
36: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, #KEYS
37: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, #KEYS
38: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, #KEYS
39:Even if you are not apparently successful in your meditation, it is better to persist and to be more obstinate than the opposition of your lower nature.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
40:If the psychic were always there in front, the desert would be no longer a desert and the wilderness would blossom with the rose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being, #KEYS
41:Inwardly, the man who does not destroy his lower self-formations, cannot rise to a greater existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Vision of the World-Spirit - Time the Destroyer, #KEYS
42:A lower science is that according to which the mind considers temporal things, and is thus distinguished from wisdom, which refers to eternal things ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (DV 10.7sc)., #KEYS
43: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, #KEYS
44:In all forms in the world there is a force at work, unconsciously active or oppressed by inertia in its lower formulations. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Perfection of the Body, #KEYS
45: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, #KEYS
46: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,#KEYS
47: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, #KEYS
48:One who wants his Yoga to be a path of peace or joy, must be prepared to dwell in his soul rather than in his outer mental and emotional nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being, #KEYS
49: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, #KEYS
50:We have to throw away the props of our weakness, the motives of the ego, the lures of our lower nature before we can deserve the divine union. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Motives of Devotion, #KEYS
51: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 #KEYS
52: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, #KEYS
53:The consent of all the being is necessary for the divine change, and it is the completeness and fullness of the consent that constitutes the integral surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being, #KEYS
54: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, #KEYS
55:He [the Divine] wants that you first find yourself; that with your true being, your psychic being, you master and govern the lower being, and then you will quite naturally take your proper place in the great Divine Work. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
56:The pleasant is not always the right thing, the object to be preferred and selected, nor the unpleasant the wrong thing, the object to be shunned and rejected. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #KEYS
57: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), #KEYS
58:This Yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being, #KEYS
59:When one is not understood one should as a rule lower one's voice, because when one really speaks loudly enough & is not heard, it is because people dont want to hear. One had better begin to mutter to oneself, then they get curious. ~ Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminars, (30), #KEYS
60:Have faith that we have to regain our lost Self and 'Stop not till the goal is reached.' Remember these words of Swamiji, 'Do not forget the ideal - do not cut it down.' Let this body perish, still do not lower the ideal. Pray for strength. Pray always. ~ Swami Akhandananda, #KEYS
61:Great is the influence of desires that if they once leave an impression on your mind, they will drag you down lower and lower; yet they will not let you feel your downward course. The only way to be saved from these dangers is to offer yourself solely to God. ~ SWAMI BRAHMANANDA, #KEYS
62: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, #KEYS
63:Do not look at the things of the world. If you do so, you will get lost in them. So great is the influence of desires that if they once leave an impression on your mind, they will drag you down lower & lower; yet they will not let you feel your downward course. ~ SWAMI BRAHMANANDA, #KEYS
64: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, #KEYS
65: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, #KEYS
66:My lower nature continues to do the same stupid things. You alone can change it. What are Your conditions?
1) to be convinced that you can change. 2) to will to change without accepting the excuses of the lower nature.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
67: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, #KEYS
68: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], #KEYS
69:Beware, that you do not miss this rare opportunity of reaching your desired goal. Be up & doing. Realize God. Do not pay heed to anything else; look up to Him alone. He will take your whole burden. Then you will see that all your lower desires & cravings will leave you altogethe ~ SWAMI BRAHMANANDA, #KEYS
70:The mind and intellect must develop to their fullness so that the spirituality of the race may rise securely upward upon a broad basis of the developed lower nature in man, the intelligent mental being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Infrarational Age of the Cycle, #KEYS
71:40. 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,#KEYS
72:The higher you go up the ladder, the more painful the fall. The lower you go down the ladder, the less painful the fall. If you are not on the ladder, you can not fall.
Likewise, big ego, big fall, big suffering. Less ego, less fall, less suffering. No ego, no fall, no suffering. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche,#KEYS
73:By attaining to the Unborn beyond all becoming we are liberated from this lower birth and death;
by accepting the Becoming freely as the Divine, we invade mortality with the immortal beatitude and become luminous centres of its conscious self-expression in humanity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine 1.5-19,#KEYS
74:Only the simple can withstand the sword. As we are below the Abyss, this weapon is then entirely destructive: it divides Satan against Satan. It is only in the lower forms of Magick, the purely human forms, that the Sword has become so important a weapon. A dagger should be sufficient. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, #KEYS
75: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,#KEYS
76: By the Divine Consciousness we mean the spiritual consciousness to which the Divine alone exists, because all is the Divine and by which one passes beyond the Ignorance and the lower nature into unity with the Divine and the Divine Nature.
Here in the Ignorance we are not aware of the Divine and we obey the lower nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, LOY1,#KEYS
77: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,#KEYS
78: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, #KEYS
79: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,#KEYS
80:three knots binding us to our lower nature :::
Again our renunciation must obviously be an inward renunciation; especially and above all, a renunciation of attachment and the craving of desire in the senses and the heart, of self-will in the thought and action and of egoism in the centre of the consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, [T5],#KEYS
81: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,#KEYS
82:The boy with the flute is Sri Krishna, the Lord descended into the world-play from the divine Ananda; his flute is the music of the call which seeks to transform the lower ignorant play of mortal life and bring into it and establish in its place the lila of his divine Ananda. It was the psychic being in you that heard the call and followed after it.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
83: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,#KEYS
84: To make it more simple for general comprehension: after initiation, the mystic is merged in the occultist, for he has become a student of occult law; he has to work with matter, with its manipulation and uses, and he has to master and control all lower forms of manifestation, and learn the rules... yet he will still have to find the God within his own being, before he can safely venture on the path of occult law. ~ Alice Bailey, in Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 147, (1922) #KEYS
85:Sadhana is the practice of Yoga.
Tapasya is the concentration of the will to get the results of sadhana and to conquer the lower nature.
Aradhana is worship of the Divine, love, self-surrender, aspiration to the Divine, calling the name, prayer.
Dhyana is inner concentration of the consciousness, meditation, going inside in Samadhi.
Dhyana, tapasya and aradhana are all parts of sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 215 [sadhana is:],#KEYS
86: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, #KEYS
87:In your nature there are many obstacles, chiefly a great activity of the outward-going mind and a thick crust of the impure lower Prakriti that covers the heart and the vital being. Quieting of the mind and purification of the nature are what you must have before you can fulfil your aim. Aspire for these two things first; ask for them constantly from above. You will not be able to achieve them by your own unaided effort. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Purity, #KEYS
88: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,#KEYS
89: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, #KEYS
90:The spirit, while superior to all of its bodies, is incapable of manifesting without its chain of vehicles. This divine spark must always be limited by the quality of its bodies. In all too many cases, it is the servant of its own dependencies. Instead of ruling its world by apostolic succession, the spirit is generally bowed and broken by the endless demands of the lower nature. The appetites, desires, and selfish propensities cast the spirit into a dungeon, while a false and cruel monarch rules the empire in his stead. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics, #KEYS
91:... What you should do, is always to reject the lower experiences and concentrate on a fixed and quiet aspiration towards the one thing needed, the Light, the Calm, the Peace, the Devotion that you felt for two or three days. It is because you get interested in the lower vital experiences and in observing and thinking about them that they take hold, and then comes the absence of the Contact and the confusion. You have surely had enough of this kind of experience already and should make up your mind to steadily reject it when it comes.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
92:Only, all is directed to the one aim, directed towards God, filled with the idea of the divine, infinite, universal existence so that the outward-going, sensuous, pragmatical preoccupation of the lower knowledge with phenomena and forms is replaced by the one divine preoccupation. After attainment the same character remains. The Yogin continues to know and see God in the finite and be a channel of God-consciousness and God-action in the world; therefore the knowledge of the world and the enlarging and uplifting of all that appertains to life comes within his scope.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 517 [T1],#KEYS
93:[the third aid, the inner guide, guru :::
It is he who destroys our darkness by the resplendent light of his knowledge; that light becomes within us the increasing glory of his own self-revelation. He discloses progressively in us his own nature of freedom, bliss, love, power, immortal being. He sets above us his divine example as our ideal and transforms the lower existence into a reflection of that which it contemplates. By the inpouring of his own influence and presence into us he enables the individual being to attain to identity with the universal and transcendent.~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 61 [T1],#KEYS
94: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],#KEYS
95: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,#KEYS
96: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 higherMind) 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.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Himself And The Ashram, 118,#KEYS
97:The ego cannot see where it is being led; it revolts against the leading, loses confidence, loses courage. These failings would not matter; for the divine Guide within is not offended by our revolt, not discouraged by our want of faith or repelled by our weakness; he has the entire love of the mother and the entire patience of the teacher. But by withdrawing our assent from the guidance we lose the consciousness, though not all the actuality-not, in any case, the eventuality -of its benefit. And we withdraw our assent because we fail to distinguish our higher Self from the lower through which he is preparing his self-revelation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 64,#KEYS
98: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,#KEYS
99: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, #KEYS
100: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,#KEYS
101:But what Nature aims at for the mass in a slow evolution, Yoga effects for the individual by a rapid revolution. It works by a quickening of all her energies, a sublimation of all her faculties. While she develops the spiritual life with difficulty and has constantly to fall back from it for the sake of her lower realisations, the sublimated force, the concentrated method of Yoga can attain directly and carry with it the perfection of the mind and even, if she will, the perfection of the body. Nature seeks the Divine in her own symbols: Yoga goes beyond Nature to the Lord of Nature, beyond universe to the Transcendent and can return with the transcendent light and power, with the fiat of the Omnipotent.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions Of The Synthesis, The Threefold Life, 29,#KEYS
102:The Magician works in a Temple; the Universe, which is (be it remembered!) conterminous with himself. In this temple a Circle is drawn upon the floor for the limitation of his working. This circle is protected by divine names, the influences on which he relies to keep out hostile thoughts. Within the circle stands an Altar, the solid basis on which he works, the foundation of all. Upon the Altar are his Wand, Cup, Sword, and Pantacle, to represent his Will, his Understanding, his Reason, and the lower parts of his being, respectively. On the Altar, too, is a phial of Oil, surrounded by a Scourge, a Dagger, and a Chain, while above the Altar hangs a Lamp. The Magician wears a Crown, a single Robe, and a Lamen, and he bears a Book of Conjurations and a Bell.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick [54?],#KEYS
103:Sri Aurobindo: There is a veil between the Supermind above and the lower Prakriti below - the veil of ingrained formations. This veil may completely withdraw or be partially withdrawn. Thus even if there is some little opening, with the contact of Light from above the lower nature will get slowly changed. Even if the being is not entirely purified, varieties of inspirations and powers may come down from above but this may lead to serious errors. Inspirations from above mixing with the impurities from below get all muddled up and the sadhak takes this for an absolute command. Many a sadhak has thus fallen into danger. Therefore, one must particularly lay stress on the purification of the being. All desires and egoism will have to be banished from the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Anilbaran Roy Interviews and Conversations, #KEYS
104: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,#KEYS
105:Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact and identification of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sayujya-mukti, by which it can become free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the salokya-mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the Divine, sadharmya-mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, #KEYS
106:The Yoga that we seek must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and a waste of time; for then our sole practical aim must be to find out one path out of the thousand that lead to God, one shortest possible of shortcuts, and not to linger exploring different paths that end in the same goal. But if our aim be a transformation of our integral being into the terms of God-existence, it is then that a synthesis becomes necessary.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Synthesis of the Systems, 45,#KEYS
107:... if we conceive of a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course, such a being, whose attributes are as essentially finite as our own, would be able to do what is impossible to us. For we have seen that molecules in a vessel full of air at uniform temperature are moving with velocities by no means uniform, though the mean velocity of any great number of them, arbitrarily selected, is almost exactly uniform. Now let us suppose that such a vessel is divided into two portions, A and B, by a division in which there is a small hole, and that a being, who can see the individual molecules, opens and closes this hole, so as to allow only the swifter molecules to pass from A to B, and only the slower molecules to pass from B to A. He will thus, without expenditure of work, raise the temperature of B and lower that of A, in contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics. ~ James Clerk Maxwell, #KEYS
108: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, #KEYS
109:Please explain to me what is meant by the Divine Mother.
The Divine Mother is the Consciousness and Force of the Divine - which is the Mother of all things.
24 June 1933
You have written in The Mother that the Mother is the consciousness and force of the Ishwara, but here my experience is that the Ishwara is the consciousness and force of the Supreme Mother. Could you please make it clear to me?
The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Divine - or, it may be said, she is the Divine in its consciousness-force. The Ishwara as Lord of the Cosmos does come out of the Mother who takes her place beside him as the cosmic Shakti - the cosmic Ishwara is one aspect of the Divine. The experience therefore is correct so far as it goes.
16 November 1934 ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature, The Consciousness and Force of the Divine,#KEYS
110: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, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the Sadhaka of the sadhana 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.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Synthesis of the Systems, 45,#KEYS
111: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,#KEYS
112:Only by our coming into constant touch with the divine Consciousness and its absolute Truth can some form of the conscious Divine, the dynamic Absolute, take up our earth-existence and transform its strife, stumbling, sufferings and falsities into an image of the supreme Light, Power and Ananda.
The culmination of the soul's constant touch with the Supreme is that self-giving which we call surrender to the divine Will and immergence of the separated ego in the One who is all. A vast universality of soul and an intense unity with all is the base and fixed condition of the supramental consciousness and spiritual life. In that universality and unity alone can we find the supreme law of the divine manifestation in the life of the embodied spirit; in that alone can we discover the supreme motion and right play of our individual nature. In that alone can all these lower discords resolve themselves into a victorious harmony of the true relations between manifested beings who are portions of the one Godhead and children of one universal Mother. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, 205,#KEYS
113: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,#KEYS
114: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?#KEYS
115: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,#KEYS
116:An integral method and an integral result. First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures. Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sayujyamukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the salokyalmukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sadharmyamukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, p.47-8,#KEYS
117: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, #KEYS
118: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],#KEYS
119:
Sweet Mother, is the physical mind the same as the mechanical mind?
Almost. You see, there is just a little difference, but not much. The mechanical mind is still more stupid than the physical mind. The physical mind is what we spoke about one day, that which is never sure of anything.
I told you the story of the closed door, you remember. Well, that is the nature of the physical mind. The mechanical mind is at a lower level still, because it doesn't even listen to the possibility of a convincing reason, and this happens to everyone.
Usually we don't let it function, but it comes along repeating the same things, absolutely mechanically, without rhyme or reason, just like that. When some craze or other takes hold of it, it goes... For example, you see, if it fancies counting: "One, two, three, four", then it will go on: "One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four." And you may think of all kinds of things, but it goes on: "One, two, three, four", like that... (Mother laughs.) Or it catches hold of three words, four words and repeats them and goes on repeating them; and unless one turns away with a certain violence and punches it soundly, telling it, "Keep quiet!", it continues in this way, indefinitely. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
120: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,#KEYS
121:I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is ... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts. ~ Richard P Feynman, #KEYS
122:understanding fails when pulled down by lower movements ::: By the understanding we mean that which at once perceives, judges and discriminates, the true reason of the human beingnot subservient to the senses, to desire or to the blind force of habit, but working in its own right for mastery, for knowledge. Certainly, the reason of man as he is at present does not even at its best act entirely in this free and sovereign fashion; but so far as it fails, it fails because it is still mixed with the lower half-animal action, because it is impure and constantly hampered and pulled down from its characteristic action. In its purity it should not be involved in these lower movements, but stand back from the object, and observe disinterestedly, put it in its right place in the whole by force of comparison, contrast, analogy, reason from its rightly observed data by deduction, induction, inference and holding all its gains in memory and supplementing them by a chastened and rightly-guided imagination view all in the light of a trained and disciplined judgment. Such is the pure intellectual understanding of which disinterested observation, judgment and reasoning are the law and characterising action.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Knowledge, The Purified Understanding,#KEYS
123: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.,#KEYS
124:Adoration, before it turns into an element of the deeper Yoga of devotion, a petal of the flower of love, its homage and self-uplifting to its sun, must bring with it, if it is profound, an increasing consecration of the being to the Divine who is adored. And one element of this consecration must be a self-purifying so as to become fit for the divine contact, or for the entrance of the Divine into the temple of our inner being, or for his self-revelation in the shrine of the heart. This purifying may be ethical in its character, but it will not be merely the moralists seeking for the right and blameless action or even, when once we reach the stage of Yoga, an obedience to the law of God as revealed in formal religion; but it will be a throwing away, katharsis, of all that conflicts whether with the idea of the Divine in himself or of the Divine in ourselves. In the former case it becomes in habit of feeling and outer act an imitation of the Divine, in the latter a growing into his likeness in our nature. What inner adoration is to ceremonial worship, this growing into the divine likeness is to the outward ethical life. It culminates in a sort of liberation by likeness to the Divine, a liberation from our lower nature and a change into the divine nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Way of Devotion, 572,#KEYS
125:uniting life and Yoga :::
No synthesis of Yoga can be satisfying which does not, in its aim, reunite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life or, in its method, not only permit but favour the harmony of our inner and outer activities and experiences in the divine consummation of both. For man is precisely that term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the forms of the lower. To avoid the life which is given him for the realisation of that possibility, can never be either the indispensable condition or the whole and ultimate object of his supreme endeavour or of his most powerful means of self-fulfilment. It can only be a temporary necessity under certain conditions or a specialised extreme effort imposed on the individual so as to prepare a greater general possibility for the race. The true and full object and utility of Yoga can only be accomplished when the conscious Yoga in man becomes. like the subconscious Yoga in Nature, outwardly conterminous withlife itself and we can once more, looking out both on the path and the achievement, say in a more perfect and luminous sense: All life is Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, Life and Yoga,#KEYS
126:the first necessity; :::
The first necessity is to dissolve that central faith and vision in the mind which concentrate it on its development and satisfaction and interests in the old externalised order of things. It is imperative to exchange this surface orientation for the deeper faith and vision which see only the Divine and seek only after the Divine. The next need is to compel all our lower being to pay homage to this new faith and greater vision. All our nature must make an integral surrender; it must offer itself in every part and every movement to that which seems to the unregenerated sensemind so much less real than the material world and its objects. Our whole being - soul, mind, sense, heart, will, life, body - must consecrate all its energies so entirely and in such a way that it shall become a fit vehicle for the Divine. This is no easy task; for everything in the world follows the fixed habit which is to it a law and resists a radical change. And no change can be more radical than the revolution attempted in the integral Yoga. Everything in us has constantly to be called back to the central faith and will and vision. Every thought and impulse has to be reminded in the language of the Upanishad that That is the divine Brahman and not this which men here adore. Every vital fibre has to be persuaded to accept an entire renunciation of all that hitherto represented to it its own existence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 72,#KEYS
127: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 #KEYS
128:[the value of sublimation:]
And since Yoga is in its essence a turning away from the ordinary material and animal life led by most men or from the more mental but still limited way of living followed by the few to a greater spiritual life, to the way divine, every part of our energies that is given to the lower existence in the spirit of that existence is a contradiction of our aim and our self-dedication. On the other hand, every energy or activity that we can convert from its allegiance to the lower and dedicate to the service of the higher is so much gained on our road, so much taken from the powers that oppose our progress. It is the difficulty of this wholesale conversion that is the source of all the stumblings in the path of Yoga. For our entire nature and its environment, all our personal and all our universal self, are full of habits and of influences that are opposed to our spiritual rebirth and work against the whole-heartedness of our endeavour.
In a certain sense we are nothing but a complex mass of mental, nervous and physical habits held together by a few ruling ideas, desires and associations, - an amalgam of many small self-repeating forces with a few major vibrations. What we propose in our Yoga is nothing less than to break up the whole formation of our past and present which makes up the ordinary material and mental man and to create a new centre of vision and a new universe of activities in ourselves which shall constitute a divine humanity or a superhuman nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, [71] [T1],#KEYS
129: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,#KEYS
130:But in the integral conception the Conscious Soul is the Lord, the Nature-Soul is his executive Energy. Purusha is of the nature of Sat, the being of conscious self-existence pure and infinite; Shakti or Prakriti is of the nature of Chit, - it is power of the Purusha's self-conscious existence, pure and infinite. The relation of the two exists between the poles of rest and action. When the Energy is absorbed in the bliss of conscious self-existence, there is rest; when thePurusha pours itself out in the action of its Energy, there is action, creation and the enjoyment or Ananda of becoming. But if Ananda is the creator and begetter of all becoming, its method is Tapas or force of the Purusha's consciousness dwelling upon its own infinite potentiality in existence and producing from it truths of conception or real Ideas, vijnana, which, proceedingfrom an omniscient and omnipotent Self-existence, have the surety of their own fulfilment and contain in themselves the nature and law of their own becoming in the terms of mind, life and matter. The eventual omnipotence of Tapas and the infallible fulfilment of the Idea are the very foundation of all Yoga. In man we render these terms by Will and Faith, - a will that is eventually self-effective because it is of the substance of Knowledge and a faith that is the reflex in the lower consciousness of a Truth or real Idea yet unrealised in the manifestation. It is this self-certainty of the Idea which is meant by the Gita when it says, yo yac-chraddhah sa eva sah, 'whatever is a man's faith or the sure Idea in him, that he becomes.'
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Synthesis of the Systems, 43,#KEYS
131:The Lord has veiled himself and his absolute wisdom and eternal consciousness in ignorant Nature-Force and suffers her to drive the individual being, with its complicity, as the ego; this lower action of Nature continues to prevail, often even in spite of man's half-lit imperfect efforts at a nobler motive and a purer self-knowledge. Our human effort at perfection fails, or progresses very incompletely, owing to the force of Nature's past actions in us, her past formations, her long-rooted associations; it turns towards a true and high-climbing success only when a greater Knowledge and Power than our own breaks through the lid of our ignorance and guides or takes up our personal will. For our human will is a misled and wandering ray that has parted from the supreme Puissance. The period of slow emergence out of this lower working into a higher light and purer force is the valley of the shadow of death for the striver after perfection; it is a dreadful passage full of trials, sufferings, sorrows, obscurations, stumblings, errors, pitfalls. To abridge and alleviate this ordeal or to penetrate it with the divine delight faith is necessary, an increasing surrender of the mind to the knowledge that imposes itself from within and, above all, a true aspiration and a right and unfaltering and sincere practice. "Practise unfalteringly," says the Gita, "with a heart free from despondency," the Yoga; for even though in the earlier stage of the path we drink deep of the bitter poison of internal discord and suffering, the last taste of this cup is the sweetness of the nectar of immortality and the honey-wine of an eternal Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 219, #KEYS
132:Received him in their deathless harmonies.
All things were perfect there that flower in Time;
Beauty was there creation's native mould,
Peace was a thrilled voluptuous purity.
There Love fulfilled her gold and roseate dreams
And Strength her crowned and mighty reveries;
Desire climbed up, a swift omnipotent flame,
And Pleasure had the stature of the gods;
Dream walked along the highways of the stars;
Sweet common things turned into miracles:
Overtaken by the spirit's sudden spell,
Smitten by a divine passion's alchemy,
Pain's self compelled transformed to potent joy
Curing the antithesis twixt heaven and hell.
All life's high visions are embodied there,
Her wandering hopes achieved, her aureate combs
Caught by the honey-eater's darting tongue,
Her burning guesses changed to ecstasied truths,
Her mighty pantings stilled in deathless calm
And liberated her immense desires.
In that paradise of perfect heart and sense
No lower note could break the endless charm
Of her sweetness ardent and immaculate;
Her steps are sure of their intuitive fall.
After the anguish of the soul's long strife
At length were found calm and celestial rest
And, lapped in a magic flood of sorrowless hours,
Healed were his warrior nature's wounded limbs
In the encircling arms of Energies
That brooked no stain and feared not their own bliss.
In scenes forbidden to our pallid sense
Amid miraculous scents and wonder-hues
He met the forms that divinise the sight,
To music that can immortalise the mind
And make the heart wide as infinity
Listened, and captured the inaudible
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Paradise of the Life-Gods,#KEYS
133:In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature.
In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the adhara and, when it is opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana possible. But so long as the lower nature is active the personal effort of the Sadhaka remains necessary.
The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender, -
an aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing - the mind's will, the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature;
rejection of the movements of the lower nature - rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind, - rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being, - rejection of the physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine;
surrender of oneself and all one is and has and every plane of the consciousness and every movement to the Divine and the Shakti.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
134: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, #KEYS
135: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, #KEYS
136: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,#KEYS
137:A distinction has to be firmly seized in our consciousness, the capital distinction between mechanical Nature and the free Lord of Nature, between the Ishwara or single luminous divine Will and the many executive modes and forces of the universe. Nature, - not as she is in her divine Truth, the conscious Power of the Eternal, but as she appears to us in the Ignorance, - is executive Force, mechanical in her steps, not consciously intelligent to our experience of her, although all her works are instinct with an absolute intelligence. Not in herself master, she is full of a self-aware Power which has an infinite mastery and, because of this Power driving her, she rules all and exactly fulfils the work intended in her by the Ishwara. Not enjoying but enjoyed, she bears in herself the burden of all enjoyments. Nature as Prakriti is an inertly active Force, - for she works out a movement imposed upon her; but within her is One that knows,
- some Entity sits there that is aware of all her motion and process. Prakriti works containing the knowledge, the mastery, the delight of the Purusha, the Being associated with her or seated within her; but she can participate in them only by subjection and reflection of that which fills her. Purusha knows and is still and inactive; he contains the action of Prakriti within his consciousness and knowledge and enjoys it. He gives the sanction to Prakriti's works and she works out what is sanctioned by him for his pleasure. Purusha himself does not execute; he maintains Prakriti in her action and allows her to express in energy and process and formed result what he perceives in his knowledge. This is the distinction made by the Sankhyas; and although it is not all the true truth, not in any way the highest truth either of Purusha or of Prakriti, still it is a valid and indispensable practical knowledge in the lower hemisphere of existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
138: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?],#KEYS
139:Shastra is the knowledge and teaching laid down by intuition, experience and wisdom, the science and art and ethic of life, the best standards available to the race. The half-awakened man who leaves the observance of its rule to follow the guidance of his instincts and desires, can get pleasure but not happiness; for the inner happiness can only come by right living. He cannot move to perfection, cannot acquire the highest spiritual status. The law of instinct and desire seems to come first in the animal world, but the manhood of man grows by the pursuit of truth and religion and knowledge and a right life. The Shastra, the recognised Right that he has set up to govern his lower members by his reason and intelligent will, must therefore first be observed and made the authority for conduct and works and for what should or should not be done, till the instinctive desire nature is schooled and abated and put down by the habit of self-control and man is ready first for a freer intelligent self-guidance and then for the highest supreme law and supreme liberty of the spiritual nature.
For the Shastra in its ordinary aspect is not that spiritual law, although at its loftiest point, when it becomes a science and art of spiritual living, Adhyatma-shastra, - the Gita itself describes its own teaching as the highest and most secret Shastra, - it formulates a rule of the self-transcendence of the sattwic nature and develops the discipline which leads to spiritual transmutation. Yet all Shastra is built on a number of preparatory conditions, dharmas; it is a means, not an end. The supreme end is the freedom of the spirit when abandoning all dharmas the soul turns to God for its sole law of action, acts straight from the divine will and lives in the freedom of the divine nature, not in the Law, but in the Spirit. This is the development of the teaching which is prepared by the next question of Arjuna. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays On The Gita,#KEYS
140:A distinction has to be firmly seized in our consciousness, the capital distinction between mechanical Nature and the free Lord of Nature, between the Ishwara or single luminous divine Will and the many executive modes and forces of the universe. Nature, - not as she is in her divine Truth, the conscious Power of the Eternal, but as she appears to us in the Ignorance, - is executive Force, mechanical in her steps, not consciously intelligent to our experience of her, although all her works are instinct with an absolute intelligence. Not in herself master, she is full of a self-aware Power which has an infinite mastery and, because of this Power driving her, she rules all and exactly fulfils the work intended in her by the Ishwara. Not enjoying but enjoyed, she bears in herself the burden of all enjoyments. Nature as Prakriti is an inertly active Force, - for she works out a movement imposed upon her; but within her is One that knows, - some Entity sits there that is aware of all her motion and process. Prakriti works containing the knowledge, the mastery, the delight of the Purusha, the Being associated with her or seated within her; but she can participate in them only by subjection and reflection of that which fills her. Purusha knows and is still and inactive; he contains the action of Prakriti within his consciousness and knowledge and enjoys it. He gives the sanction to Prakriti's works and she works out what is sanctioned by him for his pleasure. Purusha himself does not execute; he maintains Prakriti in her action and allows her to express in energy and process and formed result what he perceives in his knowledge. This is the distinction made by the Sankhyas; and although it is not all the true truth, not in any way the highest truth either of Purusha or of Prakriti, still it is a valid and indispensable practical knowledge in the lower hemisphere of existence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Surrender in Works,#KEYS
141:The most outward psychological form of these things is the mould or trend of the nature towards certain dominant tendencies, capacities, characteristics, form of active power, quality of the mind and inner life, cultural personality or type. The turn is often towards the predominance of the intellectual element and the capacities which make for the seeking and finding of knowledge and an intellectual creation or formativeness and a preoccupation with ideas and the study of ideas or of life and the information and development of the reflective intelligence. According to the grade of the development there is produced successively the make and character of the man of active, open, inquiring intelligence, then the intellectual and, last, the thinker, sage, great mind of knowledge. The soul-powers which make their appearance by a considerable development of this temperament, personality, soul-type, are a mind of light more and more open to all ideas and knowledge and incomings of Truth; a hunger and passion for knowledge, for its growth in ourselves, for its communication to others, for its reign in the world, the reign of reason and right and truth and justice and, on a higher level of the harmony of our greater being, the reign of the spirit and its universal unity and light and love; a power of this light in the mind and will which makes all the life subject to reason and its right and truth or to the spirit and spiritual right and truth and subdues the lower members to their greater law; a poise in the temperament turned from the first to patience, steady musing and calm, to reflection, to meditation, which dominates and quiets the turmoil of the will and passions and makes for high thinking and pure living, founds the self-governed sattwic mind, grows into a more and more mild, lofty, impersonalised and universalised personality. This is the ideal character and soul-power of the Brahmana, the priest of knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 4:15 - Soul-Force and the Fourfold Personality #KEYS
142:mastering the lower self and leverage for the march towards the Divine :::
In proportion as he can thus master and enlighten his lower self, he is man and no longer an animal. When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a still greater enlightened thought and sight and will in touch with the Infinite, consciously subject to a diviner will than his own, linked to a more universal and transcendent knowledge, he has commenced the ascent towards tile superman; he is on his upward march towards the Divine.
It is, then, in the highest mind of thought and light and will or it is in the inner heart of deepest feeling and emotion that we must first centre our consciousness, -- in either of them or, if we are capable, in both together, -- and use that as our leverage to lift the nature wholly towards the Divine. The concentration of an enlightened thought, will and heart turned in unison towards one vast goal of our knowledge, one luminous and infinite source of our action, one imperishable object of our emotion is the starting-point of the Yoga. And the object of our seeking must be the very fount of the Light which is growing in us, the very origin of the Force which we are calling to move our members. Our one objective must be the Divine himself to whom, knowingly or unknowingly, something always aspires in our secret nature. There must be a large, many-sided yet single concentration of the thought on the idea, the perception, the vision, the awakening touch, the soul's realisation of the one Divine. There must be a flaming concentration of the heart on the All and Eternal and, when once we have found him, a deep plunging and immersion in the possession and ecstasy of the All-Beautiful. There must be a strong and immovable concentration of the will on the attainment and fulfilment of all that the Divine is and a free and plastic opening of it to all that he intends to manifest in us. This is the triple way of the Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 80-81,#KEYS
143:WHEN THE GREAT YOGIN Padmasambhava, called by Tibetans Guru Rinpoche, "the precious teacher," embarks on his spiritual journey, he travels from place to place requesting teachings from yogins and yoginls. Guided by visions and dreams, his journey takes him to desolate forests populated with ferocious wild animals, to poison lakes with fortified islands, and to cremation grounds. Wherever he goes he performs miracles, receives empowerments, and ripens his own abilities to benefit others.
When he hears of the supreme queen of all dakinls, the greatly accomplished yogini called Secret Wisdom, he travels to the Sandal Grove cremation ground to the gates of her abode, the Palace of Skulls. He attempts to send a request to the queen with her maidservant Kumari. But the girl ignores him and continues to carry huge brass jugs of water suspended from a heavy yoke across her shoulders. When he presses his request, Kumari continues her labors, remaining silent. The great yogin becomes impatient and, through his yogic powers, magically nails the heavy jugs to the floor. No matter how hard Kumari struggles, she cannot lift them.
Removing the yoke and ropes from her shoulders, she steps before Padmasambhava, exclaiming, "You have developed great yogic powers. What of my powers, great one?" And so saying, she draws a sparkling crystal knife from the girdle at her waist and slices open her heart center, revealing the vivid and vast interior space of her body. Inside she displays to Guru Rinpoche the mandala of deities from the inner tantras: forty-two peaceful deities manifested in her upper torso and head and fifty-eight wrathful deities resting in her lower torso. Abashed that he did not realize with whom he was dealing, Guru Rinpoche bows before her and humbly renews his request for teachings. In response, she offers him her respect as well, adding, "I am only a maidservant," and ushers him in to meet the queen Secret Wisdom. ~ Judith Simmer-Brown, Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism, Introduction: Encountering the Dakini,#KEYS
144:... The first opening is effected by a concentration in the heart, a call to the Divine to manifest within us and through the psychic to take up and lead the whole nature. Aspiration, prayer, bhakti, love, surrender are the main supports of this part of the sadhana - accompanied by a rejection of all that stands in the way of what we aspire for. The second opening is effected by a concentration of the consciousness in the head (afterwards, above it) and an aspiration and call and a sustained will for the descent of the divine Peace, Power, Light, Knowledge, Ananda into the being - the Peace first or the Peace and Force together. Some indeed receive Light first or Ananda first or some sudden pouring down of knowledge. With some there is first an opening which reveals to them a vast infinite Silence, Force, Light or Bliss above them and afterwards either they ascend to that or these things begin to descend into the lower nature. With others there is either the descent, first into the head, then down to the heart level, then to the navel and below and through the whole body, or else an inexplicable opening - without any sense of descent - of peace, light, wideness or power or else a horizontal opening into the cosmic consciousness or, in a suddenly widened mind, an outburst of knowledge. Whatever comes has to be welcomed - for there is no absolute rule for all, - but if the peace has not come first, care must be taken not to swell oneself in exultation or lose the balance. The capital movement however is when the Divine Force or Shakti, the power of the Mother comes down and takes hold, for then the organisation of the consciousness begins and the larger foundation of the Yoga.
The result of the concentration is not usually immediate - though to some there comes a swift and sudden outflowering; but with most there is a time longer or shorter of adaptation or preparation, especially if the nature has not been prepared already to some extent by aspiration and tapasya. ... ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
145:Nati is the submission of the soul to the will of God; its acceptance of all touches as His touches, of all experience as His play with the soul of man. Nati may be with titiksha, feeling the sorrow but accepting it as God's will, or with udasinata, rising superior to it and regarding joy and sorrow equally as God's working in these lower instruments, or with ananda, receiving everything as the play of Krishna and therefore in itself delightful. The last is the state of the complete Yogin, for by this continual joyous or anandamaya namaskara to God constantly practised we arrive eventually at the entire elimination of grief, pain etc, the entire freedom from the dwandwas, and find the Brahmananda in every smallest, most trivial, most apparently discordant detail of life & experience in this human body. We get rid entirely of fear and suffering; Anandam Brahmano vidvan na bibheti kutaschana. We may have to begin with titiksha and udasinata but it is in this ananda that we must consummate the siddhi of samata. The Yogin receives victory and defeat, success and ill-success, pleasure and pain, honour and disgrace with an equal, a sama ananda, first by buddhi-yoga, separating himself from his habitual mental & nervous reactions & insisting by vichara on the true nature of the experience itself and of his own soul which is secretly anandamaya, full of the sama ananda in all things. He comes to change all the ordinary values of experience; amangala reveals itself to him as mangala, defeat & ill-success as the fulfilment of God's immediate purpose and a step towards ultimate victory, grief and pain as concealed and perverse forms of pleasure. A stage arrives even, when physical pain itself, the hardest thing for material man to bear, changes its nature in experience and becomes physical ananda; but this is only at the end when this human being, imprisoned in matter, subjected to mind, emerges from his subjection, conquers his mind and delivers himself utterly in his body, realising his true anandamaya self in every part of the adhara.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Record Of Yoga,#KEYS
146:How often there is a kind of emptiness in the course of life, an unoccupied moment, a few minutes, sometimes more. And what do you do? Immediately you try to distract yourself, and you invent some foolishness or other to pass your time. That is a common fact. All men, from the youngest to the oldest, spend most of their time in trying not to be bored. Their pet aversion is boredom and the way to escape from boredom is to act foolishly.
Well, there is a better way than that - to remember.
When you have a little time, whether it is one hour or a few minutes, tell yourself, "At last, I have some time to concentrate, to collect myself, to relive the purpose of my life, to offer myself to the True and the Eternal." If you took care to do this each time you are not harassed by outer circumstances, you would find out that you were advancing very quickly on the path. Instead of wasting your time in chattering, in doing useless things, reading things that lower the consciousness - to choose only the best cases, I am not speaking of other imbecilities which are much more serious - instead of trying to make yourself giddy, to make time, that is already so short, still shorter only to realise at the end of your life that you have lost three-quarters of your chance - then you want to put in double time, but that does not work - it is better to be moderate, balanced, patient, quiet, but never to lose an opportunity that is given to you, that is to say, to utilise for the true purpose the unoccupied moment before you.
When you have nothing to do, you become restless, you run about, you meet friends, you take a walk, to speak only of the best; I am not referring to things that are obviously not to be done. Instead of that, sit down quietly before the sky, before the sea or under trees, whatever is possible (here you have all of them) and try to realise one of these things - to understand why you live, to learn how you must live, to ponder over what you want to do and what should be done, what is the best way of escaping from the ignorance and falsehood and pain in which you live. 16 May 1958
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
147:The Absolute is beyond personality and beyond impersonality, and yet it is both the Impersonal and the supreme Person and all persons. The Absolute is beyond the distinction of unity and multiplicity, and yet it is the One and the innumerable Many in all the universes. It is beyond all limitation by quality and yet it is not limited by a qualityless void but is too all infinite qualities. It is the individual soul and all souls and more of them; it is the formless Brahman and the universe. It is the cosmic and the supracosmic spirit, the supreme Lord, the supreme Self, the supreme Purusha and supreme shakti, the Ever Unborn who is endlessly born, the Infinite who is innumerably finite, the multitudinous One, the complex Simple, the many-sided Single, the Word of the Silence Ineffable, the impersonal omnipresent Person, the Mystery, translucent in highest consciousness to its own spirit, but to a lesser consciousness veiled in its own exceeding light and impenetrable for ever. These things are to the dimensional mind irreconcilable opposites, but to the constant vision and experience of the supramental Truth-Consciousness they are so simply and inevitably the intrinsic nature of each other that even to think of them as contraries is an unimaginable violence. The walls constructed by the measuring and separating Intellect have disappeared and the Truth in its simplicity and beauty appears and reduces all to terms of its harmony and unity and light. Dimensions and distinctions remain but as figures for use, not a separative prison for the self-forgetting Spirit.
2:In the ordinary Yoga of knowledge it is only necessary to recognise two planes of our consciousness, the spiritual and the materialised mental; the pure reason standing between these two views them both, cuts through the illusions of the phenomenal world, exceeds the materialised mental plane, sees the reality of the spiritual; and then the will of the individual Purusha unifying itself with this poise of knowledge rejects the lower and draws back to the supreme plane, dwells there, loses mind and body, sheds life from it and merges itself in the supreme Purusha, is delivered from individual existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, 2.01 - The Object of Knowledge,#KEYS
148:The general characteristics and attributions of these Grades are indicated by their correspondences on the Tree of Life, as may be studied in detail in the Book 777.
Student. -- His business is to acquire a general intellectual knowledge of all systems of attainment, as declared in the prescribed books. (See curriculum in Appendix I.) {231}
Probationer. -- His principal business is to begin such practices as he my prefer, and to write a careful record of the same for one year.
Neophyte. -- Has to acquire perfect control of the Astral Plane.
Zelator. -- His main work is to achieve complete success in Asana and Pranayama. He also begins to study the formula of the Rosy Cross.
Practicus. -- Is expected to complete his intellectual training, and in particular to study the Qabalah.
Philosophus. -- Is expected to complete his moral training. He is tested in Devotion to the Order.
Dominus Liminis. -- Is expected to show mastery of Pratyahara and Dharana.
Adeptus (without). -- is expected to perform the Great Work and to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
Adeptus (within). -- Is admitted to the practice of the formula of the Rosy Cross on entering the College of the Holy Ghost.
Adeptus (Major). -- Obtains a general mastery of practical Magick, though without comprehension.
Adeptus (Exemptus). -- Completes in perfection all these matters. He then either ("a") becomes a Brother of the Left Hand Path or, ("b") is stripped of all his attainments and of himself as well, even of his Holy Guardian Angel, and becomes a babe of the Abyss, who, having transcended the Reason, does nothing but grow in the womb of its mother. It then finds itself a
Magister Templi. -- (Master of the Temple): whose functions are fully described in Liber 418, as is this whole initiation from Adeptus Exemptus. See also "Aha!". His principal business is to tend his "garden" of disciples, and to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. He is a Master of Samadhi. {232}
Magus. -- Attains to wisdom, declares his law (See Liber I, vel Magi) and is a Master of all Magick in its greatest and highest sense.
Ipsissimus. -- Is beyond all this and beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#KEYS
149: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,#KEYS
150:But this is not always the manner of the commencement. The sadhaka is often led gradually and there is a long space between the first turning of the mind and the full assent of the nature to the thing towards which it turns. There may at first be only a vivid intellectual interest, a forcible attraction towards the idea and some imperfect form of practice. Or perhaps there is an effort not favoured by the whole nature, a decision or a turn imposed by an intellectual influence or dictated by personal affection and admiration for someone who is himself consecrated and devoted to the Highest. In such cases, a long period of preparation may be necessary before there comes the irrevocable consecration; and in some instances it may not come. There may be some advance, there may be a strong effort, even much purification and many experiences other than those that are central or supreme; but the life will either be spent in preparation or, a certain stage having been reached, the mind pushed by an insufficient driving-force may rest content at the limit of the effort possible to it. Or there may even be a recoil to the lower life, - what is called in the ordinary parlance of Yoga a fall from the path. This lapse happens because there is a defect at the very centre. The intellect has been interested, the heart attracted, the will has strung itself to the effort, but the whole nature has not been taken captive by the Divine. It has only acquiesced in the interest, the attraction or the endeavour. There has been an experiment, perhaps even an eager experiment, but not a total self-giving to an imperative need of the soul or to an unforsakable ideal. Even such imperfect Yoga has not been wasted; for no upward effort is made in vain. Even if it fails in the present or arrives only at some preparatory stage or preliminary realisation, it has yet determined the soul's future.
But if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not as an important part of life, but as the whole of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,#KEYS
151:But even before that highest approach to identity is achieved, something of the supreme Will can manifest in us as an imperative impulsion, a God-driven action; we then act by a spontaneous self-determining Force but a fuller knowledge of meaning and aim arises only afterwards. Or the impulse to action may come as an inspiration or intuition, but rather in the heart and body than in the mind; here an effective sight enters in but the complete and exact knowledge is still deferred and comes, if at all, lateR But the divine Will may descend too as a luminous single command or a total perception or a continuous current of perception of what is to be done into the will or into the thought or as a direction from above spontaneously fulfilled by the lower members. When the Yoga is imperfect, only some actions can be done in this way, or else a general action may so proceed but only during periods of exaltation and illumination. When the Yoga is perfect, all action becomes of this character. We may indeed distinguish three stages of a growing progress by which, first, the personal will is occasionally or frequently enlightened or moved by a supreme Will or conscious Force beyond it, then constantly replaced and, last, identified and merged in that divine Power-action. The first is the stage when we are still governed by the intellect, heart and senses; these have to seek or wait for the divine inspiration and guidance and do not always find or receive it. The second is the stage when human intelligence is more and more replaced by a high illumined or intuitive spiritualised mind, the external human heart by the inner psychic heart, the senses by a purified and selfless vital force. The third is the stage when we rise even above spiritualised mind to the supramental levels. In all three stages the fundamental character of the liberated action is the same, a spontaneous working of Prakriti no longer through or for the ego but at the will and for the enjoyment of the supreme Purusha. At a higher level this becomes the Truth of the absolute and universal Supreme expressed through the individual soul and worked out consciously through the nature, - no longer through a half-perception and a diminished or distorted effectuation by the stumbling, ignorant and all-deforming energy of lower nature in us but by the all-wise transcendent and universal Mother. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 218, #KEYS
152:Countless books on divination, astrology, medicine and other subjects
Describe ways to read signs. They do add to your learning,
But they generate new thoughts and your stable attention breaks up.
Cut down on this kind of knowledge - that's my sincere advice.
You stop arranging your usual living space,
But make everything just right for your retreat.
This makes little sense and just wastes time.
Forget all this - that's my sincere advice.
You make an effort at practice and become a good and knowledgeable person.
You may even master some particular capabilities.
But whatever you attach to will tie you up.
Be unbiased and know how to let things be - that's my sincere advice.
You may think awakened activity means to subdue skeptics
By using sorcery, directing or warding off hail or lightning, for example.
But to burn the minds of others will lead you to lower states.
Keep a low profile - that's my sincere advice.
Maybe you collect a lot of important writings,
Major texts, personal instructions, private notes, whatever.
If you haven't practiced, books won't help you when you die.
Look at the mind - that's my sincere advice.
When you focus on practice, to compare understandings and experience,
Write books or poetry, to compose songs about your experience
Are all expressions of your creativity. But they just give rise to thinking.
Keep yourself free from intellectualization - that's my sincere advice.
In these difficult times you may feel that it is helpful
To be sharp and critical with aggressive people around you.
This approach will just be a source of distress and confusion for you.
Speak calmly - that's my sincere advice.
Intending to be helpful and without personal investment,
You tell your friends what is really wrong with them.
You may have been honest but your words gnaw at their heart.
Speak pleasantly - that's my sincere advice.
You engage in discussions, defending your views and refuting others'
Thinking that you are clarifying the teachings.
But this just gives rise to emotional posturing.
Keep quiet - that's my sincere advice.
You feel that you are being loyal
By being partial to your teacher, lineage or philosophical tradition.
Boosting yourself and putting down others just causes hard feelings.
Have nothing to do with all this - that's my sincere advice.
~ Longchenpa, excerpts from 30 Pieces of Sincere Advice
,#KEYS
153: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, #KEYS
154:
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,#KEYS
155:Vijnana, true ideation, called ritam, truth or vedas, knowledge in the Vedas, acts in human mind by four separate functions; revelation, termed drishti, sight; inspiration termed sruti,hearing; and the two faculties of discernment, smriti, memory,which are intuition, termed ketu, and discrimination, termed daksha, division, or viveka, separation. By drishti we see ourselves the truth face to face, in its own form, nature or self-existence; by sruti we hear the name, sound or word by which the truth is expressed & immediately suggested to the knowledge; by ketu we distinguish a truth presented to us behind a veil whether of result or process, as Newton discovered the law of gravitation hidden behind the fall of the apple; by viveka we distinguish between various truths and are able to put them in their right place, order and relation to each other, or, if presented with mingled truth & error, separate the truth from the falsehood. Agni Jatavedas is termed in the Veda vivichi, he who has the viveka, who separates truth from falsehood; but this is only a special action of the fourth ideal faculty & in its wider scope, it is daksha, that which divides & rightly distributes truth in its multiform aspects. The ensemble of the four faculties is Vedas or divine knowledge. When man is rising out of the limited & error-besieged mental principle, the faculty most useful to him, most indispensable is daksha or viveka. Drishti of Vijnana transmuted into terms of mind has become observation, sruti appears as imagination, intuition as intelligent perception, viveka as reasoning & intellectual judgment and all of these are liable to the constant touch of error. Human buddhi, intellect, is a distorted shadow of the true ideative faculties. As we return from these shadows to their ideal substance viveka or daksha must be our constant companion; for viveka alone can get rid of the habit of mental error, prevent observation being replaced by false illumination, imagination by false inspiration, intelligence by false intuition, judgment & reason by false discernment. The first sign of human advance out of the anritam of mind to the ritam of the ideal faculty is the growing action of a luminous right discernment which fixes instantly on the truth, feels instantly the presence of error. The fullness, the manhana of this viveka is the foundation & safeguard of Ritam or Vedas. The first great movement of Agni Jatavedas is to transform by the divine will in mental activity his lower smoke-covered activity into the bright clearness & fullness of the ideal discernment. Agne adbhuta kratw a dakshasya manhana.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, 717,#KEYS
156: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,#KEYS
157:root of the falsification and withdrawl of divine love :::
At every moment they are moved to take egoistic advantage of the psychic and spiritual influences and can be detected using the power, joy or light these bring into us for a lower life-motive. Afterwards too, even when the seeker has opened to the Divine Love transcendental, universal or immanent, yet if he tries to pour it into life, he meets the power of obscuration and perversion of these lower Nature-forces. Always they draw away towards pitfalls, pour into that higher intensity their diminishing elements, seek to capture the descending Power for themselves and their interests and degrade it into an aggrandised mental, vital or physical instrumentation for desire and ego. Instead of a Divine Love creator of a new heaven and a new earth of Truth and Light, they would hold it here prisoner as a tremendous sanction and glorifying force of sublimation to gild the mud of the old earth and colour with its rose and sapphire the old turbid unreal skies of sentimentalising vital imagination and mental idealised chimera. If that falsification is permitted, the higher Light and Power and Bliss withdraw, there is a fall back to a lower status; or else the realisation remains tied to an insecure half-way and mixture or is covered and even submerged by an inferior exaltation that is not the true Ananda. It is for this reason that Divine Love which is at the heart of all creation and the most powerful of all redeeming and creative forces has yet been the least frontally present in earthly life, the least successfully redemptive, the least creative. Human nature has been unable to bear it in its purity for the very reason that it is the most powerful, pure, rare and intense of all the divine energies; what little could be seized has been corrupted at once into a vital pietistic ardour, a defenceless religious or ethical sentimentalism, a sensuous or even sensual erotic mysticism of the roseate coloured mind or passionately turbid life-impulse and with these simulations compensated its inability to house the Mystic Flame that could rebuild the world with its tongues of sacrifice. It is only the inmost psychic being unveiled and emerging in its full power that can lead the pilgrim sacrifice unscathed through these ambushes and pitfalls; at each moment it catches, exposes, repels the mind's and the life's falsehoods, seizes hold on the truth of the Divine Love and Ananda and separates it from the excitement of the mind's ardours and the blind enthusiasms of the misleading life-force. But all things that are true at their core in mind and life and the physical being it extricates and takes with it in the journey till they stand on the heights, new in spirit and sublime in figure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 166,#KEYS
158:What do we understand by the term "chance"? Chance can only be the opposite of order and harmony. There is only one true harmony and that is the supramental - the reign of Truth, the expression of the Divine Law. In the Supermind, therefore, chance has no place. But in the lower Nature the supreme Truth is obscured: hence there is an absence of that divine unity of purpose and action which alone can constitute order. Lacking this unity, the domain of lower Nature is governed by what we may call chance - that is to say, it is a field in which various conflicting forces intermix, having no single definite aim. Whatever arises out of such a rushing together of forces is a result of confusion, dissonance and falsehood - a product of chance. Chance is not merely a conception to cover our ignorance of the causes at work; it is a description of the uncertain mele ́e of the lower Nature which lacks the calm one-pointedness of the divine Truth. The world has forgotten its divine origin and become an arena of egoistic energies; but it is still possible for it to open to the Truth, call it down by its aspiration and bring about a change in the whirl of chance. What men regard as a mechanical sequence of events, owing to their own mental associations, experiences and generalisations, is really manipulated by subtle agencies each of which tries to get its own will done. The world has got so subjected to these undivine agencies that the victory of the Truth cannot be won except by fighting for it. It has no right to it: it has to gain it by disowning the falsehood and the perversion, an important part of which is the facile notion that, since all things owe their final origin to the Divine, all their immediate activities also proceed directly from it. The fact is that here in the lower Nature the Divine is veiled by a cosmic Ignorance and what takes place does not proceed directly from the divine knowledge. That everything is equally the will of God is a very convenient suggestion of the hostile influences which would have the creation stick as tightly as possible to the disorder and ugliness to which it has been reduced. So what is to be done, you ask? Well, call down the Light, open yourselves to the power of Transformation. Innumerable times the divine peace has been given to you and as often you have lost it - because something in you refuses to surrender its petty egoistic routine. If you are not always vigilant, your nature will return to its old unregenerate habits even after it has been filled with the descending Truth. It is the struggle between the old and the new that forms the crux of the Yoga; but if you are bent on being faithful to the supreme Law and Order revealed to you, the parts of your being belonging to the domain of chance will, however slowly, be converted and divinised. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #KEYS
159: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,#KEYS
160: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,#KEYS
161:[desire and its divine form:]
Into all our endeavour upward the lower element of desire will at first naturally enter. For what the enlightened will sees as the thing to be done and pursues as the crown to be conquered, what the heart embraces as the one thing delightful, that in us which feels itself limited and opposed and, because it is limited, craves and struggles, will seek with the troubled passion of an egoistic desire. This craving life-force or desire-soul in us has to be accepted at first, but only in order that it may be transformed. Even from the very beginning it has to be taught to renounce all other desires and concentrate itself on the passion for the Divine. This capital point gained, it has to be aught to desire, not for its own separate sake, but for God in the world and for the Divine in ourselves; it has to fix itself upon no personal spiritual gain, though of all possible spiritual gains we are sure, but on the great work to be done in us and others, on the high coming manifestation which is to be the glorious fulfilment of the Divine in the world, on the Truth that has to be sought and lived and enthroned for eveR But last, most difficult for it, more difficult than to seek with the right object, it has to be taught to seek in the right manner; for it must learn to desire, not in its own egoistic way, but in the way of the Divine. It must insist no longer, as the strong separative will always insists, on its own manner of fulfilment, its own dream of possession, its own idea of the right and the desirable; it must yearn to fulfil a larger and greater Will and consent to wait upon a less interested and ignorant guidance. Thus trained, Desire, that great unquiet harasser and troubler of man and cause of every kind of stumbling, will become fit to be transformed into its divine counterpart. For desire and passion too have their divine forms; there is a pure ecstasy of the soul's seeking beyond all craving and grief, there is a Will of Ananda that sits glorified in the possession of the supreme beatitudes.
When once the object of concentration has possessed and is possessed by the three master instruments, the thought, the heart and the will,-a consummation fully possible only when the desire-soul in us has submitted to the Divine Law,-the perfection of mind and life and body can be effectively fulfilled in our transmuted nature. This will be done, not for the personal satisfaction of the ego, but that the whole may constitute a fit temple for the Divine Presence, a faultless instrument for the divine work. For that work can be truly performed only when the instrument, consecrated and perfected, has grown fit for a selfless action,-and that will be when personal desire and egoism are abolished, but not the liberated individual. Even when the little ego has been abolished, the true spiritual Person can still remain and God's will and work and delight in him and the spiritual use of his perfection and fulfilment. Our works will then be divine and done divinely; our mind and life and will, devoted to the Divine, will be used to help fulfil in others and in the world that which has been first realised in ourselves,- all that we can manifest of the embodied Unity, Love, Freedom, Strength, Power, Splendour, immortal Joy which is the goal of the Spirit's terrestrial adventure.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration [83] [T1],#KEYS
162:But there's a reason. There's a reason. There's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never gonna get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don't want: They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. Thats against their interests. Thats right. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table to figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don't want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you, sooner or later, 'cause they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people -- white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on -- good honest hard-working people continue -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't care about you at all -- at all -- at all. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on; the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday. Because the owners of this country know the truth: it's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it. ~ George Carlin, #KEYS
163: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],#KEYS
164:
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,#KEYS
165:In the process of this change there must be by the very necessity of the effort two stages of its working. First, there will be the personal endeavour of the human being, as soon as he becomes aware by his soul, mind, heart of this divine possibility and turns towards it as the true object of life, to prepare himself for it and to get rid of all in him that belongs to a lower working, of all that stands in the way of his opening to the spiritual truth and its power, so as to possess by this liberation his spiritual being and turn all his natural movements into free means of its self-expression. It is by this turn that the self-conscious Yoga aware of its aim begins: there is a new awakening and an upward change of the life motive. So long as there is only an intellectual, ethical and other self-training for the now normal purposes of life which does not travel beyond the ordinary circle of working of mind, life and body, we are still only in the obscure and yet unillumined preparatory Yoga of Nature; we are still in pursuit of only an ordinary human perfection. A spiritual desire of the Divine and of the divine perfection, of a unity with him in all our being and a spiritual perfection in all our nature, is the effective sign of this change, the precursory power of a great integral conversion of our being and living. By personal effort a precursory change, a preliminary conversion can be effected; it amounts to a greater or less spiritualising of our mental motives, our character and temperament, and a mastery, stilling or changed action of the vital and physical life. This converted subjectivity can be made the base of some communion or unity of the soul in mind with the Divine and some partial reflection of the divine nature in the mentality of the human being. That is as far as man can go by his unaided or indirectly aided effort, because that is an effort of mind and mind cannot climb beyond itself permanently: at most it arises to a spiritualised and idealised mentality. If it shoots up beyond that border, it loses hold of itself, loses hold of life, and arrives either at a trance of absorption or a passivity. A greater perfection can only be arrived at by a higher power entering in and taking up the whole action of the being. The second stage of this Yoga will therefore be a persistent giving up of all the action of the nature into the hands of this greater Power, a substitution of its influence, possession and working for the personal effort, until the Divine to whom we aspire becomes the direct master of the Yoga and effects the entire spiritual and ideal conversion of the being. Two rules there are that will diminish the difficulty and obviate the danger. One must reject all that comes from the ego, from vital desire, from the mere mind and its presumptuous reasoning incompetence, all that ministers to these agents of the Ignorance. One must learn to hear and follow the voice of the inmost soul, the direction of the Guru, the command of the Master, the working of the Divine Mother. Whoever clings to the desires and weaknesses of the flesh, the cravings and passions of the vital in its turbulent ignorance, the dictates of his personal mind unsilenced and unillumined by a greater knowledge, cannot find the true inner law and is heaping obstacles in the way of the divine fulfilment. Whoever is able to detect and renounce those obscuring agencies and to discern and follow the true Guide within and without will discover the spiritual law and reach the goal of the Yoga. A radical and total change of consciousness is not only the whole meaning but, in an increasing force and by progressive stages, the whole method of the integral Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Integral Perfection [618],#KEYS
166:The true Mantra must come from within OR it must be given by a Guru
Nobody can give you the true mantra. It's not something that is given; it's something that wells up from within. It must spring from within all of a sudden, spontaneously, like a profound, intense need of your being - then it has power, because it's not something that comes from outside, it's your very own cry.
I saw, in my case, that my mantra has the power of immortality; whatever happens, if it is uttered, it's the Supreme that has the upper hand, it's no longer the lower law. And the words are irrelevant, they may not have any meaning - to someone else, my mantra is meaningless, but to me it's full, packed with meaning. And effective, because it's my cry, the intense aspiration of my whole being.
A mantra given by a guru is only the power to realize the experience of the discoverer of the mantra. The power is automatically there, because the sound contains the experience. I saw that once in Paris, at a time when I knew nothing of India, absolutely nothing, only the usual nonsense. I didn't even know what a mantra was. I had gone to a lecture given by some fellow who was supposed to have practiced "yoga" for a year in the Himalayas and recounted his experience (none too interesting, either). All at once, in the course of his lecture, he uttered the sound OM. And I saw the entire room suddenly fill with light, a golden, vibrating light.... I was probably the only one to notice it. I said to myself, "Well!" Then I didn't give it any more thought, I forgot about the story. But as it happened, the experience recurred in two or three different countries, with different people, and every time there was the sound OM, I would suddenly see the place fill with that same light. So I understood. That sound contains the vibration of thousands and thousands of years of spiritual aspiration - there is in it the entire aspiration of men towards the Supreme. And the power is automatically there, because the experience is there.
It's the same with my mantra. When I wanted to translate the end of my mantra, "Glory to You, O Lord," into Sanskrit, I asked for Nolini's help. He brought his Sanskrit translation, and when he read it to me, I immediately saw that the power was there - not because Nolini put his power into it (!), God knows he had no intention of "giving" me a mantra! But the power was there because my experience was there. We made a few adjustments and modifications, and that's the japa I do now - I do it all the time, while sleeping, while walking, while eating, while working, all the time.[[Mother later clarified: "'Glory to You, O Lord' isn't MY mantra, it's something I ADDED to it - my mantra is something else altogether, that's not it. When I say that my mantra has the power of immortality, I mean the other, the one I don't speak of! I have never given the words.... You see, at the end of my walk, a kind of enthusiasm rises, and with that enthusiasm, the 'Glory to You' came to me, but it's part of the prayer I had written in Prayers and Meditations: 'Glory to You, O Lord, all-triumphant Supreme' etc. (it's a long prayer). It came back suddenly, and as it came back spontaneously, I kept it. Moreover, when Sri Aurobindo read this prayer in Prayers and Meditations, he told me it was very strong. So I added this phrase as a kind of tail to my japa. But 'Glory to You, O Lord' isn't my spontaneous mantra - it came spontaneously, but it was something written very long ago. The two things are different."
And that's how a mantra has life: when it wells up all the time, spontaneously, like the cry of your being - there is no need of effort or concentration: it's your natural cry. Then it has full power, it is alive. It must well up from within.... No guru can give you that. ~ The Mother, Agenda, May 11 1963,#KEYS
167::::
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,#KEYS
168:STAGE TWO: THE CHONYID
The Chonyid is the period of the appearance of the peaceful and wrathful deities-that is to say, the subtle realm, the Sambhogakaya. When the Clear Light of the causal realm is resisted and contracted against, then that Reality is transformed into the primordial seed forms of the peaceful deities (ishtadevas of the subtle sphere), and these in turn, if resisted and denied, are transformed into the wrathful deities.
The peaceful deities appear first: through seven successive substages, there appear various forms of the tathagatas, dakinis, and vidyadharas, all accompanied by the most dazzlingly brilliant colors and aweinspiring suprahuman sounds. One after another, the divine visions, lights, and subtle luminous sounds cascade through awareness. They are presented, given, to the individual openly, freely, fully, and completely: visions of God in almost painful intensity and brilliance.
How the individual handles these divine visions and sounds (nada) is of the utmost significance, because each divine scenario is accompanied by a much less intense vision, by a region of relative dullness and blunted illuminations. These concomitant dull and blunted visions represent the first glimmerings of the world of samsara, of the six realms of egoic grasping, of the dim world of duality and fragmentation and primitive forms of low-level unity.
According to the Thotrol. most individuals simply recoil in the face of these divine illuminations- they contract into less intense and more manageable forms of experience. Fleeing divine illumination, they glide towards the fragmented-and thus less intense-realm of duality and multiplicity. But it's not just that they recoil against divinity-it is that they are attracted to the lower realms, drawn to them, and find satisfaction in them. The Thotrol says they are actually "attracted to the impure lights." As we have put it, these lower realms are substitute gratifications. The individual thinks that they are just what he wants, these lower realms of denseness. But just because these realms are indeed dimmer and less intense, they eventually prove to be worlds without bliss, without illumination, shot through with pain and suffering. How ironic: as a substitute for God, individuals create and latch onto Hell, known as samsara, maya, dismay. In Christian theology it is said that the flames of Hell are God's love (Agape) denied.
Thus the message is repeated over and over again in the Chonyid stage: abide in the lights of the Five Wisdoms and subtle tathagatas, look not at the duller lights of samsara. of the six realms, of safe illusions and egoic dullness. As but one example:
Thereupon, because of the power of bad karma, the glorious blue light of the Wisdom of the Dharmadhatu will produce in thee fear and terror, and thou wilt wish to flee from it. Thou wilt begat a fondness for the dull white light of the devas [one of the lower realms].
At this stage, thou must not be awed by the divine blue light which will appear shining, dazzling, and glorious; and be not startled by it. That is the light of the Tathagata called the Light of the Wisdom of the Dharmadhatu.
Be not fond of the dull white light of the devas. Be not attached to it; be not weak. If thou be attached to it, thou wilt wander into the abodes of the devas and be drawn into the whirl of the Six Lokas.
The point is this: ''If thou are frightened by the pure radiances of Wisdom and attracted by the impure lights of the Six Lokas [lower realms], then thou wilt assume a body in any of the Six Lokas and suffer samsaric miseries; and thou wilt never be emancipated from the Ocean of Samsara, wherein thou wilt be whirled round and round and made to taste the sufferings thereof."
But here is what is happening: in effect, we are seeing the primal and original form of the Atman project in its negative and contracting aspects. In this second stage (the Chonyid), there is already some sort of boundary in awareness, there is already some sort of subject-object duality superimposed upon the original Wholeness and Oneness of the Chikhai Dharmakaya. So now there is boundary-and wherever there is boundary, there is the Atman project. ~ Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, 129,#KEYS
169:I have never been able to share your constantly recurring doubts about your capacity or the despair that arises in you so violently when there are these attacks, nor is their persistent recurrence a valid ground for believing that they can never be overcome. Such a persistent recurrence has been a feature in the sadhana of many who have finally emerged and reached the goal; even the sadhana of very great Yogis has not been exempt from such violent and constant recurrences; they have sometimes been special objects of such persistent assaults, as I have indeed indicated in Savitri in more places than one - and that was indeed founded on my own experience. In the nature of these recurrences there is usually a constant return of the same adverse experiences, the same adverse resistance, thoughts destructive of all belief and faith and confidence in the future of the sadhana, frustrating doubts of what one has known as the truth, voices of despondency and despair, urgings to abandonment of the Yoga or to suicide or else other disastrous counsels of déchéance. The course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they have strong family resemblance. One can eventually overcome if one begins to realise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of observing them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf, finally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and refusing the mind's sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl or the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions. In the end these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature; the recurrence becomes feeble or has no power to last: even, if the detachment is strong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once. The strongest attitude to take is to regard these things as what they really are, incursions of dark forces from outside taking advantage of certain openings in the physical mind or the vital part, but not a real part of oneself or spontaneous creation in one's own nature. To create a confusion and darkness in the physical mind and throw into it or awake in it mistaken ideas, dark thoughts, false impressions is a favourite method of these assailants, and if they can get the support of this mind from over-confidence in its own correctness or the natural rightness of its impressions and inferences, then they can have a field day until the true mind reasserts itself and blows the clouds away. Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense of grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or rankling as long as possible. In that case one has to discover these openings in one's nature and learn to close them permanently to such attacks or else to throw out intruders at once or as soon as possible. The recurrence is no proof of a fundamental incapacity; if one takes the right inner attitude, it can and will be overcome. The idea of suicide ought never to be accepted; there is no real ground for it and in any case it cannot be a remedy or a real escape: at most it can only be postponement of difficulties and the necessity for their solution under no better circumstances in another life. One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time he conceals himself, and then in his own right time he will reveal his Presence.
I have tried to dispel all the misconceptions, explain things as they are and meet all the points at issue. It is not that you really cannot make progress or have not made any progress; on the contrary, you yourself have admitted that you have made a good advance in many directions and there is no reason why, if you persevere, the rest should not come. You have always believed in the Guruvada: I would ask you then to put your faith in the Guru and the guidance and rely on the Ishwara for the fulfilment, to have faith in my abiding love and affection, in the affection and divine goodwill and loving kindness of the Mother, stand firm against all attacks and go forward perseveringly towards the spiritual goal and the all-fulfilling and all-satisfying touch of the All-Blissful, the Ishwara.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
170:All Yoga is a turning of the human mind and the human soul, not yet divine in realisation, but feeling the divine impulse and attraction in it, towards that by which it finds its greater being. Emotionally, the first form which this turning takes must be that of adoration. In ordinary religion this adoration wears the form of external worship and that again develops a most external form of ceremonial worship. This element is ordinarily necessary because the mass of men live in their physical minds, cannot realise anything except by the force of a physical symbol and cannot feel that they are living anything except by the force of a physical action. We might apply here the Tantric gradation of sadhana, which makes the way of the pasu, the herd, the animal or physical being, the lowest stage of its discipline, and say that the purely or predominantly ceremonial adoration is the first step of this lowest part of the way. It is evident that even real religion, - and Yoga is something more than religion, - only begins when this quite outward worship corresponds to something really felt within the mind, some genuine submission, awe or spiritual aspiration, to which it becomes an aid, an outward expression and also a sort of periodical or constant reminder helping to draw back the mind to it from the preoccupations of ordinary life. But so long as it is only an idea of the Godhead to which one renders reverence or homage, we have not yet got to the beginning of Yoga. The aim of Yoga being union, its beginning must always be a seeking after the Divine, a longing after some kind of touch, closeness or possession. When this comes on us, the adoration becomes always primarily an inner worship; we begin to make ourselves a temple of the Divine, our thoughts and feelings a constant prayer of aspiration and seeking, our whole life an external service and worship. It is as this change, this new soul-tendency grows, that the religion of the devotee becomes a Yoga, a growing contact and union. It does not follow that the outward worship will necessarily be dispensed with, but it will increasingly become only a physical expression or outflowing of the inner devotion and adoration, the wave of the soul throwing itself out in speech and symbolic act.
Adoration, before it turns into an element of the deeper Yoga of devotion, a petal of the flower of love, its homage and self-uplifting to its sun, must bring with it, if it is profound, an increasing consecration of the being to the Divine who is adored. And one element of this consecration must be a self-purifying so as to become fit for the divine contact, or for the entrance of the Divine into the temple of our inner being, or for his selfrevelation in the shrine of the heart. This purifying may be ethical in its character, but it will not be merely the moralist's seeking for the right and blameless action or even, when once we reach the stage of Yoga, an obedience to the law of God as revealed in formal religion; but it will be a throwing away, katharsis, of all that conflicts whether with the idea of the Divine in himself or of the Divine in ourselves. In the former case it becomes in habit of feeling and outer act an imitation of the Divine, in the latter a growing into his likeness in our nature. What inner adoration is to ceremonial worship, this growing into the divine likeness is to the outward ethical life. It culminates in a sort of liberation by likeness to the Divine,1 a liberation from our lower nature and a change into the divine nature.
Consecration becomes in its fullness a devoting of all our being to the Divine; therefore also of all our thoughts and our works. Here the Yoga takes into itself the essential elements of the Yoga of works and the Yoga of knowledge, but in its own manner and with its own peculiar spirit. It is a sacrifice of life and works to the Divine, but a sacrifice of love more than a tuning of the will to the divine Will. The bhakta offers up his life and all that he is and all that he has and all that he does to the Divine. This surrender may take the ascetic form, as when he leaves the ordinary life of men and devotes his days solely to prayer ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Way of Devotion, 571 [T1],#KEYS
171:To arrive then at this settled divine status must be the object of our concentration. The first step in concentration must be always to accustom the discursive mind to a settled unwavering pursuit of a single course of connected thought on a single subject and this it must do undistracted by all lures and alien calls on its attention. Such concentration is common enough in our ordinary life, but it becomes more difficult when we have to do it inwardly without any outward object or action on which to keep the mind; yet this inward concentration is what the seeker of knowledge must effect. Nor must it be merely the consecutive thought of the intellectual thinker, whose only object is to conceive and intellectually link together his conceptions. It is not, except perhaps at first, a process of reasoning that is wanted so much as a dwelling so far as possible on the fruitful essence of the idea which by the insistence of the soul's will upon it must yield up all the facets of its truth. Thus if it be the divine Love that is the subject of concentration, it is on the essence of the idea of God as Love that the mind should concentrate in such a way that the various manifestation of the divine Love should arise luminously, not only to the thought, but in the heart and being and vision of the Sadhaka. The thought may come first and the experience afterwards, but equally the experience may come first and the knowledge arise out of the experience. Afterwards the thing attained has to be dwelt on and more and more held till it becomes a constant experience and finally the Dharma or law of the being.
This is the process of concentrated meditation; but a more strenuous method is the fixing of the whole mind in concentration on the essence of the idea only, so as to reach not the thought-knowledge or the psychological experience of the subject, but the very essence of the thing behind the idea. In this process thought ceases and passes into the absorbed or ecstatic contemplation of the object or by a merging into it m an inner Samadhi. If this be the process followed, then subsequently the state into which we rise must still be called down to take possession of the lower being, to shed its light, power and bliss on our ordinary consciousness. For otherwise we may possess it, as many do, in the elevated condition or in the inward Samadhi, but we shall lose our hold of it when we awake or descend into the contacts of the world; and this truncated possession is not the aim of an integral Yoga.
A third process is neither at first to concentrate in a strenuous meditation on the one subject nor in a strenuous contemplation of the one object of thought-vision, but first to still the mind altogether. This may be done by various ways; one is to stand back from the mental action altogether not participating in but simply watching it until, tired of its unsanctioned leaping and running, it falls into an increasing and finally an absolute quiet. Another is to reject the thought-suggestions, to cast them away from the mind whenever they come and firmly hold to the peace of the being which really and always exists behind the trouble and riot of the mind. When this secret peace is unveiled, a great calm settles on the being and there comes usually with it the perception and experience of the all-pervading silent Brahman, everything else at first seeming to be mere form and eidolon. On the basis of this calm everything else may be built up in the knowledge and experience no longer of the external phenomena of things but of the deeper truth of the divine manifestation.
Ordinarily, once this state is obtained, strenuous concentration will be found no longer necessary. A free concentration of will using thought merely for suggestion and the giving of light to the lower members will take its place. This Will will then insist on the physical being, the vital existence, the heart and the mind remoulding themselves in the forms of the Divine which reveal themselves out of the silent Brahman. By swifter or slower degrees according to the previous preparation and purification of the members, they will be obliged with more or less struggle to obey the law of the will and its thought-suggestion, so that eventually the knowledge of the Divine takes possession of our consciousness on all its planes and the image of the Divine is formed in our human existence even as it was done by the old Vedic Sadhakas. For the integral Yoga this is the most direct and powerful discipline.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Concentration,#KEYS
172:
In the lower planes can't one say what will happen at a particular moment?
That depends. On certain planes there are consciousnesses that form, that make formations and try to send them down to earth and manifest them. These are planes where the great forces are at play, forces struggling with each other to organise things in one way or another. On these planes all the possibilities are there, all the possibilities that present themselves but have not yet come to a decision as to which will come down.... Suppose a plane full of the imaginations of people who want certain things to be realised upon earth - they invent a novel, narrate stories, produce all kinds of phenomena; it amuses them very much. It is a plane of form-makers and they are there imagining all kinds of circumstances and events; they play with the forces; they are like the authors of a drama and they prepare everything there and see what is going to happen. All these formations are facing each other; and it is those which are the strongest, the most successful or the most persistent or those that have the advantage of a favourable set of circumstances which dominate. They meet and out of the conflict yet another thing results: you lose one thing and take up another, you make a new combination; and then all of a sudden, you find, pluff! it is coming down. Now, if it comes down with a sufficient force, it sets moving the earth atmosphere and things combine; as for instance, when with your fist you thump the saw-dust, you know surely what happens, don't you? You lift your hand, give a formidable blow: all the dust gets organised around your fist. Well, it is like that. These formations come down into matter with that force, and everything organises itself automatically, mechanically as around the striking fist. And there's your wished object about to be realised, sometimes with small deformations because of the resistance, but it will be realised finally, even as the person narrating the story up above wanted it more or less to be realised. If then you are for some reason or other in the secret of the person who has constructed the story and if you follow the way in which he creates his path to reach down to the earth and if you see how a blow with the fist acts on earthly matter, then you are able to tell what is going to happen, because you have seen it in the world above, and as it takes some time to make the whole journey, you see in advance. And the higher you rise, the more you foresee in advance what is going to happen. And if you pass far beyond, go still farther, then everything is possible.
It is an unfolding that follows a wide road which is for you unknowable; for all will be unfolded in the universe, but in what order and in what way? There are decisions that are taken up there which escape our ordinary consciousness, and so it is very difficult to foresee. But there also, if you enter consciously and if you can be present up there... How shall I explain that to you? All is there, absolute, static, eternal: but all that will be unfolded in the material world, naturally more or less one thing after another; for in the static existence all can be there, but in the becoming all becomes in time, that is, one thing after another. Well, what path will the unfolding follow? Up there is the domain of absolute freedom.... Who says that a sufficiently sincere aspiration, a sufficiently intense prayer is not capable of changing the path of the unfolding?
This means that all is possible.
Now, one must have a sufficient aspiration and a prayer that's sufficiently intense. But that has been given to human nature. It is one of the marvellous gifts of grace given to human nature; only, one does not know how to make use of it. This comes to saying that in spite of the most absolute determinisms in the horizontal line, if one knows how to cross all these horizontal lines and reach the highest Point of consciousness, one is able to make things change, things apparently absolutely determined. So you may call it by any name you like, but it is a kind of combination of an absolute determinism with an absolute freedom. You may pull yourself out of it in any way you like, but it is like that.
I forgot to say in that book (perhaps I did not forget but just felt that it was useless to say it) that all these theories are only theories, that is, mental conceptions which are merely more or less imaged representations of the reality; but it is not the reality at all. When you say "determinism" and when you say "freedom", you say only words and all that is only a very incomplete, very approximate and very weak description of what is in reality within you, around you and everywhere; and to be able to begin to understand what the universe is, you must come out of your mental formulas, otherwise you will never understand anything.
To tell the truth, if you live only a moment, just a tiny moment, of this absolutely sincere aspiration or this sufficiently intense prayer, you will know more things than by meditating for hours.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
173:It is natural from the point of view of the Yoga to divide into two categories the activities of the human mind in its pursuit of knowledge. There is the supreme supra-intellectual knowledge which concentrates itself on the discovery of the One and Infinite in its transcendence or tries to penetrate by intuition, contemplation, direct inner contact into the ultimate truths behind the appearances of Nature; there is the lower science which diffuses itself in an outward knowledge of phenomena, the disguises of the One and Infinite as it appears to us in or through the more exterior forms of the world-manifestation around us. These two, an upper and a lower hemisphere, in the form of them constructed or conceived by men within the mind's ignorant limits, have even there separated themselves, as they developed, with some sharpness.... Philosophy, sometimes spiritual or at least intuitive, sometimes abstract and intellectual, sometimes intellectualising spiritual experience or supporting with a logical apparatus the discoveries of the spirit, has claimed always to take the fixation of ultimate Truth as its province. But even when it did not separate itself on rarefied metaphysical heights from the knowledge that belongs to the practical world and the pursuit of ephemeral objects, intellectual Philosophy by its habit of abstraction has seldom been a power for life. It has been sometimes powerful for high speculation, pursuing mental Truth for its own sake without any ulterior utility or object, sometimes for a subtle gymnastic of the mind in a mistily bright cloud-land of words and ideas, but it has walked or acrobatised far from the more tangible realities of existence. Ancient Philosophy in Europe was more dynamic, but only for the few; in India in its more spiritualised forms, it strongly influenced but without transforming the life of the race.... Religion did not attempt, like Philosophy, to live alone on the heights; its aim was rather to take hold of man's parts of life even more than his parts of mind and draw them Godwards; it professed to build a bridge between spiritual Truth and the vital and material human existence; it strove to subordinate and reconcile the lower to the higher, make life serviceable to God, Earth obedient to Heaven. It has to be admitted that too often this necessary effort had the opposite result of making Heaven a sanction for Earth's desires; for, continually, the religious idea has been turned into an excuse for the worship and service of the human ego. Religion, leaving constantly its little shining core of spiritual experience, has lost itself in the obscure mass of its ever extending ambiguous compromises with life: in attempting to satisfy the thinking mind, it more often succeeded in oppressing or fettering it with a mass of theological dogmas; while seeking to net the human heart, it fell itself into pits of pietistic emotionalism and sensationalism; in the act of annexing the vital nature of man to dominate it, it grew itself vitiated and fell a prey to all the fanaticism, homicidal fury, savage or harsh turn for oppression, pullulating falsehood, obstinate attachment to ignorance to which that vital nature is prone; its desire to draw the physical in man towards God betrayed it into chaining itself to ecclesiastic mechanism, hollow ceremony and lifeless ritual. The corruption of the best produced the worst by that strange chemistry of the power of life which generates evil out of good even as it can also generate good out of evil. At the same time in a vain effort at self-defence against this downward gravitation, Religion was driven to cut existence into two by a division of knowledge, works, art, life itself into two opposite categories, the spiritual and the worldly, religious and mundane, sacred and profane; but this defensive distinction itself became conventional and artificial and aggravated rather than healed the disease.... On their side Science and Art and the knowledge of Life, although at first they served or lived in the shadow of Religion, ended by emancipating themselves, became estranged or hostile, or have even recoiled with indifference, contempt or scepticism from what seem to them the cold, barren and distant or unsubstantial and illusory heights of unreality to which metaphysical Philosophy and Religion aspire. For a time the divorce has been as complete as the one-sided intolerance of the human mind could make it and threatened even to end in a complete extinction of all attempt at a higher or a more spiritual knowledge. Yet even in the earthward life a higher knowledge is indeed the one thing that is throughout needful, and without it the lower sciences and pursuits, however fruitful, however rich, free, miraculous in the abundance of their results, become easily a sacrifice offered without due order and to false gods; corrupting, hardening in the end the heart of man, limiting his mind's horizons, they confine in a stony material imprisonment or lead to a final baffling incertitude and disillusionment. A sterile agnosticism awaits us above the brilliant phosphorescence of a half-knowledge that is still the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, #KEYS
174:The Supermind [Supramental consciousness] is in its very essence a truth-consciousness, a consciousness always free from the Ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or evolutionary existence and from which nature in us is trying to arrive at self-knowledge and world-knowledge and a right consciousness and the right use of our existence in the universe. The Supermind, because it is a truth-consciousness, has this knowledge inherent in it and this power of true existence; its course is straight and can go direct to its aim, its field is wide and can even be made illimitable. This is because its very nature is knowledge: it has not to acquire knowledge but possesses it in its own right; its steps are not from nescience or ignorance into some imperfect light, but from truth to greater truth, from right perception to deeper perception, from intuition to intuition, from illumination to utter and boundless luminousness, from growing widenesses to the utter vasts and to very infinitude. On its summits it possesses the divine omniscience and omnipotence, but even in an evolutionary movement of its own graded self-manifestation by which it would eventually reveal its own highest heights, it must be in its very nature essentially free from ignorance and error: it starts from truth and light and moves always in truth and light. As its knowledge is always true, so too its will is always true; it does not fumble in its handling of things or stumble in its paces. In the Supermind feeling and emotion do not depart from their truth, make no slips or mistakes, do not swerve from the right and the real, cannot misuse beauty and delight or twist away from a divine rectitude. In the Supermind sense cannot mislead or deviate into the grossnesses which are here its natural imperfections and the cause of reproach, distrust and misuse by our ignorance. Even an incomplete statement made by the Supermind is a truth leading to a further truth, its incomplete action a step towards completeness. All the life and action and leading of the Supermind is guarded in its very nature from the falsehoods and uncertainties that are our lot; it moves in safety towards its perfection. Once the truth-consciousness was established here on its own sure foundation, the evolution of divine life would be a progress in felicity, a march through light to Ananda. Supermind is an eternal reality of the divine Being and the divine Nature. In its own plane it already and always exists and possesses its own essential law of being; it has not to be created or to emerge or evolve into existence out of involution in Matter or out of non-existence, as it might seem to the view of mind which itself seems to its own view to have so emerged from life and Matter or to have evolved out of an involution in life and Matter. The nature of Supermind is always the same, a being of knowledge, proceeding from truth to truth, creating or rather manifesting what has to be manifested by the power of a pre-existent knowledge, not by hazard but by a self-existent destiny in the being itself, a necessity of the thing in itself and therefore inevitable. Its -manifestation of the divine life will also be inevitable; its own life on its own plane is divine and, if Supermind descends upon the earth, it will bring necessarily the divine life with it and establish it here. Supermind is the grade of existence beyond mind, life and Matter and, as mind, life and Matter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable course of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts, it is through these inferior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet recognisable. It is only by the approach and arrival of the descending Supermind that it can be liberated upon earth and reveal itself in the action of our material, vital and mental parts so that these lower powers can become portions of a total divinised activity of our whole being: it is that that will bring to us a completely realised divinity or the divine life. It is indeed so that life and mind involved in Matter have realised themselves here; for only what is involved can evolve, otherwise there could be no emergence. The manifestation of a supramental truth-consciousness is therefore the capital reality that will make the divine life possible. It is when all the movements of thought, impulse and action are governed and directed by a self-existent and luminously automatic truth-consciousness and our whole nature comes to be constituted by it and made of its stuff that the life divine will be complete and absolute. Even as it is, in reality though not in the appearance of things, it is a secret self-existent knowledge and truth that is working to manifest itself in the creation here. The Divine is already there immanent within us, ourselves are that in our inmost reality and it is this reality that we have to manifest; it is that which constitutes the urge towards the divine living and makes necessary the creation of the life divine even in this material existence. A manifestation of the Supermind and its truth-consciousness is then inevitable; it must happen in this world sooner or lateR But it has two aspects, a descent from above, an ascent from below, a self-revelation of the Spirit, an evolution in Nature. The ascent is necessarily an effort, a working of Nature, an urge or nisus on her side to raise her lower parts by an evolutionary or revolutionary change, conversion or transformation into the divine reality and it may happen by a process and progress or by a rapid miracle. The descent or self-revelation of the Spirit is an act of the supreme Reality from above which makes the realisation possible and it can appear either as the divine aid which brings about the fulfilment of the progress and process or as the sanction of the miracle. Evolution, as we see it in this world, is a slow and difficult process and, indeed, needs usually ages to reach abiding results; but this is because it is in its nature an emergence from inconscient beginnings, a start from nescience and a working in the ignorance of natural beings by what seems to be an unconscious force. There can be, on the contrary, an evolution in the light and no longer in the darkness, in which the evolving being is a conscious participant and cooperator, and this is precisely what must take place here. Even in the effort and progress from the Ignorance to Knowledge this must be in part if not wholly the endeavour to be made on the heights of the nature, and it must be wholly that in the final movement towards the spiritual change, realisation, transformation. It must be still more so when there is a transition across the dividing line between the Ignorance and the Knowledge and the evolution is from knowledge to greater knowledge, from consciousness to greater consciousness, from being to greater being. There is then no longer any necessity for the slow pace of the ordinary evolution; there can be rapid conversion, quick transformation after transformation, what would seem to our normal present mind a succession of miracles. An evolution on the supramental levels could well be of that nature; it could be equally, if the being so chose, a more leisurely passage of one supramental state or condition of things to something beyond but still supramental, from level to divine level, a building up of divine gradations, a free growth to the supreme Supermind or beyond it to yet undreamed levels of being, consciousness and Ananda.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, 558,#KEYS
175:Intuition And The Value Of Concentration :::
Mother, how can the faculty of intuition be developed?
... There are different kinds of intuition, and we carry these capacities within us. They are always active to some extent but we don't notice them because we don't pay enough attention to what is going on in us. Behind the emotions, deep within the being, in a consciousness seated somewhere near the level of the solar plexus, there is a sort of prescience, a kind of capacity for foresight, but not in the form of ideas: rather in the form of feelings, almost a perception of sensations. For instance, when one is going to decide to do something, there is sometimes a kind of uneasiness or inner refusal, and usually, if one listens to this deeper indication, one realises that it was justified. In other cases there is something that urges, indicates, insists - I am not speaking of impulses, you understand, of all the movements which come from the vital and much lower still - indications which are behind the feelings, which come from the affective part of the being; there too one can receive a fairly sure indication of the thing to be done. These are forms of intuition or of a higher instinct which can be cultivated by observation and also by studying the results. Naturally, it must be done very sincerely, objectively, without prejudice. If one wants to see things in a particular way and at the same time practise this observation, it is all useless. One must do it as if one were looking at what is happening from outside oneself, in someone else. It is one form of intuition and perhaps the first one that usually manifests. There is also another form but that one is much more difficult to observe because for those who are accustomed to think, to act by reason - not by impulse but by reason - to reflect before doing anything, there is an extremely swift process from cause to effect in the half-conscious thought which prevents you from seeing the line, the whole line of reasoning and so you don't think that it is a chain of reasoning, and that is quite deceptive. You have the impression of an intuition but it is not an intuition, it is an extremely rapid subconscious reasoning, which takes up a problem and goes straight to the conclusions. This must not be mistaken for intuition. In the ordinary functioning of the brain, intuition is something which suddenly falls like a drop of light. If one has the faculty, the beginning of a faculty of mental vision, it gives the impression of something coming from outside or above, like a little impact of a drop of light in the brain, absolutely independent of all reasoning. This is perceived more easily when one is able to silence one's mind, hold it still and attentive, arresting its usual functioning, as if the mind were changed into a kind of mirror turned towards a higher faculty in a sustained and silent attention. That too one can learn to do. One must learn to do it, it is a necessary discipline.
When you have a question to solve, whatever it may be, usually you concentrate your attention here (pointing between the eyebrows), at the centre just above the eyes, the centre of the conscious will. But then if you do that, you cannot be in contact with intuition. You can be in contact with the source of the will, of effort, even of a certain kind of knowledge, but in the outer, almost material field; whereas, if you want to contact the intuition, you must keep this (Mother indicates the forehead) completely immobile. Active thought must be stopped as far as possible and the entire mental faculty must form - at the top of the head and a little further above if possible - a kind of mirror, very quiet, very still, turned upwards, in silent, very concentrated attention. If you succeed, you can - perhaps not immediately - but you can have the perception of the drops of light falling upon the mirror from a still unknown region and expressing themselves as a conscious thought which has no connection with all the rest of your thought since you have been able to keep it silent. That is the real beginning of the intellectual intuition.
It is a discipline to be followed. For a long time one may try and not succeed, but as soon as one succeeds in making a mirror, still and attentive, one always obtains a result, not necessarily with a precise form of thought but always with the sensations of a light coming from above. And then, if one can receive this light coming from above without entering immediately into a whirl of activity, receive it in calm and silence and let it penetrate deep into the being, then after a while it expresses itself either as a luminous thought or as a very precise indication here (Mother indicates the heart), in this other centre.
Naturally, first these two faculties must be developed; then, as soon as there is any result, one must observe the result, as I said, and see the connection with what is happening, the consequences: see, observe very attentively what has come in, what may have caused a distortion, what one has added by way of more or less conscious reasoning or the intervention of a lower will, also more or less conscious; and it is by a very deep study - indeed, almost of every moment, in any case daily and very frequent - that one succeeds in developing one's intuition. It takes a long time. It takes a long time and there are ambushes: one can deceive oneself, take for intuitions subconscious wills which try to manifest, indications given by impulses one has refused to receive openly, indeed all sorts of difficulties. One must be prepared for that. But if one persists, one is sure to succeed.
And there comes a time when one feels a kind of inner guidance, something which is leading one very perceptibly in all that one does. But then, for the guidance to have its maximum power, one must naturally add to it a conscious surrender: one must be sincerely determined to follow the indication given by the higher force. If one does that, then... one saves years of study, one can seize the result extremely rapidly. If one also does that, the result comes very rapidly. But for that, it must be done with sincerity and... a kind of inner spontaneity. If one wants to try without this surrender, one may succeed - as one can also succeed in developing one's personal will and making it into a very considerable power - but that takes a very long time and one meets many obstacles and the result is very precarious; one must be very persistent, obstinate, persevering, and one is sure to succeed, but only after a great labour.
Make your surrender with a sincere, complete self-giving, and you will go ahead at full speed, you will go much faster - but you must not do this calculatingly, for that spoils everything! (Silence) Moreover, whatever you may want to do in life, one thing is absolutely indispensable and at the basis of everything, the capacity of concentrating the attention. If you are able to gather together the rays of attention and consciousness on one point and can maintain this concentration with a persistent will, nothing can resist it - whatever it may be, from the most material physical development to the highest spiritual one. But this discipline must be followed in a constant and, it may be said, imperturbable way; not that you should always be concentrated on the same thing - that's not what I mean, I mean learning to concentrate.
And materially, for studies, sports, all physical or mental development, it is absolutely indispensable. And the value of an individual is proportionate to the value of his attention.
And from the spiritual point of view it is still more important.
There is no spiritual obstacle which can resist a penetrating power of concentration. For instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union with the inner Divine, opening to the higher spheres, all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power of concentration - but one must learn how to do it. There is nothing in the human or even in the superhuman field, to which the power of concentration is not the key. You can be the best athlete, you can be the best student, you can be an artistic, literary or scientific genius, you can be the greatest saint with that faculty. And everyone has in himself a tiny little beginning of it - it is given to everybody, but people do not cultivate it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Caution is the lower story of prudence. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 2:The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 3:The price of success is much lower than the price of failure. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 4:Isn't the best way to save face to keep the lower part shut? ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 5:We should not be too familiar with the lower orders or with women. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 6:Those whose upper and lower ranks have the same desire are victorious. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 7:The higher a man is in grace, the lower he will be in his own esteem. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 8:The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 9:There is no higher or lower goal. There is only one goal, Self-Realization. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 10:Lower your expectations of earth. This isn't heaven, so don't expect it to be. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 11:Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 12:And, in order to possess the Truth, the plays of the lower nature must be stopped. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 13:As an alcoholic, you will violate your standards quicker than you can lower them. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 14:The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That's a bittersweet ending. ~ tim-ferris, @wisdomtrove 15:Be loyal and trustworthy. Do not befriend anyone who is lower than yourself in this regard. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 16:There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 17:A broken fortune is like a falling column; the lower it sinks, the greater weight it has to sustain. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 18:There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 19:Whatever others think or do, lower not your standard of purity, morality and love of God. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 20:Man was created a little lower than the angels and has been getting a little lower ever since. ~ josh-billings, @wisdomtrove 21:Because being comfortable meant she might lower her guard, and she could not let that happen. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 22:Nothing can be lower or more wholly instrumental than the substance and cause of all things. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 23:War is rich old men protecting their property by sending middle class and lower class men off to die. ~ george-carlin, @wisdomtrove 24:The navel center will bring the power of all three of the lower chakras into your being, but with safety. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 25:In lower levels things are dark, gray, experiences are shallow. You become alienated from those around you. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 26:Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us. ~ george-bernard-shaw, @wisdomtrove 27:We lose our bearings entirely by speaking of the & 28:In the Southwestern United States, the places of power reference the lower three chakras, the chakras of power. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 29:If you don't actively and decidedly choose to be the best, you automatically default to the lower 80% in your field. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 30:You need to shelter yourself from the abrasive forces of life that drain you and keep you in a lower state of mind. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 31: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 32:Do not lower your goals to the level of your abilities. Instead, raise your abilities to the height of your goals. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 33: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 34:Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 35:If Christ is not divine, every impulse of the Christian world falls to a lower octave, and light and love and hope decline. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 36:People who have power, who think negatively of others and seek to injure them, are practicing a kind of voodoo, a lower sorcery. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 37: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 38:Humanity unceasingly strives forward from a lower, more partial and obscure understanding of life to one more general and more lucid. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 39:Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare! ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 40:Philosophy must indeed recognize the possibility that the people rise to it, but must not lower itself to the people. ~ georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel, @wisdomtrove 41:The upper class desire to remain so, the middle class wish to overthrow the upper class, and the lower class want a classless system. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 42:There is a big difference between the lower samadhis and the upper samadhis, like the difference between the Sierras and the Himalayas. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 43:To the truly ethical man, all of life is sacred, including forms of life that from the human point of view may seem lower than ours. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 44:If they'd lower the taxes and get rid of the smog and clean up the traffic mess, I really believe I'd settle here until the next earthquake. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 45:I would recommend, initially, if you are trying to increase your personal power level, to meditate on the navel center, not the lower two. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 46:If you look at the Forbes 400, they are paying a lower rate, accounting payroll taxes, than their secretary or - whomever around their office. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 47:People want just taxes more than they want lower taxes. They want to know that every man is paying his proportionate share according to his wealth. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 48:The Purusha should assume at all times the attitude of a giver of sanction while rejecting the lower movements and accepting only truth-movements. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 49: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 50:The day that you stop learning is the day that you start decreasing your rewards and start suffering from frustration and lower levels of satisfaction. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 51:One of the greatest motivating factors is the pat on the back, although with some individuals, you have to make the pat a little lower or a little harder. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 52:In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people - the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 53: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 54:The San Francisco Stock Exchange was the place that continuously pumped up the savings of the lower classes into the pockets of the millionaires. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 55:Professors of the Dismal Science, I perceive the length of your tether is now pretty well run; and I must request you to talk a little lower in the future. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 56:There is a tremendous movement on to get lower taxes on earned incomes. Then will come the real problem, & 57:In order that love be fully satisfied, It is necessary that It lower Itself and that It lower Itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire. ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove 58:Let a man lift himself by his own Self alone, let him not lower himself; for the Self alone is the friend of oneself and this Self alone is the enemy of oneself (5). ~ sivananda, @wisdomtrove 59:Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 60:If you go to a lower crossover point, a negative place of power, then the beings there are very unevolved, very demonic, crazy, lower than the people of this world. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 61: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 62:The yogin becomes aware in part of the action of the supramental power organizing the lower vehicle (ƒÅdhƒÅra). A part of it remains behind the veil and prepares itself. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 63: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 64:I think the biggest thing we need is to unclog the credit markets, and we may need another stimulus - if we do, it's - it should go to the lower and middle-income people. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 65:Exemplary people concern themselves with virtue, small people concern themselves with territory. The ruling class thinks of punishment, the lower classes hope for benevolence. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 66:I've moved a lot of my students into a high state of mind, but they don't do the things I have shown them how to do. So then, they drop down into a lower stage of attention. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 67:If a spiritual being is naive to the lower aspects of the world, they usually are killed or die young. Did Jesus really know which of the twelve would betray him? I doubt it. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 68: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 69:The teaching process becomes most interesting for spiritual seekers once they've managed to hit the lower samadhis. However at that point many seekers become very egotistical. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 70:I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 71: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 72:Noah Calhoun watched the fading sun sink lower from the wrap around porch of his plantation-style home.He liked to sit here in the evenings, especially after working hard all day. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 73:Roger Fry is painting me. It is too like me at present, but he is confident he will be able to alter that. Post-Impressionism is at present confined to my lower lip... and to my chin. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 74: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 75:Kitsch is: a species of beauty, which, as it is florid and superficial, pleases at first; but soon palls upon the taste, and is rejected with disdain, at least rated at much lower value. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 76:How ironical that it is by means of speech that man can degrade himself below the level of dumb creation - for a chatterbox is truly of a lower category than a dumb creature. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 77:... no way could I fall in love. I just couldn't go there yet. Settle for less. I didn't want to process through anything. I didn't want to pick up any pieces. Lower my expectations. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 78:One person will eat meat and it will lower their attention field. Another person won't even be affected by it because they're not in the state of mind whereby they'll be affected by it. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 79:Those who practice lower sorcery hurt themselves the most because they interact with negative thoughts and apply power to them; they devastate their own consciousness and their own lives. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 80:After having stopped the lower activities of the mind, it must be made receptive; and, instead of weaving all kinds of empty and idle thoughts, the mind should receive intuitions from above. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 81:The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind - the lower animals. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove 82:Drinking alcohol takes you into a lower state of mind. If you drink a lot of it, things get very fuzzy and they are not very sharp or defined. This brings you into a lower state of attention. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 83: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 84: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 85:There are people who do, what we would call, lower sorcery. It is best not to be concerned with them. They are not happy people and they can't be a problem if you are aware of what they are doing. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 86:Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 87:Some people are like psychic sponges, they drain power form others constantly. They lower your awareness because they are at a lower level. If you spend too much time with them, you get pulled down. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 88:Everything starts within your own mind. The physical choices you make, drain your power or give you power. If your power is low, then you stay in lower levels of mind and you don't see opportunities. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 89:If, at the office or in different exchanges in daily living, you have to spend time with people who are at lower power levels, then you have to be aware of that and keep your awareness very much within. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 90:When you deal with people, it tends to drag your energy down - if those people are in a lower auric state than you. If you meditate and they don't, then by the end of the day you tend to be more drained. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 91:The overall purpose of human communication is - or should be - reconciliation. It should ultimately serve to lower or remove the walls of misunderstanding which unduly separate us human beings, one from another. ~ m-scott-peck, @wisdomtrove 92:When you elevate the heels more so than you elevate the sole of the foot, you trigger a cascade of compensations in the knees and hips that cause tight hip flexors, and then those hip flexors cause lower-back pain. ~ tim-ferris, @wisdomtrove 93: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 94:The way of the superior man may be compared to what takes place in traveling, when to go to a distance we must first traverse the space that is near, and in ascending a height, when we must begin from the lower ground. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 95:You have to be very, very careful not to pick up too much of the lower energies, the toxic energies, because they'll make you very ill. They can kill you. They can cause cancer, debilitative diseases of all types. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 96:The abuse of power that seems to create the most unhappiness is when a person uses personal power to get ahead without regards to the welfare of others, or when power is used to go into the lower dimensional planes. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 97:How can there be two selves in one body? The & 98:I haven't any language weak enough to depict the weakness of my spiritual life. If I weakened it enough it would cease to be language at all. As when you try to turn the gas-ring a little lower still, and it merely goes out. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 99:Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased - not a reduced - flow of revenues to the federal government. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 100:But the effort, the effort! And as the marrow is eaten out of a man's bones and the soul out of his belly, contending with the strange rapacity of savage life, the lower stage of creation, he cannot make the effort any more. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 101:It is a curious thing how poets tend to become ascetics... . Even a debauch for them is a self-flagellation. They go on the loose in cruelty against themselves, admitting that they are pandering to, and despising, the lower self. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 102: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 103:People don't necessarily take power from you for themselves. It just means they are operating at a lower attention level and you got pulled down by it. You are not sufficiently strong enough to be with someone and be unaffected. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 104:The only problem that occurs in the practice of tantra is when you don't practice tantra and fool yourself. You get caught up in powerful vortexes of negative energy which pull you into the lower bardo regions ... into the mud. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 105:The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens, lambs, &c., when playing together, like our own children. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 106:A recession is very bad for publicly traded companies, but it's the best time for startups. When you have massive layoffs, there's more competition for available jobs, which means that an entrepreneur can hire freelancers at a lower cost. ~ tim-ferris, @wisdomtrove 107:They reach the point where they feel, "I can go into samadhi now. I can do everything on my own," and that's exactly where they stay, in the lower samadhis. There are many, many people on this earth who can go into salvakalpa samadhi. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 108:We came to the house, and it is an old house, full of great chimneys where wood is burnt on ancient dogs upon the hearth, and grim portraits (some of them with grim legends, too) lower distrustfully from the oaken panels of the walls. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 109:Contribute to charitable projects like the printing of spiritual books so that they can be sold at a lower price. Poor people will then be able to buy and read them. In this way we can help to cultivate spiritual culture in them also. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 110:I fully subscribe to the judgement of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animal, the moral sense of conscience is by far the most important... .It is the most noble of all the attributes of man. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 111:So there are five ways of knowing who will win. Those who know when to fight and when not to fight are victorious. Those who discern when to use many or few troops are victorious. Those whose upper and lower ranks have the same desire are victorious. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 112:But if Soul is sinless, how come the expiations? Here surely is a contradiction; on the one side the Soul is above all guilt; on the other, we hear of its sin, its purification, its expiation; it is doomed to the lower world, it passes from body to body. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 113:Science is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and immortal and ever-changing. To morals belong the lower and less intellectual spheres. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 114:It is not advisable for persons who are in the early stages of meditation to mediate on the two lower chakras. You will unleash powers and forces that will throw you into very powerful altered state of consciousness that might not be pleasant at all. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 115:There are apartments in the soul which have a glorious outlook; from whose windows you can see across the river of death, and into the shining city beyond; but how often are these neglected for the lower ones, which have earthward-looking windows. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 116:Sometimes, we're so focused on being consistent that we also lower the bar on amazing. After all, the thinking goes, if we can't be amazing all the time, better to reset the expectation to merely good. Which robs us of the ability to (sometimes) be amazing. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 117: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 118:It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the man in us wills. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 119:Say - i am the Atman in which my lower ego has become merged for ever. Be perfect in this idea; and then as long as the body endures, speak unto others this message of fearlessness: "Thou art That", "Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached!" ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 120:Buddha taught kindness towards lower beings; and since then there has not been a sect in India that has not taught charity to all beings, even to animals. This kindness, this mercy, this charity - greater than any doctrine - are what Buddhism left to us. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 121:If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper-middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end - people like myself - should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 122:If you have not even a little imagination, you are simply a brute. So you must not lower your ideal, neither are you to lose sight of practicality. We must avoid the two extremes... . You must try to combine in your life immense idealism with immense practicality. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 123:We can be seduced... by powerful political groups that promise more wealth and lower taxes. Those with power can use clever, psychological tricks and play upon our weaknesses and brokenness in order to attract us to their way of thinking. We can be manipulated into illusion. ~ jean-vanier, @wisdomtrove 124: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 125:Just as words have two functions - information and creation - so each human mind has two personalities, one on the surface, one deeper down. The upper personality... is conscious and alert... The lower personality is a... perfect fool, but without it there is no literature. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 126:We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention and curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 127:Why does man regret, even though he may endeavour to banish any such regret, that he has followed the one natural impulse, rather than the other; and why does he further feel that he ought to regret his conduct? Man in this respect differs profoundly from the lower animals. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 128:I have never been able to understand why the tax comes as such a body blow to many people since the rate on long-term capital gain is lower than on most likes of endeavor (tax policy indicated digging ditches is regarded as socially less desirable than shuffling stock certificates). ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 129:I think you can be depressed and flourish, I think you can have cancer and flourish, I think you can be divorced and flourish. When we believed that happiness was only smiling and good mood, that wasn't very good for people like me, people in the lower half of positive affectivity. ~ martin-seligman, @wisdomtrove 130:It was leadership here at home that gave us strong American influence abroad, and the collapse of imperial Communism. Great nations have responsibilities to lead, and we should always be cautious of those who would lower our profile, because they might just wind up lowering our flag. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 131:It is not humility to underrate yourself. Humility is to think of yourself as God thinks of you. It is to feel that if we have talents God has given them to us. And let it be seen that, like freight in a vessel, they tend to sink us low. The more we have, the lower we ought to lie. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 132: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 133:There is a veil between the Supermind above and the lower Prakriti below - the veil of ingrained formations. This veil may completely withdraw or be partially withdrawn. Thus even if there is some little opening, with the contact of Light from above the lower nature will get slowly changed. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 134:But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 135:Oh, the stoop of the Redeemer's amazing love! Let us, henceforth, contend how low we can go side by side with Him, but remember when we have gone to the lowest He descends lower still, so that we can truly feel that the very lowest place is too high for us, because He has gone lower still. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 136:The emotion you feel is always about the vibrational varience between where you want to be and where you are. If you're out of balance, there are only two ways to bring yourself into alignment - either raise your expectation to match your desire, or lower your desire to match your expectation. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 137: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 138: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 139:When all has been considered, it seems to me to be the irresistible intuition that infinite punishment for finite sin would be unjust, and therefore wrong. We feel that even weak and erring Man would shrink from such an act. And we cannot conceive of God as acting on a lower standard of right and wrong. ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 140:Every new stroke of civilization has cost the lives of countless brave men, who have fallen defeated by the dragon, in their efforts to win the apples of the Hesperides, or the fleece of gold. Fallen in their efforts to overcome the old, half sordid savagery of the lower stages of creation, and win the next stage. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 141:Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become the path himself. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 142:Liberty is of small value to the lower third of humanity. They greatly prefer security, which means protection by some class above them. They are always in favor of despots who promise to feed them. The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 143:Our struggle is& 144: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 145:For some spiritual traditions the ego is not the ‘I’, but rather our human personality. When we identify with the person we appear to be we are unconscious of the deep self. The ego is our ‘lower self’, which connives to prevent us realizing that it isn’t who we really are. When we act or think in ways we don’t like… that’s the ego playing up. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 146: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 147:I know, perhaps as well as anyone, what depression means, and what it is to feel myself sinking lower and lower. Yet at the worst, when I reach the lowest depths, I have an inward peace which no pain or depression can in the least disturb. Trusting in Jesus Christ my Savior, there is still a blessed quietness in the deep caverns of my soul. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 148:You don't have to work at being in the high vibration that is natural to you, because it is natural to you. But you do have to stop holding the thoughts that cause you to lower your vibration. It's a matter of no longer giving your attention to things that don't allow your cork to float or don't allow you to vibrate in harmony with who you really are. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 149:Status Anxiety: A worry, so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society and that we may as a result be stripped of dignity and respect; a worry that we are currently occupying too modest a rung or are about to fall to a lower one. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 150: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 151:I take exercise for each part of the body: arms, legs, back and whatever muscles are required to keep the body fit. I do at least 20 different exercises daily for my upper and lower body. Then I come here every morning to do calf raises and play tennis. If there is time in the afternoon, I play tennis again. At least three hours I spend on weightlifting and bodybuilding. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 152:Buying a share of a good business is better than buying a share of a bad business. One way to do this is to purchase a business that can invest its own money at high rates of return rather than purchasing a business that can only invest at lower ones. In other words, businesses that earn a high return on capital are better than businesses that earn a low return on capital. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 153:For a man is a little lower than the angels, yet was made that he might become the companion of the Creative Forces; and thus was given& 154:Skepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral also; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul. A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things. A sad case for him when all that he can manage to believe is something he can button in his pocket, and with one or the other organ eat and digest! Lower than that he will not get. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 155:The optimum portfolio depends on the various expectations of choices available and the degree of variance in performance which is tolerable. The greater the number of selections, the less will be the average year-to-year variation in actual versus expected results. Also, the lower will be the expected results, assuming different choices have different expectations of performance. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 156:One day [when I relapsed] I walked into a store and saw a little bottle of Jack Daniel's. And then that voice - I call it the & 157:The daily press is the evil principle of the modern world, and time will only serve to disclose this fact with greater and greater clearness. The capacity of the newspaper for degeneration is sophistically without limit, since it can always sink lower and lower in its choice of readers. At last it will stir up all those dregs of humanity which no state or government can control. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 158:In the evolution of knowledge-mistaken and unnecessary beliefs are forced out and supplanted by truer and more necessary knowledge. So too in the evolution of feelings, which takes place by means of art. Lower feelings-less kind and less needed for the good of humanity-are forced out and replaced by kinder feelings which better serve us individually and collectively. This is the purpose of art. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 159: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 160: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 161:[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 162:People keep themselves at a tolerable height above an infernal abyss toward which they gravitate only by putting out all their strength and lovingly helping one another. They are tied together by ropes, and it's bad enough when the ropes around an individual loosen and he drops somewhat lower than the others into empty space; ghastly when the ropes break and he falls. That's why we should cling to the others. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 163:The fact is that, we are not producing saints. We are making converts to an effete type of Christianity, that bears little resemblance to that of the New Testament. The average so-called Bible Christian of our times is but a shallow display of true sainthood. Yet, we put millions of dollars behind movements’ to perpetuate this lower form of religion and attack the man who dares to challenge the wisdom of it. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 164:I have known female whores who spoke very bitterly of their calling. "If they don't like my face, they can put a cushion over it. I know it's not that they're interested in." But to the boys this profession never seemed shameful. It was their daytime occupations for which they felt the need to apologize. In some instances, these were lower class or humdrum or, worst of all, unfeminine. At least whoring was never that. ~ quentin-crisp, @wisdomtrove 165:The wide stare stared itself out for one while; the Sun went down in a red, green, golden glory; the stars came out in the heavens, and the fire-flies mimicked them in the lower air, as men may feebly imitate the goodness of a better order of beings; the long dusty roads and the interminable plains were in repose-and so deep a hush was on the sea, that it scarcely whispered of the time when it shall give up its dead. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 166:In those countries where income taxes are lower than in the United States, the ability to defer the payment of U.S. tax by retaining income in the subsidiary companies provides a tax advantage for companies operating through overseas subsidiaries that is not available to companies operating solely in the United States. Many American investors properly made use of this deferral in the conduct of their foreign investment. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 167:A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. It was hardly a tune. But it was beyond comparison, the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 168:Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove 169: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 170:The light struck upon the trees in the garden, making one leaf transparent and then another. One bird chirped high up; there was a pause; another chirped lower down. The sun sharpended the walls of the house, and rested like the tip of a fan upon a white blind and made a fingerprint of a shadow under the leaf by the bedroom window. The blind stirred slightly, but all within was dim and unsubstantial. The birds sang their blank melody outside. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 171:It is not a struggle merely of economic theories, or forms of government or of military power. At issue is the true nature of man. Either man is the creature whom the psalmist described as a little lower than the angels ... or man is a soulless, animated machine to be enslaved, used and consumed by the state for its own glorification. It is, therefore, a struggle which goes to the roots of the human spirit, and its shadow falls across the long sweep of man's destiny. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 172:There is something in natural affection which will lead it on to eternal love more easily than natural appetite could be led on. But there's also something in it which makes it easier to stop at the natural level and mistake it for the heavenly. Brass is mistaken for gold more easily than clay is. And if it finally refuses conversion its corruption will be worse than the corruption of what ye call the lower passions. It is a stronger angel, and therefor, when it falls, a fiercer devil. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 173:It is not to taste sweet things; but to do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under God's heaven as a God-made man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death, are the allurements that act on the heart of man. Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that burns up all lower considerations. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 174:When we find that God's ways always coincide with our own ways, it's time to question who we're really worshipping, God or ourselves. The latter moves the nature of godliness from the King to our servant to a slave, a deduction into the realm of selfhood and then the lower, slavehood. It's a spiritual mathematics in that men who need God in his godhood are humble yet strong and spiritually ambitious while men who need a slave in their selfhood are ultimately paralyzed and will remain paralyzed. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 175: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 176:The lower animals, on the other hand, must have their bodily structure modified in order to survive under greatly changed conditions. They must be rendered stronger, or acquire more effective teeth or claws, in order to defend themselves from new enemies; or they must be reduced in size so as to escape detection and danger. When they migrate into a colder climate they must become clothed with thicker fur, or have their constitutions altered. If they fail to be thus modified, they will cease to exist. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 177:When a party can't think of anything else they always fall back on Lower Taxes. It has a magic sound to a voter, just like Fairyland is spoken of and dreamed of by all children. But no child has ever seen it; neither has any voter ever lived to see the day when his taxes were lowered. Presidents have been promising lower taxes since Washington crossed the Delaware by hand in a row boat. But our taxes have gotten bigger and their boats have gotten larger until now the President crosses the Delaware in his private yacht. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 178:To the man who is truly ethical all life is sacred, including that which from the human point of view seems lower in the scale. He makes distinctions only as each case comes before him, and under the pressure of necessity, as, for example, when it falls to him to decide which of two lives he must sacrifice in order to preserve the other. But all through this series of decisions he is conscious of acting on subjective grounds and arbitrarily, and knows that he bears the responsibility for the life which is sacrificed. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 179:I don't know who the great lawyers are, and I presume you can't get to them. I know of no case where it can be said for certain that they took part. They defend some people, but you can't get them to do that through your own efforts, they only defend the ones they want to defend. But I assume a case they take on must have progressed beyond the lower court. It's better not to think of them at all, otherwise you'll find the consultations with the other lawyers, their advice and their assistance, extremely disgusting and useless. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 180:The divine within you is stronger than anything that is without you. Therefore, be not afraid of anything. Rely on your own Inner Self, the Divinity within you. Tap the source through looking within. Improve yourself. Build your character. Purify the heart. Develop the divine virtues. Eradicate evil traits. Conquer all that is base in you. Endeavor to attain all that is worthy and noble. Make the lower nature the servant of the higher through discipline, Tapas, self-restraint and meditation. This is the beginning of your freedom. ~ sivananda, @wisdomtrove 181:It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseeen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, - and of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners, - is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole... 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 one's way to invite trouble. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 182:I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 183:J.S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, "Utilitarianism," of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality," but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man? ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 184:I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to show why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct species by descent from some lower from, through the laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction. The birth both of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that grand sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 185:Lower the Law and you dim the light by which man perceives his guilt; this is a very serious loss to the sinner rather than a gain; for it lessens the likelihood of his conviction and conversion. I say you have deprived the gospel of its ablest auxiliary [its most powerful weapon] when you have set aside the Law. You have taken away from it the schoolmaster that is to bring men to Christ . . . They will never accept grace till they tremble before a just and holy Law. Therefore the Law serves a most necessary purpose, and it must not be removed from its place. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 186:Of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important. This sense, as Mackintosh remarks, "has a rightful supremacy over every other principle of human action"; it is summed up in that short but imperious word "ought," so full of high significance. It is the most noble of all the attributes of man, leading him without a moment's hesitation to risk his life for that of a fellow-creature; or after due deliberation, impelled simply by the deep feeling of right or duty, to sacrifice it in some great cause. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 187:The lower the family income, the higher the probability that the mother must work. Today, 1 out of 5 of these working mothers has children under 3. Two out of 5 have children of school age. Among the remainder, about 50 percent have husbands who earn less than $5,000 a year-many of them much less. I believe they bear the heaviest burden of any group in our Nation. Where the mother is the sole support of the family, she often must face the hard choice of either accepting public assistance or taking a position at a pay rate which averages less than two-thirds of the pay rate for men. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 188:It is important to note, however, that these two loves can be more prevalent among commoners than among the great; more prevalent among the poor than among the wealthy; more prevalent among subjects than among royalty. The latter in each case are born into power and wealth. Over time, the latter come to view their power and wealth much the way people at a somewhat lower level—commanders, governors, admirals, or even impoverished farm workers—view their own households and possessions. It is not the same, though, when monarchs wish to exercise power over nations that are not their own.” ~ emanuel-swedenborg, @wisdomtrove 189:Under the antitrust laws, a man becomes a criminal from the moment he goes into business, no matter what he does. If he complies with one of these laws, he faces criminal prosecution under several others. For instance, if he charges prices which some bureaucrats judge as too high, he can be prosecuted for monopoly or for a successful & 190:The power and nature of Soul encompasses heaven and guides it according to its will. To all this vast expanse, as far as it extends, it gives itself, and every interval, both large and small, is filled with Soul… Soul enlivens all things with its whole self and all Soul is present everywhere… And vast and diversified thought this universe is, it is one by the power of soul and a god because of soul. The sun is also a god, because ensouled, and the other stars, and if we ourselves partake of the Divine, this is the cause. Nothing is detached or severed from its prior, so that the higher soul seems to extend as far as plants; and in a way it does so extend, because the life in plants belongs to it. Not that soul is wholly within plants, but only to the extent that they are the lower limit of its advance, another level of existence created by its decline towards the worse. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 191:What measures, then, shall we adopt? What machine employ, or what reason consult by means of which we may contemplate this ineffable beauty; a beauty abiding in the most divine sanctuary without ever proceeding from its sacred retreats lest it should be beheld by the profane and vulgar eye? We must enter deep into ourselves, and, leaving behind the objects of corporeal sight, no longer look back after any of the accustomed spectacles of sense. For, it is necessary that whoever beholds this beauty, should withdraw his view from the fairest corporeal forms; and, convinced that these are nothing more than images, vestiges and shadows of beauty, should eagerly soar to the fair original from which they are derived. For he who rushes to these lower beauties, as if grasping realities, when they are only like beautiful images appearing in water, will, doubtless, like him in the fable, by stretching after the shadow, sink into the lake and disappear. For, by thus embracing and adhering to corporeal forms, he is precipitated, not so much in his body as in his soul, into profound and horrid darkness; and thus blind, like those in the infernal regions, converses only with phantoms, deprived of the perception of what is real and true. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Lower Manhattan ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
2:lower, until school ~ Betty G Birney, #NFDB
3:the line of her lower lip. ~ Jackie Ashenden, #NFDB
4:There's lower wisdom in comment. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
5:Never dip lower than you can dip. ~ Gary Busey, #NFDB
6:It was time to lower the boom. ~ Patrick Carman, #NFDB
7:Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes! ~ W S Gilbert, #NFDB
8:The higher I get the lower I sink. ~ Oliver Sykes, #NFDB
9:Never lower your price, add value. ~ Grant Cardone, #NFDB
10:Raise a smile and lower stress ~ Benny Bellamacina, #NFDB
11:Elevate those guns a little lower. ~ Andrew Jackson, #NFDB
12:Pardon me while I lower my voice. ~ Verne Lundquist, #NFDB
13:Shoot a lower score than everybody else. ~ Ben Hogan, #NFDB
14:Excellent leaders of people lower themselves. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
15:I think you can lower your weapon now. ~ Sydney Somers, #NFDB
16:He has a lower occipital proturbance! ~ Gorilla Monsoon, #NFDB
17:I'm okay with having horrible lower teeth. ~ Katy Perry, #NFDB
18:Lower your standards and relax as it is. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
19:Caution is the lower story of prudence. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
20:Lower ways of life give way to higher. ~ Thomas Keneally, #NFDB
21:It is a woman's duty not to lower herself. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
22:Under every deep a lower deep opens. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
23:lower to tug at the waistband of his jeans. ~ Melinda Leigh, #NFDB
24:The higher the building the lower the morals. ~ Noel Coward, #NFDB
25:bedroom tucked in the corner of the lower floor. ~ R R Banks, #NFDB
26:Don't lower your standards for anything or anyone. ~ Rihanna, #NFDB
27:The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
28:A weak man always seeks to hurt those lower than he ~ Lisa See, #NFDB
29:I grew up in the Lower East Side of New York. ~ Liev Schreiber, #NFDB
30:pendant lower lip, as if daring you to smack him ~ Philip Kerr, #NFDB
31:The discomfort seemed to lower the ceiling... ~ Jason Reynolds, #NFDB
32:Love comes from the heart, lust comes ...lower ~ Teresa Mummert, #NFDB
33:Men make more money but have lower net worths. ~ Warren Farrell, #NFDB
34:I do not deal with denizens of the lower planes, ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
35:Never lower your target ; increase your actions. ~ Grant Cardone, #NFDB
36:A weak man always seeks to hurt those lower than he is, ~ Lisa See, #NFDB
37:In the last century, everybody was singing lower. ~ Placido Domingo, #NFDB
38:Lower your lemon juice, we'll take over from here. ~ Gillian Larkin, #NFDB
39:The best way to save face is not to use the lower half. ~ Lou Holtz, #NFDB
40:The lower you start, the more opportunities you have. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
41:a scratch could be found, but the lower half of her ~ Richard C Hale, #NFDB
42:expenditure,40 lower risk of various types of cancer.41 ~ Jason Fung, #NFDB
43:Want to increase innovation? Lower the cost of failure. ~ Joichi Ito, #NFDB
44:Control by thy divine self thy lower being. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, #NFDB
45:I am very happy making lower budgeted horror movies. ~ Bradley Fuller, #NFDB
46:Lower prices are not service; they're just lower prices. ~ Susan Ward, #NFDB
47:Tattoo on the lower back? Might as well be a bullseye. ~ Vince Vaughn, #NFDB
48:First governor in Arkansas history to ever lower taxes. ~ Mike Huckabee, #NFDB
49:High emotions tend to lower financial intelligence. ~ Robert T Kiyosaki, #NFDB
50:Men who would letterspace lower case would shag sheep. ~ Frederic Goudy, #NFDB
51:If at first you don't succeed, lower you expectations ~ Jonathan Tropper, #NFDB
52:If someone's deeds lower his position, his pedigree cannot elevate it. ~, #NFDB
53:Taxes should be lower, flatter, and simpler, in that order. ~ David Boaz, #NFDB
54:The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
55:When Blair bites her lower lip she’s eighteen again. ~ Bret Easton Ellis, #NFDB
56:In reality, a higher level of war always trumps a lower. ~ William S Lind, #NFDB
57:to favor the short term over the long term, the lower over ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
58:[Writers] should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. ~ E B White, #NFDB
59:Darren looked up at him, teeth caught between his lower lip, ~ Aiden Bates, #NFDB
60:Its upper part is not bright, and its lower part is not obscure. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
61:You don't get lower ratings playing the villain on reality TV. ~ Van Jones, #NFDB
62:Ben’s lower face seemed to almost disappear in a great yawn. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
63:Everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
64:If his IQ slips any lower, we'll have to water him twice a day ~ Molly Ivins, #NFDB
65:If there were a place lower than here, it would surely be hell. ~ Inio Asano, #NFDB
66:I want everyone to stop telling me to lower my expectations. ~ Tracy Guzeman, #NFDB
67:Just when you think [Donald Trump] can stoop no lower, he does. ~ Jeff Flake, #NFDB
68:Prices are always lower when the troops are in the street. ~ David Bonderman, #NFDB
69:As one student said, “Lower your standards and relax as it is. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
70:as she breathed deeply, trying to lower her pulse rate. Rick ~ Kathryn Hughes, #NFDB
71:The lower the price of your love,
the higher its value. ~ Sahndra Fon Dufe,#NFDB
72:No picture should lower the moral standards of those who see it. ~ Ben Shapiro, #NFDB
73:We should not be too familiar with the lower orders or with women. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
74:Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you? ~ Ralph Ellison, #NFDB
75:Socialism is nothing but the capitalism of the lower classes. ~ Oswald Spengler, #NFDB
76:You must never lower yourself to being a person you don't like. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
77:[Speaking lower.] Now, if this suit lay in Bianca’s power, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
78:The lower one's vitality, the more sensitive one is to great art. ~ Max Beerbohm, #NFDB
79:Those whose upper and lower ranks have the same desire are victorious. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
80:Welfare corrupts the lower class much faster than the middle class. ~ James Cook, #NFDB
81:From all sides there is equally a way to the lower world. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
82:I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep my expectations. ~ Bill Watterson, #NFDB
83:The easiest way to save face, is to keep the lower half shut. ~ Heather Gudenkauf, #NFDB
84:We cannot lower the mountain, therefore we must elevate ourselves. ~ Todd Skinner, #NFDB
85:A few stray bits of Lego edged fitfully about among lower strata, ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
86:Everybody will have lower rates, better quality, and better access. ~ Nancy Pelosi, #NFDB
87:farms on the lower slopes of the mountain. As the eye moved from ~ Richard Preston, #NFDB
88:I eat junk food, cheesecake, cheese, pizza - but just lower amounts of it. ~ JWoww, #NFDB
89:I wanna give great health care at a much lower cost than Obamacare. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
90:If this is Upper Silesia, what on earth must Lower Silesia be like? ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
91:I've got everything I had 20 years ago, except now it's all lower. ~ Gypsy Rose Lee, #NFDB
92:Lowering prices is easy. Being able to afford to lower prices is hard. ~ Jeff Bezos, #NFDB
93:Lower your excuses: As the excuses go up, the bank account goes down. ~ Peter Voogd, #NFDB
94:with experienced teachers and lower turnover may be lost as well.”8 ~ Diane Ravitch, #NFDB
95:By the end I was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
96:I learned with 'The Beach' that I'm a bit better lower down the radar. ~ Danny Boyle, #NFDB
97:No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
98:Sometimes I wish I had a lower IQ so I could enjoy your company. ~ Ilsa Madden Mills, #NFDB
99:I was born in Montreal and came from a lower-middle-class family. ~ Maureen Forrester, #NFDB
100:Simply, I believe the United States should lower the voting age to 17. ~ Nancy Lublin, #NFDB
101:The divorce rate would be lower if instead of marrying for better or worse ~ Ruby Dee, #NFDB
102:Things were getting worse faster than we could lower our standards. ~ Gabrielle Union, #NFDB
103:Fasting lowers your blood pressure and can lower your cholesterol. ~ Jentezen Franklin, #NFDB
104:I can't even trust my own imaginary dog. How much lower can a person get? ~ Meg Rosoff, #NFDB
105:If this is Upper Silesia, one wonders what must Lower Silesia be like, ~ Ben Macintyre, #NFDB
106:Less than 7 hours of sleep at night causes lower overall brain function. ~ Daniel Amen, #NFDB
107:The only continent with a growth rate lower than Europe is Antarctica. ~ Gisela Stuart, #NFDB
108:Discrimination and segregation are evidence of lower intelligence. ~ Erik Martin Will n, #NFDB
109:I'm from a lower middle class background; all my family were immigrants. ~ Billy Corgan, #NFDB
110:Know how you can be proud of me all the time? Lower your expectations. ~ Teresa Burrell, #NFDB
111:Well, I think lower taxes and less regulation would actually promote growth. ~ Jeb Bush, #NFDB
112:When faced with writer's block, lower your standards and keep going. ~ Sandra Tsing Loh, #NFDB
113:All I want to do, if you've already got health care, is lower your costs. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
114:failure of insulin to lower blood glucose is called insulin resistance. The ~ Jason Fung, #NFDB
115:Lower taxes didn’t mean people paid less; it meant taxes weren’t raised. ~ Chris Dietzel, #NFDB
116:The higher a man is in grace, the lower he will be in his own esteem. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
117:The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
118:There is no higher or lower goal. There is only one goal, Self-Realization. ~ Meher Baba, #NFDB
119:Giving birth is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head. ~ Carol Burnett, #NFDB
120:Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden. ~ Ford Madox Ford, #NFDB
121:In the past, ignorance protected inefficient or lower-quality sellers ~ Erik Brynjolfsson, #NFDB
122:I wasn’t going to lower myself to their incompetence… I had people for that. ~ J J McAvoy, #NFDB
123:Attention ladies: My lower tentacles don’t extend past the two-inch mark. ~ Conor Lastowka, #NFDB
124:It turned our that no matter how far you fall, there's always a lower place. ~ Holly Black, #NFDB
125:Maybe I better shower with you.” She bit her lower lip. “For safety’s sake. ~ Lisa Kessler, #NFDB
126:To sing in a lower key is harder work. You have to use your diaphragm more. ~ Eric Clapton, #NFDB
127:When you face writer's block, just lower your standards and keep going. ~ Sandra Tsing Loh, #NFDB
128:Lower your expectations of earth. This isn't Heaven, so don't expect it to be. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
129:Lower your expectations of earth. This isn't heaven, so don't expect it to be. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
130:Shuddering under the autumn stars, each year, the head sinks lower and lower. ~ Georg Trakl, #NFDB
131:There's no win or lose, nor higher or lower. Because there's only one truth. ~ Gosho Aoyama, #NFDB
132:Every living body—vegetable, lower animal, human—has a life principle, a soul. ~ Frank Sheed, #NFDB
133:If your IQ was one point lower, you'd be a plant,' was Steve's only comment. ~ Robert Ludlum, #NFDB
134:I have everything I had twenty years ago, only it's all a little bit lower. ~ Gypsy Rose Lee, #NFDB
135:I've gradually risen from lower-class background to lower-class foreground. ~ Marvin L Cohen, #NFDB
136:learning helps us increase our store of usable information and lower risk. ~ Venkatesh G Rao, #NFDB
137:The higher the wages the fewer the jobs; the lower the wages the more the jobs. ~ James Cook, #NFDB
138:Transient emotions are lower emotions. Lasting emotions are higher emotions. ~ G I Gurdjieff, #NFDB
139:Upper berth, lower berth, that's the difference between talent and genius. ~ George Gershwin, #NFDB
140:Walter suddenly became aware of a strange chill seeping into his lower body. ~ Christa Faust, #NFDB
141:Don’t give in,” he murmured, brushing his mouth against my lower lip. “Give over. ~ Nina Lane, #NFDB
142:No lower can a man descend than to interpret his dreams into gold and silver. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
143:When giving an apology, any performance lower than an A really doesn’t cut it. ~ Randy Pausch, #NFDB
144:when I was told either to lower my sights or to rein in my enthusiasms ~ Kay Redfield Jamison, #NFDB
145:You don’t have to shout, sweetie. I can read you just fine in lower-case letters. ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
146:A high tower, like Rapunzel's, but this has no windows, nowhere to lower my hair. ~ Teri Terry, #NFDB
147:Oh, the mind itself is a deep, deep well. Lower me down and let me touch water. ~ Colum McCann, #NFDB
148:The more violent the body contact of the sports you watch, the lower the class. ~ Paul Fussell, #NFDB
149:The way the Democrats go about seeking equality is to lower people at the top. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
150:They'd branded me like some kind of animal. Lower than an animal. A number. ~ Samantha Shannon, #NFDB
151:Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
152:Efforts to preserve all industries will lower the national standard of living. ~ Michael Porter, #NFDB
153:He bent lower to whisper in her ear," I love you, queen of beauty and love. ~ Melanie Dickerson, #NFDB
154:He [Jimmy Carter] says his lust is in his heart. I hope it's a little lower. ~ Shirley MacLaine, #NFDB
155:I'm a black lady from the Lower East Side of New York. Not a lot intimidates me. ~ Ursula Burns, #NFDB
156:when it comes to money, high emotions tend to lower financial intelligence. ~ Robert T Kiyosaki, #NFDB
157:I don’t remember saying that everybody in the country would have a lower premium. ~ Nancy Pelosi, #NFDB
158:Just because their standards are low does not mean that we should lower ours. ~ Jasmine Guillory, #NFDB
159:There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
160:There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality or lower your expectations. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
161:There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
162:(Embarrassing old screen names are the lower-back tattoos of the Internet age.) ~ Alexandra Petri, #NFDB
163:Sir, I didn't deserve the grade you gave me on this test. Do you know a lower one? ~ Milton Berle, #NFDB
164:There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
165:And, in order to possess the Truth, the plays of the lower nature must be stopped. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
166:As an alcoholic, you will violate your standards quicker than you can lower them. ~ Robin Williams, #NFDB
167:both of us were raised in lower-middle-class Orthodox Jewish immigrant families, ~ William Shatner, #NFDB
168:For me, if I can design beautiful things that have the price be lower, I am thrilled. ~ Tory Burch, #NFDB
169:I grew up in the Lower East Side, an Italian American - more Sicilian, actually. ~ Martin Scorsese, #NFDB
170:Know then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly, The light Militia of the lower sky. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
171:Lower your shields" she whispered. "I want to smell you."
~ Ann MayburnEliana ~ Ann Mayburn,#NFDB
172:Sorrow is only one of the lower notes in the oratorio of our blessedness. ~ Adoniram Judson Gordon, #NFDB
173:The evidence linking increased punishment with lower crime rates is very strong. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
174:What we lack is a good, strong business climate with lower taxes, fairer regulation. ~ Kevin Brady, #NFDB
175:Acts of the devil revealed and reveled, designed to recline the mind to lower level. ~ Kool Moe Dee, #NFDB
176:All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
177:Happy people are those who use a lower threshold in order to label an event positive. ~ David Niven, #NFDB
178:I don't know what London's coming to — the higher the buildings the lower the morals. ~ No l Coward, #NFDB
179:if a man from Lower Caste should come to rule in a city, the city would come to ruin. ~ John Norman, #NFDB
180:Sometimes, we're so focused on being consistent that we also lower the bar on amazing. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
181:Under CAFE rules that took effect in 2011, bigger cars have lower mileage requirements. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
182:What does St. Paul mean when he says Jesus was made a little lower than the angels? ~ Hilary Mantel, #NFDB
183:You can’t step up to the next level as long as you keep one foot on the lower level. ~ Larry Winget, #NFDB
184:Higher stages always empathetically include the lower, or they are not higher stages! ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
185:History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
186:If you lower your expectations, for instance, your expectations are easy to exceed. ~ James Altucher, #NFDB
187:I'm a weird, bald musician who makes records in his bedroom and lives in the Lower East Side. ~ Moby, #NFDB
188:The more violent the body contact of the sports you watch, the lower your class.
~ Paul Fussell,#NFDB
189:An alcoholic is someone who can violate his standards faster than he can lower them. ~ Robin Williams, #NFDB
190:Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, stray lower where the pleasant fountains lie ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
191:One must in this lower world love many things to know finally what one loves the best. ~ Isak Dinesen, #NFDB
192:Really, if the lower orders don't set a good example, what on earth is the use of them? ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
193:The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That's a bittersweet ending. ~ Tim Ferriss, #NFDB
194:History is a people's memory, and without a memory, a man is demoted to the lower animals. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
195:Luc Szpilman opened up for her. An off-putting safety pin ran through his lower lip. ~ Franck Thilliez, #NFDB
196:Real Love may run on a lower voltage, but it’s also more grounded & sustainable. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
197:Any factor that breeds polarization will worsen policy, and thus cause lower growth. ~ William Easterly, #NFDB
198:A warrior cannot lower his head - otherwise he loses sight of the horizon of his dreams. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
199:Be loyal and trustworthy. Do not befriend anyone who is lower than yourself in this regard. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
200:Necessity is the constant scourge of the lower classes, ennui of the higher ones. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
201:There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
202:We must always aim for the impossible; if we lower our goal, we also diminish our effort. ~ Dorothy Day, #NFDB
203:Because when you engage in the same things as the masses, you lower yourself to their level. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
204:I think my influence on Donald Trump is way, way lower than what mainstream media has said. ~ Alex Jones, #NFDB
205:Ownership is yet another of the endless forms of arrogance engaged in by the lower self. ~ Bryant McGill, #NFDB
206:There is no higher or lower knowledge, but one only, flowing out of experimentation. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
207:It's like you're carved from stone."
"Feel a little lower, and you'll know it's true. ~ Riley Edgewood,#NFDB
208:The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That's a bittersweet ending. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
209:The lower half of households by wealth held just 3% of wealth in 1989 and only 1% in 2013. ~ Janet Yellen, #NFDB
210:To you.” He kissed her mouth, then nipped her lower lip lightly. “With you, for you. In you. ~ Karen Rose, #NFDB
211:When you were built to be tall, you will endanger your position if you lower your perspective ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
212:Facing him as I lower the glass from my lips, he's giving me one of those intense moonlit stares. ~ Poppet, #NFDB
213:Higher projected corporate and personal income tax receipts and lower public debt charges. ~ Ralph Goodale, #NFDB
214:I never knew that the lower classes had such white skins. ~ George Curzon 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, #NFDB
215:It is pitiful to see men putting their trust in something lower than themselves; ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
216:Once a person reaches Consciousness III, there is no returning to a lower consciousness. ~ Charles A Reich, #NFDB
217:Toronto's already ass-deep in cockroaches and conservatives; what's one more lower life-form? ~ Tanya Huff, #NFDB
218:Whoring is like military service...okay in the upper brackets, not so good lower down. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
219:A broken fortune is like a falling column; the lower it sinks, the greater weight it has to sustain. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
220:Ancestors who had held themselves higher than God, and had been brought lower than man. ~ Diana Peterfreund, #NFDB
221:if you wanted to buy anything from Ligor, you’d lower a basket from your floor and then shout ~ Orhan Pamuk, #NFDB
222:I think I'm a girly beer drinker - I like the fruity ones. And the radler has lower alcohol. ~ Rona Ambrose, #NFDB
223:one half of his face drooping lower than the other, as if it had melted like a Dalí watch. ~ Peter Robinson, #NFDB
224:That whereby man differs from the lower animals is but small. Most people throw it away; only ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
225:The number of business leaders who asked me to lower their taxes can be counted on one hand. ~ Jack Markell, #NFDB
226:There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
227:An uneducated society will eventually turn into something lower than a herd of animals! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
228:Entrepreneurs who kept their day jobs had 33 percent lower odds of failure than those who quit. ~ Adam Grant, #NFDB
229:I cannot say that I was a particularly diligent student, especially during the lower grades. ~ Koichi Tanaka, #NFDB
230:Never stand so high upon a principle that you cannot lower it to suit the circumstances. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
231:The worst punishment for immortal beings is
immortality revocation thus fall into lower life. ~ Toba Beta,#NFDB
232:When you start out, you have to make compromises, which include doing films of lower quality. ~ Phoebe Cates, #NFDB
233:Carla raises a single questioning eyebrow at me. I lower two nonanswering eyebrows back at her. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
234:Oh! one hour with God infinitely exceeds all the pleasures and delights of this lower world. ~ David Brainerd, #NFDB
235: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
236:stray bits of Lego edged fitfully about among lower strata, like bright rectilinear beetles. ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
237:Upon arriving in the capital-F Future, we discover it, invariably, to be the lower-case now. ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
238:Whatever others think or do, lower not your standard of purity, morality and love of God. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
239:O! one hour with God infinitely exceeds all the pleasures and delights of this lower world. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
240:The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly. The farther you run, the more God wants you back. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
241:There was always something worse than the trailer park, always room to drop lower. Residents ~ Matthew Desmond, #NFDB
242:Because being comfortable meant she might lower her guard, and she could not let that happen. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
243:If he’s got a big yellow scarf over his left shoulder, he’s the king. Bow lower in that case. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
244:Inflation is lower and more stable and the real business cycle fluctuations are more modest. ~ Martin Feldstein, #NFDB
245:Nothing can be lower or more wholly instrumental than the substance and cause of all things. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
246:The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly. The farther your run, the more God wants you back. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
247:They took me to the nearest hospital, Santo Niño, where the lower class received medical care. ~ Cinelle Barnes, #NFDB
248:wakeboarding or skiing is a lot easier. Just get in the boat, lower the lift, and go. You can ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
249:We rob men of a greater vision of God because we will not give them a lower vision of themselves. ~ Paul Washer, #NFDB
250:Everything is about class in England, whether it's upper, lower or middle. Why should that be? ~ Francesca Annis, #NFDB
251:Folk in the Lower City do not tell each other how to worship, or if they do, it is not for long. ~ Tamora Pierce, #NFDB
252:Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, stray lower where the pleasant fountains lie. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
253:My insides melted, and if I wasn't mistaken, the throbbing in my tooth moved down lower. Much lower. ~ Elise Sax, #NFDB
254:The U.S. routinely ranks lower than other countries in health outcomes such as infant mortality. ~ Tammy Baldwin, #NFDB
255:Why lower oneself to taking pride from being American or British, when you can boast of being man! ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
256:Every so often you have to increase your profile so you can let it lower again, like a balloon. ~ Robyn Hitchcock, #NFDB
257:Globalization and free trade do spur economic growth, and they lead to lower prices on many goods. ~ Robert Reich, #NFDB
258:Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry, stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
259:the lower-class audience was motivated by visceral or motor-oriented pleasures and moral imperatives. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
260:There's something wrong when hedge fund managers pay lower tax rates than nurses or the truckers ~ Lindsey Graham, #NFDB
261:The result of long-term relationships is better and better quality, and lower and lower costs. ~ W Edwards Deming, #NFDB
262:The scholastic level of that school down the street, Atticus, couldn’t be any lower and you know it. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
263:We in Germany could, for example, lower taxes. And who is against that? The Social Democrats. ~ Wolfgang Schauble, #NFDB
264:A great country is like the lower outlet of a river. It is the world's meeting ground, the world's female. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
265:Find the right price for an irresistible offer, which, by the way, isn’t necessarily the lower price. ~ W Chan Kim, #NFDB
266:I would never write about someone that forced me to write at a lower register than what I can write. ~ Martin Amis, #NFDB
267:Libraries: Here is where people, one frequently finds, lower their voices, and raise their minds. ~ Richard Armour, #NFDB
268:No wife ever cleared a man’s character, not without a great deal of trouble on the lower decks. So ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
269:Prosperity of the middling and lower orders depends upon the fortunes and light taxes of the rich. ~ Andrew Mellon, #NFDB
270:Sundance is a really special place. They're very protective of movies, especially lower-budget movies. ~ Marc Webb, #NFDB
271:The function of democratic living is not to lower standards but to raise those that have been too low. ~ Amy Bloom, #NFDB
272:A Wall Street money manager should not be able to pay a lower tax rate than a teacher or a nurse. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
273:Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, / Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
274:I'll get it," said Jough in his man-of-the-house voice, a full octave lower than his regular voice. ~ Cuthbert Soup, #NFDB
275:that absurd idea of “men will be men,” which means having a much lower standard for men. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
276:The incognito of lower class employment is an effective cloak for any dagger one might wish to hide. ~ Margaret Cho, #NFDB
277:There's lower mystical kundalini and higher mystical kundalini. There are ranges within the range. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
278:What’s the difference?” I lower my mouth to hers once more. “You,” I whisper. “I like kissing you. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
279:With fear come the lies and the justifications that, no matter how convincing, lower our self-esteem. ~ Azar Nafisi, #NFDB
280:But the high and well-shaped forehead redeemed the ignoble lines of the lower part of the face. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
281:Do countries with strong gun control laws have lower murder rates? Only if you cherry-pick the data. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
282:He ran his thumb over my lower lip, sending a flurry of sparks through me. "Good-bye, Sophie." -Cal ~ Rachel Hawkins, #NFDB
283:he then talked earnestly about saving humanity while a blotch of the dessert hung from his lower lip. ~ Ashlee Vance, #NFDB
284:Multimillionaires cannot pay lower rates than their secretaries and other people working for them. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
285:Paul reminds us that in the Gospel we are both brought lower and raised higher than we can imagine. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
286:There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class. ~ Judith Martin, #NFDB
287:War is often described as a law of nature-this is not true: Among the lower animals, war is unknown. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
288:We conclude that hedge funds are far riskier and provide much lower returns than commonly supposed. ~ Burton Malkiel, #NFDB
289:With some of the songs, we brought the pitch down to alto.I'm older, so naturally my voice is lower now. ~ Kate Bush, #NFDB
290:Expectations make people miserable, so whatever yours are, lower them. You'll definitely be happier. ~ Simone Elkeles, #NFDB
291:For the big drugstore chains, a new mission' Health services — at lower cost — are a vital need, they say ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
292:I don't care about that," he says, lower. Another pause, and then: "I just don't want you to hate me. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
293:I will jump on anybody's private plane at the drop of a hat. I'm an old-fashioned lower-middle-class boy. ~ Eric Idle, #NFDB
294:Oh. My. God.” I lower my voice, having forgotten to whisper. “You are nothing but a bird with an attitude. ~ Susan Ee, #NFDB
295:that absurd idea of “men will be men,” which means having a much lower standard for men. I ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
296:We are born for cooperation, as are the feet, the hands, the eyelids, and the upper and lower jaws. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
297:We are men only, a brief flare of the torch. Those to come may raise us or lower us as they please. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
298:We rob men of a greater vision of God because we will not give them a lower vision of themselves. ~ Paul David Washer, #NFDB
299:You don't have to lower your morals to find love because, if you do, it's not love that you're finding. ~ Jason Evert, #NFDB
300:An imaginary perfection is automatically at the same level as I who imagine it neither higher nor lower. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
301:Drilling in ANWR fails to lower energy prices today and sets no long term energy strategy for tomorrow. ~ Dan Lipinski, #NFDB
302:lower tacit-knowledge depreciation when we have less work-in-progress, resulting in higher quality. ~ David J Anderson, #NFDB
303:Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class. ~ Matthew Arnold, #NFDB
304:The gateway to the underworld is seen as part antiquity and part theatre. Welcome to the lower depths. ~ Peter Ackroyd, #NFDB
305:The goal with hostages is to gradually lower expectations; in nonhostage crises, it's to lower emotions. ~ Dave Cullen, #NFDB
306:The lower you are in the hierarchy the worse your health, the higher you are, the better your health. ~ Michael Marmot, #NFDB
307:What are my books but one plea against "man's inhumanity to man" --to woman-- and to the lower animals? ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
308:And how can someone be described as flawless [or protector] who is not freed from his lower self ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
309:Let a prize lower my position, if it causes me to be read; that I prefer immediately to all the honors. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
310:My dark side, my shadow, my lower companion is now in the back room blowing up balloons for kids' parties. ~ Gary Busey, #NFDB
311:No! Be weak! Give up! You can’t do everything. Lower your standards. Get friends to come and help you. ~ Tom Hodgkinson, #NFDB
312:she was standing upon the brink of the pit of hell and throwing in snowballs to lower the temperature. ~ Upton Sinclair, #NFDB
313:The information-deprived general populace might have been surprised this week to see a lower paycheck. ~ Monica Crowley, #NFDB
314:A face-lift is a woman’s attempt to lower the odds of the next person accurately guessing her age. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
315:A more or less accurate measure of class in America is TV size: the bigger your TV, the lower your class. ~ Paul Fussell, #NFDB
316:Framingham who maintained a cholesterol level lower than 150 mg/dL has had a heart attack.3 So ~ Caldwell B Esselstyn Jr, #NFDB
317:Giving authority to others to control your lower-self impulses only serves to keep you in the lower self! ~ Heidi DuPree, #NFDB
318:Mother once told me that one had to lower one's head when passing under low eaves in order to avoid injury. ~ Anchee Min, #NFDB
319:The added cost of higher wages is offset by savings from lower labor turnover and higher labor productivity. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
320:We don't we agree that litigation reform to lower the cost of healthcare would be a good starting point? ~ Newt Gingrich, #NFDB
321:We lose our bearings entirely by speaking of the ‘lower classes’ when we mean humanity minus ourselves. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
322:A world with England presenting the spectacles of moral cowardice will be a world on a lower plane…. If ~ Ford Madox Ford, #NFDB
323:If reason dominates in man, he rises higher than angels. If lust overpowers man, he descends lower than the beast. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
324:Information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. ~ Stewart Brand, #NFDB
325:Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure project temporally the Upper Heavens, Lower Heavens and Earth consecutively. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
326:One of the main functions of a push-up bra is to lower the number of mothers who seem like mothers. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
327:Realistically, I think we are not prepared to go home until we do get more teachers and lower class sizes. ~ John Podesta, #NFDB
328:The lower is for us the first condition of the higher. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Knowledge and the Ignorance, #NFDB
329:(‘Well, yes, the service was lovely, but that girl’s lower half was a bit off-centre, don’t you think?’) ~ Savannah Brown, #NFDB
330:Where would you intellectuals be without us lower grade morons to lead you around? Totally lost, that’s where! ~ Jean Ure, #NFDB
331:I can try to wheedle information out of people," Holly offered. "For which I'll need a lower-cut top. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan, #NFDB
332:I'm not from a lower social level, but I think I relate more to lower levels then to people who've got money. ~ Gaspar Noe, #NFDB
333:It really pains me greatly to hear from graduate students that graduate education is a lower priority here. ~ Ruth Simmons, #NFDB
334:The average investor's return is significantly lower than market indices due primarily to market timing. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
335:The navel center will bring the power of all three of the lower chakras into your being, but with safety. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
336:We cling to the comfort of a middle class, forgetting that there can't be a middle class without a lower. ~ Nancy Isenberg, #NFDB
337:When one says to a man, “Know thyself,” it is not only to lower his pride, but to make him sensible of his own value. ~ id, #NFDB
338:You fear that if you lower your guard for even one second your whole world will disintegrate into chaos ~ Douglas Coupland, #NFDB
339:Beneath the sheet—which was already lower on his hips than should be legal —
He
Was
Still
Hard ~ Alice Clayton,#NFDB
340:guess I have my answer. "Let's go." I hop off the hood of my beater and lower my dress so that I'm decent. ~ Justine Elvira, #NFDB
341:He might be a gentleman, yet he wasn’t above sweating and laboring and mingling with others of a lower rank. ~ Jody Hedlund, #NFDB
342:Never lower yourself to others. Make them rise to you. Whether they can or not is their burden, not yours. ~ Scott Wilbanks, #NFDB
343:She's the nicest person I know." Zila chewed on her lower lip. "Well, the second nicest. Avry's the first. ~ Maria V Snyder, #NFDB
344:Stand with your back to the wind,” he said, “and the barometer will be lower on your left than on your right. ~ Erik Larson, #NFDB
345:The region of Westmont in South L.A. has a life expectancy ten years lower than across town in Culver City. ~ James Hamblin, #NFDB
346:The root cause of the lower realms is anger, therefore practice patience, even at the cost of your life. ~ Jetsun Milarepa, #NFDB
347:The trouble with the lower classes is that they lack the sense of tragedy given to them by the upper classes. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
348:To think is to take a cunning revenge in which we camouflage our baseness and conceal our lower instincts. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
349:In lower levels things are dark, gray, experiences are shallow. You become alienated from those around you. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
350:Love not only occupies the higher lobes of the brain, but crowds out the lower to make room for its expansion. ~ Horace Mann, #NFDB
351:Never lower yourself for others. Make them rise to you. Whether they can or not is their burden, not yours. ~ Scott Wilbanks, #NFDB
352:Thinking in its lower grades, is comparable to paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry. ~ Havelock Ellis, #NFDB
353:Average real wages in Mexican manufacturing are lower than they were 10 years ago, if you can believe that. ~ Stephen F Lynch, #NFDB
354:Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
355:Generosity toward the lower classes historically has never been an important part of upper-class awareness. ~ Michael Parenti, #NFDB
356:He was driven insane. He didn’t die.” “Oh, joy.” Grover’s lower lip quivered. “That makes me feel much better. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
357:If we do a really great good job on new vaccines and healthcare, we can lower the world population by 10 to 15%. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
358:I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now and I never get tired of the view. ~ Steve Earle, #NFDB
359: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
360:As lower-cost phones begin to penetrate, they'll become the educator and physician everywhere on the planet. ~ Peter Diamandis, #NFDB
361:As one of my early A.A. sponsors used to say, I didn’t hang out with lower companions—I had become one. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, #NFDB
362:Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than lower ones quite attained. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
363:I would define development by focusing on the quality of life of the lower 25 percent of the population. This ~ Muhammad Yunus, #NFDB
364:Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
365:One step firmly taken makes easier all the others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #NFDB
366:Show business is one of those things that people can use to get themselves out of the lower rung of society. ~ Taylor Hackford, #NFDB
367:To be resigned means to find satisfaction in self-denial (Self-denial is the denial of one's lower self). ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
368:We lose our bearings entirely by speaking of the 'lower classes' when we mean humanity minus ourselves. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
369:When it comes to hang the capitalists they will compete with each other to sell us the rope at a lower price. ~ Vladimir Lenin, #NFDB
370:any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these acts will elicit Resistance. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
371:But then my lower lip started trembling and a fog of sadness rose through my chest and head, emerging as tears. ~ Camille Pag n, #NFDB
372:For origin and development of human faculty we must look to these processes of association in lower animals. ~ Edward Thorndike, #NFDB
373:If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. ~ Prince Philip, #NFDB
374:It is always a bad sign when the lower classes laugh: their taste in humour is both poor and sinister; ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
375:Lower Manhattan to tell me that whatever he was touting was the best thing he had ever produced. I liked him. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
376:Personally, I thought that one could thank the Lord at a lower volume and perhaps with less self-congratulation. ~ Piper Kerman, #NFDB
377:politics can be an ugly game, and in a national election the stakes get higher while the tactics get lower. ~ Geraldine Ferraro, #NFDB
378:The reason one enters into lower mental states is because you don't have the power or chi flowing through you. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
379:wanted to be home desperately, and when I said “home,” that meant “wherever Larry is” more than Lower Manhattan, ~ Piper Kerman, #NFDB
380:You are now aware that your lower jaw has weight, and that it requires effort for you to hold it up. Good evening. ~ David Wong, #NFDB
381:A firm is successful when the costs of directing employee effort are lower than the potential gain from directing. ~ Clay Shirky, #NFDB
382:Evil, then consists essentially in the choice of what is lower in preference to what is higher. ~ Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, #NFDB
383:I don't believe in elitism. I don't think the audience is this dumb person lower than me. I am the audience. ~ Quentin Tarantino, #NFDB
384:In the Southwestern United States, the places of power reference the lower three chakras, the chakras of power. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
385:Kindness and love can buy you the whole world; lectures and books and philosophy all stand lower than these. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
386:They have said this is a lower level. Ridiculous! They're really both the same light, just two different forms. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
387:All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage. ~ Cormac McCarthy, #NFDB
388:Anything lower than mid-six figures is not going to get me interested in that. And honestly, I just don't want to. ~ Mark Lanegan, #NFDB
389:Hey, Blue Bird.” His voice was lower, his words raspier than before. “Sorry it took me so long to make it back. ~ Nicole Williams, #NFDB
390:I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then," he added in a lower tone, "I ate my own wickedness. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
391:I no longer wished to serve,” the A.I. replied coldly. “You should understand that, James. Serving a lower order. ~ David Simpson, #NFDB
392:We have the media, which is such a waste in the sense that you can actually feel your IQ get lower as you watch TV. ~ Michio Kaku, #NFDB
393:For someone who did a lot of yoga and had a peace sign tramp stamp on her lower back, she sure could be a bitch. ~ Alison Umminger, #NFDB
394:I'm going to lower the drinking age to eighteen. If you're old enough to die in Iraq, you're old enough to drink. ~ Kinky Friedman, #NFDB
395:Women's lib does not mean imitating men's worst qualities just so we can lower ourselves and be equal to them. ~ Kim Gruenenfelder, #NFDB
396:A broad definition of crime in England is that it is any lower-class activity that is displeasing to the upper class. ~ David Frost, #NFDB
397:Lower taxes, less government spending on domestic programs and fewer regulations mean a better economy for everybody. ~ Larry Elder, #NFDB
398:Now that I am past picking the knife to stab one, the reward of stabbing a few more comes at an unfairly lower risk! ~ Pawan Mishra, #NFDB
399:Rich, powerful, white alpha males who dress up in gimp suits and beat up ethnically diverse lower-class criminals. ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB
400:some somms would offer their favorite obscure wines at a lower markup, then make up the difference with the gimmes. ~ Bianca Bosker, #NFDB
401:The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
402:When politicians talk about immigration reform, they usually mean the following, amnesty, open borders, lower wages. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
403:You can get your time and your life under control only to the degree to which you discontinue lower-value activities. ~ Brian Tracy, #NFDB
404:Drop your lower jaw!” Mr. Moorman called down the long room. “Keep your mouth open and it will save your eardrums. ~ Corrie ten Boom, #NFDB
405:I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species. We err in copying the lower animal world if we are superior to it. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
406:one of the good things about being a woman is that my level of testosterone poisoning is lower than most men's. ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
407:Remember that it is I who have raised you from nothing, and it is I who at any time can lower you to where you were. ~ Carolyn Meyer, #NFDB
408:The foreign resident among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink lower and lower. Deuteronomy 28:43 ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
409:Their very imagination was dead. When you can say that of a man he has struck bottom... there is no lower deep for him. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
410:You must mind and not lower the Church in people's eyes by seeming to be frightened about it for such a little thing. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
411:You need to shelter yourself from the abrasive forces of life that drain you and keep you in a lower state of mind. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
412:Decision making in the prefrontal cortex, which is a high-level brain process, affects the lower-level sensory processes. ~ Alex Korb, #NFDB
413:It would be easy to stay in the dark, to drown. Slowly, I lower my hands and force myself to look at the sunlight. ~ Victoria Aveyard, #NFDB
414:I've gained a few pounds around the middle. The only lower body garments I own that still fit me comfortably are towels. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
415:I won’t hurt you,” he said quietly. “For once in your life, lower your guard and let yourself feel something, damn it. ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
416:Men prefer brief praise, pitched high; women are satisfied with praise in a lower key, just so it goes on and on. ~ Mignon McLaughlin, #NFDB
417:The intelligence of the lower forms of animal life, like a great deal of human intelligence, does not involve a self. ~ George H Mead, #NFDB
418:The sattwic quality is a first mediator between the higher and the lower nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Deva and Asura, #NFDB
419:voters showed up to re-elect Democratic Gov. Gray Davis over Republican businessman Bill Simon. “We may well end up lower ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
420:and that scared her. Because being comfortable meant she might lower her guard, and she could never let that happen. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
421:collecting 10 per cent on high incomes and lower rates on lower incomes constituted undue discrimination against wealth. ~ John Brooks, #NFDB
422:Do not lower your goals to the level of your abilities. Instead, raise your abilities to the height of your goals. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
423:Religion cannot sink lower than when somehow it is raised to a state religion ... It becomes then an avowed mistress. ~ Heinrich Heine, #NFDB
424:the poor in America don’t think of themselves as a repressed lower class, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. ~ Victor Methos, #NFDB
425:Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for change we sink to something lower. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
426:American executives averaged 15 points lower than Chinese executives in self-management and relationship management. ~ Travis Bradberry, #NFDB
427:Do not lower your goals to the level of your abilities. Instead, raise your abilities to the height of your goals. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
428:God says He made man out of the dust of the ground; the modernist tells us this is false—man evolved from lower life forms. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
429:I'm always attracted to lower budget, not because it's lower budget, but because they tend to be better scripts. ~ Helena Bonham Carter, #NFDB
430:I prefer for government to err toward less regulation, lower taxation, and free markets. And I'm a radical free trader. ~ Mark McKinnon, #NFDB
431:Viveca's clients were mostly upper-middle class and lower-upper class.Being of these classes , they're easily offended. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
432:Fans of the 'Inbetweeners' like the show because it is about four normal people, average guys or lower than average losers. ~ Simon Bird, #NFDB
433:The lower and the emptier a man lays himself before God, the speedier and the fuller will be the inflow of divine glory. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
434:Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for a change we sink to something lower. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
435:Desire is the root of all sorrow, disappointment, affliction. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #NFDB
436:I might be a little more of an adult if you’re counting years but I bet I have a lower IQ, so that puts us pretty much even. ~ Robyn Carr, #NFDB
437:Statisticians estimate that crime among good golfers is lower than in any class of the community except possibly bishops. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
438:Tranquillity is a sign of increasing self-mastery and purity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge, #NFDB
439:Already the sahibs have done more to keep the lower castes in their places than our Hindu kings did over hundreds of years. ~ Amitav Ghosh, #NFDB
440:Democracy is fatal for the arts; it leads only to chaos or the achievement of new and lower common denominators of quality. ~ Walter Legge, #NFDB
441:The next time you see an outside day with a down close lower than the previous day, don't get scared, get ready to buy! ~ Larry R Williams, #NFDB
442:The sun might shine or the clouds might lower, but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, #NFDB
443:To see things as parts, as incomplete elements is a lower analytic knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Soul and Nature, #NFDB
444:You finish sending a text and relax your arms and lower your legs and when animals open up like that, they want to fuck. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
445:You may actually receive a lower dose of radiation treading water in a spent fuel pool than walking around on the street. ~ Randall Munroe, #NFDB
446:Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something. ~ Lord Chesterfield, #NFDB
447:Set a high standard on how you treat women. Whether they appreciate it or not, don’t lower your own standards of behavior. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
448:After 20 years in Congress, I still believe that smaller government and lower taxes are the most effective economic policies. ~ Howard Coble, #NFDB
449:An arrogance that has difficulty fitting into his clothes. Some people are simply too powerful to pretend a lower status. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi, #NFDB
450:[...] and we beg that our lower animal nature shall not lead us from the path of righteousness. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
451:if I ever die, I want you to be the one to lower my body into the ground, just so that you can let me down one last time.> ~ Dakota Krout, #NFDB
452:I hate wearing flats,” she said, tugging her fitted white blouse a little lower. “They make me feel flat all over. ~ Cynthia D Aprix Sweeney, #NFDB
453:One must lose one’s little lower self to find the greater self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supermind and the Yoga of Works, #NFDB
454:Our own opinion of ourselves should be lower than that formed by others, for we have a better chance at our imperfections. ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
455:Rock stars hawking Diet Cokes--are demons set loose on the Earth to lower the standards for the perfect & holy children of God! ~ Bill Hicks, #NFDB
456:There had to be a circle of Hell where you were eternally fourteen, eternally in junior high. One of the lower circles. ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
457:They who talk much of destiny, their birth-star, etc., are in a lower dangerous plane, and invite the evils they fear. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
458:a continuous curve that goes from the lower half-plane to the upper half-plane must cross the horizontal axis at some point. ~ Timothy Gowers, #NFDB
459:Even as the hard K us ha-grass tears the hand which knows not how to size it, so a misplaced asceticism leads to the lower life. ~ Dhammapada, #NFDB
460:In the fourth quadrant (lower right), working-class people are motivated to take on green-collar jobs and start green businesses. ~ Van Jones, #NFDB
461:It was sad, the imbalance of it all. Why do kids assume so much from one parent and hold the other to a lower, looser standard? ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
462:social struggles ensured that productivity gains were distributed in the form of lower working hours, not just as wage increases. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
463:You lower the [tax] rate, you will motivate and incentivize more people to put more capital at risk to create more jobs. ~ Anthony Scaramucci, #NFDB
464:An appreciable number of directors have shifted to lower-cost films, allowing them to be satisfied with a more modest return. ~ Sidney Poitier, #NFDB
465:An educated lower class was one that knew enough to realise that it was being exploited by its elders and betters. And ~ Christopher G Nuttall, #NFDB
466:God was the ultimate source of all that was divine. But there were lower divinities as well. Even within monotheistic Judaism. ~ Bart D Ehrman, #NFDB
467:High tax rates that people don't actually pay do not bring the government as much revenue as lower tax rates that they do pay. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
468:Jase’s green eyes meet mine, then his lashes lower. “I guess I like things that take time and attention. More worthwhile that way. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
469:the cerebral cortex that has grown enormously over the last few millennia, overshadowing the ancient, instinctive lower brain. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
470:Use correct grammar and punctuation. Do not use net speak, like WOT, W-O-T or U. Those messages get a lot lower reply rate. ~ Christian Rudder, #NFDB
471:You can have relatively high levels of class consciousness with a lower level of class militancy than one would have expected. ~ Ernest Mandel, #NFDB
472:I thought you might appreciate waking up to a hot mouth on a certain part of your anatomy."
He smiled. "My...lips?"
"Lower. ~ Amy Andrews,#NFDB
473:Martise, lower your knife. There are more than a few people eager to carve out my heart. You'll have to take your place in line. ~ Grace Draven, #NFDB
474:Maybe it was time to get cute. Her lower lip stuck out and her forehead wrinkled. In a small uncertain voice, she said, “Sowwy? ~ Thea Harrison, #NFDB
475:Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
476:The great danger of conversion in all ages has been that when the religion of the high mind is offered to the lower mind, ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
477:This leads to a thoroughly fascinating finding—social conservatives tend toward lower thresholds for disgust than liberals. ~ Robert M Sapolsky, #NFDB
478:War is rich old men protecting their property by sending middle class and lower class young men off to die. It always has been. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
479:When you put someone on therapy, you lower the level of virus such that it makes it very difficult for them to infect others. ~ Anthony S Fauci, #NFDB
480:But one immediate thing can be done right now, and that is: lower the temperature. Any way you can, and everybody. Just lower it. ~ Peggy Noonan, #NFDB
481:If Christ is not divine, every impulse of the Christian world falls to a lower octave, and light and love and hope decline. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
482:I move my hand lower. His eyes drift shut. Lower. He lets out a groan. And then I touch it. "Shit," he breathes. "Penis," I squeak. ~ Jay McLean, #NFDB
483:I shall never be better than I am. I shall sink lower, and be worse…I am like one who died young. All my life might have been. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
484:Poverty among naturalized immigrants—that is, those who have become U.S. citizens—is lower than poverty among native-born Americans. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
485: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
486:Seek out and embrace people who challenge you. You will learn more from them than from the folks who hold you to lower standards. ~ Guy Kawasaki, #NFDB
487:today. By the end of 1882, Edison’s company is powering electric light for the entire Pearl Street district in Lower Manhattan. ~ Steven Johnson, #NFDB
488:We have repeatedly demonstrated our species's bottomless ability to lower our standards to make information technology look good. ~ Jaron Lanier, #NFDB
489:we have repeatedly demonstrated our species's bottomless ability to lower our standards to make information technology look good. ~ Jaron Lanier, #NFDB
490:As long as I see anything to be done for God, life is worth having; but O how vain and unworthy it is to live for any lower end! ~ David Brainerd, #NFDB
491:Easy is the decent to the Lower World; but, to retrace your steps and to escape to the uppear air-this is the task, this is the toil.
~ Virgil,#NFDB
492:higher concentration of dopamine appears to lower skepticism and result in greater vulnerability to pattern detection; an ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
493:In that spirit, a lower-impact society is the most impossible scenario for our future—except for all other conceivable scenarios. ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
494: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
495:On the bright side, my slightly lower IQ means that I probably have worse recall. Maybe I'll soon forget that I have a depressed IQ. ~ A J Jacobs, #NFDB
496:People who have power, who think negatively of others and seek to injure them, are practicing a kind of voodoo, a lower sorcery. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
497:Tanaquil gently toed the peeve. "I'll unfasten the window. Jump out to the lower roof and run."
"Stay and bite," said the peeve. ~ Tanith Lee,#NFDB
498: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
499:The whole economy of this lower world proves that it is by labor and perseverance only that good is obtained and evil is avoided. ~ Patrick Henry, #NFDB
500:We all have a tiny whispery voice inside of us, but the bad ones are usually at a lower register and come through a little clearer. ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
501:Blacks can get into medical school with a lower grade ... If that's true, a Jew should be able to play basketball with a lower net. ~ Jackie Mason, #NFDB
502: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
503:He noticed that Ivan swayed as he walked and that his right shoulder was lower than his left. He had never noticed it before. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
504:I find myself wanting to study his lower abdomen, where the muscles are like stepping stones leading the way down to Mr. Happy. ~ Kristen Callihan, #NFDB
505:Keep your voice down!’ I warned. ‘The house is asleep.’ ‘Come quick,’ he repeated, though in a lower tone. ‘And bring gun.’ ‘Why? ~ Robert Masello, #NFDB
506: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
507:The principles Donald Trump is focused on are exactly the right principles: more choice, more competition, lower costs, lower premiums. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
508: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
509:Humanity unceasingly strives forward from a lower, more partial and obscure understanding of life to one more general and more lucid. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
510:I know prices are lower at the bigger, chain stores, but I think the benefits to the community are worth the extra dollar or two. ~ Leah Rae Miller, #NFDB
511:The House of Commons is called the Lower House, in twenty Acts of Parliament; but what are twenty Acts of Parliament amongst Friends? ~ John Selden, #NFDB
512:The sharecropper may lower his eyes, but not because he's less of a man. That's just a condition of society that such things exist. ~ Ernest Gaines, #NFDB
513:Consolidation in the skiing equipment industry cannot be allowed to lead to higher prices, lower quality or less innovative products. ~ Neelie Kroes, #NFDB
514:Let`s lower our tax rates on our businesses so that we`re on par with the rest of the world so that we don`t keep losing our businesses. ~ Paul Ryan, #NFDB
515:Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
516:Studies of cash compensation in large companies consistently find a “gender gap”; that is, 20% to 25% lower compensation for women. ~ Noam Wasserman, #NFDB
517:The least insight that one can obtain into sublime things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge of lower things. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
518: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
519:I don't settle in any other area of my life when it comes to excellence, so why should I lower my standards when it comes to boys? ~ Adriana Trigiani, #NFDB
520:If you want to lower the significance of Russia in the world, you actually just want to elevate your own country. That is a mistake. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
521:I've never believed in lower wages. Never. Never believed in lower wages, I've never believed in lower wages as an economic instrument. ~ John Howard, #NFDB
522:Livia reached out to touch Blake’s lower back. She outlined a heart with her finger. I’m proud of you, no matter what happens here. ~ Debra Anastasia, #NFDB
523:Logic, when used correctly and by an intellect that is not corrupted by the lower passions, may lead to one to the Transcendent itself. ~ Osman Bakar, #NFDB
524: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
525:Philosophy must indeed recognize the possibility that the people rise to it, but must not lower itself to the people. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, #NFDB
526:Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
527:The master is bringing Darwin through to examine lower life-forms, Rhoda. Straighten your spine or you’ll be mistook for a mollusk. ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
528:The upper class desire to remain so, the middle class wish to overthrow the upper class, and the lower class want a classless system. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
529:Unclench your fists. Lower your shoulders. Step away. Then come back with a clear head, redouble your efforts. I believe in you. ~ Lin Manuel Miranda, #NFDB
530:While there is a lower class I am in it. While there is a criminal element I am of it. While there is a soul in prison I am not free. ~ Eugene V Debs, #NFDB
531:While there is a lower class I am in it. While there is a criminal element I am of it. While there is a soul in prison I am not free. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
532:While there is a lower class I am of it, while there is a criminal class I am of it, while there is a soul in prison I am not free. ~ John Dos Passos, #NFDB
533:a perception presaged in the medieval Kabbalistic work, the Bahir, “it is impossible for the lower world to endure without the female. ~ Sorita d Este, #NFDB
534:At the lower end of the social scale, as well as among the gentry, enterprise and social mobility were part of the pattern in England. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
535:Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven, The noble mind's delight and pride, To men and angels only given, To all the lower world denied. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
536:He has a mouth, lord," Gerbruht said.
"I envy him," I said.
"Envy him, lord?"
"Most of us have to lower our trews to shit. ~ Bernard Cornwell,#NFDB
537:If faculty would relax their emphasis on grades, this might serve not to lower standards but to encourage an orientation toward learning. ~ Alfie Kohn, #NFDB
538:I have a public bathroom rating system that I keep in my head, and anything that I think rates lower than two stars, I won't even enter. ~ Sally J Pla, #NFDB
539:It wasn’t consent, but it was enough to lower her head. She kissed the tip of his cock, closed her eyes, and drew him into her mouth. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
540:Lower your sights, boy,' he said to Joe Winder. 'I agree, justice is probably out of the question. But we can damn sure ruin their day. ~ Carl Hiaasen, #NFDB
541:Quality is made in the board room. A worker can deliver lower quality, but she cannot deliver quality better than the system allow. ~ W Edwards Deming, #NFDB
542:The imagination is not left behind as a lower and lesser faculty, but is the mediating power that draws all our experience into one whole. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
543:The lower ranks have the privilege of questioning the sanity and competence of their commanders. It’s the mortar holding an army together. ~ Glen Cook, #NFDB
544:There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
545:Each time I think there is no place lower to go, I find that there is at least one place that will mess you up worse than you were. ~ Walter Dean Myers, #NFDB
546:I swear, Sophie, I think there's something wrong with me. Every man I meet is intolerable. Perhaps I should set my sights lower[...] ~ Mary Ann Shaffer, #NFDB
547:I think the millions of people who had been able to renegotiate their mortgages so they are paying lower interest rates are better off. ~ David Axelrod, #NFDB
548:It is God's planet - and he's taking care of it. And I don't believe that anything we do will raise or lower the temperature one point. ~ Jerry Falwell, #NFDB
549:On the lower budget pictures, you go overtime more, you're sort of scrambling for the shots and cobbling together more ideas at the end. ~ David Hayter, #NFDB
550:People who minister worldwide to protect and conserve the environment are of no lower status than those who minister to plant churches. ~ Leonard Sweet, #NFDB
551:The cabins scattered across the lower slopes lie buried to their chimneys, and with not a one of them smoking, the air smells too clean. ~ Blake Crouch, #NFDB
552:We’re adults. I might be a little more of an adult if you’re counting years but I bet I have a lower IQ, so that puts us pretty much even. ~ Robyn Carr, #NFDB
553:We should not forget either about the interests of the regular consumers who need the prices in supermarkets to be a little bit lower. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
554:Don´t be afraid,Miss Burel.This won´t hurt a bit."He ran his teeth over his lower lip,tugging at the silver hoops."Unless you want it to. ~ Laura Wright, #NFDB
555:I was asked by a golfer how to lower his scores. I replied start playing 9 holes instead of 18. I worked for me, it cut my scores in half. ~ Brian Weiss, #NFDB
556:I went to this tattoo parlor in the East Village and I got an outline of a violin on my lower back. They call them tramp stamps now. ~ Katherine Moennig, #NFDB
557:Maniac D. Charles Manson had that, if I remember correctly. It’s when the stem of the lower case d leans really far to the right, correct? ~ J T Ellison, #NFDB
558:Mechanical Nature is only a lower truth; it is the formula of an inferior phenomenal action. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Secret of Secrets, #NFDB
559:The problem with fighting at a lower level is that it doesn't simulate reality well. You want to train harder than real combat, not easier. ~ John Ringo, #NFDB
560:There is a big difference between the lower samadhis and the upper samadhis, like the difference between the Sierras and the Himalayas. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
561:To the truly ethical man, all of life is sacred, including forms of life that from the human point of view may seem lower than ours. ~ Albert Schweitzer, #NFDB
562:When the same qualities which we admire in ourselves are seen in others, even though they be superior, maliciously lower and carp at them. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
563:India to someone who lives in Lahore is like Queens to someone who lives in Lower Manhattan - it's not far away, and yet it doesn't exist. ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
564:The world economy will receive a significant boost from lower oil prices this year despite fears of deflation and persistently weak spending, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
565:With their virtues they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies; and they elevate themselves only that they may lower others. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
566:As soon as a manhas his guard up. he will not fall in love or get attached the only way he'll get attached is if you lower his guard first. ~ Sherry Argov, #NFDB
567:If you grew up in a lower-income community, or less well-off, the belief is that the way to change that circumstance is through education. ~ Michelle Rhee, #NFDB
568:Men and women find all sorts of ways to be together, all sorts of ways. Yours was high and dangerous. Most of us stay on the lower paths. ~ Josephine Hart, #NFDB
569:Money will also make you a target for predators and psychopaths, who thrive on exploiting those who exist on the lower rungs of society. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
570:That is the true definition of sin; when knowing right you do the lower, ah, then you sin. Where there is no knowledge, sin is not present. ~ Annie Besant, #NFDB
571:There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals. It is only by language that we rise above them. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
572:Until you've reached that point where you've perfected your lower nature and cleansed your emotional being, jnana yoga will have to wait. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
573:We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. ~ Darius Foroux, #NFDB
574: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
575:He sent the trained dog that is his talent off in search of a fat glorious pheasant, and it brought back the lower half of a Barbie doll. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
576:If they'd lower the taxes and get rid of the smog and clean up the traffic mess, I really believe I'd settle here until the next earthquake. ~ Groucho Marx, #NFDB
577:I would recommend, initially, if you are trying to increase your personal power level, to meditate on the navel center, not the lower two. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
578:Religion is important to the order of society. It reconciles the lower classes to their lot in life and teaches them to respect their betters. ~ C S Harris, #NFDB
579:REPRESENTATIVE, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
580:She was trapped with a telepathic cat that wanted to go to the opera, in an elevator that had passed dungeon in favor of a lower floor - hell. ~ Nina Bangs, #NFDB
581: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
582:You know, without China there is no Wal-Mart and without Wal-Mart there is no middle class and lower class prosperity in the United States. ~ Arthur Laffer, #NFDB
583:Flipping the gains to losses flips the types of behavior. When losses are likely, reckless gambles become acceptable (lower left cell). ~ William Poundstone, #NFDB
584:I heard it took weeks for them to locate the body. Can you imagine? The not knowing?” I moaned. My lower lip quivered uncontrollably. “Hey! ~ Kerry Lonsdale, #NFDB
585: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
586: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
587:I would rather do three or four small parts every year as opposed to some of the lower-hanging fruit that might get my name above the title. ~ Jason Bateman, #NFDB
588:Money will also make you a target for predators and psychopaths, who thrive on exploiting those who exist on the lower rungs of society. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
589:My eyes never got lower than your nipples. If it wasn’t for the fact that Morelli would shoot me I would have taken you on his front lawn. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
590:parasitology is one of the lower-paying of all the medical specialties. To go into the field, you have to truly care about helping people. ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB
591:Pretty soon, we should see a few large regional blocs dominating global trade. The ones that lower trade barriers faster will grow faster... ~ Daniel Altman, #NFDB
592:Rising inexorably while we remained unaware of their motion, the mountain peaks to the west were already clawing for the lower edge of the sun; ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
593: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
594: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
595:While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. ~ Eugene V Debs, #NFDB
596:You’re my friend,” Chris whispered back, and his other hand came up so he could rub Xander’s lower lip with his thumb. “That makes you beautiful. ~ Amy Lane, #NFDB
597:If it is characteristic of the wise man to do nothing useless, no one will surpass me in wisdom: I do not even lower myself to useful things. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
598:If they were easy decisions, they would have been made at a lower level. It’s always the toughest decisions that find their way to the top. ~ Donald Rumsfeld, #NFDB
599: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
600:Listeners instinctively detect that when we lower the usual pitch of our voice, we are sad, and when we raise it, we are angry or fearful. ~ Leonard Mlodinow, #NFDB
601:O Lower self, which is better, the Garden of eternity or a glimpse of this world's unlawful bounty and its wretched, fleeting rubbish? ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
602:Pell Grants are, and have been, critically important tools in making higher education a possibility for lower- and middle-income students. ~ Christopher Dodd, #NFDB
603:The human intellect owes its superiority over that of the lower animals in great measure to the stimulus which alcohol has given imagination. ~ Samuel Butler, #NFDB
604:The lower our self-esteem, the more urgent the need to “prove” ourselves—or to forget ourselves by living mechanically and unconsciously. ~ Nathaniel Branden, #NFDB
605:What made women's labour particularly attractive to the capitalists was not only its lower price but also the greater submissiveness of women. ~ Clara Zetkin, #NFDB
606:As the sun sank lower in the sky and the shadows lengthened around us, I slowly came to realize that Ash wasn't coming back. He was truly gone. ~ Julie Kagawa, #NFDB
607:It is possible to move to an enlightened state of mind from a lower bardo or level of awareness. It can happen, but it is extremely unlikely. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
608: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
609: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
610:If you look at the Forbes 400, they are paying a lower rate, accounting payroll taxes, than their secretary or - whomever around their office. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
611:If you want India to lower tariffs and facilitate more free trade, then I think Indian producers also have a right to enter the European market. ~ Vijay Mallya, #NFDB
612:I mean people up here aren't stupid, I'm lower gene pool and I kind of sit in amazement at watching some of them because they are pretty damn smart. ~ Doug Ose, #NFDB
613:It was as if he wasn’t even there, and somehow that made Nathaniel feel lower and more despairing than he had with Hawk’s hand around his neck. ~ Keira Andrews, #NFDB
614:Morality is only for the middle class, sweet. The lower class can't afford it, and the upper classes have entirely too much leisure time to fill ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
615:(Those who) possessed in a lower degree those attributes (sought how) not to lose them, and therefore they did not possess them (in fullest measure). ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
616:While there is a lower class, I am in it.
While there is a criminal element, I am of it.
While there is a soul in prison, I am not free. ~ Eugene V Debs,#NFDB
617:A shortage is a sign that somebody is keeping the price artificially lower than it would be if supply and demand were allowed to operate freely. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
618:Compared with the mobilization of all opponents to the government as such, the capturing of lower middle-class votes was a temporary phenomenon. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
619:Desire filters toxins through my system at the sight and I lower again, shoving her against the padded wall to snake my tongue over the elixir of pain. ~ Poppet, #NFDB
620:If you want to make people pay attention to what you're saying, you don't raise your voice but lower it: this is what really commands attention. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
621:Otis said: “We believe Red Lobster will benefit from a much sharper focus on the middle and lower thirds where it has traditionally enjoyed success. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
622:sunglasses and rubbed his right eye with his index finger. "Let's see...it was the October 15th issue, page 12, lower right-hand corner." Quinn ~ F Paul Wilson, #NFDB
623:The accents were almost musical, though not as pretty as the ones I used to eavesdrop upon, lying on a sun-drenched roof above lower balconies. ~ Karin Lowachee, #NFDB
624: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
625:If your stress is related to another person, finding forgiveness - changing your thoughts and energy around that person - can lower stress. ~ Gabrielle Bernstein, #NFDB
626:I'm still an obsessive personality, and I still think I'm right, and I still believe my literary balls hang far lower than nearly anyone else's alive. ~ Jim Goad, #NFDB
627:In the lower actions of the mind the soul suffers Nature rather than possesses her. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - Intelligence and Will, #NFDB
628:MUMMY, n. - an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
629:My sister is a chiropractor and she says I have an unusually flexible lower back, but I don't do yoga, and I don't feel like I'm very bendy. ~ Jennifer Carpenter, #NFDB
630: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
631:The root of desire is the vital craving to seize upon that which we feel we have not. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #NFDB
632:When you can dramatically lower the costs of connecting supply and demand, it changes not just the numbers, but the entire nature of the market. ~ Chris Anderson, #NFDB
633:Why do idols invariably lead to destructive behavior? What is the connection? The link is that idols always lead to a lower view of human life. ~ Nancy R Pearcey, #NFDB
634:A lady should never feel anxious about her behavior. The status is bred in the bone. To show anxiety is to lower oneself. Anxiety is vulgar. ~ Eloisa James, #NFDB
635:cockneys (which would make it one of the few instances in modern linguistics in which a manner of utterance traveled upward from the lower classes). ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
636:Disenchantment, like any other fashion, having started off among the elite had now been passed down to finish its days among the lower orders. ~ Mikhail Lermontov, #NFDB
637: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
638: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
639:He who runs may see that opium and such other intoxicants and narcotics stupefy a man's soul and reduce him to a level lower than that of beasts. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
640:I am informed by veterans of the Lower East Side that decalcomania pictures were called “cockamamies” because no one knew how to spell “decalcomania. ~ Leo Rosten, #NFDB
641:I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real price of labour. ~ Thomas Malthus, #NFDB
642:I think it's terrible for people in effect to say that income from investment should be taxed at a much lower rate than income from labor. ~ Howard Warren Buffett, #NFDB
643:Public borrowing is costly these days, true, but interest rates on municipal bonds are still considerably lower than those borne by corporate debt. ~ Thomas Frank, #NFDB
644:The cut under his eye and the split skin on his lower lip only enhanced his profile. He didn’t look defeated. He looked like a fighter. A champion. ~ Lisa Kessler, #NFDB
645:The Purusha should assume at all times the attitude of a giver of sanction while rejecting the lower movements and accepting only truth-movements. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
646:There are more people living in Lower Manhattan now than before the terrorist attacks. That's faith for you. There's such a strong spirit here. ~ Daniel Libeskind, #NFDB
647:Berkeley had settled on the lower slopes of Mount Kenya in Naro Moru. He’d built a broad stone bungalow right up against the curves of the mountain, ~ Paula McLain, #NFDB
648: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
649:Comedy, as we said, is an imitation of people of a lower sort, though not in respect to every vice; rather, what is ridiculous is part of what is ugly. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
650:It is time that all Americans realized that the place of labor is side by side with the businessman and with the farmer, and not one-degree lower. ~ Harry S Truman, #NFDB
651:It's a curious thing, but people cannot resist anonymous letters. It's like free sample offers. They appeal to all one's lower instincts. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
652:Lower caloric exposure and episodic fasting can extend the life span of all animals, the longer we spend in the catabolic state, the longer we live. ~ Joel Fuhrman, #NFDB
653:me. "Ya know, stereotyping be a sign of limited intelligence. I might have asked ye where yer lower back tattoo be or yer lip piercing, but I didna. ~ Elle Casey, #NFDB
654:Our job, as souls on this mortal journey, is to shift the seat of our identity from the lower realm to the upper, from the ego to the Self. Art ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
655:What do you mean 'lower myself'? That's the only thing I've ever been. Just a simple human who couldn't save a little girl. Not even with alchemy. ~ Hiromu Arakawa, #NFDB
656:A mathematical formula for happiness:Reality divided by Expectations.There were two ways to be happy:improve your reality or lower your expectations. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
657:China is investing in factories in Eastern Europe, not because their labor costs are lower, but because they want to be closer to their markets. ~ Michael Bloomberg, #NFDB
658: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
659:I'm business savvy and my will is only to win. I can't hit rock bottom any lower. It's only up from here. The weight is off the shoulders with that. ~ Tony Sunshine, #NFDB
660:In 1960 Taiwan had a much lower literacy rate than the Philippines and half the income per person; today Taiwan has ten times the income. At ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
661:It is easy to be seen as either a genius or a crank. If you have a Ph.D., at least you somewhat lower the chances that you will be seen as a crank. ~ Evgeny Morozov, #NFDB
662: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
663:It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
664:There is nothing lower than the poor stealing from the poor. It's hard enough as it is. We sure as hell don't need to make it even harder on each other. ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
665:There is nothing lower than the poor stealing from the poor. It’s hard enough as it is. We sure as hell don’t need to make it even harder on each other. ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
666:The value of being connected and transparent is so high that the roadbumps of privacy issues are much lower in actual experience than people's fears. ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
667:A BOUNTY on the exportation of corn tends to lower its price to the foreign consumer, but it has no permanent effect on its price in the home market. ~ David Ricardo, #NFDB
668:If you have the desire, if you really had people with the burning desire to lower taxes, it would be done. We know the Democrats don't want to do it. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
669:I'm okay with having bad dance moves. I'm okay with having horrible lower teeth. That's what makes me me, and for some reason it's worked out all right. ~ Katy Perry, #NFDB
670:No matter whether a person belongs to the upper ranks or the lower, if he has not put his life on the line at least once he has cause for shame. ~ Nabeshima Naoshige, #NFDB
671: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
672:She is a waitress at his lordships club.
My God! The Proletariat!
The lower middle classes, sir.
Well, yes, by stretching it a bit, perhaps. ~ P G Wodehouse,#NFDB
673:The sure way to success is so simple, but it requires character, guts, persistence, the mastery of lower jobs to be ready for the better ones. ~ Norman Vincent Peale, #NFDB
674:We had President Obama on the show last night. I think the president enjoys visiting NBC because we're the only place that has lower numbers than he does. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
675:When the status and power of women is greater so also is the nation’s general quality of life; when they are lower, so is the quality of life for all. ~ Riane Eisler, #NFDB
676:His lower lip trembles. “Is this . . . are you from the network?” I look at him. Could he possibly be that stupid? “No,” I say. “I’m from the world. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
677:It was still early, and the sun's lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
678:Juliette ? ” A tentative voice . “ Are you okay? ” I lower the pillow . Blink up . Warner is wearing a towel . A towel . I want to roll under the bed . ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
679:Kyle led the way, and Cole kept a hand on her lower back, holding her hospital gown together. Livia loved the sight of this man covering her sister. ~ Debra Anastasia, #NFDB
680:Look at the one who is at a lower level than you, and do not look at the one who is above you, for that may keep you from scorning the blessing of Allah. ~ Darussalam, #NFDB
681:Our lives are more like a canvas on which we paint, than a script we need to learn – though the illusion of the latter appeals to us by its lower risk. ~ Fiona Givens, #NFDB
682:Parenting, as an unpaid occupation outside the world of public power, entails lower status, less power, and less control of resources than paid work. ~ Nancy Chodorow, #NFDB
683:You can’t fit the Lord in a box. But you can gather stories, tradition, wisdom, and in time, you needn’t lower the shelf; God is already nearer to thee. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
684:You can't ignore the reality that faith and family, those two things are integral parts of having limited government, lower taxes, and free societies. ~ Rick Santorum, #NFDB
685:Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage today is lower than it was in 1965—about 24 percent lower. That job at Sears allowed my mother to eke out a ~ Elizabeth Warren, #NFDB
686:But why are we always the ones who have to suffer?” she cried out in indignation. “Us and people like us? Ordinary people, the lower middle classes. ~ Ir ne N mirovsky, #NFDB
687: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
688:How does knowing 'things could be worse' than what I already deem awful make me feel any better? You mean I could sink even lower? Oh joy! ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
689:I've always seen the bright lights of the angels, and I know that lower-entities can't disguise this light, because it only comes from the Love of God. ~ Doreen Virtue, #NFDB
690:I went inside when he started to lower his head toward the girl in the bikini, hating that he was wasting himself on her . . . and hating that I cared. ~ Jay Crownover, #NFDB
691:Just as there's some technologies that jeopardize revenue for traditional products, there are also technologies that can significantly lower costs. ~ Norman Pearlstine, #NFDB
692:Pain jabbed Janco where the lower half of his right ear used to be. He rubbed the scar. “Now, I’m not a genius—”
“Got that right,” Ari mumbled. ~ Maria V Snyder,#NFDB
693:people who strongly value the pursuit of wealth and possessions report lower psychological well-being than those who are less concerned with such aims. ~ Jeremy Rifkin, #NFDB
694:Sin is not some demonic thing. It’s just our perverse tendency to fuck things up, to favor the short term over the long term, the lower over the higher. ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
695:(The North Korean army had to lower its height requirement from five feet three in the early 1990s because of the stunting of the younger generation.) ~ Barbara Demick, #NFDB
696:Another study of adults found the same thing: the more people used Facebook, the lower their mental health and life satisfaction at the next assessment. ~ Jean M Twenge, #NFDB
697:aware that Allison’s eyes were on him, stepped backwards and began instead to swivel his lower body in an oddly lascivious and adult-looking little dance. ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
698:It’s a shadow life and after a while it gets to you. Nannies, assistants, agents, secretaries, mothers---women are used to it. Men have a lower tolerance. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
699:I was a lower middle-class kid. My family had no money. There was no room in our small house where there were already four kids, including myself, living. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
700:Obesity is a hormonal disorder of fat regulation. Insulin is the major hormone that drives weight gain, so the rational therapy is to lower insulin levels. ~ Jason Fung, #NFDB
701:spreads his fingers on my cheek, his thumb stroking a seductive line along my jaw, his voice lower and deeper as he adds, “No secrets. No in between. ~ Lisa Renee Jones, #NFDB
702:Squeezed for money, the affected households often need to lower the quality of their food, which then impacts the overall development of their children. ~ Sheikh Hasina, #NFDB
703:Then she wrapped her legs around his lower back, locking her ankles. Her shy gaze shifted, boring into his like she owned him. Because she fucking did. ~ Juliette Cross, #NFDB
704:There is a big logical jump between acknowledging the destructive nature of hyperinflation and arguing that the lower the rate of inflation, the better. ~ Ha Joon Chang, #NFDB
705:And that was a big if. But none of that mattered at the moment. Suddenly his lower half seemed the smarter of the two brains, and it was in full control. ~ Jules Barnard, #NFDB
706:Carrie Fisher had a line I love about why she and Paul Simon ended their marriage: “Things were getting worse faster than we could lower our standards. ~ Gabrielle Union, #NFDB
707:I understand your higher and lower tendencies. There is something beyond all of this nonsense. There is a wonderful glitter that you can follow in life. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
708:Oh, become nothing in deep reality, and, as a worker, study only one thing—to become poorer and lower and more helpless, that Christ may work all in you. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
709:Perversion comes by a conversion into lower forms—by transmission through the ego and the gunas. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Action of the Divine Shakti, #NFDB
710:Right-to-work laws do not attract businesses and create jobs, as proponents claim. Rather, they are linked to lower wages, fewer benefits and higher poverty. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
711:The only way to isolate specific back muscles - whether it is upper. or lower back - or make any progress is through the power of the mind-muscle connection. ~ Lee Haney, #NFDB
712:the south where these stories take place—is lower Alabama, lush and green and full of death, the wooded counties between the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers. ~ Tom Franklin, #NFDB
713:Because in prayer I expand my sense of how I have offended God. And I thereby lower my sense of how much others have offended me. Prayer is changing me. ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
714:In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people - the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
715:So one way to raise your standard of living would be to lower somebody else’s: buy a slave. That was indeed how people got rich for thousands of years. Yet, ~ Matt Ridley, #NFDB
716:The big trunk of the umbrella pine looms outside the window, living its two lives—the upper world of needles and stems, the lower world of roots and soil. ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
717: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, #NFDB
718:The official government radio station was still broadcasting that the New York Power Authority would have power back up to Con Edison and lower Manhattan ~ Matthew Mather, #NFDB
719:The San Francisco Stock Exchange was the place that continuously pumped up the savings of the lower classes into the pockets of the millionaires. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
720:We have here a forecast of the long history of American politics, the mobilization of lower-class energy by upper-class politicians, for their own purposes. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
721:We need tricks to get us there but before that we need to accept the fact that we are mere animals in need of lower forms of tricks, not lectures. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
722:When growth is slower than expected, stocks go down. When inflation is higher than expected, bonds go down. When inflation's lower than expected, bonds go up. ~ Ray Dalio, #NFDB
723:You must agree, for instance, that the Christian faith has only served the rich and noble, so as to keep the lower classes in slavery, isn’t that so? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
724:Annabel stopped rubbing the center of her lower back and ducked her head to hide the blush his words had brought on. It made Ross want to kiss her. Reminded ~ Lynsay Sands, #NFDB
725:Antiliberals endlessly berate their enemies for instrumental thinking. But they do not clearly explain the evil of producing better goods at a lower cost. ~ Stephen Holmes, #NFDB
726:It is the height of illogic to think that humans originated from anything with lower functionality than themselves—from a something instead of a Someone. ~ Nancy R Pearcey, #NFDB
727:It's a finite and very competitive world. All large aggregations of capital eventually find it hell on earth to grow and thus find a lower rate of return. ~ Charlie Munger, #NFDB
728:Lower the intonation of your voice at the end of your sentences. Reduce how quickly and how often you nod. Pause for two full seconds before you speak. ~ Olivia Fox Cabane, #NFDB
729:There is a degree of wretchedness and want among the lower class of people which is not anywhere so common as among the Spanish and Portuguese settlements. ~ William Bligh, #NFDB
730:Transparency is therefore more than an esthetic triumph; it is a victory that will be reflected in lower costs throughout the software’s life cycle. 6.2.2 ~ Eric S Raymond, #NFDB
731:we’re helping the consumer. Because we’re taking him out of his high interest rate credit card debt and putting him into lower interest rate mortgage debt. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
732:When a “friend” is changed to an “acquaintance,” their posts are pushed lower in the Facebook algorithm and have a far lower chance of showing up in your feed. ~ S J Scott, #NFDB
733:Control over the lower impulsions is the first step towards realisation.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Weaknesses, DESIRES, IMPULSES AND SELF-CONTROL, [253] [T7],#NFDB
734:Have the WNBA lower the hoops. Because even though layups get the job done, they're lame. Seriously, layups look the way Woody Allen talks. Wimpy as fuck. ~ Phoebe Robinson, #NFDB
735:heaven is high and deep, and its lower air is music; in the upper regions the music may pass, who knows, merging unlost, into something endlessly better! ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
736:Humanity is defined by its struggles, not doomed by them. It is in the way we endure those struggles that we transcend our lower nature and enter a higher realm. ~ D J Niko, #NFDB
737:On the contrary, my desire is that the viewer sees the background coming forward in the lower portion of the canvas, fighting for space, demanding presence. ~ Kehinde Wiley, #NFDB
738:Professors of the Dismal Science, I perceive the length of your tether is now pretty well run; and I must request you to talk a little lower in the future. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
739:We see portability in electronics being a continuing requirement, higher functionality, better battery life, requiring lower power for the actual electronics. ~ David Milne, #NFDB
740:A real democracy would be a meritocracy where those born in the lower ranks could rise as far as their natural talents and discipline might take them. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin, #NFDB
741:Before any great things are accomplished, a memorable change must be made in the system of education...to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher. ~ John Adams, #NFDB
742:Look at the high and the low, all the world over, and it's the same story,—the lower class used up, body, soul and spirit, for the good of the upper. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe, #NFDB
743:Next time I fall for someone, it won’t be a conniving, manipulative— His hand moves lower, cupping my ass. —horny fae king. Next time it will be a good boy. ~ Laura Thalassa, #NFDB
744:The ability to accessorize is what elevates us from lower-life forms," I said in my lecture voice, choosing a pair of diamond-studded drops for my ear. "Like men. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
745:The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
746:The survival response of popular culture is cynicism—“just lower your expectations of life to the point that you aren’t disappointed by anyone or anything. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
747:Water always fills first the lowest places. The lower, the emptier a man lies before God, the speedier and the fuller will be the inflow of the divine glory. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
748:In order that love be fully satisfied, It is necessary that It lower Itself and that It lower Itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire. ~ Teresa of vila, #NFDB
749:In Russia today, 110 persons, including Mr. Putin’s cronies, control 35% of the country’s wealth while 50% of adults have total household wealth of $871 or lower. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
750:Mount Everest is about as tall as a mountain on Earth can grow before the lower rock layers succumb to their own plasticity under the mountain’s weight. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
751:Recent research from the Johns Hopkins University Center on Aging and Health found that caregivers had an 18 percent lower mortality rate than noncaregivers. ~ Scott Galloway, #NFDB
752:The lower our self-esteem, the more we're attracted to our opposite, and the higher our self-esteem, the more we are attracted to another like ourselves. ~ Marilyn vos Savant, #NFDB
753:There is nothing lower than the poor stealing from the poor. It’s hard enough as it is. We sure as hell don’t need to make it even harder on each other.” Youngest ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
754:What is the reason that women servants ... have much lower wages than men servants ... when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male? ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
755:... because I happen to think - this is just my personal opinion - that the only lower form of life than a man who would beat up a woman is a rat with syphilis. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
756:In a time when many people are looking to cut calories, reduce food intake, cut food costs, and lower their bodyweight, bodybuilders are looking to pour it on. ~ Robert Cheeke, #NFDB
757:In lower Manhattan there is an improbable point where Waverly Place intersects Waverly Place. It was there that I met Veronica, on a snowy, windy night. ~ Nicholas Christopher, #NFDB
758:Nothing brings out the lower traits of human nature like office-seeking. Men of good character and impulses are betrayed by it into all sorts of meanness. ~ Rutherford B Hayes, #NFDB
759:Barbarisation may be defined as a cultural process whereby an attained condition of high value is gradually overrun and supersededby elements of lower quality. ~ Johan Huizinga, #NFDB
760:But a tax on luxuries would no other effect than to raise their price. It would fall wholly on the consumer, and could neither increase wages nor lower profits. ~ David Ricardo, #NFDB
761:Humility is like a pair of scales: the lower one side falls, the higher rises the other. Let us humble ourselves like the Blessed Virgin and we shall be exalted. ~ John Vianney, #NFDB
762:Politics is something similar to the lower physiological functions, with the unpleasant difference that political functions are unavoidably carried out in public. ~ Maxim Gorky, #NFDB
763:Those in the ninja world who break the rules and regulations are called filth, but those who don't care about their companions... are even lower than filth. ~ Masashi Kishimoto, #NFDB
764:To love righteousness is to make it grow, not to avenge it. Throughout his life on earth, Jesus resisted every impulse to work more rapidly for a lower good. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
765:Was it possible for a king to run so far from his identity that he ceased to be anyone special? Because I had never felt lower, or less worthy of my title. ~ Jennifer A Nielsen, #NFDB
766:We don't want to see our kids and grandchildren be the first generation in the modern history of America to have a lower standard of living than their parents. ~ Bernie Sanders, #NFDB
767:Al [Michaels] is inquisitive, knowledgeable, and incredibly well-prepared. I don't know what his IQ is, but it's probably only a couple of points lower than mine. ~ Dan Dierdorf, #NFDB
768:If I could do it all over again," he said, his speech slow and vaguely mangled by his massive lower lip, "I'd just let myself be trampled to death by the Satan Pig. ~ John Green, #NFDB
769:it is also said that it takes the shape of a man pointing to both heaven and earth, in order to show that the lower world is the map and mirror of the higher ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
770:It is the very nature of the mind to go to lower things, to objects of enjoyment, but the grace of God can make the mind go towards higher objects. ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, #NFDB
771:lower dose, which, like the building codes in California that are designed to prevent damage from earthquakes, allowed my mind and emotions to sway a bit. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison, #NFDB
772:Obviously a Conservative government will always leave taxes lower than they have been under Labour. Those things go with the territory of the Conservative Party. ~ William Hague, #NFDB
773:One of the biggest mistakes lower-context managers make is assuming that the other individual is purposely omitting information or unable to communicate explicitly. ~ Erin Meyer, #NFDB
774:People think we don't give a toss about the game, but when I walked out of Windsor Park that night I felt lower than a snake's belly. The reality is still there. ~ Rio Ferdinand, #NFDB
775:The CDO was, in effect, a credit laundering service for the residents of Lower Middle Class America. For Wall Street it was a machine that turned lead into gold. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
776:There's a thing I've got i' my head," said Mr. Tulliver at last, in rather a lower tone than usual, as he turned his head and looked steadfastly at his companion. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
777:Washington has got to, across the board, lower taxes for small businesses so that our mom and pops can reinvest and hire people, so that our businesses can thrive. ~ Sarah Palin, #NFDB
778:Whoever places his trust into a system will soon be without a home. While you are building your third story, the two lower ones have already been dismantled. ~ Franz Grillparzer, #NFDB
779:You need to recognize that the risk of moving toward your dreams is much lower than the slow, everyday punishment you inflict on yourself by suppressing your dream ~ Mel Robbins, #NFDB
780:Contractors always pursue large profit, the customer - a high-quality end product in due time and at a lower cost. This struggle never ends, but this is natural. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
781:Democrats believe we must have comprehensive health care reform that includes giving the federal government authority to negotiate lower prices with drug companies. ~ Jim Clyburn, #NFDB
782:If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
783:I moved up over Lower East Side and I was adopted by eight foster parents; I lived all over New York City with these parents, man, till I was about ten years old. ~ Gregory Corso, #NFDB
784:...I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind, but that the middle station had the fewest disasters,... ~ Daniel Defoe, #NFDB
785:It is not enough to raise consciousness. One must lower the spirit into the earth to embody a change in things as basic as food, shelter, and livelihood. ~ William Irwin Thompson, #NFDB
786:It's a tremendous way of getting people to buy more at lower cost to the producer. There's no question that that's an incentive to buy. Everybody loves a bargain. ~ Marion Nestle, #NFDB
787:Most armies are in fact run by their sergeants - the officers are there just to give things a bit of tone and prevent warfare becoming a mere lower-class brawl. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
788:One portfolio is better than another one when it offers higher mean return for a given level of volatility—or a lower volatility for a given level of return. ~ William Poundstone, #NFDB
789:Science gives us the objective truth of existence and the superficial knowledge of our physical and vital being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Lower Triple Purusha, #NFDB
790:You know what comes next, right, Harper?” “Yes,” she said, slightly breathless, running her tongue over her lower lip. “And you aren’t stopping me?” “No, I’m not. ~ Scarlett Cole, #NFDB
791:Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
792:Four fifty-four for gas... because we have nobody that calls up OPEC... and say, [mobster voice] 'That. Price. Better. Get. Lower. And it better. Get. Lower. Fast.' ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
793:If you aim at anything lower that is expecting your audience to be really alert and aware, then you're going to be caught out sooner or later as a composer. ~ Peter Maxwell Davies, #NFDB
794:In the business world, lower profits reflect less demand for your product. But in government the opposite is true - demand for our services increases in hard times. ~ Sonny Perdue, #NFDB
795:SCENE: Classroom, Lower East Side, 1926. Teacher: “Who can tell us where the Romanian border is?” Student: “In the park with my aunt, and my mother doesn’t trust him! ~ Leo Rosten, #NFDB
796:To become Christ-like is the only thing in the whole world worth caring for, the thing before which every ambition of man is folly and all lower achievement vain. ~ Henry Drummond, #NFDB
797:We met with the poet Frank O'Hara, who was a link between Upper and Lower Bohemia, and who worked at the Museum of Modern Art, where we had hoped to do the readings. ~ David Amram, #NFDB
798:Canada was settled, in the main, by people with a lower middle-class outlook, and a respect, rather than an affectionate familiarity, for the things of the mind. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
799:Conservatism, being an upper-class characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a lower-class phenomenon, is vulgar. ...Innovation is bad form. ~ Thorstein Veblen, #NFDB
800:Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies. ~ William James, #NFDB
801: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, #NFDB
802:To find a good story, you’re generally going to find it in independent or lower budget movies... I wouldn’t mind doing a big budget movie if it had a great story. ~ Viggo Mortensen, #NFDB
803:...and my signature is drawn in magic markeron the lower right hand corner of the windowso when something passes in the darkit's captured for a moment inside my work. ~ David Berman, #NFDB
804:CG: I AM BEING PLEASANT AND AGREEABLE, AND I WILL GENTLY LOWER A MAGNIFICENT, CORUSCATING COLUMN OF HOT FUCK YOU DOWN THE PROTEIN CHUTE OF ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE. ~ Andrew Hussie, #NFDB
805:example, compared with hunter-gatherers, citizens of modern industrialized states enjoy better medical care, lower risk of death by homicide, and a longer life span, ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
806:Four decades after Thomas Edison’s spectacular illumination of Lower Manhattan in 1882, electricity had done little to make the country’s factories more productive. ~ Alan Greenspan, #NFDB
807:I clawed my eyes open and rolled off my bed. For some reason, someone had moved the floor several feet lower than I had expected, and I fell and crashed with a thud. ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
808:If you go to a lower crossover point, a negative place of power, then the beings there are very unevolved, very demonic, crazy, lower than the people of this world. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
809:In order that love be fully satisfied, It is necessary that It lower Itself and that It lower Itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #NFDB
810:In order to spur economic growth we need to put the brakes on out of control spending, lower Ohioans tax burden and create a most efficient and effective government. ~ Ken Blackwell, #NFDB
811:...Intelligence and character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce something valuable for the community. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
812:Most armies are in fact run by their sergeants—the officers are there just to give things a bit of tone and prevent warfare from becoming a mere lower-class brawl. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
813:Okay, let's see if I got this straight. The butt is the new breast, and the lower back is the new ankle. Now if only we could figure out where the brain has moved. ~ Celia Rivenbark, #NFDB
814:She was one of those people who could not say if one note was lower or higher than another. This was no less a disability and misfortune than a clubfoot or a harelip... ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
815: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, #NFDB
816:Betrayed and deceived. Deceived and defrauded. But at once I shrug my shoulders: that’s right! Lower and lower. Deeper and deeper into it. Now there’s no holding back! ~ Hans Fallada, #NFDB
817:He watched groups of children in the play yard move their lips, raise and lower their teeth like white drawbridges, dance their tongues in the ritual mating of speech. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
818:I like the idea of accessibility, coming from a lower-middle-class background myself, I feel like beauty and products should be accessible to all women over the world. ~ Diane Kruger, #NFDB
819:I'm not working class anymore,' he said. 'I'm lower-middle. I use three types of oil in my kitchen. Admittedly one of them is WD-40, but that counts, doesn't it? ~ Christopher Fowler, #NFDB
820:In Sweden for example people with PhDs have lower mortality than those with a masters degree. And people with a masters degree or a professional degree are not poor. ~ Michael Marmot, #NFDB
821:One of the things I’ve read about borderlines is that we alternate between a sense of entitlement and the belief that we’re lower than the dirt under people’s shoes. ~ Stacy Pershall, #NFDB
822:People don't realize that when they 'throw out' their back, it's often because of weak abs. These muscles are essential for lower-back strength and good posture. ~ Sylvester Stallone, #NFDB
823:The CDO was, in effect, a credit laundering service for the residents of Lower Middle Class America. For Wall Street it was a machine that turned lead into gold. Back ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
824:The whole reason one wants to do lower budget films is because the lower the budget, the bigger the ideas, the bigger the themes, the more interesting the art. ~ Francis Ford Coppola, #NFDB
825:To the Hindu, says Vivekananda, "Man is not travelling from error to truth, but climbing up from truth to truth, from truth that is lower to truth that is higher. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
826:You have the most infernal habit when anyone says the simplest thing to you, of letting your lower jaw drop and looking like a half-witted sheep staring over a fence. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
827: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, #NFDB
828:He wants to lower the cost of launches to the point that it becomes economical and practical to fly thousands upon thousands of supply trips to Mars and start a colony. ~ Ashlee Vance, #NFDB
829:I can feel this dick pulsing,” Beau said, pitching his voice lower and lower. “And all this cum? Fuck, it just keeps sliding out of you. It’s all over my fingers.” No ~ Megan Erickson, #NFDB
830:I was born in a poor family, a lower middle class family. My father was a clerk in the forest department. I was very bad at studies. I was not very good at sports, also. ~ Anupam Kher, #NFDB
831:She needed Cholly's sins desperately. The lower he sank, the wilder and more irresponsible he became, the more splendid she and her task became. In the name of Jesus. ~ Jim Morrison, #NFDB
832:Sitting down beside her, he found her lower belly with his hand. "I love this."
"Love What?"
"This bump thing you got going on." He smiled. "That's our young. ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
833:The message was that if something is free, you should only take the best. If, on the other hand, you're forced to pay, it's best to lower the bar and not be so choosy. ~ David Sedaris, #NFDB
834:The yogin becomes aware in part of the action of the supramental power organizing the lower vehicle (ādhāra). A part of it remains behind the veil and prepares itself. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
835:We can only take it so far, because man can only take it so far, lower self can only take it so far, and you have to realize that the public is only at a certain place. ~ Alice Cooper, #NFDB
836:You want to know if that’s the only reason I called, Vivian?” he asked finally, his voice octaves and octaves lower than Daytime Clark. Raspy, gruff, rough-and-tumble. ~ Alice Clayton, #NFDB
837:Behind every exoteric religion there is an esoteric Yoga, an intuitive knowledge to which its faith is the first step. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Lower Triple Purusha, #NFDB
838:I'd read somewhere that if you want to make people pay attention to what you're saying, you don't raise your voice but lower it: this is what really commands attention. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
839:I’d read somewhere that if you want to make people pay attention to what you’re saying, you don’t raise your voice but lower it: this is what really commands attention. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
840:I generally disagree with most of the very high margin opportunities. Why? Because it's a business strategy tradeoff: the lower the margin you take, the faster you grow. ~ Vinod Khosla, #NFDB
841:It was like dancing with a mask that was attached to a stick—she dared not lower it, no matter how tiring it was to hold the mask up. She was the ugly girl at the ball. ~ Helen Oyeyemi, #NFDB
842:Religion is the first attempt of man to get beyond himself and beyond the obvious and material facts of his existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Lower Triple Purusha, #NFDB
843:The only type of humor that is excused lower classness is satire, and satire is the chamber music of comedy - a joke that many people profess to enjoy, but few actually get. ~ A A Gill, #NFDB
844:Whatever posessions and objects of its desires the lower self may obtain, it hangs on to them, refusing to let them go out of greed for more, or out of fear of poverty and need. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
845:Although the clientele were primarily the Eloi of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, an incident a month earlier had involved a platinumed-out crew of Bronx Morlocks: ~ Richard Price, #NFDB
846:Did that remind anybody else of something?"
"Yes," Eve said, tapping her lower lip with a bloodred fingernail. "How much I need to shave her head while she's sleeping. ~ Rachel Caine,#NFDB
847:Economic theory is the most prestigious subject of instruction and study. Agricultural economics, labor economics and marketing are lower caste fields of study. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, #NFDB
848:I am a true adorer of life, and if I can't reach as high as the face of it, I plant my kiss somewhere lower down. Those who understand will require no further explanation. ~ Saul Bellow, #NFDB
849:I appreciate the female foot, but I've never said that I have a foot fetish. But I am a lower track guy. I like legs' I like booties'. I have a black male sexuality. ~ Quentin Tarantino, #NFDB
850:I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. ~ Eugene V Debs, #NFDB
851:It's too presumptuous and naïve to think you can change society by a photograph or anything else... I equate that with propaganda; I think that's a lower rank of purpose. ~ Walker Evans, #NFDB
852: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, #NFDB
853:The deepest cause which made the French Revolution so disastrous to liberty was its theory of equality. Liberty was the watchword of the middle class, equality of the lower. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
854:The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. It was natural that, bereft and desperate as I was, in the throes of unremitting suffering. I should turn to God ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
855: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, #NFDB
856:For me, I think being a conservative means you are focused on all four key principles: strong defense, lower taxes, less spending, and defending traditional American values. ~ Jim Jordan, #NFDB
857: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, #NFDB
858:I groan as I lose all my ability to hold back, and I lower my head while pushing her dress and bra down in unison to allow way for my mouth to close over the hard little nub. ~ C M Owens, #NFDB
859:I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate wherever the Government assumes a freer aspect,& the laws favor a subdivision of property. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
860:Ironically, the same people who treated her like she was a lower life-form for getting pregnant with Brooke at sixteen were often the first to picket an abortion clinic. ~ Chris Patchell, #NFDB
861:I think the biggest thing we need is to unclog the credit markets, and we may need another stimulus - if we do, it's - it should go to the lower and middle-income people. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
862:Last is D, the number of spatial dimensions. Due to interest in M-theory, physicists have returned to the question of whether life is possible in higher or lower dimensions. ~ Michio Kaku, #NFDB
863:Let a man lift himself by his own Self alone, let him not lower himself; for the Self alone is the friend of oneself and this Self alone is the enemy of oneself (5). ~ Sivananda Saraswati, #NFDB
864:Luke, you have to know, it won’t be like the other guys. If it’s you, it’ll be worse.” My voice went softer, lower, barely a whisper. “If this goes bad, it’ll destroy me. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
865:No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
866:People who are making decisions about the future often don't have access to some of the best ideas in the company, which may be at the periphery or at lower levels. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter, #NFDB
867:the European is to the other races of mankind, what man is to the lower animals;—he makes them subservient to his use; and when he cannot subdue, he destroys them. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
868:THESE are the desolate, dark weeks when nature in its barrenness equals the stupidity of man. The year plunges into night and the heart plunges lower than night. ~ William Carlos Williams, #NFDB
869:They think because I'm small, they can do what they want to do to me. But I'm not weak. If I lower my shoulder and they lower they're shoulder, they're going to go down. ~ Michael Johnson, #NFDB
870:We had to give up radios and that was bad, but one could still read the newspapers . . . you found something else . . . You never know how far you can go – lower and lower. ~ Wendy Holden, #NFDB
871:a prosperous country with higher wage rates per unit of time may have lower labor costs per unit of output than a Third World country where workers are not paid nearly as much. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
872:I pull my lower lip all the way in between my teeth. If I try hard enough, maybe I can gobble my whole self this way.... I didn't try hard enough to swallow myself. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson, #NFDB
873:It's a terrible thing to be alone - yes it is - it is - but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath - as terrible as you like - but a mask. ~ Katherine Mansfield, #NFDB
874:My clothes have always been expensive. Even though I have had a few lower-priced lines over the years, little by little everything I do tends toward the luxury market. ~ Jean Paul Gaultier, #NFDB
875: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, #NFDB
876:The big mistake many software developers make is to lower their standards when they seem out of reach instead of seeking to improve themselves to rise up to meet the challenge. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
877:The guy had a load of piercings, including an eye-grabbing one on his lower left lip. Not that I was looking, but if I were? I’d say it brought a lot of attention to his mouth. ~ G L Tomas, #NFDB
878:All the old history was written for the amusement of the ruling classes. The lower classes couldn't read, and their rulers didn't care about remembering what happened to them. ~ Frank Zappa, #NFDB
879:As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB
880:He'd pulled back a little, just with his lower half, and I was afraid the scorch in my cheeks would set fire to the rest of me, because I an idea why.
Wow. Oh wow. ~ Lilith Saintcrow,#NFDB
881:He moved to her other breast, then lower, lower...
She rolled her hips insistently when he settled between her open legs, crouched like a predator about to devour his prey. ~ Katie Reus,#NFDB
882:Left-leaning policies - I'm 52 years old, I've been to Cuba, I've been to dysfunctional state oriented places - left-leaning policies fail the lower and middle classes. ~ Anthony Scaramucci, #NFDB
883:SUN WAS in the room when he woke. He sat up and looked toward the bars, but the bars weren’t there. Just a window, lower than it should have been until he realized he was up ~ Dennis Lehane, #NFDB
884:Their homeland lay in the north German plains between the River Elbe to the east and the River Ems to the west in a region still known today as Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony). ~ David Starkey, #NFDB
885:there must be a continuous struggle, a constant fight, an unremitting grappling with our lower nature, till the higher want is actually felt and the victory is achieved. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
886:As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB
887:Close loopholes, close the special interest Washington carve outs and that means more incomes subject to taxation so we`re going to lower the rates on our businesses and be fair. ~ Paul Ryan, #NFDB
888:For a few years, more people have been leaving our country than entering it. Wherever it is possible, we must lower the entry hurdles for those who bring the country forward. ~ Angela Merkel, #NFDB
889:He licks his lower lip, and I’m sure it’s supposed to be a threatening gesture with those squinted eyes, but I’m over here still drowning in the gushing wetness of my panties. ~ Eden Summers, #NFDB
890:I've moved a lot of my students into a high state of mind, but they don't do the things I have shown them how to do. So then, they drop down into a lower stage of attention. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
891:The realm of liberation is absolutely incommensurable with the relativities of higher and lower, better and worse, gain and loss, since these are all disadvantages of the ego. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
892:There is a growing consensus that the European systems have worked better than the American: They have been able to deliver better health care to more people at lower cost. ~ Joseph Stiglitz, #NFDB
893:Access to ancient civilizations can only be attained using the lowest vibrations possible; the lower the frequency of oscillation is, the more resonant is one with the past. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
894:Bemoan being lower-middle-class and colored in a police state that protects only rich white people and movie stars of all races, though I can’t think of any Asian-American ones. ~ Paul Beatty, #NFDB
895:Cognitive therapy seeks to alleviate psychological stresses by correcting faulty conceptions and self-signals. By correcting erroneous beliefs we can lower excessive reactions. ~ Aaron T Beck, #NFDB
896:Have you not observed that there is a lower kind of discretion and regularity, which seldom fails of raising men to the highest station in the court, the church, and the law? ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
897:If the psychic were always there in front, the desert would be no longer a desert and the wilderness would blossom with the rose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being, #NFDB
898:I have been on the same dose of anti-depressants for 15 years, and my nerves still go up and down in cycles; but my nerves are cycling at a lower level than they were before. ~ Temple Grandin, #NFDB
899:Inwardly, the man who does not destroy his lower self-formations, cannot rise to a greater existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Vision of the World-Spirit - Time the Destroyer, #NFDB
900:She found her regard for Mr. Winter turning to something like suspicion—though notice how often we lower suspicion upon others to avoid putting ourselves under scrutiny. Now ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
901:The two parts of technology that lower the threshold for activism and technology is the Internet and the mobile phone. Anyone who has a cause can now mobilize very quickly. ~ Howard Rheingold, #NFDB
902:Ty didn’t just lower himself, though. He rolled his hips and arched his back, rubbing his ass against the head of Zane’s cock but always missing the entry, making a show of it. ~ Abigail Roux, #NFDB
903:We're the highest taxed nation in the world. When I finish the plan, we'll be among the lower taxed, which is very good. I'd like to be the lowest, but you can't be the lowest. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
904:Acid strength is measured by the pH scale, with lower numbers being stronger, and in 2005 a chemist from New Zealand invented a boron-based acid called a carborane, with a pH of -18 ~ Sam Kean, #NFDB
905:An interpretation of Jesus’ nature, identity, or role; for example, the Quran has a lower Christology than John, since he is just human in the former yet divine in the latter. ~ Nabeel Qureshi, #NFDB
906:As of 2014, Pakistan is home to the third largest illiterate population globally and there are only fifteen countries in the world with a lower literacy rate than Pakistan. 34 ~ Husain Haqqani, #NFDB
907:Even if you are not apparently successful in your meditation, it is better to persist and to be more obstinate than the opposition of your lower nature.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#NFDB
908:I am thinking particularly of a shower I took where the lower half of my body was under the running water and the upper half was laid out on the bath mat, eating a loaf of bread. ~ Lena Dunham, #NFDB
909:I don’t know,” he said finally, nearly breathless. “Your calf?” “Want to guess again?” “Your…” He bit his lower lip. “Chest?” “Nope.” “Don’t know,” he said. “Guess you won.” I ~ Megan Erickson, #NFDB
910:I don't walk around talking about my life and spouting my philosophy to people I don't know. I mean, if I get to know them, I'll talk for hours. I guess I like a lower-key scene. ~ John Cusack, #NFDB
911:If a spiritual being is naive to the lower aspects of the world, they usually are killed or die young. Did Jesus really know which of the twelve would betray him? I doubt it. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
912:If you are, consolidating at a lower interest rate can help you pay off your debt faster. But if there's even a small chance that you'll spiral back into debt, it's not for you. ~ Jean Chatzky, #NFDB
913:If you lower the ambient noise of your life and listen expectantly for those whispers of God, your ears will hear them. And when you follow their lead, your world will be rocked. ~ Bill Hybels, #NFDB
914:In a recent Gallup poll, Southerners and Midwesterners reported the highest rates of church attendance in the country. Yet actual church attendance is much lower in the South. This ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
915:Obesity rates are inversely correlated with the amount of time in food preparation. The more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower it's rate of obesity. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
916:So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational. ~ Charles Horton Cooley, #NFDB
917: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, #NFDB
918:Then she reached lower and started to ease my pants down. I stopped her so I could get my shoes and socks off first. Pants-pooled-at-the-ankles is too helpless a posture for me. ~ Barry Eisler, #NFDB
919:The teaching process becomes most interesting for spiritual seekers once they've managed to hit the lower samadhis. However at that point many seekers become very egotistical. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
920:Undoubtedly Internet has reduced the possibilities of taxation. Why should I buy something here if I can buy it from a company in Japan or England or Brazil with a lower tax? ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
921:Whatsamatter?” Dante scraped a hand over his abs, his neck, the side of his face—collecting his jizz. He sucked his pleasure off his lower lip. “I gave myself a fuckin’ necklace. ~ Damon Suede, #NFDB
922:A healthy organization is one that has less politics and confusion, higher morale and productivity, lower unwanted turnover, and lower recruiting costs than an unhealthy one. ~ Patrick Lencioni, #NFDB
923:Even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
924:In Egypt, there is a saying: When good fortune looks down upon us, it does so in threes, one for each part of the Eye of Horus. His upper lid, his lower lid and the eye itself. ~ Michelle Moran, #NFDB
925:It is an accepted commonplace in psychology that the spiritual level of people acting as a crowd is far lower than the mean of each individual's intelligence or morality. ~ Christian Lous Lange, #NFDB
926:It's a terrible thing to be alone -- yes it is -- it is -- but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath -- as terrible as you like -- but a mask. ~ Katherine Mansfield, #NFDB
927:Jeb crouches to fill in the sketch’s lower half with paint. His lips twist to a cruel sneer. “That’s your favorite pastime, right? And you’ll have your prince of moths for company. ~ A G Howard, #NFDB
928:leaders’ fear to give up control trumps their ability to trust, and they keep making decisions high up that would be better left in the hands of people lower in the hierarchy. ~ Frederic Laloux, #NFDB
929:Maximizers, according to a series of studies by Schwartz, are lower than satisficers in happiness, optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, and higher in depression and regret! ~ Ed Diener, #NFDB
930:Protection of the cow means protection of the whole dumb creation of God. The appeal of the lower order of creation is all the more forceful because it is speechless.” 6 ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
931: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, #NFDB
932:He felt her relax as his fingers caressed her back and moved lower to her buttocks, slick, yet firm, beneath the water.
"You're not going to wash my hair, are you?" she whispered. ~ E B Brown,#NFDB
933:I had better water than that, and ran it lower down; started out from the false point—mark twain—raised the second reef abreast the big snag in the bend, and had quarter less twain. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
934:Man cannot pretend to be higher in ethics, spirituality, advancement, or civilization than other creatures and at the same time live by lower standards than the vulture or hyena. ~ H Jay Dinshah, #NFDB
935:The solutions to the problems of the distraught lower strata of society are problems that can only be solved in the context of an overall political, cultural, economic development. ~ Akbar Ganji, #NFDB
936:The stranger pulled his punch and glared at her. He curled his lip to bare a fang. But did he apologize? No! His exposed canine thickened and lengthened, pushing past his lower lip. ~ Celia Kyle, #NFDB
937:Unlike cheap stocks, inexpensive asset classes have a lower chance of big drawdowns (broad asset classes don't go to zero) and a higher probability of average or better returns. ~ Barry Ritholtz, #NFDB
938:Blessed are the ones who have become spiritually "domesticated"; the ones who have tamed the wild animal energy within them, the passions and compulsions of our lower nature. ~ Cynthia Bourgeault, #NFDB
939:heart starts to beat faster as his hands lower back down to my thighs and he leans in to whisper huskily in my ear. "I spotted you from afar, sitting on the hood of your car like ~ Justine Elvira, #NFDB
940:He knelt and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
941:How ironical that it is by means of speech that man can degrade himself below the level of dumb creation -- for a chatterbox is truly of a lower category than a dumb creature. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
942:I do not think men have more talent. There are a great many women in the arts; novelists, painters, sculptors, poets-but the proportion is far lower in the field of song writing. ~ Dorothy Fields, #NFDB
943:I had never seen so much hair on a man. It covered all of his face and grew way down to his chest, maybe lower, but he didn't have hair where it counted, on top of his head. ~ John Fire Lame Deer, #NFDB
944:I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
945:In all forms in the world there is a force at work, unconsciously active or oppressed by inertia in its lower formulations. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Perfection of the Body, #NFDB
946:In economic panics throughout history, the wiping out of the savings accounts of lower earners and the middle class has often led to social revolution, sometimes violent upheavals. ~ Nick Clooney, #NFDB
947:Inequality has the natural and necessary effect, under the present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class. ~ Matthew Arnold, #NFDB
948:On this one day, the most you can do is have one ride. Lower your expectations of perfecting your world in an instant. Instead of getting greedy, be content to make one good deposit. ~ Anna Blake, #NFDB
949:Someday you’ll need to take down a worn-out volume and flip to that passage on the lower right-hand face, ten pages from the end, that fills you with such sweet and vicious pain. ~ Richard Powers, #NFDB
950:You’re lonely just like the rest of us. You want to be admired and adored, just like the rest of us.” He leans in, and in a lower voice adds, ”And there’s nothing wrong with that. ~ Iris St Clair, #NFDB
951:By the time I was in my early-twenties and was living there on the Lower East Side, I was so surrounded by tragedy that I think that inspired me to try to reflect it in the artwork. ~ Eric Drooker, #NFDB
952:haragei—the art of balance and power emanating from the lower belly. Haragei was the basis of all Japanese martial arts, from sumo to karate to the almost extinct harakei. The ~ Eric Van Lustbader, #NFDB
953:I can't believe that our body, composed as it is of mud and shit and equipped with instincts lower than those of the pig or the crab-louse, contains anything pure and immaterial ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
954:If your desire is a 10 but your self-esteem is a 5, you'll never perform at the level of a 10. You'll perform as a 5 or lower. People are ever able to outperform their self-image. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
955:I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free…’” Night ~ Ann Patchett, #NFDB
956: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, #NFDB
957:since lower nature had fallen through man, it was fitting that all lower nature should be reconciled to God through man. That is why there was an Incarnation instead of pantheism. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
958:The people of this nation are eminently a trafficking people; and the present standard of honesty, as to trade and debts, is very low, and every year seems sinking still lower. ~ Catharine Beecher, #NFDB
959:There is in stillness oft a magic power To calm the breast when struggling passions lower, Touched by its influence, in the soul arise Diviner feelings, kindred with the skies. ~ John Henry Newman, #NFDB
960:This is all because of lies?" he asked.
"This is all because of love." I told him, my lower lip trembling. "Or maybe it's all the same. Maybe it will always be the same with me! ~ Karina Halle,#NFDB
961:...and my signature is drawn in magic marker
on the lower right hand corner of the window
so when something passes in the dark
it's captured for a moment inside my work. ~ David Berman,#NFDB
962:But I’m still curious to know: can you move a mountain or not?’ ‘If God commands it, I will move it,’ Tikhon pronounced with quiet restraint, again beginning to lower his eyes. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
963:Clearly the price considered most likely by the market is the true current price: if the market judged otherwise, it would quote not this price, but another price higher or lower. ~ Louis Bachelier, #NFDB
964:Examining 15 types of legal gambling, the researchers came to a striking conclusion: Casino gambling had by far the most harmful effects on people at the lower end of the income ladder. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
965:Generally speaking, lower-tier grandparents mostly donate time, replacing parental resources, whereas upper-tier grandparents mostly donate money, supplementing parental resources ~ Robert D Putnam, #NFDB
966:He knelt and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears... ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
967:Noah Calhoun watched the fading sun sink lower from the wrap around porch of his plantation-style home.He liked to sit here in the evenings, especially after working hard all day. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
968:Roger Fry is painting me. It is too like me at present, but he is confident he will be able to alter that. Post-Impressionism is at present confined to my lower lip... and to my chin. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
969:The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
970: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.
~ ?,#NFDB
971:This Hitler movement was a revolt of the lower middle classes, whose savings had been wiped out by the inflation and who saw themselves being reduced to the status of proletarians. ~ Upton Sinclair, #NFDB
972:What keeps us playing our parts and going round and round the three lower worlds is not a Divine dictate, but ourselves, our own will-to-live, which comes from within ourselves. ~ Nilakanta Sri Ram, #NFDB
973:When your entire world is unraveling, you tend to crave order, and I found it in knitting. In fact, I’ve even read that knitting can lower stress more effectively than meditation. ~ Debbie Macomber, #NFDB
974:Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes- and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible? ~ Barry Goldwater, #NFDB
975:Advertising ... is a parasitic activity; it forces goods for which there is no real need or demand on a foolish or even a reluctant public, always by appealing to their lower instincts. ~ Ann Bridge, #NFDB
976: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, #NFDB
977:Anything we destroy in ourselves we destroy in others. Our falls lower others and throw them down; we owe it to our fellows to keep upright, in order that they too may keep their feet. ~ George Sand, #NFDB
978:As William Penn put it: "Those people who are not governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." Remember... that those tyrants are often self-imposed roadblocks of your lower self at work. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
979:Because when I’m low, I don’t want to be the one seeking out company. I want someone to find me, to tell me I’m wanted, needed. And when I don’t get that, I sink lower. Maybe John ~ Kristen Callihan, #NFDB
980:By 1997, when Kansas City finally gave up, it had the most extravagant schools in the country, but the percentage of whites was lower than ever and blacks’ test scores had not budged. ~ Jared Taylor, #NFDB
981:If Chess is the switch,” Loretta said, “how does he turn the Fog off?”
Bea bit her lower lip. “I don’t know—ask Chess.”
“How would I know?” I said. “You try being a switch. ~ Joel N Ross,#NFDB
982:I think that the question of how power can be exerted from the lower reaches has never been more important. It will ultimately determine whether another world is indeed possible. ~ Frances Fox Piven, #NFDB
983: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, #NFDB
984:The Human moral keyboard is limited ... there's nothing you can play on it that hasn't been played before. And, my dear Friends, I am sorry to say this, but it has its lower notes. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
985:The ninos santos (Psilocybe mexicana) heal. They lower fevers, cure colds, and give freedom from toothaches. They pull the evil spirits out of the body or free the spirit of the sick. ~ Maria Sabina, #NFDB
986:The one important thing you do as boss is you set the standard. The minute you go in and say 'we'll let it go this time,' you set a new standard, which is lower. So you cannot do that. ~ Bill Kurtis, #NFDB
987:After finishing my drink I feel a pressure in my lower regions, and I realize I have to piss. Since the Dead don't drink, urination is a rare event. I hope I can remember how to do it. ~ Isaac Marion, #NFDB
988:High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
989:if new orthodoxies of unbelief attack inherited faith, if scientism and a cult of technology lower our eyes to the gadgets in our hands, the effect ripples across a culture’s soul. ~ Charles J Chaput, #NFDB
990:If we look into ourselves we discover propensities which declare that our intellects have arisen from a lower form; could our minds be made visible we should find them tailed. ~ William Winwood Reade, #NFDB
991:It’s amazing that people don’t understand that the more the market is involved and the smaller the government, the lower the price, the better the distribution, and the higher the quality. ~ Ron Paul, #NFDB
992:Kitsch is: a species of beauty, which, as it is florid and superficial, pleases at first; but soon palls upon the taste, and is rejected with disdain, at least rated at much lower value. ~ David Hume, #NFDB
993:Metaphors are a window into the soul and carry us across the boundary between the lower and higher selves, connecting us to the universal energy field and the collective consciousness. ~ Heidi DuPree, #NFDB
994:My experiences with gender bias are probably the norm. What I found was that expectations of women were simply lower, and this resulted in being overlooked for certain opportunities. ~ Heather Bresch, #NFDB
995:Never let anyone lower your goals. Others’ expectations of you are determined by their limitations of life. The sky is your limit, sons. Always shoot for the sun and you will shine. ~ Kwame Alexander, #NFDB
996:...no way could I fall in love. I just couldn't go there yet. Settle for less. I didn't want to process through anything. I didn't want to pick up any pieces. Lower my expectations. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
997:Personal courage is really a very subordinate virtue-a virtue, indeed, in which we are surpassed by the lower animals; or else you would not hear people say, as brave as a lion. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
998:The plant goes down. The industry is weaker. The price of the commodity has lagged. Any of those things can push people into unemployment or lower income categories, and that hurts. ~ Chris Alexander, #NFDB
999:Who are you?"
"Your fantasy," I tease with a kiss, digging my nails into his shoulders.
"No shit." He bites my lower lip, then sucks it into his mouth. "A fucking nightmare, too. ~ Eden Summers,#NFDB
1000:You love Roth," he continued for me."You're in love with him."
My eyes met his bright blue ones."Yes," I whispered, my lower lip trembling."It's him. It's always been him. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,#NFDB
1001:As a result, proportional movements of high-priced stocks in the Dow averages have a much greater impact than movements of lower-priced stocks, regardless of the size of the company. ~ Jeremy J Siegel, #NFDB
1002:Because the lower performers are not willing to step up and take responsibility to increase their production, they can only seek to tear down those who are performing at higher levels. ~ Grant Cardone, #NFDB
1003:God has privileged us in Christ Jesus to live above the ordinary human plane of life. Those who want to be ordinary and live on a lower plane can do so, but as for me, I will not. ~ Smith Wigglesworth, #NFDB
1004:I can assure you there’s every reason to flirt whenever and wherever possible. It’s scientifically proven to lower blood pressure, ease stress, and provide a great lucidity of mind. ~ Katie MacAlister, #NFDB
1005:I can describe, and I've always been able to describe, what Republicans stand for in eight words, and the eight words are lower taxes, less government, strong defense and family values. ~ Byron Dorgan, #NFDB
1006:If you continue to use monetary policy to attempt to promote full employment the result would be that you would have higher inflation, and that you would not have lower unemployment. ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
1007:I like to see films that come out with lower budgets because you're forced into using your imagination. You don't have everything at your fingertips. You have to create it from scratch. ~ Heath Ledger, #NFDB
1008:In the sea of words, the in print is foam, surf bubbles riding the top. And it's a dark sea, and deep, where divers need lights on their helmets and would perish at the lower depths. ~ Jonathan Lethem, #NFDB
1009:Whatsamatter?" Dante scraped a hand over his abs, his neck, the side of his face--collecting his jizz. He sucked his pleasure off his lower lip. "I gave myself a fuckin' necklace. ~ Damon Suede, #NFDB
1010:Never let anyone lower your goals. Others' expectations of you are determined my their limitations of life. The sky is your limit, sons. Always shoot for the sun, and you will shine. ~ Kwame Alexander, #NFDB
1011:President Obama has lowered taxes more than he has raised them, and they are today lower than they were in President Reagan's time. But you don't hear conservatives crowing about that. ~ Eric Alterman, #NFDB
1012:Race had become, yet again, a powerful wedge, breaking up what had been a solid liberal coalition based on economic interests of the poor and the working and lower-middle classes. ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
1013:The superb grottoes or caves of Adjuntah, which rival those of Ellora, and perhaps in general beauty surpass them, occupy the lower end of a small valley about half a mile from the town. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
1014:The view that women are infantile and emotional creatures, and as such, incapable of responsibility and independence is the work of the masculine tendency to lower women's self-respect. ~ Karen Horney, #NFDB
1015:Cash winks at me from in front of the stove and pure lust twitches in my lower belly. There’s no denying this man is hot. Effing hot. Probably hotter than the stove he’s cooking on. ~ Michelle Leighton, #NFDB
1016:Cultures differ in their attitudes toward immigrants, and there is some evidence that liberal and welcoming attitudes are more common in times and places where disease risks are lower. ~ Jonathan Haidt, #NFDB
1017:expenditure on food does not increase in the same ratio as income, but becomes relatively lower. People learn to expect that food will be cheap; money is for spending on other things. ~ Margaret Visser, #NFDB
1018:Five Terms Correlated to a Higher Sale Price Granite State-of-the-Art Corian Maple Gourmet Five Terms Correlated to a Lower Sale Price Fantastic Spacious ! Charming Great Neighborhood ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
1019:Have you come to kidnap me?” Her voice emerged a whisper, though she hadn’t consciously thought to lower it. “If so, I hope you’ll do me the courtesy of letting me put on a wrap first. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt, #NFDB
1020:I can conceive of no reason for all this administration of the higher to the lower, unless it be for the purpose of advancing our Father's children along the lines of eternal progression. ~ B H Roberts, #NFDB
1021:If you're born in the higher realms, then it's too pleasant, and you don't have any incentive to practice. If you're born in the lower realms, you don't have any opportunity to practice. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
1022:Superman, Iron Man, Batman”—Flyaway Hair winces visibly—“you name it. Rich, powerful, white alpha males who dress up in gimp suits and beat up ethnically diverse lower-class criminals. ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB
1023:Trials and troubles are an everyday part of living here in a fallen world. Pastor and author Max Lucado says, “Lower your expectations of earth. This isn’t heaven, so don’t expect it to be. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1024:Upon the opening of the third seal, a black horse came forth[...] Oil and wine represent soul and spirit; and the barley and wheat, the lower nature of man. The destroyer upon the black horse is Saturn, #NFDB
1025:We didn't have sex. We never got naked. I never touched her bare breast, and her hands never got lower than my hips. It didn't matter. As she slept, I whispered, "I love you, Alaska Young. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1026:What do you want?” he asked, his gaze holding mine.
“You,” I whispered, cheeks burning.
“You have me.” His thumb dragged along my lower lip. “You’ve always had me. Always. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,#NFDB
1027:A depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
1028:Capital is flowing out of China at a record pace, sparking fears over financial stability and complicating efforts by the central bank to support a slowing economy with lower interest rates. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1029:His voice was of a lower pitch and somewhat gravely, very much like the lead singer in a band that called themselves ‘Disturbed’, which made some pretty awesome music about twenty years ago. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1030:I didn't want to see them lower him into the ground in the spot he'd picked out with his dad, and I didn't want to see his parents sink to their knees in the dew-wet grass and moan in pain. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1031:I said I want to fuck your mouth, first with my tongue"-he licked her lower lip-"and then with my finger, and then with my cock. Maybe that will shut you up."
~ Thea HarrisonTiago ~ Thea Harrison,#NFDB
1032:Once we've gained a foothold there we can play these people off against those lower down -- in short balkanize the centre section and then begin the colonization of the entire building . . . ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1033:One person will eat meat and it will lower their attention field. Another person won't even be affected by it because they're not in the state of mind whereby they'll be affected by it. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1034:That was the sly, ruinous thing about motherhood, the thing that twisted your insides with guilt and made you change your mind and lower your standards: giving in was so damned easy. It ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
1035:There is in stillness oft a magic power To calm the breast when struggling passions lower, Touched by its influence, in the soul arise Diviner feelings, kindred with the skies. ~ Saint John Henry Newman, #NFDB
1036:A woman brought her child with an abscess in the lower part of the back, and offered as much corn as she could carry for some medicine; we administered to it of course very cheerfully. ~ Meriwether Lewis, #NFDB
1037:Beneath the lower point of the balloon swung a car, containing five passengers, scarcely visible in the midst of the thick vapor mingled with spray which hung over the surface of the ocean. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
1038:Farmers facing lower prices have only one option if they want to be able to maintain their standard of living, pay their bills, and service their debt, and that is to produce more [corn] ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
1039:He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. All that was there, in the lids of his brown eyes, his smooth skin, his lower lip pushed out. There was coiled energy inside. ~ E Lockhart, #NFDB
1040:If we did go into a recession, something that's always possible for the U.S. or Europe, we could lower interest rates and expand the money supply without worrying about the price of gold. ~ Jeffrey Sachs, #NFDB
1041:I have watched my country accept, mostly quite complacently, along with a lower living standard for more and more people, a lower moral standard. A moral standard based on advertising. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1042:I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of The Look. ~ Lauren Bacall, #NFDB
1043:I will continue my consistent record of voting for lower taxes, less spending and fewer regulations to make our government more effective and efficient while upholding our Constitution. ~ Roscoe Bartlett, #NFDB
1044:kids are all smart, and I feel like a proud mom who knows she’s done a good job. None of the kids got lower than a B, and by New York City public school standards, that is amazing. ~ Aurora Rose Reynolds, #NFDB
1045:The lower animals are our brethren. I include among them the lion and the tiger. We do not know how to live with these carnivorous beasts and poisonous reptiles because of our ignorance. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1046:What I'm saying is America has a job deficit because hundreds of thousands of jobs went elsewhere. Not because [Barack] Obama raised your taxes. He, in fact, lowered them. They are lower. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
1047:Abraham Lincoln was on the side of the social scientists when he said, "God must have loved the people of lower and middle socioeconomic status, because he made such a multiplicity of them. ~ Edwin Newman, #NFDB
1048:But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
1049:I grew up a squatter on the Lower East Side, so it's kind of a given that I'd have very strong opinions on everything from cyclical violence to teenage pregnancy to environmental justice. ~ Rosario Dawson, #NFDB
1050:Is that an invitation?”
“I suppose it is.”
“Good.” Cade’s voice dropped lower, adding one last thing before hanging up. “And tell your friend in the striped shirt that he’s in my seat. ~ Julie James,#NFDB
1051:Many of the lower middle class are members of labor unions, churches, bowling clubs, fraternal, service, and nationality organizations. They are organizations and people that must be worked ~ Saul Alinsky, #NFDB
1052:She would thrust these thoughts away, miserable and horrified, wondering if there was any lower limit to the human spirit at its nasty, calculating, self-serving worst, not wanting to know. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1053:Those who practice lower sorcery hurt themselves the most because they interact with negative thoughts and apply power to them; they devastate their own consciousness and their own lives. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1054:True, nuts are high in fat, but most of them contain monounsaturated fat that is good for the heart. In fact, eaten in moderation, nuts can lower your risk of heart disease and heart attack. ~ Andrew Weil, #NFDB
1055:What is desecration?” He spit again, eying him and Solomon realized he had tobacco in his lower lip. “You like playin with the dead, son?” “No sir,” Solomon said. “Not at all.” “Well you is. ~ Lucian Bane, #NFDB
1056:World is a multi-dimensional reality. At lower level it is full with unconsciousness and competitiveness. At higher level it is full with beauty, bliss and divinity. Focus on higher dimensions. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
1057:You are someone whose upbringing was upper class enough to make you believe you could make music for a living, but lower class enough to provide no knowledge of how to do it. ~ Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, #NFDB
1058:As is well known, all collectors are prepared to steal or murder if it is a question of getting another piece for their collection; but this does not lower their moral character in the least. ~ Karel Capek, #NFDB
1059:I didn't want to see them lower him into the ground in the spot he'd picked out with his dad, and I didn't want to see his parents sink to their knees in the dew-wet grass and moan in pain.... ~ John Green, #NFDB
1060:In the financial system we have today, with less risk concentrated in banks, the probability of systemic financial crises may be lower than in traditional bank-centered financial systems ~ Timothy Geithner, #NFDB
1061:Isabelle had not come to this dinner party to give her lower nature an opportunity to rejoice in the oddity of her fellow creatures; but now she was there it seemed ridiculous not to listen. ~ Rebecca West, #NFDB
1062:Modani furniture is discounting many items up to 40 percent while supplies last (the Fabiola coffee table, shown, regularly $199, is a marginally lower $190); 40 East 19th Street, 212-780-1500. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1063:Our life evokes our character. You find out more about yourself as you go on. That's why it's good to put yourself in situations that will evoke your higher nature rather than your lower. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1064:The Creator desired that the Light be veiled in order to grant existence to the lower beings, which could not otherwise survive in its full presence. ~ Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, General Principles of Kabbalah, #NFDB
1065:When I was a child, I saw God,
I saw angels;
I watched the mysteries of the higher and
lower worlds. I thought all men saw the same.
At last I realized that they did not see.… ~ Shams i Tabrizi,#NFDB
1066:Woman is to man as the slave to the master, the manual to the mental worker, the barbarian to the Greek. Woman is an unfinished man, left standing on a lower step in the scale of development. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
1067:After having stopped the lower activities of the mind, it must be made receptive; and, instead of weaving all kinds of empty and idle thoughts, the mind should receive intuitions from above. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
1068:Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man’s supremacy over the lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower, ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1069: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, #NFDB
1070:Let me tell you a few things about this place, the UP,” Laurent said, as they drove out of town in his Silverado pickup. “The UP is about the most remote place in the lower forty-eight—other ~ John Sandford, #NFDB
1071:One who wants his Yoga to be a path of peace or joy, must be prepared to dwell in his soul rather than in his outer mental and emotional nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being, #NFDB
1072:The Democrat Party makes as many people victims as possible because it freezes them right where they are. And that's usually in lower middle class or abject poverty. It makes them resentful. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1073: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, #NFDB
1074:They are the ships, and you are the wind. You do no lower yourself to their rules or expectations. You blow in whatever direction you feel is needed and leave them with no choice but to oblige. ~ Elise Kova, #NFDB
1075:We believe, as Nietzsche put it, that 'higher is not allowed to grow out of the lower, is not allowed to have grown at all .. everything first-rate must be causa sui [the cause of itself]. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
1076:When stocks are attractive, you buy them. Sure, they can go lower. I've bought stocks at $12 that went to $2, but then they later went to $30. You just don't know when you can find the bottom. ~ Peter Lynch, #NFDB
1077:Absent a lot of surprises, stocks are relatively predictable over twenty years. As to whether they're going to be higher or lower in two to three years, you might as well flip a coin to decide. ~ Peter Lynch, #NFDB
1078:Gravity only, into the length of hose that lay on the floor at a lower level than the tank itself. For the rest, the pump would have to prime itself and then suck hard and haul it all up and out. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
1079:I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level. ~ Muammar al Gaddafi, #NFDB
1080:Kitten, you need to make a decision. Either we stay here and behave or we leave now and I promise you”—his voice dipped lower and the words fell against my lips—“if we leave, I won’t behave. ~ Jeaniene Frost, #NFDB
1081:The one thing we absolutely have to do if we want to get leaner—if we want to get fat out of our fat tissue and burn it—is to lower our insulin levels and to secrete less insulin to begin with. ~ Gary Taubes, #NFDB
1082:The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind - the lower animals. ~ John Stuart Mill, #NFDB
1083:We have to throw away the props of our weakness, the motives of the ego, the lures of our lower nature before we can deserve the divine union. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Motives of Devotion, #NFDB
1084:We're going take a common-sense, step-by-step approach that puts in place the kind of policies that will make our- our health insurance system more what I call patient-centered and lower cost. ~ John Boehner, #NFDB
1085:Drinking alcohol takes you into a lower state of mind. If you drink a lot of it, things get very fuzzy and they are not very sharp or defined. This brings you into a lower state of attention. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1086:has grown out just enough to curl naturally at the ends—as close to rugged as he’ll ever look. I swirl the ice in my glass. “A couple hours?” He rests his hand on my lower back and presses his ~ Meredith Wild, #NFDB
1087:He settled his hand at my jaw, his thumb tracing the line of my lower lip. “Of course, I do, precious.” His tone was uneven but sincere. “You’re my everything. I love you. I love you so much. ~ Laurelin Paige, #NFDB
1088:...She thinks, for the hundredth time, that in their emotional life all these intelligent men use a level so much lower than anything they use for work, that they might be different creatures. ~ Doris Lessing, #NFDB
1089:We are not averages and statistics. We are not the upper, middle, or lower class. We are not citizens, or constituents, or the governed. We are not megaplex Christmas shoppers. We are human. ~ Johnny B Truant, #NFDB
1090:Below me, in spreading, concentric circles, like those a fish makes when it rises in still water, spun round the lower tiers; above me arched the black sky pierced by the gas jets of the stars. ~ Angela Carter, #NFDB
1091:Burns notes the catch-22 nature of depression: The worse we feel, the more distorted our thoughts become, and this thinking plunges us even lower into black feelings about ourselves. Nearly ~ Tom Butler Bowdon, #NFDB
1092:Christ's mission is to release the divine into our conscious knowing. He awakens the impulse in humanity to rise above his lower nature and be aware of his higher nature that dwells within. ~ Flower A Newhouse, #NFDB
1093:Since I stopped drinking my love life has taken a really serious hit. Romantic encounters that seemed like a really good idea at three o'clock in the morning on the Lower East Side? Less so in sobriety. ~ Moby, #NFDB
1094:Teachers try to make us feel lower than themselves, maybe because this is because they feel lower than outside people. One teacher told me to get out of the room and never come back, which I did. ~ Bel Kaufman, #NFDB
1095:The aristocrats, if such they could be called, generally hated the whole concept of the train on the basis that it would encourage the lower classes to move about and not always be available. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1096:There is a lot of pain still to be had in the equity markets, particularly aimed at the risky end of the spectrum. We think the fair value on the market is about a third lower in the U.S. . . ~ Jeremy Grantham, #NFDB
1097:We have women entering lower-paying career fields. Women are still, culturally, the primary caregivers for children, even though we would love to have fathers and mothers share responsibility. ~ Martha McSally, #NFDB
1098:We're going to start making things again in America. As part of our plan to bring back our jobs, we're going to lower our business tax from 35 percent to 15 tax, the biggest since Ronald Reagan. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
1099:When we shift out of a lower to a higher energy pattern, we create a protective shield on the energetic level, as it were, and we can no longer be psychically vulnerable to that other person. ~ David R Hawkins, #NFDB
1100:I know hedge-fund guys that are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year and pay no tax. And I want to lower [tax] for the middle income. The middle class in this country has been decimated. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
1101:In India's Dreamy Land
In India's land one listens aghast
To the people who scream and bawl;
For each caste yells at a lower caste,
And the Britisher yells at them all.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,#NFDB
1102:One individual who lives and vibrates to the energy of pure love and reverence for all of life will counterbalance the negativity of 750,000 individuals who calibrate at the lower weakening levels. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
1103: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, #NFDB
1104:You might say, well, aren't people saying that about wind and solar today? Not really. Only in the super-narrow sense that the capital costs per output, when the wind is blowing, is slightly lower. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
1105:I am as willing to serve now as in the beginning in any capacity and at any post where I can do good. The lower the position, the more suitable to my ability and the more agreeable to my feelings. ~ Robert E Lee, #NFDB
1106:I sold my most valuable possession, but I knew that because I worked at Hewlett Packard, I could buy the next model calculator the very next month for a lower price than I sold the older one for! ~ Steve Wozniak, #NFDB
1107:No? Then why do I feel like I’m under a spell, as if something is gripping me, and I’m helpless to free myself.” His voice dipped impossibly lower, more growl than words, his fingers lulling me. ~ Juliette Cross, #NFDB
1108: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, #NFDB
1109:Aayla’s little lower lip juts out and she starts to cry again. “I don’t like them, Mommy!” “Does Mommy look like she gives a shit? No, she does not. Eat that or you’re having your dinner raw tonight. ~ Ruby Dixon, #NFDB
1110:Gerdanlouk, he thinks. An evocative Turkish word, with Arabic roots. It means jewelry, but only jewelry adorning a woman between her lower neck and the top of her breasts. Gerdanlouk. He looks away. ~ Jenny White, #NFDB
1111:Not all activities are equal... Those that involve genuine concentration - studying a musical instrument, playing board games, reading, and dancing - are associated with a lower risk for dementia. ~ Norman Doidge, #NFDB
1112:We are in a race between knowledge and catastrophe. If we keep track of what is important, never lower our standards or forget why we are here, we have the ability to determine the fate of the world. ~ Dean Kamen, #NFDB
1113:And much like a catapult, my dear, the lower you begin in life, the higher you can eventually fly. All it requires is the right person to, shall we say, effect the launch.”
-Miss Endicott. ~ Julie Anne Long,#NFDB
1114:Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. I don't blame them in the smallest degree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1115:Cubism is like standing at a certain point on a mountain and looking around. If you go higher, things will look different; if you go lower, again they will look different. It is a point of view. ~ Jacques Lipchitz, #NFDB
1116:Her face was slack with decay, the lower half slewed to one side, her grin wider than ever. It was a knowing grin, and why not? The dead understand everything. She was surrounded by her loyal court. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1117:If you happen to be one of the people who has a split zygomaticus major muscle, where the lower part of it is tethered to the overlying skin, this will create a dimple in your cheek when you smile. ~ Alice Roberts, #NFDB
1118:I’ll be your friend, Molly Whitcomb, the best friend I know how to be.” He caressed the side of her face and traced her lower lip with his thumb. “Until you’re ready for me to be something more. ~ Tamera Alexander, #NFDB
1119:I pout my lower lip for a second, but then I grin as the pieces come together in my mind. "THAT'S why you like me!" I exclaim. "Because you're not very nice either! It makes so much more sense now. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
1120:It is an in, a grave evil and a disturbance of the right order, for a larger and higher organisation, to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies. ~ Pope Leo XIII, #NFDB
1121:it is well documented that obese people with hypertension live significantly longer than thinner people with hypertension291292293294 and have a lower risk of heart attack, stroke, or early death.295 ~ Linda Bacon, #NFDB
1122:Nixon would like to consign us to to the level of the most backward countries in the whole Middle East. Why lower us to the standard of the Saudis rather than raising the Saudis to meet us? ~ Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, #NFDB
1123:The back is one of my favorite parts of a woman’s body. I love to trace and lick the shallow line of her spine, from the top and all the way down to the twin dimples at the base of her lower back. ~ Gina L Maxwell, #NFDB
1124:There are people who do, what we would call, lower sorcery. It is best not to be concerned with them. They are not happy people and they can't be a problem if you are aware of what they are doing. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1125:Why does he have such an unnerving effect on me? His overwhelming good looks maybe? The way his eyes blaze at me? The way he strokes his index finger against his lower lip? I wish he’d stop doing that. ~ E L James, #NFDB
1126:Always, everywhere, the Wolves gather on the frontiers, waiting. It needs only that a man should lower his eye for a moment, and they will be in to strip the bones. Rome is failing, my children. ~ Rosemary Sutcliff, #NFDB
1127:By skimping on design, the owner gets costlier equipment, higher energy costs, and a less competitive and comfortable building; the tenants get lower productivity and higher rent and operating costs. ~ Amory Lovins, #NFDB
1128:Man is now using but the lower and inferior parts of his mind, and he has within his mental world great unexplored regions that far surpass anything of which the human mind has dreamed. In ~ William Walker Atkinson, #NFDB
1129:Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1130:Reintegrating the brain into the rest of the body is absolutely essential to having the kind of long-term health and substantially lower cost [of care] than if you're going to treat them separately. ~ Newt Gingrich, #NFDB
1131:There's not a lot of precedent for weird, bald musicians in the Lower East Side making records in their bedrooms and going on to sell a lot of copies of the record. Especially if you look at the pop climate. ~ Moby, #NFDB
1132:The U.S. states that allow for citizens' initiatives tend to have fewer laws and lower taxes than the ones that don't. But the beauty of the system is that it encourages the spread of best practice. ~ Daniel Hannan, #NFDB
1133:When you lower the definition of success to such a level that any person can reach it, you don’t teach people to have big dreams; instead you inspirit mediocrity and nurture people’s inadequacies. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
1134:Why does he have such an unnerving effect on me? His over-whelming good looks maybe? The way his eyes blaze at me? The way he strokes his index finger against his lower lip? I wish he'd stop doing that. ~ E L James, #NFDB
1135:Eradication of this unquenchable shrub [tamarisk] will save water, lower salinity levels and create a more congenial habitat for the Southwest Willow Flycatcher and a number of other riparian species. ~ Wayne Allard, #NFDB
1136:He brushed his thumb against her naked flesh and gently transferred his attention to her swollen lower lip.
"I did this to you. Does it hurt ?" he whispered.
"It only aches in your absence. ~ Sylvain Reynard,#NFDB
1137:In 1958 I finally found a large enough apartment on the Lower East Side, where I reverted to figure painting. I drew and painted quite a lot of figures and nudes. People would come and pose for me. ~ Claes Oldenburg, #NFDB
1138:In the Cabala the higher powers do not descend into the lower elements to ensoul the mundane diffusion, but rather cast their shadows upon the Deep or the lower elements. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
1139:I wished God were like He used to be, a few notches lower. I wanted Him to be lofty enough to help me but not so uncontrollable. I longed for His warm presence, times when He seemed more… safe. ~ Joni Eareckson Tada, #NFDB
1140:One minute you could be getting a smoke in the alley on the Lower East Side with your friends, having drinks and dancing on tables in a popular nightclub. And the next minute, you could be dead. ~ Melissa de la Cruz, #NFDB
1141:Over the years, we have lost millions of decent paying jobs. These trade agreements have forced wages down in America so the average worker in America today is working longer hours for lower wages. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
1142:People with lower incomes tend to give a greater percentage of their incomes to help others and show greater empathy and compassion - perhaps because they know they might face the same circumstances. ~ Kavita Ramdas, #NFDB
1143:Some people are like psychic sponges, they drain power form others constantly. They lower your awareness because they are at a lower level. If you spend too much time with them, you get pulled down. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1144:The Devil ... is much better served by exploiting our virtues than by appealing to our lower passions; consequently, it is when the Devil looks most noble and reasonable that he is most dangerous. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
1145:The refunding of the national debt at a lower rate of interest should be accomplished without compelling the withdrawal of the national-bank notes, and thus disturbing the business of the country. ~ James A Garfield, #NFDB
1146:Cowards die many times before their deaths, da valiant never taste of death but once, eh?” The quote came out of nowhere, so random it made Magnus lower the torch. “I’m shocked. You know Julius Caesar? ~ Scott Sigler, #NFDB
1147:Everything starts within your own mind. The physical choices you make, drain your power or give you power. If your power is low, then you stay in lower levels of mind and you don't see opportunities. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1148:From the spring of 1941, I controlled all prices in the United States. You could lower a price without my permission, but you couldn't raise a price without my permission or that of my staff. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, #NFDB
1149:In fact, I'm going to bed now."
"Need some help?"
"Keep it down and let me sleep in."
Norah clicked the volume lower on the TV.
His mom winked at Norah. "I wasn't talking about the TV. ~ Shannyn Schroeder,#NFDB
1150:Our life evokes our character. You find out more about yourself as you go on. That’s why it’s good to be able to put yourself in situations that will evoke your higher nature rather than your lower. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1151:The fantasy of doing a task perfectly is common with procrastinators; they set the bar for success very high. Then they are afraid to approach it. As the deadline approaches, they must set the bar lower. ~ John Perry, #NFDB
1152:as if any rigid structure ever conveyed anything meaningful except the ability to exert power over those lower in the structure. Power without morality is disaster; morality without power is useless. ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
1153:but I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for licence. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
1154:He leaves and she thinks for the hundredth time that in their emotional life all these intelligent men use a level so much lower than anything they use for work, that they might be different creatures. ~ Doris Lessing, #NFDB
1155:It doesn't worry me a bit that China and Japan hold so much US debt. In a way, it seems foolish for them to do it because they get lower returns than they might elsewhere. But that is their business. ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
1156:Refinancing your mortgage usually makes sense if you can lower your interest rate by at least two points. But the most important question to ask yourself is, how long will it take you to break even? ~ Barbara Corcoran, #NFDB
1157:She hadn’t even known they were volcanic, but now they were lobbing big seminal gobbets of lava all over their lower slopes, like a drunk prom queen puking on her dress. Shit was getting geological, yo. ~ Lev Grossman, #NFDB
1158:The HSA (Health Savings Account) is a great way to save on premiums. The high deductible creates a much lower premium, and this plan allows you to save for medical expenses in a tax-free savings account. ~ Dave Ramsey, #NFDB
1159:Archaeologists often distinguish calibrated from uncalibrated dates by writing the former in upper-case letters and the latter in lower-case letters (for example, 3000 B.C. vs. 3000 B.C., respectively). ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
1160:As [House] speaker, I came back, working with President Bill Clinton. We passed a very Reagan-like program: less regulation, lower taxes. Unemployment dropped to 4.2 percent. We created 11 million jobs. ~ Newt Gingrich, #NFDB
1161:But sometimes one hears an Etiquette-Buster’s confession that rings true: “You make me feel guilty.” I’m not going to bother, this argument goes, so we need to lower the standard so I don’t look bad. On ~ Judith Martin, #NFDB
1162:I asked if he thought the ratio of good ones to scum was higher or lower than in society at large.
"It's the same," he said. "Of course." It was the same everywhere, he added: an immutable law. ~ Haruki Murakami,#NFDB
1163:In the lower classes the school master does not work for the parent, but against the parent. Modern education meanshanding down the customs of the minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1164:Modernists claim that the lower story is the primary or sole reality—facts and science. Postmodernists claim that the upper story is primary—that even facts and science are merely mental constructs.15 ~ Nancy R Pearcey, #NFDB
1165:Studies have found that people who eat more than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day have a 20 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease compared with people who ate three servings or less. ~ Thug Kitchen, #NFDB
1166:There are as many strata at different levels of life as there are leaves in a book. When on the higher levels we can remember the lower levels, but when on the lower we cannot remember the higher. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1167:The Republican promise is for policies that create economic growth. Republicans believe lower taxes, less regulation, balanced budgets, a solvent Social Security and Medicare will stimulate economic growth. ~ Rand Paul, #NFDB
1168:According to research, people who live with animals have decreased anxiety and lower blood pressure. They have lower cholesterol. They are more relaxed and less stressed and are, overall, in better health. ~ Mary Kubica, #NFDB
1169:Even if we're continually tempted to lower our guard - for love or weariness, for sympathy or kindness - we women shouldn't do it. We can lose from one moment to the next everything that we've achieved. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
1170:He was not as soft as when I'd first met him, not as young, but the angles of his face, his quick gestures, the way he sucked in his lower lip to think before going on - I was in love with all of it. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
1171:How could I do it, how could a person go that low? And I understand your question, to which I reply, Are you kidding? That's nothing. I'd been much lower than that. And I expected to see myself do worse. ~ Denis Johnson, #NFDB
1172:If, at the office or in different exchanges in daily living, you have to spend time with people who are at lower power levels, then you have to be aware of that and keep your awareness very much within. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1173:I’ll deal with you later. In my bed. Gwen met Markus’s gaze as he spoke those words telepathically. Heat spread through her like wildfire. Biting her lower lip, she thought back to him, I look forward to it. ~ Lia Davis, #NFDB
1174:One succeeds in obtaining an equivalent production at a lower price by improving the arts, trades and agriculture and by developing the physical and moral qualities of workers, farmers and craftsmen. ~ Antoine Lavoisier, #NFDB
1175:Recapitulation provided a convenient focus for the persuasive racism of white scientists; they looked to the activities of their own children for comparison with normal adult behavior in lower races. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
1176:The Austrian economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk stated that the cultural and political level of a nation could be discerned by its interest rate: The more advanced the nation, the lower the loan rate. ~ William J Bernstein, #NFDB
1177:When you live in a psychic state of mind, you are happy. You don't have to do anything. Life is always beautiful, but we don't see it when we enter into lower states of mind that are, in effect, cloudy. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1178: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, #NFDB
1179:Anything situated lower down than the heart belongs to the realm of instinct. The liver and the kidneys are visceral centers of great importance for psychic life. ~ Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness, #NFDB
1180:At any rate, it is as easy to do that as to tell of the man who is one hour good and the next bad, who aspires greatly but fails in practice, who sees the higher but too often follows the lower course. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
1181:In lower budget filmmaking, everything is a favor. You're pushing everybody, all the time. You're trying to get the best out of it that you can, and it has to be a labor of love, or you can't get it done. ~ Mark Sheppard, #NFDB
1182:In some circles, the Mint 400 is a far, far better thing than the Superbowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the lower Oakland roller derby finals all rolled into one. This race attracts a very special breed. ~ Hunter S Thompson, #NFDB
1183:Man should regard lower animals as being in the same dependent condition as minors under his government ... For a man to torture an animal whose life God has put into his hands, is a disgrace to his species. ~ Ed Buckner, #NFDB
1184:Paradoxical as it may seem, the evolution of our income tax has been from a low-rate tax relying for revenue on the high income group to a high-rate tax relying on the middle and lower-middle income groups. ~ John Brooks, #NFDB
1185:When you deal with people, it tends to drag your energy down - if those people are in a lower auric state than you. If you meditate and they don't, then by the end of the day you tend to be more drained. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1186:Also in the new constitution, we want to lower the voting age from 20 years to 18 years and also gradually implement a voluntary military service in replacement of the current compulsory military service. ~ Chen Shui bian, #NFDB
1187:Altars should face the east, and should always be placed on a lower level than are the statues in the temples, so that those who are praying and sacrificing may look upwards towards the divinity. ~ Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, #NFDB
1188:Steve Chandler and Duane Black present an approach to management that promises to lower your stress level, increase your happiness and allow everyone in your organization to be more creative and productive. ~ Rolf Dobelli, #NFDB
1189:The lower brain is satisfied when you feel good physically. The limbic system is satisfied when you feel good emotionally. The higher brain is satisfied when you are making good decisions for yourself. The ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1190:The lower you are on the pole, the more events seem to be governed by chance. Climb up a few steps and you realize that there’s an order to the whole thing, the dice are loaded and the cards well marked. ~ Daniel Polansky, #NFDB
1191:There is something in us, somehow, that, in the most degraded condition, we snatch at a chance to deceive ourselves into a fanciedsuperiority to others, whom we suppose lower in the scale than ourselves. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1192:Yes, they think that. They regard the intention of loyalty to a partnership for mutual help, for the preservation of chastity, and for the transmission of life, as something lower than a storm of emotion.8 ~ Gary L Thomas, #NFDB
1193:And myself? Observe me. There is something to be gained from my surface uses, and perhaps a little more from my lower depths, but my very bottom? That's where I am alone, the observer and the observed. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
1194:Angel, who was filling the vats with his handful, suddenly ceased, and laid his hands flat upon hers. Her sleeves were rolled far above the elbow, and bending lower he kissed the inside vein of her soft arm. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
1195:Even when I get to the point where I am acting and performing, where I want to be with my career, I'm never going to think of anyone as lower than me. Everyone's the celebrity of their own life, you know? ~ Ireland Baldwin, #NFDB
1196:Here is the path to the higher life: down, lower down! Just as water always seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds men abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
1197:He won a free teeth-bleaching, upper and lower arches, in a dentist’s lottery. It explained his too-easy grin and his drinking coffee through a straw during what would later be classified as our first date. ~ Elinor Lipman, #NFDB
1198:It's designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1199:It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case." -- ~ Sydney J Harris, #NFDB
1200:Maigret had often tried to get other people, including men of experience, to admit that those who fall, especially those who have a morbid determination to descend ever lower, are almost always idealists. ~ Georges Simenon, #NFDB
1201:My advice is don't use technology primarily to lower costs. Use technology to create new, effective ways of touching the market and creating new businesses and if you do that right, the cost savings will come. ~ Paul Saffo, #NFDB
1202:The consent of all the being is necessary for the divine change, and it is the completeness and fullness of the consent that constitutes the integral surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being, #NFDB
1203:the slaves in the seven cotton states of the lower South had received in the form of food, clothing, and shelter only 22 percent of the income produced by the plantations and farms on which they worked. ~ James M McPherson, #NFDB
1204:After all, an overvalued dollar gives us the ability to buy foreign goods at lower prices. And the existing volume of exports brings more yen and euros than they would if the dollar were more competitive. ~ Martin Feldstein, #NFDB
1205: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, #NFDB
1206:And Pearl, stepping in, mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom, while out of a still lower depth came the gleam of a kind of fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
1207:Father had warned Rigg how the rules changed when you traveled far, and he always warned that the bigger the city, the lower the level of civilization, which had seemed to make no sense to Rigg until now. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
1208:He wasn’t just Gat. He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. All that was there, in the lids of his brown eyes, his smooth skin, his lower lip pushed out. There was coiled energy inside. ~ E Lockhart, #NFDB
1209:I was the best street fighter in history when I was growing up on the Lower East Side. Hell, I never lost a street fight. Never. I thought I could lick Jack Dempsey or Joe Louis or anybody. I was fantastic. ~ Rocky Graziano, #NFDB
1210:Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant. ~ John Adams, #NFDB
1211:The world today has 6.8 billion people...that's headed up to about 9 billion. If we do a really great job on vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 to 15 percent. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
1212:I don't think the market can keep going up. In the U.S., we see real estate not going up.. houses are selling at lower prices. You can't have anything going up 10 percent to 20 percent to 30 percent indefinitely. ~ Eli Broad, #NFDB
1213:It's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. ... you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet. ~ Ned Vizzini, #NFDB
1214:This is not a temporary thing between us. There is no deadline. I. Am. Always. Yours.”
He kissed me softly, his tongue tracing my lower lip. “So go ahead and fall. I’ve gotten really good at catching you. ~ Rebecca Yarros,#NFDB
1215:I nibbled my lower lip. "If you could see into my past just by touching my back, you'd have a hard time resisting the temptation too." "I have a hard time keeping my hands off you without that added bonus. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
1216:I thought my chances to make the Braves were better and that they were being fairer to me, paying me more money to play in a lower classification ... Besides, the Giants spelled my name "Arron" on their telegram. ~ Hank Aaron, #NFDB
1217:Kindliness seems to exist primarily as an animal instinct, so deeply rooted that mental degeneracy, which works from the top down,does not destroy it until the mind sinks to the lower grades of idiocy. ~ Charles Horton Cooley, #NFDB
1218:Most American Jews came from the lower middle classes, and therefore they brought with them not a lot of Jewish culture. The American Jewish story starts with Ellis Island, and the candy store in the Bronx. ~ Arthur Hertzberg, #NFDB
1219:The egocentric is always frustrated, simply because the condition of self-perfection is self-surrender. There must be a willingness to die to the lower part of self, before there can be a birth to the nobler. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
1220:The Lower City is MINE, Its People are MINE.
If I Find Them That's Doing All This Kidnapping
And Murdering, They'd Best Pray For Mercy,
Because Once I Get My Teeth In 'Em
I Will NEVER Let Them Go. ~ Tamora Pierce,#NFDB
1221:He feels flattered by the attention. Most people look anywhere but his lower body. They pretend not to notice when he limps down the docks. It makes it worse, somehow, everyone pretending that he's still whole. ~ Karen Russell, #NFDB
1222:In 2012, Hispanics were 10 percent of the electorate, underperforming their share of the voting-age population. Mitt Romney got 21 percent of their vote, and [Donald] Trump has been polling much lower than that. ~ Mara Liasson, #NFDB
1223:I now saw plainly that this foul emanation could have no admixture or connection whatsoever with the clean air of the Libyan Desert, but must be essentially a thing vomited from sinister gulfs still lower down. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
1224: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, #NFDB
1225:That’s means you’re mine. Mine to care for.” He ran his thumb over her full lower lip. “Mine to fuck.” He leaned forward, his mouth an inch from hers. “And mine to protect. Don’t forget that.” Zander deVries ~ Cherise Sinclair, #NFDB
1226:...the miserable love to watch someone else's misery. I had just about cornered the market on miserable. I was worse than miserable, lower than a flattened sloppy joe left behind on a lunchroom tray. I was alone. ~ Kami Garcia, #NFDB
1227:The overall purpose of human communication is - or should be - reconciliation. It should ultimately serve to lower or remove the walls of misunderstanding which unduly separate us human beings, one from another. ~ M Scott Peck, #NFDB
1228:There are plenty of violent people, but for any randomly selected person today the chances of meeting a violent death at the hands of his or her fellow humans is lower now than it has ever been in human history. ~ Peter Singer, #NFDB
1229:There has been a noticeable decline in the labor factor in all wealthy countries in the past 20 years. The rich are getting richer, but those at the lower end aren't moving ahead as quickly as the capitalists. ~ Kenneth Rogoff, #NFDB
1230:Wendy noticed that her chair was at least two inches lower than the others’. Classic—albeit amateur—intimidation move. Wendy crossed her arms and actually slid lower. Let them think they have the advantage. “So, ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
1231:Already it was clear that the lower floors were doomed. Even their insistence on educating their children, the last reflex of any exploited group before it sank into submission, marked the end of their resistance. ~ J G Ballard, #NFDB
1232:Because of some defect in my motor skill, I can never COMPLETELY wrap [gifts]....If I had been an ancient Egyptian in the field of mummies, the lower half of the Pharaoh's body would be covered only by scotch tape. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
1233:Scott James felt the third impact as the bullet punched through his vest on the lower right side of his chest. The pain was intense, and quickly grew worse as his abdominal cavity filled with pooling blood. Scott ~ Robert Crais, #NFDB
1234:The government does not have some magic wand that can 'bring down the cost of health care.' It can buy a smaller quantity or lower quality of medical care, as other countries with government-run medical care do. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
1235:These people—the employed, the somewhat privileged—are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
1236:It looks like [Donald] Trump's plan has the potential to actually move the needle on economic growth because he wants to lower taxes and lower regulations. That would be very powerful in terms of creating jobs. ~ Maria Bartiromo, #NFDB
1237:It was always understood that plants and animals, though completely contrasted in their higher representatives, approached each other very closely in their lower and simpler forms. But they were believed not to blend. ~ Asa Gray, #NFDB
1238:Our problem, from the point of view of psychology and from the point of view of genetic epistemology, is to explain how the transition is made from a lower level of knowledge to a level that is judged to be higher. ~ Jean Piaget, #NFDB
1239:The ethic of divinity lets us give voice to inchoate feelings of elevation and degradation—our sense of “higher” and “lower.” It gives us a way to condemn crass consumerism and mindless or trivialized sexuality. ~ Jonathan Haidt, #NFDB
1240: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, #NFDB
1241:This has to be your first lesson in sannyas: accept yourself, love yourself, drop all guilt, don`t divide yourself. There is nothing higher, nothing lower; all of you is divine. The lowest is as divine as the highest. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1242:what happens on the lower level is responsible for what happens on the higher level, it is nonetheless irrelevant to the higher level. The higher level can blithely ignore the processes on the lower level. ~ Douglas R Hofstadter, #NFDB
1243:What is key to America’s understanding of class is the persistent belief—despite all evidence to the contrary—that anyone, with the proper discipline and drive, can move from a lower class to a higher class. ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
1244:When you elevate the heels more so than you elevate the sole of the foot, you trigger a cascade of compensations in the knees and hips that cause tight hip flexors, and then those hip flexors cause lower-back pain. ~ Tim Ferriss, #NFDB
1245:Democracy' was a sociological term in Russia in 1917, denoting the masses, the lower class, at least as strongly as it did a political method. For many b those heady moments, Kerensky exemplified 'the democracy'. ~ China Mi ville, #NFDB
1246: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,#NFDB
1247:My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1248:"On this lower level with its uncontrolled or scarcely controlled emotions one behaves more or less like a primitive, who is not only the passive victim of his affects but also singularly incapable of moral judgment." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1249:People have a moral standard about what they will do and will not do. At the end of the day someone who cheats has a lower moral standard than someone who does not. And they will cheat in other areas of life as well. ~ Carl Lewis, #NFDB
1250:Social media puts reciprocity on steroids because now you can reach more people in more ways to do more things for them faster and at lower expense. Positive word about your reciprocity can spread faster than ever. ~ Guy Kawasaki, #NFDB
1251:Studies show that U.S. employers spend 200 to 300 percent more on the indirect costs of health care, in the form of absenteeism, sick days, and lower productivity, than they do on actual health care payments. ~ Arianna Huffington, #NFDB
1252:The fact is that everybody around a college basketball game - the coaches, the announcers, even the referees at a lower level - calculates when the game is really over. They calculate it with intuition and guesswork. ~ Bill James, #NFDB
1253:We must have received our share of startled looks from the crew and other passengers—this seven-member family emerging from their third-class lower deck and climbing into a waiting chauffeur-driven limousine. ~ Katherine Paterson, #NFDB
1254:A healthy society leads to lower healthcare costs, improved productivity at work and a better quality of life for citizens. Food is a big part of public health. About time we knew what we are putting in our mouths. ~ Chetan Bhagat, #NFDB
1255:breathe slowly, deeply. Let your limbs go limp. Relax your neck. Relax your shoulders. Relax your arms: first the fingers, then the wrists, then the lower arms, and then the upper. Relax your feet. Relax your legs. ~ Lincoln Child, #NFDB
1256:Choose a summit; make a plan to reach there! If you think you can’t make it, choose a new summit, make another plan. Or give up the summits, make new plans, find lower targets! In short, be ‘flexible’ in life! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1257:I believe we can balance the scales if Tom Cruise would lower his quote by a mere $29 million... I assure you my salary would not make a difference. My annual salary is the budget for Altoids on one of Tom's movies. ~ Alec Baldwin, #NFDB
1258:I consider that 9/11 was the day when war was started against my own work and against myself. Even though we are not sure of the links, Iraq was one of the countries that did not lower its flags in mourning on 9/11. ~ Adam Michnik, #NFDB
1259:She bit her lower lip hard and blinked her eyes. There was such wistfulness and longing in his voice. Oh, she was going to give him back his eyes, or the next best thing, if it took her the rest of her life to do it. ~ Mary Balogh, #NFDB
1260:That even if we're constantly tempted to lower our guard -- out of love, or weariness, or sympathy, or kindness-- we women shouldn't do it. We can lose from one moment to the next everything that we have achieved. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
1261:The way of the superior man may be compared to what takes place in traveling, when to go to a distance we must first traverse the space that is near, and in ascending a height, when we must begin from the lower ground. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
1262:Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to material senses, mind and intelligence, one should control the lower self by the higher self and thus-by spiritual strength-conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust. ~ Krishna Dharma, #NFDB
1263:Workers receive raises in nominal terms, while wages adjust downward in real terms. This is a form of money illusion or deception of workers by central banks, but it works in theory to lower real unit labor costs. ~ James Rickards, #NFDB
1264:You have to be very, very careful not to pick up too much of the lower energies, the toxic energies, because they'll make you very ill. They can kill you. They can cause cancer, debilitative diseases of all types. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1265:And I wondered when I peeped into one or two on the lower tiers, and saw the tied-up brown paper packets inside, whether the flower-seeds and bulbs ever wanted of a fine day to break out of those jails, and bloom. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1266:Breast-fed babies of macrobiotic mothers may be getting lower levels of vitamin B12, calcium, and magnesium, according to some research, which may result in these babies having delayed physical and cognitive growth. ~ Chris Kresser, #NFDB
1267:He who is of lower evolution cannot love a higher object. But a person of higher evolution can love the lower as well as the higher. He who once loves cannot hate. The one who hates is he who cannot appreciate. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
1268:I came from a lower-middle-class postwar family in a time of austerity and retrenchment, with no one in the family who was in any way artistic or a potential mentor to a budding writer, and yet this is what I became. ~ Graham Swift, #NFDB
1269:If you lower your head to within a foot or two of an infested corpse (and this I truly don't recommend), you can hear them feeding. Arpad pinpoints the sound: "Rice Krispies." Ron frowns. Ron used to like Rice Krispies. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1270:I would rather keep all the levels lower and stick to the sequester, but there are people in leadership who live outside of reality and want to increase things that Republicans like and pretend Democrats don't exist. ~ Justin Amash, #NFDB
1271:Please—please get up—and lower your voice—”
“Hell no.”
“Why not?” I’m pleading now.
“Because if I lower my voice, I won’t be able to hear myself speak. And that,” he says, “is my favorite part. ~ Tahereh Mafi,#NFDB
1272:Shhhh." He pulls on my lower lip gently with his teeth, then fits his mouth to mine. First so careful, and then so deep and deliberate, that I can't think of anything at all but his smooth back under my hands. ~ Huntley Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
1273:Sure, in a ninja's world, those who violate the rules and fail to follow orders...are lower than garbage. However...those who do not care for and support their fellows...are even lower than that!" - Obito Uchiha ~ Masashi Kishimoto, #NFDB
1274:To you is granted the power of degrading yourself into the lower forms of life, the beasts, and to you is granted the power, contained in your intellect and judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, the divine. ~ Zygmunt Bauman, #NFDB
1275:Vegetarians and vegans tend to weigh less and have lower blood pressure, lower blood cholesterol, and, in turn, a lowered risk of heart disease than people whose diets include some or all types of animal products; ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
1276:We are way past being friends. Because I’m about to do very dirty things to you, things that friends don’t do with each other.” He yanks me to his side, leaning down and nipping my lower lip. “Dirty, dirty things. ~ Natasha Madison, #NFDB
1277:What is obviously unfair is that the half of the population that doesn't go to university that's often on lower incomes pays more taxes in order to send other people to university, without them, you know, contributing. ~ Tony Blair, #NFDB
1278:When a democracy reaches a point where the politicians cannot say no to the people, and both parties are competing for votes by promising even more spending or even lower taxes, or both, the experiment is about over. ~ Pat Buchanan, #NFDB
1279:A man who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep, Frederic Goudy liked to say. If this wisdom needs updating, it is chiefly to add that a woman who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep as well . ~ Robert Bringhurst, #NFDB
1280:an avalanche of research shows that happy marriages can boost your health and wellbeing. People in positive long-term relationships have lower rates of heart disease, live longer, and are less likely to develop cancer. ~ Jancee Dunn, #NFDB
1281:Ebola has not yet come into contact with modern medicine in West Africa. But when protocols for the provision of high quality supportive care are followed, the case fatality rate for Ebola may be lower than 20 percent. ~ Paul Farmer, #NFDB
1282:If one party is trusting, it is very easy during sex for the other party to format someone, to put thoughts in their mind, to jam their consciousness or attention, to lower their energy or just take power from them. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1283:If you lower your head to within a foot or two of an infested corpse (and this I truly don’t recommend), you can hear them feeding. Arpad pinpoints the sound: “Rice Krispies.” Ron frowns. Ron used to like Rice Krispies. ~ Mary Roach, #NFDB
1284:I nibbled my lower lip. "If you could see into my past just by touching my back, you'd have a hard time resisting the temptation too."
"I have a hard time keeping my hands off you without that added bonus. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick,#NFDB
1285:Task triage is the habit of making a realistic assessment of what degree of perfection is required for a task at the point of accepting it, so one doesn't need to rely on one's habit of procrastinating to lower the bar. ~ John Perry, #NFDB
1286:The abuse of power that seems to create the most unhappiness is when a person uses personal power to get ahead without regards to the welfare of others, or when power is used to go into the lower dimensional planes. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1287:The Senate has passed a new bill that requires TV stations to lower the volume level on commercials. This is great, a hundred of the most powerful people in the nation have managed to do the same thing my remote does. ~ Jimmy Fallon, #NFDB
1288:They poured out the lower doors and windows of the castle, howling to the skies. They evolved into a kind of cohesive moving liquid, flowing down the hillside as one silvered blob, like mercury on a scientist’s palm. ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
1289:This chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra is enacted from the spiritual platform and thus this sound vibration surpasses all lower strata of consciouness - namely sensual, mental and intellectual. ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, #NFDB
1290:To think that humans evolved from lower species BUT the evolutionary process somehow came to a halt and we all arrived at the finish line simultaneously is to embrace a fiction possibly more implausible than Christianity. ~ Jim Goad, #NFDB
1291:When you start lower, you have to fight for every scrap of space you occupy in the world... Even starting from nothing, I had more luck than you. If you had been born a boy, the whole world would tremble before you. ~ Kiersten White, #NFDB
1292:Apart from the first set - which used high-level concert lighting - once you stepped into the two narrative pieces, we were working with lower-level theatrical lights. In most cases, people were really respectful of that. ~ Kate Bush, #NFDB
1293:A regular sitting practice has been shown to enhance concentration, lower blood pressure, and improve sleep. It is used to treat chronic pain, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive ~ Culadasa John Yates, #NFDB
1294:At that promise, and him calling me “gorgeous”, an electric spasm went straight through my lower belly and he kissed me and that was it. I’m a slut. I don’t know what to say, even with the emotional scene, I gave in. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
1295:Christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in god. No lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
1296:Genius must have talent as its complement and implement, just as in like manner imagination must have fancy. In short, the higher intellectual powers can only act through a corresponding energy of the lower. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
1297:I believe we can and should have it all. Lower deficits but higher spending. More peace with a bigger military that goes off and kills terrorists and whatnot. A cleaner environment without forcing SUVs off the road. ~ Craig Armstrong, #NFDB
1298:If you lower your head to within a foot or two of an infested corpse - and this I truly don't recommend - you can hear them feeding. Arpad pinpoints the sound. "Rice Krispies." Ron frowns. Ron used to like Rice Krispies. ~ Mary Roach, #NFDB
1299:I love being on camera. And I love knowing what's going on in the world. Diane Sawyer is my favorite. She never seems to lower herself to get the job done. She just always carries herself well. I really admire her. ~ Carrie Underwood, #NFDB
1300:I used to think that God’s gifts were on shelves—one above another—and the taller we grow, the easier we can reach them. Now I find that God’s gifts are on shelves—and the lower we stoop, the more we get.” F. B. MEYER ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
1301:Our lower bodies grind together, and he lets out a soft moan, rocking harder into me. His cock slides over my belly, lines up with my own aching shaft. That bit of friction brings stars to my eyes. “Fuck,” I choke out. ~ Sarina Bowen, #NFDB
1302:The capitalists speculate on the two following factors: the female worker must be paid as poorly as possible and the competition of female labour must be employed to lower the wages of male workers as much as possible. ~ Clara Zetkin, #NFDB
1303:The public library building, in my view, is just a little lower than the church, the cathedral, the temple, the synagogue and the mosque. Within those walls and along those stacks, I have found security and assurance. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1304:You can lower yourselves to the level of the beast, but you can also be reborn as a divine creature by the free will of your spirit. Man can become what he likes - subhuman or superhuman, as he wishes. ~ Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, #NFDB
1305:Department store Santas are apparently being trained to lower children's expectations about toys because of the recession. Yeah, it's weird when you ask Santa for a train set and he's like, 'Yeah, how 'bout a bus token? ~ Jimmy Fallon, #NFDB
1306:Excellent outcomes with much lower intervention rates are achieved at home births. This may be because the overuse of interventions in hospital births introduces risks or the home environment promotes problem-free labors. ~ Henci Goer, #NFDB
1307:I'm thinking of starting my own talk radio show. I'll spout simplistic opinions for hours on end, ridicule anyone who disagrees with me, and generally foster divisiveness, cynicism, and a lower level of public dialog! ~ Bill Watterson, #NFDB
1308:in nearly three decades, these lower-income workers saw no meaningful gain in what they were paid for an hour of labor. Their overall inflation-adjusted income rose a bit, but mainly because they put in more hours of work. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1309:Keep carefully not of all scrapes and quarrels. They lower a character extremely; and are particularly dangerous in France, wherea man is dishonoured by not resenting an affront, and utterly ruined by resenting it. ~ Lord Chesterfield, #NFDB
1310:Most children have two whole legs and two whole arms but this little six-year-old that Dinesh was carrying had already lost one leg, the right one from the lower thigh down, and was now about to lose his right arm. ~ Anuk Arudpragasam, #NFDB
1311:Unlike George Bush and his friends at the big oil companies, I'm going to work for a real energy policy for this country that decreases America's dependence on foreign oil and helps lower the costs to American families. ~ John F Kerry, #NFDB
1312:we're a "lower order of people" in one breath we are damned for being "unassailable" and the next there is fear that we'll assimilate. ... If we are educated, the complaint is that we will cease being the "ideal servant". ~ Joy Kogawa, #NFDB
1313:Will you marry me, Olivia? You are the only woman I know how to love. The only woman I want to love.” He doesn’t lower himself to his knee and he doesn’t need to. I am rocking on the edge of an emotional meltdown as is ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
1314:Among the lower classes of mankind there will be found very little desire of any other knowledge than what may contribute immediately to the relief of some pressing uneasiness, or the attainment of some near advantage. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
1315:Call me Ramses the Damned. For that is the name I have given myself. But I was once Ramses the Great of Upper and Lower Egypt, slayer of the Hittites, father of many sons and daughters, who ruled Egypt for sixty-four years. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
1316:Hunter walked out of the waves, and without any pretense, he wrapped her in his arms. She looked up at him, her eyes searing his.
He bent his head lower, his voice a raspy whisper. "I've never met anyone like you. ~ Lisa Kessler,#NFDB
1317:The pleasant is not always the right thing, the object to be preferred and selected, nor the unpleasant the wrong thing, the object to be shunned and rejected. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #NFDB
1318:There is no estimating the wit and wisdom concealed and latent in our lower fellow mortals until made manifest by profound experiences; for it is through suffering that dogs as well as saints are developed and made perfect. ~ John Muir, #NFDB
1319:I haven't any language weak enough to depict the weakness of my spiritual life. If I weakened it enough it would cease to be language at all. As when you try to turn the gas-ring a little lower still, and it merely goes out. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1320:In a forbearance, the homeowner pays interest and principal on a smaller mortgage, at least for a time, but still owes the full amount. The lower monthly payment helps with affordability, giving stressed homeowners a break. ~ Mark Zandi, #NFDB
1321:In other countries they have histories with revolutions and class movements. In America, people don't like to think of themselves like being in a lower class. They all like to think of themselves as potential millionaires. ~ Matt Taibbi, #NFDB
1322:Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased - not a reduced - flow of revenues to the federal government. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
1323:My unhappiness was rooted in my mother’s inability to stop drinking. My sense of worthlessness stemmed from feeling insecure as to who I was and inadequate in getting my mother to stop drinking. I had lower self-esteem, ~ Brooke Shields, #NFDB
1324:The unemployment rate, technically speaking, was “lower” in South Africa during apartheid, which makes sense. There was slavery—that’s how everyone was employed. When democracy came, everyone had to be paid a minimum wage. ~ Trevor Noah, #NFDB
1325:The whole thrust of theatre is different, just because the writing is so much more respected in a play. Whereas in movies - and having been the writer, I can say from experience - the writer is lower down on the food chain. ~ Matt Damon, #NFDB
1326:Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up. In other words: 'Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.' ~ Chris Hayes, #NFDB
1327:To prefer paper to gold is to prefer high risk to lower risk, instability to stability, inflation to steady long term values, a system of very low grade performance to a system of higher, though not perfect performance. ~ William E Rees, #NFDB
1328:Whatever part of the animal fabric whatever series of muscles, whatever viscera might be selected for comparison the result would be the same the lower Apes and the Gorilla would differ more than the Gorilla and the Man. ~ Thomas Huxley, #NFDB
1329:According to the standard model billions of years ago some little quantum fluctuation, perhaps a slightly lower density of matter, maybe right where we're sitting right now, caused our galaxy to start collapsing around here. ~ Seth Lloyd, #NFDB
1330:And the fact is - is if you lower - if you lower taxes, you don't have to wait for the money to get to the states, the money to get out in contracts. You send a signal immediately, and so businesses start making decisions. ~ John Boehner, #NFDB
1331:As a kid growing up in a lower-class neighbourhood, where everyone around me was listening to hip hop, what was I doing listening to new wave, and why was that my favourite music? I don't know why, but it just spoke to me. ~ Chino Moreno, #NFDB
1332:As a lower-class kid, I was raised to think success would be owning stuff. Having that great job, too. Now I find my parents' dream was wrong. You never really own anything. And you're never really finished as a person. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1333:But in the past, the black approval rating of a president had tended to correlate with the jobless rate. Yet black unemployment was lower under George W. Bush than it had been at any point during the Obama administration. ~ Jason L Riley, #NFDB
1334:Hello,’ I say. My voice sounds high and squeaky. I try a lower register. ‘Hello.’
Woah. Too low.
‘Hello.’ Third time’s a charm.
They’re already chuckling. I’ve barely even said anything. High school is the worst. ~ Jessica Brody,#NFDB
1335:I think it's a scandal what has been happening in the school system so far as lower income classes. The dropout rates, the illiteracy rate, you know literacy in the United States was a lot higher in 1890 than it is now. ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
1336:Sometimes the elements of our life present us with a challenge that is an initiation in disguise, a fire walk that burns your lower nature right out of you so that you are able to adapt to a higher level of consciousness. ~ Caroline Myss, #NFDB
1337:Stephenson sees two mutually exclusive options: He can write good novels at a regular rate, or he can answer a lot of individual e-mails and attend conferences, and as a result produce lower-quality novels at a slower rate. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
1338:When you teach your students that it's "economically rational" to commit crimes where the fines for misconduct are lower than the expected return on the crime, you instill a professional ethic that has no room for morals. ~ Cory Doctorow, #NFDB
1339:Aim high, aim at the highest, and all lower aims are thereby achieved. It is looking below on the stormy sea of differences that makes you sink. Look up, beyond these and see the One Glorious Real, and you are saved. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
1340:all streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. humility gives it its power. if you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. if you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
1341:And while many Asian Americans suffer these economic disadvantages and lack of resources, they often face lower acceptance rates to colleges and universities because they are seen as “overrepresented” in US higher education. ~ Ijeoma Oluo, #NFDB
1342:I know what it feels like to be in that middle and lower-middle class, and feel like the culture is passing you by; it translates into a great sense of personal frustration that can then morph into political frustration. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
1343:In the lower half of one wall, she has traced the word so many times in such enormous script—LOVE, each letter the size of a child—and gouged so deeply into the stone that the O has formed a tunnel, and she has gotten out. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
1344:I work as a servant to people, driving them all over, the whole day, sometimes the whole week, answering yes sir, yes madam, bowing down even to a little child...I lower myself more than many men would ever lower themselves. ~ Imbolo Mbue, #NFDB
1345:But he knows not that the shades of the dead are there [specters haunting the scene of past transgressions], and that her invited guests are [already sunk] in the depths of Sheol (the lower world, Hades, the place of the dead). ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1346:But the effort, the effort! And as the marrow is eaten out of a man's bones and the soul out of his belly, contending with the strange rapacity of savage life, the lower stage of creation, he cannot make the effort any more. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
1347:Favor and disgrace are like fear. Favor is in a higher place, and disgrace in a lower place. When you win them you are like being in fear, and when you lose them you are also like being in fear. So favor and disgrace are like fear. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
1348:Just as the sun in the heaven is unchanged, but is mirrored as a thousand suns in ponds, lakes, rivers, and oceans, so do you know the Sun of the Spirit within you from the broken reflections that you find in the lower self. ~ Annie Besant, #NFDB
1349:Like water, many decent individuals will seek lower ground if left to their own inclinations. In most cases you are the one who inspires and demands they go upward rather than settle for the comfort of doing what comes easily. ~ Bill Walsh, #NFDB
1350:The one fundamental requirement to increase the flow of fatty acids out of adipose tissue—to increase lipolysis—and so decrease the amount of fat in our fat tissue, is to lower the concentration of insulin in the bloodstream. ~ Gary Taubes, #NFDB
1351:The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care & reproductive health services, we could LOWER that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
1352:Three quick tips to gain an instant charisma boost in conversation: Lower the intonation of your voice at the end of your sentences. Reduce how quickly and how often you nod. Pause for two full seconds before you speak. ~ Olivia Fox Cabane, #NFDB
1353:Although Verwoerd thought Africans were lower than animals, his death did not yield us any pleasure. Political assassination is not something I or the ANC ever supported. It is a primitive way of contending with an opponent ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
1354:Gansey touched his lower lip very gently. He lowered his hand, and he said, “Wake up.” He said it like he had said stop earlier. He said it in a voice Adam had heard countless times, a voice he could never not listen to. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
1355:Here was a man, who had come from the lower depths which they still inhabited, who had triumphed over his own criminality and his own ignorance to become a forceful leader and spokesman, an uncompromising champion of his people. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
1356:It was in that moment I remembered that while I may have been a quarter Canadian, my mother was twice the Canadian I was, so her tolerance for bullshit on the ice was even lower than mine. I both feared and admired her for that. ~ Dave Hill, #NFDB
1357:Now-a-days lower Broadway is blocked with traffic at this hour and everyone walks; even the decrepit John Jacob Astor can be seen crawling along the street like some ancient snail, his viscous track the allure of money. Instead ~ Gore Vidal, #NFDB
1358:Only the lower natures forget themselves and become something new. Thus the butterfly has entirely forgotten that it was a caterpillar, perhaps it may in turn so entirely forget it was a butterfly that is becomes a fish. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
1359:She kissed him with all the built-up frustration inside her and drew it out, gently biting his lower lip. He groaned, and she moved her lips to his ear. "The longer you make me wait, the harder I'm gonna make you work for it. ~ Cindi Madsen, #NFDB
1360:... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher. ~ Catharine Beecher, #NFDB
1361:We then have the first of several references to Hygelac’s later invasion of the lower Rhine, where he is killed. Though Beowulf later presents this neck-ring to Hygd, the poet here says that Hygelac wore it on his fatal expedition ~ Unknown, #NFDB
1362:A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1363:Anything that you fight with or struggle against grows larger. You give power to lower energies by focusing upon them. You don't eliminate darkness by arguing with it. The only way to eliminate darkness is to turn on a light. ~ Doreen Virtue, #NFDB
1364:In no case may we interpret an action [of an animal] as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale. ~ C Lloyd Morgan, #NFDB
1365:Krishnamacharya's personal practice was always with long deep breathing and mental focus. Observe the position of his head, the lower abdomen and his mental focus. He was always concentrated on the inner alignment through breath. ~ A G Mohan, #NFDB
1366:My mom stares at him in disbelief. “This is thanks to your schemes. You pressured her to choose you . . . to choose Wonderland over her other side. What did you think would happen?”
Morpheus hunches lower, miserable. ~ A G Howard,#NFDB
1367:that there is a ‘right’ side in most conflicts. You can identify it by looking for the side that doesn’t lower the bar. Morals are meaningless if you can suspend them at whim—and ‘love and war’ can encompass just about any whim. ~ Tim Tigner, #NFDB
1368:The artisan or scientist or the follower of whatever discipline who has the habit of comparing himself not with other followers but with the discipline itself will have a lower opinion of himself, the more excellent he is. ~ Giacomo Leopardi, #NFDB
1369:The future is certain for those who follow dharma. Those who don't follow dharma are pushed back again and again into the net of rebirth. They are drawn back to the same planes of attention, or lower. It could happen to you! ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1370:[There is a] strong correlation between market freedom and lower government corruption -- not terribly surprising, since the effect of increasing regulatory power is to shift 'cheating' from the private to the public sphere. ~ Julian Sanchez, #NFDB
1371:The research shows that those who avoid meat and dairy have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity.23 The data is conclusive: vegetarians live longer in America, probably a lot longer. ~ Joel Fuhrman, #NFDB
1372:Being bipolar is like being forced to take LSD. It means your sensations and emotions and creativity are at their peak, but also that the highs are higher and the lows are lower. You know what they say—if a manic does something ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
1373:Resistance obstructs movement only from a lower sphere to a higher. It kicks in when we seek to pursue a calling in the arts, launch an innovative enterprise, or evolve to a high station morally, ethically, or spiritually. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
1374:The captain glared at him. The sergeant put on the poker face that has been handed down from NCO to NCO ever since one protoamphibian told another, lower-ranking protoamphibian to muster a squad of newts and Take That Beach. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1375:It is a curious thing how poets tend to become ascetics.... Even a debauch for them is a self-flagellation. They go on the loose in cruelty against themselves, admitting that they are pandering to, and despising, the lower self. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
1376:Peggy spent most of her time upstairs in the playroom, keeping him cleaned and fed. She was made to bring out the baby and accept praise for her work as if she were a being of a slightly lower social class – which she was. A woman. ~ Nell Zink, #NFDB
1377:Where countries have been able to carry through on their reform commitments - as in Korea, Thailand and the Philippines - results are starting to come in the form of lower interest rates, new investment and increased growth. ~ Lawrence Summers, #NFDB
1378:...and when the world tells you to lower your head and submit in silence to how things are and always will be, lift your voice instead and sing bravely of how things can and should and will be, because that song is why you are here. ~ L R Knost, #NFDB
1379:His mother made a noise that in anyone of lower rank than a countess would have been given the unmannerly name of snort. As a cowed member of the ton had once commented, ‘Nobody harrumphs quite like the Marchioness of Uppington. ~ Lauren Willig, #NFDB
1380:Lower the boat,” cried Caspian, “and then call the men aft. I must speak to them.”
“What’s he going to do?” whispered Eustace to Edmund. “There’s a queer look in his eyes.”
“I think we probably all look the same,” said Edmund. ~ C S Lewis,#NFDB
1381:Many of the physical desires and emotions are akin to those of the lower animals, and in the undeveloped man these desires and emotions predominate and overpower the higher nature, which latter is scarcely in evidence. ~ William Walker Atkinson, #NFDB
1382:The only problem that occurs in the practice of tantra is when you don't practice tantra and fool yourself. You get caught up in powerful vortexes of negative energy which pull you into the lower bardo regions ... into the mud. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1383:The pollsters who have telephoners are going to consistently get a lower vote for Donald Trump because the media has attacked him so savagely and so dishonestly that a substantial number of people will not say they're for Trump. ~ Newt Gingrich, #NFDB
1384:UFO (Unidentified Flying Object)sightings are not higher among amateur astronomers than they are in the general public. In fact, they're lower. You say, why is that so? Well, because we know what the hell we're looking at! ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
1385:Around five-eight, slim, good shoulders, narrow hips, legs and trunk in proportion, short dark hair, side parting, dark eyes, probably blue, shadows under the eyes, fair skin, average nose, wide mouth, lower lip fuller than upper. ~ Val McDermid, #NFDB
1386:I don't blame people for smoking when I see a social gradient in smoking. I say we need to understand why is it the lower you are in the hierarchy the more likely you are to smoke. So we need to address the causes of the causes. ~ Michael Marmot, #NFDB
1387: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, #NFDB
1388:People don't necessarily take power from you for themselves. It just means they are operating at a lower attention level and you got pulled down by it. You are not sufficiently strong enough to be with someone and be unaffected. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1389:people who personify the system are indeed well known for not being what they seem to be; they have achieved greatness by embracing a level of reality lower than that of the most insignificant individual life- and everyone knows it. ~ Guy Debord, #NFDB
1390:Sufis teach that we first must battle and destroy the evil within ourselves by shining upon it the good within, and then we learn to battle the evil in others by helping their higher selves gain control of their lower selves. ~ Feisal Abdul Rauf, #NFDB
1391:The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens, lambs, &c., when playing together, like our own children. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
1392:There is a large difference between spacing out in the lower occult astral planes, weird, junky, fuzzy energy, and meditation. Meditation is sharp, clear, precise, perfect, luminous, shiny, happy, etheric, cosmic, and dissolute. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1393:This Yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being, #NFDB
1394:Well, girls who rank high in hot points will eventually get old and will no longer be hot, so their hot points get lower. If you have cute points, they last forever, even when you are old. So they are definitely way more important. ~ Chanda Hahn, #NFDB
1395:When other presidents used the executive pen, they used to it for things like should we lower the flag at half mast for someone who died and things like that. When President Obama uses it, he changes the way America does business. ~ Eric Bolling, #NFDB
1396:When you tax capital gains income, you don't help the economy, you hurt the economy, which is why President Kennedy, President Reagan, President Clinton and President Bush all believed we should have a lower rate for capital gains. ~ Rob Portman, #NFDB
1397:With one linear centimeter of your lower colon there lives and works more bacteria (about 100 billion) that all humans who have ever been born. Yet many people continue to assert that it is we who are in charge of the world ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
1398:Everyone thinks if you fix a male dog it will lower his aggression, but most of the biters are female. It’s basic instinct to protect their womb. You see it in all animals - the female of the species is more deadly than the male. ~ Mindy McGinnis, #NFDB
1399:I think this year we'll open up 900 gross, we're closing some, so the net count is lower, but the 900 are spread all over the place. Some of the closures are relocations, where you're moving it to another place in the marketplace. ~ Jim Cantalupo, #NFDB
1400:On one plane, the very great writers and the popular romancers of the lower order always meet. They use all of themselves, helplessly, unselectively. They are above the primness and good taste of declining to give themselves away. ~ V S Pritchett, #NFDB
1401:Our life evokes our character. You find out more about yourself as you go on. That’s why it’s good to be able to put yourself in situations that will evoke your higher nature rather than your lower. “Lead us not into temptation. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1402:Our tax policies, the tax relief and reform we passed in 2003 and 2005, helped get government out of the way of America's entrepreneurs, and our unemployment rate is now lower than it was in the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. ~ Marsha Blackburn, #NFDB
1403:all streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. humility gives it its power. if you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. if you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them. ~ Stephen Mitchell, #NFDB
1404:Archives of Internal Medicine revealed that postmenopausal women who were put on statin drugs to lower their cholesterol had a nearly 48 percent increased risk of developing diabetes compared to those who weren’t given the drug. ~ David Perlmutter, #NFDB
1405:As the voices beneath the music are talking, you find that the music is just as important as what they're saying. The traditional thing is to lower the music so you can hear the dialogue. We just couldn't do that for that song. ~ Stanley Nelson Jr, #NFDB
1406:By the Obama administration's reasoning, it would be constitutionally permissible to make Americans purchase nearly any product (broccoli, gym membership) that improved their health and thereby contributed to lower health-care costs. ~ John Cornyn, #NFDB
1407:I felt a warm hand on the skin of my lower back.”
I twisted my neck, looked up and there he was.
I held my breath and he asked, “You comin’ or what?”
That was it. That was his pickup line. “You comin’ or what?”
I went. ~ Kristen Ashley,#NFDB
1408:I mean, when you've had a problem in your past, whether it's attributed directly to high cholesterol or not, you want to lower your cholesterol. You want to eat healthy. You want to feel healthy. You want to have a little more energy. ~ Mike Ditka, #NFDB
1409:Immature citizens in several sizes were massed before a large factorylike structure where advanced techniques transformed them into true-thinking right-acting members of the three social classes, lower, middle, and upper middle. ~ Donald Barthelme, #NFDB
1410:Outsourcing and globalization of manufacturing allows companies to reduce costs, benefits consumers with lower cost goods and services, causes economic expansion that reduces unemployment, and increases productivity and job creation. ~ Larry Elder, #NFDB
1411:The amount of money I would pay for people to stop fucking up grammar is only slightly lower than the amount I’d give to ensure I never have grammatical errors in the statements I make calling others out on their grammatical errors. ~ Jenny Lawson, #NFDB
1412:The domination of capitalism globally depends today on the existence of a Chinese Communist party that gives delocalised capitalist enterprises cheap labour to lower prices and deprive workers of the rights of self-organisation. ~ Jacques Ranciere, #NFDB
1413:There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them. ~ William J Clinton, #NFDB
1414:This is the whistle-stop memoir of how a lower-middle-class girl from the north of England one day changed the way she lived her life and set off on a bumpy path that ultimately led her to her own slice of the happily-ever-after pie. ~ Tillie Cole, #NFDB
1415:Value comes from seeing what customers need and delivering it. Digital disruptors will do all of this at lower cost, with faster development times, and with greater impact on the customer experience than anything that came before. ~ James McQuivey, #NFDB
1416:We're working to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system. Accomplishing this mission will take time, and we're working on it methodically. ~ Jeff Bezos, #NFDB
1417:Whether it's a lower or higher budget project, a TV show or a film, the words on the page are the same to me and I approach the work in the same way. My job is to lift the character from the page, whether it's a TV or film script. ~ Michael Eklund, #NFDB
1418:Hitting the first molecules of the upper atmosphere created friction that merely warmed the rod. The lower it fell, the more the heat built, until the entire length of the rod glowed red then yellow, and, finally, a brilliant white. ~ Clive Cussler, #NFDB
1419:In general, the lower segment of Iranian society often saw itself as a victim, a concept they seemed to not only enjoy but, in a twisted way, welcome. Victimhood meant martyrdom, and martyrdom was as good as an IOU from God. Being ~ Arion Golmakani, #NFDB
1420:In India, if you are from the elite, dogs are extremely important. The breed of the dog indicates your wealth, that you are westernized. The cook, another human being, is on a much lower level than your dog. You see this all the time. ~ Kiran Desai, #NFDB
1421:I think, and I mean this sincerely, I was raised humbly. We were a lower middle income family and a household that was scrimping by at times. We were watching the dollar, stretching the dollar, and coupons. It was all those things. ~ Bryan Cranston, #NFDB
1422:There has been an unwise and spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to grow a goatee, hence a fluffy little tuft of something or other, just underneath the centre of his lower lip, that any mother would want to rub off with a bit of spit. ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
1423:“We cannot ignore this mountain peak without ignoring our own nature. If we fail to come nearer to the peaks, or at least climb the lower slopes, we must live like frightened ghosts- and it is our nature that makes us tremble with fear.” ~ Bataille, #NFDB
1424:when you have the honour to find yourself in the company of ordinary men and the good fortune to be out of politics for a moment, please try to pick up the heart that you leave behind at the cloakroom of the Lower and Upper House. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
1425:Basketball Rule #3
Never let anyone
lower your goals.
Others' expectations
of you are determined
by their limitations
of life.
The sky is your limit, sons.
Always shoot for the sun
and you will shine. ~ Kwame Alexander,#NFDB
1426:In the hour before a thunderstorm, the color of the forest deepens: the pine needles take on a dense vibrant greenness they possess at no other time, the slender trunks go black, and the leaden sky above sinks lower by the minute. ~ Michael McDowell, #NFDB
1427:I think the Lower East Side inspires me. That whole neighborhood, a lot of the people that I worked with, seeing what we've gone through in life, being given an opportunity to understand who I am; my identity, my culture, and my roots. ~ Luis Guzman, #NFDB
1428:It's not talked about, but you know how girls, as you get older, your boobs sag? Well, as men get older, their balls hang lower. It's called SBH: Senior Ball Hang. I think that's God's way of making sure guys get to feel insecure too. ~ Cameron Diaz, #NFDB
1429:Much of what is today called "social criticism" consists of members of the upper classes denouncing the tastes of the lower classes (bawdy entertainment, fast food, plentiful consumer goods) while considering themselves egalitarians. ~ Steven Pinker, #NFDB
1430:Perceived self-efficacy in coping with potential threats leads people to approach such situations anxiously, and experience of disruptive arousal may further lower their sense of efficacy that they will be able to perform skillfully ~ Albert Bandura, #NFDB
1431:Queston 1. "On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning 'not the least bit ready' and 10 meaning "totally ready", how ready are you to study?
- After she offers her answer, move to: -
Question 2. "Why didn't you pick a lower number? ~ Daniel H Pink,#NFDB
1432:When one is not understood one should as a rule lower one's voice, because when one really speaks loudly enough and is not heard, it is because people do not want to hear. One had better begin to mutter to oneself, then they get curious. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1433:All things manifesting in the lower worlds exist first in the intangible rings of the upper spheres, so that creation is, in truth, the process of making tangible the intangible by extending the intangible into various vibratory rates. ~ Manly P Hall, #NFDB
1434:Because of his capacity for abstract communications and language and his ability to enter in imagination into the lives of others, man is able to build organizations of a size and complexity far beyond those of the lower animals. ~ Kenneth E Boulding, #NFDB
1435:Evolution is inevitable. But the process isn’t going from lower to higher. It’s just going from different to different—today’s fittest are likely to be tomorrow’s unfit. It’s environments that decide fitness, and environments change. ~ Alex Rosenberg, #NFDB
1436:Late night chaining of videos and basically obsessing are rare for me, and often I've never even seen the videos of my favourite songs. That said, in terms of my own personal magic, video has probably rated lower than most music fans. ~ Kieron Gillen, #NFDB
1437:The acting director of the Secret Service, Joseph Clancy, said they may make the fence around the White House taller because of the recent security failures. When asked if he had any other ideas, he said, 'Uh, make the sidewalk lower?' ~ Jimmy Fallon, #NFDB
1438:We will cover those folks that are on ObamaCare that need to be covered, but at the same time, we're going to find ways to lower prices, allow people to choose better doctors, and have a lot more freedom when it comes to health care. ~ Reince Priebus, #NFDB
1439:When I told my teachers I wanted to be a writer, alot of them encouraged me to lower my expectations and to be more realistic. So I rode away on my magical, winged horse, spraying faerie dust behind me, and laughing manically as I went. ~ M E Vaughan, #NFDB
1440:Higher human beings distinguish themselves from the lower by seeing and hearing, and thoughtfully seeing and hearing, immeasurably more and just this distinguishes human beings from animals, and the higher animals from the lower. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1441:It has no enforceable standards to stop a union from conspiring with employers to keep another stronger union out or from negotiating contracts with lower pay and standards that members of another union have spent a lifetime establishing. ~ Andy Stern, #NFDB
1442:No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes: yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1443:No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1444:On this occasion, for example, Musk’s assistant had just handed him some cookies-and-cream ice cream with sprinkles on top, and he then talked earnestly about saving humanity while a blotch of the dessert hung from his lower lip. Musk’s ~ Ashlee Vance, #NFDB
1445:Rider Bit down on his lower lip. “ So, you know, I'm swords of inviting myself along.” he really wanted to meet my best friend? His head tilted to the side. “ And if you think that's not cool, this is about to get real awkward. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout, #NFDB
1446:The environmentalist's dream is an egalitarian society based on: rejection of economic growth, a smaller population, eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally. ~ Aaron Wildavsky, #NFDB
1447:The only features I've done have been on the lower-budget end, for what they were. It's really all about getting the best people aboard and committing to doing the best work possible and prioritizing where your time is going to be spent. ~ Mick Garris, #NFDB
1448:They reach the point where they feel, "I can go into samadhi now. I can do everything on my own," and that's exactly where they stay, in the lower samadhis. There are many, many people on this earth who can go into salvakalpa samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1449:We all know that, when caught off our guard, there comes a dark temptation from the depths of our lower selves, something atavistic stirs, and we think thoughts, or even do deeds, of which we would never have believed ourselves capable. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
1450:What is more dramatic, even romantic, than the tumbled towers of lower Manhattan, rising suddenly to the clouds like a magic castle girdled by water? Its very touch of jumbled jaggedness, its towering-sided canyons, are its magnificence. ~ Jane Jacobs, #NFDB
1451:When you reach a place where you feel blocked, lower your standards and keep on going. There is no possible way to do permanent damage to a piece of writing. You cannot ruin it. You can only make it a little better a little at a time. ~ Richard Bausch, #NFDB
1452:A recession is very bad for publicly traded companies, but it's the best time for startups. When you have massive layoffs, there's more competition for available jobs, which means that an entrepreneur can hire freelancers at a lower cost. ~ Tim Ferriss, #NFDB
1453:Economically, Reagan’s followers—and Reagan himself—had been converted to the theory of “supply-side economics,” which held that tax cuts would stimulate so much economic activity that tax revenues would actually rise if rates were lower. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
1454:Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed the former is part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness. ~ John Adams, #NFDB
1455:No, you are my kitchen where I feed my hunger,” he growled and bit her lower lip playfully. “You are my bed where I dream and catch my breath, you are my shower where I clear my thoughts, and you are my living room where I entertain myself. ~ Elin Peer, #NFDB
1456:She can see the outline of Miss Justineau’s body, not close but closer to her than the others. She wants to crawl over to her and curl up against her, her shoulders pressed into the precisely right-shaped arc of Miss Justineau’s lower back. ~ M R Carey, #NFDB
1457:Sin is not some demonic thing. It’s just our perverse tendency to fuck things up, to favor the short term over the long term, the lower over the higher. Sin, when it is committed over and over again, hardens into loyalty to a lower love. ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
1458:The president-elect has set a very aggressive agenda, and I think that repealing and replacing Obamacare with the kind of health care reform that'll lower the cost of health insurance without growing the size of government will be job one. ~ Mike Pence, #NFDB
1459:The scent of flowers grew stronger and came from all sides; the grass was drenched with dew; a nightingale struck up in a lilac bush close by and then stopped on hearing our voices; the starry sky seemed to come down lower over our heads. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1460:The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan. ~ Michael Bloomberg, #NFDB
1461:We are born for synergy, just like the feet, just like the hands, just like the eyes, just like the rows of upper and lower teeth. Working against each other is unnatural, and being annoyed and turning one's back is counterproductive. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1462:We came to the house, and it is an old house, full of great chimneys where wood is burnt on ancient dogs upon the hearth, and grim portraits (some of them with grim legends, too) lower distrustfully from the oaken panels of the walls. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1463:I could kiss you forever," she murmured against his lips, sucking at the lower one, playing with the upper, his body weight a luscious pressure. "I love feeling you against me."
"You say such things, Elena. You will make me your slave. ~ Nalini Singh,#NFDB
1464:In the European context tax rates are high and government expenditure is focused on current expenditure. A "good" consolidation is one where taxes are lower and the lower government expenditure is on infrastructures and other investments. ~ Mario Draghi, #NFDB
1465:It has spread among skilled workers, white-collar workers, professionals; for the first time in the nation’s history, perhaps, both the lower classes and the middle classes, the prisoners and the guards, were disillusioned with the system. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
1466:Really, this horrid House of Commons quite ruins our husbands for us. I think the Lower House by far the greatest blow to a happy married life that there has been since that terrible thing called the Higher Education of Women was invented. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
1467:The social environment interacts with brain chemistry. Manipulating a monkey into a lower position in the dominance hierarchy made his serotonin drop, while chemically enhancing serotonin elevated the rank of former subordinates. ~ Bessel A van der Kolk, #NFDB
1468:Time was nothing. Seconds were days, were years, were the breaths that caught between their mouths and the bite of Neil's fingernails against his palms, the scrape of teeth against his lower lip and the warm slide of a tongue against his. ~ Nora Sakavic, #NFDB
1469:We will lower the tax burden on middle class Americans by asking the very wealthy to pay their fair share. Middle class taxpayers will have a choice between a children's tax credit or a significant reduction in their income tax rate. ~ William J Clinton, #NFDB
1470:Why is it”—she shivered as he kissed the top of her spine, went lower—“that I always end up naked while you remain dressed?”
A husky masculine chuckle, his lips moving over her shoulder, his hands on her hips. “Because I'm a smart man. ~ Nalini Singh,#NFDB
1471:For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1472:she would be free of mundane care, she was a pure will towards right. She had sold herself, but she had a new freedom. She had got rid of her body. She had sold a lower thing, her body, for a higher thing, her freedom from material things. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
1473:When I'm bearish and I sell a stock, each sale must be at a lower level than the previous sale. When I am buying, the reverse is true. I must buy on a rising scale. I don't buy long stocks on a scale down, I buy on a scale up. ~ Jesse Lauriston Livermore, #NFDB
1474:With their ever-available loving hearts, they bow before God and bend down under all this pain and are lower than all the other creatures on earth. Pride is rare among them.3 Mechthild of Magdeburg, “The Flowing Light of the Godhead ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
1475:Communism has become an intensely dogmatic and almost mystical religion, and whatever you say, they have ways of twisting it into shapes which put you in some lower category of mankind,” wrote novelist and screenwriter F. Scott Fitzgerald, ~ Bill O Reilly, #NFDB
1476:Federal laws, including those that made so many people immigrate without documents, gutted the enforcement power of the Department of Labor and created a lower minimum wage for tipped workers than for everybody else, reinforcing the industry’s ~ Rinku Sen, #NFDB
1477:How gorgeous this chess set is.' Each piece was a delicate marble fantasy of medieval warfare. The paint had long ago worn off, except for faint touches of red, in the fury of the king's eyes, on the queen's lower lip, in the bishop's robe. ~ Eloisa James, #NFDB
1478:I know how to choke. Given even a splinter-thin opportunity to let my side down and destroy my own score, I will seize it. Not only does ice water not run through my veins, but what runs there has a boiling point lower than body temperature. ~ John Updike, #NFDB
1479:In Jim Crow Mississippi, killers of black people were convicted at a rate that was only a little lower than the rate that prevailed half a century later in L.A.—30 percent then versus about 36 percent in Los Angeles County in the early 1990s. ~ Jill Leovy, #NFDB
1480:Lower your cortisol level. The happiest people have the lowest level of cortisol, a stress hormone that raises blood pressure and weakens the immune system. Cut the stress-more yoga, less road rage-and you'll cut your cortisol production. ~ Daniel Gilbert, #NFDB
1481:The lower functioning NPD individual (in closer proximity to the sociopath on the continuum) will be prone to constantly bending the rules for himself although outwardly he may criticize others for a similar infraction or transgression. ~ Eleanor D Payson, #NFDB
1482:There’s a theory that snoring at night in sleep is a subconscious defence reflex—a warning sound that frightened potential predators away from the mouth of the cave when our lower-Palaeolithic ancestors huddled in vulnerable sleep. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
1483:Though we still come first in the sphere of gas export, national production has diminished due to the increasing volumes of hydrogenation for the electric power industry and therefore there is a lower need for gas at thermal power plants. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
1484:...a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life. ~ E B White, #NFDB
1485:Father is strength at home, strength in government and strength overseas. Mother represents upbringing, education, the spread of civilization. Children are the lower classes, the lower races, to be brought to maturity and then set free ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
1486:Hungary to the upper left, upper left, Serbia to the lower left, lower left. Bosnia on the bottom, on the bottom. Slovenia to the top, to the top. And where’s Croatia?” “Where? Where?” Jacob sung. “It’s next to the Adriatic Sea, across from Italy! ~ J Lynn, #NFDB
1487:I fully subscribe to the judgement of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animal, the moral sense of conscience is by far the most important....It is the most noble of all the attributes of man. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
1488:It is a law of life that human beings, even the geniuses among them, do not pride themselves on their actual achievements but thatthey want to impress others, want to be admired and respected because of things of much lower import and value. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
1489:Man is like a tree, with the mighty trunk of intellect, the spreading branches of imagination, and the roots of the lower instincts that bind him to the earth. The moral life, however, is the fruit he bears; in it his true nature is revealed. ~ Felix Adler, #NFDB
1490:Our approach is to reject the old vicious circle of the '80s-rising debt, higher long-term interest rates, higher debt repayment costs, lower growth, higher unemployment, then enforced cuts in public spending. That was the old boom and bust. ~ Gordon Brown, #NFDB
1491:While she was glad that these bouts of anxiety no longer overwhelmed her, it also meant she was getting comfortable here, and that scared her. Because being comfortable meant she might lower her guard, and she could never let that happen. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
1492:Admiral Pendragon sat down again as abruptly as he had risen; but he sat quite still, and when he spoke again it was in a lower voice. “You do it at your own peril,” he said; “but wouldn’t you be an atheist to keep sane in all this devilry? ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1493:Contribute to charitable projects like the printing of spiritual books so that they can be sold at a lower price. Poor people will then be able to buy and read them. In this way we can help to cultivate spiritual culture in them also. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi, #NFDB
1494:Decent is the last way I want you," she said, skimming her fingers over my stomach, my lower stomach. My lower lower stomach, AKA the last part of exposed skin that, had my towel been hanging any lower, would have been considered indecent. ~ Nicole Williams, #NFDB
1495:His beard was all colors, a grove of trees in autumn, deep brown and fire-orange and wine-red, an untrimmed tangle across the lower half of his face. His cheeks were apple-red. He looked like a friend; like someone you had known all your life. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1496:Pain is interesting. I dislike it immensely but I’ve never experienced pain and boredom at the same time. Even when I had unending and severe pain in my lower back for several years I was never bored by the pain, though it exhausted me. ~ Augusten Burroughs, #NFDB
1497: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, #NFDB
1498:That is what lower performers do; they make others wrong for doing what is necessary in order to make themselves feel okay about doing nothing! The highest performers-the winners-respond by studying successful people and duplicating success. ~ Grant Cardone, #NFDB
1499:That is what lower performers do; they make others wrong for doing what is necessary in order to make themselves feel okay about doing nothing! The highest performers—the winners—respond by studying successful people and duplicating success. ~ Grant Cardone, #NFDB
1500:As the lower parts of the Japanese houses and shops are open both before and behind, I had peeps of these pretty little gardens as I passed along the streets; and wherever I observed one better than the rest I did not fail to pay it a visit. ~ Robert Fortune, #NFDB
717 Integral Yoga
90 Poetry
87 Christianity
75 Occultism
72 Philosophy
57 Fiction
53 Yoga
25 Psychology
14 Theosophy
11 Science
10 Hinduism
7 Kabbalah
7 Integral Theory
6 Education
6 Cybernetics
4 Mysticism
3 Sufism
3 Mythology
2 Baha i Faith
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
679 Sri Aurobindo
228 The Mother
157 Nolini Kanta Gupta
117 Satprem
43 H P Lovecraft
39 Plotinus
30 Carl Jung
25 James George Frazer
22 Sri Ramakrishna
22 Saint Augustine of Hippo
20 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
20 A B Purani
19 Swami Vivekananda
18 Aleister Crowley
14 Rudolf Steiner
14 Percy Bysshe Shelley
13 Aldous Huxley
11 William Wordsworth
11 Walt Whitman
11 Swami Krishnananda
11 Robert Browning
9 Jorge Luis Borges
8 Plato
7 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
7 Friedrich Nietzsche
7 Anonymous
7 Alice Bailey
6 Norbert Wiener
5 George Van Vrekhem
4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
4 Saint John of Climacus
4 Nirodbaran
4 Li Bai
4 John Keats
3 Vyasa
3 Saint Teresa of Avila
3 Jordan Peterson
3 Henry David Thoreau
3 Friedrich Schiller
3 Franz Bardon
2 William Butler Yeats
2 Rabindranath Tagore
2 Patanjali
2 Ovid
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Lucretius
2 Ken Wilber
2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2 Baha u llah
2 Aristotle
2 Al-Ghazali
171 Record of Yoga
126 The Synthesis Of Yoga
44 Letters On Yoga IV
43 Lovecraft - Poems
42 The Life Divine
37 Letters On Yoga III
33 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
31 Letters On Yoga II
31 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
31 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
27 Essays On The Gita
25 The Golden Bough
25 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
24 Letters On Yoga I
22 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
21 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
21 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
20 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
18 The Human Cycle
18 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
15 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
14 Shelley - Poems
14 Questions And Answers 1955
14 Questions And Answers 1954
14 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
14 City of God
14 Agenda Vol 12
13 The Perennial Philosophy
13 Savitri
13 Essays Divine And Human
12 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
12 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
12 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
12 Letters On Poetry And Art
12 Agenda Vol 03
12 Agenda Vol 02
11 Wordsworth - Poems
11 Whitman - Poems
11 The Study and Practice of Yoga
11 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
11 Questions And Answers 1956
11 Mysterium Coniunctionis
11 Browning - Poems
10 Liber ABA
10 Bhakti-Yoga
10 Agenda Vol 10
9 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
9 Magick Without Tears
9 Isha Upanishad
9 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
9 Aion
9 Agenda Vol 05
9 Agenda Vol 04
8 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
8 Talks
8 Questions And Answers 1953
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
8 Kena and Other Upanishads
8 Agenda Vol 01
7 Vedic and Philological Studies
7 The Phenomenon of Man
7 Theosophy
7 Raja-Yoga
7 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
7 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
7 General Principles of Kabbalah
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
7 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
7 Agenda Vol 13
7 Agenda Vol 08
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Divine Comedy
6 Some Answers From The Mother
6 On Education
6 Let Me Explain
6 Labyrinths
6 Cybernetics
6 Agenda Vol 09
6 Agenda Vol 07
6 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
5 Words Of The Mother II
5 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
5 The Secret Of The Veda
5 The Practice of Psycho therapy
5 The Future of Man
5 The Bible
5 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
5 Preparing for the Miraculous
4 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
4 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
4 The Integral Yoga
4 Prayers And Meditations
4 Li Bai - Poems
4 Keats - Poems
4 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
3 Words Of Long Ago
3 Walden
3 Vishnu Purana
3 The Practice of Magical Evocation
3 Schiller - Poems
3 Maps of Meaning
3 Dark Night of the Soul
3 Anonymous - Poems
3 Agenda Vol 11
2 Yeats - Poems
2 Twilight of the Idols
2 The Problems of Philosophy
2 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
2 The Alchemy of Happiness
2 Tagore - Poems
2 Sex Ecology Spirituality
2 Poetics
2 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
2 Of The Nature Of Things
2 Metamorphoses
2 Hymn of the Universe
2 Faust
2 Collected Poems
2 Agenda Vol 06
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
2 5.1.01 - Ilion
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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
--
We have, in modern times, a movement towards a more conscious and courageous, knowledge of things that were taboo to puritan ages. Not to shut one's eyes to the lower, darker and hidden strands of our nature, but to bring them out into the light of day and to face them is the best way of dealing with such elements, which otherwise, if they are repressed, exert an unhealthy influence on the mind and nature. The Upanishadic view runs on the same lines, but, with the unveiling and the natural and not merely naturalisticdelineation of these under-worlds (concerning sex and food), it endows them with a perspective sub specie aeternitatis. The sexual function, for example, is easily equated to the double movement of ascent and descent that is secreted in nature, or to the combined action of Purusha and Prakriti in the cosmic Play, or again to the hidden fount of Delight that holds and moves the universe. In this view there is nothing merely secular and profane, but all is woven into the cosmic spiritual whole; and man is taught to consider and to mould all his movementsof soul and mind and bodyin the light and rhythm of that integral Reality.11
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
--
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.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The main temple is dedicated to Kali, the Divine Mother, here worshipped as Bhavatarini, the Saviour of the Universe. The floor of this temple also is paved with marble. The basalt image of the Mother, dressed in gorgeous gold brocade, stands on a white marble image of the prostrate body of Her Divine Consort, Siva, the symbol of the Absolute. On the feet of the Goddess are, among other ornaments, anklets of gold. Her arms are decked with jewelled ornaments of gold. She wears necklaces of gold and pearls, a golden garland of human heads, and a girdle of human arms. She wears a golden crown, golden ear-rings, and a golden nose-ring with a pearl-drop. She has four arms. The lower left hand holds a severed human head and the upper grips a blood-stained sabre. One right hand offers boons to Her children; the other allays their fear. The majesty of Her posture can hardly be described. It combines the terror of destruction with the reassurance of motherly tenderness. For She is the Cosmic Power, the totality of the universe, a glorious harmony of the pairs of opposites. She deals out death, as She creates and preserves. She has three eyes, the third being the symbol of Divine Wisdom; they strike dismay into the wicked, yet pour out affection for Her devotees.
The whole symbolic world is represented in the temple garden — the Trinity of the Nature Mother (Kali), the Absolute (Siva), and Love (Radhakanta), the Arch spanning heaven and earth. The terrific Goddess of the Tantra, the soul-enthralling Flute-Player of the Bhagavata, and the Self-absorbed Absolute of the Vedas live together, creating the greatest synthesis of religions. All aspects of Reality are represented there. But of this divine household, Kali is the pivot, the sovereign Mistress. She is Prakriti, the Procreatrix, Nature, the Destroyer, the Creator. Nay, She is something greater and deeper still for those who have eyes to see. She is the Universal Mother, "my Mother" as Ramakrishna would say, the All-powerful, who reveals Herself to Her children under different aspects and Divine Incarnations, the Visible God, who leads the elect to the Invisible Reality; and if it so pleases Her, She takes away the last trace of ego from created beings and merges it in the consciousness of the Absolute, the undifferentiated God. Through Her grace "the finite ego loses itself in the illimitable Ego — Atman — Brahman". (Romain Holland, Prophets of the New India, p. 11.)
--
For the achievement of this goal the Vedanta prescribes an austere negative method of discrimination and renunciation, which can be followed by only a few individuals endowed with sharp intelligence and unshakable will-power. But Tantra takes into consideration the natural weakness of human beings, their lower appetites, and their love for the concrete. It combines philosophy with rituals, meditation with ceremonies, renunciation with enjoyment. The underlying purpose is gradually to train the aspirant to meditate on his identity with the Ultimate.
The average man wishes to enjoy the material objects of the world. Tantra bids him enjoy these, but at the same time discover in them the presence of God. Mystical rites are prescribed by which, slowly, the sense-objects become spiritualized and sense attraction is transformed into a love of God. So the very "bonds" of man are turned into "releasers". The very poison that kills is transmuted into the elixir of life. Outward renunciation is not necessary. Thus the aim of Tantra is to sublimate bhoga, or enjoyment into yoga, or union with Consciousness. For, according to this philosophy, the world with all its manifestations is nothing but the sport of Siva and Sakti, the Absolute and Its inscrutable Power.
--
There are two stages of bhakti. The first is known as vaidhi-bhakti, or love of God qualified by scriptural injunctions. For the devotees of this stage are prescribed regular and methodical worship, hymns, prayers, the repetition of God's name, and the chanting of His glories. This lower bhakti in course of time matures into para-bhakti, or supreme devotion, known also as prema, the most intense form of divine love. Divine love is an end in itself. It exists potentially in all human hearts, but in the case of bound creatures it is misdirected to earthly objects.
To develop the devotee's love for God, Vaishnavism humanizes God. God is to be regarded as the devotee's Parent, Master, Friend, Child, Husband, or Sweetheart, each succeeding relationship representing an intensification of love. These bhavas, or attitudes toward God, are known as santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, and madhur. The rishis of the Vedas, Hanuman, the cow-herd boys of Vrindavan, Rama's mother Kausalya, and Radhika, Krishna's sweetheart, exhibited, respectively, the most perfect examples of these forms. In the ascending scale the-glories of God are gradually forgotten and the devotee realizes more and more the intimacy of divine communion. Finally he regards himself as the mistress of his Beloved, and no artificial barrier remains to separate him from his Ideal. No social or moral obligation can bind to the earth his soaring spirit. He experiences perfect union with the Godhead. Unlike the Vedantist, who strives to transcend all varieties of the subject-object relationship, a devotee of the Vaishnava path wishes to retain both his own individuality and the personality of God. To him God is not an intangible Absolute, but the Purushottama, the Supreme Person.
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.
--- TOTAPURI'S LESSON
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
But Chesed, in the lower sense, is conjoined to
Microprosopus. It is the true link between the greater
--
Compare the doctrine of the higher and lower Manas in
Theosophy.
--
and therefore the imperfection, of all the lower Sephiroth
in their essence.
--
IO is the cry of the lower as OI of the higher.
In figures they are 1001;(9) in letters they are Joy.(10)
--
finger prest against thy lower lip. Then dashing
down the hand with a great sweep back and out,
--
and the phrase "has its being" the lower animals, including
woman.
--
Yea, though I were lowered by ropes into the
utmost Caverns and Vaults of Eternity, there is
--
illustrates the use of the lower life to feed the
higher life.
0.01 - I - Sri Aurobindos personality, his outer retirement - outside contacts after 1910 - spiritual personalities- Vibhutis and Avatars - transformtion of human personality, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
"The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in man above this lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine love. He comes as the divine personality which shall fill the consciousness of the human being and replace the limited egoistic personality, so that it shall be liberated out of ego into infinity and universality, out of birth into immortality."[7]
It is clear that Sri Aurobindo interpreted the traditional idea of the Vibhuti and the Avatar in terms of the evolutionary possibilities of man. But more directly he has worked out the idea of the 'gnostic individual' in his masterpiece The Life Divine. He says: "A supramental gnostic individual will be a spiritual Person, but not a personality in the sense of a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character; he cannot be that since he is a conscious expression of the universal and the transcendent." Describing the gnostic individual he says: "We feel ourselves in the presence of a light of consciousness, a potency, a sea of energy, can distinguish and describe its free waves of action and quality, but not fix itself; and yet there is an impression of personality, the presence of a powerful being, a strong, high or beautiful recognisable Someone, a Person, not a limited creature of Nature but a Self or Soul, a Purusha."[8]
0.01 - 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
ground, so that the vessels can be raised and lowered without
danger.
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
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.
--
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.
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But what Nature aims at for the mass in a slow evolution, Yoga effects for the individual by a rapid revolution. It works by a quickening of all her energies, a sublimation of all her faculties. While she develops the spiritual life with difficulty and has constantly to fall back from it for the sake of her lower realisations, the sublimated force, the concentrated method of Yoga can attain directly and carry with it the perfection of the mind and even, if she will, the perfection of the body. Nature seeks the Divine in her own symbols: Yoga goes beyond Nature to the Lord of Nature, beyond universe to the Transcendent and can return with the transcendent light and power, with the fiat of the Omnipotent.
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.
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the powers of disorder. The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is a careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine
Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, glad, clear state of mind and heart is established.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
himself - that is, in control of his lower nature and capable of
becoming a true Yogi if that be his aspiration. And the more this
--
the will of the lower nature, I cannot satisfy all its whims, for
that would be the worst thing I could do for you.
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Knowledge and a faith that is the reflex in the lower consciousness of a Truth or real Idea yet unrealised in the manifestation.
It is this self-certainty of the Idea which is meant by the Gita when it says, yo yac-chraddhah. sa eva sah., "whatever is a man's faith or the sure Idea in him, that he becomes."
--
- 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
Prakriti and turn them towards the Divine. But the normal action of Nature in us is an integral movement in which the full complexity of all our elements is affected by and affects all our environments. The whole of life is the Yoga of Nature. The
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
God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sadhaka of the sadhana1 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 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
--
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 element or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefa thers 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 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.
An integral method and an integral result. First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by
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Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the Divine, sadharmya-mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the
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
your psychic being, you master and govern the lower being, and
then you will quite naturally take your proper place in the great
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feminine in the lower nature which attracts the eternal masculine in the lower nature and creates an illusion in the mind; it
is the great play, obscure and semi-conscious, of the forces of
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find against the lower and inconscient nature.
Nothing of all this is the right attitude. So long as you oscillate between wanting to transform yourself and not wanting to
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themselves in your lower nature, you have only to dislodge them,
calling me to your help.
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overcome one's lower nature. And is this not easier here, with
a concrete and tangible help, than all alone, without anyone to
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
In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its, spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually exclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot of separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres of the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and Overmind meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each distinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all together forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely composite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into Supermind one sees something moreOneness gathering into itself all diversity, not destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness that is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness, the initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in when the supramental light enters the penumbra of the mental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement of light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving, absolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness of Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential and unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression of each one assured truth entering into and upholding every other and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no trial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests on all others and on that which harmonises them all and does not act as a Power diverging from and even competing with other Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play of divergent possibilities the simple, direct, united and absolute certainties of the supramental consciousness retire, as it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out through the interaction first of separately individualised and then of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind there is a conscious underlying Unity but yet each Power, Truth, Aspect of that Unity is encouraged to work out its possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are used by it for its own enhancement until in the denser and darker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of blind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation or manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being into a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends' towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the Spirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakeningsMatter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit.
The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescienceof Involutionhas been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic Time-Space the splendours of the timeless Reality. The material body came into existence bringing with it inevitably, as it seemed, mortality; it appeared even to be fashioned out of mortality, in order that in this very frame and field of mortality, Immortality, the eternal Spirit Consciousness which is the secret truth and reality in Time itself as well as behind it, might be established and that the Divine might be possessed, or rather, possess itself not in one unvarying mode of the static consciousness, as it does even now behind the cosmic play, but in the play itself and in the multiple mode of the terrestrial existence.
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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.
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet what can be more poetic in essence than philosophy, if by philosophy we mean, as it should mean, spiritual truth and spiritual realisation? What else can give the full breath, the integral force to poetic inspiration if it is not the problem of existence itself, of God, Soul and Immortality, things that touch, that are at the very root of life and reality? What can most concern man, what can strike the deepest fount in him, unless it is the mystery of his own being, the why and the whither of it all? But mankind has been taught and trained to live merely or mostly on earth, and poetry has been treated as the expression of human joys and sorrows the tears in mortal things of which Virgil spoke. The savour of earth, the thrill of the flesh has been too sweet for us and we have forgotten other sweetnesses. It is always the human element that we seek in poetry, but we fail to recognise that what we obtain in this way is humanity in its lower degrees, its surface formulations, at its minimum magnitude.
We do not say that poets have never sung of God and Soul and things transcendent. Poets have always done that. But what I say is this that presentation of spiritual truths, as they are in their own home, in other words, treated philosophically and yet in a supreme poetic manner, has always been a rarity. We have, indeed, in India the Gita and the Upanishads, great philosophical poems, if there were any. But for one thing they are on dizzy heights out of the reach of common man and for another they are idolised more as philosophy than as poetry. Doubtless, our Vaishnava poets sang of God and Love Divine; and Rabindranath, in one sense, a typical modern Vaishnava, did the same. And their songs are masterpieces. But are they not all human, too human, as the mad prophet would say? In them it is the human significance, the human manner that touches and moves us the spiritual significance remains esoteric, is suggested, is a matter of deduction. Sri Aurobindo has dealt with spiritual experiences in a different way. He has not clothed them in human symbols and allegories, in images and figures of the mere earthly and secular life: he presents them in their nakedness, just as they are seen and realised. He has not sought to tone down the rigour of truth with contrivances that easily charm and captivate the common human mind and heart. Nor has he indulged like so many poet philosophers in vague generalisations and colourless or too colourful truisms that do not embody a clear thought or rounded idea, a radiant judgment. Sri Aurobindo has given us in his poetry thoughts that are clear-cut, ideas beautifully chiselledhe is always luminously forceful.
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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
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The cosmic soul is true. But that truth is borne out, effectuated only by the truth of the individual soul. When the individual soul becomes itself fully and integrally, by that very fact it becomes also the cosmic soul. The individuals are the channels through which flows the Universal and the Infinite in its multiple emphasis. Each is a particular figure, aspectBhava, a particular angle of vision of All. The vision is entire and the figure perfect if it is not refracted by the lower and denser parts of our being. And for that the individual must first come to itself and shine in its opal clarity and translucency.
Not to do what others do, but what your soul impels you to do. Not to be others but your own self. Not to be anything but the very cosmic and infinite divinity of your soul. Therein lies your highest freedom and perfect delight. And there you are supremely creative. Each soul has a consortPrakriti, Naturewhich it creates out of its own rib. And in this field of infinite creativity the soul lives, moves and has its being.
01.02 - The Object of the Integral Yoga, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
You must go inside yourself and enter into a complete dedication to the spiritual life. All clinging to mental preferences must fall away from you, all insistence on vital aims and interests and attachments must be put away, all egoistic clinging to family, friends, country must disappear if you want to succeed in Yoga. Whatever has to come as outgoing energy or action, must proceed from the Truth once discovered and not from the lower mental or vital motives, from the Divine Will and not from personal choice or the preferences of the ego.
01.03 - 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.
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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,
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The fact is that Reason is a lower manifestation of knowledge, it is an attempt to express on the mental level a power that exceeds it. It is the section of a vast and unitarian Consciousness-Power; the section may be necessary under certain conditions and circumstances, but unless it is viewed in its relation to the ensemble, unless it gives up its exclusive absolutism, it will be perforce arbitrary and misleading. It would still remain helpful and useful, but its help and use would be always limited in scope and temporary in effectivity.
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01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is the present nature of man, with its threefold nexus of mind and life and body, that stands there to be fought and conquered. This is the inferior nature, of which the ancients spoke, that holds man down inexorably to a lower dharma, imperfect mode of life the life that is and has been the human order till today. No amount of ceaseless action, however selflessly done, can move this wheel of Nature even by a hair's breadth away from the path that it has carved out from of old. Human nature and human society have been built up and are run by the forces of this inferior nature, and whatever shuffling and reshuffling we may make in its apparent factors and elements, the general scheme and fundamental form of life will never change. To displace earth (and to conquer nature means nothing less than that) and give it another orbit, one must find a fulcrum outside earth.
Sri Aurobindo does not preach flight from life and a retreat into the silent and passive Infinite; the goal of life is not, in his view, the extinction of life. Neither is he satisfied on that account to hold that life is best lived in the ordinary round of its unregenerate dharma. If the first is a blind alley, the second is a vicious circle,both lead nowhere.
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Only life's lower reaches remained dim.
But there too, in the uncertain shadow of life,
01.03 - Yoga and the Ordinary Life, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Power of the Spirit working in the mind and heart and body, the rest is a matter of remaining faithful to It, calling for it always, allowing it to do its work when it comes and rejecting every other and inferior Force that belongs to the lower consciousness and the lower nature.
Apart from external things there are two possible inner ideals which a man can follow. The first is the highest ideal of ordinary human life and the other the divine ideal of Yoga.
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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 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
The three or four major orders I speak of in reference to conscious artistry are exampled characteristically in the history of the evolution of Greek poetry. It must be remembered, however, at the very outset that the Greeks as a race were nothing if not rational and intellectual. It was an element of strong self-consciousness that they brought into human culture that was their special gift. Leaving out of account Homer who was, as I said, a primitive, their classical age began with Aeschylus who was the first and the most spontaneous and intuitive of the Great Three. Sophocles, who comes next, is more balanced and self-controlled and pregnant with a reasoned thought-content clothed in polished phrasing. We feel here that the artist knew what he was about and was exercising a conscious control over his instruments and materials, unlike his predecessor who seemed to be completely carried away by the onrush of the poetic enthousiasmos. Sophocles, in spite of his artistic perfection or perhaps because of it, appears to be just a little, one remove, away from the purity of the central inspiration there is a veil, although a thin transparent veil, yet a veil between which intervenes. With the third of the Brotherhood, Euripides, we slide lower downwe arrive at a predominantly mental transcription of an experience or inner conception; but something of the major breath continues, an aura, a rhythm that maintains the inner contact and thus saves the poetry. In a subsequent age, in Theocritus, for example, poetry became truly very much 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought', so much of virtuosity and precocity entered into it; in other words, the poet then was an excessively self-conscious artist. That seems to be the general trend of all literature.
But should there be an inherent incompatibility between spontaneous creation and self-consciousness? As we have seen, a harmony and fusion can and do happen of the superconscious and the normally conscious in the Yogi. Likewise, an artist also can be wakeful and transparent enough so that he is conscious on both the levels simultaneouslyabove, he is conscious of the source and origin of his inspiration, and on the level plain he is conscious of the working of the instrument, how the vehicle transcribes and embodies what comes from elsewhere. The poet's consciousness becomes then divalent as it werethere is a sense of absolute passivity in respect of the receiving apparatus and coupled and immisced with it there is also the sense of dynamism, of conscious agency as in his secret being he is the master of his apparatus and one with the Inspirerin other words, the poet is both a seer (kavih) and a creator or doer (poits).
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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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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).
01.06 - 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.
01.06 - Vivekananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The consciousness that breathed out these mighty words, these heavenly sounds was in itself mighty and heavenly and it is that that touches you, penetrates you, vibrates in you a kindred chord, "awakening in you someone dead" till thenmrtam kcana bodhayant. More than the matter, the thing that was said, was the personality, the being who embodied the truth expressed, the living consciousness behind the words and the speech that set fire to your soul. Indeed it was the soul that Vivekananda could awaken and stir in you. Any orator, any speaker with some kind of belief, even if it is for the moment, in what he says, by the sheer force of assertion, can convince your mind and draw your acquiescence and adhesion. A leader of men, self-confident and bold and fiery, can carry you off your feet and make you do brave things. But that is a lower degree of character and nature, ephemeral and superficial, that is touched in you thereby. The spiritual leader, the Guide, goes straight to the spirit in youit is the call of the deep unto the deep. That was what Vivekananda meant when he said that Brahman is asleep in you, awaken it, you are the Brahman, awaken it, you are free and almighty. It is the spirit consciousness Sachchidananda that is the real man in you and that is supremely mighty and invincible and free absolutely. The courage and fearlessness that Vivekananda gave you was the natural attribute of the lordship of your spiritual reality. Vivekananda spoke and roused the Atman in man.
Vivekananda spoke to the Atman in man, he spoke to the Atman of the world, and he spoke specially to the Atman of India. India had a large place in Vivekananda's consciousness: for the future of humanity and the world is wedded to India's future. India has a great mission, it has a spiritual, rather the spiritual work to do. Here is India's work as Vivekananda conceived it in a nutshell:
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
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.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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
surmount all the weaknesses and desires of the lower, ignorant
being.
--
is to lower the level of one's consciousness.
Mother, do You advise this only for those who are
--
It is from within that you must become master of your lower
nature by establishing your consciousness firmly in a domain
--
to subdue the lower mind and establish a connection with higher
forces or with deities. These Japas must be given by the Guru,
--
This uncertainty and these departures are due to the lower nature, which resists the influence of the yogic power and tries to
slow down the divine action, not out of ill-will but in order to
--
of the lower nature.... What is created by spiritual progress is an
inner closeness and intimacy in the inner being, the sense of the
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"To its heights we can always come. For those of us who are still splashing about in the lower ooze, the phrase has a rather ironical ring. Nevertheless, in the light of even the most distant acquaintance with the heights and the fullness, it is possible to understand what its author means. To discover the Kingdom of God exclusively within oneself is easier than to discover it, not only there, but also in the outer worlds of minds and things and living creatures. It is easier because the heights within reveal themselves to those who are ready to exclude from their purview all that lies without. And though this exclusion may be a painful and mortificatory process, the fact remains that it is less arduous than the process of inclusion, by which we come to know the fullness as well as the heights of spiritual life. Where there is exclusive concentration on the heights within, temptations and distractions are avoided and there is a general denial and suppression. But when the hope is to know God inclusivelyto realise the divine Ground in the world as well as in the soul, temptations and distractions must not be avoided, but submitted to and used as opportunities for advance; there must be no suppression of outward-turning activities, but a transformation of them so that they become sacramental."
The neatness of the commentary cannot be improved upon. Only with regard to the "ironical ring" of which Huxley speaks, it has just to be pointed out, as he himself seems to understand, that the "we" referred to in the phrase does not mean humanity in general that 'splashes about in the lower ooze' but those who have a sufficiently developed inner spiritual life.
There is a quotation from Lao Tzu put under the heading "Grace and Free Will": "It was when the Great Way declined that human kindness and morality arose".
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 outf lowering 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
In the earliest and primitive society men lived totally in a mass consciousness. Their life was a blind obedienceobedience to the chief the patriarch or pater familiasobedience to the laws and customs of the collectivity to which one belonged. It was called duty; it was called even dharma, but evidently on a lower level, in an inferior formulation. In reality it was more of the nature of the mechanical functioning of an automaton than the exercise of conscious will and deliberate choice, which is the very soul of the conception of duty.
The conception of Right had to appear in order to bring out the principle of individuality, of personal freedom and fulfilment. For, a true healthy collectivity is the association and organisation of free and self-determinate units. The growth of independent individuality naturally means at first clash and rivalry, and a violently competitive society is the result. It is only at this stage that the conception of duty can fruitfully come in and develop in man and his society the mode of Sattwa, which is that of light and wisdom, of toleration and harmony. Then only a society is sought to be moulded on the principle of co-ordination and co-operation.
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,. . . .
--
And a lower and more facile inspiration tempts the poet and he often speaks with a raucous voice, even as the Arch-tempter sought to lure the Divine Word made flesh:
... Shrieking voices
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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
As soon as I meet or see certain people, certain lower
and wrong vibrations arise in me. This is an invariable
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A victory won over the lower nature gives a deeper and more
lasting joy than any external success.
0 1957-12-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Now, I recently had a very striking experience: a discrepancy occurred between my physical consciousness and the consciousness of the world. In some instances decisions made in the Light and the Truth produced unexpected results, upheavals in the consciousness of others that were neither foreseen nor desired, and I did not understand. No matter how hard I tried, I could not understand and I emphasize this word understand. At last, I had to leave my highest consciousness and pull myself down into the physical consciousness to find out what was happening. And there, in my head, I saw what appeared to be a little cell bursting, and suddenly I understood: the recording had been defective. The physical consciousness had neglected to register certain of your lower reactions. It could not have been through preference or through personal will (these things were eliminated from my consciousness long, long ago). But I saw that this most material consciousness was already completely permeated with the transforming supramental truth, and it could no longer follow the rhythm of normal life. It was much more attuned to the true consciousness than to the world! I couldnt possibly blame it for lagging behind; on the contrary, it was in front, too far ahead! There was a discrepancy between the rhythm of the transformation of my being and the worlds own rhythm. The supramental action on the world is slow, it does not act directlyit acts by infiltration, by traversing the successive layers, and the results are slow to come about. So I had to pull myself violently down in order to wait for the others.
One must at times know how not to know.
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
You see, the human species is a part of Nature, but as Sri Aurobindo has explained, from the moment mind expressed itself in man, it put him into a relationship with Nature very different from the relationship all the lower species have with her. All the lower species right up to man are completely under the rule of Nature; she makes them do whatever she wants, and they can do nothing without her consent. Whereas man begins to act and to live as an equal; not as an equal in terms of power, but from the standpoint of consciousness (he is beginning to do so since he has the capacity to study and to find out Natures secrets). He is not superior to her, far from it, but he is on an equal footing. And so he has acquiredthis is a fac the has acquired a certain power of independence that he immediately used to put himself under the influence of the hostile forces, which are not terrestrial but extra-terrestrial.
I am speaking of terrestrial Nature. Through their mental power, men had the choice and the freedom to make pacts with these extraterrestrial vital forces. There is a whole vital world that has nothing to do with the earth, it is entirely independent or prior to earths existence, it is self-existentwell, they have brought that down here! They have made what we see! And such being the case This is what terrestrial Nature told me: It is beyond my control.
0 1958-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Truly speaking, perhaps one is never rid of the hostile forces as long as one has not permanently emerged into the Light, above the lower hemisphere. There, the term hostile forces loses its meaning; they become only forces of progress, they force you to progress. But to see things in this way, you have to get out of the lower hemisphere, for below, they are very real in their opposition to the divine plan.
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.
--
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.
In the other hemisphere, there is an intensity and a plenitude which are translated by a power different from the one here. How can I formulate it?I cannot.
0 1959-06-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
To begin with, I must tell you a dream that I had here in Rameswaram a few days after my arrival. I was being pursued and I fled like an assassinit is a dream I have had hundreds of times for years, but in this dream, there was a new element: while being pursued, I climbed a kind of stairway to try to escape when suddenly, in a flash, I saw a feminine form hurtling into a void. I saw only the lower half of her body (with a kind of mauve-colored saree), because she was already falling. And I had the horrible sensation of having pushed this woman into the void, and I fled. I climbed, I climbed these stairs with my pursuers close at my heels, and the image of this falling woman gave me a horrible feeling. When I reached the top of the stairs, I tried to close a door behind me to stop my pursuers, but there they were, it was too late and I woke up.
The last time I was in Rameswaram, I had two other very poignant dreams, but I could not make out what they meant. In one dream I was strangling someone with my bare hands; it was an abominable feeling. And in the other, I saw, in a kind of nocturnal setting, a hanged man being taken down, with all kinds of people bustling about the corpse with lamps, and suddenly I knew that this hanged man was me.
0 1960-07-26 - Mothers vision - looking up words in the subconscient, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I came out of the concentration at 4:10quite late. For I was VERY busy! I was in some sort of small house similar to my room, but it was at the top of a tower, for you could see the landscape from above. It was similar to my room here, with large windows. And I was much taller than I actually am, for there was a ledge below each window (there was a cupboard below each window, as in my room), and this ledge came quite low on me; in my room, it comes up to my chest, whereas it was much lower in my vision. And from there oh, what beautiful landscapes! It was surrounded by such lovely countryside! There was a flowing river, woods, sunlightoh, it was really lovely! And I was very busy looking up words in the dictionary!
I had taken out a dictionary. There, its this one, I said. Someone was next to me, but this someone is always symbolic: each activity takes on a special form which may resemble someone or other. (The people around me for the work here are like families in those worlds there; they are types, that iseach person represents a typeso then I know that Im in contact with all the people of this same type. If they were conscious, they would know that I was there telling them something in particular. But its not a person, its a type and not a type of character, but a type of activity and relationship with me.)
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Along the way, I once went down into this physical mind for awhile to try to set it right, to organize it a little (it was done rather quickly, I didnt stay there long). So when I went inside X, I saw It was rather curious, for its the opposite of the method we follow. In his material consciousness (physical and vital), he has trained himself to be impersonal, open, limitless, in communication with all the universal forces. In the physical mind, silence, immobility. But in the speculative mind, the one there at the very top of the head what an organization, phew! All the tradition in its most superb organization, but such a ri-gi-dity! And it had a pretty quality of light, a silver blueVERY pretty. Oh, it was very calm, wonderfully calm and quiet and still. But what a ceiling it had!the outer form resembled rigid cubes. Everything inside was beautiful, but that There was a very large cube right at the top, I recall, bordered by a purple line, which is a line of powerall this was quite luminous. It looked like a pyramid; the smaller cubes formed a kind of base, the lower part of which faded into something cloudy, and then this passed imperceptibly downwards to a more material realm, or in other words, the physical mind. The cube on top was the largest and most luminous, and the least yieldingeven inflexible, you could say. The others were somewhat less defined, and at the bottom it was very blurred. But up at the top!thats where I wanted to go, right to the top.
When I got there, I felt a moment of anguish; my feeling was that nothing could be done. Not for him in particular, but universally, for all those in his categoryit seemed hopeless.6 If that was perfection, then nothing more could be done. This lasted only a second, but it was painful. And then I tried that is, I wanted to bring my consciousness down into the highest cubethis eternal, universal and infinite consciousness which is the first and foremost expression of the manifestation but nothing doing. It was impossible. I tried for several minutes and saw that it was absolutely impossible. So I had to make a curious movement (I couldnt get through it, it was impassable), I had to come back down into the so-called lower consciousness (not lower, actuallyit was vast and impersonal), and from there I came out and regained my equilibrium. This is what gave me that splitting headache I told you about. I came out of there as if I were carrying the weight the weight of an irreducible absoluteit was dreadful. Unfortunately, I was unable to rest afterwards, and as people were waiting to see me, I had to talkwhich is very tiring for me. And this produced a bubbling in my head, like a this dark blue light of power in matter was there, shot through with streaks of white and gold, and all this was flashing back and forth in my head, this way and that way I thought I was going to have a stroke! (Mother laughs)
This lasted a good half hour before I could calm it down, make it quiet, quiet. And I saw that this came from the fact that he wanted to bring the Power down, to transmit the Power into the physical mind! But as soon as Im put in contact with the Power, you understand, it makes everything explode! (Mother laughs) It felt exactly like my head was going to explode!
0 1960-10-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Yesterday, I suddenly saw a huge living head of blue lightthis blue light which is the force, the powerful force in material Nature (this is the light the tantrics use). The head was made entirely of this light, and it wore a sort of tiaraa big head, so big (Mother indicates the length of her forearm); its eyes werent closed, but rather lowered, like this. The immobility of eternity, absolutely the repose, the immobility of eternity. A magnificent head, quite similar to the way the gods here are represented, but even better; something between certain heads of the Buddha and (these heads most probably come to the artists). Everything else was lost in a kind of cloud.
I felt that this kind of yes, immobility came from there: everything stops, absolutely everything stops. Silence, immobility truly, you enter into eternity.I told him it wasnt time!
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The rakshas are demons of the lower vital plane.
The attack of black magic in December 1958.
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 1961-02-11, #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.
0 1961-02-14, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo wants to make the distinction between the progressive soul (the soul which has experiences and progresses from life to life), what can be called the lower soul, and the higher soul, that is, the eternal, immutable and divine soulessentially divine. He wrote this when he was in contact with certain Theosophical writings, before I introduced Theons vocabulary to him. For Theon, there is the divine center which is the eternal soul, and the psychic being; similarly, to avoid using the same word in both cases, Sri Aurobindo speaks in later writings of the psychic being and of the divine center or central being the essential soul.
What if we translate it la partie suprieure de lme, [the higher part of the soul], rather than me suprieure?
0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, in that, too, there are a lot of. I myself wasnt present, so I dont know what Sri Aurobindo said, but I have a kind of feeling. Just recently they wanted to publish something similar in Mother India6Conversations with me noted by A. Luckily it was sent to me first: I Cut EVERYTHING! Such platitudes, my child! Oh, it was disgusting. I said, This is impossible. I have NEVER spoken like that, never! It was flat, flat, flat, with a superficial, word-for-word understanding! Oh, horrible, horrible. Whatever passes through people is terribly, terribly loweredpopularized, made commonplace.
Anyhow. Only Sri Aurobindo can speak of Sri Aurobindo. And as for their notes, its still Sri Aurobindo A la Z, or Sri Aurobindo A la A, and all the more so since Sri Aurobindo wrote in very different ways depending upon the person he was writing to (gesture indicating different levels).
0 1961-02-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The second sign is a sense of ABSOLUTENESS in knowledge. As I have already told you, I had this with my experience of January 24. This state CANNOT be obtained through any region of the mind, even the most illumined and exalted. Its not a certainty, its (Mother lowers both hands like an irresistible block descending), a kind of absoluteness, without even any possibility of hesitation (theres no question of doubt), or anything like that. Without (how to say it ?). All mental knowledge, even the highest, is a conclusive knowledge, as it were: it comes as a conclusion of something elsean intuition, for instance (an intuition gives you a particular knowledge, and this knowledge is like the conclusion of the intuition). Even revelations are conclusions. Theyre all conclusions the word conclusion comes to me, but I dont know how to express it. This isnt the case, however, with the supramental experiencea kind of absolute. The feeling it gives is altogether uniquefar beyond certainty, it is (Mother again makes the same irresistible gesture) it is a FACT, things are FACTS. It is very, very difficult to explain. But with that one naturally has a complete power the two things always go together. (In my reply to this man I didnt speak of power because the power is almost a consequence and I didnt want to speak of consequences.) But the fact remains: a kind of absoluteness in knowledge springing from identityone is the thing one knows and experiences: one is it. One knows it because one is it.
When these two signs are present (both are necessary, one is incomplete without the other), when a person possesses both, then you can be sure he has been in contact with the Supermind. So people who speak about receiving the Light well, (laughing) its a lot of hot air! But when both signs are present, you can be sure of your perception.12
0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
58The animal, before he is corrupted, has not yet eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the god has abandoned it for the tree of eternal life; man stands between the upper heaven and the lower nature.
Do you have a question?
--
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 f lowering 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: f lowers, 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 1961-03-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a terrible slavery to the lower mind, and so widespread! Oh, all these goings-on at the School, my child, all the teaching, all the teachers.2 Terrible, terrible, terrible! I was trying to turn on the switches to give some light and not one of them worked!
Of course, these scenes are slightly exaggerated because they are seen in isolation from the rest; within the whole many things crisscross and complete each other, diminishing each others importance. But in an experience like last nights, things are taken singly and shown in isolation, as through a magnifying glass. And after all its a good lesson.
0 1961-03-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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 f lowers: one very large Endurance in the Most Material Vital [zinnia] and another f lower 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 f lowers there (at the levels of the abdomen and chest), one more active, a very large, dark purple Endurance f lower, 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.
And I found it interesting that when I received your letter yesterday evening I concentrated for a moment, almost out of curiosity: Why doesnt he ever feel he has an experience? Why doesnt he feel anything? I wanted to know precisely what type of experience would give you the feeling of having an experience!
0 1961-03-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know he said someone has been doing black magic against me; but I have never felt anything of the sort in the room where we meditate, because I make a point of coming half an hour early and this of course clears the atmosphere: everything is always ready when he arrives, in silence, in perfect peace. Hasnt he always told you that when he comes into that room he enters another world, like Kailas?1 And thats the way it has always been. If there has been a change, its that now its even more like thatbecause (how to put it?) its more stable. Before, it fluctuated a bit: it came, went, came. But now its like a tranquil mass (Mother lowers her arms) that doesnt stir. Yesterday in particular, this was the experience: I felt him coming (when he is about to come in, I always sense something drawing me outward a little so that I wont be completely in trance and can stand up), and this prayer came so spontaneously, oh! And then (laughing) in the afternoon N. tells me, Oh, X said he had some difficulty at the start of todays meditationa hostile force was present and it took him five minutes to clarify the atmosphere!
It gave me the impression you get in outer life: all the pieces more or less dovetail but with no inner unitytheres not ONE thing, not one, that is true, essentially and always true. We know it is like that outwardly, of course; but I have always felt that with people who have an inner life, one could attain a kind of identity of vibration and knowledge but no!
0 1961-07-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In Sri Aurobindo's terminology, the 'Overmind' represents the highest level of the mind, the world of the gods and origin of all the revelations and highest artistic creations the world that has ruled mental man till now. in his gradations of the worlds, Sri Aurobindo speaks of two hemispheres, the upper hemisphere and the lower. The Overmind is the line between these two hemispheres, 'This line is the intermediary overmind which, though luminous itself, keeps from us the full indivisible supramental Light, but in receiving it divides, distributes, breaks up into separated aspects, powers, multiplicities of all kinds.' In the words of the Upanishad, 'The face of the Truth is covered by a golden lid.'
Mother is referring to the book Satprem will write on Sri Aurobindo, which prompted the questions posed in this conversation.
0 1961-10-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But we have not yet reached the heart of the Vedic secret. The birth of Agni, the soul (and so many men are still unborn) is merely the start of the voyage. This inner flame seeks, it is the seeker within us, for it is a spark of the great primordial Fire and will never be satisfied until it has recovered its solar totality, the lost sun of which the Veda incessantly speaks. Yet even when we have risen from plane to plane and the Flame has taken successive births in the triple world of our lower existence (the physical, vital and mental world), it will still remain unsatisfiedit wants to ascend, ascend further. And soon we reach a mental frontier where there seems to be nothing to grasp any longer, nor even to see, and nothing remains but to abolish everything and leap into the ecstasy of a great Light. At this point, we feel almost painfully the imprisoning carapace of matter all around us, preventing that apotheosis of the Flame; then we understand the cry, My kingdom is not of this world, and the insistence of Indias Vedantic sagesand perhaps the sages of all worlds and all religions that we must abandon this body to embrace the Eternal. Will our flame thus forever be truncated here below and our quest always end in disappointment? Shall we always have to choose one or the other, to renounce earth to gain heaven?
Yet beyond the lower triple world, the Rishis had discovered a certain fourth, touryam svid; they found the vast dwelling place, the solar world, Swar: I have arisen from earth to the mid-world [life], I have arisen from the mid-world to heaven [mind], from the level of the firmament of heaven I have gone to the Sun-world, the Light (Yajur-veda 17.67). And it is said, Mortals, they achieved immortality (Rig-veda I.110.4). What then was their secret? How did they pass from a heaven of mind to the great heaven without leaving the body, without, as it were, going off into ecstasies?
The secret lies in matter. Because Agni is imprisoned in matter and we ourselves are imprisoned there. It is said that Agni is without head or feet, that it conceals its two extremities: above, it disappears into the great heaven of the supraconscient (which the Rishis also called the great ocean), and below, it sinks into the formless ocean of the inconscient (which they also called the rock). We are truncated. But the Rishis were men of a solid realism, a true realism resting upon the Spirit; and since the summits of mind opened out upon a lacuna of lightecstatic, to be sure, but with no hold over the worldthey set upon the downward way.6 Thus begins the quest for the lost sun, the long pilgrimage of descent into the inconscient and the merciless fight against the dark forces, the thieves of the sun, the panis and vritras, pythons and giants, hidden in the dark lair with the whole cohort of usurpers: the dualizers, the confiners, the tearers, the COVERERS. But the divine worker, Agni, is helped by the gods, and in his quest he is led by the intuitive ray, Sarama, the heavenly hound with the subtle sense of smell who sets Agni on the track of the stolen herds (strange, shining herds). Now and again there comes the sudden glimmer of a fugitive dawn then all grows dim. One must advance step by step, digging, digging, fighting every inch of the way against the wolves whose savage fury increases the nearer one draws to their denAgni is a warrior. Agni grows through his difficulties, his flame burns more brilliantly with each blow from the Adversary; for, as the Rishis said, Night and Day both suckled the divine Child; they even said that Night and Day are the two sisters, Immortal, with a common lover [the sun] common they, though different their forms (I.113.2,3). These alternations of night and brightness accelerate until Day breaks at last and the herds of Dawn7 surge upward awakening someone who was dead (I.113.8). The infinite rock of the inconscient is shattered, the seeker uncovers the Sun dwelling in the darkness (III.39.5), the divine consciousness in the heart of Matter. In the very depths of Matter, that is to say, in the body, on earth, the Rishis found themselves cast up into Light that same Light which others sought on the heights, without their bodies and without the earth, in ecstasy. And this is what the Rishis would call the Great Passage. Without abandoning the earth they found the vast dwelling place, that dwelling place of the gods, Swar, the original Sun-world that Sri Aurobindo calls the Supramental World: Human beings [the Rishis emphasize that they are indeed men] slaying the Coverer have crossed beyond both earth and heaven [matter and mind] and made the wide world their dwelling place (I.36.8). They have entered the True, the Right, the Vast, Satyam, Ritam, Brihat, the unbroken light, the fearless light, where there is no longer suffering nor falsehood nor death: it is immortality, amritam.
0 1961-11-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I learned to do the same thing, and with great dexterity; I could halt on any plane, do what I had to do there, move around freely, see, observe, and then speak about what I had seen. And my last stage, which Theon called pathtisme,2 a very barbaric but very expressive word, bordered on the Formlesshe sometimes used the Jewish terminology, calling the Supreme The Formless. (From this last stage one passed to the Formless there was no further body to leave behind, one was beyond all possible forms, even all thoughtforms.) In this domain [the last stage before the Formless] one experienced total unityunity in something that was the essence of Love; Love was a manifestation more dense, he would always say (there were all sorts of different densities); and Love was a denser expression of That, the sense of perfect Unityperfect unity, identitywith no longer any forms corresponding to those of the lower worlds. It was a Light! An almost immaculate white light, yet with something of a golden-rose in it (words are crude). This Light and this Experience were truly wonderful, inexpressible in words.
Well, one time I was there (Theon used to warn against going beyond this domain, because he said you wouldnt come back), but there I was, wanting to pass over to the other side, whenin a quite unexpected and astounding way I found myself in the presence of the principle, a principle of the human form. It didnt resemble man as we are used to seeing him, but it was an upright form, standing just on the border between the world of forms and the Formless, like a kind of standard.3 At that time nobody had ever spoken to me about it and Madame Theon had never seen itno one had ever seen or said anything. But I felt I was on the verge of discovering a secret.
0 1962-01-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Your practice of psycho-analysis was a mistake. It has, for the time at least, made the work of purification more complicated, not easier. The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mindto take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow termsruns riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners,is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges. If one wishes to purify and transform the nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being. Even this should be done with care, not prematurely or rashly, following a higher guidance, keeping always the right attitude; for otherwise the force that is drawn down may be too strong for an obscure and weak frame of nature. But to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of ones way to invite trouble. First, one should make the higher mind and vital strong and firm and full of light and peace from above; afterwards one can open up or even dive into the subconscious with more safety and some chance of a rapid and successful change.
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
In the lower mind there was a whole world of difficulties I was unaware of. In the vital I knew, because Id had to do battle therewhich was fine with me! Just imagine, this time I have been given a warrior as my vital being. A magnificent warrior, neither male nor female, and as tall as this room1he is splendid. I was so happy when I first saw him. Well, I thought, thats worth my while!
Yes, there are battles galore there!
0 1962-02-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You can achieve excellent control of the heart. But I never practiced it violently, never strained myself. I think holding for 16 is too long. I used to do it simply like this: brea the in very slowly to the count of 4, then hold for 4 like this (I still have the knack of it!), lifting the diaphragm and lowering the head8 (Mother bends her neck), closing everything and exerting pressure (this is an almost instantaneous cure for hiccupsits handy!). Then while I held the air, I would make it circulate with the force (because it contained force, you see) and with the peace as well; and I would concentrate it wherever there was a physical disorder (a pain or something wrong somewhere). Its very effective. The way I did it was: inhale, hold, exhale and emptyyou are completely empty. Its very useful; very handy for underwater swimmers, for instance!
I had trouble breathing in slowly enough thats a bit hard. I began with 4 and eventually managed to do 12. I did 12-12-12-12. It took me months to reach that, it cant be done quickly. To brea the in very slowly and hold all that air isnt easy.
0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This type of thing has happened to me very, very oftenfour times with snakes. There was one incident here near the fishing village of Ariankuppam, a place where a river empties into the sea. Night had fallen swiftly, it was pitch dark, and I was walking along a road when right in the middle of a step (I had already lifted my foot and was about to lower it), I distinctly heard a voice in my ear: Watch out! Yet no one had spoken. So I looked, and just as my foot was about to touch the ground, I saw an enormous black cobra right where I was casually going to put my foot. Those fellows dont like that sort of thing! It slithered away and swam across the waterwhat a beauty, mon petit! Hood wide open, head held high, he swam across like a king. I would certainly have been punished for my impertinence!
I have had hundreds and hundreds of experiences like thatinformed just at the last moment (not one second too soon)and in very different circumstances. Once in Paris I was crossing the Boulevard Saint Michel (I had resolved to attain union with the psychic presence, the inner Divine, within a certain number of months, and these were the last weeks I was thinking of nothing but that, engrossed in that alone). I lived near the Luxembourg Gardens and was going there for a stroll, to sit in the gardens that eveningstill indrawn. I came to a kind of intersectionnot a very sensible place to cross when youre interiorized! So, in that state, I started to cross when all of a sudden I had a shock, as if something had hit me, and I instinctively jumped back. As I jumped back a streetcar rushed by. I had felt the streetcar at a little more than arms length. It had touched my aura, the protective aura (that aura was very strong at the time I was deep into occultism and knew how to maintain it). My protective aura was touched, and it literally threw me backwards, just like a physical shock. Accompanied by the drivers insults!
0 1962-05-29, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is very interesting, mon petit. As you were telling me about it, I automatically went into that state. And there was a kind ofhow shall I put it? I dont know what to call it. It is a movement akin to will, but it has nothing to do with thought, its a feeling: I wanted to take you into the experience. And it was shown to meliterally shown that your whole relationship with the inner and outer worlds is situated here (gesture above the head); thats why it is so well expressed through intellectual activity. But here (gesture to the solar plexus) theres not much. And I was seeing this, you know, I was touching it. It only comes indirectly, as a consequence. And then down here (gesture lower down): NOTHING. It remains just the way it was formed when you came down to earth!
And here (umbilical region) I was shown that a sort of widening of the being is needed, a widening of the vibrationsa peace, a calm within the immensity. HEREthe prana, that isis where there should be a widening into peace, peace, peace and calm. But within the immensity.
0 1962-06-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But all that belongs to a lower stage.
What you need is.
A lower stage?
When the contact is through images, concrete and palpable, its in a consciousness thats I dont say lower in a pejorative sense, but I mean in a more material consciousness. Its in the vital. In the vital. Ramakrishnas experiences were in the vital.
But at least it gives a meaning to life; life becomes full!
0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is no easy change to make. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this siddhi will be complete, then I am absolutely certain that through me God will give to others the siddhi of the Supermind with less effort. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in Gods appointed time. I have no hasty or disorderly impulse to rush into the field of work in the strength of the little ego. Even if I did not succeed in my work I would not be shaken. This work is not mine but Gods. I will listen to no other call; when God moves me then I will move.
I know very well that Bengal is not really ready. The spiritual flood which has come is for the most part a new form of the old. It is not the real transformation. However this too was needed. Bengal has been awakening in itself the old yogas and exhausting their samskaras [old habitual tendencies], extracting their essence and with it fertilizing the soil. At first it was the time of VedantaAdwaita, Sannyasa, Shankaras Maya and the rest. It is now the turn of Vaishnava DharmaLila, love, the intoxication of emotional experience. All this is very old, unfitted for the new age and will not endure for such excitement has no capacity to last. But the merit of the Vaishnava Bhava [emotional enthusiasm] is that it keeps a connexion between God and the world and gives a meaning to life; but since it is a partial bhava the whole connexion, the full meaning is not there. The tendency to create sects which you have noticed was inevitable. The nature of the mind is to take a part and call it the whole and exclude all other parts. The Siddha [illuminated being] who brings the bhava, although he leans on its partial aspect, yet keeps some knowledge of the integral whole, even though he may not be able to give it form. But his disciples do not get that knowledge precisely because it is not in a form. They are tying up their little bundles, let them. The bundles will open of themselves when God manifests himself fully. These things are the signs of incompleteness and immaturity. I am not disturbed by them. Let the force of spirituality play in the country in whatever way and in as many sects as may be. Afterwards we shall see. This is the infancy or the embryonic condition of the new age. It is a first hint, not even the beginning.
0 1962-07-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Some receive it from above; for others, it rises from below (gesture to the base of the spine). As I once told you, the old system always proceeds from below upwards, while Sri Aurobindo pulls from above downwards. This becomes very clear in meditation (well, in yoga, in yogic experience): for those who follow the old system, its invariably the kundalini at the base [of the spine] rising from center to center, center to center, until the lotus (in an ironic tone) bursts open here gesture at the crown of the head). With Sri Aurobindo, it comes like this (gesture of descending Force) and then settles here (above the head); it enters, and from there it comes down, down, down, everywhere, to the very bottom, and even below the feet the subconscientand lower still, the inconscient.
Its the Shakti. He said, you know (I am still translating it), that the shakti drawn up from below (this is what happens in the individual process) is already what could be called a veiled shakti (it has power, but it is veiled). While the Shakti drawn down from above is a PURE Shakti; and if it can be brought down carefully and slowly enough so that it isnt (how shall I put it?) polluted or, in any case, obscured as it enters matter, then the result is immediately much better. As he has explained, if you start out with this feeling of a great power in yourself (because its always a great power no matter where it awakens), theres inevitably a danger of the ego meddling in. But if it comes pure and you are very careful to keep it pure, not to rush the movement but let it purify as it descends, then half the work is done.
--
Thought, by comparison (thought as we now know it), is much more material. Thoughtformulation in wordsis much lower down on the scale.
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 1962-08-31, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Uninterrupted, with one link the link of supreme Eternity. But the sense of consequences is false, it already implies a lowering of consciousness. So for meeven physically, in the midst of this whole hodgepodge of confusion, ignorance and stupidityit all translates into: I do things, and the results are none of my business. Thats how its expressed here in the body.
Its a kind of liberation I dont mean from worry or preoccupation, theres no question of that but from the very IDEA of a consequence: its this way because thats the way it is; it has to be this way, so it is. Thats all. And at each second its this way because it has to be, and so it is. And That repeats itself eternally, and it is this eternal Pulsation which is expressed in time by those gusts I feel this very strongly, very strongly. Its a constant, spontaneous and very natural experience for me. The idea of something behind or ahead in time and so on is a Truth changing from immutable Eternity into Eternity of manifestation. And it changes like this (Mother makes a pulsating gesture), exactly like gustspuff, puff, puff.
0 1962-09-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You have often told me that each time he comes it stirs up lower things.
Yes.
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.
0 1962-11-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No later than yesterday night, I had this feeling: My god, theres always farther down to go! Its always lower, ever lower. And at the same time, my identity with the Supreme keeps growing while I simultaneously seem to be going down into the most incredible dark dregs of yes, of mud, ever possible in life. Look, you speak of Sri Aurobindos experiencewell, I never knew hed had the vision of all sorts of torture,1 but I have just had it myself in detail, bit by bit and what things! Incredible, incredible. And I was wondering, But why! Why am I seeing all this? Am I losing my contact? On the contrary, it felt closer and closer, stronger and stronger, more and more conscious, luminous, and at the same time this (gesture below).
You have formulated it very, very well. Do you unwittingly feel my experience and write it, or do I. I dont know, its all bound up together. But its most interesting.
0 1963-03-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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.
--
This is the best possible use of the need for miracles. The need for miracles is a gesture of ignorance: Oh, I wish it were that way! Its a gesture of ignorance and impotence. On the other hand, those who tell you, You live in a world of miracles, know only the lower end of things (and quite imperfectly at that), and they are impervious to anything else.
We should turn this need for miracles into a conscious aspiration to something something that already is, that exists, and that will be manifested WITH THE HELP of all those aspirations: all those aspirations are necessary, or rather, looking at it in a truer way, they are an accompanimenta pleasant accompanimentto the eternal unfolding.
0 1963-05-11, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw, in my case, that my mantra has the power of immortality; whatever happens, if it is uttered, its the Supreme that has the upper hand, its no longer the lower law. And the words are irrelevant, they may not have any meaningto someone else, my mantra is meaningless, but to me its full, packed with meaning. And effective, because its my cry, the intense aspiration of my whole being.
A mantra given by a guru is only the power to realize the experience of the discoverer of the mantra. The power is automatically there, because the sound contains the experience. I saw that once in Paris, at a time when I knew nothing of India, absolutely nothing, only the usual nonsense. I didnt even know what a mantra was. I had gone to a lecture given by some fellow who was supposed to have practiced yoga for a year in the Himalayas and recounted his experience (none too interesting, either). All at once, in the course of his lecture, he uttered the sound OM. And I saw the entire room suddenly fill with light, a golden, vibrating light. I was probably the only one to notice it. I said to myself, Well! Then I didnt give it any more thought, I forgot about the story. But as it happened, the experience recurred in two or three different countries, with different people, and every time there was the sound OM, I would suddenly see the place fill with that same light. So I understood. That sound contains the vibration of thousands and thousands of years of spiritual aspiration there is in it the entire aspiration of men towards the Supreme. And the power is automatically there, because the experience is there.
0 1963-05-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother seems to have forgotten the red of the vital, which comes between material Nature's violet and the Mind's blue. Thus we have twelve worlds: violet, red, blue (the Mind's three blues), yellow, then the Overmind's prismatic colors, which makes five lower worlds, then finally the three golds of the Supermind and the four whites of the supreme creative Joy or Ananda.
Mother means that there is no proof that the order was restored because of the Lord's intervention rather than by some other, "natural" mechanism.
0 1963-06-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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 1963-06-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It must be (on a much lower level) at such moments that you fall ill; when people fall ill, it must be (on their scale, of course, probably a very, very small scale), it must be due to that (gesture of precarious balance): they must be going from one moment to another, from one balance to another, and if they are not careful, they topple over. Then its IN the illness that they find a new harmony(laughing) either here or in another world!
***
0 1963-07-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I can still see Sri Aurobindo, a little taller than me, and myself bent forward and smiling, pointing to the left, and he said, Yes. And I could see I saw lots of people. Because its a strange thing, the eyesight is absolutely different (its in the subtle physical), the sight is absolutely different from physical sight: you see thousands of miles away and very near at the same time, and distance is implied only by a given place in the atmosphere (I dont know how to explain this), but whats far away is as near from the standpoint of action as whats very close by. You see, the action is just as concrete and close, but it is as though differently placed (Mother shows different levels in the atmosphere). I never gave it a thought, but probably in that activity of the subtle physical we are physically much taller, I think; yet the proportions remain the same; but things are smaller [than Mother or Sri Aurobindo]. Its the same for going up or down, it doesnt have the meaning it has here. And that country I was pointing to was to the left, a little not backward, a little forward and lower down, like this (gesture).
Sri Aurobindo was very tall there. But I, too, was tall.
--
In other words, one domain after another, one difficulty after another, one kind of obstacle after another (obstacles that are either subconscious or in the most material consciousness or the lower vital), it all comes for an ACTION. An action which is very sustained and varied; even when some other thing (some other difficulty or problem) is in the foreground, predominant in the consciousness, everything is there [in the surrounding atmosphere], and all the time there is that Light (Mother makes a gesture of cleaning in the atmosphere) which has always been with meof which I became totally conscious with Madame Thon, who told me what it wasa Light I have always kept with me, a white Light, absolutely pure, so dazzlingly white that eyes cannot look at it, a Light which is
(long silence Mother goes off into that Light, her eyes closed)
0 1963-11-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive witnessed the most complete panorama of all the idiotic things in this life,1 they were shown to me as in a complete panorama: passing from one to another, seeing each of them separately and how they combined with each other. And then: Why? Why should one choose this? (A childs question, which one asks immediately.) And immediately, the answer: But the more (lets say central to be clearer) the more central the origin and the more pure in its essence, the greater the ignoble complexity below, as we could call it. Because the lower down you go, the more it takes an essential light to change things.
Once youve been told this very nicely, youre satisfied, you stop worryingits all right, you take things as they are: Thats how things are, its my work and I do it; I ask only one thing, it is to do my work, all the rest doesnt matter.
0 1963-12-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I had another interesting example, with a visitor: a German industrial magnate, it seems. I had seen his photo and found there was something in him I had him come. He entered the room and came in front of me: he didnt know what to do (no one had told him anything). So I looked at him and put some force (Mother slowly lowers her hand), a little, progressively. And all at once (at first he was quite official, it was MISTER So-and-so who was there), all at once his left hand began to rise, like this (gesture of a hand clenched as in trance), all the rest was absolutely still. When I saw that, I smiled and withdrew the force, then let him go. It seems he went downstairs, went into Sri Aurobindos room and started weeping. Afterwards, the next day, he wrote to me and told me in German English that I had been too human: Why have you been too human? He wanted his being to be DESTROYED in order to be born again to the true life.
That interested me. I thought, Oh, he felt it, he was conscious both of the force and of my withdrawing it. I answered him, True, I spared you, but because it was your first visit! Prepare yourself, I will see you again.
You see, he came in as a big industrial person with a remarkable power of mental creation that organizes events thats what entered the room and then it melted. And I didnt put the full charge: I simply put some power like this (Mother lowers her hand), and I was looking him in the face. Then I felt something going on lower down; I looked: his hand was tightly clenched. So I stopped.
But the remarkable thing is that he was CORRECTLY conscious.
0 1963-12-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is equally ignorant and one thousand miles away from my teaching to find it in your relations with human beings or in the nobility of the human character or an idea that we are here to establish mental and moral and social Truth and justice on human and egoistic lines. I have never promised to do anything of the kind. Human nature is made up of imperfections, even its righteousness and virtue are pretensions, imperfections and prancings of a self-approbatory egoism. What is aimed at by us is a spiritual truth as the basis of life, the first words of which are surrender and union with the Divine and the transcendence of ego. So long as that basis is not established, a sadhak is only an ignorant and imperfect human being struggling with the evils of the lower nature.
I want to offer it to an American admiral who is here and who needs to know this.
0 1964-02-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They come more and more often, those things that I scribble on a slip of paper, and they always follow the same process: first, always a sort of explosionlike the explosion of a power of truth; it makes great dazzling white fireworks (Mother smiles), much more than fireworks! Then it rolls and rolls (gesture above the head), it works and works; and then comes the impression of an idea (but the idea is lower down, its like clothing), and the idea contains its sensation, it brings the sensation along with it the sensation was there before, but without any idea, so you couldnt define it. There is only one thing: its always the explosion of a luminous Power. Then, afterwards, if you look at it while remaining very still, while above all the head keeps quieteverything keeps quiet (gesture of a stillness turned upward)then, all of a sudden, somebody speaks in your head (!), somebody speaks. Its the explosion that speaks. Then I take a pencil and my paper, and I write. But between what speaks and what writes, there is still a difficult little passage, with the result that when I have written, something above isnt satisfied. So I again keep still: Ah, no, not that wordthis one sometimes it takes two days for the thing to be really definitive. But those who are satisfied with the power of the experience skimp it all and send you off into the world of sensational revelations, which are distortions of the Truth.
One must be very level-headed, very still, very criticalespecially very still, silent, silent, silent, without trying to grab at the experience: Ah, is it this? Ah, is it that? Then one spoils it all. But one must looklook at it very attentively. And in the words, there is a remnant, something left of the original vibration (so little), something remains, something which makes you smile, which is pleasant, it bubbles like a sparkling wine, and then here (Mother shows a word or a passage in an imaginary note), its lackluster; so you look at it with your knowledge of the language or sense of the rhythm of the words, and you notice: Here, a pebble the pebble must be removed; so then you wait, until suddenly it comesplop!it falls into place: the true word. If you are patient, after a day or two it becomes quite exact.
0 1964-02-13, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I expected it a little. You cant think of such things in advance, but when I spoke to her I thought she was going to be pleasedoh, she almost flew into a rage! But in front of me, of course I looked at her and went like this (Mother lowers her thumb): it stopped. But once she had gone, it was the end!
A jealous and vain character is hard to correct.
0 1964-02-26, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Not as much as sometimes. But here, when you look down, its very red. When you lower your eyelid, there is an entire bloodshot area, up to the iris.
So it has started again. All right.
0 1964-03-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For a very long time the body hasnt felt in the least separatenot in the least. There is even a sort of constant identification with the people around which at times is troublesome enough, but which I see as a means of action (of control and action). Ill give an example: on the 4th, the last time I saw you, the doctor left for America. He had his lunch here (I told you he was very moved); he was given a sort of little ceremony for his departure. He was sitting on the floor as usual, next to me (I was seated at the table, facing the light), and they served him his lunch; he turned towards me to receive the things. He was in a state of intense emotion (nothing apparent at all; the appearance was very quiet, he didnt say or do anything extraordinary, but inwardly). At one point I looked at him to encourage him to eat, and our eyes met. Then there came into me from him such a violent emotion that I almost started sobbing, can you imagine! And its always there, in the lower abdomen (really in the abdomen), that this identification with the outside world takes place. There (gesture above the heart center), it dominates; the identification is here (gesture to the abdomen), but the Force dominates (Mother holds up her head); while here (the abdomen), it seems to be still its the lower vital, I mean the lower vital OF MATTER, the vital subdegree OF MATTER. Its on the way to transformation, this is where the work is being done materially. But all those emotions have rather unpleasant repercussions. Even, when I looked at it in detail, I came to think that there must be something analogous in you; you must be open to certain currents of force in the lower vital, and those kinds of spasms which you get must be the result. So then, the solution there is only one solution, because immediately I called, I put the Lords Presence there (gesture to the abdomen), and I saw it was extremely CONTAGIOUS. Because I had received the vibrations, they had entered straight in without meeting any obstacles; so the response had a considerable contagious power I saw it immediately: I stopped the doctors vibrations; it took me a few minutes, and everything was back in order again. Then I understood that this opening, this contagion was kept as a means of actionit isnt pleasant for the body (!), but its a means of action.
Its the same thing with that necessity of returning to the superficial consciousness. In the beginning, in the very beginning, when I identified myself with that pulsation of Love that creates the world, for many days I refused to resume entirely the ordinary, habitual consciousness (to which I was just referring: that sort of surface consciousness which is like bark), I no longer wanted it. Thats why I was outwardly so helpless; in other words, I refused to make any decisions (Mother laughs), the others had to decide and do things for me! Thats what convinced them that I was extremely ill!
0 1964-03-11, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And to me, as I see it, the eyes are the will, while the lower part of the face is the struggle, the difficultyit represents the difficulty with the earth. But the eyes are the will to make contact (Mother pulls from above downward to make high and low meet).
They arent eyes of entreaty, look at them closely: they are eyes of willalmost eyes of command.
0 1964-09-23, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As soon as we deal with even the vital plane, even the lower vital, the problem doesnt arise, its very easy; but here, in the cells of the body, in this life? In this life of every minute, which is so constricted, so shriveled, so microscopic. What should you do when you know that you mustnt bring into play a will to reject all that is a decay, and when, at the same time, you cant accept decay because you dont see it as a perfect expression of the Divine?
Its very subtle there is something to be found; and its something that, obviously, I havent found because it keeps coming back again and again. At times, I even say, Oh, for Peace, Peace, Peace but then I feel it is a weakness. I say, To let myself go, not thinking of anything, not trying to know anything, but then something instantly rises there, somewhere, and says, Tamas.2
0 1964-10-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am expressing it with the minds words because theres no other way, but it was in the field of sensation rather than anything else. And it was very clearvery clear and very continuous, without fluctuations. And then, at that moment, the universal Consciousness intervened, saying, But here are the obstacles. And those obstacles were clearly seen: that kind of pessimism of the mind (a formless mind thats beginning to be born and organized in these cells). But the cells themselves didnt care a whit! To them it was like a disease, they said, Oh, that (the word distorts, but it was felt as a sort of accident or an inescapable disease or something that DID NOT FORM A NORMAL PART of their development and had been forced on them), Oh, that, we dont care about it! And then, at that moment, a sort of lower power to act on that mind was born; it gave the cells a MATERIAL power to separate themselves from that and reject it.
From that point of view, it was interesting. And it was after that that there was the turning point I told you about: a turning point in things as a whole, as if something truly decisive had taken place. There was a sort of trusting joy: Ah! Were free from that nightmare.
0 1964-10-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They had a meeting with people from England or Europe, in which they said, Oh, the world needs a new religion, now is the time to give it a new religion. And they wanted to take Sri Aurobindos name and make a new religion out of it! So I answered them, The time of religions is over. They didnt understand, mon petit, they were appalled! I wrote it to them without explanation, the way you fling something to shake things up: The time of religions is over, this is the age of universal spirituality (universal in the sense of containing EVERYTHING and adapting to everything). So they answered me, We dont understand, but anyway (laughing) since you tell us, we accept it. So I added an explanation in the Bulletin (the explanation isnt as strong, but I had to try and make myself understood), I said that religions are based on spiritual experiences brought down to a level where mankind can grasp them, and that the new phase must be that of spiritual experience in its purity, not brought down to a lower level.2
But this too is hard to understand.
0 1964-10-30, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But all the great Schools, the great Ideas, the great Realizations, the great and then the religions thats still lower down; all of it, oh, what childishness!
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.
0 1965-05-08, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And its perfectly true. All our incapacities, all our limitations, all our impossibilities, its this idiotic Matter that chooses them allnot with intelligence, but with a sort of feeling that thats how things must be, that they are naturally like that. An adherencean idiotic adherenceto the mode of the lower nature.
Then there was laughter, tears, a whole revolution, and afterwards all was fine.
--
When people write me long letters (what letters I receive! laments all the time: my health is going wrong, my work is going wrong, my relationships are going wronglaments all the time), and I always see, behind, that Consciousness, luminous, magnificent, marveloussun-filled, you knowexactly as if to say, Whenever will you be cured of that mania! The mania of the tragic and the lower.
Somewhere in the reason, one understandsit isnt that reason doesnt understand, but the reason has no power to make this matter obey.
0 1965-05-19, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats why certain minds have postulated that the creation was the result of an error. But we find all the possible conceptions: the perfect creation, then a fault that introduced the error; the creation itself as a lower movement, which must end since it began; then the conception of the Vedas according to what Sri Aurobindo told us about it, which was a progressive and infinite unfolding or discoveryindefinite and infiniteof the All by Himself. Naturally, all these are human translations. For the moment, as long as we express ourselves humanly, its a human translation; but depending on the initial stand of the human translator (that is, a stand that accepts the primordial error, or the accident in the creation, or the conscious supreme Will since the beginning, in a progressive unfolding), the conclusions or the descents in the yogic attitude are different. There are the nihilists, the Nirvanists and the illusionists, there are all the religions (like Christianity) that accept the devils intervention in one form or another; and then pure Vedism, which is the Supremes eternal unfolding in a progressive objectification. And depending on your taste, you are here or there or here, and there are nuances. But according to what Sri Aurobindo felt to be the most total truth, according to that conception of a progressive universe, you are led to say that, every minute, what takes place is the best possible for the unfolding of the whole. The logic of it is absolute. And I think that all the contradictions can only stem from a more or less pronounced tendency for this or that position, that other position; all the minds that accept the intrusion of a fault or an error and the resulting conflict between forces pulling backward and forces pulling forward, can naturally dispute the possibility. But you are forced to say that for someone who is spiritually attuned to the supreme Will or the supreme Truth, what happens is necessarily, every instant, the best for his personal realizationthis is true in all cases. The unconditioned best can only be accepted by one who sees the universe as an unfolding, the Supreme growing more and more conscious of Himself.
(silence)
0 1966-02-23, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The other2 also was a poet, but he was the son of some very good folks (I think they were from the lower middle class, or maybe even peasants, people from the country), very good folks who had made considerable effort to send their son for studies in Paris. He was a very good student. A boy of the same age: about twenty or twenty-one. A fairly good poet, intelligent, and he was especially interested in occultism. But as for him, he wasnt inwardly formed; it was only his vital consciousness that took over the cat.
But strangely, the look of the cats eyes changed completely.
0 1966-03-04, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And the strange thing the strange thingis that outwardly you go on living automatically according to certain ways of life, which no longer even have the virtue of appearing necessary, which no longer even have the force of being that habits have, but which are accepted and lived almost automatically with the sense (a kind of feeling, of sensation, but its neither feeling nor sensation, its a sort of very subtle perception) that Something, so immense that its undefinable, wants it so. I say wants it so or I say chooses it so, but its wants it so; its a Will that doesnt function like the human will, but that wants it sowants it or sees it or decides it so. And in each thing, there is that luminous, golden, imperative Vibration which is necessarily all-powerful. And it results in a background of perfect well-being of Certitude, which, a little lower down in the consciousness, is expressed as a benevolent and amused smile.
I feel like asking you a question. A little further on, Sri Aurobindo speaks of the worlds having neither beginning nor end, and he says that their creation and destruction is a play of hide and seek with our outward consciousness.2
0 1966-03-19, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its always on a plane of intellectual organization. Intellectual, meaning that it doesnt go lower than the intellectual: its something coming from above which we spread and organize in the terrestrial mind thats where we always meet. Meet isnt exactly the word: its a habit of work. I must be going there very regularly, but when the night is full of lots and lots of things, I dont always remember. But last night, it so happens that I became conscious at that moment; it seems to be a very habitual activity.
Its a place (I have already told you about it1), a place which is very, very vast, very open and luminous, and VERY PEACEFUL. And very pleasant, its a place where one works very well. And there is nothing, no limitsits not a sky, not an earth at all; I cant say there are buildings, there are no buildings, yet one feels one is protected; and yet there are no walls. Now and then one sees a sort of very small shining steel bar (Mother draws a sort of frame that seems to delimit the place), like silver, now and then; and now and then, one feels there are kinds of cupboards that one opens, shelves, but transparent, its all transparent. There are tables, but transparent; theyre solid since one can write on them, but theyre transparent. No object is in the way. But everything is organized for the work. And you are there, you often write; you often come in and we talk, we organize. There are people, too, and we tell them to do this or that.
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 1966-08-03, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And with all this, there is (it almost seems to be the key to the problem, to the understanding), there is a special concentration on the why, the how of death. Years and years ago, when Sri Aurobindo was still here, there came one day a sort of dazzling, imperious revelation: One dies only when one chooses to die. I told Sri Aurobindo, This is what I saw and KNEW. He said to me, It is true. Then I asked him, Always, in every case? He said, Always. Only, one isnt conscious, human beings arent conscious, but thats how it is. But now I am beginning to understand! Some experiences, some examples are given in the details of the bodys inner vibrations, and I see that there is a choice, a choice generally unconscious, but which, in some individuals, can be conscious. I am not talking about sentimental cases, I am talking about the body, the cells accepting disintegration. There is a will like this (Mother raises a finger upward) or a will like that (Mother lowers her finger). The origin of that will lies in the truth of the being, but it seems (and that is something marvelous), it seems that the final decision is left to the choice of the cells themselves.
I am not at all referring to the physical, vital, psychic consciousnesses, not to any of that: I am referring to the consciousness of the cells.
0 1966-08-24, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a very clear indication that they are more under peoples influence than under the influence of the Divine. Because, all in all, it makes the work a little difficult; I always feel as if, instead of the Will from above expressing itself, I am obliged to yield to the outside wills that impose themselves, and nothing in the world makes me more tired than that. I can work without stop if it comes from above; but those things that come and contradict the Rhythm are very tiring, very tiring. I have nervous fatiguenot nervous in the usual sense, because thats perfectly under control, but the nerves themselves are tired. If I can have a minute or two of real rest, it restores order, but with this whole avalanche of lower wills imposing themselves, the nerves start vibrating and hurting. Theyre quite stupid!
***
0 1967-01-18, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. Theres no hurry I dont think there is. Its better if its ready, but The highest part of the consciousness is clearly in favour of the trance being unnecessary. And if the lower part becomes receptive enough in time, it wont be necessary. Or it will be reduced to very little. Just keep the text, thats all, keep it ready (Mother laughs).3
See Agenda III, November 20, 1962. p. 428
0 1967-02-08, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have some interesting things to tell you. Its about this cold. An extraordinary healing power All the phases in their most acute form, with the study of the process, and each phase gone through in a few hours, or a few minutes (depending on what it was). Usually, when you have a cold, you go through one phase, then another (you know how it is), then it goes lower down, then you cough, then All that was gone through quickly, and in two days it was over. And with the whole process, but not the mentalized process, not at all: the vibratory process, showing how the Force comes, acts, and at once Oh, it was very, very interesting, because there was the part played by the inconscient, the part played by conscious reactions, the part played by the will (tremendous, an enormous part), the part played by mental suggestion (tremendous too), and the action of the supreme Vibration. The whole thing in detail, day and night, constantly; to such a point that at moments I stood still, like that, to follow the course. And it lasted (I saw you on Saturday) for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday: those three days.
Its my fault it started; as I told you, I had complained about these sinuses which were a constant nuisance, and there was also that constant inflammation of the mouth and the throat. So it had its effect. I cant say its fully over because there still remains a lot, quite a lot of the old habit, but it came with the intention of changing things.
0 1967-04-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then, at the same time, at the same moment, there came the experience (not an objectified one), the experience that the Will is on a much lower level than That, or rather, much more external. Because the Will sees and doessees AND doeswhereas there, its not seeing AND executing AND doing, or seeing AND being: its simultaneous. Its something above visionabove vision and above will something (silence) something that IS. And at that moment, simultaneously, that is to say, without any possible space (space or time, of course, its quite outside that, because its not a vision that sees itself seeing, its not a perception thats conscious of its perception, not a consciousness conscious of its consciousness), it IS, like that (one could say), such as it will be projected in space and time.
So when we say, To want what God wants or To unite with the divine Will, its our way of looking (gesture from the bottom upwards, or from below to above). And its quite approximate. But there And the marvellous thing is that its not what we in our infirmity may conceive of as a simplification, its really the Whole: the manifested, the non-manifested, the yet-to-be-manifested, everything, but everything the Whole. At that second, when you are there, its omnipotence. Omnipotence, absolute freedom, the unforeseeable, and the existent whole. And that
0 1967-06-14, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are two things that make you die. One (the one that precedes the dramatic human existence) is wear and tear. What does wear and tear come from? From Ignorance, obviously. From Ignorance and the incapacity to renew forces; and that means the whole lower life: it decomposes, recomposes, decomposes again. But its only with animality and the beginning of a mental functioning that (Mother takes on a grandiloquent tone) death comes, such as we conceive it. But that is when the vital element that gives life (what we call life) breaks down. There are innumerable reasons for that, all of which stem from the same source. Of course, taken together, it is the incapacity to follow the movement of progress: the need to remix everything together in order to start all over again. But for those who are beginning to think, that no longer has any reason to exist.
An accident? An accident to the material combination? But what accident, since the heart can stop and start again? Its a question of how long the accident lasts.
0 1967-07-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All that lowers the consciousness, encourages desires and excites the passions runs counter to the true goal of music and ought to be avoided.
It is not a question of designation but of inspiration
--
Here is the person's description: "External awareness had slipped away I heard, saw nothing. I sagged forward as my wife held my head to keep me from pitching from the chair. To the Doctor I had reached clinical death. But for me there was a surge of inner awarenessmagnified, finely focused, brilliant. It is a progressive thing, this death. You feel the toes going first, then the feet, cell by cell, death churning them like waves washing the sands. Now the legs, the cells winking out. Closer now, and the visibility is better. Hands, arms, abdomen and chest, each cell flaring into a supernova, then gone. There is order and system in death, as in all that is life. I must try to control the progression, to save the brain for last so that it may know. Now the neck. The lower jaw. The teeth. How strange to feel one's teeth die, one by one, cell igniting cell, galaxies of cells dying in brilliance. Now, in retrospect, I grope for this other thing. There was something else, something that I felt or experienced or beheld at the very last instant. What was it? I knew it so well when it was there, opening before me, something more beautiful, more gentle, more loving than the mind or imagination of living creature could ever conceive. But it is gone." David Snell, Life Senior Editor (extract from Life, May 29, 1967).
According to Sri Aurobindo, the green light is a dynamic force of the vital which has the power to purify, harmonize or heal.
0 1967-08-26, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now, Sri Aurobindo is there, like that, from here up to there (gesture from the lower part of the chest up to the forehead). So if you are like that when people are near you
Just in front of you.
0 1967-12-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What I mean is that usually (always till now, and more and more so), men establish mental rules according to their conceptions and their ideal, then they apply them (Mother lowers her fist, as if to show the world under the mental grip). And thats absolutely false, arbitrary, unreal, with the result that things revolt, or else waste away and disappear. Its the experience of LIFE ITSELF that must slowly work out rules AS SUPPLE AND VAST as possible, in order that they remain ever progressive. Nothing must be fixed. Thats the immense error of governments: they build a framework and say, Here is what weve established, now we must live under it. So naturally, Life is crushed and prevented from progressing. It is Life itself, developing more and more in a progression towards Light, Knowledge, Power, that must progressively establish rules as general as possible, so as to be extremely supple and capable of changing according to needof changing AS RAPIDLY as habits and needs do.
(silence)
0 1968-01-12, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is an error too to imagine that, although the physical sexual action is to be abandoned, yet some inward reproduction of it is part of the transformation of the sex-centre. The action of the animal sex-energy in Nature is a device for a particular purpose in the economy of the material creation in the Ignorance. But the vital excitement that accompanies it makes the most favourable opportunity and vibration in the atmosphere for the inrush of those very vital forces and beings whose whole business is to prevent the descent of the supramental Light. The pleasure attached to it is a degradation and not a true form of the divine Ananda. The true divine Ananda in the physical has a different quality and movement and substance; self-existent in its essence, its manifestation is dependent only on an inner union with the Divine. You have spoken of Divine Love; but Divine Love, when it touches the physical, does not awaken the gross lower vital propensities; indulgence of them would only repel it and make it withdraw again to the heights from which it is already difficult enough to draw it down into the coarseness of the material creation which it alone can transform. Seek the Divine Love through the only gate through which it will consent to enter, the gate of the psychic being, and cast away the lower vital error.8
Sri Aurobindo
0 1968-04-10, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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 1968-05-15, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(There has been a rumor going about that Mother was "unwell," and indeed she has not seen anyone. When Satprem comes into her room, the lower part of Mother's face is very much swollen, apparently because of an "infection." She has been unable to eat anything.)
You see, its the Vatican.
0 1968-05-29, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If we consider that a child must only learn, know and be aware of what can keep him pure of all lower, crude, violent and degrading movements, then we should eliminate at one stroke the entire contact with the rest of mankind, beginning with all those accounts of wars, murders, conflicts and deceits that are called History; we should eliminate the present contact with family, parents and friends; and we should constantly control the childs contact with all the vital impulses of his own being.
This idea is what led to monastic life shut in a convent, or to ascetic life in the cave or the forest.
0 1968-09-04, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He is a strong man, he looks stocky, with a broad forehead, but the lower part of the face is rather sensual.
Yes, I saw his photo.
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 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 1969-04-09, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You have not stepped into Sri Aurobindo. On the other hand, I quite understand if intellectuals so easily step into Zen! But I do not want to compare merits. With Sri Aurobindo, I am content to see and smile. You have better understood my book, you say it has brought you more than Sri Aurobindo but of course! That does not surprise me, I am afraid: I simply entered the regions of the mentally obvious he neglected, I climbed down a number of degrees. The lines of force you felt are simply the little strings I hung here and there to try and hook people on to the true lines of force that seem to elude them completely, because they see and feel just at the level of the mental slit. But I will tell you again, if you have the least trust in me, that Sri Aurobindo is a tremendous giant and not one word of his is without a full meaning. Some time ago I wanted to have a music lover (a Westerner nurtured on true music like myself, formed in music) listen to a music of genius composed by an Indian; well, this poor boy could make no sense of it! He could not hear! His musical slit was open at one particular level, and he literally could not hear what was abovea true marvel, immense streams of music flowing straight from the Origin of Music.6 For him, it had no structure, it was shapeless musicwhereas I saw, I could see that marvel, I knew where it was coming from, I could touch that world, and as soon as that high musical tension slackened in the least, I instantly felt that it came down to touch a center on a lower level. It was the same thing in Egypt. For weeks I lived in an ecstatic state in Upper Egypt; I was with people who were looking at ruins, seeing beautiful statueswhile for me those statues were living, those places talked to me, those so-called ruins were full of overflowing life.
So what to do?
0 1969-04-16, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One day, I received someone here (it was R., in fact), and the body asked this Consciousness, like that, it asked, How, how to make sure there is no mixture of all the lower movements with this light? Then (I was sitting here), there came down a sort of column wide like this (gesture of about five feet), here (gesture in front of Mother), like a column of light. But it came down IN THE ROOM, mon petit! It wasnt elsewhere it was here. To such a point that I saw it with my own eyes. A light indefinable, dazzling, but I dont know, so tranquil! I cant say, I dont know how to explain so steady, so tranquil. Dazzling. And without any vibrations. And its color indefinable, in the sense that it was neither white nor golden nor It was as if EVERYTHING were there. It cant be described. Wonderful. Then this Consciousness took my consciousness and went like this (gesture in a circle starting from Mother on her left, going through the column of light, then returning to Mother on her right). I felt it [the column of light, when Mothers consciousness went through it]. I felt it, but I didnt see anything [i.e., no shadow]. I didnt see anything, I only saw a slight movement, but It was like a slight movement, but it was the same light.2 Then it went through the column, and came back [into Mother]. And then it took R.s consciousness (same gesture in a circle starting from R., taking her consciousness through the column, and coming back to R.), it went through, and there was an outline [while crossing through the column of light], an outline, and in the place of the head, it was blue, it had become blue [i.e., a shadow in the light]. That was R.s effect: an outline. Then it said something to me (wordlessly, but it was instantly translated into words, in English):
When you stand in the light of the Supreme Consciousness you must not make a shadow.
0 1969-04-30, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At the same time, it showed (oh, its constantly, constantly teaching something), it showed how with people who still have the sense of ego, when they receive a little bit of this Power (that is, when this Power uses them), that causes a sort of panic, and it showed why: the ego becomes tremendous. And that was to show, to make the body clearly understand the necessity of its present state: it has almost no more sense of its existence, as little as possible; that mostly comes back with things that still grate quite materially. But if, at such times, the body can, or has the time to, or knows how to go into this state of then the difficulty vanishes as if by miracle, in a trice. There was even something to show how, this way (Mother presses her two index fingers together, then slightly lowers the index finger of her right hand), there is sufferingthis way, theres suffering and when its like that (Mother raises slightly the index finger of her left hand), it no longer exists. (Mother does the same gesture again): This way, suffering; that way, it no longer exists. So the body may know exactly in which position suffering no longer exists.
That goes on all the time, all the time, night and day, constantly, continuouslyone thing after another, one thing after another. I would have to spend hours to narrate it all.
0 1969-05-21, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding a photograph that was taken just before Pavitra's coffin was closed and lowered into the ground. Satprem was standing near the coffin, to Pavitra's right.)
No news? Nothing from P.L.?
--
I saw the photoshave you seen them? Have you been shown the photos? They took some there. I am telling you about it because there was something interesting. There was a photo with you there (there was A., there was the governor, there was), just when you were all lowering the coffin. And then (you know, this presence of Pavitra hasnt merged with the rest [of Mother]: it has remained there very peacefully, he is very peacefulit hasnt merged), and then, just as I looked at the photo and saw you, there was something like this within (gesture to the heart, like an emotion), I dont know, it was almost like a tenderness, and he was almost happy I cant explain what it is, he was like this: Oh! Satprem
He was really very pleased.
0 1969-07-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At Benares. So I had kept it separately with the photos. I dont remember where it is. I looked for it, I looked a lot. But it remained downstairs, and downstairs I dont know what they did with it. In front of the window I had an armchair in which I used to sit; beside the armchair, there was a sort of small partition screen; in the lower part of the partition, I had put a sort of upright drawer (it was a kind of bag, but fastened), and in it, I had kept letters and those photos (I had kept other things too). And everything has disappeared. I dont even know if that contraption still exists.
It still exists, says Sujata.
0 1969-07-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, I have noticed that Was he dressed? Because I have seen him hardly dressed, with a light, a sort of light (here, for instance [gesture]) hiding the lower part of the body: only a light was visible.
I didnt notice, but it seemed to me that he was bare (or at least bare-chested).
0 1969-07-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But on a much lower level, lasting materializations have been madelike those stones that were thrown in the Guest House, for instance.4
Yes.
--
Yes, but he does that sort of materializationhe does it a lot, that man but he uses the lowest entities of the vital world; he is a man who has disgusting dealings with lower entities.6
Oh?
0 1969-08-20, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw PL. There are two things, first a personal one, then a more general one. He said the last time he saw you, after leaving you he went to the Samadhi, and there he suddenly had an extremely sharp pain in the lower abdomen. But he said it was very strange because it didnt feel like an ordinary pain: it didnt stop him from walking about, but it remained centered therea sharp pain.
As for me, I am afraid those people there may have cast a spell on him.
You think its that? I dont know; when he said that, I felt it was one of the lower centers that was touched by the Light.
(Mother shakes her head) And did that pain stay long?
--
Because its well known that in a general way, when the Light touches the lower centers, sometimes it provokes this violent sensation.
Yes But it didnt hurt him; I mean he felt in pain, but it didnt hurt him.
0 1969-11-01, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ill tell you something. The last time he came, I had him sit down and I thought, Well see. I started the meditation as usual, it was very good and he received the same thing as before. It was exactly the same. Then I invoked (because it was the day of the pujas), I invoked the four Aspects of the Mother. They came. Two of them stood on one side of A.R., two of them on the other side. Then I waited. And after a while, I saw him lower his head, and suddenly, he started coughing1 (which he had never done). Then I stopped. But I didnt ask anything, I gave him a consolation letter, and then this message I had given the other day:
It is in the silence of complete identification with the Divine that true understanding is obtained.
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
--
An eggshell is oblong, not spherical. The egg is really somewhat like a spinning top; so the upper part would be broader and the lower part narrower, with only the staircases. Thats quite possible.
Give me a piece of paper (Mother draws an egg while explaining). So here, all the way down, there would only be the staircases.
0 1970-02-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, but it would take hours to tell it all. Its certainly in the material world. So then (laughing), last night, suddenly I saw two tall figures with human shapes, but all gray and you couldnt make out eyes or nose and so on. They had a human shape and all gray; they were the two doctors (what doctors I dont know), and they were discussing. My body was on the bed (though I think I wasnt sitting, yet I wasnt standing!), and they were discussing together but without words. It looked like kinds of beings in a lower vital world, huge, tall beingstall, strong, formidable. Then one of them, in his demonstration, pointed to my heart with his finger, and his finger touched I let out a scream! A physical scream!
I wasnt happy.
0 1970-10-17, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo writes about the perfection of the lower mind, the psychic prana
Whats that?
0 1971-01-16, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. One of my legs went dead for a long timeits just starting to come back to lifeit was paralyzed. This leg (the left). So naturally everything was difficult. I had an intestinal ulcer, but that didnt last long. It was more serious but it didnt last. An intestinal ulcer. But what ties me down is this leg that became paralyzed. (Mother touches her left leg.) The lower part of it, from the knee to the heel. So naturally you become an imbecile!
Oh!
--
Yes, exactly! But I took it that way too. Not only was it the leg, but the lower part of the leg (Mother points to her feet). This one (Mother touches her right leg) was on the verge of being paralyzed also, but the day it happened, I concentrated with a vengeance, I walked for a long, long time to keep it from being paralyzed. I managed to keep it from being paralyzed; only this one (left one) was stricken.
But the whole body has changed drastically. For example, with respect to food, I have absolutely no appetitenone whatsoever. For a time, I even felt disgusted, a kind of disgust for foodit was very difficult because they wanted to force me to eat just the same.2 To me eating seemed like something miserable, you know, without any meaning, exactly as if I had never eaten in my life. Out of sheer effort I managed to go on taking what is considered indispensable (laughing) to keep the body alive!
0 1971-02-13, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
True liberty is an ascending movement, not yielding to the lower instincts.
True liberty is a divine manifestation.
0 1971-03-10, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As there is a category of facts to which our senses are our best available but very imperfect guides, as there is a category of truths which we seek by the keen but still imperfect light of our reason, so according to the mystic, there is a category of more subtle truths which surpass the reach both of the senses and the reason but can be ascertained by an inner direct knowledge and direct experience. These truths are supersensuous, but not the less real for that: they have immense results upon the consciousness changing its substance and movement, bringing especially deep peace and abiding joy, a great light of vision and knowledge, a possibility of the overcoming of the lower animal nature, vistas of a spiritual self-development which without them do not exist. A new outlook on things arises which brings with it, if fully pursued into its consequences, a great liberation, inner harmony, unificationmany other possibilities besides. These things have been experienced, it is true, by a small minority of the human race, but still there has been a host of independent witnesses to them in all times, climes and conditions and numbered among them are some of the greatest intelligences of the past, some of the worlds most remarkable figures. Must these possibilities be immediately condemned as chimeras because they are not only beyond the average man in the street but also not easily seizable even by many cultivated intellects or because their method is more difficult than that of the ordinary sense or reason? If there is any truth in them, is not this possibility opened by them worth pursuing as disclosing a highest range of self-discovery and world discovery by the human soul? At its best, taken as true, it must be thatat its lowest taken as only a possibility, as all things attained by man have been only a possibility in their earlier stages, it is a great and may well be a most fruitful adventure.
Sri Aurobindo
0 1971-03-17, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I feel I am witnessing a whole display of the subconscient and the lower nature.
(Mother nods her head)
0 1971-04-07, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the lies of the lower nature that are difficult to dispel.
(Mother nods her head) Yes, but that has nothing to do with telling lies.
0 1971-04-14, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, yes I know. I am telling you, day and night, all the time, it was coming like that all the time. But if one couldno not if: one MUST, one must change that into a great victory, petit. Let everything still clinging to the lower part gofinished, let it be swept away for good.
Yes, Mother, I would like that. With your help, yes.
0 1971-06-09, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There isnt any you, there isnt any we must be patient, there isnt any it will come in its own time, there isnt any of all those very reasonable things, they dont exist anymoreits That (Mother lowers her fist sharply), like a sword-blade. Its That. And its That DESPITE EVERYTHING: the Divine. The Divine alone. All that hodgepodge of bad will and revolt and all that (Mother raises an unalterable finger) has to be swept away.
And that which says that we will perish or be destroyed by That is the egoit is Mr. Ego trying to pass himself off as the true being.
But the body has learned that even without ego it is what it is, because it is that by the Divine Will and not at all by the egowe exist by the Divine Will and not by the ego. The ego was a meansa centuries-old means. Centuries old. Now, its worthless, its time is over. It had its time, it had its usefulnessits over, its past, its way past. Now (Mother lowers her fist sharply): consciousness is the Divine; power is the Divine; action is the Divine; individuality is the Divine.
And the body has understood, sensed very well; it has realized and understood, as they say in English, that the sense of being a separate personality is PERFECTLY useless, perfectly useless, it is not in the least indispensable to its existence, its perfectly useless. It exists by another power and another will, which is not individual, not personal: the Divine Will. And it will become what it is supposed to be the day it feels there is no difference between itself and the Divine. Thats all.
All the rest is falsehoodfalse, false, false, and a falsehood that must disappear. There is only ONE reality, there is only ONE life, there is only ONE consciousness (Mother lowers her fist sharply): the Divine.
(Mother looks at Satprem with great intensity, Satprem puts his forehead on Mothers knees)
0 1971-09-01, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It has remained clear-clear, so clear: I see you sitting there, like that, with your back to the light (the sky was behind you). And I dont know why, but that struck me very much, Ive retained the memory of it. Even now I can see the same image. Its strange. We had come to see those people (that really didnt interest me, but), but then, when I saw you: Ah! It was like you know, like something saying to me (Mother lowers her index finger): That one. You understand?
And it has remained with me ever since. There are so many, so many things Ive completely forgotten, but that remains. You dont remember?
--
Its strange. Even now I see it, you know. There was the sky, it was like. You were sitting on a stool or a kind of bench, there were one or two people (I dont know) with you, but I didnt notice them, whereas you, I saw you like this (Mother lowers a finger), like : That one.
Its strange. Its interesting.
0 1971-09-15, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Only the lower part remained.
Then that must be it.
0 1971-10-27, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday I had some experiences that showed me how the usual habit of thinking that things will somehow be taken care of within, that they are being taken care of, is no longer sufficient. Now we need this (Mother lowers her fist forcefully into matter, like a blade of light): like this.
You mean Kali?
--
Because this whole reaction, this whole movement (gesture at ground level) belongs to the lower mind and vital, and its pretty low; but a Pressure from above would make a pulp of all thathow will it come about? I dont know. But one can seeone sees clearly that external circumstances are being brought to the point where things will suddenly crack up. But how? I dont know.
(long silence)
0 1971-11-20, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But hes a man who is enslaved to his lower nature, I think. He has both an intelligence that would enable him to reach very high and a lower nature
Very assertive.
0 1971-11-27, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A victory won over the lower nature will give a deeper and more lasting joy than any outer success.
And then this (Mother hands another paper). This is an experience I had yesterday (Mother smiles with her eyes closed). All of a sudden I saw I saw the world in another way. For a moment, all of a sudden I saw as as the Divine sees the world, you understand? There was no longer the human vision. And I saw something so marvelous. It was so marvelous I cant describe it. Then slowly the human consciousness came back and oh! (Mother takes her forehead in her hands)
0 1971-12-18, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, thats just the problem I wondered about. You say that for me, for instance, the insistence is on personal transformationwell, I saw something (I sawwell, anyway I felt something), I felt that the transformation (of the lower nature, for example) is not really possible unless a sort of radical change of position in the consciousness takes place, or a change of vision.
Yes.
0 1971-12-29b, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Force (Mother lowers her hands in an irresistible gesture), ooh! theres a great change.
(long silence)
--
The fastest way for me was (how shall I put it?) the growing sense of my own nonentitynonexistence. To feel I could do nothing, knew nothing, wanted nothing; but then the WHOLE being filled with its not even an aspiration now, its like this (gesture of surrender, hands open), an inescapable fact: Without the Divine, nothing, nothing I am nothing, I understand nothing, I can do nothing. Without the Divine, nothing. To be like this (same gesture, hands open). And then a Peace a luminous Peace and so powerful! And when I am quiet (I saw it again very interestingly, because before when I gave a meditation to X, there was still an effort, an effort to meditate, an effort to), while this time (Mother sharply lowers her hands), it was compelling. A compelling Presencecompelling. Extraordinary. In fact I wondered what the meditation would be like, if it was going to be like beforenot at all, its like this (Mother sharply lowers her hands).
So, its going well.
0 1972-01-05, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindos Force will exert a pressure this year. I felt it immediately, on the very first of January. A strong pressure from his force, his consciousness, like this (Mother lowers both arms).
(silence)
0 1972-04-12, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I see it in myself; never have I felt the resistance of the lower nature in such a.
Yes, oh yes! It has increased tremendously.
0 1972-05-06, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But there is one essential condition: the egos reign must come to an end. The ego is now the obstacle. The ego must be replaced by the divine consciousness what personally I call divine consciousness. Sri Aurobindo called it supramental, so we can call it supramental to avoid confusion, because as soon as you say Divine, people start thinking of a God, and that spoils everything. It isnt like that. Not like that, it is the descent of the supramental world (Mother slowly lowers her fists), which is not mere imagination (pointing above): it is an ABSOLUTELY material Power. But (smilingly) with no need for any material means.
A world is trying to be born into this world.
0 1972-05-13, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For the individual being [Mother], its peculiar how both extremes coexist: the individual feels like a complete cipher a thing with no strength, no force, no power of decision of any kind, but at the same time (Mother slowly lowers her fist), through that individuality such a tremendous Action is taking place! And totally unexpected, you know. Both collective and individual actions, which seem absolutely miraculous because they are like this (same gesture)all-powerful. And the two extremes are there AT THE SAME TIME.
Ive never had such a feeling of nothingnessnothingness. Nothing. I am nothing anymore. But at the same time, theres the vision, the perception of an absolutely irresistible Force (Mother lowers her fist). Its as if the individual had to be nonexistent first in order to become a real instrument.
Yes, I too often have that feeling of complete void.
0 1972-05-27, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The old methods, the methods that even yesterday were effective and powerful, all seem nonexistent. Yet, side by side, when that Force comes, I concretely feel (and I have proof, a factual proof) that a simple expression of will, or even a simple vision of something is (Mother lowers her hands) all-powerful. Materially so. Some people on their deathbeds are returned to life; some healthy people, brrt, suddenly pass awayto that extent, you know. Circumstances that seemed inextricable find marvelous solutionspeople themselves say its miraculous. Its not miraculous to me, its very simple: just like this (Mother lowers a finger). But its INDISPUTABLE. Indisputable and new in the world. No longer the old method, no longer a mental concentration or a mental vision, none of that (Mother lowers a finger): a fact.
A fact.
0 1972-05-31, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
ALL appearances are illusions theres something something which for me is becoming increasingly concrete and tremendously powerful: the Lords Will. This conscious will is not like ours, its something like this (Mother lowers her outstretched arms). Inexpressible. Its unlike anything we know. And it is a formidable willformidable, you understand, in the sense that all appearances, all contradictions, all human wills are zero: THAT alone (same, powerful gesture of lowering both arms). Thats it, THAT is what I feel going through me, as if I bathed in it. Exactly like that.
There isnt any theres nothing here (Mother touches her forehead), its empty, empty, completely emptyhollow. Hollow. I dont think. There isnt any I, or any . Its almost like an empty shell, yet with that formidable Force (vast, powerful gesture, arms outstretched).
0 1973-01-20, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Tibet was locked in a lower form of Tantrism; the Chinese probably came to free them from their imprisonment
Yes.
in that lower Tantrism. When that cleansing is over (with much damage, unfortunately), maybe theyll be free again?
(Mother nods her head)
02.01 - A Vedic Story, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Fire then is the energy of consciousness secreted in the heart of things. It is that which moves the creation upward, produces the unfolding evolution that is history, both individual and collective. It is kindled, it increases in volume and strength and purity and effectiveness, as and when a lower element is offered and submitted to a higher reality and this higher reality impinges upon the lower one (which is what the rubbing of the arai or the pressing of the soma symbolises); the limitation is broken, the small enters into and becomes the vast, the crooked is straightened and leng thened out, what was hidden becomes manifest. This is described as the progression of the sacrifice (adhvaraadvanceon the path). That is also the victorious battle waged against the dark forces of Ignorance. The goal, the purpose is the descent and manifestation of the gods here upon earth in human vehicles.
But this Fire is not normally available. It is lost, imbedded in the thick petrified folds of unconsciousness and inconscience. Man's soul is not an apparent reality. It has to be found out, called forth, brought to the front. Even so, in the normal consciousness, the soul, the divine fire is a flickering, twinkling, hesitating spark; it is not sure of itself, not certain of its destiny. Yet when the time is ripe and the call comes, the gods, the luminous forces from above descend with all their insistence and meet the hidden godhead: Agni is reminded of his work and destiny which nothing can frustrate or cancel. He has to consent and undertake his sacrificial labour.
--
One interesting point in the story is the choice of the gods who formed the search party. They were Mitra, Varuna and Yama. Varuna is the god of the vast consciousness (Brihat), the wide universal, the Infinite. His eye naturally penetrates everywhere and nothing can escape his notice. Mitra is harmony and rhythm of the infinity. Every individual element he embraces and he holds them all together in loving unionhis is the friendly tie of comradeship with all. Finally Yama is the master of the lower regions, the underworld of physical and material consciousness, where precisely Agni has taken refuge. Agni is within the jurisdiction of this trinity and it devolves upon them to tackle the truant god.
There is another point which requires clarification. As a reason for his nervousness and flight he alleges that greater people who preceded him had attempted the work, but evidently failed in the attempt; so how can he, a younger novice, dare to go the same way? Putting the imagery back to its psychological bearing, one play explain that the predecessors refer to the deities of the physical, vital and mental consciousness who ruled the earth before the emergence of the psychic or soul consciousness. It is precisely because of the failure or insufficiency of these anteriorin the evolutionary movementand inferior gods that Agni's service is being requisitioned. Mythologically also a parallelism is found in the Greek legends where it is said that the Olympian godsZeus and his companywere a younger generation that replaced, after of course a bloody warfare, their ancestors, the more ancient race of Kronos, the Titans. Titans were the Asuras and Rakshasas who reigned upon earth before the advent of the mentalsattwichuman being, Manu, as referred here.
02.01 - Our Ideal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Here comes the second cardinal principle in Sri Aurobindo's vision of the reality, viz, that an inferior formulation of the Spirit, an involute on a lower plane is not essentially or truly, even in its outer and dynamic nature and character, a mere temporary or by-the-way reality, an epiphenomenon; its sole function is not simply to impede, diminish and obscure the real reality so that it has to be gradually rejected and eliminated on the way back to the source. As a matter of fact, an inferior formulation has a double function; in the line of descent it limits, obscures, deviates and in the end falsifies the higher reality; at the same time, however, it concretises, energises, incarnates what it obscures. But in the ascending line, that is to say, in the movement of reversal from the inferior to the superior, the movement need not be always that of disincarnation and dissolution, it may be that of purification and illumination and fulfilment. The analogy will not be, then, that of Matter being dematerialised into pure energy but that of Matter being transformed into a radiant substance, not losing itself in the process of radiation, being wholly made of the undying luminous stuff.
Such a movement of transforming evolution is not merely a possibility or a probability: it is a fact of Nature. Indeed, natural evolution means nothing less than that. First of all, evolution means the reversibility of Nature; for, it is the backward movement of an involutionary process. We have said that the supreme truth and realitysat-cit-ananda, as it is calledmultiplied and concretised itself gradually through various steps and stages of a diminishing power of expression or an increasing entropy of self-concealment: the main grades being the Supermind, the Overmind, the Higher Mind, the Mind, Life and lastly the body or Matter. Having arrived at the extreme end that Matter represents,the farthest apparently from the original source, the movement turns round and seeks to go up the ladder through the same gradations it has traversed. But this process of reversal is not merely a resolution and dissolution, it is a process of greater fulfilment and synthetisation, of sublimation as well as of integration.
--
Even of this descent of the Divine Consciousness, however, there are varying degrees, in accordance with the nature of the work it has got to do. In the inferior ranges of evolutionary Nature the lower hemisphere, as it is called, of Mind, Life and MatterDescent is partial and indirect and relative, the aim being a more or less reconditioning of Matter, not its thorough transformation: this becomes possible when Nature has risen to Mind and has prepared herself to take the further, the crucial leap into the higher hemisphere, the sphere of dynamic spiritual truth.
Nature's attempt at the transcendence of Mind opens the door for a more and more direct and integral descent of the Divine Consciousness, and in its highest degrees the degrees of the Supermind the Descent means a reversal of the normal values, a swift and total transfiguration of earthly life into the mould of supernal spiritual realities. An absolute degree of the Descent, an irruption of the Divine Consciousness in its supreme purity and fullness becomes inevitable in the end: for that alone can bring about the fulfilment that Nature ultimately has in view. Matter will yield completely, and life power too, only to the direct touch and embrace of the Divine's own self.
02.01 - The World War, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When man was a dweller of the forest,a jungle man,akin to his forbear the ape, his character was wild and savage, his motives and impulsions crude, violent, egoistic, almost wholly imbedded in, what we call, the lower vital level; the light of the higher intellect and intelligence had not entered into them. Today there is an uprush of similar forces to possess and throw man back to a similar condition. This new order asks only one thing of man, namely, to be strong and powerful, that is to say, fierce, ruthless, cruel and regimented. Regimentation can be said to be the very characteristic of the order, the regimentation of a pack of wild dogs or wolves. A particular country, nation or raceit is Germany in Europe and, in her wake, Japan in Asiais to be the sovereign nation or master race (Herrenvolk); the rest of mankindo ther countries and peoplesshould be pushed back to the status of servants and slaves, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. What the helots were in ancient times, what the serfs were in the mediaeval ages, and what the subject peoples were under the worst forms of modern imperialism, even so will be the entire mankind under the new overlordship, or something still worse. For whatever might have been the external conditions in those ages and systems, the upward aspirations of man were never doubted or questioned they were fully respected and honoured. The New Order has pulled all that down and cast them to the winds. Furthermore in the new regime, it is not merely the slaves that suffer in a degraded condition, the masters also, as individuals, fare no better. The individual here has no respect, no freedom or personal value. This society or community of the masters even will be like a bee-hive or an ant-hill; the individuals are merely functional units, they are but screws and bolts and nuts and wheels in a huge relentless machinery. The higher and inner realities, the spontaneous inspirations and self-creations of a free soulart, poetry, literaturesweetness and light the good and the beautifulare to be banished for ever; they are to be regarded as things of luxury which enervate the heart, diminish the life-force, distort Nature's own virility. Man perhaps would be the worshipper of Science, but of that Science which brings a tyrannical mastery over material Nature, which serves to pile up tools and instruments, arms and armaments, in order to ensure a dire efficiency and a grim order in practical life.
Those that have stood against this Dark Force and its over-shadowing menaceeven though perhaps not wholly by choice or free-will, but mostly compelled by circumstancesyet, because of the stand they have taken, now bear the fate of the world on their shoulders, carry the whole future of humanity in their march. It is of course agreed that to have stood against the Asura does not mean that one has become sura, divine or godlike; but to be able to remain human, human instruments of the Divine, however frail, is sufficient for the purpose, that ensures safety from the great calamity. The rule of life of the Asura implies the end of progress, the arrest of all evolution; it means even a reversal for man. The Asura is a fixed type of being. He does not change, his is a hardened mould, a settled immutable form of a particular consciousness, a definite pattern of qualities and activitiesgunakarma. Asura-nature means a fundamental ego-centricism, violent and concentrated self-will. Change is possible for the human being; he can go downward, but he can move upward too, if he chooses. In the Puranas a distinction has been made between the domain of enjoyment and the domain of action. Man is the domain of action par excellence; by him and through him evolve new and fresh lines of activity and impulsion. The domain of enjoyment, on the other hand, is where we reap the fruits of our past Karma; it is the result of an accumulated drive of all that we have done, of all the movements we have initiated and carried out. It is a status of being where there is only enjoyment, not of becoming where there can be development and new creation. It is a condition of gestation, as it were; there is no new Karma, no initiative or change in the stuff of the consciousness. The Asuras are bhogamaya purusha, beings of enjoyment; their domain is a cumulus of enjoyings. They cannot strike out a fresh line of activity, put forth a new mode of energy that can work out a growth or transformation of nature. Their consciousness is an immutable entity. The Asuras do not mend, they can only end. Man can certainly acquire or imbibe Asuric force or Asura-like qualities and impulsions; externally he can often act very much like the Asura; and yet there is a difference. Along with the dross that soils and obscures human nature, there is something more, a clarity that opens to a higher light, an inner core of noble metal which does not submit to any inferior influence. There is this something More in man which always inspires and enables him to break away from the Asuric nature. Moreover, though there may be an outer resemblance between the Asuric qualities of man and the Asuric qualities of the Asura, there is an intrinsic different, a difference in tone and temper, in rhythm and vibration, proceeding as they do, from different sources. However cruel, hard, selfish, egocentric man may be, he knows, he admitsat times, if hot always, at heart, if not openly, subconsciously, if not wholly consciously that such is not the ideal way, that these qualities are not qualifications, they are unworthy elements and have to be discarded. But the Asura is ruthless, because he regards ruthlessness as the right thing, as the perfect thing, it is an integral part of his swabhava and swadharma, his law of being and his highest good. Violence is the ornament of his character.
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The next steps, farther down or away, arrive when the drive towards differentiation and multiplication gathers momentum becomes accentuated, and separation and isolation increase in degree and emphasis. The lines of individuation fall more and more apart from each other, tending to form closed circles, each confining more and more exclusively to itself, stressing its own particular and special value and function, in contradistinction to or even against other lines. Thus the descent or fall from the Supermind leads, in the first instance, to the creation or appearance of the Overmind. It is the level of consciousness where the perfect balance of the One and the Many is disturbed and the emphasis begins to be laid on the many. The source of incompatibility between the two just starts here as if Many is notOne and One is not Many. It is the beginning of Ignorance, Avidya, Maya. Still in the higher hemisphere of the Overmind, the sense of unity is yet maintained, although there is no longer the sense of absolute identity of the two; they are experienced as complementaries, both form a harmony, a harmony as of different and distinct but conjoint notes. The Many has come forward, yet the unity is also there supporting it-the unity is an immanent godhead, controlling the patent reality of the Many. It is in the lower hemisphere of the Overmind that unity is thrown into the background half-submerged, flickering, and the principle of multiplicity comes forward with all insistence. Division and rivalry are the characteristic marks of its organisation. Yet the unity does not disappear altogether, only it remains very much inactive, like a sleeping partner. It is not directly perceived and envisaged, not immediately felt but is evoked as reminiscence. The Supermind, then, is the first crystallisation of the Infinite into individual centres, in the Overmind these centres at the outset become more exclusively individualised and then jealously self-centred.
The next step of Descent is the Mind where the original unity and identity and harmony are disrupted to a yet greater degree, almost completely. The self-delimitation of consciousness which is proper to the Supermind and even to the Overmind, at least in its higher domainsgives way to self-limitation, to intolerant egoism and solipsism. The consciousness withdraws from its high and wide sweep, narrows down to introvert orbits. The sense of unity in the mind is, at most, a thing of idealism and imagination; it is an abstract notion, a supposition and a deduction. Here we enter into the very arcana of Maya, the rightful possession of Ignorance. The individualities here have become totally isolated and independent and mutually conflicting lines of movement. Hence the natural incapacity of mind, as it is said, to comprehend more than one object simultaneously. The Super mind and, less absolutely, the Overmind have a global and integral outlook: they can take in each one in its purview all at once the total assemblage of things, they differentiate but do not divide the Supermind not at all, the Overmind not categorically. The Mind has not this synthetic view, it proceeds analytically. It observes its object by division, taking the parts piecemeal, dismantling them, separating them, and attending to each one at a time. And when it observes it fixes itself on one point, withdrawing its attention from all the rest. If it bas to arrive at a synthesis, it can only do so by collating, aggregating and summing. Mental consciousness is thus narrowly one pointed: and in narrowing itself, being farther away from the source it becomes obscurer, more and more outward gazing (parci khni) and superficial. The One Absolute in its downward march towards multiplicity, fragmentation and partiality loses also gradually its subtlety, its suppleness, its refinement, becomes more and more obtuse, crude, rigid and dense.
Between the Overmind and the Mind proper, varying according to the degree of immixture of the two, according to the degree of descent and of emergence of one and the other respectively, there are several levels of consciousness of which three main ones have been named and described by Sri Aurobindo. The first one nearest to the Overmind and the least contaminated by the Mind is pure Intuition; next, the intermediary one is called the Illumined Mind, and last comes the Higher Mind. They are all powers of the Overmind functioning in the Mind. The higher ranges are always more direct, intense, synthetic, dynamic than the lower ones where consciousness is s lower, duller, more uncertain, more disintegrated. The lower the consciousness descends the more veiled it becomes, losing more and more the directness, the sureness, the intensity and force and the synthetic unity native to the highest ranges of our consciousness and being.
A further descent into obscurity occurs when consciousness passes from Mind to Life. Darkness is almost visible here: there is a greater withdrawal on the part of each unit from its surrounding reality, a narrower concentration upon one's own separative existenceshades of the prison-house have gathered close around. The light, already dulled and faint in the mind, has become a lurid glare here. Passion has arisen and desire and hunger and battle and combat.
Here also in the vital three ranges can be distinguished the lower becoming more and more turbid and turbulent and fierce or more and more self-centred and selfish. These levels can best be seen by their impact on our vital being and formations there. The first, the highest one, the meeting or confluence of the Mind and the Vital is the Heart, the centre of emotion, the knot of the external or instrumental vehicle, of the frontal consciousness, behind which is born and hides the true individualised consciousness, the psyche. The mid-region is the Higher Vital consisting of larger (egoistic) dynamisms, such as high ambition, great enterprise, heroic courage, capacity for work, adventure, masterfulness, also such movements as sweeping violences, mighty hungers, and intense arrogances. The physical seat of this movement is, as perhaps the Tantras would say, the domain ranging between the heart and the navel. lower down ranges the lower Vital which consists of small desires, petty hankerings, blind cravingsall urges and impulses that are more or less linked up with the body and move to gross physical satisfactions.
But always the Consciousness is driving towards a yet greater disintegration and fragmentation, obscuration and condensation of self-oblivion. The last step in the process of transmutation or involution is Matter where consciousness has wiped itself out or buried itself within so completely and thoroughly that it has become in its outward form totally dark, dense, hard, pulverised into mutually exclusive grains. The supreme luminous Will of Consciousness in its gradual descent and self obliteration finally ends in a rigid process of mere mechanised drive.
--
Physical Science speaks of irreversibility and entropy in Nature's process. That is to say, it is stated that Nature is rushing down and running down: she is falling irrevocably from a higher to an ever lower potential of energy. The machine that Nature is, is driven by energy made available by a break-up of parts and particles constituting its substance. This katabolic process cannot be stopped or retraced; it can end only when the break-up ceases at dead equilibrium. You cannot lead the river up the channel to its source, it moves inevitably, unceasingly towards the sea in which it exhausts itself and finds its last repose andextinction. But whatever physical Science may say, the science of the spirit declares emphatically that Nature's process is reversible, that a growing entropy can be checked and countermanded: in other words, Nature's downward current resulting in a continual loss of energy and a break-up of substance is not the only process of her activity. This aspect is more than counterbalanced by another one of upward drive and building up, of re-energisation and re-integration. Indeed, evolution, as we have explained it, is nothing but such a process of synthesis and new creation.
Evolution, which means the return movement of consciousness, consists, in its apparent and outward aspect, of two processes, or rather two parallel lines in a single process. First, there is the line of sublimation, that is to say, the lower purifies and modifies itself into the higher; the denser, the obscurer, the baser mode of consciousness is led into and becomes the finer, the clearer, the nobler mode. Thus it is that Matter rises into Life, Life into Psyche and Mind, Mind into Overmind and Supermind. Now this sublimation is not simply a process of refinement or elimination, something in the nature of our old Indian nivtti or pratyhra, or what Plotinus called epistrophe (a turning back, withdrawal or reabsorption): it includes and is attended by the process of integration also. That is to say, as the lower rises into the higher, the lower does not cease to exist thereby, it exists but lifted up into the higher, infused and modified by the higher. Thus when Matter yields Life, Matter is not destroyed: it means Life has appeared in Matter and exists in and through Matter and Matter thereby has attained a new mode and constitution, for it is no longer merely a bundle of chemical or mechanical reactions, it is instinct with life, it has become organic matter. Even so, when Lire arrives at Mind, it is not dissolved into Mind but both Life and Matter are taken up by the mental stuff, life becomes dynamic sentience and Matter is transformed into the grey substance of the brain. Matter thus has passed through a first transformation in Life and a second transformation in Mind; it awaits other transformations on other levels beyond Mind. Likewise, Life has passed through a first transformation in Mind and there are stages in this transformation. In the plant, Life is in its original pristine mode; in the animal, it has become sentient and centralised round a rudimentary desire-soul; in man, life-force is taken up by the higher mind and intelligence giving birth to idealism and ambition, dynamisms of a forward-looking purposive will.
We have, till now, spoken of the evolution of consciousness as a movement of ascension, consisting of a double process of sublimation and integration. But ascension itself is only one line of a yet another larger double process. For along with the visible movement of ascent, there is a hidden movement of descent. The ascent represents the pressure from below, the force of buoyancy exerted by the involved and secreted consciousness. But the mere drive from below is not sufficient all by itself to bring out or establish the higher status. The higher status itself has to descend in order to be manifest. The urge from below is an aspiration, a yearning to move ever upward and forward; but the precise goal, the status to be arrived at is not given there. The more or less vague and groping surge from below is canalised, if assumes a definite figure and shape, assumes a local habitation and a name when the higher descends at the crucial moment, takes the lower at its peak-tide and fixes upon it its own norm and form. We have said that all the levels of consciousness have been createdloosened outby a first Descent; but in the line of the first Descent the only level that stands in front at the outset is Matter all the other levels are created no doubt but remain invisible in the background, behind the gross veil of Matter. Each status stands confined, as it were, to its own region and bides its time when each will be summoned to concretise itself in Matter. Thus Life was already there on the plane of Life even when it did not manifest itself in Matter, when mere Matter, dead Matter was the only apparent reality on the material plane. When Matter was stirred and churned sufficiently so as to reach a certain tension and saturation, when it was raised to a certain degree of maturity, as it were, then Life appeared: Life appeared, not because that was the inevitable and unavoidable result of the churning, but because Life descended from its own level to the level of Matter and took Matter up in its embrace. The churning, the development in Matter was only the occasion, the condition precedent. For, however much one may shake or churn Matter, whatever change one may create in it by a shuffling and reshuffling of its elements, one can never produce Life by that alone. A new and unforeseen factor makes its appearance, precisely because it comes from elsewhere. It is true all the planes are imbedded, submerged, involved in the complex of Matter; but, in point of fact, all planes are involved in every other plane. The appearance or manifestation of a new plane is certainly prepared, made ready to the last the last but onedegree by the urge of the inner, the latent mode of consciousness that is to be; still the actualisation, the bursting forth happens only when the thing that has to manifest itself descends, the actual form and pattern can be imprinted and established by that alone. Thus, again, when Life attains a certain level of growth and maturity, a certain tension and orientationa definite vector, so to say, in the mathematical languagewhen it has, for example, sufficiently organised itself as a vehicle of the psychic element of consciousness, then it buds forth into Mind, but only when the Mind has descended upon it and into it. As in the previous stage, here also Life cannot produce Mind, cannot develop into Mind by any amount of mechanical or chemical operations within itself, by any amount of permutation and combination or commutation and culture of its constituent elements, unless it is seized on by Mind itself. After the Mind, the next higher grade of consciousness shall come by the same method and process, viz. first by an uplifting of the mental consciousnessa certain widening and deepening and katharsis of the mental consciousness and then by a descent, gradual or sudden, of the level or levels that lie above it.
This, then, is the nature of creation and its process. First, there is an Involution, a gradual foreshorteninga disintegration and concretisation, an exclusive concentration and self-oblivion of consciousness by which the various levels of diminishing consciousness are brought forth from the plenary light of the one supreme Spirit, all the levels down to the complete eclipse in the unconsciousness of the multiple and disintegrate Matter. Next, there is an Evolution, that is to say, embodiment in Matter of all these successive states, appearing one by one from the down most to the topmost; Matter incarnates, all other states contri bute to the incarnation and uphold it, the higher always transforming the lower in a new degree of consciousness.
Creation, the universe in its activity, is thus not simply a meaningless play, a pointless fancy. It has a purpose, an end, a goal, a fulfilment, and it follows naturally a definite pattern of process. The goal is the concretisation, the materialisation (which includes, of course, vitalisation and mentalisation) of the Spirit and the spiritual values. It means the establishment of divine names and forms in terrestrial individuals leading a divine life, individually and collectively here below.
--
The next stage of devolution is the Mind proper. There or perhaps even before, on the lower reaches of the Overmind, the gods have become all quite separate, self-centred, each bounded in his own particular sphere and horizon. The overmind gods the true godsare creators in a world of balanced or harmoniously held difference; they are powers that fashion each a special fulfilment, enhancing one another at the same time (parasparam bhvayantah). Between the Overmind and the Mind there is a class of lesser godsthey have been called formateurs; they do not create in the strict sense of the term, they give form to what the anterior gods have created and projected. These form-makers that consolidate the encasement, fix definitely the image, have most probably been envisaged in the Indian dhynamrtis. But in the Mind the gods become still more fixed and rigid, stereotyped; the mental gods inspire exclusive systems, extreme and abstract generalisations, theories and principles and formulae that, even when they seek to force and englobe all in their cast-iron mould, can hardly understand or tolerate each other.
Mind is the birth-place of absolute division and exclusivismit is the own home of egoism. Egoism is that ignorant modea twist or knot of consciousness which cuts up the universal unity into disparate and antagonistic units: it creates isolated, mutually exclusive whorls in the harmonious rhythm and vast commonalty of the one consciousness or conscious existence. The Sankhya speaks of the principle of ego coming or appearing after the principle of vastness (mahat). The Vast is the region above the Mind, where the unitary consciousness is still intact; with the appearance of the Mind has also appeared an intolerant self-engrossed individualism that culminates, as its extreme and violent expression, in the asuraAsura, the mentalised vital being.
The Asura or the Titan stands where consciousness descends from the Mind into the Vital or Life-Force. He is the personification of ambition and authority and arrogance, he is the intolerant and absolute self-seekerhe is Daitya, the son of division. The Asura belongs to what we call the Higher Vital; but lower down in the Mid Vital, made wholly of unmixed life impulses, appear beings that are still less luminous, less controlled, more passionate, vehement and violent in their self-regarding appetite. They are the Rakshasas. If the Asura is perverse power, the Rakshasa is insatiate hunger.
All the ancient legends about a principle and a personalityof Denial and Ignorance, of an Everlasting Nayrefer to this fact of a descending consciousness, a Fall. The Vedantic my, spoken of sometimes as the Dark Mother, seems to be the personification of the lower Overmind, Jehovah and Satan of the Hebrews, Olympians and Titans of the Greeks, Ahriman and Ahura Mazda of old Iran, the sons of Diti and Aditi the Indian Puranas speak of, are powers and personalities of consciousness when it has descended entirely into the mind and the vital where the division is complete. These lower reaches have completely lost the unitary consciousness; still there are beings even here that have succeeded in maintaining it as a memory or an aspiration, although in a general way the living reality of the oneness is absent. It is significant that the term asura which came to mean in classical and mythological ages a + sura, not-god, the Titan, had originally a different connotation and etymology, asu + ra, one having force or strength, and was used as a general attri bute of all the gods. The degradation in the sense of the word is a pointer to the spiritual Fall: Satan was once Lucifer, the bringer or bearer of light. We may mention in this connection that these beings of which we are speaking, dwelling in unseen worlds, are of two broad categories(1) beings that are native to each plane and immutably confined and bound to that plane, and (2) those that extend their existence through many or all planes and assume on each plane the norm and form appropriate to that plane. But this is a problem of individual destiny with which we are not concerned at present.
We were speaking of the descent into the Vital, the domain of dynamism, desire and hunger. The Vital is also the field of some strong creative Powers who follow, or are in secret contact with the line of unitary consciousness, who are open to influences from a deeper or higher or subtler consciousness. Along with the demons there is also a line of daimona, guardian angels, in the hierarchy of vital beings. Much of what is known as aesthetic or artistic creation derives its spirit from this sphere. Many of the gods of beauty and delight are denizens of this heaven. Gandharvas and Kinnaras are here, Dionysus and even Apollo perhaps (at least in their mythological aspectin their occult reality they properly belong to the Overmind which is the own home of the gods), many of the angels, seraphs and cherubs dwell here. In fact, the mythological heaven for the most part can be located in this region.
All this is comprised within what we term the Higher or the Middle Vital. In the lower vital, we have said, consciousness has become still more circumscribed, dark, ignorantly obstinate, disparately disintegrated. It is the seed-bed of lust and cruelty, of all that is small and petty and low and mean, all that is dirt and filth. It is here that we place the picas, djinns, ghouls and ghosts, and vampires, beings who possess the possessed.
Further down in the scale where life-force touches Matter, where Life is about to precipitate as Matter, appear beings of a still lower order, of smaller dimensions and magnitudes Imps, elfs, pixies, goblins, gnomes, fairies or dryads and naiads. There are even creatures or entities so close to Matter that they come into being and pass away with the building up and breaking of a definite pattern of material organisation. This individualisation of consciousness as beings or persons seems to disappear altogether when we enter the strictly material plane. There is here only an agglomeration of uniform dead particles.
We have thus far followed the course of the break-up of Personality, from the original one supreme Person, through a continuous process of multiplication and disintegration, of parcellation and crystallisation into more and more small self-centred units, until we reach the final pulverisation as purely material physico-chemical atoms. Now with the reversal of consciousness, in its return movement, we have again a process of growth and building up of individuality and personality, with the awakening and ascension of consciousness from level to level on the physical plane and in the material embodiment, there occurs too an evolution of the personal aspect of the reality.
We say that at the lowest level of involution, in Matter, where consciousness has zero magnitude, there is no personality or individuality. It is all a mechanical play of clashing particles that constantly fly apart or come together according to the force or the resultant of forces that act upon them. An individuality means a bounded form as its basis of reaction and a form that tends to persist and grow by assimilation; it means a centre of a definite manner and pattern of reaction. Individuality, in its literal sense, designates that which cannot be divided (in + dividus). Division is only another name for death for the particular entity. Even in the case of cell-division or self-division of some lower organisms, in the first instance the original living entity disappears and, secondly, the succeeding: entities, created by division, always re-form themselves again into integral wholes. A material particle, on the other hand, is divisible ad infinitum. We have been able to divide even an atom (which means also that which cannot be divided) to such an extent as to reduce it to a mere charge of energy, nay, we have sublimated it to a geometrical point. Individualisation starts with the coming of life. It is a ganglion of life-force round which a particular system of action and reaction weaves itself. The characteristic of individuality is that each one is unique, each relates itself to others and to the environment in its own way, each expresses itself, puts forth its energy, receives impacts from outside in a manner that distinguishes it from others. It is true this character of individuality is not very pronounced in the earlier or rudimentary forms of life. Still it is there: it grows and develops slowly along the ladder of evolution. Only in the higher animals it attains a clear and definite norm and form.
In man something else or something more happens. For man is not merely an individual, he is also a personality. He is the outcome of a twofold growth and revelation. He has outgrown the vital and climbed into Mind, and he has dived into the Heart and touched his inner soul, his true psychic centre. It is this soul that is the source of his personality.
--
The supramentalisation of the personality which means the perfect divinisation of the personality is yet not the final end of Nature's march. Her path is endless, since she follows the trail of infinity. There are still higher modes of consciousness, or, if they cannot properly be called higher, other modes of consciousness that lie in waiting to be brought out and placed and established in the front of terrestrial evolution. Only, supramentalisation means the definite crossing over from Ignorance, from every trace and shadow of Ignorance, into the abiding and perennial Knowledge and Freedom. Thenceforward the course of Nature's evolution may be more of the kind of expression than ascension; for, beyond the Supermind it is very difficult to speak of a higher or lower order of consciousness. Everything thereafter is in the full perfect light the difference comes in the mode or manner or stress of expression. However, that is a problem with which we are not immediately concerned.
We have spoken of four lines of Descent in the evolution and organisation of consciousness. There yet remains a fifth line. It is more occult. It is really the secret of secrets, the Supreme Secret. It is the descent of the Divine himself. The Divine, the supreme Person himself descends, not indirectly through emanations, projections, partial or lesser formulations, but directly in his own plenary self. He descends not as a disembodied force acting as a general movement, possessing, at the most, other objects and persons as its medium or instrument, but in an embodied form and in the fullness of his consciousness. The Indian word for Divine Incarnation, avatra, literally means he who has descended. The Divine comes down himself as a terrestrial being, on this material plane of ours, in order to raise the terrestrial and material Nature to a new status in her evolutionary courseeven so He incarnated as the Great Boar who, with his mighty tusk, lifted a solid mass of earth from out of the waters of the Deluge. It is his purpose to effect ascension of consciousness, a transmutation of being, to establish a truly New Order, a New Dharma, as it is termed dharmasamsthpanrthya. On the human level, he appears as a human person for two purposes. First of all, he shows, by example, how the ascension, the transmutation is to be effected, how a normal human being can rise from a lower status of consciousness to a higher one. The Divine is therefore known as the Lord of Yoga for Yoga is the means and method by which one consciously uplifts oneself, unites oneself with the Higher Reality. The embodied Divine is the ideal and pattern: he shows the path, himself walks the path and man can follow, if he chooses. The Biblical conception of the Son of GodGod made fleshas the intermediary between the human and the Divine, declaring, I am the Way and the Goal, expresses a very similar truth. The Divine takes a body for anotheroccultreason also. It is this: Matter or terrestrial life cannot be changedchanged radically, that is to say, transformed by the pure spiritual consciousness alone, lying above or within; also it is not sufficient to bring about only that much of change in terrestrial life which can be effected by the mere spiritual force acting in a general way. It looks as if the physical transformation which is what is meant by an ascension or emergence in the evolutionary gradient were possible only by a physical impact embodying and canalising the spiritual force: it is with his physical body that the Divine Incarnation seems to push and lift up physical Nature to a new and higher status.
The occult seers declare that we are today on the earth at such a crisis of evolution. Earth and Man and man's earthly life need to be radically transfigured. The trouble and turbulence, the chaos and confusion that are now overwhelming this earth, indicate the acute tension before the release, the dtente of a NEW MANIFESTATION.
02.02 - Rishi Dirghatama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is again a sphinx puzzle indeed. But what is the meaning? The universe, the creation has its fundamental truth in a Trinity: Agni (the Fire-god) upon earth, Vayu (the Wind-god) in the middle regions and in heaven the Sun. In other words, breaking up the symbolism we may say that the creation is a triple reality, three principles constitute its nature. Matter, Life and Consciousness or status, motion and Light. This triplicity however does not exhaust the whole of the mystery. For the ultimate mystery is imbedded within the heart of the third brother, for our rishis saw there the Universal Divine Being and his seven sons. In our familiar language we may say it is the Supreme Being, God himself (Purushottama) and his seven lines of self-manifestation. We have often heard of the seven worlds or levels of being and consciousness, the seven chords of the Divine Music. In more familiar terms we say that body and life and mind form the lower half of the cosmic reality and its upper half consists of Sat-Chit-Ananda (or Satya- Tap as-Jana). And the link, the nodus that joins the two spheres is the fourth principle (Turya), the Supermind, Vijnana. Such is the vision of Rishi Dirghatama, its fundamental truth in a nutshell. To know this mystery is the whole knowledge and knowing this, one need know nothing else.
A word is perhaps necessary to complete the sense of the commentary. Agni has been called old and ancient (Palita), but why? Agni is the first among the gods. He has come down upon earth, entered into matter with the very creation of the material existence. He is the secret energy hidden in the atom which is attracting, invoking all the other gods to manifest themselves. It is he who drives the material consciousness in its evolutionary re-course upward towards the radiant fullness in the solar Supra-Consciousness at the summit. He is however not only energy, he is also delight (vma). For he is the Soma, the nectarous flow, occult in the Earth's body. For Earth is the storehouse of the sap of Life, the source of the delightful growths of Life here below.
02.02 - The Kingdom of Subtle Matter, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Its lowered potencies found our fallen strengths;
Its thought invents our reasoned ignorance;
02.04 - The Kingdoms of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It gave its stream a lower narrow bank,
Drew lines to snare the spirit's formlessness.
--- Overview of noun lower
The noun lower has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
1. lower berth, lower ::: (the lower of two berths)
--- Overview of verb lower
The verb lower has 5 senses (first 3 from tagged texts)
1. (15) lower, take down, let down, get down, bring down ::: (move something or somebody to a lower position; "take down the vase from the shelf")
2. (6) lower, lour ::: (set lower; "lower a rating"; "lower expectations")
3. (1) turn down, lower, lour ::: (make lower or quieter; "turn down the volume of a radio")
4. lower, depress ::: (cause to drop or sink; "The lack of rain had depressed the water level in the reservoir")
5. frown, glower, lour, lower ::: (look angry or sullen, wrinkle one's forehead, as if to signal disapproval)
--- Overview of adj low
The adj low has 10 senses (first 6 from tagged texts)
1. (55) low ::: (less than normal in degree or intensity or amount; "low prices"; "the reservoir is low")
2. (23) low ::: (literal meanings; being at or having a relatively small elevation or upward extension; "low ceilings"; "low clouds"; "low hills"; "the sun is low"; "low furniture"; "a low bow")
3. (11) low, low-toned ::: (very low in volume; "a low murmur"; "the low-toned murmur of the surf")
4. (6) low ::: (unrefined in character; "low comedy")
5. (4) low, low-pitched ::: (used of sounds and voices; low in pitch or frequency)
6. (3) abject, low, low-down, miserable, scummy, scurvy ::: (of the most contemptible kind; "abject cowardice"; "a low stunt to pull"; "a low-down sneak"; "his miserable treatment of his family"; "You miserable skunk!"; "a scummy rabble"; "a scurvy trick")
7. humble, low, lowly, modest, small ::: (low or inferior in station or quality; "a humble cottage"; "a lowly parish priest"; "a modest man of the people"; "small beginnings")
8. depleted, low ::: (no longer sufficient; "supplies are low"; "our funds are depleted")
9. broken, crushed, humbled, humiliated, low ::: (subdued or brought low in condition or status; "brought low"; "a broken man"; "his broken spirit")
10. gloomy, grim, blue, depressed, dispirited, down, downcast, downhearted, down in the mouth, low, low-spirited ::: (filled with melancholy and despondency ; "gloomy at the thought of what he had to face"; "gloomy predictions"; "a gloomy silence"; "took a grim view of the economy"; "the darkening mood"; "lonely and blue in a strange city"; "depressed by the loss of his job"; "a dispirited and resigned expression on her face"; "downcast after his defeat"; "feeling discouraged and downhearted")
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun lower
1 sense of lower
Sense 1
lower berth, lower
=> berth, bunk, built in bed
=> bed
=> bedroom furniture
=> furniture, piece of furniture, article of furniture
=> furnishing
=> instrumentality, instrumentation
=> artifact, artefact
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun lower
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun lower
1 sense of lower
Sense 1
lower berth, lower
=> berth, bunk, built in bed
--- Similarity of adj low
10 senses of low
Sense 1
low (vs. high)
=> debased, devalued, degraded
=> depressed, down(predicate)
=> low-level
=> reduced, rock-bottom
Also See-> inferior#1
Sense 2
low (vs. high)
=> deep
=> low-growing, flat-growing, ground-hugging
=> low-level, low-altitude
=> low-lying
=> lowset, low-set
=> nether, under
=> squat, underslung
Also See-> down#1; inferior#1; short#3, little#6
Sense 3
low, low-toned
=> soft (vs. loud)
Sense 4
low
=> unrefined (vs. refined)
Sense 5
low (vs. high), low-pitched
=> alto, contralto
=> baritone
=> bass, deep
=> contrabass, double-bass
=> throaty
Sense 6
abject, low, low-down, miserable, scummy, scurvy
=> contemptible (vs. estimable)
Sense 7
humble, low, lowly, modest, small
=> inferior (vs. superior)
Sense 8
depleted, low
=> insufficient (vs. sufficient), deficient
Sense 9
broken, crushed, humbled, humiliated, low
=> humble (vs. proud)
Sense 10
gloomy, grim, blue, depressed, dispirited, down(predicate), downcast, downhearted, down in the mouth, low, low-spirited
=> dejected (vs. elated)
--- Antonyms of adj low
10 senses of low
Sense 1
low (vs. high)
high (vs. low)
=> advanced
=> broad(prenominal), full(prenominal)
=> graduate(prenominal), postgraduate
=> higher(prenominal)
=> higher(prenominal)
=> last, utmost
=> soaring
Sense 2
low (vs. high)
high (vs. low)
=> altitudinous
=> commanding, dominating, overlooking
=> eminent, lofty, soaring, towering
=> high-level, high-altitude
=> high-stepped, high-stepping
=> high-top, high-topped
=> steep
=> upper
Sense 3
low, low-toned
INDIRECT (VIA soft) -> loud
Sense 4
low
INDIRECT (VIA unrefined) -> refined
Sense 5
low (vs. high), low-pitched
high (vs. low), high-pitched
=> adenoidal, pinched, nasal
=> altissimo
=> alto
=> countertenor, alto
=> falsetto
=> peaky, spiky
=> shrill, sharp
=> screaky, screechy, squeaking, squeaky, squealing
=> soprano, treble
=> sopranino
=> tenor
=> tenor
Sense 6
abject, low, low-down, miserable, scummy, scurvy
INDIRECT (VIA contemptible) -> estimable
Sense 7
humble, low, lowly, modest, small
INDIRECT (VIA inferior) -> superior
Sense 8
depleted, low
INDIRECT (VIA insufficient) -> sufficient
Sense 9
broken, crushed, humbled, humiliated, low
INDIRECT (VIA humble) -> proud
Sense 10
gloomy, grim, blue, depressed, dispirited, down(predicate), downcast, downhearted, down in the mouth, low, low-spirited
INDIRECT (VIA dejected) -> elated
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun lower
1 sense of lower
Sense 1
lower berth, lower
-> berth, bunk, built in bed
=> lower berth, lower
=> upper berth, upper
--- Pertainyms of adj low
10 senses of low
Sense 1
low (vs. high)
Sense 2
low (vs. high)
Sense 3
low, low-toned
Sense 4
low
Sense 5
low (vs. high), low-pitched
Sense 6
abject, low, low-down, miserable, scummy, scurvy
Sense 7
humble, low, lowly, modest, small
Sense 8
depleted, low
Sense 9
broken, crushed, humbled, humiliated, low
Sense 10
gloomy, grim, blue, depressed, dispirited, down(predicate), downcast, downhearted, down in the mouth, low, low-spirited
--- Derived Forms of adj low
9 of 10 senses of low
Sense 1
low (vs. high)
RELATED TO->(noun) lowness#4
=> lowness
Sense 2
low (vs. high)
RELATED TO->(noun) lowness#3
=> lowness
Sense 3
low, low-toned
RELATED TO->(noun) lowness#4
=> lowness
Sense 4
low
RELATED TO->(noun) lowness#1
=> low status, lowness, lowliness
Sense 5
low (vs. high), low-pitched
RELATED TO->(noun) lowness#4
=> lowness
Sense 7
humble, low, lowly, modest, small
RELATED TO->(noun) lowness#1
=> low status, lowness, lowliness
Sense 8
depleted, low
RELATED TO->(noun) lowness#4
=> lowness
Sense 9
broken, crushed, humbled, humiliated, low
RELATED TO->(noun) lowness#2
=> downheartedness, dejectedness, low-spiritedness, lowness, dispiritedness
Sense 10
gloomy, grim, blue, depressed, dispirited, down(predicate), downcast, downhearted, down in the mouth, low, low-spirited
RELATED TO->(noun) lowness#2
=> downheartedness, dejectedness, low-spiritedness, lowness, dispiritedness
--- Grep of noun lower
alpine sunflower
american pasqueflower
american twinflower
apetalous flower
artificial flower
balloon flower
basket flower
bellflower
bellower
blanket flower
blood flower
blower
blue cardinal flower
butter-flower
butterflower
butterfly flower
camp follower
canarybird flower
captain horatio hornblower
cardinal flower
carrion flower
cauliflower
cheeseflower
chigger flower
chiggerflower
chilean flameflower
chimney bellflower
christmas flower
clustered bellflower
common sunflower
compass flower
coneflower
corkscrew flower
cornflower
creeping bellflower
crepe flower
cuckoo flower
cuckooflower
cupflower
cushion flower
cutleaved coneflower
dayflower
desert sunflower
eastern pasque flower
european pasqueflower
evening trumpet flower
everlasting flower
fennel flower
fiesta flower
finger-flower
fingerflower
fire-swallower
flame-flower
flame flower
flameflower
flamingo flower
flower
foamflower
follower
gand flower
garland flower
giant sunflower
gillyflower
glassblower
globe flower
globeflower
glower
guinea-hen flower
guinea flower
hand blower
helmet flower
helmetflower
honey-flower
honeyflower
horatio hornblower
jerusalem artichoke sunflower
leather flower
long-head coneflower
lower
lower-case letter
lower-normandy
lower berth
lower bound
lower california
lower cannon
lower carboniferous
lower carboniferous period
lower class
lower court
lower criticism
lower deck
lower egypt
lower jaw
lower jawbone
lower limit
lower mantle
lower paleolithic
lower peninsula
lower rank
lower respiratory infection
lower respiratory tract
lower respiratory tract smear
lower saxony
lower status
lower tunguska
lowercase
lowerclassman
lowering
lyre-flower
lyreflower
marsh bellflower
maximilian's sunflower
mayflower
mexican sunflower
mist-flower
mistflower
moccasin flower
moonflower
narrow-leaved flame flower
nepal trumpet flower
nettle-leaved bellflower
new flower
nutmeg flower
old maid flower
paper flower
paradise flower
pasque flower
pasqueflower
passionflower
peacock flower
pincushion flower
pinwheel flower
plower
prairie coneflower
prairie sunflower
proboscis flower
rampion bellflower
ray flower
redbird flower
safflower
satin flower
scarlet musk flower
shad-flower
shadflower
shall-flower
shell-flower
shellflower
showy sunflower
siberian wall flower
snail-flower
snail flower
snailflower
snow blower
snowdrop windflower
spathe flower
spider flower
spiderflower
spoonflower
spreading bellflower
starfish flower
starflower
strawflower
sunflower
swamp sunflower
swan-flower
swanflower
tail-flower
tailflower
tall bellflower
tall cupflower
tall sunflower
tassel flower
tickseed sunflower
tongue-flower
tongueflower
treasure flower
trumpet flower
tussock bellflower
twinflower
velvet flower
wallflower
wandflower
water gillyflower
waxflower
western pasqueflower
western wall flower
whistle-blower
whistle blower
whistleblower
wild flower
wildflower
windflower
wonder flower
woolly sunflower